“But for how long? And how can we be certain? We’ve been warned of the danger.”
“And the maps. What of the maps?” another knight barked. “We were promised the maps.”
The leader raised his hand and silenced the group. “We were promised only that the Treasure of Tiberius would be returned to its rightful place. Should we ride in and take it by force from the family of our brother?”
“Aye! Perhaps we should!” another knight asserted hotly. “We know nothing of our brother’s promise passing on to his wife and daughters. What happens if these women decide on a different path? What if someone fools them? Or wrests the treasure from them? Even worse, what if they are so blinded with the power of Tiberius that they decide to keep the treasure for themselves?”
“I tell you this,” the leader stated sharply, quieting the growing uneasiness in the chamber. “Nichola Erskine is a most honorable woman. The delay has only to do with the fears she harbors for her daughters’ safety. Would you deny her that? And you know that as long as rumors continue to circulate of the existence of a map...or of three maps...no one would foolishly kill these daughters.”
A tonsured knight-priest spoke for the first time. “But we’ve heard reports of so many in pursuit of them.”
“Aye, men like the English king! But Henry Tudor knows nothing of the treasure. He only wants their Percy heads.”
“The three are safely tucked away in Scotland.”
“What about Sir Arthur Courtney?”
“He was killed by his own men.”
“And the monks?”
“The Monk!” The leader’s voice dropped down low. “We have reasons to question his loyalty.”
“If he has fallen, then we cannot afford to wait.”
“We cannot wait!” several men shouted.
“Brothers!” A knight clothed in black pushed himself away from the wall at the far end of the hall and strode toward the dais. As he passed the fire, his tall build cast a shadow on the other warriors, and more than one of them eyed the gold brooch holding a tartan at his shoulder. In exquisite workmanship using tiny colored gemstones, a red hand clutched a blue cross. “I have something to say.”
“The Blade of Barra!” Nodding with satisfaction, the leader of the knights turned his gray eyes on the approaching man. “‘Tis time you took up the quest.”
CHAPTER 5
Damn the woman! Of all the troublesome, ungrateful...!
William peered through the darkness as the wind whipped his hair across his face. His head was pounding between the goose egg and the open gash she’d given him, and it felt as though he’d been beaten with a stick across his ribs. He wondered if she’d dragged him all the way to the convent behind his own damned horse.
And now where was she? She’d only gone out a moment ahead of him. After first finding out how large an escort the monk had with him--and making sure the old farm hand had a plan for saving his own neck from the wrath of the monk and his Lowlanders--William had quickly crawled out after her. The Sinclair men would have to look after the nuns.
Still, in that instant the thickheaded Englishwoman had disappeared like some wood nymph. Their only chance lay in the hope that she had gone directly to the horse.
As he broke into a trot, a wave of nausea swept over him. Fighting it off, he moved in the direction Guff had said to go. There was a definite smell of snow in the wind.
The grove of trees loomed before him in the darkness, and he stopped. Still tied to a branch, his horse Dread stood pawing the earth beside a shivering Laura Percy. Upon seeing him, the giant horse tossed his head in greeting and then sniffed the ear of the young woman.
“I was beginning to think you were lost,” she whispered, patting the head of the horse. “They must know by now that I did not come back with the Sinclairs. We must hurry.”
She was taking it for granted that he’d take her with him. William could feel the devil urging him to mount Dread and ride off, leaving her. He would thoroughly enjoy paying her back for all she’d done to him. But on the other hand, the thought of listening to Gilbert whining if he was to return empty-handed was too much. He frowned and stepped toward the animal.
Her voice was quavering. “If we go around Loch Fleet and then move south the way we came...”
She jumped as he yanked his sword sharply from the back of the giant steed. He loosened the weapon in its sheath before strapping it onto his own back.
Her breath spilled into the cold air. “As I was saying, I can lead us back as far as...”
He mounted his horse and, wheeling the animal in a circle, nudged him toward the path. It occurred to William that he wanted her to call after him. To ask him again to take her. He wanted her to be terrified at the thought of being left alone, but, glancing in her direction, he found her standing expectantly, a wee shivering bundle of eyes and cloak and blanket.
“Damn!” He moved Dread to her side and stretched a hand out for her to take. She put an icy palm in his hand and placed her foot on top of one boot. He pulled her up behind him, and she immediately wrapped her hands around his waist. Even with the cloak and the blanket wrapped around her, he could feel her shivering violently with the cold.
Shouts came from the direction of the convent, and the laird kicked the warhorse into a gallop, following the path westward along the loch for a short time before changing direction and veering to the north across a stony meadow. Their pursuers would overtake them for sure if he tried to make a run straight for Ross lands.
The night was black, and the wind was picking up. William slowed his horse as they reached the far side of the meadow. As the two rode on, he could feel the tightness of her grip around him, and he tried to ignore the pleasant chill that ran up his spine as the woman’s face rubbed against the wool tartan on his back.
