by Amanda Scott
“Rough water,” Jake said. He attempted his customary, casual tone, but she detected his fear, and her quick concern for him steadied her nerves.
“It will pass,” she said. “They call him the King of Storms, you know.”
“Aye, sure,” he said. “Will I tell ye another—” His words ended in a shriek as the boat tossed again and a crash of thunder shook everything around them.
“Hang on, Jake,” Sidony cried. “Grab my hand!”
He gripped her hand, and before she knew what he was doing, he was beside her, pushed in hard against her, clinging to the table and to her. She wrapped an arm around him and said, “Thank you, I was terrified that I’d be pitched onto the floor.”
He did not speak, but when the boat settled and the rhythmic motion of oars began again, he said, “Ye’ll be safe now, I reckon, so I’ll go back to me seat.”
Moments later, the door to the cabin opened, with enough light outside to see Giff as he put his head in. “I don’t know if Fife saw us in all that lightning,” he said. “But I’m guessing he did, so get ready for a rough ride. We’ve come the whole way much faster than I’d meant to, so the Men may cause us a wee spot of bother.”
“How wee?” she asked, hoping she sounded calmer than she felt.
“The tide is still running hard,” he said. “Don’t worry; just hang on.”
“Do you want to come over here again?” she asked when Giff had gone.
“Nay, I’ll do,” the boy said. “He said it were nowt. D’ye think the waves fly up as high as he said? I’m thinking that when he opened yon door it looked light enough for a man to see what they look like when we pass by ’em.”
“You are to stay right where you are,” she said, trying to sound as stern as Giff would. “It is too dangerous to be up walking around. Recall what it was like before, and that was just the storm tossing us about. We’d passed the Boars with no trouble.”
“Aye, sure, that’s right,” Jake said. “Will ye tell the first one, or shall I?”
She agreed to go first and told him another Highland tale, but as it reached its climax, she heard shouts from outside and heard Jake jump to his feet.
“Jake, don’t—!”
But he flung open the cabin door, and she saw him outlined briefly in the opening before he looked landward and vanished.
Crying out, Sidony leaped to her feet and plunged across the heaving floor to the open doorway, grabbing the jamb and the door itself when it threatened to slam into her. Hanging on to them both, she looked out and saw that Jake had crashed against the stepped gunwale and was clinging to it, half on the upper step and half on the lower. Her sweeping gaze found Maxwell at the helm, gripping the tiller, his face contorted with anxiety, and Giff at the mast, looking forward as he manned one set of braces and shouted orders to Hob Grant on the other. The oarsmen on the sternmost benches saw Jake’s predicament, but each larboard bench held three oarsmen, penned in by their oar, and although the gangway-end man on the nearest bench started to move, the man nearest the gunwale shouted at him to stay put or they’d lose the oar.
Giff’s attention was on the sea ahead, and he bellowed for the larboard men to pull harder just as the boat yawed hard to larboard, nearly onto its side.
Waves hurled themselves at them from all directions, and Sidony realized the boat was spinning, as if a whirlpool had caught it. Just as that fact registered, the bow plunged down the back of a huge wave, and she saw Jake begin to slide forward off the higher step of the gunwale toward the oarsmen, or overboard into the sea.
The men, pinned behind their oars, could do nothing to help him.
Maxwell shouted, but the wind swept his words away before they reached her. He looked feverishly about, doubtless for someone to take over the tiller.
Afraid he might let go of it and doom them all, she flung herself toward Jake. If her feet touched the deck, she did not feel it. Her eyes were on him, and she thought of nothing and no one else. From a vast distance, she heard Giff shout, but she dared not look, lest the boy vanish over the side to the sea. She could not let Giff lose him, too.
Water sluiced over her, but its only effect was to make her dive toward Jake, arms outstretched. Her left hand missed, but her right caught an ankle as her left shoulder hit the side. Feeling herself skidding, she managed to wrap her left hand around the same ankle. But the boy was heavy and going over, pulling her with him.
