The Gods dinnae bestow a gift to see it thus squandered, lad, the old man had told him when he’d tried to refuse his teachings.
From long habit Edane pushed away the unhappy memories and went to work in the greenhouse. The herbs and veg starters he’d been cultivating now thrived, and would soon be ready for planting in Rosealise’s kitchen garden. Since he had no desire to face Nellie he walked the perimeter of the spell boundary to check its condition, but found no sign of breaches. All the while he thought on the previous night’s events, and he thought on every word Nellie had been compelled to speak. Kiaran’s warning had been justified, but what had they learned of the lass, other than she had concealed her touch-reading power?
I truly ken naught about her but that she fears the Sluath and Dun Chaill.
Once he’d finished his patrol Edane made his way into the stronghold, intent on preparing the fire trap opening in the great hall for the grate Domnall wished to install. Once there he found himself staring at the black-edged hole Broden had punched through the wall.
Why didnae I notice it?
Of the hunters only he and Mael could see the traces left by the use of magic. Last night he had been so focused on Nellie that he hadn’t even bothered to inspect the trap. Now he could see a shimmer at the far end of the passage, and some fragments glowing at the base of the torches, but nothing on the scorched wooden walls. The bespelled opening had led Kiaran and Nellie into the passage, and closed behind them, but magic had not set it alight.
“Just when I believe we have this household in hand, we find another reason to worry,” Rosealise’s brisk voice said from behind him.
“’Tis no’ like the others we’ve discovered,” Edane said as he leaned closer and breathed in. He detected the particular stink of charred fat, and noted the odd appearance of the wall panels. “The fire burned through thin wood panels to what seems a foundation of stone. ’Twas meant to burn hot, but briefly. ’Twould kill an intruder, but prevent the fire from spreading to the rest of the stronghold.”
“Egad, how gruesome.” She pressed a hand against the base of her throat. “I never think of the purpose behind these wretched traps. They simply terrify me.”
What she said brought to mind all the work he had seen Broden do over the centuries. Lures had to be fresh, but so did the makings. Had this passage been built a thousand years past, the fat would have long ago dissolved, and the wood used to fashion the torches rotted to dust. Magic might have preserved them, but he saw no sign of that. Everything told him that the fire trap had been set far more recently, perhaps in the last several days.
He stepped back to see the trap with fresh eyes.
“Edane,” the housekeeper said quietly into the silence, “might I have a word with you?”
For a moment he’d forgotten she was still there. Then he realized that she must have come looking for him.
“My apologies, my lady,” he said, turning to her. “Please have your say.”
“I believe that Miss Quinn is still hiding something from us. I feel it quite strongly. I have also informed the chieftain that I will not again compel her to do anything against her will. If we are to convince her that we mean her no harm, we must encourage her trust.”
He didn’t have to ask why. Rosealise felt using her persuasion power was akin to a personal violation. “How may we convince her to confide it, then?”
“I think you should ask her that question. You’ll find her in her room now, working on some mending for Broden.” She gave him a reassuring smile before she went back into the kitchens.
Edane knew that speaking with the lass tempted trouble. She had deceived him so easily that he yet bristled at the thought, but his feet took him down the passage toward the old pantry. This time Broden had not barricaded the door, although Domnall would likely order him to for the night. Once the chieftain lost his trust in anyone, he rarely offered it again.
Edane stopped outside, lifting his hand to knock. A peculiar cracking sound from within made him yank the door open.
Nellie looked up from a pair of trews that she was patching, and her eyes rounded. “Danny?”
As a deep rumble shook the pantry, Edane lunged at her. He seized her and covered her with his body as the wall behind her collapsed on top of them.
* * *
Rocks and dirt pelted Nellie as Edane struggled against the pile of stone on top of them. More stones fell, burying them deeper. Her body hurt in a dozen places, but she could feel the warmth of blood dripping down on her arms and legs, and knew it wasn’t hers. She should have held her breath and kept her eyes closed, but the frantic need to know if he was still alive made her writhe as she tried to turn under him.
