Colban was no longer a guest of Rivenloch. He was once again a hostage. At least Gellir was offering him the courtesy and dignity of walking out of his own volition.
He nodded. He’d give the lad no trouble. As much as he wanted to do win Creagor for Morgan, he wouldn’t do it by breaking his word to Hallie to keep her siblings safe. And he wasn’t about to violate Gellir’s trust.
The great hall teemed with clansfolk. They bustled about like hens in a crowded yard. But each person seemed to have a purpose. What appeared to be chaos was in reality a well-ordered exercise in preparation.
And heading it all up, shouting out commands from atop a trestle table, like an armored goddess directing the fates of mortals, was Hallie.
His mouth went dry. Stunned, he halted so suddenly that Gellir almost jabbed him in the back with the dagger.
“Hallie’s not goin’ to fight,” Colban said. It wasn’t quite a question. More like an audible hope.
“Aye,” Gellir replied. “She’s one of our best warriors.”
“But what if… She could…get hurt.” Even as he made the argument, he knew it was futile.
“Hallie can look after herself.” This time, Gellir did prod him with the dagger. “Come on, no time to waste.”
Brand squeezed past to clear a path in front. “The knights always gather for battle in the armory,” he told Colban. “This way.”
He led them through the bustling throng, past men hauling bags of grain and women gathering up children, until they arrived at the short passageway that opened onto the armory.
The armory took Colban’s breath away. Not just a storage place for weapons, it was a cavernous chamber befitting a renowned warrior clan. Squires took down shields and sharpened swords. Knights donned armor, hefted helms, tightened belts. Whatever steel weapons didn’t grace the walls were being buckled on and sheathed by the dozens of warriors filling the room.
The shiver of chain mail and the squeak of leather mingled with the rumble of low and somber chatter about the battle to come.
Colban imagined his companions, the few brave swordsmen of mac Giric, facing this magnificent army. His heart squeezed within the cage of his ribs, knifing painfully sideways. They would be slaughtered by these warriors.
“There they are!” a man called out from the midst of the throng. “Gellir! Brand!” The tall, tawny-haired man had a noble bearing. Creases of age and battle seasoned his face. He made his way forward to address Gellir. “Is this the Highlander?”
Before Gellir could reply, Colban straightened to his full height and looked the man in the eye. He might be a hostage. But it was a mistake to cower before one’s captors. “I am.”
“He has a claymore, Da!” Brand said. Then, flush with the excitement of defending Rivenloch, the lad squeezed between the rows of knights to fetch his own weapon.
Da? Colban narrowed his eyes. So this was Hallie’s father, Pagan Cameliard.
His gaze slipped away to the blonde woman making her way over. She must be Hallie’s mother, Deirdre, the Laird of Rivenloch.
She was tall and commanding, almost as beautiful as Hallie, with the same piercing sky blue eyes and fair hair, though her golden strands were shot through with threads of silver.
“This is him?” She swept him with a swift but thorough scrutiny, as if she were sizing up a pig for butchering.
“Aye,” her husband replied.
“He’ll do.”
He’ll do? What did that mean?
Gellir sighed and addressed his mother. “The negotiations were unsuccessful?”
“What?” she asked absently, her attention elsewhere. “Not that one! ’Tis cracked!” she shouted to a squire pulling a shield from the wall. She pointed to another. “Try that one!”
“The negotiations with the mac Giric,” Gellir repeated. “They failed?”
“Failed?” she asked, mildly irritated at the interruption. “Nay.”
Gellir and Colban exchanged puzzled glances. Then he asked the question they both wanted to know. “Then why are we going to war with the Highlanders?”
She frowned. “Rauve!” she called out to the burly guard. “Who’s assembling the archers?”
Pagan shook his head and gave his wife a gentle nudge toward the soldiers, where she was most needed. “Go!” Then he turned to Gellir. “Now what did you want to know, son?”
Colban answered. “Why are ye attackin’ Creagor?”
Pagan blinked. “We’re not attacking her. We’re defending her.”
