The Highlander's Stronghold (Searching for a Highlander Book 1)

by Bess McBride

  Chapter Five

  Barely dozing, I awakened to the now familiar noise of the latch being lifted on the door, and I swung my feet to the floor and thrust them into my shoes. The room had darkened considerably, as if the sun no longer shone into the window of the east-facing room but had moved toward the west.

  The door opened as I rose, and I grabbed up my overly long skirts and hurried toward it. Mary, just outside the doorway, bent to pick up a tray, and with a mumbled apology, I pushed past her and ran for the open doorway of the keep.

  “Mistress Borodell!” Mary called out from behind me. “Ann!”

  I emerged into a land turned gold by the late-afternoon sun. The sea around the island sparkled. A quick glance showed that the gate was still guarded by two men. Yet the walls surrounding the stronghold were at least six feet high. I could never manage to climb them.

  I could do nothing but run for the gate again, hoping to take the guards by surprise. I looked over my shoulder to see Mary behind me, one hand grasping her skirts as she hurried toward me.

  “Robbie, James!” she called out. She shouted something in Gaelic, which I assumed was the equivalent of “Stop her!”

  I reached the open gate before the two Highlanders, sitting and relaxing against the stone walls, could scramble to their feet. Without a particular plan, I flew through the gate.

  One of the men shouted, again in Gaelic. I felt a tug at my skirt and heard a rip as one grasped at my skirts, but he couldn’t keep hold of me, and I hurried toward the precipice of the ravine. The tide was out, and I hesitated for only a moment. Spotting a path etched into the cliff face, I grabbed up my skirts even farther and hurried down the path.

  The rocky ledge was steep, narrow and slippery with lichen. I glanced over my shoulder to see the two men pursuing me with agile speed. They would soon overtake me if I didn’t kick into another gear.

  My heart pounded in my ears, and I gasped for air. At the top of the cliff, I saw Mary and heard her shouting, though I couldn’t make out the words.

  I jerked my head forward and ran as fast as I could, slipping and stumbling often on the roughened surface. I reached the rocky beach below and ran down a length toward what appeared to be another steep cliff path rising up to the mainland.

  A shout from behind almost stilled me. I recognized John’s voice. I dared not look around, afraid I would docilely stop at his command. He seemed to have that effect on me.

  “Ann!” he shouted.

  Clutching my skirts almost to my knees, I scrambled up the opposite cliff side, grabbing at rock outcroppings with one hand.

  “Stop!”

  Again, I almost complied.

  “No,” I muttered to myself. “No!”

  I crested the path and reached the top of the cliff, the mainland where the car park had once been. I glanced quickly over my shoulder toward Dun Eistean as I ran away from the cliff edge. I had no idea where I was heading and no idea what I would do when I stopped running. And I was very near to stopping. I couldn’t breathe. My lungs burned. My ribs ached.

  Again, I resisted looking behind me. John was bound to catch me soon. What had I been thinking? That I could outrun him?

  “Ann. Please stop. There is nowhere for ye to go. Ye are safer with me than no.”

  John’s voice came, not in a distant shout, but from close behind me.

  I stopped and bent over to catch my breath.

  I heard him speak in Gaelic, and responses from the two men who’d been chasing me. From my upside-down, hanging-head perspective, I peered at John and the men through the crook in my elbow. The guards backed off, and John approached me.

  I straightened, clutching my aching ribs. My heart pounded, the pulse reverberating in my chest and ears. My throat was raw.

  A hand slipped around my waist, and I felt myself half lifted off my feet as John pulled me to him. His movement was gentle, not angry, and he held me against his chest. I listened to the rapid thud of his heart for a moment before he released me. He stood back and looked down at me.

  “Ye didna promise no to escape,” he said in a resigned voice. “Ye warned me ye would try again, and ye did.”

  I looked up into his troubled eyes and shrugged, still unable to catch my breath enough to speak.

  “Will ye come back to the island willingly, or must I carry ye?”

  To rest my head against his chest once again and listen to his heartbeat as he carried me? But then again, he could very well throw me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and carry me back like that.

