Rudolf halted. The perverse beast had put himself where Rudolf would have taken him. Perhaps he knew better, and Rudolf should return to the buildings. Reuniting properly with his horse could wait.
He returned to the yard between the longhouse, the kitchen and the stables. Only now did he see the new building, its fresh cut timber splintering his memories of this place. The barracks hall had not been here when he left, and its newness meant it could only have been built by Albans, for who else would construct a wooden barracks where a sod-roofed longhouse would do? The only Islanders who preferred timber were the men of Myroy, who didn't have enough sod for roofs, though they had plenty of trees.
The barracks did not belong, and they would burn, he huffed to himself.
Rudolf reached for his quiver. He stabbed his arrow point into a block of the soft, white, waxy substance that made it burn whatever it touched. He marched into the kitchen and thrust the arrow into the ashes, but the stuff didn't catch. Swearing, he found some pine needles in the box of tinder and threw them among the coals.
A wisp of smoke rose up. Throwing his arrow on the flagstones behind him, Rudolf dropped to his knees and blew the tiniest puff of air at the smoking needles. He held his breath for a moment, watching, praying...and then they caught, flames licking up them as if they wanted to swallow the needles whole.
Again he stuck the arrow in the heart, and this time, the flames gratefully accepted his offering. Rudolf hurried out side with his blazing arrow, knowing he needed to fire the thing before the stuff melted and set fire to the kitchen.
Outside, the sun blinded him for a moment. He turned, glared at the barracks, and let his arrow fly. No need to aim when his target was as big as a house. His arrow arced up and hit the roof, then disappeared, as if by magic. Rudolf's mouth dropped open. What in heaven's name had happened to his arrow?
Smoke curled out of a hole he hadn't seen before. Several holes, actually – arrow slits in the roof, he realised.
"What do you think you're doing, you stupid beast?" a female voice yelled behind him.
Rudolf whirled in time to see a redheaded woman sprint past him, carrying a broom. He followed her around the stable to the field where Hector had...ah.
"Get off her, you randy bastard!" she shouted at Hector, who was too busy servicing the mare to care.
"You're too late, he's probably already got her with foal by now," Rudolf called, more to protect his horse than anything else. He would not want to be interrupted while making love to a lady, though he'd have chosen a more private place than Hector had.
"Did you let that menace out?" The woman rounded on him.
"He would have kicked the door down if I did not," Rudolf said.
She snorted. "You try telling Portia that. Mache is her mare."
"Lina?" he ventured.
"Of course, you fool. Portia would've whacked you with the broom, not the bloody horse. First for being away so long, and then for letting the horse out. Then I think she might've burst into tears." Lina smiled. "What kept you, Rudolf? She's missed you so much."
"I serve at my king's command," he said simply. What more could he say? "Where is she, Lina?"
"If you were here sooner, I could say the loft." Lina pointed at the barracks building. Her eyes widened. "Why is there smoke?" She hurried toward it.
Rudolf grabbed her to pull her back. "Because it's on fire."
Lina wrenched out of his grasp. "Well, aren't you everybody's hero, then? First you let the horse out, and then you set fire to the barracks. What else have you done? If you bring the army down on this house, I will hit you with this broom."
Rudolf stared down at her eyes, as fierce as Portia's could be. He swallowed. "What if I told you the army is here to free Isla from the Albans?"
"So Keith was right." At Rudolf's blank look, Lina explained, "My husband. He's Father's steward, sending supplies to where he's fighting the Normans. He's seeing to a shipment of salt mutton, or he'd be here. Are you here to free Portia, too?"
From husbands to mutton to Portia, Rudolf wasn't sure if he could keep up. Especially with the barracks definitely on fire now – flames licked at the roof through holes that didn't seem so tiny any more.
"Where is Portia?" Rudolf asked again.
"He's taken her."
"Who?"
Lina sighed. "You've been away too long, Rudolf. Lord Mason, the Alban bastard who tricked Father and the other lords into hosting Donald's armies. He's an arrogant prick who pisses off anyone who hears him, but he works well with stone. He built himself a castle in the north, the sort of thing even the Normans would envy, or so 'tis said. You'll need an army to get in, and maybe not even then. That's where he's taken her."