“Against my clan?” he asked.
“Your clan?” Pagan smirked. “Nay. Against the English.”
Colban felt like Pagan had smacked him on the back of his head and rattled his brain.
Gellir sheathed his dagger. “I guess I won’t be needing this after all.”
“The English?” Colban echoed woodenly.
“Aye,” said another nobleman who joined them, his mouth curving up into a mischievous grin. “Perhaps you’ve heard of them? They’re a gang of troublesome folk that live just the other side of the border.”
“Colin!” A woman with thick honey hair and a smoky gaze thumped the man on his chest. “Don’t tease the man. ’Tis his clan they’re after, and our Jenefer’s in danger.”
Jenefer. The fiery lass who’d been fighting naked in the moonlight with Morgan. So she was still Morgan’s hostage.
And Creagor was under siege.
Colban’s confused thoughts finally resolved into sharp focus.
Bloody hell. The English were after Creagor.
His heart turned to stone.
Morgan was no match for the English, who had armies of thousands. Not with a bare bones retinue. Few provisions. And no experience fighting foreigners.
“Take heart, Highlander,” said another nobleman, giving him a friendly wink and clapping him on the back. “The warriors of Rivenloch never lose.”
A small, dark-haired woman beside him said softly, “Thank goodness, our clever Feiyan escaped in time to alert us.”
These were the parents of the lass who’d tried to kill him? Strange. They seemed too kind to have raised such a bloodthirsty daughter.
“You!” Laird Deirdre barked, tossing a coat of chain mail at Colban and almost knocking him down. “This should fit.”
He frowned down at it.
Rauve pushed his way forward, thrusting a shield at Colban. “Well, what are you waiting for, lad? Are you coming or not?”
This wasn’t a skirmish between clans.
It was a war between countries.
They would be fighting on the same side.
“Fetch me my claymore,” he ground out.
Chapter 30
A battle was just what Hallie needed. It gave her something to focus on. Something other than the loss of the Highlander she’d begun to love. Something besides her bleak future with a stranger. There was nothing like clashing with the enemy to exorcise the frustration from one’s soul.
Though she knew there was little chance the skirmish with the English would come to Rivenloch, her responsibility in times of war had always been to prepare the castle for attack.
Brand was old enough now to take command of the keep. But she needed to leave it in the best possible shape for siege when the army left and he was in charge.
So she surveyed the great hall from atop a trestle table, directing the castle folk as they brought the livestock within the castle gates and the foodstuffs into the keep.
The clan executed the defenses with expert care, weaving between one another as smoothly as warp and weft on a loom.
Only one anomaly—Isabel skulking about the great hall—caused Hallie concern. The lass had never exactly promised to keep the indiscretion between Hallie and Colban secret. And she seemed to be seeking an audience with anyone who would listen.
Of course, that was the least of Hallie’s concerns at the moment. It had been a long while since anyone had dared cross the Rivenloch clan. She hoped her combat skills hadn’t
grown rusty.
As for Colban, he must feel completely out of his element. He had never even seen an Englishman, let alone fought one. And now he’d be thrown into battle in the midst of an army of unfamiliar warriors.
A frisson of worry rattled her. What if something happened to him? What if he was wounded? Or worse?
She couldn’t live with herself if he was hurt because of her.
She was the one who had forced him to come to Rivenloch.
She was the reason he hadn’t been at Creagor to defend his laird when the English first attacked.
Perhaps it would have been better if she’d never met Colban an Curaidh.
She swallowed down a thick lump in her throat. There was no time for guilty musing and melancholy regret. The sooner the keep was prepared, the sooner she could arm herself, march to Creagor, and right her wrongs.
Isabel arrived then with brusque impatience, planted her hands on her hips, and announced, apropos of nothing, “’Tis Archibald Scott.” She stuck out her bottom lip in displeasure. “I thought you should know.”
“Isabel, I’m busy,” Hallie said, distracted. She called out to a servant, “Mind the hounds! See you don’t trample the pups.”
“That’s who you’re going to be stuck with,” Isabel said.
