Brother, I’ve a missive from the king.” Walter strode into Niall’s study bearing a sealed message. “He awaits your reply.”

Niall turned from where he’d been staring out the window. In just about an hour, the sun would set. The sky had been mostly white all day, but it had now taken on a hazy gray, soon to be very black with little light from the moon.

There was a reason he’d chosen that specific spot for Bella to practice shooting beyond the water. He’d chosen it because if she went out without him, he could always stand and watch from here. Not that he’d let her go out without him until MacGregor was dealt with.

Niall cleared his throat and glanced back toward his brother. “Thank ye. Did he say it was urgent?”

“He didna say.”

Niall opened the letter while Walter helped himself to a heavy pour of whisky.

“I’m hoping ’tis not that I’m needed to serve my bride by making our marriage official before the spring.” Walter tossed back the glass before refilling it.

“Ye can slow down on the whisky, ’tis not that bad.” Niall read over the letter. “There is a meeting of the chiefs and lords at Arbroath Abbey to discuss Scotland’s independence. The king is asking if father is well enough to join him, and in case he’s not, if ye and I will go in his stead.”

“Da’s in no shape to go,” Walter said.

“I agree.” Niall tossed the missive onto his desk. “Which means the king will expect the two of us.” That he didn’t agree with, but how could he argue an order from his sovereign?

“Och, but I pray the princess is not there.” Walter refilled his cup as if anticipating an execution.

Niall chuckled. “As I recall, ye didna argue against my request for ye to wed her.”

“Aye, I want to help the king. But, ballocks, she drove me crazy at Dunrobin. She has her moments, and I think beneath the cool exterior lies a passionate woman, but she was very intense in regards to what she expected from me and her place in the royal household. ’Twas enough to make a man…well, drink.”

“’Haps she’ll calm when the vows are said—hopefully before ye drown yourself in my whisky.”

Walter shrugged. “And mayhap not. She’s not as…calm as your Bella.”

“Calm?” Niall chuckled. “Are we speaking of the same lass?”

Walter smirked. “Well, she’s docile as a lamb compared to the princess. I believe I will have my hands full.”

“That I dinna doubt.” Niall wrote out a note to be returned to the king, letting him know that he and Walter would be present at the meeting. Fortunately, Arbroath was only a few hours’ ride away, or else he would have had to devise a way to deny his king without making the man angry, because any further away would be too far from Bella in this tumultuous time. Walter took a seat, leaning his head back, eyes closed as if asleep, but his fingers tapped on the arm. Niall cleared his throat, took a seat in his own chair and blurted out, “Ma and Da dinna approve of Bella.”

“What?” Walter sat up straighter, instantly alert.

Niall rubbed the spot above his eyebrows that suddenly pinched. “They expressed displeasure at my having married her. With the poor lass standing right there.”

“That doesna make sense.” Walter frowned. “I told them I was now betrothed to the princess and they were pleased, even going so far as to say it was a good move.”

“Aye, it doesna make sense. Do ye recall if our family has had any issues with the Sutherlands?”

“Da himself sent me to ask for Lady Bella’s hand a few months back,” Walter continued. “Why would he care if we switched brides?”

Niall shrugged. “I dinna know. But they were both unkind to her this morning when I brought her to them, and I canna for the life of me figure out why.”

“’Haps they are simply expressing their displeasure at not having been a part of the decision making. Ye know how hard it must be for Da now that he’s bedridden. A man with so much power but too weak to wield it. He spends so much of his day lamenting his failing limbs and doesna let mother leave his side.”

“Aye, but she was even cruel, sending Bella’s poor maid to the kitchens.”

“I did hear about that fiasco. How is she now that Philip has her under wing?”

“Good, I suppose, I’ve not heard, but judging from the way he was coddling her, and the sweet look of love in her eyes, I’d say ’twill not be long afore my wife finds herself without a maid.” And without her oldest friend. Niall was certain it would break her heart to be without Mary. He didn’t think Bella would begrudge her friend a love match or a happy future, but from the sounds of it, she’d never been without her.

“Och, but she could still be her maid. Love has never stopped a woman from working.” Walter shrugged.

Niall raised a brow at his brother. “What would ye know of love and a working woman?”

Walter wriggled his brows. “I dinna know if ye want me to answer that question.”

