She fought down her sympathy for the brother who had helped to keep her alive. It was a weakness that could make her do something extremely foolish, such as allowing him to capture her in the mistaken belief that he could continue to protect her and that it would save him from their father’s anger. Ainslee knew she had to think of herself now.
Holding her breath, she carefully inched back, away from the men searching for her. Her hiding place would not be safe for very much longer, and she had to find another. One of the men would soon see what a perfect hiding place it was. She nervously rolled up her blankets, hating to take the time, but knowing she was going to need them. Crouched as low as she could get while still being able to move with stealth and speed, she slipped out of the hedges and crept away.
A sense of panic began to choke her as she frantically searched for another hiding place or a way to elude all the men looking for her. Somewhere she had made a mistake, left some hint of a trail that one of the men had seen. As she approached a tiny clearing, she saw that across it lay wood so thick it would be easy to lose herself within it and leave no trail. She looked all around to be sure none of the men were at hand, that she had some small chance of making it across the clearing without being seen. Taking a deep breath to strengthen her wavering courage, she bolted toward the wood.
It did not really surprise her when a cry went up from the men. From the moment they had appeared to thrash the brush all around her, she had anticipated capture. Ainslee still cursed the fates which seemed determined to keep her from saving anyone at Kengarvey, including herself. She kept running, darting from side to side in an effort to elude the hands trying to grab her. Suddenly a horse loomed up in front of her, and she stumbled to a halt. When she saw her father glaring down at her, she panicked and ran, not caring where she was going, just that she escape her father.
She cursed when one of the men tackled her to the ground. It knocked all of the air from her lungs, stealing her ability to fight his hold. As he dragged her to her feet she caught a glimpse of Colin and George running her way, but she feared that this time Colin would be too late. Her father was riding her way, and he had his sword in his hand. She heard the man holding her whisper a curse, and realized that she was not the only one who believed her father was about to cut her down.
“Ye filthy little whore,” her father snarled as he reined in before her. “Did ye think to run back to your Norman stallion and tell him all he needed to ken so that he could destroy me?”
A courage born of a resignation to her fate made Ainslee say, “Fool! If I was going to my Norman, why have I run north? Canna ye open your drunken eyes enough to see where ye are?”
A soft cry of surprise escaped her when she was suddenly released and pushed away from the man holding her. She barely escaped the full blow of her father’s sword, and realized her captor had merely been trying to elude the murderous rage her father was in. Fighting to avoid the hooves of her father’s massive horse, Ainslee tensed for his next strike. The second one came so swiftly that she nearly fell, she had to move so fast to avoid it. The sound of her cape and dress ripping, the feel of the steel grazing her skin beneath the tears, told her how close death had come. She could hear her brothers shouting, but dared not take her eyes from her father. Her only hope of staying alive was to be quicker than his sword.
Even as she leapt to elude yet another swing of his sword, she was astonished to see all four of her brothers attack her father. They pulled the ranting man off of his horse, and, as George and Martin tried to hold the man down, Colin and William moved to flank her. Panting from fear and the efforts of staying alive, Ainslee was only able to stare at them all in stunned silence, tensely awaiting what would happen next.
“Bastards!” screamed Duggan as he thrust off his sons and stood up, his sword still in his hand. In a dangerous rage, he swung it at George and Martin, who danced out of its reach, then looked at Ainslee. “Ye are all traitorous bastards!”
“Ye canna kill your own flesh and blood, your own daughter, for sweet Jesu’s sake,” Colin yelled back, and he held his sword at the ready when his father took a threatening step toward him.
“And when did all of ye become so enamored of this stupid lass?” Duggan demanded, glaring at all of his sons.
“Whate’er we think of the lass doesna matter,” said Martin, his deep voice tight with fear and anger. “Ye canna kill her.”
“The laws of God and this land say I can do whate’er I wish to with the whore,” said Duggan, but he sheathed his sword. “She was trying to betray me.”