“Danny.” Debris fell against her face as she gasped his name, and the dust grew thicker. “Edane, don’t you dare die on me.”
“I yet live, my peyrl,” he said, his voice muffled against her hair. “Be still. The clan shall soon come and free us.”
“You shouldn’t have done that.” She spat some dirt from her mouth. “Why didn’t you just stay clear?”
“You wouldnae look so lovely crushed,” he said. “Didnae you hear the stones shifting while you worked?”
“No.” She’d been so shocked to see him rushing in that a demon could have dropped on her head and she wouldn’t have noticed. “I thought you guys rebuilt this place.”
“Here all but the ceiling ’twas intact when we came.” His arms tightened around her as shouts came from above. “You see? My brothers come.”
“Mistress Quinn?” she heard Domnall shout.
Edane called back to him. “I have her. She lives. We’re beside the pallet.”
She heard the chieftain speaking to someone else, and Mael swearing softly as the weight shifted again, pinning her feet.
“My God, stop,” Jenna said, her anxious voice growing louder. “You could crush them. Don’t touch anything else until I take a look.”
Long moments of silence passed, and Nellie wondered if the Mag Raith would be able to dig them out.
“If I don’t make it, will you take me somewhere else to bury me?” She sniffed back some tears. “Like maybe that glen where we met? That was pretty.”
“You shallnae die today, lass.” Somehow Edane managed to caress her arm with his fingers. “I promise you.”
“Edane, we have to move two beams before we can start digging you out,” Jenna called through the pile. “It might disturb the rubble, so do what you can to protect her head and chest.”
“He’s on top of me, sister,” Nellie called back to her. “Protect him, why don’t you?”
The architect uttered a strange laugh. “Okay, we’ll do our best. Hang on.”
What followed seemed even scarier than the wall dropping on them. More dirt and then bits of thatching fell through the stones as the men began to work. Wood groaned and cracked, and heavy weights thudded all around them. She felt her eyes sting, and then Edane began murmuring words of reassurance.
“Remember, my lady, we survived the underworld and the Sluath,” he told her, his breath warm against her nape. “’Tis but some stone and mortar and wood. Naught for my brothers to clear. They’ll reach us soon, I swear it.”
She thought of what she’d been doing. “Broden’s trousers are probably rags now.”
“’Tis what he deserves for no’ mending them himself, the lazy arse,” the archer assured her.
Air and light began to filter into the heavy pile around them, and then stones began to fall away as grimy hands appeared, reaching for more to pull away.
“We can see where you are now,” Jenna said, her hand working in to touch Nellie’s shoulder. “Just stay right there. Domnall, use that tree limb to lever that last column away that’s pinning them down. That’s the way.”
Finally, Nellie could see the men digging through the stone. Mael moved huge swaths of rubble with his arms, as if he were swimming through the pile. Broden and Kiaran were wedging posts upright, and she glance
d up to see most of the roofing had gone, and the walls above the pantry had fallen in on them as well.
Domnall appeared over them, his powerful arms bunching as he lifted them both from the remainder of the debris. Nellie turned and saw Edane’s grimy face, and then nearly fainted at the sight of his blood-soaked tunic and trousers.
“Forget about me,” she told the chieftain as he hefted them clear of the wreckage of the room. “You save him.”
“I’m immortal, lass,” the archer reminded her as he stood and nodded to Domnall before he swept her up in his arms. He carried her out of the pantry, stepping over more stones as he made his way down the hazy passage. When he reached his chamber, he kicked the door open and brought her in to his bed.
“I’m bleeding all over,” she warned him, but the fierce look in his eyes convinced her to stay put. “You don’t have to do this for me. You’re really banged up.”
“I’ll live.” He checked her eyes and face and looked all over her front before turning her onto her side and checking her back. His hands gently moved along her spine, her arms and her legs before he covered her with his blanket. “You’ve some small wounds that want cleaning and binding, but I feel no bones broken.”
