Malcolm pulled her aside. “We’ve waited long enough. They’re not coming.”
“Then we’ll have to take Kenneth to them,” she said. “We’re halfway to Urquhart Castle already.”
“We shouldn’t have come,” Malcolm said. “It’ll be dark soon, and I’ll not take my laird’s wife and son any farther without his approval.”
“But—”
Malcolm held up his hand for quiet and drew his sword.
“What is it?” she whispered.
He tilted his head to the side, listening intently. “Someone is coming. A large party of riders.”
Relief swept over her. The Grants had come at last. She could hear the horses now herself and stepped out onto the trail to greet them.
“Wait until we see who it is!” Malcolm hissed.
His warning came too late. Twenty mounted warriors rounded the hillside and entered the narrow valley some distance ahead. As soon as they saw her, they whipped their horses and charged toward her. In that instant she knew that these men had come expecting to find her here. And they were not the Grants.
Someone had betrayed them.
“Get off the goddamned trail,” Malcolm called to her. “Those are Hector’s men!”
There was no point in running. They had seen her and would chase her down before she could reach her horse. But they had not yet seen her companions. She could still save them.
“Take Kenneth and your wife away!” she called to them while keeping her gaze fixed on the warriors galloping toward them. “Go!”
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Malcolm signal to his wife, who was crouched in the brush with her hand over Kenneth’s mouth. She prayed the three of them would escape.
Hector’s men were almost upon her. The man in the lead wore a black helmet obscuring his face and rode his steed straight at her. She stood her ground. If he meant to trample her to death, she would not give him the satisfaction of cowering or shrieking in fright.
Suddenly, Malcolm was in front of her brandishing his sword. The horse’s whinny filled her ears like a scream as it reared up, hooves shooting past her face in a blur. Time seemed to momentarily halt as the hooves of the great beast hovered above her head, then they came crashing down, barely missing her and Malcolm.
“Show your face, ye filthy bastard!” Malcolm shouted. “I know it’s you, Hector!”
The rider took off his black helmet. He would have been a striking man with his rugged features and jet-black hair with streaks of gray, but for his eyes, which held a malevolence that turned Sybil’s blood to ice.
“I might have known you’d be here, old man,” Hector said.
She swallowed as twenty horses surrounded them. Their riders had blood splatters on their arms and faces.
Hector dismounted, drew his sword, and signaled to his men to move back.
“Please, Malcolm,” Sybil whispered, “don’t sacrifice yourself for me.”
“I always hoped for a warrior’s death,” Malcolm said. “I’ll take this traitor with me if I can.”
“It will be a pleasure to run my blade through your heart, old man.” Whoosh whoosh. Hector whipped his sword in the air. “I’ve been waiting to do it for years.”
Malcolm fought well, swinging his claymore with remarkable power and precision. In his prime, he might have been better than Hector. But he was not now. Hector fought with a terrible ferocity, each strike harder than the one before and with such speed that his blade was a blur.
Sybil watched in horror as Hector’s sword left a red streak of blood across Malcolm’s thigh and then another across his right arm. Malcolm fought on valiantly with only his left arm. He managed to draw blood on Hector’s cheek with the tip of his sword, but anyone could see how the fight would end.
“Nay! Nay!” she shrieked when Hector plunged his sword into Malcolm’s belly and the older man fell in a heap.
She managed to sink her teeth hard into the hand of the man holding her and break free. She fell on top of Malcolm, covering his body with hers to protect him. When her captors hauled her away from him, she clawed and kicked and bit at them like a wildcat.
“Let me go!” she cried. “Let me help him!”
“He’s dead,” Hector said, and slapped her so hard her ears rang. “Now keep your mouth shut, or I’ll let my friend here ruin your pretty face—and worse.”
She sucked in her breath as an enormous man with a pockmarked face appeared in front of her. To confirm her fears, she slowly lowered her gaze from his hideous face until she saw the giant axe tucked in his belt. Its blade was covered with blood.
