Morganna (The Brocade Collection, Book 4) (33 page)

There wasn’t a soul in sight.

Castle FitzHugh looked to be a three-story affair, with crenellations, guard towers, and curved
archways at every sanctum they entered. They passed through a stable yard. It looked to be the size of Argyle’s but it was hard to tell. The elements, the night and the bedrock all blended together. It could actually be larger, she decided.

They went through more gates. At each, a portcullis came up, and then dropped, lifted and put back into place by invisible hands. Morgan
na halted her own
shivering.

The keep was
a formidable structure, seated behind the fortress walls. It looked to be three stories high and stood by itself in the inner bailey.
It was made of black rock, although there had been an effort to make it more hospitable with wooden shutters mounted on the sides of long, narrow windows, and a blue and green banner hanging above the double-wide
oaken doors. The horses came to a stop in front of those doors. Morganna waited. Robb MacIlvray
dismounted with more of his cursing. Then he approached her. He didn’t ask if she needed
assistance, he just reached up and plucked her off her horse.

She was still swathed in the black wool,
holding to her bundle of plaid, and her legs probably wouldn’t have held her upright at first, but his touch was abhorrent and unnerving. As was the deserted quality of the courtyard. It probably rivaled an Argylle courtyard in size, she surmised, but without a servant in sight, it looked bigger.

He set her on her feet at the entry steps and stepped away. He didn’t move far. Morganna looked up at the
recessed, oaken
door, and shivered again. She told herself it was nothing, and meant less. The rain-soaked cloak wasn’t conducive to warmth, that was all. She
tipped her head and looked up, untied the fur-lined cloak and let it fall to her feet. Robb MacIlvray didn’t stop her. All he did was watch her. She unfurled the KilCreggar sett without looking down and wrapped it about herself, warming the moment she did so. She ignored the man at her side, no longer caring that he watched. She was a KilCreggar. She was wrapped in KilCreggar gray and black, and she was at the enemy’s doorstep, ready to lay open his heart. She was fulfilling her purpose. It was a strengthening thought.

The banner
above them had one dragon on it. Morganna looked it over for another long moment before looking back down. The door opened inward, and not just one half of it, but both sides at once. She had the impression of space, lots of space, and then she was escorted up the steps and into the great room. H
er elbow was gripped by MacIlvray, and he walked her up the steps and into the room.

Morgan
na noticed there was a servant woman holding to each side of the
door, although both looked tired, dirty, worn and wouldn’t look up. Morganna
kept her face forward.
The room was enormous. There were two long, banqueting tables intersecting it, with benches on both sides. There were torch sconces made from animal antlers
all along the walls, each holding an unlit torch. There were huge chairs at the
ends of each table, looking like thrones, with a headpiece of antler. There was a roaring fire on the opposite wall, making it too humid and hot next to the damp chill they’d just come from.

Morgan
na watched the steam rise from her own damp clothing and tried to see the figures in the furthest chairs. Then, she knew who it was as Phineas FitzHugh
stood slowly to face her, and at his side, he had her sister, the hag, Elspeth.

Morganna sucked in on the shock, and then let it go. Elspeth looked sickly, but she’d always looked sickly. She had a paler tint to her skin than usual, and it looked like she’d lost the last bit of black color in the mass of matted, gray hair she had. It was hanging to her waist a
nd looked like she might actually have made at effort at combing it. She looked as skeletal as usual, too. Elspeth was still vacant-eyed and haunted, and something else. She actually looked a little frightened. Morganna felt a nerve twinge in her cheek.

“Hello, Morganna,” Phineas said finally.

“Get her out of here,” Morganna spat the words.

“Now why would I go and do such an inhospitable thing?”

“Get her out of here, or we have no bargaining to do. You ken?”

“Mor…ganna?”

Elspeth’s voice trembled on the name, making it a strange sound. Perhaps it only seemed that way since she hadn’t heard it from the hag’s lips in so long. Morganna’s lips set and she sneered.

“We have nothing to say to each other, hag. Less. Get out.”

“You are Morganna, aren’t you?”

Morganna stiffened. “You kept this sett. You kept our father’s ceremonial
feile-breacan
, didn’t you? You let me raid the dead for a sett to wear when all the time you had this one.”

Elspeth nodded
vigorously. “It was a secret. From Da. He promised me…I canna’ recollect what he promised. He’ll return for it, though. He told me so.”

