Once Upon a Plaid (24 page)

The time of grace has come
—
what we have wished for,
songs of joy.

—From “Gaudete”

 

 

—An observation from Nab,
fool to the Earl of Glengarry

Chapter Thirty-Two

Katherine shrugged out of her clothes as she crossed the room, letting the pieces fall to the floor unheeded. By the time she reached the steaming tub, all that remained was her leine, and she made short work of that, pulling it over her head in one smooth motion.

Will’s gaze sizzled over her. He lifted a hand to help her into the bath. “Ye do know how to make a man’s heart glad, Kat.”

With a contented sigh, she settled between his legs and lay back against his chest, letting the rising water lap at her breasts. “The castle is under siege. Everything is upended. How on earth did ye manage this?”

“Your father has no need of his tub just now. And before ye ask, Jamison says the earl’s resting quietly and even roused enough to take a little broth, though he still isna speaking sensibly,” William said. “In any case, after I sent Nab on his way to your brother, Donald, I had Hew MacElmurray move the tub up here and fill it.”

Heating and hauling water for the bath was the province of Dorcas and the other maids. “That must have grated on him.”

“He wasna inclined to complain. Hew has a debt to pay.”

William reached around to hold her breasts. He didn’t tease along the underside of them. Didn’t torment her nipples into tight peaks. Instead, he just held her as if they were the most precious things in the world. She’d had so many demands on her all day, the fact that he made none now allowed all the tension to drain from her body.

“Lady Margaret is well?”

“Aye, she is and was this night made the mother of a fine wee daughter.” That fist clenched in her chest again.

“Good for her.”

“Aye, good for Margaret. She wanted a girl this time.” Katherine hated herself for the smoldering ball of envy in her heart but she couldn’t seem to stop it from flaring. Her arms, like her womb, would always be empty. It wasn’t fair.

A tear streaked her cheek and she swiped it away, hoping Will wouldn’t realize she wept.

“I know ’twas hard for ye to be there with her, but ye made me proud by it.” His chest rumbled against her spine as he spoke.

So much for her secret tears.

“’Tis hard for me too,” he said. “Do I wish things were different? Aye, I do. Sometimes in my mind’s eye I see the sons and daughters we should have had and I wish—”

“Then ye shouldna fight me about sending to Rome.” Assuming they made it out of MacNaught’s siege, of course.

He put a hand to the crown of her head and smoothed her hair. “Ye didna let me finish. I may sometimes think on what we dinna have, but I never lose sight of what we do. We have each other. Do ye ken how rare a thing that is? We are a family, Katherine, you and me. We may be only a circle of two but ’tis enough.” He hugged her tighter to his chest. He was all broad bands of muscle and sleek skin in the warm water. “If I had ten sons and didna have ye, I’d be a pauper. Ye are all I have and all I need. Ye are my home.”

Her soft palate ached from trying to hold back tears. “Oh, Will.”

“D’ye know why I never fear to go into battle?”

She shook her head, unable to speak.

“Because if I should fall, ’twould not be the worst that could happen to me. The worst would be losing ye.”

She’d never felt more unworthy. Or more grateful. Her insides might be in turmoil, but Will’s love was a calm sea on which to launch her soul. He’d always bear her up.

She turned in the tub so she could wrap her arms around him and lay her cheek against his wet chest. “I do love ye so, Will.”

He drew a ragged breath. “Feels like forever ago since I heard ye say that.”

“I love ye so much it hurts,” she went on. “And yet I wouldna stop the aching for worlds.”

“I dinna know what will come tomorrow,” Will said. “But that’s the condition of every man. All we have is now. This night. This moment.”

She rose up and kissed him, his mouth both familiar and strangely new. “Then we’d best not waste it.”

William didn’t know if kisses could heal. No matter how many times he and Kat loved each other, there were some hurts nothing would mend. They’d been so innocent when they first pledged to love each other till one of them laid the other in the arms of God. So naïve. Life had not yet smacked them down. Their hearts hadn’t bled.

