The Age of Knights and Highlanders: A Series Starter Collection

by Kathryn Le Veque

  A scowling Fynn beckoned him.

  “What’s amiss?” he asked, bending to hear over the hubbub.

  “I canna find Lady Jeannie.”

  Search

  Shona was whisked along the corridor to her chamber by what seemed like an army of angry men, one of them carrying Ruadh. She trembled with fear, despite Ewan’s firm grip on her hand. Ailig Morley had somehow managed to infiltrate the castle again and he’d taken her darling aunt. She didn’t want to contemplate the suffering the cruel coward might be inflicting on Jeannie—if she was still alive.

  On first hearing the news of her disappearance, Ewan had protested he’d watched Jeannie enter her apartment. The color drained from his face when the truth dawned. No amount of reassurance could dissuade him he’d allowed the worst to happen. “The bastard was already there,” he growled. “Just waiting.”

  She wasn’t guiltless either. Ewan’s preoccupation had been with her.

  She sorrowed too for Fynn who strode alongside his laird, his face as grim as death.

  Ruadh sighed his contentment when he was put down on Shona’s bed.

  Ewan bestowed a brief kiss on her lips once she and Moira were safely inside. “Bar the door. Ye’re to remain here and open to no one but me,” he told her, handing her his dagger.

  She watched her maid drop the bar after he left, then stared at the heavy blade in her hands. “I canna move, Moira.”

  A gentle hand took her arm. “Come, lie down a wee while. We must pray all will be well. Ruadh will comfort ye.”

  “They have to be in the castle somewhere,” she murmured as Moira bade her sit on the mattress, took the dagger and eased off her shoes.

  “Aye. Every entry and exit has been guarded since ye returned. They’ll find him.”

  Shona wiped away a tear trickling down her cheek as she curled up with her beloved hound. “It’s like he’s a ghost.”

  With Walter’s help, Ewan organized a thorough search of Creag Castle. Intuition told him the tower was the likeliest place to search. Ailig had apparently taken Beathan MacCarron by surprise there, which seemed strange since Shona’s father obviously knew the tower well.

  With Fynn and David, he combed through every stairwell, alcove, landing, storage room and chamber—twice. To no avail.

  Exiting the door to the rooftop, they paced the length and breadth of it, peering into every sentry box, and opening the lids of every iron chest.

  Nothing but rusted lances and arrows with decayed fletching. The defensive arsenals would need to be refurbished once the crisis was over.

  Fynn seemed to retreat into his own private hell. Ewan understood. If it were Shona in Ailig’s grasp again…

  David wisely refrained from offering sympathy, simply expressing his solidarity with a firm hand on his kinsman’s shoulder.

  As arranged, they met up with Walter and his men in the Map Room, frustrated to learn the search had turned up no trace of Jeannie or her abductor. He was surprised to see Kendric slumped in a chair, a plaid thrown over his nightshirt, pain etched on his face. “I insisted they carry me here when I heard the news,” he explained. “I felt useless in bed.”

  Unable to pace in the tiny room, Ewan’s feeling of helplessness grew. He blurted out a question that was on everyone’s mind. “And where the fyke is Mungo?” he thundered. “The Morleys canna just appear and disappear like phantoms.”

  He was at a disadvantage in a castle he didn’t know at all. He was familiar with every nook and cranny of Roigh Hall, though the Mackinloch seat had been added on to by successive generations. He knew every hidey-hole and…

  “Wait,” he exclaimed. “The tower was built after the castle, right?”

  “Aye,” Kendric confirmed, “but that was hundreds o’ years ago.”

  “Think back,” Ewan exhorted the men crowded into the room. “Who were the masons of the clan at that time? Who designed the tower?”

  “I dinna ken,” Kendric replied, “and I doot anyone alive today kens that.”

  Ewan’s hopes fell. “I was thinking mayhap if alterations were made that only certain folk had knowledge of.”

  Shona’s uncle scratched his beard. “Weel, the whole castle was refurbished by the thirteenth chief.”

  Ewan tried to work out his place in the order of MacCarron chiefs. “When was that?”

