by Amanda Scott
“You are mistaken,” Lady Percy said urgently. “We know nothing!”
With a sneer, he said, “We’ll begin with the lass. You will not like hearing your daughter scream, madam. I shall begin by giving her just a little pain, but I’ll wager that if she tolerates that without talking, she will not hold out long against more of the same pain you gave her when you bade her farewell.”
“No!” Lady Percy rushed at him, catching Colson off guard. The man-at-arms leaped to grab her, but he was not quick enough to do so before she flew at Donald, raking his cheek with her fingernails, drawing blood.
Donald caught her arms, twisting them hard as he flung her away. When she landed in a heap near the hearth, Molly turned to run to her, but Donald caught her, his hand gripping her arm so tightly that she knew he would leave bruises.
“Colson, pick Lady Percy up and see that she watches closely whilst I question the lass. I believe her ladyship will quickly remember which key she branded her with and where she hid it afterward. I’ll acquit you of knowing what that key will open, my lady, but only because I believe Angus would long since have forced you to tell him anything you knew. Since it is patently obvious that he did not, perhaps he never learned about that mark.”
“I tell you, I know nothing that can help you,” Lady Percy cried.
“One of you knows something,” he retorted harshly, “and the quickest way to learn which of you it is, is to question the lass. I don’t doubt she could watch you suffer pain without blinking an eye, since she scarcely knows you, and her last memory of you is painful, but you are still her mother, are you not?”
“Oh, please, sir, do not!”
He was still holding Molly tightly, but she was frantically looking around the hall in search of a weapon to aid her. Surely, there must be something. Even as the thought crossed her mind, a glint of light sparkled on the handle of the dirk Donald wore in the sheath on his belt. She eyed it obliquely. Did she dare take it?
Donald was watching the other two. Lady Percy continued to argue with him as she struggled in Colson’s grip, and Colson had all he could do to hold her.
No one was looking at Molly.
Slowly, carefully, she inched a hand toward Donald’s dirk. Only the two men remained in the hall, but she had no illusions. Even if she and Lady Percy managed to incapacitate them, many more of Donald’s men were outside; however, she decided to worry about that only if the need arose. Fixing her attention on the dirk, edging her hand toward it, she shifted her body slightly to conceal what she was doing from Colson.
Her hand touched the hilt of the dagger.
They were still arguing. She paid no heed to what they said, even when she heard Lady Percy cry out as if Colson had hurt her. She dared not listen or look. She had to keep her attention on the dirk. Giving a slight tug, she found that it moved easily, more easily than she had dared hope.
A sudden silence filled the chamber.
Quick as thought, Molly snatched the dirk from its sheath and turned its point toward Donald’s side.
“Release me,” she snapped, “and step away!”
He did not obey, merely raising his brows as he said lightly, “You do not look like much of a killer to me, lass.”
“I nearly killed you once before,” she reminded him.
“Aye, from a distance and with an arrow. But had it not been for my own foolishness in yanking it free, you’d have done me no great harm. As it was, the bleeding stopped more quickly than I had any right to expect. I doubt that you have the nerve to plunge that blade into living flesh.”
“Don’t tempt me,” she said, hoping she sounded more sure of herself than she felt. “I am perfectly capable—”
She cried out when he grabbed the hand holding the dagger. She heard Lady Percy shriek again but she was too busy struggling with Donald to see what the others were doing. Her very determination to prevent him from taking the dagger seemed to give her strength she had never known before. Suddenly, she had both hands on the hilt, although how she had freed the one from his grip she did not know. Slowly, ever so slowly, she forced the point inward again, toward him.
Strong hands grabbed her from behind, and shrieks and shouting echoed all around her as Lady Percy and Colson joined the struggle. Colson’s enormous hand smacked down atop hers on the hilt of the dagger. Then Molly was free, spinning away from Donald.
She landed hard on her backside on the floor.
The two men leaped apart, still facing each other, and as they did, Lady Percy crumpled to the floor between them. Bright red blood oozed through her clothing from a wound in her side.
