Highland Steel (Guardians of the Stone Book 2)

by Crosby, Tanya Anne

  Jaime laughed, remembering Lael’s words. “A toast to the blowing of wind,” he offered, lifting up his tankard.

  He took a hearty swig, choking unexpectedly on the fire that ignited in the back of his throat. Cursing roundly, he spat the rancid liquid back into the cup.

  David guffawed. “Yegods!” he exclaimed. “I ha’ seen ye wipe blood and guts from your lips with scarce a grimace and ye canna down a dram.” He snorted with laughter, then rattled out a few discreet coughs.

  It was on the tip of Jaime’s tongue to ask what ailed the man, though he was entirely distracted by the liquid within his cup. Now he could see it fuming beneath his nose. “What the hell is it? Witch’s brew?”

  The King smiled. “Uisge beatha—the water of life. An auld woman south of Dundee said it would root out my ague, but ye’re as much a Scot as me, Jaime. Dinna ye recall the potation?”

  Jaime was certain he had never once tried a single sip or it may have put hair on his tongue. “Border lords dinna consider themselves Scots,” he reminded his king.

  And it was true. Alongside Donnal MacLaren, his grandsire had raided both Scots and English alike, and for the most part, Jaime considered himself English as well, but he wasn’t prepared to argue the point just now.

  David raised his cup. “Reivers, all!” he exclaimed. “And yet feckless as they may be, it was the border lords who first came to my aid.”

  “Whenever it suited them,” Jaime contended.

  In his humble opinion, if someone wasn’t for the king they were against him and the border lords tended to give their loyalties to the man with the biggest sack of gold. For the most part they were kings unto themselves, beholden to none—not even his friends. The instant his grandsire kicked up his toes, it took Donnal MacLaren all of one week to ride out against him—the time it took to gather men and saddle horses.

  “My father was English, as was your mum,” Jaime argued, preferring to align himself with relations who understood the meaning of loyalty.

  David set his tankard down upon the table. “Pah! You knew your sire for but a day. Your minny was a Scot,” he asserted, and then he poured himself another dram. “I chose ye for this task, Jaime, because you’re a bloody Scot. ’Tis time ye recalled how to be one!”

  Even were Jaime inclined to argue, he could not. He’d had a single encounter with the man who’d sired him… at the age of six—an awkward meeting after which his mother confessed him the truth. In many ways, David was far more a father to Jaime than his own had been. Regardless, he did not feel like a Scot. Whatever memories he had that were pleasant were all fostered beneath David’s and Henry’s tutelage.

  David quaffed his whisky, eyeing Jaime’s full cup, lingering in his hand. “Drink up,” he demanded once again.

  “God’s breath,” Jaime swore. He dreaded the taste of the rancid whisky, though not so much as he dreaded the inevitable return of the discussion to the lass now sitting in his gaol. In his gut, he realized David had been pondering what to do with her from the instant she’d pummeled him down in the hall. Reluctantly, he took a swig, and fortunately, this time it went down easier.

  David grinned. “That’s my boy,” he said.

  Jaime smiled, and was forced to confess, if only to himself, that the warmth sidling into his gut wasn’t entirely due to the libation. With some chagrin, he must confess that David’s endearments made him feel like a wee lad… a notion that was nearly forgotten to him as a man.

  David seemed to sense the turn of his thoughts. “Your Da would have been proud, Jaime, your minny too.” He eyed Jaime over the rim of his glass. “She was friend to my Maude, did I ever say?”

  Jaime nodded, taking another sip and turning the whisky over with his tongue. It wasn’t so bad, after all. In fact, it left a rather pleasant taste on the tongue.

  “She attended our wedding,” David said, retelling the tale yet again despite the fact that Jaime had heard it more times than he could count. The king’s eyes crinkled at the corners as he drifted into memory. “We were your age,” he offered. “Twenty-nine precisely, though I may as well have been ten. God’s teeth, ’tis no easy task being husband to a strong-willed lass. Alas, but how could she not be? She was heiress to Huntingdon and Northampton as well.”

  Jaime raised a toast to David’s queen. “And lest you forget… great niece to the Conqueror himself. With a bloodline like that, she was bound to be the consort of a great king.”

