by Bess McBride
Angus laughed triumphantly, unpleasantly, coldly.
“Mistress Innis Glick, do ye ken ye can speak to me thus? That ye can keep me from what I want?”
He looked over his shoulder and nodded, and the two Highlanders moved forward like bulldozers, pushing the table over and advancing upon us.
I screamed then, as loud as I could. I shoved the older woman behind me and thrust out my hands as if I could stop the men from grabbing me. But grab me they did.
“Have a care now, lads. Do no damage the goods,” Angus barked. “Bring her. Leave the auld woman.” He turned and stalked out of the croft.
I screamed again as the blue-kilted men hauled me forward, Mistress Glick hanging on to my waist as if to pull me back.
Why didn’t anyone come to help? Couldn’t they hear me? I screamed again.
“Help me!”
“Leave off, woman,” one of the men said. Big and brawny, with dark stringy hair hanging over his bearded face, he pulled at Mistress Glick’s hands and pushed her backward.
“Stop! Don’t hurt her!” I screeched with a glance over my shoulder. Mistress Glick fell but pushed herself upright again. “Stop! You’ll get hurt. Stop, Mistress Glick!”
The older woman froze and dropped her hands.
“Be strong, lass. Be strong. John will come for ye. I promise.” Unlikely tears streamed down her face, and my heart broke. I had never seen her weakened or helpless.
I nodded, and the men pulled me through the door and into the dark night. Like the previous night, some of the crofts had been set alight. Women and older children ran about trying to extinguish the fires with blankets and buckets of water.
The clash of steel rang out as Macleod men battled Morrison men. Was I responsible for this? Was this my fault? That Angus had returned for me?
“Stop!” I shouted. “Please stop! Don’t fight!”
My puny shrieks went unheard in the chaos surrounding us. I looked over my shoulder one last time at Mistress Glick, standing in her doorway, wringing her hands, before the Macleod men dragged me not toward the gate but toward the opposite end of the tabletop.
“Where are you taking me?” I screeched. “Where are we going?”
I could see Angus moving quickly ahead of me, but at my voice, he turned.
“Shut yer mouth, lass, or I will shut it for ye. Silence now.”
I took him seriously and shut my mouth as he resumed moving away from the crofts. We passed the boathouses, and I realized we were heading toward the ravine that held the boat.
I wanted to scream out, to let people know where we were headed, but what did it matter? No one would hear me, not amid the shouting and strife near the crofts.
My captors pulled me to the edge of the cliff, and I struggled. Were they going to throw me over? Had I gotten it wrong? Was Angus going to kill me rather than kidnap me?
I started screaming again.
“Help me! Help!”
Down below, I saw men with torches standing by the birlinn. Someone, perhaps Angus, smacked me across the face, not enough to knock me out but enough to silence me. I slumped, and one of the men picked me up and carried me down a rocky path into the crevice. Dizzy and close to fainting, I could do nothing but blurrily watch the activity surrounding me.
The tallest of my captors, the one who had spoken, stepped into the wildly rocking boat and set me down on the floor before tying something around my wrists. My head lolled against his knee as he seated himself. Other men jumped into the boat, their swords clashing against one another in the cramped space. Angus stepped in, and after a quick look in my direction, moved up to take a seat toward the front.
A big shove forced my aching head against my captor’s knee, and nausea swept over me as some men pushed the boat out to sea. The Macleods operated in silence, stealthily, quietly. Even the sound of the oars hitting the water was muted.
The last thing I remember before I fainted was looking up to the top of the cliff and seeing the small figure of a woman, her white hair highlighted in the moonlight, wind whipping her skirts about. Mistress Glick watched us sail away.
Chapter Thirteen
I awoke to the sight of misty gray skies. My head throbbed, and nausea gripped me as the world rocked beneath me. In front, men pushed and pulled at oars, and I heard the sound of wood slapping on the water.
I reached up to rub at my blurry eyes and found my hands still bound together with a rope. My face lay against the foul-smelling tartan of someone’s kilt. With a jerk, I looked up.
