Ruthless (36 page)

She cut plentiful wood for the injured old
man and hunted for both families. When they left, Muriele was
satisfied the kind souls would have enough firewood to last a
fortnight or more, and food for the next sennight.

On the journey to Dumbarton, Muriele avoided
conversation. Pulled by a strong, brown horse used to working in
the fields, the women and old man rode in a cart filled with their
meager belongings. Muriele and Bolt led the way, ever watchful for
other travelers. The narrow, dirt road led from north to south.
Whenever they heard someone approach, Muriele helped pull the cart
to the side for other travelers to pass.

Once they were out of the way, she
disappeared with Bolt into the woods. When she returned, she said
she'd had to piss and didn't want to offend the young lass.

She lost track of the days. Finally, they
arrived at Dumbarton where the family convinced her to stay a
fortnight. The farm was well isolated and she never ventured far
from it. Bolt needed the rest more than she did. She waited until
his legs were sturdy again before riding further.

When she left, she took to the forests for
towns and villages were much closer in the Lowlands. A sennight
later, she came to several small villages within leagues of each
other. She ventured close and found she was on the road to Raptor
Castle near the English border.

'Twas late in the day and Raptor was less
than a league away. Bolt had been failing of late, and she had
walked for the last two days. She stayed inside the edge of the
woods, for Bolt couldn't move quickly enough to leave the road to
hide. She hoped to watch who came and went from Raptor at night and
at dawn. Surely no one from Kinbrace thought she would make it this
far. It would do no harm to be certain.

Bolt began to quiver as if in pain. Thinking
he may have brushed against thorny vines, she walked around and
checked his unsteady legs.

"What is it, Bolt?" She patted his neck and
smoothed her hands over his body, soothing him as best she could.
Her heart raced when he hung his head and seemed too tired to lift
it again.

"Please, old one, be all right. Ye are my
only friend in this world. Everyone else is gone." She couldn't
stop the tears flooding her eyes. "Let's lie here for the night.
We'll be out of the way and ye can have a long night's rest. We're
near the border and will be safe soon."

Muriele quickly unsaddled and urged him down
on his side as she had taught him. Once he was down, she grabbed
handfuls of grass to tempt him and laid it in a pile. Finding a
stream, she brought water back in a small wooden bowl she'd made
her first sennight away from Kinbrace.

Sitting on the ground, she lifted Bolt's head
onto her legs and held the grass to his lips. He made a few
half-hearted attempts to nibble then gave up. She rubbed between
his eyes and crooned to him, then dribbled water in the side of his
mouth. He swallowed but shook his head wearily.

"You dinna want to be bothered, eh, old
fellow? Rest then. Tomorrow ye'll have a stall with hay and oats
and all the things ye have missed these months. I'm sorry. So
sorry. I should never have taken ye from Kinbrace."

All night, Muriele talked and rubbed Bolt,
soothing him as best she could. She pulled off her head covering,
letting her hair free. At daylight, thinking no one would recognize
her at Raptor Castle, she put on her worn-out kirtle. Twas the last
of her garments except for the filthy hunting clothes she'd not
been able to clean since Dumbarton.

Her stomach grumbled. Yester eve, she'd eaten
the last of a hare she'd caught and had not been able to hunt
since. She kept up a steady murmur of words to Bolt, not paying
heed to what she said until she realized she prayed Bolt would pass
on easily. He didn't seem to be in any pain, but she knew he
wouldn't live. His breathing became more and more labored. Just
afore the sun rose, he gave one last snorting breath and was quiet.
Bending over, she put her cheek against his, letting her tears flow
freely.

But she didn't cry for herself. She cried for
Bolt… for Grunda… for Esa.

Murmuring fervid curses, she prayed God had
sent Feradoch straight to Hades and that Magnus would soon join him
there.

"The lass covered her tracks well."

Magnus grunted at Sweyn's remark. 'Twas said
so often he bit his tongue to stifle a surly reply.

"Aye, she has. If not for the vultures
swarming over Ben Alder, we would have lost her."

Magnus shuddered at the images flashing
through his mind—Muriele dead, her body being devoured by the great
vultures. He had needed to swallow back vomit surging to this
mouth.