But not all wounds were mortal. Their hearts went on, calloused and bruised, but still beating.

He rose dripping from the tub with Katherine in his arms and carried her to the bed. They tumbled into it in a tangle of limbs and a flurry of kisses. The feel of her skin against his was heaven enough to drive rational thought from his mind as blood pooled in his groin.

Everywhere she touched flared with heat. Everywhere she kissed burned with forgiveness and hope. They knew the best and the worst of each other. And they had not turned away.

It was a minor miracle.

Her skin was his favorite flavor. He wanted to taste every bit of her. Each sigh was the music he most wanted to hear. Her fingertips made love to the old scar on his ribs. He played a lover’s game on her secrets. Something inside him nearly burst when she came under his touch.

Then she wrapped herself around him and he sank into her. Complete.

One.

She was lightning to his answering thunder. Chaos roared in his veins. She rose to meet him with such abandon, he didn’t know if he was taking or being taken. When he came, he cried out something unintelligible, something in the language of demons or angels, he wasn’t sure which.

Spent and gasping, they both sank into the feather tick, still entangled with each other, still connected.

If he could magically go back to their first days of loving, he wouldn’t. Things might have been simpler before they buried their stillborn son.

Now they were more real.

 

 

It was the screams that woke him. William leaped from the bed and crossed the chamber to the narrow slit that overlooked the bailey in a few bounding strides. Plumes of black rose from the stables and tongues of orange licked the edges of the gaping hole in the thatched roof.

“Merciful Christ,” he swore as he pulled his shirt over his head. “Ranulf is lobbing fire at us now.”

A bucket brigade formed up and hostlers braved the smoke and falling ash, ducking into the burning building to lead terrified horses to safety. There was no saving the stables. Once the hay caught, the best they could hope was that the fire wouldn’t spread to other buildings.

There wasn’t time to drape and belt a plaid, so William tugged on his trews. Katherine scrambled from bed to find his jacket while he donned thick stockings and boots.

“Stand still a moment,” she said as she helped him shrug into the jacket.

It would probably be the last time he’d see her all day—he wouldn’t allow himself to think it might be forever—so he hugged her fiercely and pressed a kiss to her forehead. If he kissed her lips, it would be all the harder to leave her. Then he glanced up at the underside of the thatch above their heads. “Get yourself out of this tower. Margaret and her bairn and your father too.”

The keep and its tower were located close to the lochside wall. “Surely Ranulf’s machine canna reach so far.”

Maybe not from where it was now. But if all the men in Glengarry were pulled from the walls to fight fires, there’d be nothing to stop MacNaught from moving the diabolical thing closer. A sharp breeze caught a whiff of smoke from the stables and sent it through the arrow loops.

“Just do it,” William said as he made for the stairwell. “And quickly.”

 

 

“Oh, my lady, I’m that glad to see ye.” Dorcas skittered to Katherine’s side when she appeared in the souterrain. Margie’s boys raised a cheer and surrounded their mother, hopping up and down and demanding to see their new sister. Jamison supported the earl, who was favoring his left side and not speaking beyond monosyllables, but at least he seemed aware of his surroundings. The seneschal found a barrel the right height to serve as a seat for the laird and propped it in a corner so Lord Glengarry could be supported by the stone walls at both his shoulders.

“How is everyone faring here?” Katherine asked Dorcas after greeting as many of the women and children as she could in the crammed space.

“As well as might be expected. ’Tis cold and cramped and damp. We made do with winter apples for supper and expect more of the same for breakfast. Can we not send to the kitchen for aught else?”

“Cook is busy feeding the men who are defending the castle,” Katherine said, remembering the way Cook’s orders had rung in shrill tones as she’d passed by the kitchen. No general ever demanded—or received—such instant obedience. “I dinna think she has time for much more, but I’ll see what may be done.”