God have mercy on her. She was face to face with Big Duncan of the Axe.
CHAPTER 44
“Duncan, find any others who were traveling with them,” Hector ordered. “When you’ve taken care of them, meet us back at Fairburn Tower.”
Sybil was careful not to look toward the bushes where she had last seen Grizel and Kenneth hiding and prayed that they had managed to get far enough away during the fight that Duncan would not find them. One look at his massive frame of solid muscle told her the odds were against an old woman and a young boy.
Sybil rode with her hands bound and a rope tied loosely around her neck. Hector’s men taunted her with obscene remarks, but they eventually lost interest when she failed to react. In truth, she was so numb with shock and grief that she barely heard them.
Her scheme to deliver Kenneth to the Grants had led to utter disaster. Malcolm was dead. Grizel and Kenneth were in grave danger, perhaps already killed at the hands of that monster Big Duncan. And it was all her fault.
Questions swirled around and around in her head. Why had Grant not come to meet them? Did he not receive her message, or did he believe Kenneth was dead and her message a ruse to buy time?
If these men killed her, would Rory ever know what happened to her? It pierced her heart to think he might believe she had left him. They had only reconciled last night, and she feared his trust in her was still fragile.
Dusk had fallen when her captors stopped at a tower house. Someone lifted her down, then Hector pulled her into the house by the rope around her neck as if she was a goat. She was past hope and past care. He could not do more damage than she had done herself.
“I’ve no time for ye now.” Hector held her by her chin as he leaned so close to her that his foul breath filled her nose. “But I’m looking forward to getting to know my nephew’s bride verra well.”
She was taken down to the undercroft, where her guard unlocked a door, shoved her through it, and locked it behind her. The room she was in was pitch black. Feeling her way along the wall, she took a step. The ground disappeared beneath her, and she stumbled down several stone stairs and fell to her knees on a dirt floor.
Exhausted from grief and despair, she leaned against the cold stone wall in the eternal darkness of her prison.
***
With a heavy heart, Rory rode back to Castle Leod. The only thought that eased his burdens was knowing that Sybil was waiting there for him. He desperately needed to hold her in his arms. And perhaps she could help him to see that all was not lost.
Rory’s own clansmen were trying to murder his son. Grant was likely preparing for war in the belief that they had succeeded. After the slaughter of the Munro chieftain’s party, their former alliance seemed beyond repair. What had been strained relations with both clans during his brother’s time as chieftain was on the verge of erupting into war across Eastern Ross.
The even greater danger to the clan was that the MacDonalds would learn of it and launch an attack from the west. Hector had brought too many warriors with him who should be defending their western shores.
When they finally reached Castle Leod, Rory took the steps to the keep three at a time, with Alex behind him. He scanned the hall for Sybil, but she was not there. Catriona saw him and rushed to his side. She caught his arm as he strode toward the stairs that led to the bedchambers above.
“What happened with t
he Munros?” she asked. “Did ye stop the attack?”
“We’ll speak upstairs.” He pulled her along with him to the laird’s chamber.
It was empty. Sybil must be in Kenneth’s chamber with Malcolm and Grizel. When he turned to go there, his sister stood in his way.
“Tell me what happened with the Munros,” Catriona demanded.
“We were too late,” Rory said.
“Nay!” Her hands flew to her face, and she went deathly pale. “Was the Munro chief slain?”
“We did not find his body among the dead.” Alex spoke in a soft voice and put his arm around Catriona. “There is hope that he and others survived.”
“I’m going upstairs to see Sybil and the others,” Rory said.
“She’s not there,” Catriona said. “None of them are.”
Rory felt as if his stomach had dropped to the floor.
“I’ve been waiting with no word from any of you.” Catriona wrung her hands as she explained how Sybil and the others had gone to Beauly to meet the Grants. “They should have returned last night.”