  “Funny thing,” Kendric mused, “his name was Ewen.”

  The muttered agreement in the room did nothing to lessen Ewan’s impatience. “And?”

  “Aye,” Walter added. “Ewen MacCarron of Lochisle. Fifteen hundred and something as I recollect. There’s an escutcheon over the main door of the tower with the date the improvements were completed. Funny how ye see something every day and pay scant attention.”

  Ewan clenched his fists, not sure if this new knowledge was significant. “Not that long ago,” he said hopefully. “Mayhap there were plans, sketches?”

  He wondered if he’d spoken in Greek when silent stares greeted his question. Men scratched heads, chins, earlobes, even crotches. The air reeked of impotent worry.

  “Didna end well for that chief,” Walter muttered. “Executed for treason in Stirling after the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh.”

  Fynn broke the ominous silence. “Lady Jeannie is in the tower.”

  “But ye’ve searched,” Kendric countered.

  Ewan couldn’t ignore the pleading look in Fynn’s eyes. “How can ye be so sure?”

  Fynn shook his head and swallowed hard. “When a mon cares about a woman, he kens things about her. The way she says things, what it means when she tilts her head or fidgets with her sleeves.”

  A murmur of agreement scythed through the gathering.

  Kendric shifted his weight in the chair. “But what’s that to do with the matter at hand?”

  Fynn braced his legs. Ewan admired the dour warrior who had already disclosed more of his feelings than most men ever would, but sensed there was more.

  “I’d recognize Jeannie’s scent anywhere,” Fynn declared.

  Ewan knew exactly what he meant. “Ye detected her perfume in the tower?” he asked.

  “Aye. Without a doot.”

  Ruadh’s familiar doggy smell was comforting as Shona raked her fingers through the wiry fur. The ostler had stitched his wound and it seemed to be healing well. The hound sighed deeply as Shona scratched his belly. “Daft dog,” she teased. “Did I thank ye for saving my life?”

  He looked at her with soulful eyes as if to let her know he didn’t mind the oversight.

  “All in a day’s work, I suppose,” she whispered.

  He startled, actually raising his head when Ewan’s voice preceded a rap at the door. “Shona. Let me in.”

  Her heart stuttered at his grim tone.

  She slid off the bed and went into his arms as he crossed the threshold after Moira lifted the bar. “No sign?”

  “Nay,” he confirmed, “we’ve searched high and low. It sounds unlikely, but Fynn seems to think he caught a whiff of Jeannie’s perfume in the tower.”

  “Rosemary,” Shona replied. “She uses it when she washes her hair; however, she hasna set foot in the tower since Da died.”

  His eyes widened. “That supports my theory there’s a secret passage or concealed room in the tower.”

  She gripped his hands, almost afraid to hope. “Mayhap when they refurbished the castle in the last century.”

  “That’s a possibility we discussed, but we have no records of the work that was done. I need Ruadh’s nose.”

  “But he canna climb so many steps.”

  “I’ll carry him,” he countered. “Come with me to Jeannie’s chamber and find something of hers he can track.”

  Clues

  Satisfied Shona and Moira were safe once more, Ewan set off with Fynn and David to meet Walter at the main door of the tower.

  He set Ruadh down on the cobblestones when Walter beckoned him to examine the escutcheon.

  “Look at this,” Gilbertson said. �
��As ye’d expect, ’tis the ancient emblem of the MacCarron clan chiefs, an arm grasping a sword, encircled with a belt and buckle.”

  “And the motto ye taught me,” Ewan noted.

  Walter pointed. “Aye, but see the wee Viking ship carved into the scrollwork?”

  Ewan and the men around him peered at the stone, barely able to make out the ship in the flourish bearing the date Anno Domini 1536. “Aye.”

  “That’s a symbol o’ the Morleys. They claim descent from Somerled’s Viking pirates.”

  The fog began to lift. “The family worked on the renovations.”

  Walter nodded. “And wanted to leave their mark.”

  Fynn stepped forward. “So if there was a secret chamber, they would have kent.”

  “And pass…pass…passed it on,” David said.

