by Linda Howard
She was here. The amazement of it suddenly pushed out all other concerns, and her head swiveled from left to right, trying to take everything in. Her heart pounded in her chest. There was nothing really different to see; odd how little the Highlands had changed. Even in the twentieth century they were still mostly deserted, as if time had passed them by. The craggy mountains looked the same, perhaps a bit rougher, with patches of mist clinging to them.
She looked around her at the men, curiously examining their faces. Even under tangled thatches of dirty, uncombed hair, and sometimes an equally dirty, untidy beard, they looked so identifiably Scottish. She saw a long, thin nose here, high slanted cheekbones there, over there a cheerfully round cheek.
The men weren’t in a good mood, despite their success in capturing Black Niall. Their losses had been heavy, and none of them had escaped completely unscathed. They laughed whenever one of them punched Niall, but the laughter was mean.
They talked among themselves, but she couldn’t understand them. Learning to read Gaelic was a far cry from speaking it, and she doubted any of them could read even if they were inclined to let her write notes to communicate.
The bearded beast who had captured her looked around and scowled at her, and snapped something in Gaelic. Grace started to shrug her shoulders, but a risky plan popped into her head. She didn’t give herself time to think about it. She found herself smiling and saying, “I’m sorry, I can’t understand you,” in the softest, sweetest voice she possessed.
His eyes popped wide open. The men around her gave her startled looks. Until then they had probably thought she was one of Black Niall’s crofters, perhaps his woman or belonging to one of his men, but when she spoke in a foreign language they all realized she wasn’t what they had assumed.
The beast’s small, piggy eyes roamed over her clothes, and for the first time he noticed she wasn’t wearing the rough, shapeless clothing of a crofter. He reined his horse to a stop and said something else. Everyone was watching her now. Even the bundle that held Black Niall had stopped wriggling. Grace didn’t stop, but walked up beside the horse and gave the beast, the mounted one, another smile. She hadn’t smiled in so long that the movement of her face felt strange, but if the beast noticed how false it was his stupefied expression didn’t change.
“You stink as if you haven’t bathed in your entire life,” Grace said pleasantly. “And your breath would knock this horse down if he got a good whiff of it. But you seem to be the leader of this war party, so if being nice to you will protect me from them, I’ll take my chances with just one man instead of a crowd any day of the week.” She accompanied this with the sweetest smile she could manage, and held her arms up to him.
He was so startled that he automatically leaned down and lifted her onto the horse in front of him. The beast was strong as an ox, she thought, daintily settling herself in a proper position and arranging her skirts. She tried not to breathe through her nose so she wouldn’t smell either his body stench or his breath, but she didn’t let herself flinch. She acted as if it were her right to ride instead of walk, gave him a regal nod, and said, “Thank you.”
They were all gaping at her, and they began gabbling excitedly among themselves, pointing at her clothes. She hadn’t realized what good quality her plain cotton and wool garments were, until she compared them to the rough-woven fabric the men wore.
The beast lifted her hand, fingering her rings, and Grace held her breath. She expected him to tear them off her fingers, but instead he grunted and turned her hand over to look at her palm. She looked down, and saw the difference in their hands. His was thick and beefy, callused, the ragged nails black with encrusted dirt. In contrast her hand was soft and pale, the skin smooth, her nails well shaped. Her hands didn’t look as if she did any physical labor; in this age, that meant she was at least nobility. She could almost see the ponderous thoughts forming in his brain. She was foreign, and wealthy, and of value to someone somewhere. Perhaps he didn’t intend to ransom Black Niall, but here was a little godsend who could add considerable weight to his purse.
He prodded her bag and said something. Guessing he wanted to know what was in the bag, Grace obligingly opened it. The men crowded close, craning their necks in curiosity. She took out one of the books she had brought, flipping the pages to show him the paper and words, then shoving it back into the bag. She hoped no one would be very interested in it, because books didn’t exist yet. Priests and monks did illuminated manuscripts, but the printing press wouldn’t be invented for another hundred years or so.
