Highland Steel (Guardians of the Stone Book 2)

by Crosby, Tanya Anne

  It was now or never if they wished to seize back the stronghold and ensure that whomever controlled it was a friend to their clan, not foe.

  Knowing her brother well, Lael weighed her words carefully.

  She stared at the hearth fire, at the smoke that curled upward from the circular pit, reigning in her own temper, wondering how many disagreements this ancient hall had witnessed since its conception. “I will fight,” she said, her tone no less steely than her brother’s. “Ye canna keep me from it. I have the right to lend my sword where I choose.”

  “Nay! I’ll no’ allow it,” her brother shouted, slamming his hand down upon the table. The force of it rattled cups to the very end. His green eyes glittered fiercely. He would not relent in this matter, but neither would she.

  Lael shoved her tankard of uisge aside. “I would see Keppenach defended, Aidan. ’Tis too close for peace of mind.”

  “Nay,” he persisted, and speared her with a look, one she understood. It spoke volumes. There was much he could not say with so many ears about to hear what they had no right to know. At risk was the sacred stone they had hidden in the belly of the ben—the true Stone of Destiny that had been entrusted to them for an age. It was for the protection of that ancient stone that Aidan did not wish to call attention to this vale, and it was for that precise reason Lael wished to fight alongside MacKinnon’s men. Her brother must come to realize, whether he wished to or nay, war was already upon them. King David would not rest until all of Scotia was under his rule. How long now before they heard his battle cries under their noses? Nay, he was not a man to be trusted. He had already proved that much and more.

  “I am my father’s daughter,” Lael persisted. “I dinna believe he would have us wait until death is at our door.”

  “And yet he did,” her brother reminded tersely, for their father had, in fact, died right here in this very hall… for the sake of peace.

  But this was different, Lael reasoned. For everyone who lived within this vale, history was doomed to repeat itself, and she would not see it done even once more. Three times they had invited peace, and three times betrayed. But nevermore—not even to protect that Stone from Scone. Lael was unwilling to lose a single sibling more in defense of a slab of rock, whether or not the stone be cursed, whether or not its discovery meant the blood of kings would flow—just so long as it was not the blood of her own kin.

  She and Aidan locked gazes, neither willing to heel.

  The long shadow of silence darkened the hall. Every slat of wood, every stone, every stick of furniture, every man, woman and child who remained were enveloped by its brume.

  A dreary weight filled Lael’s heart. All her life she’d adhered to every last one of Aidan’s wishes, but in this one case she could not relinquish her right to decide.

  She had already decided, come what may.

  She recognized the instant her brother realized he was staring at a stone wall, for that is what Lael had become in her resolve.

  He blinked, his jaw working furiously and bowed his head to his trencher, as yet untouched by his hands. From the instant she’d apprised him of her intentions, he had clearly lost his appetite. She watched his chest inflate with a purposeful breath, and then he lifted his head, his green eyes piercing her across the table as surely as they were daggers. One by one he peered at each of the MacKinnon men in turn, and then returned his glittering gaze to Lael. Only then did he speak. “If ye fight, Lael, ye fight without my consent. I willna come to your defense—nor am I certain to allow ye to return to the vale, and ye ken the reason why.”

  Clearly unsettled, Broc Ceannfhionn raked back his chair as he prepared to rise. “I dinna mean to cause discord,” he interjected at once.

  Aidan shot him a furious glance. “And yet ye have!” Her brother’s narrowed gaze returned to Lael, dismissing their guests once and for all.

  Lael blinked and swallowed back a hard lump that rose in her throat, for this she had not foreseen. Aidan was always her greatest ally, her mentor, and in a sense her father and her mother as well. He was her laird, her dearest friend, and his words cut deeply enough to wound… yet pride would not allow her to heel—because in this one matter she believed she was in the right.

