Hazard
Searching out what Corbin foresaw as his most lucrative source of revenue had been too risky in Skye. News that he’d purchased opium would have inevitably reached Laird MacKeegan’s ears and put a speedy end to his trade negotiations, and possibly his life.
The MacKeegans were nigh on fanatical about the evils of the drug. His host had rambled on, recounting some story about Lady Isabel’s father, but he hadn’t really listened. When you’d heard one convoluted clan tale, you’d heard them all.
As he’d anticipated, the docks below Mingary Castle teemed with vessels. It should be a simple task to find pirates among them who would willingly sell him the drug.
He doubted the taciturn Nicolson would object if he wandered off. “I’ll help you put up the canvas then go for food,” he offered.
The navigator looked up at the clear sky and shook his head. “Willna rain. One o’ the lads’ll fetch us victuals.”
“Right then,” Corbin replied. “I’ll just stretch my legs for a bit, if it’s all right with you. Too long on the boat.”
Nicolson looked at him as if he’d lost his mind, then set about lighting candle lanterns.
Corbin climbed the ladder to the dock, irritated that his limbs were, indeed, stiff and sore. He’d be in dire need of the redhead’s soothing touch by the time this escapade was over.
He wandered about for a while, hands clasped behind his back, feigning interest in peering down into the galleys and other sundry vessels, until he found what he was looking for. A group of six or seven grubby ruffians sat or knelt in a circle on the deck of a battered birlinn. Apparently, these men weren’t welcome in the castle. From the sound of it, they were involved in a dice game that Corbin thought might be Hazard, though he couldn’t understand a word of their jubilant chatter.
“Pointless to quote Chaucer’s opinion of the game to these ne’er-do-wells,” he muttered under his breath. “It made a man or undid him in the twinkling of an eye.”
A frisson of apprehension marched up his spine when every one of them turned to scowl at him. He hadn’t meant to utter Chaucer’s witticism aloud, but they must have sensed his presence.
His instinct was to saunter away. However, nothing ventured, nothing gained. He fished a small bag of coins from his pocket and made a show of hefting its weight in his hand, all the while whistling as if he hadn’t a care in the world.
As he hoped, one man broke away from the group and climbed up to the dock. “Dè tha thu ag iarraidh?”
“I don’t speak Gaelic,” Corbin replied, trying to hide his disdain.
The sailor hacked up a gob of phlegm and spat it out. “English?” His tone spoke of mistrust, but his eyes remained on the purse in Corbin’s hand.
“No, I’m a Scot, from Annandale.”
The man wiped a tattered sleeve across his runny nose and repeated his question. “What do ye want, Lowlander?”
This was going nowhere. Corbin decided to cut to the chase. The coins clinked as he dangled the purse. “I’m interested in buying some Stones of Immortality.”
The foul odor of rotting black teeth nearly felled him when the sailor grinned, but he deftly rescued the bag out of the pirate’s grasping reach. “The drug first, then you get the coin.”
Beady eyes darted from the bag to his shipmates and back to Corbin before he cocked his head in the direction of his galley. “Come wi’ me.”
“You must think me a fool,” he drawled in reply, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt. This gang of miscreants would think nothing of murdering him without batting an eye. No one aboard the MacKeegan birlinn would have an inkling what had become of him. He opened his plaid to reveal the pistol shoved into his belt. “Meet me at the end of the dock. Come alone, and I want the black pills, not the balls of raw opium.”
The sailor snickered. “A good choice.”
Corbin walked away slowly with his hand on the butt of the pistol, filled with the uneasy feeling the pirate didn’t consider the weapon a threat.
*
Looking forward to a good night’s sleep after a delicious meal of pigeon pie, Kyla beckoned Boban when she saw him enter the Great Hall with his companion. “All’s weel?” she asked. “Ye delivered the food?”
“Aye,” the sailor replied, scratching his head. “But I’ll wager Nicolson will wolf down the whole pie if yon Lowlander doesna return soon.”
A knot of worry tightened in her belly. “Lochwood isna aboard?”
“Nay.”
“Did Nicolson say where he went?”
“Nay.”
“Did ye inquire?”
“Nay.”
She tamped down her exasperation. It was to be expected these Highlanders wouldn’t care a whit what a Lowlander did. “Get the lantern. Ye’ll escort me back to the galley.”
It was a lot to ask of a man who had already been obliged to leave the warmth of the castle to take food to the night watch. He was likely as tired as she, but, like a true Hebridean, he showed no outward sign of irritation.
A few minutes later, he met her at the entryway, brandishing an unlit torch. “Gettin’ a mite windy for a candle lantern,” he explained.
Bundled up in their plaids, they exited the castle, heads down against the stiff wind. Boban lit the torch from another affixed to the curtain wall and they approached the shadowy docks. The wind had blown out every lantern aboard the Lanmara. The sailor lifted the torch high to illuminate the deck. Sitting cross-legged in the shelter of the cargo, Nicolson glanced up and narrowed his eyes against the dancing flame.
“Where’s Lochwood?” she shouted, filled with a sense of unease. It wasn’t safe to go wandering off in such a place where ships of every nationality docked.
Nicolson shrugged and stuffed a piece of pie in his mouth.
The wind whipped her hair over her face as she peered down the dock, relieved to see Corbin hurrying toward them. “Where have ye been?” she asked, wishing she’d not betrayed her anger when he scowled at the irritation in her voice.
“For a walk,” he panted, climbing down the ladder with some difficulty as he struggled to keep his plaid wrapped tightly around his body.
It was on the tip of her tongue to launch into a lecture about the responsibility he’d accepted to watch over the birlinn and the foolhardiness of his actions. But Corbin wasn’t a man to be scolded. She had a feeling he’d eventually find some way to retaliate and his presence already made her nervous.
She turned to walk back to the castle, deeming it odd that sweat trickled down Lochwood’s forehead despite the chilly wind. And why had he been so determined to remain bundled up in his plaid? What was he hiding?
“We need to keep a wary eye on the laird,” she told Boban as they made their way back to the castle.
“Ne’er thought elsewise,” he replied.