The Chieftain's Curse

by Frances Housden

  Jamie rushed past her. “I left him down there.” He padded another forward couple of paces. “Aye, he’s still here, but I think he’s dead.”

  “Mother of God, let me see him.” She pushed Euan and Jamie aside, but Nhaimeth was there before her, arm under Alex’ shoulder, lifting him, uncaring that blood and corruption stained his clothes. And neither did Morag as she knelt beside the brothers.

  Laying her fingers on his neck, she shook her head, suddenly weary as if she’d been running from the inevitable all these long months. “Too late. The lad’s gone.”

  She felt Euan bending over her and looked up, twisting to glance over her shoulder, half-blinded by tears. “Where’s my Rob?”

  When he didn’t reply, she stood. Euan was holding a short sword, the one she and Rob had carried for protection on their way to Cragenlaw.

  “And you, Morag,” his voice was rough with a lethal edge of anger. The sound made the hairs on her neck prickle. “What brought you running over here as if the Devil was on your heels?” he wanted to know.

  Demanded.

  Surely, he couldn’t think Rob?”

  “Nhaimeth?” She glanced down at the wee Fool, then back at Euan. Nhaimeth was cradling Alex in his arms, sobbing his heart out, the two had barely become friends and now the lad was dead, and him with never a notion that Nhaimeth was his brother. Euan, however, had a face like lightning before a clap of thunder when you realised that all yon noise was about to clash around your head. “You surely don’t think Rob did this terrible deed?”

  He held the sword under her nose. “What else? This is Rob’s sword. The blood is still wet.” He ran his finger across the blade and cruelly held up his bloodied finger for her perusal.

  “You can be sure,” he asserted, “if we didn’t have a war before, we will now, and Rob will rue the day.”

  His anger hit her with the fierce slap of an insult and she wanted to retaliate. “Aargh,” she screamed, “how can you blame him? I came to the stables to warn Rob, for Nhaimeth saw the Moor and ran to tell me.”

  “Moor! What Moor?”

  Nhaimeth leapt to her defence. “He was driving the pedlar’s wagon. He wore a red hooded cloak, but it didn’t hide his hands from overhead. I was coming down the stairs above the gatehouse. The wagon was held up by the mercenaries’ arriving, and kept him waiting to pass through the gatehouse. I saw his hands on the reins.”

  He glanced at Morag and she nodded, better him than her. There would be ructions, but that would come later. “He’s her brother’s catamite, an evil bastard who wanted them both dead.”

  He cast another glance in Morag’s direction and she held her breath, what else had Rob told him? “Morag and Rob were running from them, running for their lives. That’s why they came here.”

  Morag released the breath. It could have been worse. Though she didn’t look up, she could feel the way Euan’s eyes bored into her, but the expected blast of anger wrought by her deception was withheld, and he said, “A man in a red cloak? I saw him leading the pedlar’s horses to the stables.”

  Jamie added his might. “Alex said a dark man took Rob.”

  “And you didn’t think fit to mention it?”

  The lad, nodded, half-bowed in abeyance. “I was worried about Alex, of him dying.”

  To control her pain, Morag closed her teeth over her knuckles and bit down. She didn’t have to say what she was thinking, Euan did it for her. “Like as not, Rob’s dead as well.”

  She started to say, “How can we know for sure—”

  When Jamie broke in, “Look. There, snagged on the nail a piece of red wool.”

  Reaching out, Euan plucked the scrap of red cloth off the nail. “Aye, he was here for sure; but what’s to be done, the lad will be dead, for certain.”

  The howl rose frae the base of her throat, a keening sound she hadn’t given voice to since the day she found Euan had deserted her. “No-o-ooo! You must go after him.”

  She stood, marched across the wet straw to face Euan and beat on his chest with her fists. “No, no, no!” His chain-mail hauberk marked her skin, she didn’t care. If there was the least likelihood of Rob being alive, he had to save her son.

  His son!

  “Here, there’s something else among the straw, a silver cross.” Morag felt her heart rip from her chest. Jamie had thought he was being helpful, but in reality he might just have killed her.

  Palm up, Euan held out his hand and Jamie passed the cross over without having to be chivvied. “Where did this come from?”