  Aye, she would fight beside the MacKinnons, Montgomeries, the Macleans and Brodies to return Keppenach to its rightful heir—to Broc Ceannfhionn. Mayhap the patrimony would be lost to Lìli’s son forevermore, but it was a far better fate for the stronghold than to become another of David’s strangleholds upon their land—this one to a man who by all rights was more English than he ever was a Scot.

  The Demon Butcher was King Henry’s assassin, naught more than a Border Lord who abandoned his lands to serve England’s whims. By awarding Keppenach his Butcher, David of Scotia made his fealty to England very, very clear.

  Lael stood, her hands braced upon the table to support her weakened knees. Her shoulders slid back and her chin lifted of its own accord. “So be it.”

  And then she quit the hall, only vaguely aware that Broc and his men rose from the table to follow her out. No one spied the tears that pricked at the corners of her eyes—no one save Una, their beloved priestess.

  The old woman nodded her head but once as Lael passed, the wisdom of the ages peering out from her one good eye. “May the Gods be with you, child,” she said in a tired, old voice.

  Lael returned a nod. Her throat too constricted to speak, she squared her shoulders and walked on by, throwing open the crannóg doors and marching into the black, mist-filled night.

  Chapter Two

  Keppenach Castle

  The Ides of Winter, 1126

  The clash of war, the ring of swords all came to an end as the sun rose over a smoldering bailey. Black ribbons billowed from rooftops. A blackened anvil squatted before the remains of a charred building that may have belonged to the blacksmith.

  War was vicious, ugly and cruel, but what surprised Lael most was that it looked and smelled every bit the same as that treacherous ambuscade upon their vale, when she was a child of ten. The sickness she now felt in her belly came from more than simply the knowledge she was meant to hang. Nay, for no matter how she chose to see this, she had played a part in this destruction. Against her brother’s wishes, she had lifted her sword against men, who by all rights had done naught to her… not as yet.

  Only once fear is gone does life begin, Una once advised.

  If that were true, then Lael had never truly lived a day in her life… and now she would die because she’d been afraid—afraid to wait and allow her enemies the opportunity to do her kinsmen harm. Driven by that fear, she’d raised her voice in a horrific battle cry and this morning, no matter whether she believed she’d fought on the side of right, the carnage sickened her.

  Like black snow, the bailey was covered in ash, and the morning sun glinted into her eyes. Her hands remained bound at her back and her neck was secured in a sturdy noose. Death would find her with a heavy heart as she faced Keppenach’s ruins.

  Built upon the remnants of an old Roman fortress, the stronghold was now equally hideous within as it was without. All trees within a furlong of the castle had been burned—not by Lael’s contingent, but by those defending Keppenach. Even before the battle engaged, they laid waste to their own land, destroying all structures within range that might lend the opposition a place to hide, including the thatched-roof huts that had once peppered the landscape about Keppenach’s curtain wall. The houses were all burned to nubs of ash.

  Fortunately, most of the villagers had fled into the hills, packing their meager belongings and creeping away before the first missiles flew from the ramparts. All that remained now was the laird’s demesne, an ugly stone tower with jagged teeth bared heavenward and a curtain wall surrounding it that was pocked and deformed.

  Lael’s brother had once called these stone monstrosities “monuments to fear,” but Lael saw them equally as the manifestations of arrogance, built by men who believed themselves better than
the rest. Proof was in the simple fact that the village huts were kept outside the protection of the gates, as though the laird of this demesne cared not one whit for what should befall his people in times of war.

  On the other hand, mayhap he’d slept afeared that his own kinfolk might rise up against him in the middle of the night and slit his throat?

  That was a far more likely scenario, as far as Lael was concerned, for Keppenach had most recently belonged to Rogan MacLaren, a man who’d murdered his own brother in order to win his patrimony. And if the rumors held true, their sire before them had earned these lands through alliances viewed by most as criminal. These were just the sort of people Lael had hoped to keep as far from Dubhtolargg as possible. But, alas, it was not to be. Even now as she prepared for her last breath the Butcher marched toward his newly won demesne, and he was a far, far more dangerous foe than any who’d ruled these lands before.