  Ewan hefted Ruadh. The dog whined at being lifted, but began to wag his tail and woof when Jeannie’s kerchief was put under his nose.

  “He’s got the scent,” Fynn said, sounding hopeful for the first time.

  Ewan led the way through the open doors, held his breath as he stepped over the grating covering the steps down to the cesspit, and began the ascent to the top of the tower.

  He’d aspired to be a clan chief all his life, but had never imagined his first challenge would involve carrying an excited hound up a steep, winding staircase to find a missing woman.

  “Something’s bothering me,” Shona told Moira.

  “Yer incessant pacing was a clue,” her maid replied. “Sit down for pity’s sake.”

  “I canna. I keep thinking on what Ewan said about the refurbishments done in the last century by the ill-fated thirteenth laird.”

  “What of it?”

  “Every MacCarron chief leaves a record of his time as laird. My father showed me where they’re kept in the library. Some are musty old parchments that mostly tell of battles and feuds, I’m afraid, but mayhap The Camron in question wrote of rebuilding the castle. It was a momentous undertaking that took several years.”

  Moira knelt by the chest against the wall and opened the lid. “Weel, we’ve been ordered to remain here; we canna traipse off to the library. Mayhap I’ll have another go at airing these gowns.”

  An inexorable premonition there was important information in the archives consumed Shona. If she stayed cooped up in her chamber much longer she’d simply fret about what was going on and begin to imagine all sorts of dire scenarios. Mind made up, she retrieved Ewan’s dagger from the bed and strode to the door. “Stay if ye wish. I’m the daughter of a MacCarron chief and I refuse to hide in fear any longer. I’m for the library.”

  Moira scrambled to her feet and rushed after her as she exited the chamber. “The new laird willna be happy.”

  Shona tightened her grip on the hilt. “Desperate times call for action,” she replied. “Ewan will understand I had to do whatever I could to save Jeannie.”

  She kept to herself the hope that Ewan Mackinloch was the kind of man who would want a courageous wife.

  Head held high, she strode purposefully through the maze of deserted corridors leading to the tiny library. The MacCarron men were hunting for her aunt, but it pained her that Mungo and Ailig’s treachery had rendered most folk too fearful to be out and about. The normally bustling castle seemed eerily empty.

  “We must be wary,” Moira whispered.

  “Creag Castle is my home, the place I was born,” Shona replied, refusing to pay heed to the deafening pulse beating in her ears. “I dinna intend to skulk around like a criminal.” She winked at her maid and brandished the sharp dagger. “Besides, I have this.”

  Moira snorted. “And I can just see Ailig and Mungo Morley being intimidated by a lass wielding a blade.”

  Shona preferred not to consider that possibility, and was mightily relieved when they reached the small, arched door of the library.

  “I often wondered what this led to,” her maid confessed.

  Shona wasn’t surprised. Why would a servant who couldn’t read need to know where the library was?

  The bottom edge of the warped door dragged on the floor but, together, they managed to shove it open.

  “I’d say folk dinna come here too often,” Moira panted as they set their hips to the task of closing it behind them. Wood jarred on stone bit by slow bit until it was finally shut.

  The odor of musty parchment and stale air assailed them. One hand over her nose and mouth, Shona fanned dust motes away with the dagger and peered into the gloom. The arrow-slit window on the far wall was encrusted with muck and bird droppings.

  “’Tis smaller than I recall,” she admitted, finding herself only inches away from teetering stacks of books and manuscripts.

  “More like a wee cupboard,” Moira agreed. “How do ye hope to find what we’re seeking in this jumble?”

  Fearing the next search might be for them if the hoard toppled over, Shona was afraid to move, let alone begin the hunt.

  Every landing of the twisting stone staircase opened to an alcove that led to a chamber or store room. Ewan worried that Ruadh seemed to have settled into his arms as if enjoying the adventure. He kept jostling the dog’s head to make sure he hadn’t fallen asleep. The increasingly heavy weight prevented him holding on to the safety rope attached to the wall. Sweating with the effort, he stepped into every alcove, then stepped out again when Ruadh showed no reaction.

  “Mayhap this is a fool’s errand after all,” he muttered to Fynn as they stood in the third alcove.