My guard, the dark-bearded Macleod who had carried me aboard, looked down at me with a flat expression. Seeing me awake, he raised his eyes, and I followed his gaze toward Angus Macleod, seated toward the front of the boat.
As if aware of the big man’s silent bid to grab his attention, Angus looked up and rose to work his way back toward us. I tensed, and my heart, already racing, pounded. Angus took a seat next to the big man.
“How fares our guest, Dugald?” Angus said in English, his grin wide but humorless.
“She just awakened,” Dugald responded.
I kept my mouth shut. My headache served as a reminder to remain silent.
“Are ye well, mistress?”
I nodded silently.
“And what shall we call ye?” Angus asked.
“Ann Borodell,” I said, fearing that a nonresponse would elicit another smack to the face from Dugald. The Macleods certainly had a penchant for smacking women.
“Mistress Borodell,” Angus repeated. He picked up a metal flask of something from the hull of the boat, took a drink and offered the container to me. I shook my head in response to the sketchy container of liquid.
“As ye wish,” Angus replied. He studied me for a moment, then looked up at Dugald.
“Ensure the lady eats,” he said. He rose without another look in my direction and made his way back toward the front of the boat.
Dugald produced a soiled piece of linen that held several oatcakes, and he offered one to me.
I shook my head.
“The Macleod wishes ye to eat,” he said. I heard an ominous and determined tone in his voice, and with my clasped hands, I reached for the oatcake. I nibbled on the edge of it, trying to combat the nausea that my aching head and the movement of the boat through choppy waves caused. I hadn’t realized I suffered from seasickness, but apparently I did.
I had no idea where we were or where we were headed, but I swallowed my questions and tried to breathe deeply through the anxiety running rampant throughout my body.
I heard voices in the distance but could see nothing in the mist. I wriggled myself straight to see over the side of the boat. Cliffs appeared in the near distance, dropping down to a beach.
Highlanders, Macleods from the blue-green color of their kilts, waved and shouted in Gaelic. Some of the men on our birlinn bellowed back, and the boat bounced up and down in the surf as it surged toward shore. A commotion ensued as men jumped out to drag the boat in, and Dugald picked me up and stepped out of the boat into shallow water to carry me to shore. He set me down on the beach but kept a restraining arm on me. He didn’t need to. I wasn’t going anywhere.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noted another boat anchored just offshore. Then I spied Mary and her children nestled in a huddle on the sand nearby.
“Mary!” I called out.
Mary lifted her head and looked up. Her flaxen hair, normally sleek and well groomed, hung down the sides of her face in a bedraggled mess. Her children slept against her chest, and she held them close. Her face broke into a smile then transformed into an expression of horror as she saw Angus grab my arm to pull me forward.
“Come,” he said roughly.
“Ann!” Mary cried out in English. “Is my brother no with ye?” She didn’t wait for me to answer. “Och, what have ye done, Angus?” She shook her children gently awake and rose, pulling them to a stand. “What have ye done?” she repeated. “John will come for her. He will come for all of us,
ye can be sure of that!”
“Aye, perhaps he will,” Angus said, continuing in the same language as he hauled me along the sandy beach toward a path. Dugald waited almost patiently as Mary took each child in one hand and fell into step behind us, followed by the rest of Macleod’s men.
“He is welcome to do so. I really should have killed yer brother long ago,” Angus tossed over his shoulder.
I kept silent but looked behind me at Mary. She had turned her attention to her children and seemed not to hear Angus, but Dugald’s solicitous behavior surprised me as he guided the group up the path away from the beach. Somehow, I didn’t think he would be smacking Mary anytime soon. If anything, he seemed to have a crush on her.
Angus pulled me awkwardly onto a grassy embankment, and I paused at the site of the large turreted gray stone edifice before us. Angus dragged me forward toward a six-foot stone wall surrounding the fortress.
Ardmore Castle. I had no doubt.
We entered the grounds through an arched doorway guarded by two Highlanders armed with pistols and swords. Once inside the castle walls, a beehive of activity caught my attention as women, men and animals scurried about the daily business of living.