  Beside her Broc and three more men who were fortunate enough to survive the night were also set to hang. One was dead already, tortured within plain site of the gallows whilst Lael and her friends stood helplessly by.

  In one corner of the bailey the dead were piled into a haphazard mound, some with clothes still smoldering. Spying them, she couldn’t help but consider that these soldiers—some no more than lads—had fought simply because someone ordered them to do so—not even because they loved this demesne, for how could they? Nay, they were simply pawns of men.

  Alas, but this was not one of her greatest moments. And still she could not seem to find any true regret, because the thought of this keep, so near her beloved home, occupied by Henry’s butcher, filled her heart with a terrible dread. Not for herself, because in scant few moments she would be dead. But she thought of Sorcha, her youngest sister, whose sweetness had always filled her heart with joy. Lìli’s children: Kellen with his kind disposition so like his minny’s, and the newest babe Ria, whose birth had been like a bright star, shining hope into every dark corner of the vale. A lump appeared in the back of her throat, for she would never see them again. And yet the one thing that aggrieved her most was that the last image she had of her brother was that look of utter disgust he’d worn upon his face before she walked out of the hall. She’d departed Dubhtolargg that very night, in the company of MacKinnon’s men, and she never saw her brother again.

  At the moment if she longed for any one thing it was simply her brother’s comforting words. Somehow, Aidan had always made everything seem as though it would be all right. He had that way.

  As her eyes brimmed with tears, she suffered a memory of herself at ten, when Aidan was no more than thirteen himself… after their Da was slain by Padruig mac Caimbeul. Her dearest brother wrapped his arms about her shoulders and squeezed and said, “Dinna worry, wee one,” as though he were far older than she, “I will keep ye safe. I will make it right.”

  And he did.

  He always did.

  But not this time.

  “’Tis sorry I am, lass,” Broc offered beside her. She could hear the sincerity in his voice, and she gave him a nod to comfort him, for he, like her brother, was a good man.

  Standing on toes that were growing weary from trying so hard to keep the noose from strangling her before the hour of execution, Lael worked to form words beyond the knot forming in her throat. “Dinna worry o’er me, Broc Ceannfhionn. ’Tis ye who has the most to lose, not I.” A wife and children. Things Lael would never know.

  Up on the ramparts, a few of David’s men stood, glaring down at the prisoners, waiting for the hangman. Like the others beside her, Lael rested first on one foot, then on the other, shifting back and forth to ease the strain in her calves and thighs.

  “Cocky bastards would see us hang ourselves by sheer exhaustion,” Broc complained.

  “Why do they wait?” asked one of his men. “If they mean to hang us, do it and be done!”

  Lael knew what they were waiting for.

  More than aught she dreaded looking upon the new laird’s face, for she could little bear the thought of what horrors lay ahead for her kinsmen with the Butcher so near.

  “’Tis the Butcher they await,” Broc announced, voicing what Lael could not, for he too realized that the consequences today were far greater than four men and one woman set to be hanged. They wanted the five standing upon the gallows to comprehend that their efforts were all for naught. They wanted each of them to look upon the Butcher’s countenance before they closed their eyes and ken that as they departed this life, the Butcher had arrived to wreak his brand of havoc in the name of England, and in the name of David mac Maíl Chaluim.

  “It’s the Butcher!” she heard a man shout from the ramparts. “I spy his eagle!”

  “The king’s as well,” another added. “He flies them both.”

  Which king? Lael wondered, but what did it matter?

  The moment she had dreaded had arrived. Fear stabbed down her spine, her knees buckled, her stomach roiled.

  “Open the gate!” she heard someone shout. “Check the ropes!”

  Movements became a blur and soon someone appeared at their backs, wriggling their nooses to make certain they were firm.

  Outside the gates, Jaime’s eagle standard whipped with the wind.

  A sound like rolling thunder erupted as the portcullis lifted, its heavy metal chains grinding in protest against the gate’s awkward weight.