"Where?"
Lina shrugged. "Some holy spot in the north, where the lords meet and drink so many barrels of ale they empty half our cellars."
"Council Island, on Loch Findlugan?" Rudolf asked, horrified. He didn't want to believe it. The Albans had built on the holiest site in the Southern Isles?
"That's the spot!" The fire crackled loudly behind her, seizing Lina's attention for the first time. "So you really are burning down Portia's barracks, are you? You're lucky she likes you. Her men built that, and kept her safe in the loft while the army was here. They won't take kindly to you when they see you've destroyed all their hard work."
"Are they with her?" If he could not be with her, at least someone kept her safe until he could be.
"Of course. They are her sworn men. She – " Lina stared. "Who in heaven's name is that ruffian?"
A man staggered up the street, dressed in stained rags. He looked like he'd been buried in a bog and clawed his way out again. "You have to help me!" he shouted. He fell to his knees at Lina's feet. "Don't let the Vikens get me. Don't!" He caught sight of Rudolf and crumpled into a sobbing heap on the ground. He pawed at Lina's boots. "You must do as I say, you ugly whore!" His words ended in a scream as his clothes started to smoke.
Rudolf dragged Lina back from the flames a second time as the man turned into a human torch. Only one person could have done this.
"Rhona!" he shouted.
Rhona strode up the street, looking supremely unconcerned. "He grabbed me, said some things that were not very complimentary, and tried to order me about. I set fire to his boots, and he ran off, so I thought that was the end of it. So when he did the same to this lady here, I figured he hadn't learned his lesson." She leaned over and spat on his smoking skeleton. "He was Alban, anyway. No loss. Oh, and he dropped this." She held up a large gold medallion, attached to a thick gold chain. "Probably stolen. Albans rob the dead on the battlefield. Keep it as a war trophy."
Rudolf wanted to say something, anything, but he couldn't seem to find the words. He'd killed many a man, but Rhona's cold-blooded slaughter seemed different, somehow. Despite the blaze behind him, he shivered.
Rhona regarded the burning building. "Ah, I'm not the only one who's been setting fires. Nice work, Rudolf. Perhaps you don't need me any more."
"I do," he blurted out. "The Albans have taken Portia to their castle in the north. On Loch Findlugan. The very heart of the isles. I need all the help I can get to free her from them."
Rhona gave him a long look. "I'll honour our agreement, if you'll do the same."
Rudolf bowed his head. "You know you have my word."
TWENTY-SEVEN
Loud hammering startled Portia out of sleep. "What is it?" she mumbled sleepily.
"Stay aloft, my lady," came Grieve's quiet response from below.
She heard the scrape and thunk of someone unbarring the door. "What's amiss?" Berrach rumbled.
"Tis the Wolf. He's landed on Isla, and she must be moved."
Fear trickled down Portia's spine. The Viken prince was here. The man who killed and burned everything in his way. Who would kill her men, burn this building like the woodpile it was, and when he got hold of her...Portia swallowed. Would he care about her claim, or see her as just another woman to rape?
"Seems to me there's more danger on the road than here," Grieve said.
"Perhaps, which is why we must move quickly, and under the cover of darkness. If we reach the castle by dawn, no one will be able to reach her. She will be safe behind my walls, I swear."
Mason. Their visitor was Mason, who sounded as frightened as Portia felt. Good. She hoped the Wolf raped him first, or at least ran him through so she could watch.
"My sister will be here tomorrow. We must wait for her. I cannot leave her for the Wolf," Portia called down.
