Highland Thirst

by Hannah Howell

  “Nay,” she said, putting as much authority into her voice as possible, “dinnae ye go and faint on me now, Peter. Then it will be verra difficult to get ye out of here.”

  “I am so verra weak, mistress. I willnae be able to flee here e’en if ye can open this cursed cell,” he said.

  “Dinnae worry o’er that. We shall have some help. Colin and Fergus are here.” She took a deep breath, struggling to organize her thoughts so that she could adequately refute the argument she knew he was about to make. “I mean to free them as weel. Them and Sir Heming.” Brona was surprised when Peter only blinked very slowly and then frowned.

  “Are ye sure freeing Sir Heming is verra wise, mistress? I think that is one verra dangerous mon.”

  “That may be but he has ne’er wronged the Kerrs. Nay more than ye or Fergus or Colin have. This is wrong and I finally saw that I was little better than my cousin for I was closing my eyes to all of his cruelties. Nay more.”

  “Ye put yourself in grave danger by acting against the laird.”

  “I ken it, which is why I am also leaving Rosscurrach. Try to muster some strength, Peter.” She unlocked his cell door, ignoring the twinge of guilt she felt for having stolen the keys. The theft had been a necessary sin. “We will gather ye up as we leave this place.”

  “Be careful, mistress,” Peter said as he sat down and leaned against the frame of the door. “I cannae recall much of what happened to me after the laird cut my throat, but there is something verra dark in Sir Heming.”

  “Aye, I ken it, but he will be as eager to leave this place as the rest of ye are, willnae he. We can deal with the mon, come to some sort of truce that will get us all out of here.”

  Peter did not argue with her plan so she hurried along to the cell that held Fergus and Colin, pausing to check that the few cells between theirs and Peter’s were empty. Both men were standing at the front of their cell obviously aware of her approach. Brona was relieved to see that neither man had a wound upon his neck. If Sir Heming had drunk from either of them she knew they would never agree to help her free the man. It was going to be difficult enough to get them to help her now.

  “Mistress, who were ye speaking to?” asked Colin, his rough-hewn face revealing only a hint of the curiosity she could hear in his voice.

  “Peter,” she replied, pleased that she could tell them that their clansman was still alive.

  “He still lives?”

  “Aye, but he is verra weak.”

  “Because he has lost his soul,” said Fergus, fear clear to read in his handsome face.

  “Nay,” said Brona, a little surprised by the sharp tone in her voice for she rarely spoke sharply to anyone. “He is weak from being left naked in this cold, damp place and from loss of blood, but ‘tis still Peter I just talked to. There is no change in the mon he was ere he was dragged down here and surely there would be some change if he was now soulless, aye? I wouldst judge Hervey and Angus as lacking souls faster than I would Peter.”

  Colin frowned. “Ye are certain he is the same?”

  “Verra certain and I shall need your help to get him out of here,” she said.

  “Then let us out, mistress, and we will carry the mon to safety.”

  “I will also need ye to help me get Sir Heming out of here.” She sighed when they both stared at her in horror.

  “But he is a demon,” whispered Fergus.

  “Nay he isnae,” snapped Brona. “Do ye truly think my cousin has the strength to capture and hold firm to a creature from hell?” She nodded when they both frowned in doubt. “E’en Hervey and Angus dinnae think he is a demon.”

  “He drank blood, mistress.”

  “Aye, I begin to believe that he did and ‘tis a frightening thing, but he didnae attack Peter to get it, did he. My cousin cut Peter’s throat and kept shoving the mon at Sir Heming until he did take what was offered. I dinnae understand why any mon would drink blood, but what happened to Peter was the laird’s doing, nay Sir Heming’s. If Sir Heming has such a strange need, he fought it hard, didnae he. But, weak and wounded as he was, he obviously couldnae fight it for verra long. All I ken is that that mon has ne’er harmed a Kerr and yet he is being tortured unmercifully.”

  Colin slowly nodded. “Then we will help ye get the mon out of here.”