  I turned and surveyed my surroundings. Nothing. No buildings. No cities or towns within view. Nothing but long grass billowing in the sea breezes. John was right. There was nowhere for me to go. And running from the island had not magically transported me back to the twenty-first century.

  “I’ll come willingly,” I said.

  As if we were headed out on a date, John offered me his arm in a courtly gesture, and I took it. He helped me descend the path, kept me steady across the pebbly beach, and half pulled me up the opposite cliff. The two guards watched me pass through the gate with belligerent expressions, which quickly went blank when John said something to them in Gaelic.

  I headed directly toward the keep, but John put a staying hand on my elbow.

  “Ye dinna have to return to the keep if ye dinna wish it, lass. I suspect ye ken there is nowhere to go, no unless ye think ye can manage the boat.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Oh, thank you!” I shook my head. “No, I don’t know anything about boats or sailing. Where do you keep it?”

  John turned a wry look on me, one corner of his lips lifting.

  “Ye wish me to tell ye where we keep the boat? Are ye daft?”

  I held back a chuckle.

  “No, I’m not daft. If you don’t lock me up, I’ll see it eventually. Might as well show me now. I’m an archaeologist, you know. I’d love to see where you all kept it—keep it—and what it looks like.”

  “It is so kind of ye to return, Mistress Borodell!” a voice snapped behind me. Mary stood there, arms on her hips, fuming, her blue eyes dark with anger.

  “I’m sorry for knocking you over,” I said with an embarrassed frown. “But I had to try.”

  “Aye, that ye did,” she said. “I have told John I will have no more to do with ye. He can feed ye himself.”

  “Now, Mary,” John began, but Mary turned on her heel and stalked off.

  A knot formed in my throat again. It seemed as if the sixteenth century made me weepier than usual. Perhaps it was the time traveler’s version of jet lag.

  “Dinna fash, lass. Mary is quick to temper, but she will no stay angry for long. In the meantime, I will see to yer needs.”

  “I don’t blame her.” I followed Mary’s progress to one of the thatched stone houses. Her children playfully chased each other out front but followed their mother inside when she arrived.

  “I suppose I don’t have a right to ask about her, and she wouldn’t welcome it, but I’m confused. Is she a Macleod? Is she married to a Macleod?”

  “No longer. She is widowed. Her husband was a Macleod, Hamish, son and heir of the chieftain, Angus Macleod. The marriage was doomed from the moment they eloped five years ago. Mary escaped from Clan Macleod only a few months ago with the bairns after her husband died.”

  “Doomed? How?”

  “He was a Macleod. She is a Morrison. Our families share no love for one another. Once we did, but no more. My father forbade Mary to marry Hamish, and his family was no pleased either, but the deed was done before they could be caught. I thought my sire would kill Hamish, and perhaps he would have, but the auld man died of an apoplectic fit and could do the couple no harm. Still, Mary’s time on the mainland with the Macleods was no a happy one. Hamish died in a drunken brawl with a Morrison kinsman in a pub near Ness. Mary wished to return home, but Angus forbade it. She escaped and is now under my protection.”

  “Romeo and Juliet,
” I murmured.

  “Romeo and Juliet?” John repeated.

  “Oh, just a play written by someone called Shakespeare, a tragedy about young lovers from feuding families. I don’t think he’s written the play yet in your time.”

  “I have no heard of it.”

  I looked up at him in surprise.

  “Would you hear of a playwright way up here?”

  John pursed his lips and bent his head to eye me closely.

  “We are no savages here in the Western Isles, lass. I have attended several performances in Glasgow.”

  “Really? What were you doing in Glasgow?”

  “My father wished me to learn to speak and write English. And it has come in very handily, I must say.

  “Come,” he said. “Ye wished to see the birlinn.” He put a hand under my arm to guide me across the expanse of the tabletop island to the northeastern edge.

  “Berlin?” I repeated. “Is that what you call the boat?”

  “Aye, birlinn, boat, vessel.”