“I dinna.” Niall rolled his eyes. “Mary is more than a maid to Bella. She’s a dear friend. I dinna think they’d be happy to part from one another, even if Mary does wed.”

“Ye’re likely right. Did she ever mention why Mary doesna speak?”

“Nay.” Niall happened to glance outside in time to see three riders on the moor. “Riders.”

“Ballocks.”

His immediate thought was of the MacGregors. He left the return missive on his desk while he and Walter ran from the study, leapt down the stairs and then outside to the bailey. As he approached the gate, he saw that the men standing guard did not appear to be alarmed. Niall flew up the stairs to look out over the wall himself.

Now he could see why his men were not alarmed. Three of the four scouts he’d sent out had returned. He’d not expected to see them until the morning as he’d specifically instructed them to keep a night watch. Where was the fourth? They drew closer and he could see they were covered in muck and barreling toward the castle as though the Devil was on their heels.

“Open the gate,” Niall bellowed. Men tugged on the ropes, cranking the portcullis up as the thick wooden beams were removed from the iron holds on the wooden doors, and the iron lock disengaged.

The men sailed into the bailey, their horses foaming at the mouth and lathered in a mixture of sweat and muck from the hard ride. Niall was there to greet them, looking them over for injury.

The scouts looked haggard as they slid from their mounts and handed off the reins. Their breathing was heavy, and their skin was pale where it showed through the muck. Their eyes were weary as they bowed to Niall.

“What’s happened?” Niall demanded.

“We each went our separate ways as ye instructed. North, south, east and west, meeting at the river before we were to start our night rounds.”

“Where’s Hammond?”

The three riders glanced at each other and then back at him, shaking their heads and looking toward the ground with sorrow. “He didna make it.”

Niall gritted his teeth, waiting for them to tell him exactly what happened.

“We circled back to the meeting spot,” Adam, the shortest of the three said, “When I arrived, Hammond’s body was there, stabbed multiple times. He was still warm. It hadn’t been long. If only I’d gotten there faster, I could have helped.”

“Or ye too could be dead,” Niall said.

The lad shrugged, and Jasper continued.

“I drew up close after that, Adam was still bending over Hammond’s body, and we drew our weapons waiting for men to ambush, nearly killed Francis when he arrived. We stood there like that, maybe an hour or more, the three of us guarding Hammond’s body. When no one came, we started to take him up onto my horse. His horse was gone. That was when the arrows came. But not one of them landed on us. All of them surged into Hammond’s body.”

Niall shuddered. Who would do such a thing to a man already gone?

“They came from everywhere,” Jasper said, “as though the bastards lived in the trees. We ran. And we didna stop.”

“Ye left Hammond?”

The men hung their heads in shame, and Adam’s shoulders started to shake. “I’ve never seen anything so vicious, sir, not even in battle.”

“’Tis the devil’s work,” Francis said, crossing himself, which created a wave of crossing among the crowd that listened in.

“There wasn’t a way to carry him with so many arrows in his body. We’d have to break them off and risk getting shot ourselves,” Jasper explained.

Niall gritted his teeth. “Aye, ye’re right. But this not the work of the Devil. This is the work of a coward.”

“More than one, sir.”

Niall cracked his neck, feeling his blood surge with the need to thrust his sword into his enemy. “MacGregor has to be behind this.”

“We didna see anyone, nor a sign of clans.”

Niall turned to Philip, who’d come to stand beside him. “Gather the horses. We’ll ride out now and retrieve Hammond and track down the bastards who did this.” He glanced up at the sky. “Pack some torches in case we need them. ’Twill be dark soon.”

Within minutes, he was mounting, then he heard his name called from the front stairs of the castle.

Ballocks, in his urgency, he’d forgotten about Bella. She ran toward him, worry on her face.

“Where are ye going, husband?”

“My scouts were attacked. We have to retaliate.”

He expected her to wail or beg for him to stay, but she nodded solemnly, grabbed his hand were it lay on the pummel and pressed it to her lips. “Godspeed. Make them pay for what they’ve done.”

Niall couldn’t help but smile. His wife was a bloodthirsty wench. “I’ll ask ye to pray for us while we’re gone.”

“Aye, for a swift and safe return.”