“And you let this monster have it?” Morganna’s voice rose, despite any control she was putting on it. She narrowed her eyes. It was to hide any further hint of emotion.

“Monster? Nay, Morganna. He gives me things. See?” Elspeth held up a bony arm where a silver bracelet dangled. It looked incongruous on her bony arm, and next to the frayed sleeve.

“You’re mad,” Morganna said it without a hint of inflection.

“Am I?” Elspeth’s voice trembled, then stilled. Morganna didn’t move.

“Sisters, sisters…please.” Ph
ineas clucked his tongue to make a chastising sound. If Morganna could have stiffened beyond what she was already, she would have. “I dinna’ bring you here for a family reunion, although it will prove entertaining, once I do allow it. We’ve a journey to prepare for. We haven’t much time.”

“We’ve less than you think,” Robb MacIlvray spoke up from beside Morganna.

“What does that mean?” Phineas asked.

“She was under escort by your brothers.”

“Which ones?” Phineas’ voice was sharp as he asked it.

“All of them.”

“All?”

Save Zander. He resides still at The Bruce’s camp.”

“My brothers show naught in loyalty.” Phineas sighed. “You ken the feeling, surely?” He addressed his question to no one in particular. Morganna knew it was for her. She flexed the nerve in her cheek again.

“I had your brothers untied when I left them.”

“What? Why?”

“They’re guarded.”

“My brothers are a force singly. United, they’ll be almost unstoppable. I wanted no FitzHugh blood spilled. None. You knew the rule.”

“Aye.”

“Then why did you leave them untied?”

“She’s a verra persuasive lass, my lord. Verra.”

Phineas eyed her with that cold blue stare of his. Morgan returned it. “She must be,” he replied finally.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

“Get fresh horses saddled, Robb. See it done.
Now.
If you had any lead on my brothers, you lost it traveling here with a lass.”

“She’s na’ just any lass, my lord, and if I lost time, ’twas due to weather. Your brothers will have th
e same issue.”

Phineas continued to eye her. “Na’ true Robb. She’s a lass. A gifted one, but just a lass. You’ll see. She’s weak…and she’s dense.”

Morganna lifted her eyebrows but said nothing.

“’Tis true, you know,” he contin
ued. “A strong lass would na’ be here. She ha’ died rather than accept bondage. As for dense? Why, a smart lass would na’ have left The Bruce’s encampment with a guard of but four men. You’re on FitzHugh land. I still command FitzHugh strength and loyalty. I repeat myself so you’ll make no mistake. You’re weak, and you’ve na’ much in wits. It appears to be a family trait.”

Mo
rganna didn’t say a word. She let her silence answer for her. He snarled at her, and then looked over his shoulder.

“Go saddle horses, Robb. Prepar
e foodstuffs. Get my loyal clansmen from the rooms they’ve hidden in. We leave the moment we can. We’ve a gift to get to the Sassenach king…as much as I hate the bastard.

Morganna refused to give him the satisfaction of a reaction as MacIlvray left the room, going back the way they’d come.

“You thought I kneeled to the English bastard because he deserves it, dinna’ you? Well, join the ranks of the disloyal FitzHugh with their talk and their guessing. I ken which side has the power and the might. Every man knows. They ken the penalty, too. Death. It isna’ pretty. It isna’ civil. I’ve seen it firsthand and I’ve made my choice.” He lifted a shoulder and let it drop. “I choose English rule for a reason. I doona’ want to die. I choose life over death”

“Then, why did you take me?” Morganna asked softly. She could have bitten her tongue for saying that much, however, as it seemed the glacial blue of his eyes warmed for the smallest moment. She knew why. She’d been goaded into an answer.

“You’re the ticket to my freedom, lass…my pass out of this country and back into power. I may have a price on my head, but what Highlander would harm me when I’ve got Squire Morgan of the Clan FitzHugh? And what king would turn me away when I possess the means to ridicule and ruin his enemy, The Bruce?”

Morganna answered him with silence again. He smiled shallowly.

“We waste words, when we should be preparing. Drink. Eat. You won’t have much time for such, you know.” He gestured to a side table, dim against the wall. Morganna didn’t move her eyes. “It’s in your best interest, lass, for you will na’ like me once I force you.”

“I doona’ like you now,” she replied.

He laughed at that. “No matter that. We’ve a long journey ahead, you’ve a bairn to protect and birth, and we’ve a king to impress at the end of it.” He rubbed his hands together.

“Let the hag go,” Morganna replied.