“What are you talking about?” Hallie frowned at a maid balancing too many loaves of bread in her arms. “Someone help her! Aye, Abygail, good!”
“I got his name from Feiyan,” Isabel said. “She said to ask Aunt Miriel, who said to ask Aunt Helena, who said to ask Ma.”
What Isabel was blathering on about, Hallie didn’t know. But when it came to making siege preparations, the lass had responsibilities as well. “Aren’t you supposed to be gathering the children in the chapel?”
“Fine,” Isabel said, but she spat out her parting words again with a shudder of disgust. “Archibald Scott, Hallie! Ugh.”
Isabel’s words echoed meaninglessly in her brain. But a few moments later, a tremor of recognition shivered up Hallie’s spine. Archibald Scott. She knew that name. What was it Isabel had said? That he was the one she’d be stuck with?
Her betrothed. Isabel must have been talking about the man she was to marry.
Her heart dropped.
She remembered Archibald Scott. He’d come to Rivenloch years ago, when Hallie was a child and Archie was a young man a decade older.
She and her cousins had secretly mused that he had a willow branch in place of a spine, for it seemed he was afraid of everything. Swords. Spiders. The dark. He’d never learned to ride a horse or wield a blade or fish in the loch. To the cousins, he seemed utterly useless.
It appeared that now, however, the king had found a use for him.
Hallie swallowed down bitter resignation.
She’d hoped to be saddled with a man she could—if not love—at least respect. Now a happy marriage seemed even further from her grasp.
Still, Jenefer’s inheritance depended upon Hallie obeying the king’s will. So she would marry the coward.
She supposed there were good things about wedding a timid man. Archie would never beat her. And it would be useful to have a husband who was afraid to question her commands.
While she stewed in discontent, her cousin Feiyan swept across the great hall toward her in a purposeful swirl of black, looking none the worse for her captivity.
“’Tis time,” Feiyan said. “Are you ready?”
Hallie gave the hall a final perusal. Preparations were well underway. She was no longer needed here.
She hopped down from the table, and they proceeded together to the armory. Even if Feiyan had disobeyed Hallie’s orders by fleeing Creagor, Hallie was grateful to have her skillful cousin fighting beside her.
“How many English are there?” she asked.
“’Tis Firthgate. Nothing we can’t handle.”
“Good.”
“But the English are the least of our troubles.”
Hallie frowned. “What do you mean?”
From out of nowhere, Isabel suddenly intruded upon their conversation. “She means the marriage arrangements. There’s a problem.”
“Don’t say another word, Isabel,” Feiyan scolded. “But aye,” she admitted, “if what my mother says about the king’s decree is true, there are going to be…complications.”
“What complications?” It was bad enough to be cursed with wedding a man who was whey-faced and faint of heart. Was there worse news?
Isabel edged in close and whispered, “Yours is not the only marriage that’s been arranged.”
“What?”
Feiyan scowled. “Damn it, Isabel, ’tis meant to be a secret. Where did you hear that?”
Isabel shrugged. “I pried it out o’ my ma.”
“And who else have you told?”
“No one.” At Feiyan’s darkening glare, she repeated, “No. One.”
“Who is it?” Hallie asked. “Who else is to be wed?”
Feiyan murmured, “I’m not at liberty to s—”
“Jenefer,” Isabel answered, earning her a chiding cuff on the shoulder from Feiyan.
Hallie gaped. “Jenefer?”
“But you didn’t hear it from us,” Feiyan warned.
Hallie shook her head in disbelief. “She won’t do it,” she whispered. “Jenefer won’t be forced to do anything. Least of all marry a man she doesn’t know.”
“That’s not the problem,” Feiyan said. “She knows him.”
“’Tis Morgan mac Giric,” Isabel volunteered.
“Morgan?” Hallie blurted. Feiyan winced, and Hallie lowered her voice to a murmur. “Jenefer would sooner kill him,” she predicted. She’d seen her attack the Highlander. Her hotheaded cousin loathed Morgan mac Giric with a passion.
