The Age of Knights and Highlanders: A Series Starter Collection

by Kathryn Le Veque

  She looked around the dilapidated ruin, trying to ignore the scurrying and squeaking of what were probably rodents. There were signs of habitation—a meager blanket tossed in a corner, a stool tucked under a small, lopsided three-legged table, the fourth corner propped up on a stone from the crumbled wall. “Do ye live here, Brother Horwich?” she asked.

  He tilted his head to one side, as if not understanding.

  Mungo chuckled. “He doesna get to speak to women much.”

  Shona’s heart filled with pity for the outcast, probably shunned by his village and forced to live out his days in isolation. She held her breath. “Are ye a hermit?”

  Horwich beamed a toothless grin and tapped his chest. “Aye. Prior o’ the cell. The last survivor.”

  She gritted her teeth and turned to Mungo. “This poor man is no priest. Surely ye dinna think…”

  “Hush,” he interrupted, forcing her arm behind her back. “Ye’ll hurt his feelings.” He pointed to one of his men near the door who held up a brace of plump hares. “Proceed, Brother, then ye’ll get yer reward.”

  Horwich’s eyes widened as he swiped a filthy hand across blistered lips. Shona wondered how long he’d been without a decent meal—or food of any kind.

  She struggled to resist when another of Morley’s men emerged from the shadows and tied a musty-smelling gag over her mouth.

  Eyes raised to heaven, the simpleton lifted his hands in prayer and began chanting. She recognized a few Latin phrases and some Gaelic, but the rest was gibberish. After interminable minutes during which she thought she might go mad with anger and frustration, he paused and looked expectantly at Mungo.

  “Aye,” her abductor replied solemnly.

  More babbling ensued then he paused again and looked at her.

  Fearing her tortured arm might break and sweating with the effort of the fruitless struggle against Mungo’s hold, she shook her head vehemently and voiced her refusal as best she could with the loathsome wet gag stealing away her breath.

  Horwich smiled benignly and made an exaggerated Sign of the Cross over them—with the wrong hand. “Man and wife,” he murmured with a heavy sigh. Humming, he wandered off into the shadows after deftly catching the hares tossed from the doorway.

  Mungo laughed and scooped her up. “Come along, wee wifey. Off to bed.”

  Fearing the hound had again led them astray, Ewan and his men finally caught up to Ruadh, surprised to see him napping outside a ruined building that may at one time have been a church. He got up and barked, wagging his tail as they approached.

  “Mayhap he’s cornered a deer in yon ruin,” Walter quipped as they reined in their mounts. “A cell of Dunscar Abbey. Abandoned over a hundred years ago.”

  Ewan smiled wryly but as they dismounted he worried there was no sign of horses. “If they were here, I fear they’ve eluded us once more.”

  Twenty men surrounded the church as Ewan and Walter drew their daggers and shoved open what remained of the door. Hinges creaked, but there was no time to become accustomed to the darkness inside, nor to ponder the source of the aroma of roasting meat. A hooded figure scurried by, apparently fleeing the ruin.

  Walter flung himself at the fugitive and they rolled together on the ground, but he got to his feet quickly and backed away. “Fyke, he reeks.”

  They covered their noses, staring in disbelief at a skeleton of a man scrabbling in the dirt like a starving dog for scraps of meat. He shoved grit-covered morsels into his mouth one after the other, glancing up fearfully now and again. Even Ruadh looked on in apparent disgust.

  Ewan sheathed his dagger and swallowed the bile rising in his throat. “I dinna want to frighten him, but we need to know if he’s seen Shona.”

  Wiping grease from his gambeson, Walter put his weapon away and hunkered down. “We’re nay going to steal yer food,” he assured the beggar.

  A foreboding crept into Ewan’s heart when he realized the man’s rotting garb was an ancient monk’s robe. “Look at him. He isna capable o’ trapping his own food. Somebody brought it for him, but ye claim ’tis more than a hundred years since monks dwelt here.”

  “Nay,” the beggar spluttered, sending a spray of food flying, “I’m Brother Horwich, the last prior.”

  Ewan and Walter exchanged a worried glance.

  Others gathered round to stare, noses wrinkled in disgust as the outcast picked spatters off his filthy robe and popped them into his mouth.

