Bride of Dunloch (Highland Loyalties)

by Veronica Bale

  Joining her husband at the head table, Jane could not help but feel that every pair of eyes in the hall was surreptitiously watching her, aware of the humiliation she had suffered the night before as if the evidence of her shame had been transcribed onto her body.

  Perhaps it had been, she thought dully. The flesh between her thighs was so tender and bruised that she was forced to walk stiffly and sit with care. But if Lord Reginald noticed her discomfort, he said nothing.

  “What do you think you shall do this day, my dear?” he queried amiably once he’d finished his meal.

  She swallowed the mouthful of cheese she’d taken, and smiled gracefully. “I think I should like to see the spinning room. Then perhaps I shall stroll about the grounds and become familiar with the landscape.”

  “That is well, but I must insist you do not venture too far. For though my men patrol the borders of Dunloch with vigilance, there is no guarantee that a crafty MacGillivray straggler may slip past them. You do not want to be on your own should you run into one of them.” Then, considering, he added, “Shall I fetch you an escort?”

  “I pray you do not,” she replied hastily. “In truth I desire the time alone to reflect and to enjoy the peace of the day. I assure you I shall not venture far.”

  “Alright,” he relented. “Mind you be very careful, though.”

  “I shall,” she promised.

  “Well then, my love,” Lord Reginald said, placing his hands on the wooden table top on either side of his trencher, “I’m afraid I must leave you now. I have much to do.”

  He stood from the sturdy table, and with an obligatory kiss to the top of his bride’s head, he left the great hall to begin his day’s tasks.

  Jane watched him go, followed by half a dozen of his attendants. She was anxious that he might realize there had been a note of deceit in her voice, for in truth, she had lied. She had no intention of staying close to the castle—her plan, spun almost as soon as she had passed by the place, was to return to the site of the lone English soldier.

  She hastened through the remainder of her meal, eager to excuse herself from the great hall and the curious eyes of the castle inhabitants within. Returning to her bedchamber, she donned a sturdy wool gown and matching cloak with a wide hood. Then, without seeking out Ruth to inform her maid of where she was headed, she stole through the castle and escaped the outer curtain wall through the rear gate house. A short time later she had crossed over the rolling, green hills and was travelling contentedly along the main road under a low, grey sky.

  Her contentment did not last long, however; the journey to the mysterious site of the lone soldier was nearly an hour on foot. She arrived at the site, flushed and agitated, and exhaled with relief when finally she spotted a figure dressed in the distinct English mail and orange tunic—though the man wearing it was not the one she’d seen previously. Where yesterday it was a tall and broad-shouldered young man, today it was a rather withered man of well advanced years.

  No matter. It was not the soldier that had interested her. It was the mystery of what he was guarding.

  Lifting her chin in a show of confidence befitting her new station, Jane marched off the road and approached the spot where the old soldier stood.

  “Good morning, sir,” she ventured.

  The soldier beheld her warily, suspicious of her presence. The corners of his watery eyes crinkled as he measured her through narrowed lids.

  “Madam,” he replied.

  “I am the Baroness D’Aubrey,” she revealed. “I wonder if you might let me see what is beyond that ridge. My carriage passed by this spot yesterday morn, and I confess the posting of a guard here, in what appears to be an uninhabited area, sparked my interest.”

  “Beyond that there ridge, at the bottom of the little valley, lie traitors to the Crown, Baroness,” the soldier answered in a thick, Lancashire accent. “Them Scots what were cut down by the baron’s forces in the attack.”

  Her blood chilled, and she shuddered at the man’s revelation. She had not considered that such a macabre possibility would be the answer to her mystery. Images of frightening and monstrous Scottish corpses lying at the bottom of the valley floated through her mind.

  But Jane had never been fanciful; she was by nature a level-headed and compassionate girl, and her thoughts turned from the gruesome images of corpses to the faces of those left waiting for them to return home—savage Scots though they were.

