by Susan King
Her head slammed hard against the wall. For an instant, pain and nausea swamped her. “I—I understand,” she gasped. “But Ranald—consider what you do.”
“I have considered it. I mean to kill Diarmid Campbell. He has made it an easy task. I will find his birlinn and sink it.”
“The Gabriel is far too hardy,” she said. “You could not destroy it.”
“Watch and see,” he said, taking her by the upper arm and dragging her along the corridor with him. “Come with me. I want your new husband to see that I now have what he wants most. I have you. Once he sees you with me, he will not dare to fight.”
Michael stumbled along after him, resisting, protesting. Ranald growled and slapped her face hard enough to make her fall to one knee. He dragged her to her feet, but she pulled away. He snatched at her and got a grip of her linen veil, ripping its folds from her head. Her braids tumbled down and he grabbed again, yanking her hair, forcing her to come forward. When she fell toward him, he gripped her arm painfully.
“The seas are rough today,” he said, as he pulled her down the turning steps toward the sea entrance. “Nearly anything could happen out there, my lady. A challenge for a sturdy boat and a strong master. I know you are eager to go out with me to see just who shall take the day.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“The winds are getting stronger!” Mungo called to Diarmid. “We should turn back!” A blast of air tore the words from his mouth, but Diarmid nodded in understanding.
As the birlinn rolled precariously with the cresting waves, Diarmid cautiously made his way toward the prow where Mungo stood, walking between the two rows of oarsmen and stepping over coiled ropes, around barrels, and past the creaking mast spar where the square canvas sail bellied in the wind.
Mungo pointed toward dark clouds heaped high overhead. “There’s a gale coming for certain,” he said. “We are foolish to stay out here longer. The Gabriel is a fine birlinn, but her merits will be tested in a gale.”
Cold, vigorous air pummeled Diarmid, blowing his hair back from his brow, flattening his shirt against him. He nodded at Mungo. “No point in sailing further south—no English ship would sail in this direction once they see those clouds.”
“Nor will the king be sailing,” Mungo added. “He’ll wait out the storm in some Highland hall.”
Diarmid shouted an order to the man at the tiller to turn the birlinn back toward Glas Eilean. The man sat on a wooden chest in the stern, gripping the handle of a wooden rudder. He nodded to Diarmid and called out to the oarsmen to veer the boat’s course.
Diarmid rested a hand on the high upsweep of the prow and watched the rocking ocean and its empty horizon. They had headed south that morning out of Glas Eilean’s sea entrance looking for ships that might approach from English waters, but so far had sighted only a few fishing boats.
An hour, heading northeast, brought them close enough to see the high, pale cliffs of Glas Eilean, crowned by its castle of golden stone. Soon he would see Michael again and hold her in his arms. The desolate, wild ocean and the chill winds made him long for her comfort, and the warmth of a fire and hot food.
He smiled to himself, remembering the voyage he and Michael had taken from Dunsheen to Glas Eilean. Much had happened since that day to change his life. He was not the same man he had been even a few weeks ago. The love he felt for Michael, and the new measure of contentment that she had brought into his life, had cleansed him, strengthened him. Only his anger toward Ranald MacSween lingered, bitter and heavy.
A sudden blast whipped past him, and he looked up at the sail, now overfull. If the winds grew stronger, the sail would have to come down or the birlinn could be blown off course. He turned to signal a few of the men to pick up the oars they had shipped earlier. The winds and strong currents carried the ship northeast too swiftly; unless the winds slowed, every hand was needed to prevent them from being swept past Glas Eilean.
He turned as he heard Mungo shout, and saw him point toward the island of Glas Eilean, closer now. Diarmid saw a birlinn coming from that direction, sleek and graceful, though its sides dipped dangerously as it cut recklessly across the wind. Several pairs of oars rose and dipped in a steady rhythm. Diarmid narrowed his eyes.
“That’s Ranald!” he called to Mungo. “What the devil—”
“By the saints!” Mungo shouted. “Look there, in the stern!”
Diarmid had already seen. Hunched low in the stern of the other birlinn was a small form with pale golden hair. After another moment, Diarmid saw her face and slender shoulders above the rim of the hull. He swore aloud.
