Highland Avenger

by Julie Johnstone

  “Stop it!” she shouted when Aros lashed one of the boys again.

  A tall man with blond hair stood beside Aros and frowned at Eve when she spoke. “Silence, woman,” the man said. “Ye have nae been given permission to speak.”

  Aros glanced at her then, rage twisting his features. “Dunnae fash yerself for these lads, Eve. They are our enemies. That one,” he said, kicking the back of the smaller boy who had curly red hair, “is a worthless MacLorh. And this one—” he pointed to the bigger lad with wavy brown hair who had just been lashed “—is a Fraser. His traitor brother has captured my father.”

  The Fraser lad appeared to be no more than thirteen or fourteen summers, and he looked over his shoulder to glare at Aros. The glare was not as effective as it might have otherwise been, given the unshed tears that filled the boy’s eyes. “My brother is nae a traitor! He’s loyal to the King of Scotland. Ye’re the traitor, ye filthy coward.”

  “Ye squeal just like yer older brother did before his head was lopped from his body,” Aros taunted.

  She tried not to gasp. He raised the whip to lash the boy once more. This time, the lad did not utter a sound, but his face went white, whether from rage, pain, surprise, or a combination of the three, Eve was uncertain. All she knew was the lads would likely be killed if she did not think of some way to stop Aros.

  “My liege,” she said, forcing herself to take on a placating tone. “Could you not trade these boys for your father?”

  Aros did not spare a glance for her but continued to whip the boys. “I dunnae need boys to aid me in getting my father back. I’ll storm the damn Fraser castle, kill Grant Fraser, and secure my father’s freedom,” Aros roared, almost in a frenzy now.

  Bile rose in Eve’s throat at the exhibition of such hatred. She swallowed, feeling shaky. When the redheaded lad suddenly slumped forward and went limp, she knew she had to do something drastic to make Aros listen to her. A glance around at his gathered men, who looked too fearful to speak to their leader at all, told her that none of these cowards had the courage to utter a protest on behalf of these lads.

  “Aros, please,” she begged, but he ignored her and continued to lash the Fraser lad, whose back was looking more horrid by the breath. What could she say? What would get Aros’s attention? Suddenly, she knew, and she blurted, “I will willingly wed you if you will but stop lashing the lad! I cannot stand it!”

  Immediately, Aros drew the whip down and turned to her. “The lass has a gentle heart.”

  She nodded, even as thoughts of killing this man before her ran through her mind. It was a very good thing he could not see into her heart at the moment. “I cannot abide others being hurt—even ones loyal to the wrong king,” she added as an afterthought. She did not know enough about the political happenings of Scotland and England to make an informed decision on whom she believed should sit upon the Scottish throne, but it seemed to her that a Scot should rule his own country and not King Edward, who had all of England with which to content himself. Needing to reign over both Scotland and England seemed greedy to her. Still, she would withhold her decision as to where she would align her men and her castle, until she was well-versed on the political landscape and honor of both men.

  “I appreciate yer kind heart, lass,” Aros said, swiping his hand across the perspiration on his brow, which the wretch had gotten from his efforts in lashing the lads, “but it’s best to kill one’s enemies so they kinnae conspire against ye, as my father always says.”

  Eve wanted to snap at Aros and tell him to think for himself. He was like an obedient dog to his father, it seemed, but she bit her cheek on the urge. “I will not ever willingly wed you if you kill these lads or harm them any more. I cannot in good conscience bind myself to a man who would harm innocent young boys. They cannot help the crimes of their families any more than you can help the evils done by yours,” she finished, daring to speak so close to her inner thoughts. He looked thoughtful for a moment, as if contemplating her words. She needed to press the seeming advantage while she still could. “This castle your father is being held at—”

  “Dithorn,” Aros supplied.

  “Is it well fortified? Situated in a way that would make it easy to breach?” She could tell from the uneasy looks exchanged by his men that the castle must be very difficult to attack successfully.

