by Suz deMello
* * * * *
“Come, milady,” Owain beckoned Lydia. “’Tis right that ye should see this.”
With Owain holding her arm, Lydia crossed the now peaceful, organized courtyard to the staircase and climbed to the highest wall-walk. Facing south, it ran between the Laird’s Tower and the old keep.
The battlement was crowded with archers readying their weapons under Kendrick’s command. These were men she knew, had seen every day as they went about smiling, eating, dicing and wenching—Gilchrist and Randal, Rhain and Conn, now grim-faced but efficient. Some wielded longbows while others had the more complex but powerful crossbow. Both, she knew, were lethal in skilled hands. And she’d seen Kier train his men and hunt with them day after day.
Far off, across the fields and scaling the hills, were the flocks of Kilborn sheep being driven by the shepherds and their dogs over the slopes and into the forests. Nearer was a company of ill-armed men led by a man on a brown charger. He and p’raps a score of mounted guards rode swiftly toward the castle. The men on foot struggled to keep up.
She drew in an angry breath. “That’s…that’s Hamish Gwynn. Laird Hamish. I lately drank tea with him and his wife. What can he mean by this?”
Owain stared in the same direction as she. “Ye’re right, milady. And I ken the reason.”
“What?”
He pointed at a cassocked man mounted on a smaller gray. “Yon rides their priest.”
“The Gwynn’s priest? What has he to do with this?”
Owain sighed. “When I went with ye to Straithness, I drank in the tavern and listened to the talk. The Gwynns be very religious, milady. They think that we Kilborns are some kind of fae creatures. What did ye and the priest discuss?”
“The priest did talk about that. He spoke of fae creatures he called vampires.”
“Did ye say that we are vampires?”
Lydia glanced at Owain’s midnight-black hair and dark eyes. “Of course not. I don’t believe in such foolishness.” She kept her voice smooth and calm, wondering for the umpteenth time, What if?
“Well, the Gwynns do.”
“Mayhap…” Lydia gestured upward to the top of the Dark Tower, where a figure capered and danced on the highest turret, swinging what looked like…what looked like an arm.
An arm that lacked the rest of the body.
Drops of blood were flung this way and that, and some landed on her. She wiped the foul moisture from her forehead and, with shaking fingers, took out a handkerchief and cleaned herself. “Mayhap,” she whispered, “mayhap they have reason to be afraid of something unnatural in this castle.”
She looked down to the cove, grabbed Owain’s arm and pointed. Several boats she didn’t recognize, crowded with men she didn’t know, had beached and were unloading their cargo.
Not fish, but weapons. The creature on the turret screeched with fury and threw the arm down, striking one of the attackers. The capering monster then disappeared.
Lydia gulped against the bile that had risen into her throat. She had previously understood that he was mad but had never before quite appreciated the extent of his insanity. ’Twas one thing to be told that he had utterly destroyed the MacReivers and another to see the proof of it before her eyes. A man’s arm…that meant that somewhere there was a man who had lost an arm. And who had probably lost his life.
A few yards away, Kendrick snapped out a command in Gaelic. As one, the archers turned toward the cove and raised their bows. Another command and arrows rained down upon their attackers. Most dropped where they stood, bloody flowers blossoming on unarmored, unprotected white shirt-fronts.
Pathetic, the rag-tag rabble that had dared to attack her clan so unprepared. Lydia hardened her heart as she watched the carnage. She felt sorry for the men—she knew that each had a mother or p’raps children—but they’d attacked her clan without reason. She firmed her lips and resolved not to waver. Hamish Gwynn was a fool who deserved to die. Anyone who had followed him was equally foolish and deserved the same fate.
Owain produced flint and steel from inside his shirt. He handed his firebox to the nearest archer and said, “Burn the boats. Aim for the sails.”
“Have you rags?” Lydia asked the man. When he shook his head, she handed him her handkerchief. Taking the scarf from around her neck, she tore it into several strips. “That should be enough.”
Owain raised a brow. “Well spotted, milady.”