Feiyan grimaced. “A week ago, I would have agreed. But much has happened in the last few days.”
“Exactly,” Isabel said, “which is why everything must be brought to light.” She gave Hallie a pointed, pressuring glare. “Everything.”
Hallie returned an icy look of warning. If her little sister mentioned her tryst with Colban, she would string the lass up by her braids.
Turning the conversation back to Jenefer, Hallie asked, “Do you honestly believe Jenefer will wed Morgan?” She couldn’t imagine her cousin bedding a Highlander, much less mothering his squalling infant.
“Honestly? I think she would. But I don’t think ’tis possible. Not now.”
Hallie glowered at her cousin. Sometimes Feiyan’s elusive answers were worse than not knowing anything.
“Because there’s a third party involved?” Isabel said, giving Hallie a smug smirk.
“How did you know about that?” Feiyan said with a puzzled scowl. “I’ve told no one.”
“No one had to tell me. I know the king can’t force someone to wed one person,” Isabel said proudly, as if she’d deciphered a coded missive, “if they’ve already slept with another.”
“Shouldn’t you be going to the chapel with the others?” Hallie cut off Isabel before she could spill the family secrets to everyone within hearing. Whatever Jenefer had or hadn’t done, it was her own body and her own affair. Just as Hallie’s indiscretions were her own business.
But Isabel persisted. “Isn’t that right, Feiyan? If a person is sharing a bed with someone, the king can’t just—”
“You!” Hallie blurted out quickly, motioning to a squire in the armory. “Fetch my helm!” Then she flashed Isabel a glare that would melt steel.
“Aye,” Feiyan replied to Isabel. “One cannot have two wives.”
“Or two husbands.” Isabel turned to Hallie in triumph. “See?”
Isabel was spouting nonsense. Hallie didn’t know exactly what complications Feiyan was talking about concerning Jenefer. But when it came to Hallie, no vows had been spoken. No matter how much Isabel wanted to believe the Highlander was The One, what had happened between them was not a marriage. It was a tryst.
She turned toward Feiyan, in t
he hopes of migrating the conversation to a safer subject. But the stealthy lass had already slipped away to converse privately with her mother.
“Go to the chapel, Isabel,” Hallie bit out. “Perhaps you can ask God for forgiveness for prying into other people’s affairs.”
Isabel huffed out an offended breath. “Fine. But promise me one thing.”
“What?”
The lass’s gaze shifted from exasperation to concern. “Look after him. Look after Colban. During the battle. And after.” Her eyes slowly filled. “Don’t let him go.”
Hallie had to admit Isabel’s tears rattled her. The lass had always had an eerie sense of things. She might make a practice of sticking her nose where it didn’t belong. But she was right most of the time.
“I have to let him go,” she murmured. “He’s not mine to keep. He belongs at Creagor. And I belong…”
She must have made an expression of distaste. Isabel immediately read her thoughts.
“To Archibald Scott?” Isabel’s chin trembled. She looked like she might start shedding the tears in her eyes. And that would do no one any good.
Hallie sighed and made the only promise she could keep. “I can’t disobey the king’s orders. And I can’t keep Colban from returning to Creagor. But I promise you, I’ll die before I let the English harm him.”
The air was still and pregnant, as thick with fog as the lair of Ian’s make-believe dragon. Colban could barely see past the sixth line of Rivenloch soldiers as they marched toward Creagor. But they moved at such a courageously brisk pace that the mist curled out behind them and the bright Rivenloch banner fluttered at their fore.
Since Feiyan had brought word of the attack, she had the privilege of leading the charge. Hallie too had a place at the front of the lines. But since the intrepid lasses seemed intent on rushing to an untimely death, Colban maintained a position close to them.
It wasn’t his first choice. What he really wanted to do was to send Hallie back to Rivenloch. To put her in the chapel with Isabel and the children, where she would be safe.
It wasn’t that he doubted her prowess with a blade. He’d seen her spar with Brand and Gellir. He knew she was a warrior of superb skills.
Bride of Ice Page 24