As usual under such conditions, Giff had taken a stand where he could concentrate on the water and command the boat. Hob Grant having proved nimble with the braces, Giff told him to man the steerboard ones, while he himself manned the landward set. The first time he had navigated the Pentland Firth, he had hired a pilot at Cape Wrath to teach him its quirks, and he knew that the trick with the Men of Mey was to hold a straight course, because less than a mile separated St. John’s Head from the Island of Stroma. With two oceans colliding in such narrows, the tide on its ebb seemed to want to run in all directions. These waters had claimed many a ship, and he did not intend the Serpent to become one of them.
The Men were leaping high, the ebbing tide trying one moment to drive the ship backward, the next to push it toward the Caithness shore, with the result that he saw the disastrous eddy barely in time to avoid plunging straight into it. As it was, the Serpent caught the whirling edge and wanted to ride it around. He shouted for the lads to pull harder, counting particularly on the larboard side, where he’d placed his twelve extra men to fight the unpredictable current’s determination to push them shoreward. The wind blew from the north again, too, but he could still harness it as his best ally.
He heard shouts from behind but knowing he had to get the Serpent free of the whirlpool, he bellowed again at them all to “Pull!” before he dared take his eye off the water ahead and glance back.
To his shock, he saw Sidony leaping, skidding, and diving toward the larboard gunwale. Only then did he catch sight of Maxwell’s anguished face and see Jake.
“Hold that tiller!” Giff roared at Maxwell, then to the men, he bellowed, “Pull, lads, pull for our lives! Hob, tie off your braces!”
The men were shouting now, all of them, and when he saw that Hob Grant had tied his braces, Giff took a quick wrap around his own cleat to fix the luff. Then, sending up a prayer that the wind would hold, he leaped to the gangway, running, praying he would not slip on its puddled surface. His men could not leave their posts without further endangering the ship, and he was terrified that he would be too late.
She was holding tight to the boy, but Jake was struggling, and the waves were doing their best to rip them both from the boat. In Giff’s haste to reach them, he nearly plunged overboard himself, but he caught the rail and grabbed Sidony, then Jake.
Her eyes widened as she looked into his, and no wonder. He was furious and wanted nothing more right then than to throttle her for frightening him so.
Gesturing to the nearest outside oarsman to ease off his bench and let the two others with him shift to keep proper leverage on their oar, Giff handed the lad to him.
“Get him wrapped in a blanket; he’s soaked through. Then relieve Maxwell.”
“Aye, sir.”
In that moment, the boat lurched free of the whirlpool and steadied. They were by no means out of danger, but they were beyond the worst.
Giff looked at his wife, still feeling the shock of near disaster and still wanting to punish her for terrifying him so. He scooped her into his arms and strode to the aft cabin, noting as he passed that Wat Maxwell was holding his son close.
“He wants skelping,” Giff growled at him. “Both of them do.”
He did not wait for a response but carried Sidony into the cabin and kicked the door shut behind him, only to realize that he had just shut out all the light, and to recall that it was twice as hard to keep one’s balance if one could not see one’s surroundings.
“Faith, don’t drop me,” she said when he stumbled.
“Can you stand?”
/> “I think so,” she said, her tone wary. “What are you going to do?”
“What were you thinking to leave this cabin after I told you to stay in here?”
“Jake wanted to see the Men of Mey,” she said. “I told him to stay inside, but I didn’t see that he was heading for the door as I said it. He opened it and just vanished. I ran and looked out just as the boat yawed. I couldn’t let him be swept away.” Her words ended in a squeak when he put his arms around her and pulled her close.
“If you ever scare me like that again, lass, I swear I’ll take leather to you.”
She did not speak, but her arms went around him and held him tight, and he was glad the cabin was too dark for her to see the tears that spilled down his cheeks at the knowledge of how near he had come to losing her.
Although she was as wet as Jake was, Sidony felt warmed all through, and why she should when her husband had just threatened to beat her if she ever did such a thing again and, indeed, seemed still within a hair of doing it now, she could not imagine. But the threat that ought to have stirred fear had sent the strange, warm feeling all through her instead, and she held him as tight as she could.