Flaming arrows arched through the blue noonday sky, their brightness rivaling that of the sun. When they dropped into the boats, some smoldered and others smoked. Sails caught fire, at first burning slowly, then with larger flames. One boat exploded in a violent report, flinging fiery debris.
She jumped and gasped.
“Gunpowder,” Owain said.
She controlled herself and forced her breathing back to normalcy. “That could have caused great damage.”
Burning spars struck men who shrieked and fell, rolling in an effort to smother the flames that ate at their clothing. She bit her lip and thought of her father, her grandfather, her great-grandfather—all had been soldiers. All had watched, fought, endured.
“If they could do it, so can I,” she murmured.
“Milady?”
“Nothing.” She sent Owain a faint smile which she hoped showed leadership, firmness, the courage to act as the laird’s lady. At the same time she prayed she’d be worthy of her birth and her position.
She was also glad she’d skipped her noon meal. The small cove was crowded with the dead and the dying, and even from this height she could hear their groans and screams. At the shoreline, boats burned and smoldered, sending up a smoky stench that twisted her gut into an uneasy coil. The waves lapping the shore were red with blood, flecked with gray and black ash.
Kendrick shouted another order and half the archers turned their arrows on the cliff walk, where p’raps half a dozen men struggled. He then eased his way through the line of archers toward her. “Some have gained the Dark Tower,” he told Owain and Lydia.
“How many?” she asked.
“I dinnae ken. Half a score, mayhap.”
“Other than the sea caves, there are but three exits from the auld keep,” Owain said. He nodded to his right, indicating the door through which she’d started her Dark Tower misadventure. “One there, and one on the other side of the tower, leading to the northward wall-walk. And the double doors into the courtyard. We’ll set guards at each exit and kill anyone who comes out.”
“He went down into the keep,” she said.
“Even better,” Kendrick said.
She looked down. Across the moat, thatched roofs smoldered and smoked. Hamish Gwynn had shouted a retreat and his forces obeyed, but not before wreaking what damage they could. They now headed away, forced toward the nearest meadow by the Kilborn archers, who shot a steady stream of arrows toward them. She guessed the Gwynn forces would regroup to consider their next move.
“Good day,” said a deep voice from above her.
Her body spasmed. She controlled herself, then looked to the topmost turret of the old keep, and there he was. She swallowed hard. “And t-to whom do I have the honor of speaking?”
“Gareth, lately laird of this clan.” He gave her a courtly bow.
“Gareth. Sir Gareth?”
“Yes. I was knighted by his majesty King Charles the Second.”
Her knees weakened and she clutched the nearest stone block for support. Bear up, she told herself sternly. You are the daughter of a general and the wife of a laird.
But she was shocked beyond belief. This was an unexpected revelation. Or was it?
She stared into Gareth’s black eyes and recalled the conversation over dinner at Kilbirnie Castle.
“Just how old was Sir Gareth when he died?” the earl had asked.
“No one’s quite certain.” Staring at his plate, her husband had sounded evasive.
“Who was Sir Gareth?” she’d wanted to know.
“My
grandfather,” Kier said. “The tenth laird, and an intimate of His Majesty’s.”
“Which king?”
“The Merrie Monarch.”
Kieran had avoided answering questions about Gareth, specifically about the length of Gareth’s life. Mayhap Kier had been unable to answer that question because that life had never ended.
The Gwynn priest had said that vampires were long-lived, even immortal.
Kier wasn’t Clan Kilborn’s vampire. Gareth was.
He looked surprisingly good for someone who was well over a century old. Though the midnight-black hair that distinguished most Kilborns was white, and his cloud-pale skin as wrinkled as a crumpled sheet of parchment, he moved with speed and ease, more quietly than a much younger man. His black eyes and clothes contrasted with his hair and skin. He wore funereal but elegant garb, perfectly attired from the top of his behatted head right down to his feet, shod in the same heeled boots she’d seen weeks earlier. They looked as though he’d taken some time to dry them out properly and even to shine the old-fashioned buckles.
She gathered her wits. “Yes, I’ve heard of your exploits on behalf of Charles before the restoration.”
