The keep was not the same without his sister. ’Twas a fact Helmert partly relished and partly hated to the point of seething anger.

He and his friends had drunk themselves to near death those first days after she left. And ’twas not out of any sense of missing her. ’Twas rage that made him take one drink after the next.

She had embarrassed him, humiliated him in front of his friends and the servants. The image of her victorious, haughty smile when she sat atop that horse, was forever burned into his memory. After the third day of drinking, he realized he’d never get that image out of his mind.

And they had taken Laurin with them! Uncertain which enraged him more; Graeme MacAulay finally coming for Josephine or the fact they had taken the beautiful Laurin with them. ’Twas equally unjust as far as he was concerned.

There was no one left whose skirts he could lift to assuage his desires. The only women left in the keep were old, wrinkled grandmothers, not a one he’d consider tupping no matter how desperate or drunk he became.

There were very few of his people left inside the keep or its walls. Because of his sister’s blasted desire to keep the younger women safe from him and his friends, she had suggested those with daughters of a certain age live outside the walls. And therefore, outside his grasp.

If she had defended him instead of arguing with him at every turn, his keep would not now be standing empty. If she had come to his aide and helped instead of walking around the damned place like a queen, his people would never have left. They would have followed him anywhere. Instead, they all adored her, hung on her every word, bespoke of her beauty and kind heart as if she were someone deserving of sainthood.

But nay, she could not do that. She was far too much like their mother, with her inane sense of right versus wrong, of defending the weak and less privileged. ’Twas not right to treat him so poorly when he was the chief!

The injustice, the indignity, ’twas all too much.

There must be a way to avenge the insult thrust upon him by his sister and the MacAulays. But how?

He had passed out before dawn in the gathering room, in his ornately carved chair. A fly was buzzing about his head, and he nearly choked to death when it decided to investigate the inside of his open mouth.

Angry, he coughed and choked until tears rolled from his eyes. Gasping for breath, with the after-affects of too much wine combined with too rich foods, he scrambled to his feet. In the corner, he tossed the contents of last night’s revelry.

Rousted so harshly from his wine-induced slumber, his anger returned. Wiping his face against the sleeve of his fine silk tunic, he looked about the room. Darvord was asleep atop the trestle table, with his arm wrapped around an empty bottle of wine. He found Clarence asleep with the lower half of his torso under the table, his head resting against the bench.

The portions of the table that Darvord wasn’t sprawled upon, held platters of half-eaten food, empty trenchers, the bones of chickens and venison scattered hither and yon. Empty flagons and bottles and cups were littered about the large space.

Were Josephine here, she’d have been raising a fuss about all the wasted food and how many people they could have fed. She’d have been complaining about the waste as much as the disaster they’d left in their wake.

When his thoughts turned to her, his anger rose. Finding an empty bottle near his feet, he scooped it up and threw it at Darvord. The bottle missed his head, but only by a margin. The clamor it made crashing against the trenchers barely caused him to stir.

“Up, ye bloody leeches!” Helmert screamed.

Darvord simply rolled over, still clinging to the bottle as if it were a lover.

There was a good chance Clarence was dead, for he did not so much as twitch.

Helmert didn’t care. “Fools,” he mumbled. “Why I surround myself with the two of ye, I do no’ ken.”

Still slightly drunk, he stumbled as his head began to swim. Wanting nothing more than to find his way into his bed, he left his friends to rot.

He had to pass his sister’s auld room in order to get to his own. The door still hung half off its hinges from when he and his cohorts had broken it down days before.

Cursing her to the bowels of hell, he noticed a movement inside her chamber as he was passing by. It was one of the aulder women, a servant whose name he had never taken the time to learn.

“What are ye doin’?” he asked as he stood in the doorway.

The woman glanced up with a furrowed brow. “I be packin’ away Josephine’s things. There be a wagon and MacAulay men below stairs waitin’ fer them.”

In an instant, he was inside the room and yanking the garments out of her hands. “Anythin’ my sister has I gave to her!” he seethed. “If she wants her bloody things, she can just try to come take them!”

The woman stared at him for a short moment. “Would ye like to tell the MacAulay men that, m’laird? Fer I fear I be no’ brave enough to do it.”