Mungo stepped close to Diarmid. “Knowing how little your lady loves sailing, I doubt she is a willing passenger.”
“Ranald is a fool,” Diarmid growled, watching the birlinn speed toward them. Even from this distance, he could see that some of the men aboard the other birlinn were armed with bows and arrows.
“Jesu! He’s come in pursuit of us,” Mungo said.
“Tell six men to drop oars and take up arms. There are bows and arrows in those chests over there. I thought to be prepared in case the English attacked us. I never expected this.”
“But Michael is on board! She could be hurt!”
“I have no other choice!” Diarmid bellowed. His fear mounted rapidly, heart pounding harder than the helmsman’s drum. The thought of endangering Michael cut into him like a blade. Yet if he did not order a counterattack, Ranald would kill his men or himself, even sink the ship, while Michael watched.
“I am sorry,” Mungo said quietly. “I know you have no choice.” He walked toward midship, calling out the orders.
Diarmid turned back, squinting as he watched. Several moments passed before Mungo returned to hold out a bow and a thick bunch of arrows. Diarmid took them wordlessly. Grim anger filled him, as frigid and dangerous as the coming gale. His left hand trembled, and he made a fist, pounding it white-knuckled against the prow. Then he swore vehemently as he saw Michael lurch forward to grip the low-lying rim of the hull. “She’s sick,” he said.
“She’s a poor sailor,” Mungo said. “Ranald will have a task of it if he wants her to do anything but hang over the side.”
Diarmid crammed the arrows into his belt. “At least she’ll stay low and out of the way.” He never shifted his gaze from the birlinn that rode closer through the waves. Michael curled in the stern, her hair glinting bright and blowing loose, her face deathly pale. She looked up then, and seemed to see him. Even at this distance, he could tell that her eyes were filled with fear. She raised a limp hand and gestured to him to flee.
His gut wrenched and his heart thundered as he watched Michael. The need to take her from that birlinn burned within him like a fire, capable of consuming his reason. He drew a deep breath to summon control and glanced away; if he looked at her longer, he might act too impulsively. He needed his battle sense intact just now.
MacSween stood in the prow of his ship, glaring defiantly at Diarmid, still too far away to shout or waste an arrow shot. “Eighteen men,” Diarmid told Mungo. “Seven of them with bows held ready.”
“But that is a twenty-six oar trading boat,” Mungo said. “He does not even have enough men to man the oars in these winds. He may attack us, but he cannot defeat us!”
“Pray that you are right, my friend,” Diarmid said grimly. He nocked an arrow in his own bow and held it down and ready. “Tell the men to avoid striking Michael once I give the order to shoot.”
The open oarlocks in the stern of the birlinn spouted cold salt water in her face every time the hull dipped. Michael wiped the moisture away weakly and struggled to resist the awful sensations roiling in her stomach and head. Dizzy, ill, and deeply frightened, she gripped the carved rim and thought longingly, ridiculously, of Diarmid’s slice of dried ginger.
She raised her head, shoving her hair out of her eyes, and watched Diarmid’s birlinn approach. The high, graceful prow and the flaring sides undulated over the wild swells, coming ever closer.
She saw Dunsheen’s insigne, a streak of red lightning, clearly marked on the ballooned sail. Twenty-six oars stirred the waves in a fast cadence.
For a moment, her dazed mind saw a great dragon flying forward over the wild seas, the high curved prow its head, the sail its wings, the oars its legs. And standing beside the head of that dragon, she saw Diarmid, tall and wide-shouldered in the prow, his hair tossed back, his plaid and shirt flattened against him, his stance unyielding, his gaze fierce. She felt the pure force of his presence as keenly as if he stood beside her.
Watching him, she drew strength from the sight. She roused herself enough to raise her hand and signal him to turn back, beg him to turn back. But he looked away as if he had not seen—or chose to ignore—her attempt to warn him.
A series of rolling waves pitched Ranald’s birlinn violently up and smacked it down again, over and over. Michael cried out, grabbed for support on a free oar locked in an oarhole, and felt her stomach heave. She leaned over the side as the boat rocked precariously in a trough, and was drenched in wash.