The closer they had come to the site, the
slower they'd approached. When they came to where the birds fed,
the scavengers took flight with a great whoosh, some diving at them
trying to drive them away from their feast.

Magnus heart had thumped and cold dread swept
through him. When they came close and saw the skeletons were too
large for a woman, his heart calmed. Examining the corpses, Sweyn
discovered long strands of wheat-colored hair clutched in one
mangled hand.

The men had come upon Muriele, but had not
taken her by surprise. She had killed the one clutching her hair.
Something had crushed the other culprit's head. Bolt had reverted
to his battle training and trampled the man sneaking up on him.

They searched around, unknowingly circling as
Muriele had done. When they did not find any signs of a horse
having ridden away, they knew she had gone into the stream. They
followed it south, searching the banks until they found the cave.
The ground showed the two had spent a day or two resting. She had
been thorough on covering her tracks, but they found a charred
stick where she had cooked a hare, its small bones scattered
around.

They traveled, east to west, for two months
before they came upon a village where the people remembered a slim
lad with wheat colored hair riding a tired old horse. The lad had
been kindness itself, mixing elixirs for an old man's stomach
ailments and hunting food for those whose larders were bare. All
denied it was a lass. How could one be so tall and skilled at
hunting? And who but a lad could throw a blade and bring down a
hare in mid-leap?

They combed the countryside until winter
snows stopped them at an old inn in Glasgow.

"We have scoured near all of Scotland and
still have not found the lady, Magnus. Why do you not leave her in
peace? She has found safety somewhere. We should let her be."

"I have told ye why every day for near a
year. I made a vow and willna break it!"

"You are blind to honor an oath to Feradoch.
He is not worthy."

Magnus surged out of the chair, knocking it
backward. His hands reached for Sweyn, but at the last moment, he
stopped himself.

"No matter the reasons, I canna break a blood
oath," he bellowed.

After everyone scurried to the other side of
the room, he sighed and ran his hand over his face. He no longer
wore a defined mustache and short beard framing his lips and chin.
It had grown so long he felt more bear than man. No wonder people
veered from his path when he approached.

Once the weather warmed and the roads were
passable, they set out again. Every now and again, they learned of
a slender lad with a caring heart. The description of the horse
assured them 'twas Muriele on Bolt.

Sweyn seemed to get the most information out
of the villagers, for good reason. One look at Magnus made people
lower their heads and shuffle as fast as they could seek their
huts. When they rented a room at an Ale House in Dumbarton, they
stumbled upon their best lead.

"If you expect to scour the towns around
Glasgow," Sweyn commented, "you'd best dress like a braw Scotsman,
else people will think you a stinking Viking come to carry off
their women."

"Huh! Ye dinna smell so sweet yerself."

"Aye. But I have a kindly face whilst you
look like a wolf with a beard."

Sweyn walked over to the innkeeper and asked
about a bathing tub, for the streams were naught but ice. The man
thought him a dafty Highlander, for no one took a bath this time of
year. They were welcome to use the tub in the barn if they heated
their own water.

They dragged the tub into an empty stall near
to their horses. By the time they finished scrubbing off their mud
and grime, they were grateful straw covered the dirt floor.

Magnus stood naked before a polished metal
square propped atop bales of hay. He honed his knife and started
cutting the beard from his face until the hair around his chin was
no longer than the width of his smallest finger. It took longer to
scrape his cheeks clean, and trim the moustache framing his lips
down to his chin.

Just as Magnus began to use the tip of the
blade to scrape between his lower lip and chin, Sweyn spoke up.

"Best be careful else you'll ne'er be able to
pucker-up for a proper kiss!"

Magnus cast a baleful eye at him. 'Twas a
mistake because he nicked the rim of his lip and blood welled.

"Told you to be careful."

"Dolt."

He took a handful of water and splashed the
blood away before he finished.

"I never would have thought you could look
crueler than you did when we left Clibrick," Sweyn said.

"I dinna look cruel. Older, mayhap."

