Scotia heard Peigi’s wheezy laugh and saw her behind the line of lads, nodding her head, her gaze locked with Scotia’s, and Scotia almost felt a push from the auld woman to keep going.
“Time is of the essence, Nicholas,” Scotia said. “The soldiers may have already found their way to the pass. I will go with Duncan. This is a mess of my making, and ’tis only right I should help clean it up.”
“Nay—” Duncan said, but Malcolm cut him off.
“Clean it up?” Malcolm asked. “Do you think this is a spilled kettle?”
“Nay, I do not,” Scotia said. Her temper flared like a flame igniting in her gut, but she kept it in check, calling on all the training Duncan had given her to keep a cool head, to think clearly even in battle, for in truth, this was a battle for her place in the clan. Her life, her future, and the future of her clan depended on how she managed herself in this moment.
“I do not think ’tis a spilled kettle,” she said calmly. “I understand exactly what this is. I understand that I have let my selfish needs drive my actions for too long. I have shamed myself. I broke my promise to Duncan, and I take full responsibility for whatever happens. I understand exactly what I have done and how it has put the entire clan in danger, just as I put Myles in danger and it cost him his life.”
That statement caught her by surprise, but she knew she spoke from her heart, that what she said was true. She was responsible for Myles’s death, just as everyone had been telling her. Remarkably, she found it was a relief to understand what she’d done, to admit to it. No longer would she have to defend herself, for she understood there was no defense of her actions. None of them.
“I was responsible for Myles’s death, though I did not intend it to happen. I am responsible for leading these soldiers to this glen. I did not intend it to happen. ’Tis a recurring theme in my life, but do you truly think I want to see the same thing happen to my entire clan, to see them wiped out by the damned English? Do you think I want the Highlands overrun with the vermin because I have prevented the Guardians from having the time to learn how to create the true Highland Targe? Everything I have done was in pursuit of vengeance, beginning with my mum’s murder and my failure to prevent it.”
“You could not have prevented that,” Jeanette said, surprising Scotia. She had not noticed the Guardians standing in the shadow of the trees to her right. “I was there and I was not able to prevent it.”
Scotia closed her eyes for a moment and heard Duncan’s voice in her head. The thing is, Scotia, I think the one you hate is not the English. You blame them, but the one you really hate? That is yourself. I do not understand it, but it is the only thing that makes sense to me.
If she had any hope of keeping her place in the clan, she knew she could keep secrets no longer, no matter what they thought of her afterward. A warrior must be trustworthy. And though she knew she would never be allowed to join the warriors, if she ever wanted anyone to trust her again she must begin with the full truth.
“I knew the spy was in the tower,” she said to Jeanette. “I knew his intention. My fear over losing Mum was already so strong I denied what I knew, and instead acted on another knowing, that wee Ian was trapped in the burning kitchen. If I had been stronger, braver, she might yet live.”
A silence unlike any she had experienced before wrapped around her as she waited for the hatred she knew she deserved. She had allowed her mother to be murdered because she was too much a coward to face her fear.
“Nay, she would not.” Duncan’s voice slid through the silence. “She was already dying. She was in pain. You told me that yourself.” He stepped up to stand on Malcolm’s left where he could look at her. “Just that morn, Jeanette told me Lady Elspet would not likely live another day. Ian is but a child with his full life ahead of him. Given the choice, your mum would have made the same decision. ’Tis what she would have wanted you to do.”
“Duncan is right,” Jeanette said as she moved toward Scotia and took Scotia’s cold hands in her own. “Sister, nothing could have prevented what happened. Mum drew his attention trying to protect me. Then I told him Rowan had the Targe in an attempt to get him to leave Mum alone. It was then he killed her and knocked me out when I tried to stop him. She did what she could, even in her state, to keep us all safe. Do you not think rescuing wee Ian would have been her choice for you, rather than putting yourself in the path of that monster?”
Scotia tried to understand what her sister said to her, shocked by the softness and concern Jeanette was showing her. A heaviness she had not known she carried started to slide off her shoulders.
“Truly?”
“Aye. Truly. She would not want you to blame yourself for what happened. She would want you to learn from it, aye, but not seek vengeance for something she chose to do.”
“Even if what you say is true—”
“It is,” Jeanette said. “I was the one there, and you ken well that Mum was a gentle soul. She would never want you to cause harm to anyone for her sake, especially not to yourself.”
Scotia swallowed and looked about, waiting for someone to . . . she knew not what she expected, but it was not understanding. “But I am responsible for Myles’s death, and I have led the English to this glen. I know that now, and I need to do something to atone for that.” Something tickled the back of her mind, but she could not grasp it.
Nicholas cleared his throat. “Are you sure there are only two soldiers?” he asked Scotia. “Are you certain?”
“I am. An English swordsman named Adam and a Welsh archer. I dinna ken his name, but I think he must be the one who killed Brodie.”
“And why did he not kill you?”
“Duncan taught me well.”