  “Thank ye, Colin.” Brona quickly unlocked the door to his cell. “We had best hurry. I dinnae think anyone will be coming down here but ‘tis wise to get out of here as quickly as we can.”

  When Brona reached Sir Heming’s cage and held her lantern closer, she had to smother a cry of shock. Fergus and Colin both hissed out a series of profane curses, but she did not reprimand them for speaking so in front of her. She wished she knew some very profane curses herself, for spitting them out might ease some of the horror and anguish twisting knots in her stomach.

  Sir Heming hung limply in his chains, the length of them not allowing his unconscious body to sprawl comfortably on the stone floor. It was just another form of torture to chain him in such a way. He was covered in blood, his body a mass of whip marks, cuts, and bruises. Some of those wounds still oozed blood. Brona saw the slow rise and fall of his chest and the fear that she had come too late to save him slowly left her.

  “I dinnae ken what the mon is, but, if he isnae a demon, he doesnae deserve this,” muttered Colin, and Fergus grunted in agreement. “As ye say, mistress, he has ne’er harmed us. Wheesht, I have ne’er e’en heard of these MacNachtons.”

  “There are a lot of dark whispers about the clan,” Brona confessed as she struggled to find the right key to unlock Heming’s cage. “I have listened to some, e’en gently sought out some information on the clan although few here had any, but I simply cannae believe the tales. If the MacNachtons were as dangerous and powerful as is hinted at then they wouldnae stay so quietly hidden away at some place called Cambrun, would they. Nay, their men would be giving the great Douglasses a fight o’er all that power they grab for themselves. Ah, there we are,” she muttered as she finally got the door to Heming’s cage open.

  It took Brona another few minutes to find the key to unlock the shackles. As soon as she freed Sir Heming’s ankles, she gave Colin the breeches to put on the man. Fergus stood ready to catch Sir Heming as she unshackled the man’s wrists. With the two men helping her, Sir Heming was free and clothed in less time than it had taken her to find the right keys. Brona gently bathed the man’s battered face, but it only roused him a little and she was not sure he would understand what was happening.

  “I fear one of ye are going to have to carry him,” she said to Colin and Fergus.

  “I can do it,” said Colin. “Fergus can help Peter. Once we are outside we can make a litter to carry them.”

  “Ah, weel, I fear we willnae be going outside the keep for a wee while.”

  “But ye said ye were freeing us.” Colin hoisted Sir Heming over his shoulder, faltering a little under the weight of the man before he could steady himself again.

  “I am but ye would find yourselves back here quick enough if we try to flee o’er land, at least right away. I couldnae get us any horses, so we would all be on foot,” she said as she led them to Peter’s cell. “I dinnae think Hervey and his men would e’en work up a good sweat in catching us all.”

  “So where do we go?”

  “This keep is riddled with hiding places and I have prepared one for us to hide in.”

  “Which the laird will be able to find, aye?”

  “Nay. It seems no one ever told Hervey about all of the passageways, tunnels, and hidden chambers. I think many of them came about in my grandsire’s time.”

  “Ah, aye, me da once mentioned that, I be thinking. When the old laird decided the easiest way to thicken the walls of Rosscurrach and add all those fireplaces was to simply build a new wall around the old ones.” Colin frowned. “Are ye certain the laird doesnae ken aught about them?”

  Brona nodded as they paused for Fergus to help a weak, unsteady Peter to his
feet. She noticed that Peter groggily eyed Sir Heming with both fear and wariness, but he said nothing. Even beaten and unconscious there was something about Sir Heming that put a person on guard, but Brona was glad no one was going to argue any more about saving the man.

  “As sure as I can be,” Brona said as she started to lead the men to the place they would all hide, at least until Peter and Sir Heming could run for their lives and defend themselves. “I spent the day slipping in and out of passageways and taking supplies to the place I chose for us to hide in for a while. There was no sign of anyone else having used those secret passageways for many years. I cannae think my cousin or Angus would e’er miss the chance to use passages that would allow them to spy upon someone in near every room in the keep if they knew about all Rosscurrach’s secrets.”

