Highland Destiny [Murray Brothers Book 1]

by Hannah Howell

  There was one question that Balfour had to ask, although his fear of Douglas's answer made him hesitant. “Is she dead?"

  "Not yet,” replied Douglas, and then he yawned so widely that his body trembled.

  "She tried to kill the mon. I would have thought that she would have been killed right there, right then, by Beaton himself or one of his men."

  "I think Calum, Beaton's most faithful cur, would have cut her down without hesitation, but he didnae. As I said, ‘twas hard to hear from where I stood. Howbeit, one thing was said verra clearly and loud enough for all to hear. Beaton evidently has a liking for using a loud, kingly voice when he pronounces a judgment. The lass is to hang at the end of market day on the morrow. I was hoping there might be something we can do to help the lass."

  "There may be,” Balfour forced himself to reply, fighting the urge to ride for Dubhlinn immediately. “We plan to attack Dubhlinn on the morrow."

  "Then I am even gladder that I left that muck heap when I did. I may have some information that will aid you."

  "I am sure that ye do, but go and bathe, then rest."

  "There isnae much time left."

  "There is enough for ye to steal a few hours of much needed sleep. ‘Twill make your mind clearer."

  The moment Douglas left the great hall, Balfour poured himself a large goblet of strong wine. It took several deep drinks before he felt calm enough to think straight. The mere thought of Maldie being led to the scaffold made him desperate to ride to her rescue with no hesitation or plan, and he knew that would be utter folly. He had a plan of attack, a very good one, and it could easily accommodate the need to rescue Maldie.

  He suddenly cursed and shook his head. “I forgot to ask Douglas where Maldie had been put to await her hanging."

  "There is a lot ye forgot to ask the lad, but dinnae fret,” said James. “We have time to let Douglas rest and to find out all he learned while at Dubhlinn. Ye were right when ye told him he needed to get some sleep. He was so weary he could easily have forgotten to tell us something of great importance. A mon that tired cannae think too clearly. Aye, and he needs to be rested so that he can ride with us on the morrow."

  Balfour nodded. “And, when I told him of our plan to ride against Beaton in the morning, he gave no hint that he kenned anything which could prevent that."

  "Aye, and that he would have remembered no matter how blind-weary he was."

  "Good.” Balfour rubbed the back of his neck and grimaced. “I fear my wits fled me when he told me that Beaton means to hang Maldie. One moment I believe that she has betrayed me, the next I discover that she is to hang for trying to murder Beaton. Why should the lass try to kill the mon?"

  "Only she can answer that question. There could be many reasons why, and we but waste time trying to guess which one put that dagger in her hand."

  "I just fear that it may have been me."

  "Ye? Ye didnae ask the lass to go to Dubhlinn and try to stick her dagger into Beaton."

  "Nay, but I accused her of betraying me, of working for Beaton against us. Mayhap the lass thought this was the only way to save her honor, to prove her innocence."

  "That lass is no fool. There are many less risky ways for her to prove her innocence."

  Balfour smiled faintly. “The lass may be clever, but she isnae so clever or so perfect that she is free of all wild ideas or plots or ne'er acts without thinking everything through most carefully."

  "Mayhap, but that leaves us with no reason why she stayed at Dubhlinn for a fortnight ere she came here,” James pointed out. “There is more to all of this than we can understand ere we speak to the lass."

  "Aye, so we had best succeed on the morrow. Not only must we free Eric from Beaton's grasp, but free Maldie from the hangmon's noose. I but pray that they are both in the dungeons of Dubhlinn for, unhappy a place as it is, ‘tis the safest when the battle starts."

  Maldie cautiously felt her way along the wall of the dark cell until she touched the edge of a cot, and then she sat down. It took another moment before her eyes adjusted to the dim light provided by one smoking torch set in the wall outside of the cell. She felt Eric before she saw him, felt his fear, his anger, and his curiousity.

  "How are ye, Eric?” she asked. “Has Beaton hurt you?"

  "How do ye ken who I am?” the boy asked as he edged nearer to her.

  "Ah, weel, I have just arrived here from Donncoill."