  “I will spare the filth,” he said, motioning to the boys. “But only because it pleases ye, and I wish to content my soon-to-be wife.”

  What a liar this man was. He spared the boys because he finally saw the wisdom in using them to trade for his father. She forced a smile, though it made her face feel as if it would crack in two. She had saved the lads and doomed herself. She prayed she would find a way to escape.

  “Truss the boys like the pigs they are,” Aros demanded, and then to her grim astonishment, he held his hand out to her. “Ye shall ride with me today.”

  Left with little recourse but to agree, she inclined her head and soon found herself upon Aros’s destrier with the man pressed firmly against her. He captured the reins with one hand while slipping the other tightly about her waist. “Little bird, ye have made me happy this day.”

  “I’m glad,” she lied through gritted teeth.

  “Soon, I will rule yer castle, and ye will give me sons.”

  “And if I were to give you only daughters?” she asked, thinking of her and her sister, and then recalling her mother telling her of the grand feasts her father had ordered on the days they each had been born. Her father had not cared a whit that her mother had not given him sons. He was simply thrilled to have children of his blood with her mother.

  “Daughters are good for gaining me more land, but I require sons, so you will give me sons. And if you cannot, I’ll take another to my bed who will.”

  “You would have a bastard?” She was surprised that he’d suffice with a child not of wedlock, though she was not surprised to hear he’d take another to his bed.

  “Nay, I’d nae have a bastard.”

  She frowned. “But you just said…” Her words trailed off as she realized what he was implying. He would kill her if she did not give him sons. Never, never would she wed this man. “’Tis good to understand the value you place on a wife,” she snapped.

  “I place the same as any man, Lady Eve. Ye will come to ken that, the more ye see of the world.”

  Was he right? Had her father been the exception in how he had loved her mother and truly valued her? Eve squeezed her eyes shut as the horses began to gallop, and fuzzy, long-forgotten memories of her parents played through her head. She had known since the day she’d been named heir that men would want her for her inheritance, but she’d believed that one day, she would meet a man who would want her more for her than her castle. Perhaps it had been a foolish hope. Perhaps, she would be better served to hope to find a man who would be honorable and strong enough and cunning enough, to defend her castle. The thought of having to give up on love left her feeling bleak, but when she heard a whimper to her left and opened her eyes to see the smaller of the two lads groaning upon his horse, she buried her ebbing despair.

  She was an heiress with responsibilities. She needed to escape, and then she needed to secure a strong, honorable husband, who, God willing, wanted her more than the castle. A desperate ache to hear Clara’s counsel, to feel her warm, comforting arms around her shoulders, pierced Eve. Thank God above, it had not occurred to Aros to take Clara with them to use her to get Eve to acquiesce to whatever he demanded. For now, Clara was safe, and Eve would do whatever it took to ensure her friend remained that way.

  Eve reached out in the dark for the lads who had just been shoved to the ground beside her. No one had tents this night. They’d galloped across the countryside all day, and Aros had ordered his men not to make camp, as they would be riding again in a few hours. Eve and the lads had been left by a tree with a guard close enough to see them if they tried to flee but not so close that he could hear them if they whispered. In the
distance, a fire flickered, and Eve could just barely make out silhouettes of men huddled around it. Aros had claimed he was thoughtful, but his supposed thoughtfulness did not extend to warmth this night for her or the boys. For herself, she did not care, but one of the lads was violently trembling while the other hissed when he breathed.

  She scooted across the damp grass and tree roots toward the boys, her heart aching for them. “Shh,” she said, patting one of their shoulders.

  “I’m nae weeping,” came a stubborn young voice. “That’s Allisdair. He’s younger than me.”

  “I’m nae weeping, either,” protested the other boy. “I’m sucking air in slowly. ’Tis different. ’Tis manly.”

  Eve had to smile at the bravery the two were determined to display.

  “Lean against me, both of you,” Eve instructed, knowing they must be exhausted and in pain.