Reaching a wide creek, William followed the path along the bank through thickly wooded glens and open ground that he knew led to rolling moors and eventually to Rumster Castle. But all was now simply a black, empty void. At one point the creek branched off, and the Ross chief splashed across the icy water, still keeping to the right branch of the stream. He knew where he was going. At the convent Guff had told him how many men the monk had with him, and that had given him the answer he was after. There was no way he could have fought the blackguards successfully. Especially not with Sinclair men arriving. They would assuredly have sided with the Lowlanders against him.
In a few more miles, the stream bent sharply to the east, and they continued to follow it as an icy rain began to fall.
Throughout his years growing up in this region, he and Gilbert and the other young lads their age had many times traveled onto Walter Sinclair’s land. Always being told by Thomas that they were too young to accompany the Ross warriors in their raids, they had often taken it on themselves to raise Cain in their neighbor’s lands, "conveying" back to Blackfearn Castle livestock and anything else of Sir Walter’s they could lay their hands on. That was many years ago, he thought with a pang of nostalgia. But as the woman behind him tried to snuggle closer against his back, it occurred to him that the Sinclair chief was not yet free of Ross incursions.
A stinging shower of sleet whipped in on a driving wind, and in a few moments the frozen rain turned into a heavy, wet snow, covering the ground quickly with a shroud of pale white.
Damn, William thought, glancing back at the tracks they were making. He pushed Dread into the shallow water of the creek’s edge.
“Do you think that any harm will come to mother superior and the nuns?”
William felt a pang of relief that her voice was still strong. But he knew that he needed to reach shelter before long, or the shivering heap behind him would be frozen solid.
“You should have thought of that before bringing those villains to their door.”
“I did not bring them! Somehow, they found me on their own.”
“And would it not have been safer for all if that scrawny excuse for a monk had found you wh
ere you should have been...in the abbey convent of St. Duthac?”
“I see no difference,” she grumbled, rubbing her forehead again on his back.
Though he didn’t think she was even aware of the action, he took a deep breath. How was it that he could be so annoyed and so excited by such a simple act? And by a wee, bullheaded court chit at that.
“No difference at all,” she repeated quietly. “I would have been forced to flee that place as well.”
“Who is the monk?”
She paused a moment. “I’ve never seen him before.”
“Someone must have paid him to come after you. And those Lowlanders. Gilbert never said a thing about them.”
“Gilbert? You mentioned that name before.”
She tightened her hold as William nudged his steed up an embankment. Through the whirling snow he could see a dip between two rocky braes. “Who is this Gilbert?”
“The provost of the Shrine of St. Duthac.” He spurred the horse into a canter. “Your mentor and protector. The one who was so worried about your whereabouts. The one who came begging to me for help.”
He thought he heard a snort of derision, and considered dumping her right there in the meadow.
“Guff told me that you are William Ross of Blackfearn.”
He spurred Dread into a gallop over the hard ground. The snow on the meadow brightened the vista considerably.
“It would have been much simpler if you had explained that much to me in the market square.”
“And when are you thinking I was supposed to do that? While you were caterwauling and bringing every Sinclair in the Highlands down upon us? Or should I have waited and told you after you tried to kill me?”
William reined in the mount as they reached what appeared to be a path winding between the snow-covered hills.
“You deserved what you got.” She tried to take her hands from his waist, but he reached down and trapped them with one of his own.
“You keep those where they are, lass. You’ve done more damage to me in one day than I’ve had in ten years of fighting.”
“Then you’ve led a soft life.”
This time he was the one to sputter derisively. To think, this from her, the very picture of the spoiled brat!
“I thought we would be going around the loch and to the south.”
“You thought wrong.”
The wind swung around, stinging their faces with a mix of sleet and snow. He felt her adjust herself and nestle closer against him.
“What is your plan?”
“I have none.”
He felt her stiffen. It took only a moment, but he could feel it coming.
“Then perhaps if you’d listen to what I have to--”
“Hold tight.”
William nudged Dread down the steep, rocky path, and Laura again had to tighten her hold so she wouldn’t fall off the horse. In a few moments he pushed the horse around a boulder, and they were suddenly out onto a stony strand, the roaring sea before them. Pushing the giant animal to the very edge of the foaming water, William again turned them northward.
The riders were now taking the full brunt of nature’s forces, but the Highlander kept his horse at a canter along the sea’s edge. He knew this was the best way to hide their tracks. With the howling wind in their faces and the froth of the waves soaking them as high as their waists, they pushed onward.
The uncertainty in her voice belied her words as she called out against the wind. “We must be close to Rumster Castle!”
William didn’t bother to answer her, for his eyes were riveted to the first of the abandoned fishermen’s huts he’d been looking for. Even in the dark he could see that the thinly thatched roof had collapsed in on the splintered pile of sticks swaying in the wind.
“I thought we were running from the Sinclairs as well. Why have you brought us into Sir Walter’s lands?”
Ignoring her, he spurred Dread on. Rather than moving inland and into the hills, William had decided instead to take shelter in one of the fishing shacks he knew existed along this stretch of coast. Used only during the warmer seasons, these places might offer no more than some loose timber to break the wind. But the fact that they lay in the shadow of Walter Sinclair’s castle made the huts an unlikely place for anyone to search for them.