  We passed two small stone turf-topped buildings as we approached a jagged ravine where the perimeter guard wall stopped. Several kilted men sat on stone benches outside the buildings, and John nodded in their direction before leading me forward. I assumed these were the boathouses.

  “There is a ledge below where we pull the birlinn from the sea at high tide. Ye can see the vessel now.”

  I peered over the edge and looked down at a rocky beach. A distinctively Nordic-looking wooden ship with a curved bow had been hauled onto the beach and anchored. Smaller than pictures I had seen of Viking long ships, I counted eight oars, four on each side. White sails were wrapped along a tall mast.

  “Wow! I was thinking something along the lines of a skiff or so. That’s a real ship.”

  “Of course,” John said with a chuckle. “The seas are verra rough here in the Western Isles. No wee boat will do.”

  “So, where do you all go in the birlinn? Not just to the mainland, right?”

  “Aye, to the mainland, but no just across the ravine. We travel along the coast to Ness, sometimes to trade or barter. We have no horses, as ye can see, so if we wish to travel a distance and bear a load, it must be by the birlinn.”

  I turned and looked over my shoulder. No, indeed, I didn’t see any horses. I had seen several sheep near the houses, but no horses. The island was way too small to accommodate horses, and I doubted they would or could climb the slippery, rocky path up to the tabletop.

  I looked out onto the expanse of white-capped sea and toward the mainland. Waves crashed against dark, craggy shores and against random rocky outcrops jutting from the sea. Thick gray clouds had rolled in, and the entire vista was wild and untamed, desolate and harsh, but stunningly beautiful.

  “So beautiful!” I murmured.

  “Aye, it is.” John’s voice softened as he gazed out to sea.

  “But remote. Why don’t you all live on the mainland? From what I saw, there’s plenty of room.”

  “I have a home farther down the coast, Ardmore Castle. Unfortunately, we had to leave our home and retreat to the stronghold at Dun Eistean for the clan’s safety when my foolish uncle angered the Macleod by spiriting his young wife away. Angus swore vengeance upon all Morrisons, and he attacked Ardmore. We were sorely outnumbered and had to flee. We lost many good men that night. It is Angus who now controls Ardmore.”

  “Where is your uncle now?”

  “Och, he fled to Glasgow with his fair lady. Angus found himself a new young bride, but that did naethin to assuage his anger against my daft uncle.”

  “I can’t imagine Mary living with them under those circumstances, especially after her husband died.”

  “No, it was an unhappy time for her. Their romance was short lived, unable to withstand the clan feuding. Then again, Hamish drank too much, leaving her oft alone with the bairns.”

  I turned to look toward the houses.

  “It sounds like she’s much better off here.”

  “Aye, she is home with her people. She has no shortage of admirers, but it may be too soon for her to consider romance.”

  My cheeks burned, and I raised a hand to my face. Had the tall Highlander at my side just said romance?

  I turned to look at the keep.

  “And the tower is to keep watch over the cliff edge?”

  “Aye, and the sea, to ward off an attack.”

  “An attack? You mean from Angus Macleod? If he has the Morrison home and land, if he got his revenge, what else could he want?”

  “Angus wants his grandchildren, Hamish’s bairns. He was no happy when Mary ran away, and reports are that he has vowed to take them back.”

  “So he would attack to take the children?”

  “Aye, but he might no stop with just Mary’s bairns. He might take all the children and most of the young women. It is no unheard of. The Macleods will continue to seek to destroy the entire Clan Morrison—that is the way of it.”

  “Because your uncle took his wife and Mary took her children?”

  “Aye,” John said with a wry nod. “And to take our territory. At one time, we were hereditary brieves on the Isle of Lewis, but Angus decided we had too much authority, and his thirst for absolute power goads him to seek the clan’s destruction. He has as much said so.”

  I studied the stronghold—so small, so desolate.

  “How long can you withstand a siege?” I asked.

  “Perhaps years. We capture fresh water in the well. We take food from the sea. We grow a few small crops.

  “Come,” he said. “Ye must be thirsty. Let us find some ale.”