The Macleods at Ardmore Castle were far better protected and provisioned than the Morrisons on Dun Eistean, and my heart went out to the refugees on the tidal island. Barrels, wagons and carts of food and drink were in abundance in the courtyard of the castle. The Macleods didn’t look like they were going hungry.
As if Mary read my mind, she spoke.
“Ye have no right to live here, Angus, no right to bring yer people here,” Mary said.
On the point of being taken inside a seven-foot arched doorway of the largest tower in the castle, I turned to look at Mary. Angus paused.
“The king gives me the right, lass. Ardmore is now mine.”
“My family’s ancestral home will never be yours, Angus. Never. John will make his case to the king.”
Angus shrugged. “His pleas will fall on deaf ears. The king is no likely to reverse his edict. He would look foolish.”
Mary’s eyes glistened, but tears did not fall. She shook her head.
“More’s the pity,” she said.
“Dugald, take my daughter and the bairns to their rooms. And send Mrs. Mackay to me. She can take Mistress Borodell in hand.”
Dugald responded in Gaelic.
“Have courage, Ann. John will come for us,” Mary said as she was led past me. My heart dropped to my stomach to see her disappear down a narrow stone-walled hallway. Whatever was about to come my way would have been more tolerable in her presence. I wasn’t sure what Angus planned to do with me, to me, but surely he wouldn’t assault me in the presence of his daughter-in-law. Would he?
I kept my face averted from Angus as he turned and spoke to several men who had followed him into the castle. I didn’t understand their words, but they nodded and left again, leaving me alone with Angus.
As if realizing he still had hold of my arm, he released me and indicated I should take a seat on a wooden bench by the front door. I eyed the bench and the open doorway and sat, rubbing what was probably going to be a very bruised arm.
Angus probably knew that I wouldn’t run, not then anyway, not out a door and into a courtyard filled with Macleods. I couldn’t possibly blend in. And there was no way I could escape the confines of the walled compound, not with the guards at the gate.
“My housekeeper will take ye to a room,” Angus said.
“What do you plan to do with me?” I asked in a shaking voice. “Am I a hostage?”
I knew John would come for us, but I wanted to bluff Angus. I cleared my throat and lifted my chin.
“Because John Morrison isn’t coming to rescue me, so don’t think taking me will draw him here. I’m no one to him.”
Angus laughed in that hateful way of his and took a seat next to me on the bench. I turned away from his hideous smile.
“I didna take ye as hostage, Mistress Borodell. But John Morrison will come. He will come for his sister, and he will come for ye. Of that, I have no doubt.”
In such close proximity, Angus’s breath was foul, and I winced. Keeping my face averted, I spoke, though barely above a whisper, as my throat constricted.
“Then why did you bring me here?”
“Ye have but to look in a mirror to see why I took ye, mistress. Yer skin, yer lips, yer hair glisten like fine sugar. I would taste of ye.”
He wrapped a hand around the back of my neck as if to pull my face toward his, and I reared back in shock.
“Yer lairdship!” a querulous female voice called out in English. Angus released me, and I jumped to my feet and backed away. A short, stout woman emerged from the hallway into which Mary had disappeared. “Did ye send for me?”
Seeing another woman, I took a step toward her. Angus reached for my arm as if to grab me, but the plump gray-haired woman positioned herself between Angus and me, effectively cutting him off.
“Dugald says I am to take the young lass in hand?”
Angus dropped his hand and stared hard at Mrs. Mackay. I cringed at his angry expression, but the housekeeper stared up at him with unwavering sky-blue eyes. I scooted to stand behind her, though she was only about an inch taller than me.
To my surprise, Angus blinked.
“Och!” he spat out in a resentful tone, as though he had lost some silent battle. “Take the lass to a room. See to her needs. Give her food and drink. She will be staying as our guest, but she is no to leave her room without Dugald or myself. Lock her in.”
“And how long will she be staying?”
“As long as suits me, Mrs. Mackay. Off ye go then!”