  “Then sir, surely you agree these men must be returned to their families and buried.”

  She made to step around the old soldier, intending to peer over the top of the ridge, but the man held his arm out, barring her way.

  “Nay, my Lady,” he answered. “These bodies are to be left here to feed the crows. Families are not permitted to claim ‘em. It’s a lesson to be learned, ye see.”

  “I am certain the baron would object to such cruelty if he were to be made aware,” she returned, indignant.

  The soldier stifled a snort of derision. “My Lady, it were the baron what ordered the families be prevented from claiming their dead.”

  Jane stared dumbly at the ridgeline, stunned by the soldier’s admission. Surely the baron was not capable of such cruelty. Regardless of what these men had done, such a thing was not right. A peculiar mix of emotions warred within her at the thought: horror, fear, sorrow ...

  And adventure. Stronger than any other emotion at that moment was a sense of adventure, an intense desire to disobey the soldier and see for herself what lay beyond the ridge.

  But it was unlikely that he would let her pass. Looking thoughtfully to the horizon, she noticed that the landscape rose upwards again after the dip of the ridge to the unseen valley below; a dense wood covered the rising hill—a wood beyond which nothing was visible.

  Jane smiled secretively to herself as an idea formed in her mind.

  ‘Thank you, sir,” she said, turning her eyes back to the old soldier. “I suppose if it was the baron’s will that those men be left there to rot, then it is right.”

  Without waiting for his response, she pivoted on her heels and headed back down the road the way she’d come.

  As soon as she was out of the soldier’s line of sight, she darted from the main road into the surrounding hills and made for the forest she’d spied from the ridgeline. She persevered, her stubbornness to unlock the mystery propelling her forwards like sails on a ship, though the journey was rough and her shoes far too flimsy for this type of walking. Several times her ankles overturned on unseen rocks and divots in the earth. But onwards she pressed. From boulder to bush and up and down the heaving green hills Jane crossed the rugged terrain.

  The route she’d chosen brought her around and behind the curving ridgeline to the edge of the forest. Entering the dense stand of pines, she picked her way through a tangled web of low, sharp branches that wove together as if even the Scottish trees were defending the territory that belonged to them. The ground under her feet was a spongy and fragrant carpet of amber needles.

  The voyage through the trees was slow and, at times, painful, and a good part of it was spent fretting that’d gotten herself lost. A cry of triumph escaped her lips the moment she spied daylight announcing a clearing. She prayed it was the one she’d been aiming for.

  Luck was with her. Through the last of the pines she spotted the back of the ridge as it dropped into a deep, but narrow valley on the other side of the road.

  And heaped unceremoniously at the bottom of the valley bowl were the warriors.

  She covered her nose and recoiled fiercely as a gust of wind picked up the stench from the bodies—a vile blend of excrement and blood and death. They had not been dead long, though, perhaps a day or two. It was obvious that this was not the place where these warriors had fallen, that the bodies had been dumped here, thrown atop one another in a pile two or three deep with little care. As though this place were no more than a midden, and the bodies of the men mere rubbish. Insignificant.

  She stare
d at the sight before her, her mouth working silently in her shock. An unexpected sense of pity settled over her. She would have thought the sight of such grisly death would cause her to flee such a scene, screaming in terror as she went. But faced with it here, like this, she felt nothing but sadness.

  Not all of the men lying dead in the valley were fearsome Scot warriors like she’d imagined, though several of them were. Many of the lifeless members of their bloodied and butchered ranks were older men; a number of younger men were there also, barely older than boys, really.

  Crouching to the forest floor, Jane stared pityingly at the face of the young man lying closest to the trees. If she put her hands to her eyes to shield them from the sight of the other dead men, she might think he was merely sleeping, for he was positioned on his side as if at rest; his face, handsome and youthful, was at peace. The blood-soaked linen of his tunic disrupted the illusion, however, and her heart ached for the life that had been cut down so early.

