Winning the Highlander's Heart (20 page)

“Did you want me to snatch it for ye?” Kemp asked.

“Nay,” both Anice and Malcolm said.

The lad was determined to prove his worth, but not in any way that Anice would wish him to.  She had to admire him for wanting to please her, though.  Despite Malcolm’s misgivings in taking the boy with them, she was certain Kemp would be as much of a help to them as they would be to him.

After eating their meal, the party headed away from the market square to a more deserted side street.  One of the squires assisted Anice onto her horse while the MacNeill brothers mounted their own.  Angus pulled Kemp into the saddle behind him.

Before they left, the sound of hurried boots clomping on the cobblestone path caught their attention.  Two of the squires drew their swords.  A red, puffy-faced weapon’s merchant hastened toward them with the dagger clutched tightly in his fist.  “I know not who ye are, milord,” he addressed Malcolm, “but if ye have to pose as ye are, and ye have the Lord Earl’s squires attending ye, ye must be on an important errand.  I would lay awake in bed this eve, praying I had not done ye an injustice by refusing to drop the price on the dagger.”

“To half the price you first offered, my good man?” Malcolm asked.

The merchant wavered as his brow furrowed, evident having to part with the weapon at such a bargain, pained him.  “Aye.”

“I will tell everyone I chanced to meet what an honorable armorer you are.”

He bowed his head slightly.  “Aye, thank ye, milord.”

Malcolm exchanged money for the weapon, then secured it under his robe.  “You have guessed we are on a dangerous mission.  You must speak of this to nay one.”

“Aye, nay one, my...brother.”

“God be with ye.”

“Aye, and with ye.”

Malcolm seemed to like this cloak and dagger ruse.  The squires bid them safe passage, then Anice and her party rode out of Northampton.  As before, Dougald took the lead, Angus dropped back to the rear and Malcolm and Anice rode in between.

“You see, milady, the gentleman indeed did wish to sell the dagger.”

She sighed deeply.  “To think a monk would dupe him out of so much money.”

“’Twas too high a price, milady.”  When she frowned at him, he said, “Truly.  I would have bargained for your cloth had you not paid for it so hastily.”

“’Twas a good price already.”

“It would have been a better price had you let me bargain with the merchant.”

“Next time, milaird, I will put you to the test.”

He grinned at her.  “I love it when you challenge me.”

She still couldn’t fathom his earlier actions, though she wondered if he’d come to the conclusion he wished an English bride and Anice had distracted him momentarily.  She clenched her teeth in annoyance.

Two hours out of Northampton they came across dead men in the road, all badly clothed.  Daggers and knives lay by the attackers, yet the blades of nary a one was stained with blood.  The tracks of a wagon had recently passed through the area, but there was no sign of the earl or his men.

“Think you we somehow missed them when they returned home?” Anice whispered, her heartbeat quickened.  She’d seen men killed before when she was little, thieves who’d attacked her mother and her escort on a visit to see her uncle, but their escort had struck the men down, leaving the bloody carnage strewn across the dirt road.  The raw cold seeped into her bones like it had done that day, and she shivered.  What if the baron was close by and suspected Malcolm and his party had done the killing?  Then they’d be in the same bind as before.

“The earl would have disposed of the bodies.  Nay, I think they have taken chase up ahead,” Malcolm assured her.

They listened for signs of threat on the path ahead.

“Do you want me to scout it out for ye?” Kemp asked, his voice enthusiastic.

“You might run away, fearing the path we take too dangerous for ye,” Angus replied.

 “I am not afraid.  Nobody will notice a small lad spying over the hilltop.”

“It would not be safe,” Anice said.  “I need you to be my groom and learn to be a braw Highlander warrior.  I do not want to lose you this soon.”

The boy stared at her.  “Ye want me to tend horses and be a warrior?”  The boy jumped off Angus’s horse and ran to Anice.  Kneeling on one knee, he bowed his head.  “I will serve ye well, milady.”

“I think you shall.  Rise and rejoin Brother Angus.”

“He is nay more a brother than I am a—”

She glanced at Malcolm who raised a brow.  “King, aye, I ken, Kemp.  But for now, we are monks.  It will be safer for us that way.”

“But they are Highland warriors, are they not, milady?” Kemp asked, looking them over.

“Aye, and good ones.  But sometimes you need use your wits, rather than brute strength.”

“Oh, aye, milady.  I know what ye mean.”  Kemp reached for Angus who pulled him back into the saddle. 

Malcolm motioned to Dougald.  “Ride up the hill and see what you can.”

Dougald nodded and kicked his horse to a gallop.  After he reached the top of the hill, he sat and watched, then he rode back to them.  “All clear.  If the earl and his men took chase, they are either way ahead, or off the road somewhere.”

“Let us continue.  We have spent enough time delaying our journey,” Malcolm said.

They headed out, but Anice’s heart thundered with anxiety.  Expecting to see the earl and his men safe and sound, she couldn’t believe there was no sign of them.  What if they were ambushed somewhere?  Yet, she had a premonition of another danger ahead.