"Ha! Your face looks as taut as a ravening,
black wolf stalking its prey, your body as lean as one and your
muscles hard as yonder post holding the roof over our heads."

"Ye are fanciful."

"Not when I see eyes as black as burnt wood
with naught a flicker of life reflected there."

Magnus snorted but his temper exploded when
he wrapped and hooked his belt around his clean plaid. The cloth
slithered down his hips, hesitated a bit when it caught on his cock
then fell to the wet straw.

"Lucifer's putrid bowels!"

Leaving the bundle of wool around his feet,
he grabbed his knife and, taking the very tip, dug it into the
belt's leather to make a new hole.

"Your temper is more apt to spark, too."

Magnus turned a murderous glare on him.
Sweyn's tongue stilled. For a minute.

"I think we should return to Clibrick and
find a lusty lass for you to wed. One who'll swive your brains out.
That should keep you in a better mood."

Magnus' knife whistled past Sweyn's head and
landed in the wall behind him. Sweyn quirked his brows and
grinned.

"Aha! Your aim is off, too."

In the village outside Dumbarton the next
morn, they heard of a man, his wife and daughter who had arrived in
Dumbarton with the aid of a young lad. They had convinced the lad
to stay with them for a sennight before he moved on. They went from
hut to hut until they learned the family had moved in with
relatives at a farm close by

Before the reached the hut, Sweyn looked at
Magnus and cleared his throat.

"We may learn more if I do the asking."

"Ye think they'll tell ye their secrets more
easily?"

"Old ones are likely to be timid around a man
looking like he'd rather throttle them than smile."

"Huh! If ye think ye can ask the right
questions," Magnus muttered.

When the approached the farm, two women
working in a garden jumped up and ran into the house. The men took
one look at Magnus and quickly backed away. Sweyn, a bright smile
on his face, put them at ease. Magnus looked around the yard and
saw they'd been chopping wood. He shook his head at the uneven cuts
of the logs. He picked up an axe leaning against a leafless tree
and nodded toward them. Sweyn soothed the men as he went inside the
hut where the women huddled out of sight.

It didn't take Magnus long to stack a large
amount of firewood near the hut's door. He found swinging the axe
helped relieve the horrendous pictures flashing in his mind since
Chief Olaf demanded he keep his vow.

He couldn't sleep at night without seeing
Feradoch atop Muriele making violent, passionate love to her. Had
he kept Esa as his leman and caused Muriele to fly into a violent
rage and kill them both?

After every muscle in his arms and back ached
and his body ran with sweat, the oldest man timidly came to ask him
into the house for food. Magnus was careful to smile, which was
easier now he'd worked some of the anger out of his mind. The four
men sat at the table while the women served them barley soup and
freshly baked brown bread.

Magnus kept his conversation to the towns
they had been through and the unusually cold weather. Not long
afterward, they were on the road again.

"I ken I asked the right questions. They told
me the lad had wheat-colored hair and was strong. Also, the horse
was old and the lad called him Bolt. The lad also said he was
making his way to the border country."

"She would not think I would hunt for her
this far."

"Aye. Likely not." Sweyn looked at Magnus and
shook his head. "What is eating at you? It's rotting away at your
mind. If you dinna speak of it, you are likely to go barmy afore
the month is out."

Magnus glanced up, seeing the kindness in his
mentor's eyes. Always he had told Magnus the right advice when he
went through harsh times with Chief Olaf. Likely, he could help him
see what had gone wrong now.

"Before we left Rimsdale, I thought Muriele
cared for me. I planned to send for her after I wed."

"You told her you planned to make her your
leman!" Sweyn looked shocked.

"Nay. I had not the chance. She disappeared
with Grunda and didn't return afore we left."

Sweyn looked up at the sky and shook his
head. "You planned to ask a lady, a lady of good breeding and
background, to move into a hut and be your whore?"

"Not my whore! My leman."

"As far as she is concerned, 'tis no
different. I know you believe everything Chief Olaf taught you as a
lad. Because he
gave
the Lady Muriele to you as a spoil of
war didn't make it right. When you used her, I thought you planned
on asking the king for her hand after you straightened this
betrothal out with your father."