“Thanks to you, fella.” She tried to sit up, but her arms felt as if filled with jelly. As he tore off the shreds of his tunic, she said, “Let me see your back now.”
His mouth hitched as he turned, and Nellie cried out as she saw the bloody gashes and dark bruises crisscrossing his spine.
“You carried me like that?” she demanded, pushing herself off the bed. Yet even as she reached out to him the wounds began to shrink. “What the devil?”
“’Tis another gift bestowed by our immortality. We heal very quickly.” Edane turned around as Mael and his wife appeared in the doorway. “Lady Rosealise, would you tend to Mistress Quinn’s injuries? I must help the others.” When she nodded, he smiled and strode out.
The seneschal heaved a sigh of relief. “You gave us a proper scare this time, lass.”
“I didn’t do anything, I swear,” Nellie assured him. “I was just sewing when Edane ran in and then everything came down on us.” She looked up at the housekeeper and held out her arm. “I’m not lying. Please, go ahead and check me.”
Rosealise smiled at her. “You’re quite resourceful, my dear girl, but not even you could make part of a castle fall on your head.”
“Aye,” her husband said. “’Tis an ancient place. Doubtless the stone crumbled on its own.”
Nellie recognized the look they gave each other, and knew that now she was the one being lied to.
Chapter Nineteen
WITH THE REMNANT stonework still at risk of falling, Edane helped his brothers block off the passage and shore up the remaining wall to keep the rubble from spilling into the kitchens. The work also helped curbed some of the rage roiling inside him.
Nellie had nearly been burned and then crushed to death, and he would not rest until he knew why.
Once the area had been made safe, Domnall sent Broden to watch over Nellie and Rosealise, and signaled for the rest of the hunters to follow him out of the stronghold to the greenhouse, where Jenna was waiting. There he paused until Edane invoked the silencing spell, and then draped his tartan across the inside panels so they could not be seen.
As Mael and Kiaran did the same to the sides of the structure, Edane attended to blocking the back panels. The time for clever subterfuge had ended.
The chieftain regarded his wife. “Tell us what you ken.”
“I looked over the damage inside and out,” Jenna said, and wiped some dirt from her chin with the back of her hand. “Nothing inside from the pantry or the exterior of the stronghold caused the collapse. Kiaran and I did a little digging at the foundation, but we didn’t find any tunnels under them, either. I need to go through them to be sure.”
“You dinnae need again burn off your hair,” Domnall told her sternly. “’Twas rot, then.”
“My ass it was.” His wife’s eyes flashed with ire. “I personally inspected that room, multiple times. I looked again before we put Nellie in there, just to be sure there wasn’t a way for her to get out. Last night those walls were solid and sound. Someone did this today.”
Kiaran looked skeptical. “If ’tis as you say, and only the wench occupied the chamber, then–”
“Nellie would have died, had I no’ shielded her.” Edane felt Mael’s big hand on his shoulder, and reined in his temper. “Why would she go back to the pantry to sew if she’d set the walls to fall?”
“Boys, let’s remember who’s the architect here. I have a working theory.” Jenna reached into her skirt pocket and pulled out a wedge-shaped fragment of stone. “This is a piece of a boss, what you guys call a keystone. I noticed that it and several other large ashlar stones have fresh cracks in them.”
“Aye, lass, for they’re old, and fell with great force,” Mael pointed out.
“Yeah, that’s what it looks like.” She tossed the stone up and down in her hand. “Funny how all the stones appeared intact yesterday, but decided to shatter today. To drop the walls, at least a dozen of them in the perfect positions broke at the exact same time. I didn’t feel an earthquake, did any of you?”
“’Twasnae by chance,” Kiaran said, looking ready to launch into another condemnation of Nellie. Then he met Edane’s furious gaze and shook his head.
“Easy, lads,” the seneschal said. “Let our lady have her say.”