  “Nay, they would be wandering about in there all the time,” agreed Colin. “Yet, he is the laird and should have kenned about them, aye? Why didnae your da tell the mon about them?”

  “Hervey is the laird here only because he is the last male kinsmon in my father’s line. My father didnae fully trust him and neither did my mother. I may have been little more than a child when my mother and then my father died, but I do recall that. Hervey did his best to deceive them about his true nature, but he failed. Unfortunately, my mother also failed to convince my father that he should choose another heir. Father felt verra strongly that the heir should be the closest male kinsmon.”

  “So will the king be choosing the next laird then?”

  “Weel, I suppose if Hervey doesnae have a son, aye, something like that will happen.”

  Colin gave a short, harsh laugh. “Mistress, your cousin willnae be living long enough to wed and have himself a legal son. This mon’s kinsmen will soon be sending the laird to his grave. I but pray they dinnae send too many of the rest of us there as weel.”

  “But how will they ken where he is or what has happened to him?”

  “He will tell them when he returns home, aye?”

  Brona looked at Sir Heming and then back at Colin. “Do ye think he will live?”

  “Who can say, but e’en if he doesnae someone will come seeking revenge. I am that sure of it.”

  “Colin, he was kidnapped, sent to sleep with a potion in his ale. Someone took his cousin and Hervey took him. How can anyone ken where Sir Hervey is?”

  “Such secrets will out, mistress. If this mon was kidnapped at an inn then there is someone there who kens it. And what if this cousin ye mention gets free and comes ahunting for the truth? Nay, mistress, I fear Rosscurrach is due a reckoning for this.”

  That was frightening, especially since Brona could see the sense in all Colin said. If many of the MacNachtons were like Sir Heming, she feared her people were in for a very bloody future. She had no doubt in her mind that Sir Heming was a strong and fierce warrior, and one with the cunning to stay alive in battle and gain victory over his enemies. Her idiot of a cousin Hervey had certainly made this man an implacable enemy.

  When she reached the chamber set deep beneath Rosscurrach and lit a few torches, Colin, Fergus, and even Peter looked around in amazement. She had gathered rough pallets for all of them and set them around the edges of the room. She had gathered clothing, blankets, and food as well. Thor sprawled on one pallet and Havoc on another. In one corner, she had set a number of weapons, swords, and daggers she had taken from the armory, feeling that the men would need them when they were finally able to flee the keep.

  “Ye brought your pets with ye?” asked Fergus as he helped Peter lie down on one of the pallets.

  “I had to. Hervey and the others wouldnae care for them and I kenned that, once Hervey realized I was the one to set ye all free, he would slaughter them out of anger at me.” Brona fetched some water and rags in order to clean the wounds on Sir Heming as best as she could.

  Colin settled Sir Heming on a pallet with surprising gentleness. “Aye, ‘tis just what he would do. And where do ye plan to go when we can finally slip away from the keep?”

  “Ah, weel, I havenae exactly decided on that yet.”

  She could tell by the looks the three men gave her that they thought she was being a foolish woman, but she ignored them. Brona turned her attention to trying to clean Sir Heming’s wounds. It might have been wise to take enough time to plan where she would go and how she would get there, but she had felt there was little time for anything more than getting the men out of their prisons and to a safe place. There was also the fact that she really had nowhere to go that Hervey did not know about and could find her. It was going to take a lot of planning to decide what her next step would be.

  “They did him hard this time,” murmured Colin as he stared down at Sir Heming when Brona gently removed the man’s jupon. “We heard him making some of them noises that sound like an animal again, but we ne’er thought they near killed the mon. And why would the laird think this mon would ken how to live forever? It looks like he is but a breath or two away from being dead to me.”

  Brona gently set a cloth soaked in cool water over Sir Heming’s bruised and swollen eyelids. “Aye, I fear he looks the same to me. Hervey wasnae thinking clearly when he did this or mayhap he truly believes all those wild tales about the MacNachtons. He could have just lost the chance to get what he is so desperate to learn.”

  “About living forever? No one can do that.”