Molly stared at her in shock, willing herself to move, finding that she could not. Her legs and feet felt as if they had turned to wood.
“No,” she moaned as tears poured down her cheeks, and whatever held her let go. Flinging herself down beside her mother, she clutched at her and pressed her hand against the wound. “Don’t die,” she cried. “Not now, not here!”
Donald caught her and wrenched her upright. “So you do care, do you?” he said, giving her a shake. “Not that it matters. The way she’s bleeding, she’ll not live long, and I’ ll soon send you to join her if you don’t tell me what I want to know.”
“You murderer! I wouldn’t tell you anything even if I did know!”
“We’ll begin by having these rags off you, I think,” he growled, jerking her around to face him and grabbing the front of her shift with both hands through the torn bodice. “I want to see the imprint of that key.”
“If you do, it will be the last thing you see in this world before you enter the next,” Kintail snapped from the rear of the hall.
Astonishment, delight, and relief surged through Molly as she whirled to reassure herself that Fin was really there.
He stood in the doorway, sword unsheathed and at the ready, his rage making him look larger and more dangerous than ever. Two men flanked him, and such was her delight at seeing him that she nearly failed to recognize them. One was Tam Matheson. The second, to her amazement, was Thomas MacMorran.
Colson whipped his sword from its sheath, held it up, and stood balanced on the balls of his feet, waiting for a command from his master.
In that brief silence, Molly heard Lady Percy give a shuddering gasp. The sound chilled her and tied knots in her stomach. Was it possible that she had found her mother only to lose her forever?
Terrified, she wanted to pull away, to run to her, but she dared do nothing to distract the men lest one of them act in haste or folly. Only when Donald released her and stepped away to draw his sword did she rush back to Lady Percy, and even then, she did not take her eyes from Donald, fearing he might turn his sword on them, might even be so dastardly as to use them as his shield.
He was paying them no heed, though. His gaze was fixed on Fin. “Have you defeated all my men, then?” he demanded.
“We have,” Fin said. “They await you in yonder courtyard.”
“They can continue to wait till I have dealt with you, sir,” Donald said. “Or are you such a coward that you will not fight me?”
Molly, kneeling now beside Lady Percy, glanced at Fin to see that he was watching her, apparently unconcerned that Donald had spoken to him.
“Art safe, sweetheart?” he said gently. “Aye, sir,” she said, swallowing hard. “He did not hurt me.”
“Who tore your gown?” His tone was edged now, ominous.
She dampened dry lips, not wanting to tell him, knowing that she would feel responsible for Donald’s death if she named him for such a deed.
“I tore it,” Donald snapped. “If you don’t like it, do your worst!”
“Tell your man there to surrender,” Fin said. “Mine are two to his one, and they will show him no mercy if he challenges them.”
“And if I win?”
“If you win, you and your men can go free, for I will be dead.”
“And the lass will be mine again, as will her fortune?”
“Which
is why you will not win.”
“Why should I trust you?” Donald demanded. “What is to keep your men from killing me after I’ve killed you?”
“My word is good,” Fin replied curtly. “You should know that, Sleat, although the fact that you doubt it makes me wonder if you have any sense of honor at all. Not that it matters now,” he added. “You won’t suffer the lack much longer. Now, tell your man to stand down.”
“Put away your sword, Colson,” Sleat said.
When Colson had sheathed his weapon, Fin said, “Tam, take him out to join the others. The lad tending the injured woman can stay.”
Bewildered, Molly looked at Fin, then at the equally baffled Tam, wondering what “lad” Fin was talking about. Donald and Thomas looked confused, too.
But Fin was unaware, for he went right on speaking to Tam. “When you’ve seen to that chap, come back so that Sleat does not attempt to strike down Thomas if he does succeed in besting me. If he wins fairly, your only task is to see that our men leave this place safely and with my honor intact. Is that clear?”
“Aye, master,” Tam said, glancing uncertainly again at Molly.