  Immediately a head came to her left shoulder and a solid weight settled against her. The smell of sweat and dirt filled her nose, as well as the scent of blood. She frowned, wishing she had something to ease the pain the lads were likely in. She didn’t have to wonder long which boy had laid his head against her because Allisdair gulped in air.

  “I’m nae weeping,” he assured her again. “But my back does ache.”

  “Aye,” the Fraser lad said. “Allisdair is nae a cry baby, or I’d nae be his friend. But ye do need to quit sucking in air like that as if ye are going to cry,” the Fraser lad chided.

  “I was hit longer and harder than ye were, Thomas,” Allisdair objected.

  Thomas shook his head. “Ye were nae. I simply dunnae suck air because Fraser men dunnae show weakness.”

  Eve bit her lip on the desire to laugh at the exchange between the two boys. “Who told you that, Thomas? Your laird?”

  “His brother Simon always said that,” Allisdair supplied between sniffles.

  “Simon’s dead,” Thomas said numbly. But Eve heard the boy shift several times beside her, and she suspected he was working very hard to hold in his emotions so that neither she nor his friend would see him upset.

  “Thomas, won’t you rest your head on my shoulder?” she asked.

  “Ye’re a Sassenach,” Thomas replied, as if that one sentence explained everything.

  Eve frowned into the darkness. “And you don’t like the English?” She considered her own long-held opinion that Highlanders were barbarians. Aros surely was, but these two lads seemed nice.

  “Yer king just killed my brother,” Thomas supplied in that same emotionless tone.

  “Aros told us that the king ordered Simon’s head removed,” Allisdair bit out, his voice rising with emotion.

  “Not so loud,” Eve cautioned them in a fierce whisper. So Thomas had just learned his brother had been killed. “How did you two come to be in the woods outside your clans’ borders?”

  “We disobeyed the king,” Allisdair whispered. “King Robert ordered us to go straight to the Fraser holding, but we wanted to help save Simon.”

  She nodded slowly. “To help whom save your brother?”

  “My other brother…Grant,” Thomas said, his voice hitching as if he’d shoved past great emotion that he was holding in. “Grant insisted we were too young to aid him and that we would hinder him and Ross.”

  “Who is Ross?” Eve asked, trying to keep up.

  “Ross is my elder brother,” Allisdair supplied, pride clear in his tone. “He’s going to be livid when he sees me.”

  “For disobeying?” Eve asked.

  “Aye, and for getting caught. And he’ll kill Aros for whipping me.”

  “If we ever see our family again,” Thomas muttered. “I dunnae trust Aros. He’s worse than an Englishman; he’s a traitor to all Scots.”

  Eve pressed her fingers to her temples. She had a pounding ache in her head. “You will see your family. I vow it. Aros wants very much to wed me, and he understands I will not willingly say the vows if he harms you.”

  “He loves ye verra much?” Allisdair asked.

  “No,” she said, sighing. “He—” She stopped. She’d spent her life avoiding telling people who she really was so that evil men would not try to capture her and force her to wed them, but it no longer mattered. She had been captured by an evil man, and unless she could get free, she would be forced to wed him or she’d be killed. She did not want to die, and she did not want to wed Aros. Somehow she’d have to escape, but she could tell these lads who she was. She’d never see them again. They’d be traded, and she’d hopefully be far away soon after ensuring they were safe. And then she would make her way to her uncle in the borderlands. “He wishes to wed me so that he may gain Linlithian Castle, to which I’m the heiress.”

  “Why did ye say ye would wed him, then?” Allisdair asked, bemused.

  “Ye’re such a clot-heid sometimes, Allisdair. She said she’d wed him to save us. Did ye nae?” Thomas asked, turning to her.

  “I did, but don’t you worry for me. I will escape somehow, once I know you two have safely been returned to your brothers.”