  Aye, Jamie had killed her for sure.

  Euan studied the cross, just a wee bit of a thing against the size of his palm, but hugely significant in the pathway of Morag’s life. Nhaimeth, on the other hand thought he was coming to her rescue. “It was Rob’s. He always wore it.”

  The McArthur—aye that’s who Morag was looking at—not the Euan she loved. He held himself tall, warrior and chieftain. As she watched, his fingers closed around the silver cross, lying in the centre of his palm. “I’m told there is a small army of armed men travelling in the direction of Comlyn’s keep.”

  Her heart still beat in her throat and the baby in her belly was jumping around as if it too, were upset. Even so, she curved her hand low on her belly and managed to say, “The pedlar said Kathryn was to wed. Perhaps it’s her bridegroom.”

  “No matter, on the morrow a messenger must go to Comlyn with the news. He’ll think the McArthur can’t take care of his children.” His lips compressed for nae but a moment and she waited for the blow, either vocal or physical.

  “You and I will speak later,” he promised.

  Yet all Morag saw was the threat behind his flat brown irises, as free from expression as the tone in his voice, before he turned and walked away—leaving her behind, as usual.

  Morag saw no release to the pain enveloping her. She couldn’t let him leave, not yet. “You have to ride after the Moor. He must have Rob.”

  He stopped and turned. “First off, I’ll have men search castle. Then we’ll see.”

  “Phsaw,” she almost spat her disgust at his failure to act. “The Moor has him. Why else would he come to Cragenlaw but to kill Rob, to kill me, kill me and your baby.”

  Morag grabbed at his clenched fist, trying to force his fingers open. “Have I to go after him myself? Would you have him kill both your babies?”

  At that Euan relaxed his fingers, opened up his palm to reveal the silver cross. “He’s yours, Euan, what more proof do you need?”

  “Christ’s wine, Morag. When were you going to tell me? Why did your hand need forcing?” Jaw clenched and teeth grinding, he forced his emotions under control.

  A son, by Christ, a son.

  An heir!

  It took all his strength to hold his hand, and his temper. If a man had done this to him he would be dead by now. Will be dead, for the Moor would surely die by his hand this day. “We will speak when I return. I have a son to rescue.”

  “Jamie, see Diabhal watered and fed and quick about it,” he barked the order, his mind still churning from the events of the day. How dare Morag play him false this way. She should have sought him out the second she reached Cragenlaw and told him who she was—more to the point, whose son Rob was.

  He glowered at Jamie, wee fool, why hadn’t he thought to mention that Alex told him that a dark man had taken Rob in the first instance? “When you’re done, with Diabhal, bring him to me at the guardhouse.”

  This time nothing would halt him. Two men, perhaps three. He had to move fast. The wagon would be hard pressed to leave the road. No such obstacle would hinder their speed. They’d be on them before dark. Euan knew this land like few others did. He had ridden every inch of it as a lad, with Graeme always on his heels. Today he would lead the way, but Graeme would stay behind and prepare the castle for a siege, just in case. It wouldn’t do to lose three McArthur heirs on one afternoon.

  “I’m with you, McArthur.” Euan glanced down and there, scurrying
across the cobbles to his side was Nhaimeth, wee nuisance, butting in with all those stories about Rob, stories he should have told Euan long before today. What is he after this time? he wondered.

  Nhaimeth soon told him. “I’ve lost my brother Alexander this day; I’ll not lose Rob as well, for he’s more brother to me than any man on this earth.”

  “Another secret, it seems this castle is riddled with them.” Euan never stopped moving, but kept his gaze on Nhaimeth, his hunched back and short legs, and regretted yelling at him. Nhaimeth’s deformities hadn’t held him back as far as courage was concerned, but of course a son of Erik the Bear, with his start in life, would have needed plenty of pluck.

  However, this explained the rough way Comlyn had handled the baby, Euan’s son, when he hauled him from Astrid’s arms. He had wanted to know if the deformity had been passed on through his daughter.

  “I’d rather you stayed here with, Morag.” He told the wee man. “She needs a friend at the moment, she’s very upset.”

  And worried. With a good right to be, he decided.