William had assured her the souterrain was the safest place in Glengarry, but to Kat’s nose, beneath the acrid smell of the torches and the press of too many unwashed bodies, it had the moldering stink of a crypt. She’d take any excuse to climb the uneven stone steps back to daylight.

“Wait, my lady.” Dorcas reached out a hand to stop her, then seemed to remember herself and drew it back. “I dinna suppose ye’ve heard from Nab.”

Katherine shook her head. “’Tis fifteen miles to Inverness. With luck, he’s made it there, but we canna expect him back this soon even if he turned around and walked all night.”

Not to mention that it was the dead of winter and Nab had never been to Inverness before. Katherine hadn’t voiced her concerns to William about his decision to send Nab, but the fact that all hope of rescue rested on the shoulders of a man who couldn’t even keep the Scepter of Badenoch safe did not give her comfort.

“I should have gone with him. Four eyes are better than two.” Dorcas worried her lower lip. “Even if he makes it past MacNaught’s watch, what will Nab do once he reaches Inverness?”

“He must only find the king and his court,” Katherine said with more confidence than she felt. “Then my brother will know what to do.”

 

 

Nab couldn’t feel his feet. His nose hairs were so frozen, they’d never unthaw and he’d have those little shards of ice in his nostrils forever. Nevertheless, after a terrifying night of dodging MacNaught’s men and startling at every owl’s hoot, dawn found Nab on the Abriachan ferry, drawing closer to his destination.

The chimneys of Inverness were belching out a dark cloud of smoke on the horizon. As he disembarked and drew nearer, he forgot about being cold and began to fret about getting lost. He’d never seen such a big town.

“If I were king, where would I lay my head?” he mumbled.

There was a castle situated on a high bluff overlooking the River Ness. Or at least part of one. It looked as if it too had been bombarded by MacNaught’s machine at one time. Nab decided to head for that structure since it was still the largest and arguably the most defensible one in town.

Once he was admitted at the town gate along with a farmer and his draught wagon laden with hens bound for market, he made for the street that looked as if it might lead him to the castle. He hadn’t gone very far when a gang of three men singled him out.

“And what might yer business be in Inverness, yokel?” one demanded as he placed himself directly in Nab’s path. As much as Nab generally disliked association with others, he’d have given his left pinkie to see a familiar face from Glengarry just then.

“We dinna want any more beggars in town,” another said, grasping Nab’s arm and dragging him into a narrow side street.

“I’m not a beggar,” Nab stammered. “I’m a fool.”

“Like as not, that’s true,” said the first with a laugh that was anything but mirthful. “Ye do look a fool.”

“It is, and I am—fool to the Earl of Glengarry, that is. What I mean to say is that I bear a message for a member of the king’s court, Lord—”

“Lord love him, listen to that. He expects to be let in to see the king! We’ve no need for such a ninnyhammer here in Inverness. The parish coffers are stretched enough with our own bird-wits,” the biggest man said. “Ye’d best turn around and be gone, gaberlunzie.”

The men had mistaken him for a licensed beggar. Nab realized he must look a fright after his wild scramble through the woods dodging MacNaught’s sentries and traipsing along the loch’s rugged shore, but he’d never begged in his life. Not for money, at any rate. He’d begged to be left alone plenty.

“I’m not a gaberlunzie,” he said.

“Show us yer purse then.”

Unfortunately, he’d spent all the coin William had given him on the ferry. “I have nothing ye’d want.”

“Maybe I just want to give someone a beating this fine morn and methinks ye’ll do.” The man’s fist shot out in a blink and connected with Nab’s jaw. The blow twirled him around. Then he toppled like a felled sapling. The frozen ground rushed up to meet his chin.

As his vision tunneled to blackness, he realized he’d be lucky to end up hanging by his heels this time.