  David’s brow furrowed. “Dinna flatter me, Steorling. ’Tisna your way and I’ve had more than enough of arse kissing to last a lifetime.” He coughed quietly, clearing his throat. “Do ye know what I prefer?”

  Jaime opened his mouth to reply, but the king continued without waiting for his answer. “I prefer men—and women—who live by their hearts. ’Tis what I ken.” He burped and set down his tankard, his expression sober now. “In truth, that girl ye hold in your gaol is one such as that…”

  The hairs on the back of Jaime’s neck prickled at the mention of Lael.

  “She’s a madbit as you, say,” David continued, oblivious to the battle waged in Jaime’s head. “She and her brother both hail from a clan with ties to MacAilpín. In truth, were the fates only slightly altered, Aidan dún Scoti might have carried the lion-rampant in my stead. ’Tis little wonder the lass has the hubris of a queen.”

  A thought occurred to Jaime suddenly. If that were true—that she was descended of royal blood—then Lael was more a risk to David than Jaime could have imagined. And realizing David was, in fact, not rambling, that he had reached a decision and was not inclined to waver—not when he was waxing so long over his explanation—he lifted the tankard to his lips, drinking deeply from his cup, anticipating the king’s decision.

  If he decreed the girl’s death, Jaime had no reasonable argument to save her. Admittedly, she’d fought beside a known traitor to the crown, and then she’d used the king himself as a quintain. The least he could do was take her head himself. He didn’t relish the notion of her suffering under someone else’s blade. The whisky burned like hell flames, licking down the back of his throat—a welcome heat, for the merest possibility of spilling the girl’s blood left him cold.

  David flicked him another glance over his tankard. “Aye… So that is why I’ve decided ye’ll wed the lass,” he announced.

  Jaime choked for the second time on his whisky. He flew the cup away from his lips. “What did you say?”

  David’s expression remained perfectly sober. “I said, I have decided ye’ll wed the lass,” he repeated calmly.

  Jaime’s brain had difficulty forming rational thought, but it had little to do with the fermented drink in his hand. “Your Grace?” he argued. “These Scots have a different way… she has the right to refuse.”

  “Aye, though she willna—rather, she may at first, but she’ll do it for Broc Ceannfhionn. Have no fear, the dún Scoti dinna regard their chastity as do we.”

  David would have him wed the girl, a known traitor, rather than put her to death. His relief was easily tempered by his confusion. “Even so, Your Grace, if we force it, she may repudiate the union at any time. In the end what can we possibly hope to gain?”

  David waved a hand, dismissing Jaime’s protest. “Aye. So ’tis why we’ll hold Broc Ceannfhionn imprisoned until you get a babe in her belly. She fought for the fool. She’ll spread her legs to save him as well. And then from what I know of her I think she’ll think twice before abandoning her child.”

  “God’s teeth!” Jaime spat. He wanted to save her life, he truly did, but wed the lass? He’d seen her knives—all of them—she was not the sort of woman he could trust in his bed, or anywhere else for that matter!

  His face paled over the thought that popped into his head, for he liked his cock well enough and didn’t care to lose it.

  David rambled on. “I’ve already sent for my priest as I left him camped nearby.” And then he was already on to other discourse. “God’s truth, I ken the importance of the ma
n’s mission for God, but I can barely abide the endless sermonizing. Sometimes, I fantasize about delivering him back to Rome. I thought for certain he would lose his head in Dubhtolargg.” He grumbled then.

  But Jaime didn’t hear a word David was saying. He was gobsmacked, still mulling over Lael and her knives. “What if even then she should refuse?”

  The king’s look darkened. His gaze narrowed. Once again he set his tankard down upon the table, abandoning it completely this time. “Make no mistake, Jaime, I dinna prefer that consequence,” he reassured. “Though if Lael refuses, we will take both their heads on the morrow. We’ll take Broc’s first just so she knows beyond a doubt that I mean what I say. And then we will take hers as well.”

  Jaime downed the rest of his whisky, then set his cup down upon the table, swallowing not just the drink but the proposal in general.

  David watched his reaction. “Have you any objection to this?”

  Jaime lifted a brow. “If I did?”