“I should have foreseen that Sybil would attempt some bold and risky plan, with no thought for her own safety.” Rory ran his hands through his hair. “This is so like her!”
“She was trying to protect Kenneth and prevent trouble with the Grants,” Alex said. “And it doesn’t sound like a bad plan.”
“Not a bad plan?” Rory said, raising his hands in the air. “They’ve disappeared, and I don’t know where in the hell they are or what’s happened to them.”
“I found something when I was looking for a hair comb I lent Sybil,” Catriona said. “It probably has nothing to do with this, but—”
“For God’s sake, Catriona, what is it?”
“I found this at the back of the drawer in her table where she keeps her hair ribbons and drawings.” She paused, testing his patience, then withdrew a folded parchment from her sleeve. “It has a fancy seal, so I thought it might be important.”
He tore the parchment from her hands and thrust it at Alex. “Read it to me.”
Alex scanned it first, then looked up. “Promise you’ll remember that ye have no reason not to trust Sybil.”
The warning caused the hair on the back of his neck to rise. “Just read it.”
Rory gritted his teeth as Alex read the lines from her despicable brothers. When Alex read her uncle’s message about a ship waiting for her at Inverness to take her to join her brothers in France, Rory sat down hard on the closest chair.
He remembered so clearly telling her that it was easy to take a boat from Beauly to Inverness. She had been adamant about going with him to Beauly to meet the Grants. And when he could not go, she went anyway.
Alex read a line scrawled in yet another hand noting the ship’s name, La Fleur, and today’s date with at dawn underlined twice. That explained why she could not wait another day and hope Rory could rearrange the rendezvous with Grant.
He had no doubt that she loved his son and would not have left until she delivered Kenneth safely to the Grants. But did she ever truly love him? Or did she just not love him enough to give up her chance at life in the French court for the dangerous and hostile world he had brought her to?
If she could persuade Malcolm to take her to Beauly, she could easily find an excuse to slip away from him long enough to find a fisherman who would take her to Inverness in exchange for a silver coin or a smile. Malcolm was probably still looking for her, afraid to face Rory until he found her.
But it was too late to catch her.
Sybil was gone.
CHAPTER 45
Sybil awoke hours later to what sounded like a moan.
“Is someone there?” she called out into the darkness.
When she heard another low moan, she crawled toward the sound, awkward on her forearms because her hands were still bound, until her fingers touched cloth. She reached out and felt a limb beneath the fabric. She had a fellow prisoner, and he appeared to be badly injured.
“Tell me where you’re hurt and what I can do to help you,” she said.
“My leg,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “I’ll die if we can’t stop the bleeding.”
“I’ll cut a strip from my gown.”
Hector’s men had taken the dirk strapped to her thigh. While she had been lost in self-pity and despair, she’d forgotten that she wore the ragged cloak from her long journey north. Quickly, she felt along the bottom of it until she found the small, thin blade Rory had insisted she hide in the hem for added protection.
Removing the blade was fairly easy, but sawing through the rope binding her wrists was a struggle. The poor man moaned again. She was taking far too long.
“I’ll help.” The voice that came out of the darkness was young and female.
“Please!” Sybil did not have time to ask questions.
Cold fingers found her hands and took the blade from her. As soon as her hands were free, she took the knife back and cut a long strip of cloth from the shift under her gown. The injured man had gone quiet, and she feared he had died on her.
“I can’t see.” She shook his arm. “Ye must show me where I should tie this on your leg.”
He guided her hand to the gaping wound on his thigh. She swallowed back her panic and sopped up the blood with the skirt of her gown as best she could.
“I’m Sybil, the MacKenzie’s wife,” she said to distract him from the pain as she and the girl worked together to bandage his wound. “Who are you?”
“Lùcas,” he croaked.
“Malcolm’s grandson?” Oh, God, he had not delivered the message. That meant the Grants had heard nothing except that Kenneth was dead. Tears filled her eyes as she remembered that the boy might truly be dead now.