As tempted as he may have been to slap her, he held back. “Mind yer tongue, ye auld bat,” he warned.

Glancing about the room, he saw an open trunk lying at the foot of the bed. ’Twas filled with books. Josephine treasured the bloody things almost as much as she treasured her friends.

Reaching inside, he grabbed one and inspected it. The title was written in Italian, a language he knew neither how to speak or read. With disregard, he tossed it over his shoulder where it landed with a thud on the wooden floor. He did the same with the next several books he withdrew.

“Always had her nose in a book or in me affairs,” he groused as he tossed one book after another.

The woman went to stand in the corner whilst he continued his muttering and book tossing. Had he chanced a look her way, he would have seen the shame and pity she felt toward him in her watery old eyes.

One by one, he took the books and parchments out of the trunk and tossed them over his shoulder. Soon, there was a large pile of discarded tomes.

’Twas the very last book that caught his attention. He recognized it almost instantly. It had been his mother’s.

Bound in leather with her name carved on the front, this was not a book, but a journal. How many times had he seen his mother writing in it before death had taken her?

As a little boy, he had loved her. And she, Marielle de Reyne, had loved him. Sometimes, in those dark hours of the night, when the keep was quiet and only when he was drunk enough, he would allow himself to think about his mother.

She had been a kind, generous woman, and as a little boy, he had adored her. That adoration, however, was something his father could not abide. “Never ferget that you can no’ trust any woman, lad. Deceivers and liars every one,” he had said so many times he could not count them now. “They’ll try to fool ye with their pretty faces and soft skin, but do no’ fall for any of it.”

His head began to pound mercilessly. Not wanting to dwell on the past, on a life that no longer existed, he tossed the book on the bed and stared at it.

Was his mother the liar his father had always insisted she was? Was it even remotely possible that an honest woman even existed? His father had been adamant that such a woman had yet to grace the earth.

Rubbing his fingertips against his temples, Helmert debated whether or not he should read her journal. ’Twasn’t that he thought the journal was private. He worried over what it might contain. The truth? Which truth?

After a long inner argument, he cursed, grabbed the journal and headed toward his room.

“M’laird!” the auld woman called out. “What about Josephine’s things?”

He paused briefly in the hallway. “Burn it. Burn it all.”

The decision to defy her chief’s orders to burn all of Josephine’s belongings had been quite easy for auld Maggie MacAdams. If he found out and became angry enough to kill her, so be it. Figuring her days were numbered anyway, what with being over sixty summers old and the fool they called their chief running their clan into the ground, what did it matter?

Carefully, she repacked all the books into the trunk, as well as the few dresses Josephine had left behind. ’Twasn’t much by way of possessions, but ’twas more than some had. They weren’t Helmert’s things he was ordering burned.

Once she had them repacked, she sent one of the younger lads who worked inside the keep to let the MacAulay men know they were safe to come inside. The chief was no doubt passed out in his bed, and his friends would not be up for hours. ’Twas a wonder those three young men had endured as long as they had, what with their excessive drinking.

Maggie knew the clan would not survive much longer and ’twas a pity. She remembered the days of her youth when the clan was prosperous and run by much better men that Delmer or Helmert MacAdams.

Eight MacAulay men entered the keep, not realizing ’twould only take two strong men to retrieve the trunks. Still, she supposed ’twas better to be safe than sorry.

“Please,” Maggie entreated one of the young men, “tell our Joie she be missed by one and all.”

The young man smiled and promised he would.

“How fares she?” Maggie asked as she followed them out of the room.

“She fares well,” the tall, brown-haired man told her.

He appeared to be telling the truth, which made Maggie quite happy. “’Tis about time some happiness came into that child’s life,” she murmured.

The man cast her a curious glance before bidding her good day and hurrying to catch his comrades.

Closing the door behind them, Maggie returned to her daily chores, wishing for bygone days and praying her chief would soon see the error of his ways.

Clarence and Darvord had awakened late in the afternoon, only to find Helmert missing from his usual spot in the gathering room. They soon found him tucked away in his room with his face buried in a book. At first glance, they thought he had finally lost his mind, for reading was so out of character for him. Then he told them what it was he was reading and the discoveries contained therein.