—From “The Contest of the Holly and the Ivy”

 

 

—An observation from Nab,
fool to the Earl of Glengarry

Chapter Thirty-Three

The bombardment kept up all day. The only saving grace was that it seemed MacNaught’s men had trouble launching fire, so only three more flaming bundles were lobbed toward Glengarry. One fell mercifully short and fizzled in the snow a few feet from the base of the wall. The other two struck the stable again, now only a burnt-out shell, its charred skeleton still smoking.

Most of the horses had been saved, but not all. Their dying screams still rang in Will’s ears and the scent of seared flesh filled the air. As he’d helped toss buckets of water on the blaze, William had seen little Angus tearing out of the burning building, but the terrier was moving too quickly for him to catch. He hoped the dog would find Katherine in the depths of the keep. It would be a comfort to them both.

“Trebuchet!” one of the watchmen on the walls shouted, and William’s gaze followed the trajectory of the boulder as it hurtled toward the eastern bastion. With a shuddering crash, it took out the steeply sloped roof above the corner watchtower along with one of the sentries who hadn’t scrambled away quickly enough.

“They’re getting better at it.” Hew MacElmurray leaned over the crenellated wall to peer down its length. Since his disgrace over disobeying Will during the sortie, the young man had been hovering at his elbow, looking for ways to redeem himself. “Their aim is improving.”

Will nodded, wishing there was another way to see things. “Without reinforcements, it’ll be a matter of only a few days before the walls are breached.”

“Judging from the number of meal fires burning on the hillside, it seems MacNaught’s forces are holding despite the stinging we gave ’em in that sortie.”

“Ranulf’s the type to give orders to kill his own deserters,” William said, wondering how many of his men would slip away if they could. He wasn’t going to wait around to find out. The need to do something burned in his veins.

Another boulder came soaring toward them. It cleared the wall and clipped a corner of the chapel.

“Saddle up Greyfellow and a mount for yourself.”

“Aye, my lord, where are we going?”

“To stop that damned trebuchet.”

Within a quarter hour, he and Hew were riding out the main gate under a flag of truce. The bombardment ceased, but it took Ranulf another quarter hour to deign to present himself along with one of his lieutenants. Ranulf brought Sinclair as his second this time.

Slick bastards, the pair of them
, Will thought, but held his peace as they took their time picking their way down the hillside.

Twilight encroached on the short winter day, casting long grey shadows. Will’s men lined the curtain wall, brandishing torches to light the proceedings. Ranulf’s troops stood shoulder to shoulder in a surprisingly well-ordered line before their hulking machine. None of the fighting men could hear the parley, but every ear strained in the direction of it in any case.

“Had enough, Badenoch?” MacNaught asked.

“The question should be whether
ye
have,” Will returned smoothly. “Ye hope to be master of Glengarry when this is over. Do ye really mean to rule over naught but a pile of rubble?”

“If need be. I’ll raze the place to the ground if I must.” Then Ranulf’s hard expression softened a bit. “The offer of safe conduct still holds for Lord Glengarry and his family, should he wish to surrender.”

“How touching, but the laird will not abandon his people to ye.”

Ranulf scanned the curtain wall. “I dinna see the dear earl, and he didna seem so healthy when we parted last. How fares my uncle?”

“Well enough to send ye to hell.”

MacNaught’s laughter bounced from the walls of the castle and echoed on the hillside. “Maybe in his prime the old wolf might have bested me, but he’ll never do so now.”

It was the opening William was waiting for. “If ’tis single combat ye wish, I shall oblige ye.”

“I didna say that.”

“Did ye not? It sounded that way to me.” William turned to the man who bore Ranulf’s standard. “What think ye, Sinclair? If a leader has a care for the lives of his men, what better way to show it than to agree to single combat to settle the matter?”

Sinclair’s mouth opened and then shut abruptly. The glare Ranulf sent him would have melted steel.

“If I win, your men will be allowed to return to their homes provided they leave the trebuchet,” William offered to Ranulf. “I vow there will be no retribution on them.”

Ranulf bared his teeth. “And if I win, your men will be allowed to stand aside protecting their own arses while we rape the women and plunder the castle.”

