by Amanda Scott
Catriona moved far enough away to be sure that she had faded into the darkness as Fin had when he had left her earlier on the hillside. She stayed until she thought she had given him enough time to push her out of his mind. Then, quietly commanding Boreas to stay on guard, she made her way back toward Fin.
If he was like most men she knew, once he began boring his holes, he would concentrate completely on them. But he would need help. It felt as if more than an hour must have passed since they’d left the island, but she could not be sure. It had seemed at least twice that long when she had waited for him before.
She knew it had not been anything like so long. But with Comyns still lurking in the area and Albany and Douglas on their way, every minute counted.
The rain had stopped, and looking up, she saw a few scattered stars.
Boreas would warn her if anyone came, and she would be able to warn Fin more quickly if she was near the water than if she stayed obediently atop the hill.
But she had known better than to suggest that to Fin.
She could hear him moving, then the sound of water sloshing as he set the auger to a plank and began to bore, turning the handle swiftly enough to splash. The sound seemed loud, but she doubted that it would alert anyone unless that person was nearby. And, thanks to Boreas, she knew that no one was.
Fin’s work went smoothly despite devilish conditions.
The rough-hewn planks sat tightly between two rows of distantly spaced support posts, just as Aodán had described them. The water of the loch crept higher as he stood there, but he had to bore near the center of the planks to have any hope that his two vertical, closely spaced lines of holes would cause them to break.
The higher the water rose, the more weight it would exert on the lower planks. He knew that once they cracked and water started flowing with speed, its force would carry away the planks and all that the Comyns had piled behind them.
Boring steadily, plugging each hole as he went, he wound twine around the rag plugs, cutting lengths long enough to connect them all. Crouching lower as it became necessary, working with his head underwater now most of the time, he worked his way down from the waterline, finding it harder to keep his balance as he bent and harder to press the auger efficiently into the wood.
Before he had finished boring the third plank from the bottom, he realized that the second one was too far under for him to crouch without floating. Surfacing, trying to think and thinking only how cold he was, he muttered a frustrated curse.
The water stirred, and he felt a warm hand on his shoulder. Reaching for her, he discovered that she was naked.
“What’s wrong?” she murmured. “Can I help?”
“You are supposed to be watching for Comyns,” he muttered back.
“Boreas is doing that. I will hear him growl if he hears or smells anyone coming, but we need to finish this and get back.”
“I still have to bore holes in the two bottom planks,” he told her. “Sithee, the lower boards bear more of the water’s weight than the upper ones do, and so the dam will most likely break from the bottom up. But when I bend so low, my body wants to float. Do you think you can hold me down?”
“I’ll stand on you, if necessary,” she said. “I can balance myself against the dam. You need only touch my foot when you need to come up for air.”
Although Catriona had expected Fin to refuse her help, he said, “If you stand on the slope, you can step onto my back when I bend over. Then I can brace myself as I work. And I’ll warn you, aye, before I straighten up.”
He finished quickly after that, although standing on him as he worked proved to be more difficult than she had expected. She nearly fell in more than once, and just before he touched her foot, she heard an odd moaning sound and felt the planks against which she was steadying herself shudder. She shuddered, too, but relaxed when nothing further happened.
She got off him and moved to where she could stand, and he straightened but only to scoop her up and carry her out of the water to where they had left the rope.
She saw Boreas rise from the shrubbery above them, alert to their approach.
When Fin set her on her feet, she reached for the rope, but he said, “Never mind that now, lass. We should get round to the other side of the hill because the dam may break with enough force to fling plank pieces and other debris about.”
“But we must pull out the plugs first.”
“Nay,” he said. “The two lower planks had begun to bow outward, and I heard creaking, so I stopped. It’s too dangerous now to go back in.”
“I did hear an odd moan,” she said, feeling for her kirtle. “But I don’t hear anything now. How long will it be before it breaks?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But unless you want to go naked, hurry.”
Keeping an ear cocked for other ominous sounds as she dealt with her wet kirtle, she could see enough of his shape to know that he had already put on his tunic, belt, and dirk. Before slinging on his sword, he helped her with her lacing.
As he did, he said, “The pressure at the bottom will grow as the water rises, and I do think that it must be about to go. But I dared not wait to bore the last plank, especially you standing atop me, lass, so I don’t even know for sure that this will work. I’m tempted to stay just to be sure that it does.”
“Do you mean that if it doesn’t, you would go back in and bore more holes?” she demanded, feeling an icy chill of fear at the thought of the dam breaking with him still standing in the torrent’s path.
He was silent for much too long.
“Don’t be daft!” she snapped, forgetting to keep her voice low. “Sakes, sir, we still have to do what we can to save Tadhg and the other prisoners.”
He put a finger to her lips. “Shhh,” he said. “We’re not out of this yet.”
“But you can’t stay here. I won’t let you!”
“Won’t you?” His voice was soft, even gentle.
She put a hand to his cheek and her face close to his. “Nay, Fin Cameron, I won’t. This is one battle that you will not fight alone, sir. Rothiemurchus is my family’s home. If you must stay, then Boreas and I will stay, too.”
