Chapter Five
Euan and Kenny jumped up at Iskair’s words, hands on the hilts of their swords.
“Where is he?” Ann whispered. “How far out?”
“Hours. He could reach ye by nightfall.”
Cynthia jumped up. “Kenny! Get Rob!”
Ann rose. “What are we going to do? John and Torq won’t know.”
Kenny dashed from the croft, and Euan spoke.
“What do ye need, yer ladyship?”
“I don’t know!”
Iskair spoke. “I have come to take ye to safety.”
“Who? Us?” Ann cried out. “No, I have to take care of the village!”
My heart pounded. Sweat had broken out on my upper lip and forehead. Dylan’s face had blanched. That we were already immersed in the conflicts of the sixteenth century was brutally evident.
“All of ye. I didna ken the men were gone, but I canna leave my kin to die.”
“Your kin?” I spoke up for the first time.
Iskair turned his troubled brown eyes on me, as if really seeing me for the first time.
“I am a Morrison.”
“It’s true,” Cynthia said.
“Go now,” Iskair said to Euan. “Gather the villagers. The tide is high now, but I ken it will retreat within an hour. We can leave then. Tell them to take only what they can carry. Pick a man, your fastest rider, to find John and Torq. I left my horse on the mainland. When the tide retreats, he can take the horse and scour the coastline for the men.”
Rob rushed into the croft as Euan left.
“I’ll round up the kids and swaddle up the babies,” Cynthia said. “We’ll wait for you at Mistress Glick’s.” She ran to Iskair and hugged him again.
“Thank you, Iskair! Thank you!”
“No need, lass. Hurry now.”
He watched her leave, and I saw the obvious affection on his face for Cynthia. The warmth in his brown eyes touched me, and I imagined seeing those eyes turned on me. I gave myself a quick shake.
“What do you want us to do?” I asked.
“Oh, Debra! Dylan! What an awful time for you to come! The dagger! If you still had it...” Ann said in a low voice, turning to survey the croft.
Iskair turned to huddle with Rob and Kenny, clearly to strategize.
“We can’t do anything about it now,” Dylan said. “Apparently we need to get off the island when the tide goes out, not run the wrong way toward the beach to look for the dagger.”
“Oh, that’s right! The bridge isn’t there,” I said foolishly. Of course it hadn’t been built yet.
“No, I know,” Ann said. “It was hard to imagine the stronghold without it, but no, there’s no bridge. There is, however, an incredibly steep, slick path down one side of the sea stack that goes back up on the mainland side.”
She grabbed a thick length of the tartan material and belted it around her waist, then attached it at her neck with a silver brooch in a style I recognized as an arisaid, a form of cloak that the women of the Western Isles had worn. She handed me a similar length of material.
“Here, you’ll have to wear your blanket,” she said with a half smile. “Your kilt will do, Dylan.”
She wrapped some oatcakes inside a length of linen and stowed the food inside the folds of her arisaid. Then she grabbed several pouches before turning back to us, holding out a pouch.
“Water. I boil the stuff. I can’t do the ale all day.”
Dylan reached for the pouch.
“Okay, let’s go get Mistress Glick,” Ann said. “You know where we’ll be, Rob!” She moved past Iskair but stopped and turned.
“Thank you, Iskair. I’ve heard about you, and I wasn’t sure I could trust you, but thank you!”
Iskair bowed his head, and Ann ran from the croft as Dylan and I followed.
Iskair touched my arm as I passed, willing me to stop.
“Did I hear Lady Morrison say ye were visiting? From where do ye and yer husband hail, mistress?”
“Glasgow,” I said, tilting my head to meet his searching eyes. “Dylan is my brother, not my husband.” Lying was coming more easily.
“Glasgow,” he repeated. “It is too bad that yer visit did no come at a better time.”
“No kidding,” I mumbled, sort of lost in the depths of Iskair’s caramel-brown gaze.
He tilted his head and squinted at me. I hurried past him to catch up to Dylan and Ann. We didn’t go far, only to a croft two doors away. Upon entering, we found a hectic scene. A plump silver-haired lady shepherded Archibald and Sarah to seats while Ann hurried toward a bed holding her sleeping twins. Cynthia, also wearing an arisaid, picked up her sleeping infant and tucked her inside the folds of the cloak-like garment.
“Sit there, the pair of ye, while we see to things,” the older woman said.
Mistress Glick, I presumed, greeted us. She looked me up and down, something I was getting used to.
“Mistress Morrison, Master Morrison, pleased to meet ye,” she said with a grim nod, hurrying over to the bed. Instead of helping Ann, who appeared to be changing her twins’ diapers, she knelt to pull a trunk out from under the bed. Reaching in, she grabbed a belt and a metal object.
“Debra,” I murmured to her back.
She returned to my side, and without asking, took my arisaid and wrapped it around my waist, belting it before hauling the rest of the material up over my back and attaching it at the neck with the metal object that was, in fact, a pewter clasp.
“Oh! Thank you!” I murmured.
“Ye are welcome.” She moved away again and donned another arisaid before grabbing up what food she could to stuff into the folds of her cloak. I watched as she quickly poured what looked like ale from a brown glass jug into another pouch and stowed that within her arisaid.
“Can I help carry anything?” I asked, eyeing the oatcakes.
“Aye, how can I help?” Dylan said. “Perhaps I should seek out the men and offer my assistance.”
“Actually, Dylan,” Ann began. “Here! Take a baby.” She thrust one of the twins into Dylan’s hands, and he froze.