The beast wasn’t interested in the book, waving his beefy hand in dismissal. She pulled out the velvet surcoat, just enough to let him see the fabric. He murmured in pleasure, rubbing his dirty hand over the plush texture, and grinned in anticipation of riches. Next she showed him a larger book, hoping he wouldn’t want her to flip the pages in it too, because this book had photographs. He grunted, shaking his head, and she shoved it back into the bag.
She had brought several books, chosen with care. There were also several kinds of drugs in the bag, but she didn’t want to display the pills. She had gotten prescriptions for them and gone through customs without any problem, but the beast would either eat them or scatter them on the ground. So she pulled out another book, and he looked impatient. He probably wanted to see something he recognized as valuable.
Perplexed, she pulled out the length of wool. Again, he fingered the fine weave, then shoved it aside. She pulled out another book. He said something rude, causing the men to laugh. She shrugged, and brought out still another one, hoping that would allay any suspicions he might have about the weight of the bag, should he investigate.
Abruptly he decided to do just that, grabbing the bag and shoving his hand inside. Grace held her breath. The pills were carefully rolled in a handkerchief, then placed in a small wooden box to keep them from getting crushed, and the box secured in a pocket she had sewn into the inside of the bag.
He didn’t notice the pocket or the box. His searching fingers found the Swiss Army knife, and he pulled it out with a triumphant expression that swiftly changed to puzzlement as he stared at it. With all the blades and utensils folded in, it didn’t look like much. She didn’t want to lose the knife, but if he figured out the blades she knew she would. She drew a quick breath and reached for the knife.
He drew it back, scowling. Grace made her expression impatient. She untied the scarf from her head and unbound her hair, letting it fall free. He blinked at the long, thick mass. She reached for the knife again and this time he let her have it. She closed her hand around it so the blades didn’t show, and turned it so he could see the head of the small tweezers. Delicately she plucked it out, and he blinked in astonishment. She held the tweezers in the palm of her hand, letting him look at it, then she quickly gathered her hair and began rolling it up around the knife, forming an oblong bun. When the roll was tight against her nape, she stuck the tweezers into her hair to secure it, and gave the beast a beatific smile.
He looked at her, then at her hair. He blinked again. Then he evidently decided ladies’ hairstyles were beyond him, and turned his attention back to the bag.
Next he found a small penlight, luckily the kind that came on when the top was twisted instead of one with a button. Grace sighed, pulled the tweezers out of her hair, and started to unroll the bun, but he got the idea and dropped the penlight back into the bag without examining it very closely. He missed the book of matches, but it had probably gotten stuck between the pages of one of the books.
Next he found an extra pair of stockings, rolled into a ball. To her relief, she didn’t have to put them in her hair. He found her comb, and exclaimed over how well made it was. She had searched for a wooden one that wouldn’t cause comment, then carefully scratched off the maker’s name. The comb was one thing he really could have used, but he dropped it back into the bag without further interest. A few more halfhearted pawings, and he decided she didn’t have any valuables hidden from
him. He gathered the horse’s reins, and with a click of his tongue and a touch of his heels they rode on, with her held carefully in front of him like a queen—a queen with a Swiss Army knife rolled up in her hair.
Chapter 20
THE GRIMY GROUP OF MEN AND THEIR TWO CAPTIVES REACHED A castle just before nightfall. The setting sun had given Grace their direction of travel, and she had carefully noted what landmarks she could. Luckily, they seemed to be traveling due east, so if—when—she managed to free Niall and they escaped, she knew they should go due west.
The castle was surprisingly small, little more than a keep with a great hall added, and in ill repair at that. Grace was ushered into the dark, smelly interior, but at least she walked on her own. She watched, trying to hide her anxiety, as Niall was carried in. The bundle had stopped squirming a couple of hours before, and she wondered if they had inadvertently smothered him. Evidently the same thought occurred to the beast, because he shouted something and one of the four men carrying Niall cuffed him on the side of the head. A muffled growl reassured them, and Grace.