  “What kind soul brought ye the meat?” Walter cajoled.

  “Canna tell.”

  Ewan was tempted to seize hold of the man, but the robe might disintegrate entirely and he truly didn’t want to touch the fellow. “Canna or willna, Brother?”

  “Swore I wouldna.”

  “Mungo evidently expected us to pursue them,” Walter surmised.

  Fearing the worst, Ewan narrowed his eyes. “So ye swore not to tell about the ceremony?”

  “Aye,” Horwich replied. “Man and wife. In nomine patri…son…holy…” His thin voice trailed off when he noticed Ruadh. “I like dogs,” he murmured, scrambling on all fours towards the hound. Wisely, Ruadh backed away and ran off.

  “I’ll make sure Mungo dies a slow painful death for subjecting Shona to such a travesty,” Ewan promised as he watched the beggar get to his feet and disappear into the ruin.

  Walter shook his head. “I canna believe he thinks to claim what transpired here as a valid marriage.”

  “Who’s to naysay him? Shona is the only one who knows the truth and I’ll warrant he’ll keep her silent until he’s laird, and then…”

  Feeling the need to pace, he tried to fathom what Morley might do next. The answer hit him squarely in the gut. “He’s taken her back to Creag. We’ve fallen into the trap and left folk at the castle unaware of what’s happening. We must ride back with all possible haste.”

  Mungo didn’t remove the gag until Shona stopped struggling, too exhausted to carry on the fight. The more she fought, the harder it became to stomach his foul odor. It occurred to her they were heading back in the direction of Creag Castle. The prospect brought renewed determination. Surely someone there would come to her aid.

  She kept her thoughts to herself, resolved not to give her abductor the satisfaction of hearing her complain. He seemed to derive pleasure from her agitated movements on his lap.

  She wondered if Ewan Mackinloch was still at Creag, or if he’d returned to Inverness, disgusted with the MacCarrons. Who could blame him? She felt his loss keenly, not only for herself but for her clan. Kendric wasn’t a young man and his injuries were severe.

  Her heart lurched. That’s exactly what Mungo and his vile brother had counted on. In her state of frenzied indignation she’d forgotten Ailig and his errand.

  She worried for Kendric and Jeannie and prayed fervently nothing untoward had happened to Ewan. She was becoming more and more convinced the Morleys had played a role in her uncle’s accident, and probably her father’s sudden demise. Ailig had never forgiven the man who’d sentenced him to banishment and inflicted the hideous scar, though he’d left her father no choice but to defend Jeannie against his brutality.

  Laird Beathan MacCarron was a staunch supporter of the laws of the land and clan traditions. He defended a man’s right to rule his wife, but was fond of boasting he’d never raised a hand against Shona’s mother. He made no secret of his contempt for men who used their fists to control a woman.

  His death devastated his family and his clan, but the possibility it hadn’t been the mysterious accident everyone assumed made her blood boil.

  She was anxious to reach Creag Castle, but her spirits plummeted when Mungo called a halt five miles from home near the abandoned fortress at Inverlochy.

  Ailig rode out to meet them. “Welcome to yer lodgings, Sister,” he crowed.

  A pulse thudded in her ears. A burning desire to accuse him of her father’s murder seethed within her, but she recalled one of Beathan MacCarron’s favorite mottos.

 
; Keep yer powder dry, lassie.

  She lifted her chin and looked down her nose at him. “I am not yer sister, and I will lodge nowhere this night but in Creag Castle.”

  Narrowing his eyes, he leaned forward in the saddle to run a fingertip down her cheek. “Feisty bitch ye’ve wed,” he said to his brother.

  She flinched, disturbed by the naked lust in his gaze, but Mungo saved her by pulling his horse back. “And ne’er forget she’s mine, Ailig,” he warned.

  The low menace in his normally strident voice sent a shiver through her, but she tucked away the knowledge of their jealous rivalry.

  “Did ye get it?” Mungo asked.

  Ailig spat, holding something aloft. “Aye. Yon steward is careless.”

  She stared hard at the small object he held, hoping against hope it wasn’t the vial of laudanum Cummings had left for her uncle.