It was only after he’d left her and they were barreling across the moors that Niall realized something else—he had chosen to go into battle and not once had he thought about what he’d lost in the last one.

Bella stared after Niall’s retreating figure, and then at the darkening sky. As soon as he’d gone beneath the gate, her hands had started to shake. She’d not wanted him to know how scared she was, or how much she worried for him. She’d only wanted to impart her support, and that she believed in him. And now he’d gone off to fight an enemy neither of them knew, and she might never see him again. That seemed hardly fair at all.

They’d only just begun their lives together. And even though she’d been worried about coming here and leaving her family behind, the hope she’d had at a life she could build with him had been strong.

Of course, she was a fanciful, naïve lass, and she would do well to remember it. Head always stuck in her stories. Tales of love and happily ever afters. The real world wasn’t like that. How many times had their own mother worried that their father wouldn’t come back? How many times had the great Magnus Sutherland been on his deathbed from battle?

With the trembling that had started in her hands moving up to her jaw and making her teeth rattle, she retreated inside to the chamber she shared with Niall and watched out the window as he and his men grew smaller and smaller until they disappeared into the woods.

Still, she remained there, staring toward the trees, keen for any movement that might mean their return. From what she’d gathered, the men had not been too far. Perhaps they would be back sooner than expected.

Mary entered the room quietly, bringing her a warmed cider with a splash of whisky. She indicated Bella should drink it when she wrinkled her nose at the smell. Then Mary made a show that she would force her to do so if she didn’t drink. Dutifully, Bella sipped the cider, admitting it did make her feel a little better. Without words, Mary’s eyes showed sympathy. She put her arm around Bella’s shoulders as they stared out the window together.

“How silly of me, Mary, ye should also be having cider as Philip went with Niall.”

Mary shook her head vigorously, grabbed Bella’s hairbrush and began unplaiting her hair. She stroked the brush through Bella’s long hair the same way she’d done since Bella was a lass. It had always helped to relax her in the past

But this time, it didn’t.

In just under an hour the men arrived at their destination. The ominous gray of the sky had deepened, but thankfully, darkness was held at bay for a few moments longer. Hammond’s body lay where the scouts had left him. Though not a single arrow was left in his body, it was so riddled with holes it was clear to see dozens had once pierced his skin. All around the body were boot prints smearing the snow with blood. Whoever had killed him had returned to gather the evidence.

The men stood over Hammond, whispering a prayer for his soul, and then they wrapped him in a plaid.

“Load him up,” Niall ordered the scouts who’d come home to report the incident. “Take him back to the castle and see that his body is cleaned and prepared for burial. The three of ye will inform the family and help around their croft anyway they might need. See to their comfort, be the son they lost.”

“Aye, sir.” They gingerly laid Hammond over a horse brought just for that purpose.

“The rest of ye, fan out. We’ll find these bastards.”

The first place Niall looked was toward the trees. If the scouts had been ambushed by an invisible enemy, the natural thought was that the men had been perched above, unseen. The forest was a mixture of lush firs and barren oaks. The firs were likely too weak to hold a man at the top, which meant they’d climbed the thick trunks instead.

Just as he suspected, he found boot prints around half a dozen trees. A small party sent to menace his men.

They inspected the trees for any trace of plaid threads or fabric that might have come off, but they found them all to be clean, or at least it looked that way in the fading light. He didn’t want to light any torches in case the men still waited. With the snow still covering the ground, it would be hard for their enemy to hide their tracks, though they’d made a valid attempt. The prints went off in six different directions, but all of them lead the same way, circling back around toward the river.

“The light will not hold out much longer,” Niall said, muttering an oath. “But if we dinna look now, we could lose them.”

“Aye,” Walter agreed.

As if fate agreed, the clouds overhead parted, allowing a sliver of the moon to come through and reflect off the white snow on the ground.

“Let’s make haste and give thanks for small favors.” Niall led his men to a shallow spot in the river to cross over with their horses, but there were no prints on the opposite side, nor in the woods beyond.

The only way to have disappeared like that was if they’d been on a birlinn or another small boat. Even on a watercraft, they would have had to get off at some point. Niall split the group into two, sending men south and taking a group north. They traveled for about an hour, until they came to a part of the river that would not have allowed a boat to pass, and there still had been no footprints on either side, at least none they could make out. They turned around and met the men who’d gone south in the middle. They too said they’d come to a waterfall. The men would have had to get out and swim to the shore or else fall over the edge. And there’d been no footprints.