“Ann! I don’t know—”
Ann picked up the other twin. “I need the help. You can do it. I can’t carry both of them as far as we need to travel. I might have to get one of the other men to help me carry this one.”
The babies, by now both awake, watched the activities with remarkable composure, even grinning on occasion.
“Debra!” Ann began. “Could you shepherd Archibald and Sarah? It’s a big job. They are Angus’s target—” Ann stopped herself. “They are a handful, aren’t you two?”
The two blondes looked at each other, eyes wide. Unlike the babies, they realized something was wrong.
“Yes, of course,” I said.
Ann moved toward the frightened children and knelt before them.
“Now listen, my sweets. We’re going on an adventure! Auntie Debra will keep a close eye on you. We will all watch over you, but I want you to hold her hand when we leave. What fun we will have!”
The children tried to smile, but they were unable to sustain the curved lips.
I had no experience with children. I had been an only child, had never babysat. But there I was in charge of two sixteenth-century children.
Dylan leaned in to whisper in my ear.
“No pressure, dear, but this is my family.”
I turned to Dylan with my jaw hanging open. On the point of offering to take the baby, I realized that the twin was one of Dylan’s ancestors as well.
I shook my head and marched across the room to stand by the seated children. Dylan got out of the way as well, moving to stand next to Archibald. We watched the flurry of activity in Mistress Glick’s croft followed soon by the arrival of Iskair, Kenny, Euan, Rob and Catherine, provisioned for the journey. If someone would have told me the crofts could hold so many people, several well over six feet tall, I would have scoffed.
A small, cold hand slipped into my left hand, and I looked down to see Sarah clinging to me, azure-blue eyes regarding me with trust. My stomach twisted. I wasn’t up to the task of protecting the children—especially since they were Angus Macleod’s primary targets, as Ann had stopped herself from saying.
“Auntie Debra,” Sarah said, as if trying the title out.
I gave her what I hoped was a reassuring nod.
“Sarah Macleod,” I murmured.
She smiled at me, albeit tremulously, and returned to watching the activity.
“The people are ready,” Euan said to Rob and Iskair, the two who seemed to have taken charge. I looked to Ann, who in my opinion was the decision-maker as the laird’s wife.
Rob quite rightly turned to her. “We are ready, yer ladyship.”
“Where do you plan to take us, Iskair?” she asked, adjusting her baby on her hip. She looked like a little powerhouse, the lady of the clan with an armful of infant. “Not to Broder Castle! I will not put the people in the hands of Murdo Macaulay.”
“I agree that is no wise, yer ladyship. I didna give this matter any thought on my way here because I didna ken that John and Torq would be gone. There is an abandoned castle further inland, ye ken the one?”
Ann shook her head.
“Aye, ye mean the old ruins of Knockbost Castle?” Rob asked.
Iskair nodded. “Aye, we can hold out there until the rider reaches John and Torq to return with the men. I dinna ken if Angus would realize we had gone there. It is no but a pile of auld stones.”
“Is there water nearby?” Ann asked.
“Aye, I ken there is an auld well in the castle. Fresh water flows in from a spring.”
“Well, that’s all we’ll need for now. I think we’ve grabbed all the food we have.”
“I told the villagers to carry as much food as they could, to leave everything else behind,” Euan said. “The tide is retreating.”
“Good lad,” Iskair said. “Lady Morrison?”
She nodded decisively. “Let’s go!”
I took Sarah and Archibald by the hands and fell in as everyone left the croft. We rallied with the villagers, many of whom I had already seen, and all of them women, children and elderly men.
“Since ye ken the way, Rob,” Iskair said, “take the lead with some of yer lads. I will bring up the rear with Euan and Kenny.”
Rob led us out of the village area and toward the wooden gate where the bridge would someday stand. I marveled at the exposed and intact six-foot stone walls that, in the twenty-first century, were little more than mounds of turf ringing two-thirds of the island.
We collected five more men on the way—two from the gate, two from the keep, and one who had been walking the perimeter walls. We reached the gate, and Ann stopped to talk to Rob. Then she turned to the villagers.
“I know you must all be worried and frightened. Euan has told you of the danger we face and that we must abandon Dun Eistean for now. We are sending someone to fetch John and the rest of the men, but in the meantime, please be brave. Iskair Macaulay...” Ann stopped as the group gasped loudly. She held up a soothing hand.
“Yes, he is a Macaulay, but his mother was a Morrison, and he grew up at Ardmore Castle. I believe we can trust him.”
I heard the group murmur among themselves, some of them turning to look at the tall stranger.
“Anyway, Iskair Macaulay came to warn us that Angus Macleod is on his way and means to do us harm. We have to go. Please follow Rob in an orderly and quiet manner. He and Iskair are taking us to a safe destination where we can hide until the laird and the men find us.”
I saw a few hands go up in the air as if in support of the plan, and Ann turned and followed Rob through the now open gate. Cynthia went next. Ann looked over her shoulder to see that Dylan followed with her other twin, and she caught sight of me farther back with the children. She nodded and moved out of sight, into the divide between the stronghold and the mainland.
I thought to work my way through the group so that I could keep the children near Ann, Cynthia and Dylan, but the crowd was too thick. I turned and saw Iskair close behind me, flanked by Euan and Kenny. Somehow I knew that the children and I were as safe as humanly possible given the circumstances. Those three men weren’t going to let anything happen to the children or to me.