  How could she conceal a lifetime of precious knowledge from him, his son’s lifetime?

  Reaching the guardhouse, he sang out to Graeme, “I’ll need two or three of your best men. The pedlar has stolen something precious to me.” My son. “And I must needs go retrieve what is mine.”

  Chapter 26

  By all the accounts Euan had been given at Dun Edin, these mercenaries never backed away from a fight. Or perhaps they loyally followed their leader, as Euan had concluded yon one would face the Devil and spit in his eye.

  However, as the Raven explained with a wry grin, since it was well known he was as good as any two men and ready and willing to ride, Euan would need no other assistance.

  They were riding west, they two, into the lowering sun, when they came upon the pedlar, the wagon stood out, a black silhouette on the horizon. The very sight of its canopy swaying over the top of a brae made both men spur their mounts onward, faster. The destriers’ huge hooves drummed across the turf like thunder. So loud the fugitives must surely hear.

  Aye, did hear. For didn’t the carthorses pick up speed, the wagon behind them bouncing across the ruts like a mad thing?

  They were scared, or perhaps it was only the pedlar who was scared and the Moor preparing to fight. Euan didn’t take him for a coward, not a man who could sneak into Cragenlaw Castle and steal away with the chieftain’s son.

  Or perhaps, like Euan had been until today, the Moor was unaware that young Rob was the McArthur’s son. And heir, Euan reminded himself. But he couldn’t think on that now, or Morag’s part in it, couldn’t afford to be distracted from the task to hand.

  He’d brought his battleaxe, wore it across his back, but he had to keep the lad in mind. If he were still alive, it wouldn’t do to demolish the wagon in a wild slather.

  Side by side, they covered the ground like two horsemen of the apocalypse crossing the crest of the brae, their mounts evenly paced. Below them, the wagon travelled faster than either carthorse or wagon wheels could cope with. “Right,” yelled, Euan, nodding to the captain. As if with one mind, they unsheathed sword and battle-axe, spurring forward.

  The captain to the left, Euan to the right, they overtook the wagon, cutting across its path as only battle-honed horsemen could, an essential on the battlefield. Today there was only the wagon, which tried to escape by skewing to one side.

  The Moor had thrown off his hood, the easier to see where he was going, and the cloak he had tossed back over his shoulders to better grip the reins.

  As it was for most Highland folk, a man with dark brown skin was way beyond Euan’s ken. The extraordinary sight gave the McArthur a moment’s pause, long enough for the Moor to step onto the wagon’s seat, and from there, it was but a leap to the back of one of the wagon horses, sword in hand.

  It was a day for curiosities, for the Moor’s sword, too, was like naught he’d seen afore. Curved in the way of a bow, it was no doubt razor sharp and of use only for slicing. The thought made Euan want draw his hands up inside the sleeves of his hauberk. Instead, as he had done in many a fight, without conscious thought, he lifted his sword and blocked the first blow.

  Out the corner of his eye, he saw the terrified pedlar clinging to the wagon’s frame by his fingernails. Euan smiled grimly as he countered one blow with another. Since the pedlar was not a viable opponent, the mercenary took care of the wagon itself, first slicing the reins, then the traces. As the horses ran free, their hind legs hobbled, they swerved to the left at the same instant the Moor brought down his blade. Even over the noise of the toppling wagon, squealing horses and pounding hooves couldn’t disguise the swift, slick sound of a curved sword slicing through the air.

  Thank Christ for the mercenary’s swift disabling of the wagon. Because of it, the blade missed; however, the weight behind the blow sent the Moor sprawling onto the ground, smashed under the horses’ hooves.

  And from there to hell, thought Euan.

  The pity of it was, he had wanted to kill the Moor himself, and even the pedlar had robbed him of that satisfaction. One look assured Euan that the pedlar had broken his neck when the wagon overturned.

  Quick to dismount, Euan sprinted to the wagon, putting his sword to good use at last by slitting the gaudily striped cover while the mercenary walked the horses away from the Moor’s battered body.