  The king narrowed his eyes, and said with meaning, “Then sharpen your blade.”

  David knew Jaime well enough to know he would insist upon being the executioner. And he was smart enough to give Jaime a choice. But there was really no choice at all, and Jaime’s decision was already made.

  “Very well. I’ll wed the lass,” Jaime agreed.

  David’s grin returned. “Good man!” he exclaimed, and returned his cup to his hand. “Leave her overnight to think about the consequences of her actions, then bring her to me first thing in the morn. If I canna force a measure of peace by my terms, I will send a message to Aidan dún Scoti he canna mistake.”

  Chapter Nine

  “Eat, Lael. If ye dinna, ye’ll end like that pine marten.”

  “I’m no’ hungry,” Lael persisted.

  Her mood glum, she sat back in the muck, damp and filthy, with her back against the wall, glaring at the carcass of a poor skinny beast that had crawled into the cell and died more than a week ago, judging by its stench. And by the by, so much for her bath, she thought, as she scrunched her nose at the animal, with its gruesome, bloated body, half black now in its putrid state of decay.

  “The very least they might have done is remove the thing from my cell. How can ye eat wi’ such a stench?” she asked Broc, although he wasn’t eating. After learning that she hadn’t eaten a bit herself, he’d set aside his own plate, shoving it near the bars so Lael could reach it as well. For obvious reasons Lael had little appetite and she could scarce bear the thought of putting a thing to her lips—particularly with that wretched smell wafting about. Every so oft Broc leaned over to snatch a piece of unidentifiable foodstuff from the plate and Lael shuddered, thinking it looked suspiciously like the dead pine marten frighteningly near to her feet. Ach! He could have it all as far as she was concerned.

  “Count your blessings they did not put you in shackles,” he said, showing her his wrists, bloodied and raw. Even more apparent was the rope burn about his neck, a blood-red necklace that reminded Lael how close they’d come to death.

  “Bastards,” Lael remarked, and meant it. She felt a keen heartache that begged for tears, but she could not cry, and mayhap it was a good thing, for the accursed walls wept more than Aveline of Teviotdale.

  Broc crooked a finger at her. Grease from the meat shone from the tips even in the dim light. “I ha’e never seen ye wear a gown before. It suits ye,” he said, changing the subject and conversing as though they were communing over uisge and pie.

  Lael shrugged.

  She wore what she wore for reasons Broc could not comprehend—so that men could never seize her by her gown, or by her hair. In her mind’s eye, she blinked away a memory of Padruig’s men mistreating her womenfolk. Having seen such atrocities, she’d trained to be a warrior her entire life. In truth, she could scarce recall the last time she’d worn her hair loose or a flowing gown. Still, she supposed it was nice to hear him say so. She idly wondered what the Butcher had thought of her dress, and shoved the thought away as soon as it entered her head. What did it matter what the man thought? “Alas, mayhap I shall wear it to my hanging,” she offered blithely, smiling just a bit.

  Brock shook his head. “Take heart, lass. ’Tis my guess that if he meant to hang us, he would ha’e done so long before now.”

  Lael gave him a pointed look. “He may have changed his mind,” she contended.

  “Aye?” Broc eyed her with a raised brow. “So… d’ ye e’er plan to say why they brought ye down here? Seems to me I ought to know.”

  Lael’s gaze shifted to Broc’s whiskered face. In the dim light, his golden beard looked a bit like faerie dust. She shrugged, embarrassed. “I slapped someone.”

  “Someone?”

  “David.”

  His face screwed, though still not comprehending. “David?”

  “Mac Maíl Chaluim,” she clarified, lest he mistake her.

  For an instant, he appeared too shocked to speak, and then his brows shot upward and he burst into peals of laughter, earning them evil glances from the guards. “Ach, nay!” he squealed, falling to his side, and clutching his belly. He laughed so hard he snorted. “Ach, nay, Lael, tell me ye dinna!”

  “But I did,” Lael insisted.

  She picked out a tiny pebble from the muck, tossing it at the dead pine marten. Mother of Winter save her! Because she didn’t quite see the humor Broc seemed to have found in this occasion. However, if they were both now meant for the other side of the sod, at least she’d gotten off a slap to the man who most deserved it before she died. And yet the simple fact that David might now find himself with the last laugh dampened whatever enjoyment she might have found.