The old man preened. “’Twas an honor to play some small part in history.”
More Kilborn arrows whizzed by, now aiming for climbers on the cliff path as well as down into the beach.
“Some of our enemies have found their way into my home,” Sir Gareth said calmly. “Forgive my haste, milady, but I must tend to my uninvited guests.” He doffed his long-feathered, curly-brimmed hat and disappeared.
At her elbow, Owain said, “He’s the reason we needn’t worry about the Dark Tower. As I say, what the auld laird has, he will keep.”
Astonished, she turned. “You knew?”
“Aye, of course. Milaird didnae tell ye, I reckon, because he thought you wouldnae believe him.”
After a pause, she said, “You’re right. I wouldn’t have, not without the evidence of my own eyes and ears.” She surveyed the battle again. “Is it possible, do you think, to do something about that?” She gestured at the cottages clustered near the castle.
Owain thought before his lips firmed. “Milady, we dinnae ken how long they will attempt to besiege us. Thus we must not waste water. The homes can be rebuilt when the siege is lifted.”
“Pray that will be soon. How much water do we have?”
He grinned. “Ye have noticed, I would imagine, that the weather hereabouts is a mite…dampish, even in the summer.”
“Dampish. Yes. You could say that. So all the cisterns are full?”
“Aye, we’ve ample stores, refreshed and renewed. We can withstand a lengthy siege. But they cannot.” He nodded his head at the Gwynn forces. “They are not numerous enough to leave us unguarded to hunt or steal from our flocks. Remember, milaird left with enough men to mount an attack from the south.”
“Only half a dozen or so, I ke—I believe.” She caught herself before tossing out the Scottish phrase. She thought it would be well to learn Gaelic, but “I ken” would be too much.
“That’s ample for milaird.”
She coughed and blinked. Smoke billowed nearby—too near. She turned and gasped.
Smoke seeped from beneath the old keep’s door and from atop its turret.
The Dark Tower was afire.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Though the autumn sun shone brightly in the noonday sky, shadows swarmed below Kilborn Castle—or so it seemed to young Edgar MacReiver. The warm day had lured the rival clans like an exposed rock tempted an adder to sunbathe.
Near the base of the castle, the crofts and huts smoldered. His belly clenched as he saw the thatched roof of old Mhairi’s cottage alight with orange flames. Blinking back tears, he remembered spending many happy hours at her knee, drinking fragrant tea and listening to stories of the clan.
But he didn’t see any fleeing figures, heard no cries of woman, bairn or animal. Davy was right. The clan had been warned and had taken shelter in the castle. Edgar hoped everyone was safe.
He lingered with Kieran in the shadows at the edge of the forest, with the rest of their escort quietly behind them, concealed. Edgar scrutinized the attackers as they formed ranks just beyond the moat of Kilborn Castle. “Who are they, milaird?” he asked Kieran.
He squinted. “Mostly Gwynns, I trow.” He pointed, his voice grim. “I recognize Laird Hamish. He’s the blond man on the brown, see there?”
“I think I see some of my people,” Edgar said. “MacReivers, I mean.”
“Och, aye?”
“Aye. Angus MacReiver, who was one of my father’s trusted men, and p’raps three or four others.” Strange that he felt no allegiance to them at all. “They must have been away on patrol when, um…he attacked.”
“Aye, seems likely.”
“But who are the rest?”
“Whoever the Gwynn could gather, I believe. I imagine more than a few MacLaynes. They fight anyone, anytime. I doubt there are any Camerons or MacLeods—they’re related to us by marriage, and too canny to attack us. P’raps a Fraser or two.”
Some were armed with claymores and swords. Others fingered long-bladed dirks while other, poorer men, who’d been divested of their weaponry by the Redcoats, held shovels and pitchforks.
“Why are they attacking? What are you going to do?” Edgar asked.
“Watch and wait, for the now. Seems to me that Owain is doing a good job. As for why…” He sighed. “I dinnae ken. ’Tis madness. Kilborn Castle has never been taken and it willnae be today. I swear it on auld Euan’s soul.”