It wasn’t a fair exchange, but he didn’t expect one from MacNaught. “When shall we meet?”

“I’d say why wait, but ’tis getting too dark. Besides, I want my dear cousin on the wall watching while I turn the snow red with your blood.”

“Dawn then,” William offered. “And there’s to be no more bombardment in the meantime.”

“Verra well.” Ranulf’s lip curled but he nodded curtly. “I want ye rested when I skewer your liver, Badenoch. Give my regards to your lady wife, my cousin. She was ever a fetching piece. Tell her I’ll see her soon.”

 

 

Gossip always travels fast within a castle. It takes wing when the castle is under siege.

Young Fergie, who’d sneaked out of the souterrain and had been peering over the wall with the rest of the defenders while William parleyed with MacNaught, came flying back to Katherine’s side with news of the impending single combat, that he had overheard Will telling his men about when he’d returned to the castle.

Katherine’s chest constricted and her vision wavered uncertainly, but she schooled her face into an impassive mask. “I see. And where is Lord Badenoch now?”

“He’s taking his turn on the watch,” the boy beamed. “Just as though he were any other man. Only he’s not. Not at all. I figure he’s about the finest laird there is.”

“That he is.” Katherine allowed herself a small smile and handed Angus to the boy. Since the stable had burned, the terrier had been under foot and claiming her lap every time she sat down. If the lad didn’t hold him, Angus would probably trail after her and she didn’t have time for the wee dog at the moment. “Now I want ye to do something for me, Fergie.”

“Oh, aye?”

“I need to see my husband, and Lady Margaret needs someone to watch over her and her little ones while I’m gone. Will ye be her extra pair of hands and eyes?”

His lips, pouty as a girl’s, tightened into a thin line. Fergie was nimble-minded enough to realize this was also Katherine’s way of making sure he stayed in the relative safety of the souterrain. But his frank idolatry of William was strong enough that he couldn’t say no to her.

Katherine went first to her chamber to retrieve a warm cloak for Will. He’d left the scepter on the clothes trunk. Something about seeing it there, discarded with the other things they’d abandoned when the tower was evacuated, made her realize William really had given up on his dream of continuing the Douglas line.

Sadness, hope, despair, fear—there was such a boiling soup of emotions simmering inside her; she wasn’t sure what she was feeling. But she knew she didn’t want to leave the scepter where it was. She wrapped it in the cloak and then stopped by the kitchen for some food for William.

The bulk of the men had been dismissed for the night. They streamed toward the keep to find their families. A few watchmen were still posted on the landward curtain wall. Katherine recognized Will’s profile near the ruined eastern bastion.

“I can hear your belly rumbling from here,” she said with false brightness as she approached him. “Trust ye not to take a moment for yourself.”

“I was taking a moment. A grand moment actually,” he said as he fell to eating the bannocks and sliced cold mutton she’d brought. “I was just standing here wondering at how unnecessarily beautiful this world is, what with the loch and the mountains and the trees all around. And why I’d never really noticed till now.”

His tone was casual. There was a smile in his voice, but it was a brittle smile. His words were those of a man who expected to be leaving the world soon.

She didn’t know what to say. She’d half hoped to be able to talk him out of meeting Ranulf in combat tomorrow, but she realized he’d never go back on his word. He’d made his bargain with her cousin. William would keep it.

So she chattered about Margie’s new baby while he ate, nattering on about how lustily she cried, how well she nursed, and how intently she met everyone’s gaze. She reminded herself of Dorcas, but she couldn’t seem to stop her tongue from wagging.

“She’s sober as a judge, but bonnie as well as wise. A most precocious lass is our new niece,” Katherine said as she ran out of things to share. “I expect Donald will have to beat the lads off with a stick once young Kitty comes of age.”

William laughed. “I’d enjoy seeing that.”

Then his laughter faded. Katherine put a horn of warm cider in his hand. He held it between both palms for a bit before draining it to the dregs.