  “I’ll carry him the rest of the way to the top.”

  Ewan looked up. “Nay,” he replied. “We’re halfway now.”

  He hefted the dog and began the climb again, out of breath when they reached the next alcove. Unlike the others, this one led nowhere. He was about to set off again when Ruadh became agitated, barking and squirming in his arms.

  He tried again to leave the alcove and the hound howled.

  Fynn inhaled. “Even I can smell the rosemary. Jeannie’s here somewhere.”

  With some difficulty, Ewan handed the frenzied dog over to David and ran his hands over the back wall of the alcove. “It’s solid. If there’s a hidden chamber this isna the entryway.”

  Fynn leaned his shoulder against the stone and pushed—to no avail. He put an ear to the wall and shouted Jeannie’s name, shaking his head when there was no reply.

  At the outset of their journey, Ewan had never expected to care a whit about the kinsmen who’d accompanied him, but anger constricted his throat at the sight of Fynn’s bereft face. Being a laird meant more than prestige. It brought with it enormous responsibility for the wellbeing of every member of the clan.

  “I see no point going to the top,” he said, determined to find Shona’s aunt. “We’ll look for clues from the outside.”

  Something Rotten

  Shona handed the dagger to her maid. “Stay here,” she advised. “Go for help if something happens to me.”

  Moira wiped her hands on her skirts and accepted the weapon, then leaned back against the door, the color draining from her normally rosy cheeks. “Since I canna read anyway,” she said.

  Though the words sounded flippant, Shona detected the edge of fear. “Aye, but promise ye’ll nay waste time trying to dig me out if the pile falls.”

  Moira nodded, sniffling back tears.

  Shona inhaled deeply and shuffled sideways into the stacks, then halted, momentarily distracted by distant shouts coming from the courtyard.

  “Mayhap they’ve found Lady Jeannie,” Moira suggested.

  A voice in Shona’s head confirmed she wasn’t hearing shouts of victory. “I’ve begun now,” she replied. “No turning back. The answer lies here somewhere.”

  Recollecting that the lairds’ journals were stored on shelves at the rear of the library, she gingerly sidestepped her way through the stacks of parchments. Once things got back to normal, the archives would have to be sorted and kept in better fettle. She turned her head and fixed her attention on the
window, afraid to look to the top of the piles lest she succumb to dizziness.

  She didn’t breathe again until she clamped a hand on the rough wood of the shelves. Her heart skittered against her ribcage when she recognized the red leather binding of her father’s codex on the top of the cobwebbed pile.

  Beathan MacCarron was a man of action, not letters, but he’d considered it his sworn duty to record the history of the clan. A vision of him laboriously penning entries filled her mind. One day she’d pluck up the courage to read what he’d written, but now she could only hope the thirteenth laird had been as conscientious.

  Common sense suggested the codices would be in order. She moved one book after another onto a new pile, until she reached what she hoped was the correct book. Despite her best efforts not to hurry, dust danced in the air, tickling her nose.

  Her sneeze brought a gasp from Moira.

  “I’m all right,” she muttered hoarsely when the stacks towering over her remained in place.

  There was barely enough space to turn around, but she opened the brittle cover of the codex, relieved her assumption had been correct. Tilting the book to the window, she slowly leafed through page after page of notations about provisions, judgements rendered, minor repairs. The Mackinloch feud was mentioned many times. Ink blotches marred some of the sketches of children, battles, horses and the laird himself. Even one of the ill-fated Queen Mary.

  “What about yer grand project?” she whispered, losing hope as pain lanced through her stiff neck.

  She was more than halfway through when she found it. Dozens of entries about the rebuilding. Sketch after sketch, many of the tower. Not one showed any indication of a secret chamber or stairway.

  She was about to slam the book shut in exasperation when she noticed an entry next to a drawing of the tower that mentioned the Mackinlochs.

  Twitching her nose to ward off another sneeze, she read the bold script:

  We live in dangerous times and hence need a safe place for my family to hide if the Mackinlochs come for me. As well there exists the ever-present threat from the godless king of the English. I am confident the stench will protect us.