Nicholas sighed. “Duncan, take Hector and two more of your choosing and hurry to the pass. Capture these English soldiers if you can and bring them back here, blindfolded and in such a way they will not know how to return here if they were to get away. If you cannot capture them, do not let them live to tell this tale.” He looked at Scotia, but he was still talking to Duncan. “Return here as soon as you can. It seems we have a decision to make, and you must be a part of it.”
Duncan nodded, but his eyes were on Scotia before he pointed at two more of Malcolm’s kinsmen, and led them quickly out of the clearing. Nicholas sent the lads scurrying into the forest to join the women and do what they could to keep them safe if it came to that.
Nicholas looked over at his wife, then at Jeanette and Malcolm, the only ones left in the clearing except for Peigi.
“Rowan, can you keep the three of you safe in your bower?”
“Aye. The barrier we erected there is very strong.”
“We will take Scotia there”—he looked back at her—“but I want her secured, bound hand and foot if no other way.”
Jeanette started to interrupt him, which warmed Scotia’s heart more than it should have, but Nicholas stopped her.
“I ken she is your sister, but she is a danger to this clan. Every time she roams free, trouble happens, and we have enough trouble already. I am the chief. I say she will be bound until Duncan returns and we can decide what to do with her.”
Jeanette started to speak once more, but this time Scotia stopped her. “Sister, he is right”—her voice wobbled just a little, but she was determined to take without complaint whatever punishment he deemed necessary—“and though I have no intention of bringing further trouble here, I cannot promise it won’t happen, for I have never meant to bring trouble to our clan.”
Nicholas nodded at her, but his eyes were unreadable.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
NIGHT WAS FALLING. A crackling fire cast a small circle of flickering light around the Guardians where they worked near the burn, leaving Scotia alone in the dark. Her back was beginning to hurt. Her hands were numb, and so were her feet. Malcolm had trussed her up like a deer ready for roasting, then tied a rope around her waist and the tree, just as she’d been tied to the Story Stone. It had taken every bi
t of courage she could muster to let him do that to her without complaint. She hadn’t said a single word.
She did not think she had another word in her after her confessions of this afternoon anyway. She had told the truth about almost everything, not knowing if it was too late to make a difference. She still didn’t know, wouldn’t until Duncan returned and she could tell him that she had lied when she said she held no love for him.
She closed her eyes and concentrated on Duncan, saying his name over and over in her head until she knew he was still alive. He felt closer now, as if he were heading back to the glen. Would he even give her a chance to tell him of her heart?
He must, even if he could no longer love her. It was her last secret, held so tightly she had hidden it even from herself.
Something passed over her, a sensation that made every hair on her skin stand up.
“How often do you have to renew the barrier?” she asked, recognizing the sensation as the same one she felt when she entered and left the bower, passing through the barrier.
“I thought you had gone to sleep,” Jeanette said, but did not look at her sister. She was moving her hands through the air in one of the blessings their mum had taught both of them many years ago. She had discovered that it strengthened a barrier once it was created.
“I could never sleep like this,” Scotia said, holding her bound hands up to make her point.
Rowan looked over at her. “That is the first time you have even made reference to your situation. ’Tis most unlike you, cousin.”
“Do you think I cannot change?”
“I think that remains to be seen.” Rowan held the Targe stone up in front of her, face high, and a light breeze whipped up, swirling around the bower.
“What are you doing?” Scotia asked, desperately needing something to take her mind off the pins and needles in her hands, and the chill of the ground that was creeping into her backside.
“Practicing. Just as you have practiced your sword skills with Duncan, we must practice using our gifts through the stone.”
The breeze grew stronger as Rowan closed her eyes and concentrated. A branch cracked overhead, then flew across the bower to land, broken end buried in the ground. Rowan opened her eyes and grinned.
“’Tis a handy thing to be able to do, aye?” she asked no one in particular.
“Wheesht,” Jeanette said. She was staring into an overfilled cup of water sitting on the ground in front of her, one hand held out to Rowan, who moved the stone close enough for Jeanette to touch it.
“Can you see where the English are?” Scotia asked.
Rowan and Jeanette both shushed her.
Scotia watched as her cousin and her sister did things she would never be able to do. They prepared for battle in their own ways, not warriors with sword and shield, but warriors all the same. Scotia knew she would never be a warrior of any sort.
She was still trying to understand what Duncan and Jeanette had said to her, that she had not been responsible for letting the spy get to her mum. Even if she had not caused her mum’s death, the belief that she had and the guilt that came with that belief had changed her, moving her in a direction she never would have imagined, filling her with pain, and hatred, and a need to see vengeance done.
That need for vengeance had driven her to seek out the English on her own, which had put Myles directly in danger and had cost him his life. He had died right next to her, and she had not even been allowed to give him comfort as he did. That lay heavy on her conscience too, turning her in yet another direction—preparing herself for battle so she would never put another warrior in a position to protect her when she should do that herself.
Two deaths. Two times her world was broken and put back together in a new way . . .
She looked at the ermine sack that lay on the ground between the Guardians.