  “Alas,” Mungo said as he dismounted and lifted her down, “our bed in Creag will hafta wait one more night, my love. Ailig and I have business to attend to there, then I’ll come for ye on the morrow.”

  Deadly certain they meant to murder Kendric with his own medicine, she surveyed the crumbling walls in the dying light. “Ye canna leave me here. This place has been deserted for nigh on ten years.”

  Surprisingly, Mungo seemed genuinely saddened by her plight. “Brian and Niall will bide here as weel. They’ve got blankets to warm ye, and there’s bread and cheese left in…”

  “Come on,” Ailig urged, turning his horse. “Her comfort’s of no consequence.”

  “She’s my wife,” Mungo retorted.

  “For pity’s sake, idiot. Keep yer eye on the prize.”

  Her husband shrugged, pecked a kiss on her forehead and remounted.

  “No fires,” Ailig shouted to the men left behind as the brothers rode away.

  Scowling, Brian and Niall dismounted and led their horses towards the walls. Clearly they didn’t relish a night sheltering in the eerie ruin either.

  She considered making a run for it; in the daylight she’d find a ford across the nearby Lochy, and make her way home, but in the dark…

  As if they suddenly realized they’d left her standing in the field, both men turned. “Get a move on,” Brian shouted.

  With no alternative, she traipsed after them into the keep. She’d never been inside Inverlochy when it was inhabited. The darkness rendered it impossible to see where the black passageways that led from the great hall went to. “Surely we can light a fire in here?” she grumbled, feeling her way across the cold stone mantel of the hearth.

  “Ailig said not,” Niall replied nervously.

  It appeared she wasn’t the only one afraid of the man.

  But she couldn’t let fear rule her. She was the daughter of a Highland chief and the two Morley henchmen left to guard her had best not forget it.

  Resigned to another uncomfortable night, she yanked the blankets out of their arms and made a bed for herself in a corner where the hearth jutted out from the wall. “Keep yer distance,” she snarled as the pair looked around for somewhere to sleep.

  She curled up in the blankets, grimly satisfied she’d managed to intimidate them, but then if they were stupid enough to follow Mungo’s mad scheme…

  Nevertheless, she couldn’t resist a parting shot. Why should she be the only one awake all night? “They say the Earl of Montrose still haunts this place, ye ken?” she said ominously.

  Stricken Warrior

  Nightfall forced Ewan and his men to slow their pace, but he remained determined to push on to Creag Castle. Walter shared his foreboding that the Morleys intended to do away with Kendric. They hoped Fynn and David would realize the danger and protect the bedridden laird until they arrived.

  Ewan chose to center his thoughts on the threat to Kendric, preferring not to think about what Shona was enduring. The ramifications of what might have happened to her during the time spent with Mungo loomed like a bottomless abyss. Even if the Morleys were dealt with, Duncan Mackinloch would never sanction his son’s marriage to a woman who’d been violated, no matter how much Ewan might insist he still wanted her.

  She’d be shunned by the MacCarron clan as well, through no fault of her own. If he’d not schemed to avoid the marriage, none of this would have happened. It came as a startling realization that he would willingly spend his life making up for the harm he’d inadvertently caused.

  They came at last to the River Lochy. “No safe place to cross here,” Walter shouted over the noise of the rushing water. “We’ll go further along to the ford near the old castle.”

  “Inverlochy, I suppose?” Ewan asked, recalling what he knew of the region’s bloody history. “Not too far out of our way, I hope.”

  Walter pointed. “Ye can see the towers in the distance. Falling into ruin now it’s been abandoned in favor of the timber fort Cromwell built further south.”

  Ewan squinted into the gloom, just able to make out four squat round towers and a curtain wall, black in the weak light of the new moon. “It must be twenty years since Montrose routed Campbell’s Roundheads there.”

  Walter scraped his beard. “I was a lad. About Robbie’s age, I reckon, so that sounds about right. They say the ill-fated Earl of Montrose still haunts the place.”

  “Ye’d think he’d sooner haunt the MacLeod who betrayed him,” Ewan quipped, though he’d prefer to be far away from the eerie ruin. It was a painful truth that his country was full of ancient castles stained with the blood of thousands of Scots.

  “Tragic waste,” Walter said, as if sensing his thoughts.