“Nay, we’ll go,” he said. “Rain or no rain, that dam will break before the water gets high enough to drown anyone.”
He hugged her then, the strong warmth of his body warming hers.
“You’re shivering,” he said. “But we’ll walk fast, and you’ll wear my mantle until you feel warmer. The thing smells of wet wool, but you won’t mind that.”
“You’ll freeze,” she muttered as he wrapped the damp mantle around her.
“Nay, then, I did not freeze in the river Tay at the ice end of a September. I’ll not freeze here when it’s nearly summertime.”
“It is barely the first of July, sir, and still snowy above, come to that.”
“Strap your dirk on over your skirt, sweetheart, not under it. We’ll let Boreas lead the way,” he added, grasping her hand warmly when she had signed to the dog.
“I keep expecting to hear the dam go,” she said as they hurried along the path.
“The trick will be for us to get back to the castle when it does go.”
“The current on the surface may be too strong then, aye,” she said. “But we do still have one boat unless the Comyns destroyed it, too. If we can get back, our men will be able to row Rothesay and Alex ashore so they can leave.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” he said. “If they follow the Spey, they will likely run into Douglas’s forces, coming here. Good routes from here are few.”
“Mercy, sir, you contradict yourself as well as me,” she said.
He chuckled, and the sound warmed her more. “I don’t contradict you,” he said. “I just raise fresh points to discuss.” Before she could counter that daft statement, he added, “I suspect that Alex will know how to get them both away safely.”
“He will. Not that they need go at all. The men of Clan Chattan and the North wi
ll prevail. We must tell Granddad what you heard those two guards say, though.”
“Not we, sweetheart. I will tell him.”
She did not argue, knowing that she would willingly escape that discussion. In her absence, Fin would not make a point of telling the Mackintosh or Shaw that she had been with him. However, if she were there, facing them with him…
She sighed. The likelihood was that the Mackintosh, her father, and Ivor would somehow learn all there was to know and would have much to say to her. But Fin was her husband. They would leave any punishment to him. And although he had been vexed with her, he no longer seemed to be.
“Keep Boreas close,” he said. “I don’t want him running into an errant Comyn.”
“You said there were only the three left, all guarding the prisoners.”
“I don’t trust any Comyn to be where I expect him to be, not tonight.”
Just then, Rory Comyn stepped onto the path ahead, his sword in hand.
Chapter 20
Fin knew that he was tired, because until he’d recognized Rory Comyn, he had scarcely noticed the moon beginning to peek over hills to the east. Stepping swiftly in front of Catriona and pulling his sword from its sling, he said brusquely, “Get well away from us, lass, and keep Boreas with you. Do not let him interfere.”
She did not respond, but he heard her moving off the path. And he knew enough about the dog to be sure that it would stay near her.
Eyeing Comyn, he said, “I expected you to be sound asleep.”
“I’m none so daft as that,” Comyn retorted. “I should be asking what mischief ye’ve been up to, should I no? I didna ken that ye’d returned.”
“Then you must have been elsewhere when we did,” Fin said. Testing the ground beneath his bare feet, he noted grimly that they would have scant room to maneuver. “We made no secret of it.”
He heard the dog growl low in its throat and hoped that Cat could control it. He did not want to see Boreas spitted on the other man’s sword. Nor did he want the dog to interfere with him. But the growling ceased, and Comyn leaped forward.
Parrying his first sweeping stroke, Fin focused on the next one, preferring to let Comyn tire himself while giving Catriona time to get well away.
Catriona watched the two men long enough to be sure that Fin was in no immediate danger. Unless she was much mistaken, though, he was letting Rory Comyn lead the swordfight, choosing only to defend himself.
She had watched her brothers practice their swordsmanship often and easily recognized James’s chief defense against Ivor.
But she had understood Boreas’s growl if Fin had not. That Rory would be walking alone had seemed odd to her at once. Hoping that whoever was in the woods where they dipped near the trail ahead was more interested in the swordsmen than in her, she eased her way up the hillside, taking care to keep her wet skirt from catching on every branch of shrubbery she passed.
As the moon rose, its light increased. It would not be full but the sort the Scots called an aval moon, because it was the shape of a pregnant woman’s belly. She was grateful for the light but hoped that Boreas’s silence meant that no one lay in wait ahead of her and not that he was still obeying her earlier command for quiet.
Confident that he would keep her from walking into danger, she moved with more speed. In the woods, enough moonlight pierced the canopy to let her find her way, but knowing that an ally of Comyn’s stood somewhere ahead, she took care to make no avoidable noise.
Passing a deadfall, she saw a stout branch that might serve as a club, picked it up, and then touched the hilt of her dirk to be sure that she could find it quickly if she needed it. Holding the club firmly, she listened to the clanging swords on the trail as she moved on, reassured by the even rhythm of their clashing.
Then she saw him, a lone shadowy figure standing by a tree with his back to her, watching the fight. Amazed that he seemed unaware of her presence, she saw the reason when he held a bow out near his right hip and nocked an arrow to its string. The shape of bow and arrow against the moonlit water made his intent unmistakable.
Signing to Boreas to stay behind her, she moved as swiftly as she dared.