The hand movement halted, but he kept them clasped at his belly. “Now why would I go and do a fool thing like that?”

“I have a bad aim sometimes. It comes and goes.”

“And your sister has a lot of flesh to lose should you attempt it.”

Morganna didn’t move. Elspeth did. Her head started back and she stared, almost unseeingly, at Morganna.

Morganna shrugged, almost imperceptibly. “You have me. That’s all you need. Let her go.”

“Oh…I think I like her better right where she is.”

“Why? So you can rape her again?” Morganna saw Elspeth’s frown from the corner of her eye. She didn’t dare move her gaze in that direction.

“Ah, lass. Lass. You’re confusing her. She charges for her favors now, she does. Has naught to do with rape.”

“You took her? Again?” Elspeth’s frown was changing as Morganna continued speaking with a low-toned, non-emotional voice. “Was na’ beating, killing and raping the one time sufficient for you, FitzHugh? You dinna’ get your satisfaction?”

“Doona’ place words in my mouth lass. I doona’ like it.”

“Then, let the hag go. You don’t need her.”

“I dinna’ say that,” he replied.

“So…you do need her?”

“Na’ for the meaning you put to it. I need her to control you. I should think that much easily seen. And, despite your words, I ken the truth. She speaks of little else save her bairn. Her wee one. That would be you, no doubt. And I dinna’ touch your sister this time. The lass sells herself now. I’d catch the pox.”

“Let her go, then.”

“
She does na’ have much to go back to.”

Elspeth didn’t just pale at those words, she went ashen. Morganna tried to ignore her, but the wide-eyed look of shock on the woman right beside Phineas was reaching clear to her breastbone.

“What have you done to her croft, Phineas? ’Twas na’ much, but all she had. Doona’ tell me you razed it…too.” Morganna clucked her tongue after she finished, and waited during the pause for her words to sink in. She knew it had as tears slipped from Elspeth’s unblinking eyes and down her cheeks.

“There was…a fire,” Elspeth whispered brokenly.

“You burned her croft, dinna’ you?” Morganna asked.

“She dinna’ give up anything willingly. We had to tear the sett you’re wearing from her arms after she ran back into that hovel after it. Stupid lass, risking her life over a bit of material. That appears to be another KilCreggar trait, does na’ it?”

Morganna swallowed, but it felt as dry as ash would as it scraped all the way down her throat. Elspeth had gone back into a fire-eaten croft after the gray-and-black
feile-breacan
? She very nearly turned her eyes to her sister, but she knew she couldn’t bear to see the suffering sure to be written on her sister’s face.

“You’d best wish your horses brought soon, Phineas,” she whispered.

“Why would that be, lass?” he answered in the same type of whisper.

“Because you are about to reap what you have sown. Elspeth?”

“You bastard!”

Elspeth reacted on cue. Her screech and movement to pummel at Phineas gave Morganna all the time she needed. She dropped to a knee and started fumbling for her blade.

It didn’t help to curse women’s clothing, or the impulse that had made her swathe herself in the KilCreggar plaid, but she did anyway. She was losing precious time getting to her skean, and it was her own fault. She had but another moment or two before Phineas would be overpowering her sister, and she wasn’t going to waste them. Then, it was moot as a booming sound came, so loud, so abrupt, and so intense, the antlers in their sconces rattled.

There was a moment of shocked silence. Then, Elspeth started up her screeching again. A second boom came, even louder than the first.

“They’ve broken through the bailey!”

Robert MacIlvray yelled it as he ran in, dropping a tree-sized bolt across the double-door behind him.

“Why was it na’ guarded, like I ordered?”

“It was! They dinna’ come that way, as we expected, but the rear. And I dinna’ have enough men for that!”

“The sneak-thieves!”

Phineas’ cursing gave way to more of Elspeth’s screams, and Morganna finally had her blade. She was almost to her feet when another boom came, this one harder and louder, and making the floor tremble so much that she was safer at a crouch. She went back down.

They were ramming the castle. From the sound of it, they were already at the large, oaken doors of the keep, too. Mo
rganna eyed Phineas from her position near the floor. She’d freed her blade, but it had taken too long. Phineas had her sister in front of him and they were both struggling.

“Get her, Robb!” he shouted from behind the shield of her sister. His words were full of frustration and anger, and they blended with
Elspeth’s wild screeching, making the walls echo. “We’ll need the squire! They’ll bargain for her!”