She didn’t want Malcolm to know she was scared, or that she could sometimes sense future danger.  He had enough on his mind without being concerned with how she felt or that she had this strange ability.  What if he thought her a witch?  She was no more a witch than Kemp was the king, but she couldn’t chance anyone learning of what they might think a curse.

A mile ahead on the road, two men stood, neither of them knights from the earl’s party, both of them wearing ragged clothing.  Dougald approached with caution.

“How now, brother,” the slightest of the men said, with a jerk of a bow.

“Good day to ye,” Dougald said.

The bigger, burly man stared at Angus.  “Who have you with ye, brother?”

Kemp tried to hide behind Angus’s back.

“Kemp, is that ye?”

Anice’s heart sank.  The boy had no living relatives he had said.

“Tell him nay,” the boy said, his voice cowed.  “He is my uncle and nearly beat me to death last summer.”

She sensed the angry, red-faced man was dangerous and cruel hearted.

“The Earl of Northampton has given this boy into my care, or else he would have been locked away in the dungeon,” Angus said, his voice firm.

“What have you been doing, boy?  Stealing again?”  The man advanced on Angus.

“He taught me how to steal.  He is one of the biggest thieves there is!” Kemp said, his tone frantic, his slight body struggling to slide further away from the threat.

Before he reached Angus, Anice notched an arrow on her bow and aimed at the man.

“Brother John,” Angus said, motioning to Anice, “wants you to leave the boy to us.”

The man stared at her with such hatred, she was certain everyone would be better off if the man were dead.  Yet without his raising a hand to her, she couldn’t kill him.

The other man said suddenly, “The earl and his men are coming!”

“I will get you for this!” the burly man shouted at Kemp, then ran with the other across the rolling hillside.

The earl and his four knights chased after the two men and struck them down.  Anice shuddered, her stomach growing queasy, and she quickly looked away.  Only then did she realize the wagon was no longer with them.

The earl galloped back to them.  “You have seen what happened to the others?”

“Aye,” Malcolm said.  “Have you seen the baron’s men?”

“No.  It seems that if he planned on coming to the lady’s rescue...,” the earl said, then motioned to the two squires who grinned back at him, “he gave up on the idea once we attacked the brigands.  But in all seriousness, I apologize.  We could not make any of them reveal who hired them.  But they said the man was well-dressed, which supports your claim that Conan had hired them to take...”  He glanced at the boy.

 “He will be my groom.”  Anice was not handing the boy over to anyone in the shire so any other relative could brutalize him further.

“Well, the road is clear, but we will ride with you until you reach Leicester.”

“Thank ye, my Laird Earl, we appreciate your services,” Anice said.  “What has become of the wagon?”

“Another soldier hid in the back and returned home with it once the fighting began.  He must have reached Northampton before you began your journey.”

The party continued on their way and when they reached Leicester, the earl and his men returned home.  Anice and her party continued on to Nottingham.

“Why say you that you have nay living relatives?” Angus asked Kemp in a gruff voice.

“Who would want to say my uncle was their only living relative?”

“Are you sure that you have nay more?”

“Nay, milady.”

Anice was glad she had taken the boy under her wing, but she wondered if he had other relatives who might want to skin the lad’s hide.  She doubted any would come for him at Brecken though.  Too deep in the rugged Highlands for the ruffians to venture for one wee lad.

Dougald motioned to the clouds in the sky that amassed into mountains of blue-black vengeance.  “It will not hold off for long.”

Malcolm breathed in the air.  “Nay, the air has grown colder by the hour and heavy with moisture.  We will have to find shelter soon.”

 Anice sensed they’d find more trouble up ahead.  She couldn’t shake loose of the fear gripping her and knew whatever they faced would change her life forever.

Malcolm glanced at her.  “You look most stricken, Anice.  What ails you, milady?”

She shook her head and avoided looking at his searching gaze.  How could she reveal how she sensed things about the future that no God-fearing man or woman should know?  ‘Twas unnatural and best kept secret.  Only Mai knew the truth.

For sometime, they rode but could find no farm or byre, nothing to shelter them if the rains should pelt them mercilessly.  Anice pulled her cloak tighter as the winds whipped around her, chilling her to the bone.

Dougald shouted from a rise in the next hill, “Farm ahead!”

Anice and the others galloped to catch up.  The news should have cheered her, but the impending doom cloaked her with a sense of dread that she could not dispel.

“Let us get the lady out of this weather, and quickly,” Malcolm said, his voice anxious.

They approached the small house, but soon spied six knights’ horses tethered on the backside.  Were these men honorable knights, or Fontenot’s?

A man stalked out of the house though he had his back to them, causing her to catch her breath.  He glanced up at the sky as Anice and her party sat deathly still, no more than a hundred yards behind him.

If one of their horses made a sound...Anice’s whinnied and her heart sank, but not before she whipped her bow out and notched an arrow.