“And you, lass?” she asked, trying to keep her voice steady. “Why does Hector have you here?”
“I’m Brighde, the wise woman’s granddaughter,” she said. “He’s told my grandmother he’ll give me to Big Duncan of the Axe unless she does what he says. But I believe he’ll do it no matter what she does.”
Nay, Sybil would not let this poor girl fall into Duncan’s hands. Nor would she let Malcolm’s grandson die here. It was time to stop wallowing in despair.
“The three of us are going to escape,” she said. “We just need a plan.”
***
“Quick, Brighde!” Sybil said when she heard the grate of the iron lock turning. “Help me retie my hands.”
Her heart pounded in her ears as she fumbled in the dark to find the longest piece of the cut rope. A shaft of light appeared at the top of the stairs. Somehow, the two of them got it tied, but she hoped her captors would not notice that the rope was shorter than before.
In the light from the guard’s torch as he came down the steps, Sybil saw the girl’s face for the first time and her heart clenched. The girl was young, not more than fourteen, and fair and pretty.
“We will get out,” Sybil whispered to give the girl hope just before the guard yanked her feet. Hope was a dangerous thing to lose.
A short time later, she stood alone in a room with Hector and Big Duncan. She squinted against the bright light of day as she took in the exquisite tapestries and French furniture.
Hector came toward her with his dirk pointed at her belly. She gasped as he flicked his wrist and the rope fell from her hands. After waving her into a chair, he handed her a cup of wine.
“Go ahead and drink,” he said. “I’m not a subtle man. If I decide to kill ye, it won’t be by poison.”
“How reassuring,” she said, and took a tiny sip.
“Tell me how it is that instead of Rory,” Hector said, leaning back in his chair, “I find his lovely Douglas bride dressed in rags and protected by just that tired old warrior Rory was so fond of.”
She swallowed at his mention of Malcolm, but she could not think about his death now. She needed to keep her wits sharp and decide how she would play this.
“Ye know I caught your messenger
, so I know Rory planned to deliver Grant’s grandson at Beauly,” he said. “Why wasn’t he there?”
“One way or another,” Duncan said when she was slow to answer, “you’re going to tell Hector what he wants to know.”
“Sadly, the lad drowned in the river yesterday,” she said. “Rory made me write that message saying he was still alive to buy time to prepare for an attack.”
If Duncan had found Kenneth and Grizel, they would know she was lying. She held her breath for a moment, half expecting to be cut down on the spot, then took a sip of wine to cover her pause.
“Then this morning,” she continued, “Rory rode off without a word to me.”
“Ha, I knew he would charge off to try to save the Munros,” Hector said. “I sent one of my men to make confession to Alex—when it was too late, of course.”
“We were already chopping off heads by then,” Duncan said, running his hand over his axe handle.
“On the chance I misjudged Rory, we rode to Beauly after our victory in hope of catching him off guard,” Hector said. “Which brings us back to the mystery of why we found you there.”
“There is really no mystery to it.” She turned her head to the side and blinked back tears. “They say we women are fickle, but it’s men who pledge their hearts and then cast us aside.”
“I’m not fond of riddles,” Hector said. “Speak plainly, lass.”
“Rory wed me because he was desperate to have me in his bed,” she said in a bitter tone. “Now that his lust has waned, he wants a marriage alliance with a powerful Highland clan more than he wants me. I know he intends to set me aside, so I’ve left him.”
She hoped her performance was persuasive. When she mentioned Rory, the tear that slipped down her cheek was real enough.
“Most women are foolish, but I hear you’re a clever one.” Hector leaned forward, his cold eyes piercing her like shards of ice. “I know you’re lying because I know who ye are and that you’ve no place to go.”
For the first time since the mysterious priest brought it to her, she remembered the message from her family and realized she could offer Hector proof for her false story.
CLAIMED BY A HIGHLANDER (THE DOUGLAS LEGACY Book 2) Page 30