Finally, she couldn’t stand the silence that began to grow between them. “Is there no other way?”

He didn’t pretend to misunderstand her. “No. If I don’t engage MacNaught in single combat, Glengarry will be overrun. The mason tells me another solid blow to this eastern corner will see it crumble to the ground. There will be a breach large enough we willna be able to defend it.” He glanced toward the east and Inverness.

“But what about Nab?” she asked. “He might be bringing reinforcements even now.”

Will handed her back his empty horn. “Do ye really want to trust the safety of all the souls in Glengarry to the fool?”

“No.” She unrolled the cloak she’d brought and draped it around his broad shoulders. “I’d rather trust the Laird of Badenoch.” Then she handed him the scepter. “Take it with ye on the morrow. For luck.”

He tucked it through his belt as if it were a long dirk. “If I should fall—”

“Whist!” She pressed two fingers to his lips. “Ye dinna want to tempt—”

“The devil. Aye, I know.” He kissed her fingertips, then curled them inward and pressed her fist to his chest. “Listen to me, Katherine. If I should fall, your cousin has promised no mercy. Dinna let yourself be taken, ye or Margie or her bairns.”

She swallowed hard as she realized what he was telling her. What he was asking of her.

“D’ye have a blade?”

“Aye.” There was a slim dagger concealed in the busk of her bodice. In a pinch, it would do. If the time came, could she steel herself to the gruesome task? If William was killed, she’d already be dead inside.

She shook off the morbid fancy, surreptitiously making the sign against evil with one hand. “Will ye come and rest a while?”

“I should be praying in the chapel, but I thought I’d stand the watch so others could rest. Besides, I’ll rest when this is done.” He looked up as the sliver of a new moon disappeared behind scudding clouds. “And I can pray just as well from here.”

“I’ll stand watch with ye, then. ”
And pray
, she added silently as she leaned on the crenellations and watched the fires in MacNaught’s camp burn on the hillside.

William came behind her and enfolded her into his cloak with him. With his solid chest at her back, his heart beating against her spine, she was suddenly warm and comforted.

If she’d learned anything this Christmastide, it was that while she’d always tried to plan for years into the future, life was really only a string of moments. And each single one was all anyone ever had.

This one moment, standing on the battlements with the man she loved, was a shining one. Damn whatever might come with the dawn. William was right.

The world was unnecessarily beautiful.

 

 

“So if Badenoch wins, we’re supposed to lay down our arms and simply go home?” Filib Gordon asked Sinclair, careful to keep his voice low. MacNaught had already turned in for the night, but who knew which of the men milling about might be ready to report a disloyal word. Ranulf had already hanged two of MacTavish’s retainers who’d tried to slip away after the hail of arrows had rained down on the camp. It was brutal, but Gordon couldn’t argue with the results. The hangings rendered the rest of the men sullenly obedient and there had been no more attempts at defection.

“That’s about the size of it,” Sinclair said as he tossed a snow-covered pinecone into their fire and watched it sizzle open. “Badenoch wins, we go home. But if MacNaught wins, we get to do whatever we want, take whatever we want from the castle and everyone in it.”

“That’s more like it,” MacTavish said. “My men willna take kindly to freezing their balls off for nothing.”

“Seeing home again with their balls intact isna nothing, I’m thinkin’,” Sinclair said.

“Then ye’re a coward,” Murray said. “Ye hold your manhood too cheap. We’ve set ourselves to bring down Glengarry and we damned well ought to do it. Whether Lord Badenoch falls or not.”

“We canna go back on the agreement made in parley,” Gordon said.

“Then we make sure MacNaught wins.” Murray glowered down at the castle. “D’ye see the pile of rubble at the eastern corner, where the roof of the bastion came down?”

MacTavish twisted around to look. “Aye.”

“I’m thinking that under cover of darkness, a single man could work his way around to the loch and then come up along the eastern corner without being seen by their watch,” Murray said.