From Marielle De Reyne MacAdams’ journal, Helmert read aloud. “Whomever shall possess the Theodosia Gladius shall be led to untold treasures. If they can decipher that part of the inscription that has befuddled countless generations.”

Clarence, being the greedy fellow he was, sat quietly as his mind conjured up images of chests and bags filled with gold coins. “What kind of treasures do ye think we’ll find?” he asked in a breathless, almost reverent tone. The only thing he liked more than drinking and taking his turn at the wench, Laurin, was coin.

Helmert shook his head. “Who kens?” he said with a shrug. Outwardly it appeared that he might not be wholly convinced the treasures were real. But inside his twisted, greedy mind? He was confident there would be enough coin and gold that he could buy the bloody throne to Scotia if he so desired. The possibilities were endless. But Josephine had stolen those possibilities from him; she had taken the Gladius away with her. “It should have been mine,” he hissed under his breath, “and I intend to get it back.”

“We’ll need a plan,” Helmert said loudly. “Fer ’tis certain we canna just walk up to the gate and ask to be let in.”

Clarence’s eyes were growing wider the more he thought about those untold treasures. “Ye could say ye’re there to see yer sister,” he offered.

Helmert snorted derisively. “As if anyone would believe that. We did no’ exactly part on good terms,” he reminded them.

“Ye could say ye’ve seen the error of yer ways and wish to make amends,” Clarence said.

“Bah!” Helmert shook his head. “That would be even more unbelievable.”

They sat in quiet contemplation for a long moment before Darvord finally spoke. “Why do ye suppose yer mum never told ye of the treasure? I mean, before she passed. Why did she only share the secret with Josephine?”

“The De Reyne women were well known fer bein’ cold-hearted bitches,” Helmert said. “Me sister be no better than the rest of them. As far as I be concerned, Josephine can rot in hell with me mother.”

’Twas then that Helmert remembered the MacAulay men had been in his keep just a few short hours before. Slamming his hand down on the table, he smiled wickedly. “I ken how we can get into the keep.”

Clarence and Darvord each stared back at him with hopeful expressions. Helmert quickly explained about the MacAulays’ mission to get the rest of Josephine’s belongings. “We shall follow them, ye see, and when the opportunity presents itself, we will simply kill them, take their clothing and ride into the keep as if we belong there.”

To three drunken debauchers who had never so much as planned a raid to steal a cow, it sounded like a splendid plan. Within the hour, they had gathered up a handful of MacAdams men and were on their way to find the MacAulays.

It hadn’t taken them long to find the men they sought — roughly a few hours. It took far less time to realize they were sorely out-numbered three to one. At least twenty-five men on horseback, plus the drivers on the two wagons, were making their way across a wide-open glen. Helmert reckoned that without those heavy wagons, the MacAulays would be making much better time.

“Jesu!” Darvord exclaimed when he caught sight of them. “There be only eight of us. We canna kill all of them!”

Refusing to be disheartened, Helmert said, “If ye be afraid, ye be more than welcome to go back to yer own keep and live the rest of yer miserable life in poverty.”

Darvord’s brow furrowed. “Ye canna mean to take them all on. ‘Twould be suicide!”

“Of course I do no’ mean to take them all on!” Helmert ground out. “What kind of fool do ye take me fer?”

His friend refused to answer.

“Nay,” Helmert said after thinking on it for a short moment. “We’ll simply find another way into the keep.”

“I’d don a woman’s dress and wig and whore meself out to get into that keep,” Clarence offered, though only partially in jest.

Helmert chuckled loudly. “As ugly as ye are?” he asked.

“Then what be yer plan?” Darvord asked, growing more and more uncomfortable.

“I shall tell ye as soon as I think of one,” Helmert said as he tapped the flanks of his horse and aimed for the woods across the way.

Clarence and the other men followed behind while Darvord sat in stunned disbelief. He’s insane, he thought to himself. If he turned around now, he could be back at his own keep before dawn. But if he followed his friends…untold wealth lay that way. “I must be just as insane!” he ground out before kicking his horse to follow after his friends.