  His mount threatened to bolt at the miserable sound, but Jaime held the reins, assessing the demesne that was now to be his.

  After all was said and done, he was lord of Keppenach now—a fact that filled him with ambivalence. The simple truth that neither of Donnal MacLaren’s sons had lived to inherit the demesne might be just deserts, but to be hailed as Keppenach’s new laird, when his own patrimony lay in ruins, reclaimed by thorns and encroached upon by marching pinewoods, was a bitter dose to swallow.

  Until this instant, he’d not realized how much he cared.

  Like an eager maw, the gates opened wide to admit them, and still he hesitated.

  Twenty warriors waited to be signaled the directive to enter, and somewhere in their wake, another seventy rode north to help secure the demesne, but Jaime lingered outside to survey the exterior of the stone fortress, with its single short tower and ugly, crumbling battlements jutting out from one side—like a one-armed warrior who’d fought one-too-many battles to care that his armor was now scarred and pocked. Smoke billowed up from inside, hinting at the battle that took place here last night. Half burnt and flittering wildly against the wind, the king’s lion-rampant standard proclaimed the night’s victors.

  But this Jaime already knew.

  During the night riders had been dispersed to meet him along the north road. Apparently, the traitors were inside, awaiting execution. But it was for this very reason Jaime did not rush through the gates, for despite his reputation, it was this he loathed above all else. It was quite one thing to take a man’s life during the heat of battle, yet another to sit in judgment and end his life.

  He was not the devil they would have men believe.

  His father had been a knight in Henry’s service, his mother the daughter of a border lord. The two fell in love, though never wed. Soon after their coupling, his father had been dispatched to Normandy to fight Henry’s war against Curthose. Pregnant with his bairn, his mother was forced into a loveless marriage with an ally of his grandsire’s. She took her last breath giving birth to Jaime’s sister, and thereafter his stepfather had cast them both aside, sending Jaime and his young sister to live with Jaime’s grandsire in the hinterlands. At twelve, Jaime had thought himself fated to lesser fortunes, for what else should become of the son of a landless knight and a daughter of a man who swore fealty to no one?

  But fate was a fickle mistress.

  He came into King David’s service whilst David’s brother Edgar held the lands south of the River Forth and his brother Alasdair mac Maíl Chaluim reigned as King of the North. Lean and scraggly though Jaime might have
been, David nevertheless recognized his worth. He took Jaime from his grandsire, and at thirteen, sent him south to foster under Henry of England. There Jaime rose in ranks, proving himself on the battlefield and off, and when the time came for David to claim lands willed him by his brother Edgar, he brought Jaime north. It was a brutal effort, wresting victories from men who claimed fealty to neither England nor to Scotland, but in the end David won his patrimony and more.

  As for Jaime’s lands… the story was far grimmer than the tale of Keppenach. After his grandsire’s death, Donnal MacLaren—his grandsire’s ally in life—swept up Jaime’s lands, certain as he was that a mere lad could never challenge his right by might. Jaime clearly recalled the bear of a man from his youth, sticking his greasy fingers up every skirt he encountered, willing or nay. When Jaime arrived to reclaim his patrimony in the name of David mac Maíl Chaluim, the greedy bastard laughed from the ramparts, calling Jaime a “tailard.” He swore Jaime was born with a devil’s tail, because his father was English. In fact his father had been revered by his peers, had risen from meager beginnings to fight beside the Silver Wolf at Tinchebrai, and he died as honorably as any man could—in service to his King.

  With David’s blessing, and for the insult to his sire, Jaime set the entire parcel of land ablaze, burning the silos that kept the winter grain, along with fields that were lying mostly fallow, and then finally the keep itself. In the end Jaime tried to barter with the dour-faced fool. Donnal refused. Surrounded and with little option but to surrender, Jaime beseeched the man to free the innocent from his yoke—Jaime’s three-year old sister among them. The fat bastard cackled from the ramparts.