When the archer straightened away from the tree, raised the bow, and drew the bowstring to his cheek, Catriona gripped the club tightly in both hands and struck his head as hard as she could.
He dropped at her feet with no more sound than a dull thud and a hushing of leaves. The moment that she’d struck, a voice deep in her mind had murmured that he might be one of theirs. A surge of relief engulfed her to see that he was not.
He was dead or unconscious, the bow and arrow lying half under him. Signing to Boreas to guard the villain, she turned to watch the swordsmen.
Fin looked tired, as he ought to be, she thought. She remembered his so recently tender feet and was sure that after being in the water so long, they must have been as numb as hers were. Hers were leather tough, though. His still were not.
On the other hand, the cold did not seem to bother him, and Ivor was the same. Ivor had only to see sunlight to bare his torso and bask in it.
Fin looked as if he were handling Rory as deftly as he had before. Then he stumbled, and Rory drove his sword at him. As Catriona gasped, Fin deflected the murderous blade and recovered his balance, but she had seen enough.
Looking warily at her victim and seeing that he was as still as a man could be, and that Boreas was watching him closely, she pulled the bow out from under him and yanked the arrow from beneath his elbow. Then, moving prudently away, she watched the two swordsmen on the trail.
Neither man’s movements were as agile as they had been before, but although she hoped that Fin would soon pick up the pace and go on the offensive, he did not. He stumbled again, and Comyn leaped forward.
Again, Fin deflected the blow and recovered.
Catriona nocked the arrow to the bowstring and prepared to draw. She was no highly skilled archer, but Ivor had taught her, just as he had taught her to use her dirk. Taking her stance, she drew the bowstring back far enough to make sure that she could. Assured that, although it was not an easy pull, it was possible, she took aim at a point in the shrubbery some yards to the left of the two swordsmen, waited until they danced farther apart on the path, and let fly.
To her shock, just as she did, Comyn leaped to the hillside above Fin, turned to attack again, and the arrow struck right between them.
Both men started at the sight of it, but Fin recovered faster. With an upswing of his sword and a flick of his wrist, he sent Comyn’s sword spinning up and over his own head and back toward the loch, where it made a large and satisfactory splash.
Comyn roared toward the woods, “Ye daft bastard! Ye nearly killed me!”
That was all he said, though, before Fin’s fist connected with his chin and he collapsed much the same way that the man lying a few feet from Catriona had.
Tadhg’s quiet voice from behind startled her nearly out of her skin: “Sakes, m’lady,” he said, “ye missed the villain. He’d ha’ looked better wi’ your arrow through his lugs!”
Fin crouched low, waiting for the hidden archer to reveal himself. When four brawny figures stepped into the moonlight from the forest shadows, he felt the same sense of fatalism he had felt at Perth upon realizing that he was alone against four more Clan Chattan men. Rory Comyn still lay where he had fallen.
As Fin set himself he saw that the others did not. Then Tadhg and Catriona walked out of the woods behind them, and Boreas loped toward him.
Catriona ran ahead of the others, and Fin caught her in his arms. “Don’t tell me that you freed our men whilst I played out here with Comyn, lass.”
“Nay, I did that,” Tadhg said, dancing up behind her. “A score o’ them Comyns was a-waiting for the nine o’ us new lads when we come over in the boat, Sir Fin. But when they sprang out o’ the woods, they went for all our big lads without heeding me. So in the tirrivee, I went tae ground and hid in the bushes.”
“Goo
d thing for us that he did,” one of the other men said.
“Tadhg was very brave,” Cat said. “He’ll make a fine knight one day.”
“Aye, I will,” Tadhg said. “That ’un there that ye clouted took another ’un and they went looking tae see had they got all o’ our watchers. So, I waited long, sithee, till I thought they were no coming back and them guards was all a-sleeping. Then I crept about and untied a couple o’ our men. But that ’un and his man came back then, so we had tae lay low. Then them two said they’d best be getting back to the dam. Next we knew, swords was a-clanging. Their guards looked to see what were happening, so our lads what I’d freed took care o’ them. Then we freed the others.”
“You said there were two men, Tadhg, but I’ve seen only Rory Comyn,” Fin said. “He challenged me alone, but he had a bowman hidden in the woods, because Comyn shouted at him. Sakes, but you must have seen the chap, lads,” he added. “He shot at me just before you came out of those woods.”
“Nay, then, she didna shoot at ye!” Tadhg said indignantly. “She—”
Fin had already felt Catriona stiffen. Holding her away from him, he snapped in amazement, “You shot that arrow?”
Catriona heard astonishment in his voice but wished that the moonlight were not behind him so that she might see his expression. His hands gripped her tight.
The other men and Tadhg had fallen silent. No one moved.
“I meant only to startle Rory, sir, because I could see that you were tired and that your feet hurt,” she said. “I aimed well to the uphill side of you both, but he jumped that way just as I let fly, so my arrow struck between you.”
“Where did you find the weapon?” he asked.
Although his voice was quiet, its tone increased her tension.
She tried to think how best to answer the question.
“Tadhg,” Fin said. “Did you see where the weapon came from?”