Grieve tried to hush her, but Portia would not be silenced tonight. She shoved the ladder through the trapdoor and began to climb down. "You hush yourself, Lewisson. If I do not agree to go – "
"Then I will tie you to my saddle and carry you myself," Grieve finished for her. "I'm sorry, my lady, but your safety is more important than your wishes. Or your sister. We shall leave your things in the longhouse with a note for her to send them on. Pack only what you can carry, for if the Wolf is on Isla, then he is within a day's ride of here. We cannot defend you here with so few, but what I've heard of Mason's castle is such that it might be defended by ten men, for it is a formidable place. Dermot will wake the kitchen maids and the cook – they will come, too, for there will be no other women to keep you company otherwise."
Portia wanted to argue, but she knew he was right. So she glared at Grieve instead.
"You've been complaining for months about being a prisoner here, and how you never get to go riding. Don't you want to ride Mache?" Grieve coaxed.
"She's in heat. She'd bite anyone who tries to saddle her. I must leave a note for my sister, telling her not to let Mache get near any of the other horses until she settles. If she hurts Hector, Rudolf will never forgive me."
Grieve's shoulders relaxed. "Thank you, my lady. It would try me sorely to have to tie you to the saddle like a prisoner."
She smiled grimly. "Sore is right. I'd bite or stab anything I could reach. I'll not be thrown over any man's saddle without a fight."
"Aye, I know."
"Have the men prepare the horses. All but Hector and Mache. They must stay." For a moment, she hesitated. What if the Wolf hurt Hector? If he did, she would tell Rudolf what his countryman had done.
"You pack your things. I will take care of all else," Grieve said.
Back up the ladder Portia went. She bundled up some spare clothes and pulled on some boots. Everything else she owned went into the chest of her mother's that her men had brought from the longhouse for her. She lifted her bow and quiver. "What will happen to the things I leave?" she called down.
"A groom will take the wagon, and follow behind us. Whatever you want him to bring should arrive late on the morrow," Grieve said.
She shouldn't need to shoot anyone between now and then. She'd be inside the castle before it was light enough to see her target, surely. She dropped the bow and quiver in the chest and slammed the lid shut. "I'm coming down. 'Twill just take a moment to pen a note for my sister, and I will be ready." She dropped her cloak and bundle on the barracks floor and launched herself after them.
"My lady!" Grieve lunged forward to catch her.
Portia landed neatly on her feet without falling over. She grinned, proud of herself. "I'm not a flagon of mead. I don't break that easily. Do you think I'll be able to run in this castle you're taking me to, or is there a special dungeon prepared for me that's smaller than this one?" She'd never seen a castle, but envisioned it as a sort of stone version of her father's longhouse. Or his hall, maybe. She could run the length of the hall, at least.
Heber laughed. "Lady Portia, this is a castle. It's huge. There's a practice yard inside the walls, or so my cousin says."
His cousin had helped build it, so Heber should know.
"So there'll be space where I can practice shooting outside?" she asked hopefully.
"You shall see when you get there, my lady. Are you finished with your letter yet?" Grieve said.
Portia laid down her quill. "I am." She sent up a silent prayer for Lina's safety, and rose. "Let us go."
She fastened her cloak and took up her bundle as though this were an ordinary day, or night, but she couldn't stop the thrill she felt inside. She should be more frightened, but she was giddy at the thought of freedom.
In the harsh light of day, she could worry about the Wolf again and what he would do to her and Isla. Tonight, she intended to relish her first ride in longer than she liked to remember.
Her horse, a beast she did not know, sensed her excitement and pranced about like the animal had been locked up for too long, too.
"My lady, we must make haste!" Grieve said.
She grinned. "Haste, you say?" She squeezed the mare between her thighs and whispered a command, letting the horse have her head. The mare flew.
Startled shouts came from behind her as her men urged their horses to match her speed.
Portia laughed merrily. "I have not forgotten how to ride, boys. Have you? Let's see who reaches the castle first!"
Loch Findlugan was too far for a true race, but she held her own until she felt her horse growing tired and allowed her to slow. Her men caught up, muttering curses they normally would not voice. At least not around her.
"My lady..." Grieve began.
Portia turned innocent eyes on Grieve. "You did say we needed haste."
"That I did, but that's not something I need to remind you any more, I think. I wanted to show you that." Grieve seized her bridle and pointed.