  "My brothers sent a lass to aid me?” His voice held the hint of shock as he warily sat down next to her. “Nay, they would ne'er do that. Mayhap ye are some trick played by that bastard Beaton. He means to use ye to turn me to his side."

  "Nay, ne'er that. He but felt that I might like to meet you ere I hang on the morrow.” Just saying those words made her shiver, but she fought against giving in to her fears. Eric needed strength and calm now.

  She studied Eric for a moment as he stared at her wide-eyed with shock and disbelief, clearly struggling to think of what to say next. He was indeed fair of face. His features still held the softness of a child, but there was already the hint of the handsome man he would become. His hair was a very light brown, and she suspected it would be even lighter if they were not sitting in the near dark. There was a brightness to his eyes that told her they were not brown like his brothers. In truth, the fine lines of his face did not remind her of any of the Murrays. They did not really remind her of Beaton either, so they had to be a gift from his mother. It would be easier to make up her mind about his blood heritage if she could see him in the bright light of day, but she knew she would have to depend upon the mark. If he carried the same one she did, there was no doubt about who had fathered him. Maldie was just not sure she ought to tell the boy.

  "Why are they going to hang you?” Eric finally asked.

  "Because I tried to kill Beaton."

  "Why?"

  "I promised my mother that I would as she lay dying. She made me swear an oath that I would find him and make him pay with his life for the harm he did her. The mon seduced her, and then deserted her, leaving her alone and penniless with his bairn at her breast.,

  "Ye are Beaton's bairn?"

  "Aye, one of what is said to be a large horde of daughters he didnae want. Ah, I see I have shocked you,” she murmured as he gaped at her. “'Tis a shocking thing to try and kill one's own father, but, in truth, I have ne'er seen the mon before today, so I have no true feeling for him. There is no more bond between us than a tiny little voice in my head that tries to remind me that his seed made me. I didnae listen to it, I fear."

  "Aye, ‘tis shocking that a child would try to kill her father, but that isnae what shocked me the most. As ye say, ye dinnae e'en ken the mon, have ne'er e'en set eyes upon him. Nay, what shocked me to the heart was that your own mother would ask ye to do such a thing, to commit such a sin for her."

  "Weel, she had been terribly wronged by him. She told me so quite often as I grew. She was a gentleborn lass, and he should not have shamed her that way."

  "True enough, but the crime was hers to avenge. She shouldnae have asked ye to swear to kill your own father, to set that black sin upon your soul. I am sorry if ye see this as an insult to her, but ‘tis what I truly think. She must have grown verra bitter to e'en think on such a thing."

  "She had,” Maldie said softly, saddened by his words for they were the stark truth. “From the earliest time that I can recall she talked to me of how I was to cleanse her name of the shame he had blackened it with."

  "She raised ye to kill the mon?"

  Maldie winced. The boy meant no disrespect. He spoke with the blunt, sometimes painful, honesty of the child he still was. His direct question pounded in her mind, however, demanding an answer. The one that formed was enough to sicken her.

  He was right. With one simple question he had exposed the truth she had fought so hard to ignore. As she sat in a Dubhlinn dungeon awaiting a hanging, she no longer had the strength or the will to ignore that truth. Her mother had raised her from
the day of her birth to be the sword of vengeance she herself was too cowardly to wield. It would be kinder to think that Margaret Kirkcaldy had never thought of the consequences of that, of the danger she would be putting her only child in, but Maldie could no longer deceive herself even that much. Her mother had been so eaten up with her hatred of Beaton, that she simply had not cared what happened to her daughter so long as Beaton suffered some punishment. Whether her daughter failed and died or succeeded and blackened her soul forever with the sin of killing her own father, had not mattered to the woman.

  "Aye,” she whispered, too hurt to even cry. “She raised me to kill the mon."

  "I am sorry,” Eric said softly, resting his long-fingered hand on her shoulder. “I did not mean to speak of things that hurt you."

  "Ye didnae hurt me, laddie. My mother did. All I suffer from at the moment is the fact that I am too weary and too close to death to keep lying to myself. In my heart I have kenned it all along. I was just verra good at ignoring it. And, aye, mayhap I ached to kill Beaton simply because he had left me with her, or because I wanted to blame him for what she was. Then, too,” she forced herself to smile at him, “he is a mon that sorely deserves killing."