What the bloody hell?

“They canna have simply disappeared.” His brother blew out a frustrated breath.

“Aye, we’ve missed something.” But what? The sun was starting to set, and soon it would be impossible to keep looking. “We’ll go back to the castle for now, send more men out on the morrow when the light is good.”

Back at the castle, the mood was somber. One of their own murdered, the rest of them terrorized, and seemingly by a ghost. The villagers were all warned, and those who couldn’t protect themselves were brought within the castle walls for sanctuary.

Niall sat brooding in the great hall, nursing an ale with his brother sitting silently in front of him. They’d arrived back late enough that most of the servants had gone home or to sleep. Bella, too, must have gone to sleep. Niall didn’t want to wake her or disturb her. To tell her he’d once again failed. That he couldn’t protect his people.

“My sons.” The sound of their mother’s frail voice rattled the two of them into sitting up. “What did ye discover?”

“Mother.” Niall sat up straighter. “I’m sorry if we woke ye.”

She waved away his words. “I couldna sleep for fear of what might happen. Tell me, what did ye discover?”

“Nothing.” Niall sat back, still brooding over what they could have missed.

“Ye dinna have to hide it from me,” she said bitterly. “Your father asked me to find out. He is still chief of his clan.”

“We tell the truth, Mother. We found nothing but Hammond’s body. We go out again in the morning.”

She shook her head. “Nay. Your chief has forbidden it.”

“What?” Walter asked while Niall sat silently staring.

Perhaps there was more to what Walter had alluded to in the study earlier in the day. That his parents, feeling the threat of age and the loss of power, were becoming unreasonable in the interim.

“Mother,” he said, standing up and leading her to his chair where he gently forced her to sit. “Listen, Walter and I are doing what is best for the clan. I am to be laird after Da goes to his reward. Walter is my heir.”

She grumbled something about the Sutherland chit not being able to bear children. For a moment, he thought she might have found out the truth, but then realized she was only being as sour as she’d been the day before. That because he’d alluded to Walter being his heir, she’d assumed Bella wasn’t capable.

“’Tis not fair the way ye’re treating my wife, my lady mother. I’m proud of her, and I want ye to be proud of her, too. Nothing is going to change in that respect, but what can change is that I will call a meeting of the clan elders and tell them Da is no longer able to lead his clan, ask them to take a vote for me to become laird now instead of at his death. They’d be mighty displeased to know that Da and ye dinna think it important to find out who murdered our scout. Who terrorizes our clan.”

Their mother pursed her lips. “Ye wouldna dare.”

“I would.”

“I’d back him,” Walter piped in. “Bella was good enough for the two of ye some months ago when Da informed me I was to ask for her hand. She is the reason Niall is not still upstairs in his room brooding.”

Niall clapped his brother on the back. “Not entirely. Ye did get me out of there.”

“If only because I mentioned the chit.”

“True enough.”

Still, their mother sat there contemplating. “I will endeavor to be nicer to the gel if ye will allow your father to remain in power.”

Niall shook his head. “Ye misunderstand me, Mother. I willna allow Da to put our clan in jeopardy, even if ye are cruel to my wife, though I never pegged ye for bitter woman.”

The lady sat back hard enough that Niall feared she’d knock her head into the seat.

“Niall, how dare ye speak to me this way?” Tears gathered in her eyes and he felt instantly guilty.

“I do apologize for offending ye, but I canna allow the clan to falter, nor my wife to be abused at your whim. I love ye, lady mother, but ye have to know that holding on to whatever anger or grudge ye have seems ridiculous.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, swallowing hard as she glanced up at him.

“Please, convince Da to let us do what needs to be done, else we will take that choice from his hands.”

Their mother stood, and for the first time, he noticed how stooped her shoulders were, how tiny she’d become as her body grew older. The last year had not been good for her.

Niall pulled her into his embrace, and though she resisted, he hugged her still and then kissed her cheek.

“For the clan, Mama.”

Without answering, she turned away from her sons and walked back toward the stairs. She stopped at the foot of them and said without looking back, “I will speak to him…for the clan.”