Angus turned away as if he couldn’t be bothered, and Mrs. Mackay took my ill-used arm and pulled me away, propelling me down the dark hallway. Given that there were no windows in the cool and slightly damp hall to let in daylight, a single burning sconce shed poor light. We paused at the foot of what appeared to be a very narrow and steep stairwell.
“Up ye go now, lass,” Mrs. Mackay said.
Longing to say something to the unusual housekeeper but unsure of where her loyalties lay, despite my sense that she had protected me from Angus, I kept my mouth shut, hoisted the front of my bedraggled skirts and climbed up the winding stone stairwell. Slightly claustrophobic in less terrifying times, I struggled with the tight space.
“Keep going, lass,” the housekeeper encouraged when I paused for the oxygen that anxiety stole from me.
“I’m trying,” I said. “I’m trying. Where are we going?”
“Och, ye dinna appear verra fit. Ye must have lived a life of luxury in yer London house.”
I turned and looked down at Mrs. Mackay. Ruddy cheeks glowed with perspiration under a white cap.
“My London house? I don’t have a London house.”
“No?” she said, shooing me forward. “Well, wherever ye are from, ye dinna appear to have lived in a troublesome castle with steep stairs. Keep climbing. We are almost there!”
I threw her one last look. She pulled up her own plain gray skirts and apron. A patch of cloth fell from her skirt pocket, a bit of muted-red tartan. I looked down at my skirts. The material matched.
“Mrs. Mackay! Are you a Morrison?”
Mrs. Mackay clucked. “Hush now, lass. I dinna care to remind the Macleod of such. Aye, I was born a Morrison. Go now!”
I turned and half climbed up the stairs on my knees, each stone step above me just about at nose level. A landing appeared, and I reached it with a gasp, my heart pounding. The staircase appeared to continue on to another floor.
“Please tell me we’re not climbing farther up.”
“Aye, that we are, lass. Angus has his rooms on this floor. Ye dinna wish to be near him.”
She nodded for me to continue up the stairs, and I sucked in a deep breath to continue the climb, galvanized by a need for distance from Angus’s rooms.
“Where are Mary and the ch
ildren?”
“They are in Mary’s auld rooms in another tower.”
“Is she free to leave? To walk around the castle?” I hardly thought so.
“Nay, she will no doubt be under lock and key. Dugald is standing guard outside the room, and he will see to their needs.”
“Why are you here, Mrs. Mackay? I mean...how is it that you’re here? Are you safe? Why would Angus Macleod let you stay? Why wouldn’t he lock you up or—” I stopped, unwilling to say what I had been thinking.
“Why did he no kill me and all?” she asked with a raspy chuckle. I looked down at her again. She was just as winded as I.
“Angus had need of me and a few others. He is no interested in the workings of the castle. I ken it was better to stay than let the Macleods destroy our home. The Clan Morrison will return to Ardmore Castle someday.”
“And you’ll be waiting,” I said, breathing heavily as I reached the next landing.
“Aye, lass. I will be here.”
I straightened and stretched my back, realizing that I’d basically crawled up the stairs. Several hallways ran in different directions, and I turned to give Mrs. Mackay a supporting hand as she crested the stairs and stepped onto the landing.
“Follow me,” she said as she took the hallway to the right. She stopped in front of a heavy oak door and selected a skeleton key from a key ring hanging at her waist.
I followed her into a low-ceilinged, rounded tower room featuring a narrow slit for a window, shining oak furniture with red velvet upholstery and hangings. A small white porcelain tub behind an embroidered screen caught my eye.
“A bathtub?” I mused.
“Aye,” she said. “We have several here in the castle, a vanity of the chieftain’s mother, Elsbeth Morrison. Angus has one in his rooms, but he makes no use of it.”
I wasn’t surprised.
“Where were John’s rooms? The Morrison laird?”
“Down below. Angus took them for himself. How is the lad? I have no seen him this past year.” Mrs. Mackay spoke over her shoulder as she moved about the room, ruffling red velvet bed hangings, straightening matching bed covers and checking for dust on an oak dresser and several chairs.