Twice broken . . . like the arrow on the sack and on the Story Stone. Was it possible? But if she was meant to be the third Guardian, if the twice-broken arrow really was her symbol, then why had the Targe not claimed her the day at the Story Stone, as Jeanette had been claimed when she found her mirror symbol on the grotto stone?
And then Scotia realized she knew the answer. She was not worthy to become a Guardian. Not then, but now? Now that she understood the things she had done wrong, the things the fear and hatred in her heart had led her to do, the things that she had admitted to and taken responsibility for, now would she be worthy?
If she was, it would mean they had yet another Guardian to help protect the clan and the Highlands. If she was, would her gift of knowing become stronger? Would she be able to use it at will? ’Twould make her gift an even more formidable weapon against their enemy.
And if she was not worthy? That would be yet another thing she would have to take responsibility for, for if she was not worthy, ’twas no one’s fault but her own, and the clan would be the one to suffer for her failures. She could not bear to let anyone else suffer because of her.
She needed to talk to Duncan.
Scotia waited for Jeanette to sit back on her heels. Her head hung down as if she were tired, or sad.
“Well?” Rowan asked.
“I cannot tell where the English are any better than I could this morn. If only I had traveled toward Oban once or twice I might be able to identify the land I can see around them.”
“Well, at least we know they are not in Glen Lairig yet,” Scotia said. “That means they must still be at least a day’s march from the castle, aye?”
Jeanette lifted her head and shifted off her knees to sit so she could see both Rowan on her right and Scotia on her left.
“I suppose it does, and that alone is useful,” she said.
“I might have something else of use,” Scotia said, trying to scoot more upright, but only succeeding in scratching her back on the tree’s rough bark. “I think the third symbol really is mine.”
DUNCAN ARRIVED BACK at the caves with the three MacKenzies and the blindfolded archer, who was injured but not badly enough to keep him from answering questions.
Nicholas came out of the surrounding trees without a sound. “The other one?” he asked.
“Dead,” Duncan replied.
Nicholas nodded at the three MacKenzies and pointed down the path to the Guardians’ bower. They took their leave, clearly meant to take up posts guarding the Guardians.
“What’s your name?” Nicholas asked the prisoner.
“Bryn of Beaumaris,” he answered without hesitation as Malcolm joined them from the same path the others had taken.
“An archer, aye? From Wales?” Nicholas asked.
“I am.”
“Why did you let yourself be caught?” Duncan asked. It had been exceedingly odd that as soon as the older soldier had fallen, Bryn had thrown down his bow and given himself up.
“I have no love for the English. I was taken from my home and my family and impressed into service in Edward’s army when I was ten and five. I was good with a bow. All of us who had any skill with the bow were taken by the king’s army.”
“Why did you not escape and return home if you have no love for the English?” Malcolm asked.
Bryn’s head jerked as he looked in Malcolm’s direction, though Duncan was certain the man could see nothing. “I have no home to go to. My father was a mason. We followed the castles and lived in the work camps. It has been at least ten years since I became an archer. I know not where my family might be now.”
The three men looked at each other. Duncan shrugged, not sure whether to believe the man or not. It would be useful if one of the Guardians could tell if someone spoke the truth.
That dragged his thoughts away from Bryn to Scotia. What had Nicholas done with her? He knew better than to speak of clan business in front of their prisoner, but he was worried about her, regardless of how angry he still was with her latest debacle. He was not pleased with himself for worrying. He should be done with her, but he could not stop his concern. The look in her eye
s when she was exposing all her fears and mistakes, when she took responsibility for Myles’s death, and her mum’s, had been so sincere, so without guile or pretense. He had forced himself to keep away from her, though he had not been able to stand there and watch her blame herself for her mum’s murder.
It all made sense now, though, the changes in her, the choices she’d made.
“How far away are Lord Sherwood and his forces?” Malcolm asked.
Bryn sighed. “They are at least two days away unless he leaves the supplies and everyone but the soldiers to make their way separately. If he brings only the soldiers and they are all on foot, a day, perhaps a day and a half.”
Duncan looked to Malcolm, who was nodding his head slightly.
“How many men does he have?” Malcolm asked.
“He started with two score, but they have been harried almost every night since we arrived by other Scots. Perhaps a score and ten now? I am not sure as I’ve been scouting this area for several days.”
“Take him to the training area, Duncan,” Nicholas said. “Secure him there. Gag him. I will send someone to take over his watch. We have another situation to see to.”
“You do not mean to kill me now I’ve cooperated?” Bryn asked. “According to Lord Sherwood all Highlanders are murderous brigands, but then that’s what he says about the Welsh, too.”
“Do not count on your future just yet, archer,” Nicholas said and signaled Duncan to take the man away.
The wood was dark and the moon had not risen yet, so it was slow going taking the man down into the glen. Duncan had barely secured Bryn in the training area when one of the older and more able lads arrived. He motioned for Duncan to head to the Guardians’ bower without so much as a sound. Clearly he had been instructed not to speak in front of the prisoner. Duncan pulled hard on the bindings.
Highlander Redeemed (Guardians of the Targe Book 3) Page 18