From this height, she could see clear to Portnahaven...and what lay between. A sea of campfires, showing the sheer size of the Wolf's army. Thousands of men, surely. More than she'd ever seen, anywhere. Who could stand against an army like that?
"We do not stand a chance, do we? They will take what they want, and no one will stop them." Tears formed and fell. Tears for Isla, the precious island they would conquer.
They were already lost.
"Of course we do. We are the Southern Islanders, my lady. They may burn our homes, our harvest, our whole damn island, but our people will survive and rebuild. You will survive to lead them. I swear it." The same darkness that hid her tears concealed Grieve's expression, but Portia didn't need to see it to know.
"I don't want you to die for me, Grieve. Not you, not any of you."
His teeth glinted in the moonlight as he grinned. "Then you'd best pray the Wolf is a reasonable man who is willing to negotiate. After a week against Mason's walls, maybe he will be." He moved ahead to order their party into what he called a more defensible formation, before returning to her side.
The joy of the night-time ride began to pall sooner than Portia expected, but she did not complain. Anything to be out of her loft prison.
The sky was lightening as they approached the loch. Portia had not been here since she was a child, and she'd read and reread her mother's scroll on the history of this place so many times in captivity that she knew every word by heart. Here was the seat of the original lords of this land. Her ancestors, through her mother's line. Her mother's people had carved those standing stones, weeping sweat and tears as they dragged them into place to honour deities long dead.
Or perhaps not, for there was a holiness to this place that hung over it like fog. Maybe the old gods had made their last stand here, and were buried in the mounds that ringed the loch round. Here, she and her men would make their last stand, too, before she was forced to surrender Isla and likely her maidenhead.
But not yet. The Wolf would have to breach other walls first, and mighty walls they were, too. Her breath caught in her throat as she took in the enormity of what Mason had built. The castle covered Council Island, so the waters of the loch lapped at the walls. Not all the way around, but then it had not rained for days. The water level would soon rise, and hide the island again.
She began to believe that maybe, just maybe, there was some hope left.
Two boats waited to take them to their island home, and Portia sur
rendered her horse to a man she didn't know, who swore he'd take care of the mare before sending her home. She glanced at Grieve, who was doing the same with his horse. Time to trust his judgement, she decided, for she was too tired to think any more.
Her boat drifted under a stone arch topped by a spiky metal gate. It was open to allow her entrance now, but the heavy chains holding it in place spoke of how quickly it could be lowered to keep the world out.
Dermot helped her out, and Portia found she needed his assistance, for her legs ached after the unaccustomed ride.
"Guard her," Grieve said, directing the rest of his men to search the place.
Dermot and Cowal stood by her side, staring up at the high walls as avidly as Portia did.
"It's huge," Cowal breathed. "You'd need a dragon to get into this place."
Dermot laughed. "Didn't you hear? That dragon in Kasmirus is dead. Some knight slew it, and won himself a bride."
"As long as the Wolf doesn't have it. No one's sure how he manages to burn whole villages when it's pouring with rain. A dragon might do that."
"Someone would notice a honking great dragon in the isles by now!" Dermot scoffed. "If the Albans didn't see such a beast, then he doesn't have one. Maybe this Wolf is beast enough on his own."
Dermot and Cowal debated about how to beat wolves and dragons while Portia fought to stay awake.
"It's empty."
Portia blinked her eyes open. Damn, she'd fallen asleep on her feet. "Mm?"
"It's empty," Grieve repeated. "No one here but us. Now the servants are here, I shall shut the gate and you'll be safe, Lady Portia."
"Can I sleep?" she mumbled.
He laughed. "Yes, my lady. The men are preparing a pallet for you in the tower room. Tonight, I'll have a bed brought up, but now you may rest."
"Where's the tower?" she slurred, looking around.
"With your permission, my lady."
Portia had her legs swept out from under her as Grieve lifted her in his arms. If she'd had the strength, she'd have shouted at him to put her down. But she did not, so she settled back and told herself she'd tell him off in the morning.
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