  Beside her, Allisdair yawned loudly and leaned more fully into her. Eve started humming a tune that Clara had always hummed for her, and soon, the boy became limp against her. Eve lowered his head to her lap and brushed her hands through his locks. It was not long before she could feel the rise and fall of his chest and then heard his snoring.

  “You must be tired, as well,” she said to Thomas, who was staring up at the sky, silent.

  “Nay, I’m a Fraser man.”

  She smiled at that. Thomas was hardly yet a man, but she would not be the one to tell him so. “Fraser men don’t get tired?” she asked, teasing him just a bit in hopes to ease his pain.

  “We do, but we dunnae show it.”

  “What do Fraser men show?” She was truly curious as to what principles this boy had been raised to embrace.

  “Honor. Allegiance. Courage. Je suis prest.”

  She had to admit, those first three codes were good ones. She tried to adhere to them, as well. “What does ‘Je suis prest’ mean?”

  “I am ready,” he replied. The wobble in his voice betrayed doubt that he was certain that he was indeed prepared.

  “What are you ready for, Thomas?” she asked softly.

  “Vengeance… I’m certain my brother Grant will avenge Simon, and I will aid him, as will all the warriors in my clan. I—” He paused, and she heard him audibly swallow, but the grief that she imagined had been rising in him since he’d learned of his brother’s death could not be held back. Very quietly he sniffled, and she suspected, he was quietly crying.

  She touched his leg and squeezed it, offering silent support. After a moment, the sniffling ceased and he drew a shuddering breath. “I should nae have done that,” he said solemnly.

  She pressed her lips together on responding right away. It was obviously very important to him to appear unaffected. She understood that. Still, she asked, “You should nae have done what?” She hoped he understood that she would never tell a soul, though he hardly needed to worry since they would soon be parted.

  “Cried,” he said. “I’m sorry I judged ye, too. Ye may be Sassenach, but ye’re verra honorable. Like a Highlander.”

  “That’s quite all right,” she said, wincing as she thought of the judgments she’d made about Highlanders. So far, they’d proven to be correct, except for Thomas and Allisdair. But they were only lads and had not yet had time to be made into unscrupulous savages.

  “Ye dunnae like Highlanders?” he asked carefully.

  “I like you and Allisdair,” she reassured him.

  “Aye, I ken, but why do ye dislike Highlanders?”

  She told him of her parents and her sister being killed, and how she had been kidnapped herself but had escaped. She also told him of her time in the convent.

  When she finished, he said, “Just because the men who took ye had Scottish accents dunnae mean they were Highlanders. They could have been Lowlanders.”

  “We
ll, Clara seemed to think their accent sounded of a Highland bent. It’s of no matter. I should not have judged a whole group of people based on that. You’re a Highlander, and you seem to be a very honorable, brave lad.”

  “I’m nearly a man,” he boasted.

  “Yes, of course,” she said as solemnly as she could. “But even men need sleep. Why not rest your eyes?”

  “I…” He hesitated, and she heard him audibly swallow once more. “I’m scairt,” he whispered so softly it took her a moment to process what he’d said.

  “I promise not to let anything happen to you so long as I draw breath. You have my vow as a Decres.”

  His face scrunched up. “Women give vows?”

  His astonishment made her laugh. “Yes, we do.” Though her knowledge of the rest of the world was admittedly limited, she felt certain there were other women out there who made vows to protect others.

  He held out his hand to her. “I dunnae have my dagger, because Aros took it, but clasp my hand?” She did as he asked because his tone had become serious. “My brothers always said that when ye form an alliance ye must offer something in return.”

  “I see,” she said slowly. His brothers certainly did sound like honorable men. Her heart broke thinking one of them had been killed.

  “Ye are giving me yer protection this night, so I vow ye have mine.”

  “Thank you,” she said, leaning toward him and giving him a quick hug. The lad would soon be gone and forget all about her, no doubt, but she appreciated this moment. If she could only meet a man who had the same true heart as this lad, one not yet corrupted by greed, then maybe love could be hers.