Indeed, arrows rained down from the battlements of Kilborn Castle onto the attackers, who were not faring well. Most had prudently retreated to beyond the range of the crossbows wielded by the defense and now milled about in disorganized chaos.
To their left, the Dark Tower smoldered. “What’s going on at the auld keep?” Edgar asked.
“I dinnae ken. That’s his realm, ye ken? If he fired it, he had good reason. P’raps we were also attacked by sea.” He turned and gestured at their escort.
One of the guards detached from the group and approached, bending his head. “Aye, milaird?”
“Duncan, slip awa’ toward the cove and come back quick with a report. In no more than a quarter-hour.”
“Aye, milaird.”
“He’s a big man,” Edgar said, for Duncan was solidly built rather than slender.
“But he’s stealthy. There’s no one better to reconnoiter.” Kier dismounted and handed his buckskin’s reins to Edgar.
Tugging his claymore out of its sheath, he dropped to his knees and slipped to the edge of the shadows and into the sun. He lifted his polished blade, turning it this way and that so that it caught the light.
A sharp dazzle briefly blinded Edgar. He blinked, opening his eyes in time to see an answering silvery flash from the upper wall-walk of the castle.
After he returned, Kieran grunted with satisfaction as he swung back onto his horse. “Good.”
“They now know we are back,” Edgar said.
“Aye.”
Edgar could see a subtle shift in the manner the Kilborns in the castle fought. Before they’d ably defended themselves, but now they seemed to straighten up, smarten up, knowing that their laird watched. Of course that could be his imagination.
* * * * *
Would she ever forget the screams?
Those trapped within the Dark Tower did not suffer easy deaths. When smoke began to seep from beneath the barred door on the wall-walk, Lydia went downstairs to check on her people. She found everyone and everything much the same as before. However, lunch had been cleared away, and now people sat in the Great Hall in tense groups. Some of the older children amused the bairns by playing games while the mothers told stories.
Rose, tucked into the nook off the kitchen, sweated, shouted and pushed when told to do so. Lydia wasn’t completely ignorant of the process, but she was no expert, either. “How many hours s
ince her waters broke?”
“It hasnae been long.” Mhairi stroked Rose’s forehead with a damp cloth. “She’ll be fine.”
Rose shouted something in Gaelic that Lydia thought she’d heard from Kieran at some point, but she couldn’t remember when. “Rachar muin? What does that mean?”
Mhairi and Grizel exchanged glances. Did a slight smile curve Grizel’s lips? She said, “It means that I am never going to touch a man or bear a bairn.”
Fenella and Mhairi howled with laughter, and even Rose managed a weak chuckle while Lydia scratched her head and wondered.
She took a quick break to go to the Laird’s Tower, use the garderobe and freshen up with Elsbeth’s help. She then went outside to the bailey and across to the massive barred door that sealed the lower entrance to the Dark Tower. A group of p’raps six guards surrounded it, twitching with unease.
She pushed her way through, with the men respectfully parting for her. As she neared, she could smell smoke, see it sneak through cracks in the door, hear coughs, shouts and the pounding of fists on the thick wood from the inside.
“They’re mostly smotherin’ to death, milady,” a guard said, his voice and stance stolid. “From the smoke, ye ken.”
“Yes.” She pressed her lips together, reminding herself that each man had selected his fate. As she stood there, she heard a mighty crash, followed by screams from inside the keep.
Would she ever forget the screams? One, higher pitched than the others, rose to an unearthly screech.
Jolted, she wrapped her arms around herself. “Is that a woman?” she asked.
“Mayhap.” The guard’s brow furrowed. “’Tis hard to tell. But how? Did ye see a wench on the boats, milady?”
“Nay, I did not.” She frowned. The only person who would know was the vampire, Sir Gareth. And where would he be? Not trapped inside the keep. He was too clever for that to have happened. She climbed the stone stair to the upper wall-walk, carefully lifting her gown’s skirt to above her ankles. Her mother would be scandalized, but Lydia felt ’twas better to risk a guard glimpsing a bit of her stocking than to fall and bash out her brains on the narrow, steep steps.