  “Aye. Look at Montrose himself. Hanged, reviled, head stuck on a pike at the Edinburgh Tolbooth for years, then suddenly he’s a hero. They dig up his bones, reassemble his body and bury him in the High Kirk.”

  They rode in silence for a few minutes, each preoccupied with his thoughts. Walter called a halt and looked back the way they’d come. “Havna seen the hound for a bit. Hope he tracks us to this ford.”

  Ewan too had become concerned. They’d traveled far and fast and Ruadh had fallen behind, or lost their scent. “Nay doot he can swim. We canna wait.”

  As they edged their horses to the water, the deerhound came bounding out of the darkness. Ewan’s relief turned to irritation when the dog ignored them and kept on galloping towards the castle. “What the fyke’s he after now?”

  Shona peered nervously into the darkness of the hall, but couldn’t see what was making the strange noise. It certainly wasn’t a mouse, or even a rat. The loudly snoring guards clearly hadn’t heard whatever it was. Perhaps Montrose did indeed haunt the place. But it sounded like a panting animal. Something with claws that clicked on stone. What kind of…

  She backed as far into the ingle as she could when two eyes flashed briefly in a shaft of moonlight from a hole in the roof. Fear turned her blood to ice as the animal came closer.

  She mouthed Wolf, but the alarm died in her dry throat. She almost laughed out loud with relief when, a moment later, Ruadh planted his paws on her shoulders and licked her face. “Hush,” she cautioned when he whimpered his delight. His unexpected presence revived her flagging spirits.

  She got to her feet, pondering how the hound had come to be here. One thing she knew for sure—he was too lazy to venture so far from Creag on his own. Men must be searching for her nearby. If she could get outside…

  She guessed she was halfway to the door of the keep when rusted hinges squealed. Brian and Niall cursed, evidently awakened by the noise. Feet shuffled, daggers slid from sheaths. She had to trust that the men entering the ruin were not cohorts of the Morleys. “In here,” she shouted.

  “Shona?”

  Euphoria soared. Ewan Mackinloch had led the search.

  But her joy was short-lived when one of Mungo’s men seized her arm and pulled her back from the door. “Two guards,” she managed to yell before a hand was clamped over her mouth.

  “Quiet, bitch,” Niall hissed, but then howled when Ruadh sank his teeth into
his leg. “Get this hound off me,” he bellowed at Brian.

  Shona struggled, trying to elbow Niall in the ribs and free herself from his grip, but he held on. She had no idea where Brian was, but evidently he wasn’t helping Niall remove the growling dog attached to his leg.

  The dark hall filled with echoes of running feet, loud shouts, swords crossed, Ruadh barking, shrieks of pain—then an ominous yelp. Niall loosed his hold and she collapsed to the stone floor, heart pounding. On hands and knees she felt frantically for Ruadh. Her worst fear was realized when her fingers touched wiry fur and came away sticky with blood.

  Ewan had been in many a skirmish, often against MacCarrons and far greater odds than he faced now, but the stakes had never seemed higher.

  The darkness, the barking, the shouting, his fear for Shona: all conspired to render him half-mad with rage and helplessness. He’d never forgive himself if he unintentionally harmed her with his dagger.

  He held his breath and narrowed his eyes when the faint light of a sputtering torch finally flickered over the scene.

  Two men lay on the floor—one dead by the look of it, Walter’s blade plunged to the hilt in his chest, the other moaning, his trews torn to shreds, blood oozing from vicious dog bites on his mangled leg.

  Grim-faced MacCarron men sheathed their weapons at Walter’s command and more torches were lit.

  Then he heard a noise that tore at his heart. Shona wept somewhere nearby. Frantic to make sure she wasn’t injured, he grabbed a torch from one of the men and raised it high, handing it back abruptly when he espied her near the hearth next to Ruadh. He scooped her up and crushed her in his embrace. “Thank God,” he murmured over and over as she put her arms around his neck and sobbed into his shoulder.

  Walter knelt beside the hound. “The dog’s wounded,” he said grimly. “Badly.”

  Shona raised her head. “Is he…dead?”

  “Nay,” Walter replied, “but there’s a deep gash across his shoulder, and a lot of blood.”