  He led the way, not toward to the keep but toward the cottages. Upon nearing them, I noted on closer inspection that the stone walls were about four feet high and the upper walls and mounded roofs were covered with thick turf. Plumes of smoke escaped from the roofs of some crofts, indicating fire for cooking or heat.

  I had expected John to knock on the door of Mary’s house, but he took me to another house and knocked on the wooden door. A small elderly lady opened the door with a bright, if slightly toothless, smile.

  Chapter Six

  “John, ye have brought yer guest!” she said, wiping her hands on a grimy whitish apron. Like most of the Morrisons, she wore a skirt made of the faded-scarlet material. Had it been the twenty-first century, I would have said they had a sale on the fabric, but I assumed it was easier to dye and weave the same colors and patterns.

  Her face was lined and weathered, her white hair wispy and knotted at the back of her head.

  “Mistress Glick, may I present Mistress Ann Borodell?”

  I found my hand enclosed in a scrawny but surprisingly warm little hand as she pulled me inside her home. I was reminded of a Native American adobe house. The floor was compacted dirt, though Mistress Glick had thrown several tartan carpets over the whole, lending it a cozy feel. I was able to stand up comfortably, but more to the point, so was John, at well over six feet. Curved timber beams supported the turf ceiling. A small ring of stones smack dab in the middle of the croft supported a cheery peat fire. An iron tripod held a black iron pot.

  A bed tucked against one wall featured a plaid blanket. A small wooden table and several simple wooden chairs nestled against another wall, and Mistress Glick guided me to one of the chairs.

  “Yer skirt drags the ground, my dear,” she said. “I can fix that for ye.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I exclaimed. “This is Mary’s skirt, not mine. I’d better not make any adjustments to it. But thank you for the offer!”

  “Aye, I ken Mary lent ye some clothes. I have heard ye are from England as well. It is no surprise ye dinna have proper clothing. English misses are allowed so many liberties. Trews indeed!”

  I looked up at John, who stood behind me.

  “Seat yerself, lad! Will ye have some ale?”

  “I had hoped ye would have some, Mistress Glick,” he said. “We are fair parched.”

  “I should no won
der, given the running about I saw today. The folk have been asking. Is Mistress Borodell yer prisoner or yer guest?”

  John dipped his head in a shamefaced expression and took a seat. His tall frame seemed liable to crush the small chair, but it held sturdy.

  “Mistress Borodell is our guest,” he said. “She will stay with us for a spell.”

  I turned a quick glance on him as Mistress Glick opened up a small wooden cupboard and retrieved an earthenware jug and some pewter cups.

  “A spell?” I asked.

  “A spell?” Mistress Glick echoed, returning to the table with the ale. “How long might that be?” She directed her question to me, but I had to look to John for my answer. After all, he was the one in possession of the dagger, not I.

  “Some days, I think,” he said, refusing to look at me. He poured ale into three cups.

  “I understand ye came in search of yer sister?” Mistress Glick said. She piled some oatcakes onto a plate and brought those to the table, taking a seat.

  “Yes, but she’s not here. I’ll have to keep looking,” I said.

  “That’s no an English accent,” Mistress Glick said, her blue eyes sharp.

  I looked to John as usual.

  “I believe Mistress Borodell’s mother was from France, her father from England. Perhaps that accounts for her strange form of English.”

  “Perhaps,” Mistress Glick said, obviously unconvinced. I squirmed in my chair and gulped some ale.

  “Where do ye think yer sister might be? What is this Morrison lad’s name? The one with whom she eloped?”

  “Oh, uh...Dylan. Dylan Morrison.”

  “Dylan? Funny name that,” Mistress Glick said. “I’ve no heard of a Dylan Morrison, and I ken most of the Morrison folk in the Western Isles. Perhaps he is a lowlander?”

  “Yes, maybe. I’ll check in Glasgow next.”

  “Aye, or Edinburgh. Did ye search Edinburgh?”

  “No, not yet,” I replied, hoping the bizarre conversation would end.

  “Have some oatcakes,” she urged, pushing the plate at me.