  “Weel, Sir Heming told me that his kin are long-lived, healthy, and strong. That may be what has spread that foolish tale of living forever. Hervey truly does believe it, I think. So much so that he and Angus are thinking of making a potion to drink using this mon’s blood.”

  “Ere they dragged me away to my cell, I heard them say that the mon’s wounds were already healing after he drank blood from me,” said Peter. “Mayhap they arenae so mad to think such a thing.”

  “I heard them say that, too,” murmured Brona, resisting the strong urge to stroke Sir Heming’s hair. “If doing such a thing works for Sir Heming then mayhap it would work for someone else. I just find it all so verra hard to believe.” She looked at Peter, who was lying on his side, wrapped tightly in a blanket, and watching the unconscious Sir Heming. “Can ye say whether he did something to your neck after he drank from ye?”

  Peter grimaced. “He licked me.”

  “Your wounds are closed, Peter. The slice Hervey made with his dagger is red and raw but ‘tis closed. The mark left tells me it was a deep cut yet here ye sit.”

  “Aye, ye have the right of it. I feared the bastard meant me to bleed my life out on the floor and there was a lot of it going there until that mon stuck his teeth in me. When he took those teeth out of me neck, he licked me. For a moment I feared he then wanted from me what the laird did, but, nay, he pushed me away and returned to glaring murder at the laird.”

  “I think he licked ye to seal the wound, though how he could do that is a wonder. Yet, ‘tis the only explanation for why ye are still alive.”

  “Aye,” agreed Colin. “Ye should have bled your life away and quickly, too, by the looks of that knife cut.”

  Brona joined the three men in staring down at Sir Heming. To all the other reasons she wanted the man to live, she could now add simple but deep curiosity. There was indeed something very strange about Sir Heming MacNachton.

  Four

  “He is dying, mistress.”

  Brona nearly snarled at Colin, but took a few deep, slow breaths to calm herself instead. Colin was only speaking the hard, cold truth and he did not need to be snapped at because of that. They had been hiding in the bowels of Rosscurrach for two days and Sir Heming grew no better. He was so pale he would probably blend into the linen he slept upon if not for his long black hair, and his breathing had grown shallow, weaker, and less even. Her constant tending of his many wounds had done nothing to help him. There was no sign of fever or infection and, horrendous though they were, his wounds no longer bled. Yet he only grew worse. It made no sense to her.

  What also made no sense
to her was how upset she was about that. She had seen death before. It was a part of life one could not ignore. She also did not know this man and, if even half of the things Hervey said about the MacNachtons were true, that was probably a blessing. Yet Brona felt a cold fear growing inside of her, as if she was about to lose something precious. She inwardly shook her head, deciding the situation she found herself in plus working day and night to try to save a man’s life was making her fanciful, if not completely delirious.

  “I think he needs blood,” a swiftly recovering Peter said.

  It had to be the fact that she was watching a man die that was making her so irritable, Brona thought, biting back the urge to snap at Peter. He, too, only spoke the hard truth, just as Colin had. Soon after they had brought Sir Heming into this chamber set deep beneath Rosscurrach she had begun to suspect that her healing skills were not really what the man needed. Hervey speaking of how the man’s wounds had healed after drinking Peter’s blood had echoed in her mind time and time again, but she had fought to ignore it. She could no longer do that. If she did, Sir Heming would surely die.

  “Weel, he isnae having any of mine,” Fergus muttered.

  Before Brona could respond to that the man on the bed groaned softly and then opened his eyes. “Where am I?” he asked.

  Heming blinked, trying to clear his vision, but the beatings he had suffered had left his eyes too swollen for him to see clearly. His first thought was that Mistress Brona had decided to help her cousin torture him, for he could think of no other reason for her to be in his cage. A moment later he realized he was lying on something soft and a blanket covered him, a welcome comfort he knew would never have been given him if he was still Hervey Kerr’s prisoner. Three men stood a few feet away looking at him and he could see no bars, could feel no chains weighting down his arms and legs. Then a soft hand touched his forehead and he turned his gaze toward the woman leaning over him. He was free, he thought, and was it not just his luck to be set free only to die.