  But ... he had attacked Dunloch with the rest of his vicious kinsmen. So he had to be killed ... did he not?

  Jane contemplated the matter briefly. Then, with her curiosity satisfied and replaced by a hollow throb in the pit of her stomach, she stood.

  Just as she turned, there was a powerful thrust at her shoulder. Startled rather than frightened at first, she staggered backwards, and her back and shoulders slammed forcibly into the trunk of the tree around which she had been peering. It was several seconds before she could focus her eyes on the object that had assaulted her.

  Glaring back at her with immeasurable rage were the green eyes of a Scot. A MacGillivray—she was certain. His distinct Highland sgian-dubh was raised to her throat and his powerful hand gripped her shoulder with iron strength, the fingers digging painfully into her flesh.

  For a moment she was too terrified to comprehend much more than that. She and the MacGillivray rebel stared at each other, locked in place by the force of their eyes alone.

  And then her mind began to move again—swiftly and uncontrollably. She took in the sight of the Scot and trembled at the picture painted by his appearance. Dried blood trailed from a gash in his temple and caked thickly in his long, dark strands of hair. He was young, and well muscled; she had no doubt that with one twist of his forearm the sgian-dubh clutched in his hand could cut through the bone of her neck, severing her head from her body. The horrific stories perpetuated by the ladies of Sussex, and even by Amelia, careened through her brain, and Jane feared she were on the verge of being raped and killed.

  For reasons incomprehensible to her, the former possibility terrified her more—it was the tender, bruised flesh between her legs that throbbed in anticipation of being further damaged, and not her throat that seared with the anticipation of his blade slicing across her skin.

  As Jane’s terrified expression registered on him, the look on the Scot’s face changed, softened. She realized then that he had not meant to attack her, that he thought she had been a threat to him. After all, she considered, seen from behind, crouched down and concealed entirely by a grey woollen cloak, she might easily have been mistaken for a raider.

  “I mean no harm, sir,” she offered carefully, testing her theory.

  The Scot said nothing, merely held her eyes with his own. The hand which gripped her shoulder began to tremble, as did the blade held to her neck. And then his eyes seemed to lose their focus. With a groan, he slouched forward, lowering his head. On unsteady legs, he wavered where he stood, and staggered slightly, his hand still clamped on her shoulder. With a cry of astonishment, Jane gripped the Scotsman to steady him, her arms moving automatically and without thought as the man’s knees buckled and he sank to the ground.

  He had been seriously wounded—that much was immediately clear. A spectrum of dried and fresh blood soaked the linen of his shirt, and from the delirious look she recognized in his eyes, she thought that whatever wound might be under his clothes must be infected and fuelling a raging fever. It was very little effort for her to convince the man to lie down, but when she moved to lift the tartan draped across his flank to better inspect his wound, he fought her instinctively.

  “Shhh,” she soothed. “I only want to judge its severity. I shall not touch it, I can imagine it hurts.”

  The Scotsman relented, and allowed her to shift his tartan and lift the hem of his shirt. Across his right flank was a nasty gash that, as she suspected, had indeed become infected. The flesh surrounding the open wound was an angry blend of scarlet and purple, and thick, yellow fluids had begun to collect and seep from inside the deep slice.

  The direness of his situation sat heavily with her. She searched his face which, despite a fierce expression, could not hide the terror that broiled just below the surface. In truth, he looked like a scared, little boy trying to play big, brave soldier.

  So he should be scared, she thought, for it was very likely that he would die from the severity of his infection ...

  That was, of course, if she did not help him.