“Other than soaking us to the bone, would you be kind enough to tell me your plan?”
“I told you before. I have none.”
Her frustration was all too obvious in the way she banged her head against his back. The thought of her organizing the piles of wool in the marketplace flickered through his mind, bringing a devious smile to the Highlander’s lips. What a perfect punishment for someone like her--to be left alone with him!
A dark line of bluffs had risen up just beyond the strand, and when they reached a notch in the low cliffs, William pushed Dread up the stony incline of the beach. Three tiny huts lay huddled against one another in the protection of the rocky ledge.
Even before plague had struck Inverness and Fearnoch and the surrounding areas a few years ago, wiping out whole villages and cutting down the numbers of people who lived here, these huts had always been empty at this time of year. When the harsh winters ravaged the coast, keeping even the hardiest fishermen from venturing out of the lochs and the more protected firths, those who lived here in the summers were tucked away snugly at Fearnoch or in the village beneath Rumster Castle, a few miles up the beach.
Unwilling to throw caution completely to the wind, though, William ordered her curtly to stay where she was. Then, drawing his sword as he dismounted from Dread, he approached each of the cottages in turn.
They were indeed uninhabited, and after inspecting them closely, the Highlander nodded toward one of them as he returned to his steed.
“This one is the only hut sturdy enough to house us all. I dare say ‘tis no English palace, but at least it has a bit of leather across the door to keep out some of the weather.”
His charge appeared to bristle, but then she checked her tongue. When he held out his hand to help her, she waved him off, swinging her leg over Dread’s back. She dropped to the snow-covered ground with a thud, slipping and landing on her hands and knees. Again ignoring his outstretched hand, she pushed herself upright and trudged wearily toward the hut. He followed her in.
For the next few minutes she was silent. But then, as soon as he started making a place in a corner for Dread and settling the animal for what was left of the night, she began with her questions again.
“How long do you plan to keep me here before we leave?”
He peered about in the darkness and then squatted before a small circle of ashes. Rubbing some between his thumb and forefinger, he smelled it. It was old.
“Who said I plan ever to leave?”
He glanced at her over one shoulder. Even in the darkness of the hut he could tell that she was watching him with weary eyes. She started toward him. He turned to face her fully.
“First show me you’ve nothing in your hands.”
She didn’t even pause as she advanced on him. “Have no fear. If I had a weapon, I’d give you a bruise worthy enough to match the others on your thick head.”
“Aye, I’ve no doubt of that. But you don’t have to stay here. You are free to sleep outside.”
She moved past him to the pile of wood. “True. But what chance would I have then of knocking you out in your sleep and taking your fine horse?”
“We hang horse thieves in the Highlands.”
“Well, I might just take the chance, considering the fact that you yourself have not been hung yet.”
He’d have liked nothing more than tossing her delicate butt out onto the beach right now, but the memory of Gilbert’s patient expression and his sincere plea to bring this woman safely back to St. Duthac’s halted him again. He watched her start carrying back pieces of the driftwood and stacking them for a fire beneath the smoke hole.
“And what do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m going to make a fire.”
“And invite Sir Walter for dinner, I suppose.” He shook his head. “There will be no fire.”
“But--”
“No fire.”
She sank to her knees on the dirt floor, her hands making a weak attempt to rub warmth into her arms.
“You picked a fine place to bring us. Now we can just freeze.”
The Highlander turned his back on her and went to where she’d dropped the gray blanket on the dirt floor. Shaking it out, he tossed it to her.
He wasn’t going to let her get on his nerves. He wasn’t going to feel sorry for her. And most important, he wasn’t going to be charmed by her pretty face and violet-blue eyes. All he had to do was ignore her. Pretend she wasn’t there. And try to protect his head.
CHAPTER 6
“I believe ‘tis time you began to worry.”
The provost responded to Father Francis with a vague nod as the two made their way back to the provost’s work room after their morning meal. Gilbert’s huge hound Willie trotted on ahead.
“Even the farmers made it back from Fearnoch before dark. And you know how recklessly William pushes a horse. By the saint, Gilbert, they should have been here by vespers last night at the latest. But still we’ve not heard a word.”
Gilbert paused to look out of the small slit of a window in the long corridor. He was becoming concerned about the whereabouts of his brother--and Laura Percy. Heavy snow had been falling through most of the night--a mix of snow and sleet continued to fall--and the bitter north wind was surely adding to the dangerous conditions for wet travelers.
And what if William had been injured in taking the woman? What if his horse had come up lame? Perhaps, he thought, it would be best to summon some of William’s men, perhaps just a couple of them to go out in search of their master.
But in the back of Gilbert’s head a nagging voice kept telling him to wait. Indeed, the busy little voice was saying, if the two had stopped somewhere along the way, this might be the best chance he’d ever have of getting his brother alone with an eligible and marriageable noblewoman--even if this one was half English. Hiding a grin, he sent a prayer heavenward to forgive him for his deviousness.
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