She returned her attention to Lady Percy. “Please do not die, madam,” she murmured, stroking her cheek. “All will yet be well. The bleeding is slowing, so mayhap the wound is not as deep as I’d feared, or it missed vital organs.”
The stertorous gasping continued.
The sudden clash of steel on steel startled her even though she had expected it. She turned to watch, fearfully.
Both men were strong and quick, wielding the cumbersome weapons as if they weighed half what they did. Each time the swords crashed together, Molly held her breath, but she was certain from the first what the outcome would be. Fate would not be so cruel as to take Fin Mackenzie from her just when she had come to appreciate him, to admire him—nay, to love him with all her heart.
That thought startled her as much as the first clash of swords had.
Fin slipped on a slick flagstone, and she tensed as Donald leaped in for the kill, but even as Fin was going down, he managed to parry the stroke and recover his footing. After that, the end came swiftly with no quarter asked or granted. A final, slashing stroke from the shoulder, ending in an upward cut to the neck, and the thing was done.
Molly turned from the awful sight as Donald crumpled to the floor, his head nearly severed from his body.
Fin flung his sword aside and rushed to her, and she was on her feet before he reached her, throwing herself into his arms.
“Oh, thank the Fates that you are safe, but how did you get in?” she cried.
“I found a secret tunnel,” he said. “Are you certain he did not hurt you?”
“I’m sure. He threatened to make me tell where my fortune lies hidden, and that frightened me, because I could not tell him what I do not know. But then you came, and he—” She broke off, burying her face against his chest, not minding in the least that her cheek pressed against the hard chain mail under his baldric.
His arms tightened around her, and they stayed like that for a long, satisfying moment. Then his hand clasped her chin and gently tilted it up, and his warm lips claimed hers.
She responded at once with a sigh, but the kiss was all too brief, for she remembered her injured mother and stirred to pull away.
At the same moment, he released her, saying, “We must tend to Lady Percy.”
Thomas MacMorran was already kneeling beside her, and when Fin spoke, he looked up at them and said, “She’s been stabbed, laird.”
“Aye,” Molly said, “and it was all my fault. I took Donald’s dirk whilst he argued with her, and when he grabbed it and tried to twist it from my hand, she leaped in to help me and he stabbed her. Is she going to live, Thomas?”
“I canna say, my lady. She’s bled a great deal, but the bleeding ha’ stopped now. Time will tell the rest.”
“Where is the lad who was tending her earlier?” Fin asked.
Thomas looked at him and shook his head. “I saw nae lad, laird.”
“Nor I,” Molly said. “Well, I saw him,” Fin said firmly. “A small man, quite small, in fact.”
A prickling sensation stirred along the back of Molly’s neck. “How did you find the tunnel, sir? I did not know that Dunsithe boasted such a thing.”
“There was a plump little woman,” he said. “She beckoned to me, and I followed. Then, somewhere in the tunnel, she disappeared. I feared we might be walking into an ambush, but we came to a door that opened into a corridor, and from there, we were able to steal up on Sleat’s men from behind. After that, it was quick work, but I never saw that woman again. I don’t know where she went.”
“I think you must have seen Maggie Malloch,” she said quietly. “She has told me that because you have the gift of second sight, you can see her people but only if you allow yourself to do so.”
“Maggie Malloch is the name she gave me, lass, but who is she?”
“She is the same Maggie who told me the mark on my breast will fade away in time,” Molly said. “She calls herself a household spirit, a sort of benevolent fairy. She and her son, Claud, have followed me since I left Dunsithe. The ‘lad’ you saw earlier, tending my mother, may have been Claud. They seem to have some special healing power, so perhaps she will live, as you did when you fell from your horse, and as Thomas did after the arrow struck him, and Donald after I shot him.” She frowned and then added thoughtfully, “If you can see Maggie and Claud, perhaps they can help us find my fortune.”
“I am not sure that, even now, I’m ready to believe in fairies,” Fin said, smiling. “As to your fortune, though, perhaps I do know something about that.”