He kissed her forehead and her lips, and then he said, “I can’t stay, sweetheart. I must see how Jake is and be sure we’re safely past the last of the Men. We’ve days yet to go before we reach our destination, but this storm is more wind than rain now. Mayhap we can make camp tonight and dry out a bit.”
But, an hour later, two sails came into view behind them, forcing them to press on. The weather began to clear, and except for long hours of calm the second day, the winds remained reasonably favorable. Even the calm helped, because with judicious use of his oarsmen, knowing the longboats were unlikely to have loaded enough provisions for so many men at Wick Bay and would have to stop to hunt or fish, Giff was able to keep going while being certain his pursuers could not keep up.
Dusk had turned to darkness on the third day when they entered a rocky inlet. Shouting greetings and commands to men ashore, Giff ordered his rowers to turn the Serpent and back her into a gated noust at the inlet’s head.
“Where are we?” Sidony asked as he handed her from the boat.
“Duncraig,” he said. “Fife will need luck to find us now, and as we had to pass by my home in order to reach Ranald on the Isle of Eigg, I decided that filial duty required me to stop long enough to present you to my parents.”
Narrowing her eyes, she said, “Mercy, do you mean to leave me here?”
“I had thought I might, because keeping you with me could confuse matters later,” he admitted. “But, as Fife and company have fallen behind, I’ll take you to Glenelg tomorrow and leave you safely with your father whilst I carry on to Eigg.”
Sidony grimaced. Not only did she not want to face her father if Giff had to leave again right away, but knowing now where he was going, she wanted to see their voyage through to the end.
Fife was miserable. He had realized he was as good as a prisoner to de Gredin from the moment the twice-damned traitor had told him the men in his tail were dead. Nonetheless, Fife had stood firm when he learned MacLennan had taken the Serpent into the teeth of the raging storm and that de Gredin meant to follow him.
“You’re daft,” Fife had snapped when the chevalier ordered everyone to the ships. “Just leave me here then, and I’ll seek shelter from Prince Henry.”
“No, my lord, you will not. You can be of no use to me at Girnigoe.”
When Fife had begun to argue, demanding to know what use de Gredin thought he could be to him anywhere else, the chevalier had gestured to one of his men, who brought him a flask. “Drink some of this, my lord. It will calm you.”
“I don’t want your drink, and I refuse to board any ship in this weather.”
“Choose, my lord. You may drink from the flask, or I will have one of these men render you unconscious. We have no time to lose.”
Understanding why he had slept so well the previous night, Fife had drunk the wine and awakened hours later with an aching head, drenched to the skin, and more frightened than ever. The bow of the longship was tossing wildly in the storm, and the canvas that had sheltered him before had vanished altogether in the wind.
When a wave struck him full on, he screamed, grabbing at the nearest of two bow storage lockers that formed benches near the stempost, trying to find a handhold.
De Gredin shouted from surprisingly nearby, “Bind him. He’s a nuisance as he is, and if he goes overboard, so be it.” He stood against the stempost, straddling the lockers, but Fife had been too frightened of the raging sea to look up and see him.
As oarsmen grabbed him and began to bind his hands, he yelled, “Why are you doing this? Why not just kill me and be done with it?”
“In troth, your royal banner is of more use to me, but I may yet need you, as well. If I do, God will keep you alive for me.”
“But why should He? And where are we? Are we nearing Orkney?”
“We do not go to Orkney,” de Gredin said. “We go to the Isles. MacLennan would not have set out in this storm if he were just going to Orkney. He is taking his cargo to the only other man besides Henry powerful enough to set himself against you, the King, and his holiness like this. MacLennan is going to MacDonald.”
“But—” Fife stopped, realizing that to a man like de Gredin, Donald’s power was all that mattered. The chevalier might not even know of their close kinship. In any event, Fife knew that it would be foolhardy to say anything that might lessen his own value. And, too, it was certainly possible that MacLennan had made the same judgment of the Lord of the Isles.