  Broc’s shoulders continued to shake with unrestrained mirth. At any other time, Lael might have joined him. It didn’t take much to make her laugh. Listening to someone else’s peals of laughter was more than enough to start her giggles. Not this time.

  “Ach, good God!” he declared. “’Tis a story for the grandbairns!” Then he sat up and laid his head back upon the damp wall to catch his breath. “’Tis a bluidy shame I’ll never be able to tell it,” he said more soberly and slapped his chest.

  As though that realization should bring about hilarity all by itself, he broke out once more into fits of laughter, and Lael scowled at him. “They are going tae take our heads,” she said, in case it hadn’t occurred to him.

  “I ken, lass, I ken.” His laughter persisted and he made snorting sounds that sounded like she felt—like a pig wallowing in muck.

  “’Tisna funny,” she countered.

  “Aye,” he argued. “It is. God’s teeth, Lael, ye must find some damned humor in it all.”

  Lael stubbornly shook her head. “Nay.”

  As far as she was concerned, funny was her brother Keane’s and her sister Cailin’s antics. Those two were ever into mischief. During her brother Aidan and Lìli’s wedding they had very nearly blown the kegs to pieces. Watching David’s silly priest shite himself where he sat and MacLaren’s men dive for cover, now that might have been funny. On the other hand, sharing a gaol cell with a rotting beast whilst she awaited her own death sentence was not her idea of good humor. “You’re a verra strange mon, Broc Ceannfhionn.”

  At last, his laughter subsided. “So I’ve been told, lass. So I’ve been told. And still I’d gi’ my last meal to see ye smack David mac Maíl Chaluim with my own two eyes.”

  She eyed the plate of food he’d placed near the bars. “Ye wadna be giving up much,” she assured and reluctantly gave him a smirk. “But it did feel good,” she confessed. “If only for an instant.”

  “I warrant it did.”

  The two of them lapsed into silence and Lael decided it was time to bury the poor animal she was reluctantly sharing the cell with. With a sigh, she scooped a little mud aside with her hand, grimacing as the odor worsened once she displaced the soil. “Diabhul!” she exclaimed. “I think the walls are leaking waste.” She noted the brown stains on the walls and shuddered.


  Broc peered up at the sodden ceiling. “There’s a bad well up there, somewhere.” And then, he asked, “D’ ye regret it, lass?”

  Lael tilted him a questioning glance, screwing her face. “Slapping David?”

  “Nay,” Broc said more soberly now, though his eyes still held a twinkle of mirth. “I meant… fighting at my side.”

  Lael shook her head but she looked away. In truth, she could never regret her decision simply because they had lost the battle, but there was a part of her that did regret defying her brother. As things stood, she was likely to never see Aidan again and there would be no opportunity to beg his forgiveness evermore.

  Nay, it seemed she would take her regrets to her grave and her brother’s last memory of her would be of that awful day in their hall, the two of them glaring at one another with murderous gazes. That she regretted sorely, though these thoughts were hers alone. It was no burden for Broc to bear.

  “I would do it again,” she confessed, hoping her words would set her friend at ease. “I believe in you, Broc,” she told him truthfully, and peered over at the blond giant, reading the anxiety in his clear blue eyes—anxiety in part for her sake, she realized, because he was bound to blame himself for allowing her to join him in his fight. “I still believe in you,” she maintained.

  He turned his head, the laugh lines completely diminished now. He sighed heavily. “Well… I canna say I would do it again.”

  Lael didn’t have to ask why. She realized he must be feeling some of the same things she was feeling, save that he would feel entirely responsible for all those he had led into this crusade. There was no way to know how the rest of their band fared, but she also knew—and Broc knew—that they had tortured one of their men and thereby discovered where the rest of the band lay hiding. And last night she and Broc both had watched helplessly from their shackles as the arrows were loosed, lighting the sky afire. Among those they’d left outside the gates were Broc’s young cousin Cameron and his closest clansmen. Despite his mettle, Cameron had never fought in any battle before, and aside from whittling, he barely knew what to do with his blade.