He made a choking noise at the end of his speech. Another hit came, this one bringing roof and floor material raining down on everything. Morganna wiped at her
eyes with the backs of her hands, blinking at the dust and debris. Robb MacIlvray’s arms were just as hard as they’d looked, as he wrapped about her from behind, lifting her easily from her crouch.

“Good! You’re got her! Hold her! Hold!”

Elspeth wasn’t screeching, anymore. She was clawing and slapping at Phineas. Morganna couldn’t help. She was above the floor, and MacIlvray’s arms weren’t giving her any space, even for breathing. She sliced out blindly, curving the blade into his arm. Then, she was dropped.

Phineas hadn’t been lying about his status, after all. Morganna’s eyes widened at the outpouring of armed clansmen into the room from every orifice the chamber seemed to have.

“You canna’ fight them, you fools! There’s too many! Get the squire! Get her! They’ll stop if we have her!”

Phineas was having trouble speaking
. It had something to do with Elspeth’s fury in his arms. Morganna spun from the sight. She dodged chairs and stools and men. Then she was running, slamming into the first man she reached, and using that force to push a way out of the room at exactly the same moment the doors gave. She didn’t escape easily, and lost the KilCreggar
feile-breacan
as someone tried to use it as a hand-hold. Behind her, she heard oak splintering, and sounds of battle as claymores hit shields and more. Morganna didn’t hesitate. She couldn’t. She refused to be the bargaining wedge Phineas used to escape justice.

Doors opened for her, beckoning her one way, and then another
, and they closed behind her as soon as she passed through. She caught more than one glimpse of a servant woman as it happened. Hadn’t Zander told her once that Phineas abused his servants? She twisted her lips grimly as she ran. His servants appeared to be repaying the treatment.

“Here!”

Another hissed whisper, another opened door, and Morganna waited while it was bolted behind her before moving again. She had gained distance and time, and a pain in her side from her flight. Unfortunately, she may have lost every sense of direction, too.

She spun. The woman who had helped her was just disappearing behind a tapestry. A body hit the door, bowing the bolt inward as she watched.

Morganna gasped a breath and started running again. The castle was a maze of halls, caverns, and interconnecting rooms. One room led to another, and from there to a third. Nothing looked the same. Morganna’s heartbeat was loud in her ears. She stopped, sucking in breath. There wasn’t a hint of a pursuit.

“Where is she, Phineas?”

The muffled yell was Zander, and it was coming from above her. She found a door, gained a hall, and
debated which way.

“If
you have harmed a hair on my wife’s head...a hair—!”

“Oh
…you’re here…to kill...me anyway. What does…it matter what I did to
her...or how much…she enjoyed it?”

Phineas was huffing between the words, but they were still brutal.
The resulting roar from Zander had pain at its core. It also had Morganna’s feet flying. She didn’t care whether she was going the right way; she only knew she had to get out and let Zander see her.

“
Where is she, Phineas?” Zander yelled again.

Morgan
na had to twist the door knob with both hands and then she was out
in the wind-whipped rain. Her eyes found them easily. They were on the
battlement between towers, two stories above the ground, and climbing higher with each lunge and thrust of their swords. Morganna was directly below them, but apart. She moved to the rock wall, looked up the black rock sides and then down into groundless mist. There was nothing she could use—no access, no steps, no ladder. T
here didn’t look to be any way from her position to theirs without flying there.

Her fingers mass
aged the dragon blade she still carried, drawing on the strange power that it possessed as she looked back up. The combatants had moved from her sight. She had to
stumble backwards until her angle was right again. She couldn’t hear how the battle was going, didn’t know where every other
clansman was; all she saw was Zander and Phineas.

Her breath caught, then came again as she watched. Zander was a warrior. Phineas was not. It looked like the outcome was already decided as
Zander backed Phineas against a battlement, slamming his claymore over and
over, putting dents in Phineas’ shield deep enough that it was concave. Still, he wasn’t satisfied.

Morgan
na watched as time and again Zander pummeled Phineas, using his left arm to inflict the most punishment. With one blow, he appeared to have him, and then the laird was dancing away, rolling himself along the crenellations to escape further punishment.

Then, Morgan
na saw the red-haired Robb MacIlvray. He was in a tower above Phineas and Zander and directly in her line of vision. He had his bow already pulled, and he wasn’t
aiming for Phineas. Morganna set her feet and let fly the dragon blade, straight for Robb’s eye
.