In any event, he could be sure that Donald would not let anything happen to him, and believed Donald would also be willing to help him secure the Stone.
Chapter 20
Leaving his men to look after the Serpent, Giff guided Sidony through Duncraig’s strong sea gate, up the hill path to the torchlit courtyard, and across it to the main entrance steps. Two of his father’s men escorted them. One of them, Donnie Murchie, was a friend of Giff’s from his boyhood days and now captain of his father’s guard. Donnie informed them on the way that the laird was away with his boats, a fact that Giff had gleaned for himself on seeing the empty noust.
“You won’t see much of the castle’s exterior tonight, lass,” he said, “but you’ll have plenty of time later. We’ll find my mother in her solar, I expect, after I see if Duncraig can provide supper for my men.”
Donnie said, “As to that, Master Giff, ye’ll find that the steward will be pleased to look after your men if ye’ll send them up to the hall. Her ladyship likes a late supper, so ye and your lady wife willna go hungry there, either. And if I may take the liberty, sir, ’tis gey pleased we be to see ye’ve taken a wife at last.”
Giff smiled and put an arm around Sidony. “I’m rather pleased myself.”
When she looked up at him, her eyes shone in the torchlight, and knowing he would soon share a bed with her again, his body stirred.
Sidony saw the way he looked at her and knew what he was thinking. She looked forward to coupling with him, too, in the hope that she could find a way then to persuade him to take her with him to meet Ranald of the Isles.
When he tucked her hand in the crook of his elbow, she gave his arm a squeeze. He seemed pleased to be home, nodding and smiling at retainers as they went. Inside, he escorted her across a great hall crowded with men-at-arms and servants preparing for supper, toward a short stone stairway in the corner diagonally across from the main stairs. They went as quickly as good manners allowed, pausing only so he could present the steward, Eachainn MacCrimmon, to her.
“Eachainn, this is my lady wife,” Giff added, shaking his hand. Assuring him that they could find Lady MacLennan without assistance, he asked MacCrimmon to see to his oarsmen and waited only long enough to hear him promise he would.
“I don’t want to announce our marriage here until I’ve told my mother,” Giff told Sidony in an undertone. �
��Doubtless word of it is passing amongst them already, since Donnie Murchie assumed that we were married the moment he saw us.”
Pushing open the door at the top of the short flight, he stepped ahead of her into the chamber beyond, then paused to draw her to his side.
Sidony saw a plump little lady in a simple russet-colored gown and white wimple, who cast aside needlework in her lap as she came quickly but nonetheless gracefully to her feet from a cushioned settle near the hearth.
Hurrying toward them, she exclaimed, “Giffard, is it truly you?”
“Aye, Mam, and I’ve brought you a wee surprise,” he said, releasing Sidony to embrace his mother.
“Oh, my love, it has been too long!” Regarding Sidony curiously as she hugged him, her ladyship went right on to say, “Do tell me about your surprise.”
“This is my lady wife, Sidony,” he said.
“Oh, I did hope that was it,” Lady MacLennan said, holding out both hands to her. Eyes as dark blue as her son’s sparkled with pleasure, and as Sidony made her curtsy, her ladyship’s hands beckoned. “Come, let me hug you, child. I am so pleased to welcome you to Duncraig. Giffard, dear, tell them to serve our supper in here so we three can talk comfortably together.”
“I will, Mam,” he said. “But I hope you’ll allow me to set it back a half hour or so. I have duties below, to see my men settled and all. Where is my lord father?”
“Faith, I do not know. He received a message hours ago and was off at once. He may have told Eachainn MacCrimmon whither he was bound.”
“I’ll ask him. I’ve already taken the liberty of asking him to feed my men.”
“Aye, sure, dearling, you must do as you please. Oh, Giffard, your father will be so pleased to see you when he returns.”
“As to that,” he said evenly, “I cannot linger, Mam. I am taking Sidony off in the morning to stay with her father whilst I attend to a most important duty.”