“But how could you?”
“Coming through the tunnel, we passed two large chests. I’ll wager we’ll find that they contain what everyone has sought here for so long. Would you like to see them? Thomas can watch over your mother. He can help her as much as anyone can, and Tam will return any moment.”
“I’m here, laird,” Tam said from the doorway.
“Help Thomas carry Lady Percy to the settle and see if you can find some blankets to cover her,” Fin ordered. “My lass and I are going to see if this fortune of hers is mythical or real.”
Molly said, “Find her a pillow or some cushions, Tam, and see if you can find someone who knows about healing. In truth, sir,” she added to Kintail, “I’ll not feel right leaving her just to look for that blighted treasure. I know you want to find it, but—”
“Nay, lass, it can wait. I suggested it only—”
“The treasure? Molly’s fortune?” To their amazement, Lady Percy sat up on the settle as soon as Tam and Thomas set her down on it.
“Mercy,” Molly exclaimed, running to clasp her hand and peer anxiously into her face. “Have you recovered so quickly, madam?”
Smiling lovingly at her, Lady Percy said, “I remember flinging myself at Donald to keep him from harming you, and then feeling a sharp pain.” She looked down at herself and fingered the bloody rent in her gown where the dirk had pierced it. “His blade cannot have done much damage, though, for I feel no pain now, I promise you. What’s this you were saying about the treasure?”
Fin said, “My men and I entered this castle through a tunnel. Do you know aught of such, madam?”
“A tunnel? Nay, sir, I do not, but they say that Dunsithe conceals many secrets. Do you think you can find this tunnel again?”
“Oh, aye,” he assured her. “If you have truly recovered, we’ll look now.”
“Indeed, sir, I must see this, and pray, call me Nell, for we are all family now.” To their surprise, she got to her feet, shook out her skirts, and seemed to be completely healthy again.
Her swift recovery delighted Molly and told her that whatever Fin might think to the contrary, Maggie and her minions had taken a hand in the game.
Fin led the way out of the great hall and down a corridor that appeared to end in a wall of solid stone. To her astonishment,
he walked up to the wall and reached around the side of the largest stone. Gripping it, he pulled, and like a door, the whole stone wall swung silently toward them, revealing a gloomy tunnel, like an extension of the corridor. It led into eerie darkness.
“Will we not need torches?” Molly asked.
“We’ll send for some later if we do need them,” Fin said. “First, though, I want you to see it the way we did, if you can. The walls seemed to glow, but everything here has been so odd that I do not know if they will do so now or not.”
Pulling the great stone door shut behind them, he said, “Wait until your eyes adjust. If it is as it was before, we’ll see our way easily.”
“I never even heard rumors that this tunnel existed,” Nell said. “In sooth, I do not remember that stone corridor approaching its entrance.”
“It has been over a decade since you were here,” Fin reminded her.
“True, and the whole castle looks different now that it is no more than stone walls and floors and a few rough benches and tables.” She sighed.
Molly had been staring into the distance ahead, scarcely heeding their conversation. “Look,” she said. “The walls and floor do glow.”
“Follow me,” Fin said, taking the lead. “The chests lie not far from here.”
In minutes, they reached the two large, dusty, ironbound chests. Molly bent swiftly to the first one.
“It is locked,” she said. “Since we do not have a key, we’ll have to break it open, and it is too heavy for us to carry back into the hall. I cannot even shift it.”
“Likely, the key is one of that bunch on the wall above it,” Fin said.
“Where?” Molly and Nell said as one. “Here,” Fin said, reaching past them to touch a place on the wall.
Molly saw nothing but the rough-hewn stone of the passage wall. “There’s nothing there,” she said as he pulled his hand away, looking bewildered.
“But I can see them,” he protested. “It is a large bunch of keys like a chatelaine that one’s wife or housekeeper would carry at her kirtle. I see them, but when I try to touch them, I touch only wall.”