“I can tell you the one person who didn’t do this: Nellie,” Jenna told the falconer. “There’s no way she could have chosen the correct stones to crack. She also didn’t have any tools or the strength to do it. If she had, we would have heard her hammering away. This was done by someone powerful, silent, and who knows how to build a castle. Sound like anyone she’s described lately?”
The falconer glanced at the chieftain. “More lies, likely. Your lady feels pity for the lass. I dinnae.”
“You know, Kiaran, if I had magical powers or a stealth jackhammer, I could have done it,” Jenna told him. “Want to point the finger at me now? No? Then look at this.”
She went to Edane’s planting bench, where she stacked some small clay seedling pots in two vertical piles and poured dirt in between them.
“Most of Dun Chaill’s structure was made of two stone walls with gravel and dirt filling the space between them, like so.” Jenna tamped down and molded the dirt until it joined the two stacks. “That’s Medieval Scottish Castle Wall Building 101. Take notes because there’ll be a pop quiz later.”
Edane saw the chieftain and Mael casually shift so that they stood between him and the falconer. Then he glanced down and saw he’d wrapped his fist around the hilt of his dagger. He released the blade and took in a calming breath.
“Imagine this is one of the pantry walls. Take away a stone here and there.” Jenna removed two of the pots. “It holds. It would if you cracked most of the other stones. But damage a boss or a stone that supports the weight load?” She tugged at a pot at the bottom of the stack, and soil began to crumble away. “The weights begin to shift. The stones dependent on that support then redistribute their weight, and the structure weakens even more. Ultimately it creates a cascading failure.”
“You’re certain of this?” Kiaran asked.
“Jenna nearly died in a building collapse in her time,” Domnall reminded him. “The Sluath took her from the rubble as she lay dying.”
The falconer had the grace to look sheepish. “I didnae think on that. Forgive me, my lady.”
“Uh-huh. So, let’s see what happens with a little more damage here and there.” Jenna tugged at a number of the pots. That made the others above it fall, and the dirt spilled over the top of them. A moment later the opposite stack teetered and fell into a heap. “Any questions?”
Her husband studied the mess. “How can you be sure the stones didnae simply crack from ruination?”
“You mean, aside from the fact that I wou
ld have noticed, and I would never have let you put Nellie next to unsafe walls?” She picked up the keystone and turned it on its side. “See the green stain on the inside of this cracked edge? I think it’s from fresh moss being stuffed inside and over it. I saw more stains like that on other stones.”
“Placed to hide the tampering,” Edane said, remembering what he’d seen in the Great Hall. “Chieftain, ’twas the watcher’s doing.”
As he told them of what he had observed about the fire trap just before the collapse, Kiaran kept silent. Domnall’s expression grew harsher, and Jenna rubbed her brow. Mael went several times to tug aside an edge of a tartan to look out at the stronghold. Edane knew he was worried about his wife. All he wanted to do was fetch Nellie and take her far from Dun Chaill.
But if we go beyond the spell boundary, the Sluath shall find us.
“So, the watcher’s back,” Jenna said, and the men nodded. “How do we deal with this jerk?”
“We hunt.” The chieftain put his arm around her shoulders. “We shall begin searching anew, using the grid map my lady drew for us of the stronghold. Edane, we’ll need your magic now.”
He nodded. “The ward stones I used before remain in place. I’ve but to activate them to trace any movements no’ our own through the keepe.”
“See it done tonight.” Domnall regarded the other men. “Carry your weapons and remain on your mettle at all times. We’ll set a watch in the keepe day and night. Kiaran, send your kestrels to patrol the towers and passages. Jenna, you and I shall return to the pantry, and look for any trace the watcher left behind there that may give away his hiding place. Mael, you shall guard our other ladies–”
“No,” Edane said. “He’s tried twice to end Nellie. I brought the lass here, and ’tis my duty to protect her. I’ll no’ have her sleep in the stronghold again.”
The chieftain hesitated before he nodded. “Where shall you take her, then, Brother? No’ the forest. ’Tis too open.”
Edane: Immortal Highlander, Clan Mag Raith Book 3 Page 10