Securing Niall was much more important than dealing with her, at least for the moment. A smoky torch was fetched, and Niall was carried down a narrow, winding stone staircase, deep into the bowels of the castle. Grace trailed along because she didn’t know what else to do, and the dirty, sullen women who had watched her arrival didn’t seem welcoming. Besides, she needed to know where Niall would be held.
The dungeon was creepy. It was dank and dark, with moisture oozing from the slimy stone walls. The air was noticeably colder. There were three cells dug into the earth, each of them secured by an enormous wooden door. There weren’t any grilles in the door; the prisoners in this dungeon would live in total darkness, cold and damp, and likely die of pneumonia within a week or two.
The beast cut the ropes that bound the plaids about Black Niall; he and his men all stood with weapons ready, should Niall try to escape. Grace stood on tiptoe, her eyes wide as she tried to get a glimpse of the man who had haunted her for so long. Her movement drew the beast’s attention and he scowled at her. He barked an order, and one of the men reluctantly took her arm and forced her to the stairs. She tried to resist, slow him down, but he wasn’t happy to be missing the fun and he literally hauled her up the stairs, wrenching her arm in the process. Below, yells burst from male throats and she twisted her head, trying to see, but she was already too far up the curving stairs. There was a crash, and curses, and the sounds of a scuffle, feet scraping on stone and the thud of fists into flesh.
She flinched, wondering if they intended to beat him to death. Her guard jerked at her arm, scowling at her. She gave him a frustrated glare. Yelling at him wouldn’t do any good, because no one understood her.
They reached the great hall and he shoved her toward another flight of stairs, this one curving upward into the keep. This staircase was just as dark and narrow. Grace glanced down and saw the sullen faces watching her.
The guard paused in front of a crude wooden door, opened it, and shoved her inside. Immediately she whirled but he closed the door in her face, with a snarled order that she took to mean “Stay there!”
There was no keyhole in the door and the bar was positioned on this side of the door, meaning she wasn’t locked in, but when she laid her ear against the wood she heard the guard settling himself on the other side.
She turned and looked at her jail. The room was small and dark, lit by a single smoking torch whose light didn’t quite reach all the corners of the room despite its lack of size. The only window was a narrow slit, cut so an arrow could be shot from it at any angle. The floor was covered with rushes gone black and smelly with age, and the only furniture was a roughly made bed that was about the size of a modern double, a single chair, and a wobbly table. A small chest sat against the far wall, and a single candle stood on the table. There was a fireplace, but no fire. A leather bottle stood on the table beside the candle, and a single metal cup.
Grace took advantage of her privacy, which she was sure was only temporary. Unless she missed her guess, this was the beast’s bedchamber. Hastily she removed the tweezers from her hair, which had held up remarkably well, and unrolled the knife. After replacing the tweezers in their slot, she thrust the knife inside her stocking and retied the garter, determined to keep the combination weapon and tool with her from now on.
Taking the small wooden box from its pocket inside the burlap bag, she opened it and removed the handkerchief, carefully unrolling it so she didn’t lose any of the precious pills. She had brought a full course of antibiotics, and prescriptions of painkillers and Seconals, in addition to picking up some over-the-counter stuff in Edinburgh. The Seconals were an impulse, an effort to cover all bases; it was strange that they would be the first drug she would need to use.
The reddish capsules were hundred-milligram doses, enough to put someone to sleep. What she had to figure out was the delivery system, because she couldn’t hand one to the beast and say, “Here, take this.”
She looked at the leather bottle, thinking. Alcohol intensified the effects of Seconal; what wasn’t a lethal dose of the drug could become lethal if the user also drank. She didn’t want to kill the beast, just knock him out. Two or three pills were enough to put someone to sleep; the pharmacist had carefully told her that she shouldn’t take more than one, because she didn’t weigh very much.
The beast was a heavy man, not very tall but she guessed his weight at two hundred pounds. She picked out three capsules, and returned her drug stash to the burlap bag.