“I have spent a long time with the monks, Father, and nowhere was it written or said that ye have the right to murder your own child,” Colin said in a cold, calm voice. “If such a sin could be yours alone, I dinna believe we would all have the courage to stop you, but the blood would cling to our hands as weel, simply because we could have stopped it and did not. Ye may do as ye wish with your immortal soul, but we canna allow your fury to blacken ours as weel.”
Ainslee watched as her father fought back the fury that had inspired him to try and murder her in cold blood. She suddenly realized that it was not only Colin’s being a favored son which gave her brother that tiny bit of power over her father, but the fact that Colin had been with the monks and had been educated by them. Despite the multitude of sins her father had committed, despite the fact that he had little chance of salvation, Duggan MacNairn still held all the deep fears of the church and damnation so many others did.
“I want the lass locked up,” Duggan said in a cold voice.
“I will see that she is weel secured in her bedchambers,” Colin vowed.
“Nay,” snapped Duggan. “Throw the traitorous whore into the dungeons.”
“But, Father—”
“Ye heard me, son. Throw her in the dungeon. I willna have her creeping back to her Norman lover to betray all of us.”
Ainslee opened her mouth to defend herself yet again against the charge of treason to the clan, but Colin tightened his grip on her arm until she gasped. Despite her need to prove her innocence, if not to her father, at least to the others gathered around, she fell silent. Colin was right. It would set her father’s temper afire again, and this time she had come far too close to death to challenge that opinion.
Her other three brothers dared to cast her a sympathetic look as Colin dragged her to his horse. She thought crossly that, although they had stopped her father from cutting her down on the spot, they would do no more to aid her, so what good was their sympathy? It would not surprise her if they thought she had brought this down on her own head, and that they had done her a great service by keeping her alive. Rotting away in her father’s dungeons was not what she considered life.
To her relief Colin rode behind the others, despite her father’s constant glares. She did not wish to be in the midst of the men or very close to her father. Slowly, as they rode back to Kengarvey, despair and a deep pain began to seep through her fear and anger. It was hard to accept that her own father, the man whose seed had made her, would try to murder her. All the beatings had not brought that realization into her heart and mind as clearly as his attacking her with his sword.
“I always kenned that my father had no love for me, mayhaps for any of us, despite his claims that he loves you and his other sons,” she said to Colin as she slumped against him, her gaze fixed upon her father’s broad back. “I just ne’er realized that he hates me.”
“Nay—” Colin began.
“Aye. Dinna try to soothe my feelings with lies. The times he nearly killed me with a beating, one could at least assume that his fury made him blind to how badly he was beating me. When the mon is trying to take my head from my shoulders with a sword and needs to be held back by his own kinsmen, ’tis clear that he loathes me. I canna ignore it, yet I canna think why he should have such hate for me. I have done naught to the mon. Most of the time I have been alive, I have done my best to stay out of his way.”
“Ye ken t
hat father has little use for women.”
“Aye, save to make more sons and he has e‘en given that up, believing women canna e’en do that chore correctly. ’Tis not enough to explain it. His hasna gone about killing women, not that I ken anyway.”
Colin laughed, but it was not a pleasant sound. “Nay, although he has beaten a few near to death. I am sorry, Ainslee, but I long ago came to believe that your crime—the reason our father loathes you—is because ye are alive.”
She frowned as she glanced over her shoulder at him. “I dinna understand. I may have been but a bairn e’er our mother died, but I canna remember this hatred. I believe I was alive then, too,” she drawled, and Colin smiled crookedly.
“Aye, ye were, and so was our mother,” he added solemnly.
“He canna blame me for our mother’s death,” she whispered, shock and disbelief robbing her of her voice.
“Nay. The only thing our father loved about our mother was that she had a skill at producing live sons. That was shown when he fled Kengarvey and left her to face the Frasers. He kenned what fate that would mean for her.”