  The wagon was filled with bolts of cloth that had tumbled from their perch, and spices whole and powdered spilled across the trampled grass and ferns, adding an exotic scent to the smell of horse sweat, dirt and the death release of the Moor’s bowels. Euan grinned, laughed, for there in the midst of spices and cloth, Rob struggled to get free. Bound hand and foot, mouth gagged by a strip of red worsted the same colour as the Moor’s cloak, Euan’s son stared up at him.

  Night had already fallen when they arrived back at Cragenlaw, a motley group of carthorses and destrier, some riding, others hanging head-down over the back of a horse. Morag chewed her lip to bite down a scream. Where was Rob? In the torchlight either side of the gate, it was hard to pick out who was whom.

  Morag’s heart pounded in her throat, making it hard to breath. Her immediate reaction was to rush forward, to push her way through the crush of warriors loyal to both Euan and the Raven, and she would have if not for Nhaimeth. Hand on her arm, he must have felt the tension in her muscles and tightened his grip.

  “Nae lass, this is men’s work. Bide yer time,” he said. “Why don’t you go to the hall and make sure there’s food aplenty.”

  “But Rob—”

  “What, did you not see him up on Diabhal behind his father?” He let out a dismissive huff of air. “I’ve been sure for a while, you know, seeing them together, father and son. To me the likeness is unmistakable.”

  “So many secrets: you, me, Rob—and they’re all coming home to roost.” She dreaded what was to come, dreaded Euan’s displeasure. Her love for him wouldn’t be enough. “You and Rob can justify keeping your secrets. My excuses sound hollow even to my own ears. The blame will be mine and mine alone if the McArthur casts me out.”

  “Whist,” Nhaimeth, said, soothing. “Whist now, Morag, as if Euan would send you away frae Cragenlaw with his baby in your belly.”

  She gulped down a sob. “He already has the one he needs, his heir. I’ll go up and wait in the Great Hall. At least there he will have nothing to be ashamed of.”

  As he would be of her, she thought. Though she couldn’t be faulted for lying, her guilt was the omission of truth. To her mind, there wasn’t a skerrick of difference between the two.

  Euan’s heart swelled with pride as he walked into the Great Hall, his hand on Rob’s shoulder. He stood in the entrance and wished his father could be here to see his grandson this day.

  A son from Morag. He wanted to love her … and in the same breath wanted to murder her. She had kept Rob from him for all these years. How different each of their lives might have been if she’d ha
d the courage to tell him the truth a long time ago.

  The courage that had urged her to save him in the first place, where had that daring gone?

  Every table in the hall was full, food overflowing the boards. Euan glanced around. Graeme had moved to stand behind him, and the Raven, now free of hauberk and helm, was by his side, his face a reminder of what life as a warrior for hire could cost a man. The red sheen of a scar swooped across his forehead, eye and cheek.

  Then someone noticed their arrival, and noise that began as low murmur swelled to a roar, as knife hilts and drinking horns banged on the boards like an incitement to battle.

  With Rob by his side, proud, he led their party to the high table. Duncan sat at one end, Morag stood by the other. He refused to catch her eye. Instead, his nostrils flared, lips curled. No, there would be no easy absolution for her. How could there be?

  He saw to the arrangement of their seats: Rob on his right, the Raven on his left and Graeme between him and Duncan, with Morag on Rob’s right hand. He’d no intention of letting their quarrel become common gossip, fodder for both kitchen and hall.

  He bent his head toward Rob, “Let your mother reassure herself you’re all in one piece, lad.”

  Rob grinned and turned to Morag, but her eyes weren’t for her son. Instead, she stared at the Raven, one hand to her mouth, the other pressed hard onto the table as if to keep her steady. Face ashen, she continued staring at the man who had helped return Euan’s son to Cragenlaw.

  Euan looked to his left to gauge if the Raven noticed. All kinds of terrible reasons for her obvious distress spiked in Euan’s brain, but the man by his side appeared unaware as he spoke with Graeme. When once again Euan’s glance captured Morag’s anguish, she gasped out a name, “Gavyn,” and fell to the floor in a swoon.

  Rob was first to her side, hovering over her, concern writ on his face. “Morag,” he cried, “speak to me.”

  She heard the note of desperation in his voice. Remorse swamped her. For all his size, Rob was still no more than a baby, as others tended not to comprehend, and she had herself blame for using that to suit her purpose.