She opened the leather bottle and sniffed the contents. Her eyes watered at the smell of raw, strong ale. He wouldn’t notice anything wrong with the taste if she dissolved the entire thirty capsules in his cup.
Three should do the trick, however. Carefully she pulled the capsules apart, pouring the powder into the battered metal cup. Then she poured a little ale into the cup and swished the liquid around until the powder dissolved. She peered into the cup. The color of the ale looked a little cloudy, but in this light he wasn’t likely to notice.
Then, forcing herself to calm and patience, Grace sat down in the chair with the cup in her hand.
She waited a long time. The noise that drifted up made her think there was a revelry going on downstairs. She was hungry, but she wasn’t anxious to join them. If someone thought to send food, fine. If not, she had been hungry before.
She grew drowsy. The flickering torch was as sedative as watching a fire in a fireplace, and gave off enough warmth that she wasn’t cold. She thought of Niall, and knew that he was neither warm nor comfortable enough to sleep. He would be hungry, too; if they hadn’t fed her, they certainly hadn’t fed him. That was assuming he was even still alive, but she didn’t think they had killed him yet. If the beast intended to kill him, he would want to gloat a bit first. He struck her as that kind of man.
Finally she heard voices outside the door. She didn’t jump up, but continued sitting relaxed in the chair, or at least as relaxed as she could be on something as hard as rock. The door opened and the beast came in, his shaggy head lowered and his small, mean eyes bright with anticipation. He looked at the cup, at the open bottle of ale on the table, and his lips spread in a big grin, displaying terrible teeth and remnants of the dinner he had eaten.
Grace yawned and leisurely came to her feet. She pretended to sip the ale, then looked at him and raised the cup in a silent question, nodding at the bottle. He rumbled what she took to be agreement, and she filled the cup, then passed it to him.
He downed the ale in two gulps, then wiped the back of his hand across his wet mouth. His eyes never left her, and lust burned hotly in them.
She fought the impulse to gag even as relief filled her. Dear Lord, how long would it take the Seconals to work? He had eaten, which would slow the effect, but from the look of him he had also had a good deal to drink. She had to stall for time, anything that would keep him from assaulting her now.
Genius struck,
and she made an eating gesture, her brows lifted, and then she rubbed her stomach to indicate hunger. He scowled, but went to the door and bellowed something, she hoped a call for food. Evidently he didn’t intend to starve her, but had merely forgotten.
He stomped to the chair and sat down, and poured himself another cup of ale. Grace smiled at him, pointed to herself, and said, “Grace St. John.”
“Eh?”
At least she understood that sound, she thought in relief. She said again, “Grace St. John,” then she pointed at him and waited.
He caught on now. He thumped his bull-like chest. “Huwe dhe Hay.”
“Huwe,” she repeated. She tried another smile. “Well, Huwe, I don’t wish you any harm, but I hope the Seconal knocks you flat on your butt. I know you have big plans for tonight, but so do I, and you aren’t included. As soon as everyone is asleep, I’m going to see what kind of damage you and your goons have done to you-know-who, and then I’m going to get him out of here.”
Huwe listened to her speech with growing impatience, and he cut her short with an impatient wave of his hand. Then he spouted something involved at her. She made a helpless gesture, spreading her hands and shaking her head.
A brief thud sounded at the door and it swung open. A plump, slatternly woman with wiry dark hair came in, carrying a small platter on which rested a thick piece of coarse bread and a hunk of cheese. She set the platter down with a thunk, glaring at Grace all the while. Either no one here liked outsiders on principle, or the woman had a thing for Huwe, which gave her a new appreciation of the old saying that power was an aphrodisiac.
The woman left, and Grace pinched off a piece of bread. She sauntered around the room, nibbling daintily at the bread and making an occasional comment to Huwe. His gaze still followed her, but after ten or fifteen minutes she noticed he was blinking owlishly. She continued to pace, her manner completely relaxed, returning to the table to taste a tiny bit of the cheese. It wasn’t bad.