“So, if his hate comes from that black day, why was it born?”
“Because ye didna have the grace to die with your mother. Every time he looks at you, he hears the whispered condemnation of his cowardly desertion of her. He may not have loved her, but many another did. Any who hear how she died wonder how he could have left his wife and child to face the Frasers, who are weel kenned for their brutality and the way they kill everyone in a battle, warrior and bairn alike. Ye are a walking reminder of his shame.”
“I didna think our father felt any shame.”
“Nay, and I am not sure he actually feels he is responsible in any way for our mother’s death. Howbeit, the one thing he is feverishly protective of is his reputation for courage. There was no courage shown when he left her behind. If he could save himself, then he should have been able to save his wife and little daughter. Mother saved you.” Colin sighed. “When we returned to Kengarvey and he found you sitting amongst the ashes, he almost cut you down then and there, but Ronald and I stopped him. Ronald and I have continued to stop him. I had hoped that his hate would fade, but it has only deepened.”
“And one day neither ye nor Ronald will be around to stop him,” she murmured, and shivered when Colin offered her no reassurance of continued protection. “If I remain at Kengarvey, I am dead. Didna our sisters ken this?”
“Aye, they have always kenned that father loathes you, although they have never asked why.”
“Yet they have ne’er offered to take me into their homes, where I would be safe.”
“Aye, ye would be safe, but our sisters dinna think they would be, or rather that their men would be.”
“They canna think that I would try and steal their men or, weel, cuckold them?”
“Aye, they can and they do. Ainslee, ye understand honor and trust and all of that, for Ronald has taught it to ye. I only learned what little I ken from the monastery. Our sisters may not be as steeped in crime and sin as our father, but they have his heart and mind. They would rather ye die at our father’s hands than chance their husbands eyeing ye with lust.” He shrugged. “I am sorry, for I ken that this must hurt you, but mayhaps ’tis past time that ye knew a few truths.”
“All of ye have kenned this for all of these years, and yet I am still here? I can understand Ronald not taking me away, yet could none of ye help me flee? Unlike Ronald, ye have the freedom to go where ye please, and ye ken the safest way out of Kengarvey.”
“And that would be the surest way to cut our own throats. We may stop our father from killing you, Ainslee, but more than that and we truly risk our own lives. Aye, we may all be cowards, but the one lesson anyone learns weel at Kengarvey is how to stay alive.”
She fell silent, knowing that she could never convince him to help her escape. He had to make the hard choice of saving her or himself, and she could understand his decision to just try and keep them both alive. It terrified her though, for she knew now that no one would help her get out of the dungeon. She could not even hope for her father to have a change of mind, as the man obviously hoped that she would die in the dungeons, as so many others had.
It was almost sunset when they finally returned to Kengarvey. Ainslee was surprised at how far she had managed to travel in the dark and cold. Now, however, she knew that she would have failed, even if she had managed to reach her sisters. If everything Colin had said was true, and she had no reason to doubt him, then her sisters would have handed her back to her father. Steeped in sadness and a sense of hopelessness, she suspected that any of her kinsmen would have done the same. They may have turned their backs on Duggan MacNairn, but she was sure they still feared him.
When she was taken from Colin’s horse and dragged into Kengarvey, she fought to hide her fear. It did not help her when she was separated from Colin. He would still have put her in the dungeons as her father had ordered, but his presence would have given her some strength. If nothing else, she might have deluded herself into thinking that someone would remember her and, even if they would not free her, would keep her from dying in the damp bowels of the keep. The cold-eyed, barrel-chested man dragging her down to the dungeons would forget her the moment he shut the heavy iron door.
Despite all her efforts to show courage, Ainslee gave a soft cry of terror when the man shoved her into a damp cell and slammed the door. The musky air, the dark, and the damp chill all terrified her. From the earliest days of her childhood, she had understood that the dungeons of Kengarvey were where people were sent to die. She winced as her jailer turned the key in the lock, then closed her eyes and shuddered as she listened to him walk away.