  As it happened, this particular Scot was fortunate that it was Jane Sewell of Sussex whom he had found lurking amongst the trees. She was not only a compassionate and caring girl by nature, a trait which allowed her to overcome her initial fear of the man—but she also new medicine. It had been a talent and a discipline of her grandmother, carried through the generations and passed down to the young by the old. It was a discipline which the lady had insisted on sharing with her granddaughters. Though Amelia had never held much interest or patience in learning the craft, Jane had absorbed everything her grandmother had to show her. Because of her attentiveness, she knew that the bark of a willow could cure a headache, that thyme could reduce a fever and prevent infection ... and that a poultice of honey could cure it.

  But was she too late? By the look of the man, she thought she most certainly was; her chances of curing him were slim. Then again, leaving him here and doing nothing at all would amount to the same thing. Only then her conscience would be permanently blackened.

  The man was a MacGillivray. Of that she was certain, for the colours of his torn and blood-soaked tartan declared it so. He, along with his clansmen, had attacked her husband’s lands, his home, with brutal force and murderous intentions. Should he live through this ordeal—which she very much doubted he would—who was she to say that he would not do the same again?

  But he was also a man; a creation of God, fragile and in need. Whatever conflict existed on this earth, she knew that her duty to at least try to help was not between her and this man, nor her and Lord Reginald D’Aubrey, Baron of Dunloch, nor even her and King Edward himself.

  It was between her, Jane Sewell ... and God.

  “Sir, I shall do my best to heal you,” she stated resolutely, though her heart was still hammering away at her ribs. “I do not know if I can, but I will surely try. But we cannot stay here. There is a sentry posted to guard this valley, and he is just on the other side of that ridge.”

  “I ken a place, if ye can help me to walk,” the Scot answered. The words strained through teeth clenched tight against the pain of his wound.

  Carefully, she weaved her arm underneath the man so that his wounded flank was between them. Gripping his waist on the opposite side, she coaxed him to drape his arm over her shoulder. He cried out in anguish when she helped him to stand, and for a terrifying moment she feared the noise would alert the guard to their presence. But as the seconds passed, there was no movement or sound save for the crows. With an exhaled breath of relief, Jane moved on with the Scot.

  The man led them farther into the forest, though in which direction she could hardly guess. After only a few minutes he began to weaken, and the pace with which he deteriorated from there was frighteningly rapid. To keep him moving, she took to offering words of encouragement through the slow and laborious journey. Twice he stumbled—the second time so badly that his scream of agony made her wince as if she herself were suffering his pain. Somehow, with much patience and effort, she convince
d him to stand and continue.

  They walked for what seemed like an hour, perhaps two. The changing light of the sky that filtered down through the trees signalled the advancing day. From the distance they’d gone she thought it might not be more than a half-hour’s brisk walk on her own, but the wounded man’s pace was so very slow. As they ventured farther and farther into the woods, she began to worry that the man, in his state of oncoming delirium, did not actually have a destination, and she feared that they were terribly lost.

  But then, she saw it, and at first she had to blink for she did not quite believe her eyes. A forest stream wended its way through the dense growth. On its banks, in a small clearing ... was a hut.

  An abandoned hut, by the looks of it, but still in good enough repair that the wattle and daub walls would likely not collapse upon them. With as much haste as her wounded companion could allow, Jane guided him to the crude door of woven reeds. Inside, the rotting rushes which had been long ago laid gave off a rich, earthy smell. The thickness of the odour, though itself not entirely unpleasant, overwhelmed her nostrils, and instinctively she covered her face with her hand until she had grown accustomed to it.

  A stone fireplace, still in very good condition unlike the walls and roof surrounding it, was built into the opposite wall from the door. Leading him to it, she helped the Scot lie down on the rotting rushes. He panted heavily from his effort to walk, and his entire body was slick with perspiration.

  “I must remove your shirt, sir,” she warned first so that he would not instinctively fight her again.

  When he made no move to stop her, Jane raised the hem, pulling it up his torso and over his head. He tried to assist her, but his weakness and his pain limited his movements. She managed nonetheless, and a more clear view of the wound confirmed what she already knew—that his fever and his infection would kill him.