She looked up, wiping her streaming hair back, to see Ranald standing over her. “Get up,” he said. “Come with me.” He leaned down and yanked her to her feet.
Weakened by sea sickness, she wobbled and sank back down. Ranald grabbed her under the arms and dragged her the length of the boat toward the prow.
“Stand there and let Dunsheen see you,” he said, pushing her forward. “I want him to know that I have what he most wants.”
She gripped the flared edge of the prow with shaking hands. Diarmid stared at her, motionless, fearsome. Ranald stood behind her and held her shoulders. She jerked away from his grip and stood on her own, refusing to let her legs give way.
Wind whipped at her, cold and violent, and the heavy beat of the oarsman’s drum thundered through her body. But she stood firm and straight, remembering that Diarmid had once told her to stand and sway in rhythm with the motion of the boat; look far out to sea, he had said that day. She widened her stance as she held the high side of the prow, and held her head high.
But she could look no farther than Diarmid. His gaze was like a beacon. She held herself proud and fearless, for she did not want him to fear on her behalf. A fountain of love poured forth from her, her own heart streaming out a silver light to touch his. That invisible strand of feeling anchored her to him, her stalwart rock. He supported her with his gaze, with his steadfastness, with his love.
She felt the illness begin to diminish, as if their locked gazes produced a healing, sustaining force. Ranald grabbed her arm, but she raised her chin, squared her shoulders, firmed her back. He let go. She stepped forward away from him.
Diarmid’s birlinn rocked on the waves, each rise and drop over the waves bringing him closer to her; three hundred yards, two hundred, half that. The distance lessened rapidly as Diarmid’s oarsmen pulled, despite strong currents and merciless winds.
Behind her, Ranald shouted a command. She turned and saw his men raise their bows, saw the arrows fly upward, saw them arc in the sky and fall like a hail of thorns toward Diarmid and his men. She leaped toward Ranald, as if she could stop the order by pulling at him. He knocked her away and lifted his own bow, calling out again. Another volley of arrows lifted on the wind. The world fell into mad chaos around her—careening ship, howling winds, whining arrows. The boat lurched and she stumbled toward the prow. The sickness came over her again. But she could not give into weakness now. She clung to the rim of the birlinn and looked for Diarmid.
He was in the prow still, gesturing to her; she thought he mimicked pulling something over his head. Then he lifted his bow, his men gathering on the deck to do the same. Michael frowned and turned, then noticed several round targe shields lashed to the inside of the hull. She snatched one loose and hunkered down, pulling it over her to protect her head and back.
Peering out, she saw Diarmid lift his arm to signal his men. He aimed his own bow toward Ranald’s birlinn, and they shot in unison. High winds knocked the released arrows awry, no matter how true the aim. Many fell in the sea, but most hurtled toward the birlinn, smacking into wood, ripping the sail, sinking into flesh. She heard someone scream out horribly. Gasping, she crouched under the targe as arrowheads struck it noisily.
Ranald’s men fired another volley. Michael peeked out from under the shield, frightened, confused, never sure which way to turn, to move, to glance. The rocking of the sea knocked her to her side, tossed her, rolled her around on the slippery, narrow deck. She staggered drunkenly to her knees, snatched at the shield’s handgrip, and curled like a snail in its shell.
Arrows thwacked around her and the winds and sea howled. Ill, terrified, she sank so deeply into misery that the careening world became oddly normal to her. She scrambled to her hands and knees, hanging on to the shield, and crawled forward with one goal: she had to see Diarmid.
Lifting her head, she peered out. The daylight had faded rapidly, darkened by heavy clouds. She felt the sting of a few cold raindrops on her hand. Glancing around, she saw Diarmid’s birlinn, but he was out of sight; unable to find him with a quick glance, she rose higher to look again.
Hands snatched her around the waist. “Come here, mistress,” one of the oarsmen said, pulling her backward. “MacSween wants you. He’s been arrowshot. This way, if you will.”