Slowly she walked to the tiny board bed in the corner, and warily sat down on the rat-gnawed mattress. Ainslee fought the blind terror that tried to possess her heart and mind. She should at least wait a while before she went mad, she thought a little bitterly. Glancing around, the light from one torch in the wall too dim to allow her a clear view of anything, she could feel the ghosts of the poor souls who had been there before her, and wondered just how real they might soon become to her.
A tall, thin man entered the dungeons and sat on a hard stool opposite her cell. He said nothing to her, so she ignored him. She could not understand how her father could still be so concerned about her escaping that he would put a guard on her, for no one had left the cells beneath Kengarvey except to be carried to the graveyard. Ainslee also knew that the squint-eyed man watching her would do absolutely nothing to help her. He might well have been set there just to see how long it would take her to starve to death.
Ainslee shook away that dark thought, for it stirred up the terror she barely held in check. She had to fix her mind on something else, no matter how impossible that something was. If God would heed her prayers, she might survive, she might even escape, and this time she would head back to Bellefleur, and she might still be able to save some of her clan. And Gabel would soon come to Kengarvey, there was no doubt in her mind about that. She could only pray that he would come in time.
Seventeen
“There has been yet another fight between one of our men and one of the Frasers,” announced Justice as he strode into Ronald’s room without knocking, knowing that Gabel would be there.
Gabel cursed, rose from where he sat on the edge of Ronald’s bed, and began to angrily pace the room. Only a week had passed since he had spoken with the king and received his liege’s unsatisfactory command. He had barely dismounted in the bailey of Bellefleur three days later when the Frasers had begun to arrive. From the first moment Fraser’s hirelings and kinsmen had begun to gather, there had been trouble. One of his men had even been murdered, and his swift hanging of the guilty man, a distant cousin of Lord Fraser, had only made matters worse. Gabel dreaded the battle ahead, yet also ached to ride to Kengarvey. It would at least put an end to the turmoil and danger of having Bellefleur swarming with Frasers.
&nbs
p; “Was anyone hurt?” he asked as he paused by Ronald’s bedside table and helped himself to some mead.
“Nay,” replied Justice, waving aside Gabel’s silent offer of a drink. “A few bruises. Some of our men put an end to it just as the Fraser man drew a knife.”
“Ye have to get these mad dogs out of Bellefleur,” Ronald said as he eased himself up into a sitting position, wincing a little, but shaking his head when Gabel tried to assist him. “I dinna need help, laddie. It pains me some, but I can do it without hurting meself, and, if I dinna make meself move now and again, I will rot in this bed.” He sighed as he sank back against his pillows. “Those Frasers have been naught but trouble since the first one slithered through the gates three days ago.”
“I know,” agreed Gabel, sitting back down on the edge of Ronald’s bed. “I should have made them camp outside the walls, but I never thought they would cause this much trouble.”
“Ye arena witless, but too often ye do put too much trust in others, expecting them all to act as ye would. Canna ye throw them outside the walls now?”
“Nay, not without causing a grievous insult to Sir Fraser, and I dare not do that, not until I have settled the matter of Kengarvey to the king’s satisfaction.”
“Ye really believe that the king is displeased with you?”
“Not as deeply as I feared he would be, but, aye, he is displeased. His offer to give me Kengarvey and whomever I am able to save was not the gracious gift some might think it to be. He feels that all of the MacNairns are a curse, and that I will be sadly beset in trying to rule them. He also knows that both the Frasers and the MacFibhs covet the lands there. They are unhappy that I will gain Kengarvey, and they will cause me some difficulty. And let us not forget that there are other kinsmen to Duggan MacNairn besides the ones the king considers outlaws. They too will think I have usurped what is rightfully theirs. Aye, ’tis a reward, but one carrying a few hard curses with it.”
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