  Eric grinned, then plucked at the torn back of her gown. “Ye fought hard, did ye?"

  "Not hard enough."

  She knew the moment he saw the mark on her back, its shape and size visible beneath the torn back of her gown even in the dim light. He tensed, then shuddered. Maldie inwardly sighed, for there would be no hiding the truth now. From all she had heard, Eric was far too clever to miss the implications of sharing a birthmark with her.

  "Ye have one of those too, dinnae ye?” she asked softly, her voice weighted with sympathy.

  "Aye, I thought it was from my mother."

  She could tell from the unsteadiness of his voice that he was not going to take the truth well. What sane person would wish to discover that he was the son of a man like Beaton, and not one of the clan that had lovingly succored him his whole short life? Maldie took his hand in hers, knew he wanted to cry but fought the tears, and wished there was something she could say that would ease his pain.

  "I am sorry."

  "I would prefer to be a Murray,” he whispered, his voice thick with the tears he refused to let fall.

  "Ye still can be. They dinnae need to ken this. Only one person has seen my mark, and he didnae recall where he had seen it before, only that it looked a wee bit familiar. So, there is a chance that ye can keep this a secret. Especially if that person ne'er kens who I really am."

  "And would that person be my brother Nigel?"

  "Nay, Balfour,” she muttered, then scowled when she felt his surprise. “Balfour isnae a bad-looking fellow, ye ken."

  "Oh, aye, I ken it. ‘Tis just that the lasses dinnae often ken it.” He sighed and buried his face in his hands for a moment. “Of course, he isnae really my brother anymore."

  "Weel, nay. ‘Tis probably nay the time to say this, ‘tis too early for ye to gain any joy in the irony of it all, but Beaton thinks he has stolen his wife's bastard and must hoist a lie upon the world when, in truth, he has taken back the only legitimate child he has ever sired."

  "Aye, ‘tis too early for me to enjoy that sad jest. I dinnae want to be his son. The mon is a swine, a cruel, heartless boor. He wishes to twist me into the same sick mon he is."

  "Ye could ne'er become like him."

  "Who can tell? If he makes me watch the death of another mon the way he made me watch Malcolm suffer, I may lose my wits enough to be quite like him."

  Maldie put her arm around the boy, horrified by what Beaton had done. She had heard about the torturous death Balfour's man Malcolm had suffered. To make a young boy watch such a thing was cruelty indeed. Eric might be right to think that Beaton meant to twist him into the same sick man he was. How many times could a boy be subjected to such horror before he did begin to change, to begin to gain that particular type of cold heartlessness that Beaton had perfected in himself?

  "I must tell Balfour and Nigel the truth,” Eric said, sighing heavily and slumping against the damp stone wall of their cell.

  "As I said, ye dinnae really have to,” she said, respecting his honesty but wondering if he understood how much pain it could bring him.

  "I really have to. I couldnae look them in the eye if I held this secret in my heart. I wish I could get word to them now ere they risk Murray lives to try and rescue me. ‘Tis nay right that any Murray should die trying to save me, a Beaton, from my own father."

  "They would still save ye from Beaton,” she said, but his quick, crooked smile told her that he had heard the doubt in her voice. “I feel that they willnae be able to hold this against ye, but then I recall how long the feud has gone on, how deep the hatred goes, and that confidence wavers. I am sorry."

  "Why? ‘Tis the truth. One should ne'er be sorry to tell the truth."

  "Aye, one should if ‘tis a truth that hurts someone. Your honesty is most admirable, but ye will soon learn that not everyone wants to hear the truth either. Some people will be made quite angry by it, some will be quite hurt. One shouldnae lie, but then sometimes one shouldnae be so quick to tell the whole truth, either. Weel, it may not seem of much value to ye at the moment, but, if the Murrays cannae look beyond the blood that runs in your veins, ye will still have me. We are brother and sister."

  He laughed shortly and shook his head. “Oh, aye, that might help except that ye are about to die.” Eric gasped and clutched at her hand. “Oh, sweet Jesu, I am so sorry. I allowed my own hurt to kill all my wits. I should ne'er have said such a cruel thing."