She half-crawled after the Highlander toward midship. Ranald sat propped against the mast, two arrows protruding from his body, one sticking in his lower back, the other bloodying the front of his tunic.
“Take them out,” Ranald gasped, his face green-tinged. “Repair the wounds. I have a task to do.”
“You have only revenge in mind.” She knelt beside him. “Perhaps your wound will stop you now, if no one else can.”
“Pull the arrows out!” he snapped, through gritted teeth.
Tightening her jaw, she did not reply, reaching out to test the arrow in his back. The oarsmen who had fetched her, an older man, large and muscular, sat beside her. She asked for a knife and cloth, and within moments he had produced both, ripping his own shirt beneath his dirty plaid and handing her his sharp dirk.
She slit into Ranald’s thick dark woolen surcoat and pulled it away from his back, then cut through the brown serge tunic and the linen shirt beneath, exposing part of his smoothly muscled torso. The wound in his back was cleanly made, the arrowbed shallow.
She steeled herself, paused, and yanked out the iron tip. Ranald screamed and jerked. Michael pressed wadded cloth against the wound and wrapped a strip around his waist to hold it.
Then she carefully peeled away the bloodied cloth over his abdomen. The second arrow had penetrated deep into his belly. She frowned; this wound was far more dangerous than the first. Directing the Highlander beside her to lay Ranald flat, she cut his shirt more thoroughly and examined the wound. Then she pressed a cloth over it, careful not to pull at the arrowshaft.
The need to help a wounded man, no matter his identity, somehow righted the reeling world. Concentrating on her work, already adapting to the chaos that surrounded her, she nearly forgot her fears, though arrows struck down in a wicked, whipping hail. She propped the shield against her upright back and ducked down, feeling strangely calm now that she had purpose.
“Let me help you, Mistress,” the old man said beside her. “I can pull that arrow out, or bandage a wound if need be.”
“What is your name?” she asked.
“Domhnull,” he said. “Domhnull MacSween. Ranald’s cousin.”
She peered at the wound as he spoke. “Domhnull, I need more cloth.” She heard him tear his shirt, felt the warm linen as it dropped in her lap. She grabbed it up, discarding the reddened one she held. “One more favor,” she said. “Tell me if you see Diarmid Campbell on the other galley.”
The man craned his head. “I see him,” he said after a moment. “He’s in the stern, bent over one of his men.”
“Is he unharmed?” she asked.
“I cannot tell. Wait, there
is blood on his shirt. He seems well enough in spite of it. Ach!” Domhnull swore viciously as an arrow narrowly missed his leg. “I need one of those shields too,” he joked, as she leaned low beneath her shield to work on Ranald. “What a brave woman, without fear. Serene as an angel, you are.”
Michael smiled grimly at the irony. She had never been more terrified in her life.
Ranald raised his head and gripped her arm. “Take the second arrow out too. Now,” he said hoarsely.
“Ranald, the tip may have cut through the intestine,” she said. “You will do better if I leave it for now. It acts as a plug. We must go back to Glas Eilean so that I can tend to it properly.”
“It cannot be that bad,” he rasped. “I feel strong enough to finish this fight. Take it out and bandage me up.” He gestured toward one of his men. “Keep shooting!” he yelled. “Do not stop! Do not let him get away!” He gritted his teeth and groaned.
“Ranald, we must go back,” she said. “You could die.”
He turned a ferocious gaze on her. “I will not die until Diarmid Campbell pays for what he has done.”
“And what of his lady, MacSween?” the old man asked suddenly. Michael turned in surprise. “Do not forget that she saved the life of your child days ago. You owe her for that. And now she is trying to save your own hide. Learn forgiveness from her, man. Give the order to cease and turn back.”
Ranald glared at him. “I need no advice from you, Domhnull,” he snarled, then raised his hand. “Shoot!” he screamed. “Use flame arrows!”
Michael looked up in alarm. Two of Ranald’s men had wrapped oiled cloth around the ends of their arrows and now lit them with a flint. Michael screamed in protest, wrenching around to get up. The men shot the flaming missiles, one after another, which streaked read and orange across the darkening sky.