  "Dinnae fret so.” She took a deep shaky breath to calm the sudden attack of fear his words had infected her with. “I dinnae plan to die on Beaton's scaffold."

  "Do ye have a plan of escape?"

  "Nay. I did until I was tossed in here, but now I must think of a new plan."

  "I dinnae intend to sound boastful, but if there was a way out of here, I think I would have found it by now."

  "Mayhap. Howbeit, I got myself out of a locked, guarded room at Donncoill. I walked out, walked through the keep, and straight out of the gates with nary a soul stopping me. I may yet think of a way to get us out of here. The hardest part will be thinking of a way to get this door unlocked."

  "The large number of weel-armed Beatons between us and freedom being but a small concern, of course."

  "Of course."

  "Might I ask why my brother had put ye in a locked room and set a guard there?"

  "Ye might."

  He grinned briefly. “But ye might not answer, either, eh? How about a simpler question then—who are ye?"

  "She is Maldie Kirkcaldy,” said a hoarse voice that sent shivers down Maldie's spine and she wrapped her arms around Eric, not sure if she were trying to protect him or comfort herself as they both looked at Beaton. “How touching,” Beaton said as he leaned against the bars. “It seems my wife's bastard and my own have bonded together against me. Weel, ‘twill be a short friendship."

  "Ye cannae hang her,” Eric said, pushing Maldie back so that his body was between hers and the bars Beaton peered through.

  "Oh, aye, laddie, I can."

  "She is but a wee lass."

  "Who wields a verra sharp dagger. She tried to kill me, laddie, tried to kill her verra own father. Why, e'en the church would approve of her hanging."

  Maldie wriggled free of Eric's light, protective hold. “As if ye care what the church thinks. Ye should have been excommunicated years ago. Ye must be verra generous to the church for them to continue to grant ye absolution."

  "Dinnae fear for my soul, daughter. I have done my penances and confessed all my sins."

  "I pray that isnae enough, for ye are surely one who has earned the tortures of hell."

  "Ye shall be tasting them before me. Did ye forget that ye should have absolution ere ye die?” He smiled when she paled. “For one who nearly committed such a grave sin as killing one's
own father, absolution may be all that saves ye from hell's fires. ‘Tis a pity that I havenae been able to find ye a priest."

  "Then ye had best hope that all your confessing and false piety wins ye the favor ye seek, for I will be waiting for ye in hell, Beaton. Aye, waiting and eager to make ye suffer for all of your crimes."

  "Beaton, ye have to get her a priest,” said Eric. “She is your own flesh and blood."

  "Aye, and much like her father, though methinks she would be loath to admit it. Howbeit, she would need more time than she has to be as good as I. I didnae fail when I went after my father,” he said, smiling coldly at their shock, then turning and walking back up the stairs.

  "He killed his own father,” Eric said after Beaton left, shock stealing all the strength from his voice.

  "I had wondered on that, for he showed no real disgust or shock that I had tried to do so,” said Maldie as she slumped against the wall.

  "God, how I loathe that mon, more so now that I ken he is my blood father. ‘Tis odd. I dinnae feel any different. I still feel like a Murray, nay a Beaton."

  "And I feel like a Kirkcaldy, nay a Beaton. Dinnae fret on it, lad. Just be grateful that ye werenae raised by that mon. The Murrays did weel by ye, and mayhap ye can soon do weel by the clan Beaton has ground beneath his boot for so long."

  "Maldie, I am nay sure I will be made laird here after Beaton dies. Aye, I am his son, but all ken me as a bastard of his wife, e'en him. I dinnae think I have any proof that I am his son, either.” He sighed and shook his head. “And now I am not e'en a Murray. I am without kin, and mayhap without friends."

  "Cease this bemoaning of a fate that hasnae e'en happened to ye yet,” she scolded gently as she put her arm around his slim shoulders and briefly hugged him. “And, ne'er forget, ye have me. As I said, I have no intention of gracing Beaton's gibbet, so I shall be here for you for many a year. And dinnae forget that ye had a mother, too. There is all of her kin. E'en if they dinnae believe that ye are Beaton's true heir, no one has e'er denied that ye are your mother's son."