Simpleton
Some ruins that dotted the landscape were picturesque, but the overgrown exterior of the tumbledown church had nothing to recommend it. Shona suspected it had never been a substantial building and doubted anyone had worshipped there for decades. And why would they? It was in the middle of nowhere.
It had at one time likely been the cell of an abbey. But the monks were long gone. At least she thought so until Mungo ushered her inside and a robed figure shuffled out of the shadows.
“Meet Brother Horwich,” her abductor announced.
Shona frowned, then quickly covered her nose to ward off the obnoxious stench emanating from the filthy wretch. Even Mungo stepped back. One look into the man’s vacant eyes convinced her she was dealing with a simpleton. His hair imitated a monk’s tonsure; his pate was bald, but the circular fringe of straggly grey wisps brushed his shoulders and hung like a frayed curtain over his gaunt face. His ragged robe may once have been brown, but time had faded it beyond description. A bony elbow and shoulder protruded where the fabric had rotted. A strong wind might whip it off his skeletal body entirely.
She looked around the dilapidated ruin, trying to ignore the scurrying and squeaking of what were probably rodents. There were signs of habitation—a meager blanket tossed in a corner, a stool tucked under a small, lopsided three-legged table, the fourth corner propped up on a stone from the crumbled wall. “Do ye live here, Brother Horwich?” she asked.
He tilted his head to one side, as if not understanding.
Mungo chuckled. “He doesna get to speak to women much.”
Shona’s heart filled with pity for the outcast, probably shunned by his village and forced to live out his days in isolation. She held her breath. “Are ye a hermit?”
Horwich beamed a toothless grin and tapped his chest. “Aye. Prior o’ the cell. The last survivor.”
She gritted her teeth and turned to Mungo. “This poor man is no priest. Surely ye dinna think…”
“Hush,” he interrupted, forcing her arm behind her back. “Ye’ll hurt his feelings.” He pointed to one of his men near the door who held up a brace of plump hares. “Proceed, Brother, then ye’ll get yer reward.”
Horwich’s eyes widened as he swiped a filthy hand across blistered lips. Shona wondered how long he’d been without a decent meal—or food of any kind.
She struggled to resist when another of Morley’s men emerged from the shadows and tied a musty-smelling gag over her mouth.
Eyes raised to heaven, the simpleton lifted his hands in prayer and began chanting. She recognized a few Latin phrases and some Gaelic, but the rest was gibberish. After interminable minutes during which she thought she might go mad with anger and frustration, he paused and looked expectantly at Mungo.
“Aye,” her abductor replied solemnly.
More babbling ensued then he paused again and looked at her.
Fearing her tortured arm might break and sweating with the effort of the fruitless struggle against Mungo’s hold, she shook her head vehemently and voiced her refusal as best she could with the loathsome wet gag stealing away her breath.
Horwich smiled benignly and made an exaggerated Sign of the Cross over them—with the wrong hand. “Man and wife,” he murmured with a heavy sigh. Humming, he wandered off into the shadows after deftly catching the hares tossed from the doorway.
Mungo laughed and scooped her up. “Come along, wee wifey. Off to bed.”
*
Fearing the hound had again led them astray, Ewan and his men finally caught up to Ruadh, surprised to see him napping outside a ruined building that may at one time have been a church. He got up and barked, wagging his tail as they approached.
“Mayhap he’s cornered a deer in yon ruin,” Walter quipped as they reined in their mounts. “A cell of Dunscar Abbey. Abandoned over a hundred years ago.”
Ewan smiled wryly but as they dismounted he worried there was no sign of horses. “If they were here, I fear they’ve eluded us once more.”
Twenty men surrounded the church as Ewan and Walter drew their daggers and shoved open what remained of the door. Hinges creaked, but there was no time to become accustomed to the darkness inside, nor to ponder the source of the aroma of roasting meat. A hooded figure scurried by, apparently fleeing the ruin.
Walter flung himself at the fugitive and they rolled together on the ground, but he got to his feet quickly and backed away. “Fyke, he reeks.”
They covered their noses, staring in disbelief at a skeleton of a man scrabbling in the dirt like a starving dog for scraps of meat. He shoved grit-covered morsels into his mouth one after the other, glancing up fearfully now and again. Even Ruadh looked on in apparent disgust.
Ewan sheathed his dagger and swallowed the bile rising in his throat. “I dinna want to frighten him, but we need to know if he’s seen Shona.”
Wiping grease from his gambeson, Walter put his weapon away and hunkered down. “We’re nay going to steal yer food,” he assured the beggar.
A foreboding crept into Ewan’s heart when he realized the man’s rotting garb was an ancient monk’s robe. “Look at him. He isna capable o’ trapping his own food. Somebody brought it for him, but ye claim ’tis more than a hundred years since monks dwelt here.”
“Nay,” the beggar spluttered, sending a spray of food flying, “I’m Brother Horwich, the last prior.”
Ewan and Walter exchanged a worried glance.
Others gathered round to stare, noses wrinkled in disgust as the outcast picked spatters off his filthy robe and popped them into his mouth.
“What kind soul brought ye the meat?” Walter cajoled.
“Canna tell.”
Ewan was tempted to seize hold of the man, but the robe might disintegrate entirely and he truly didn’t want to touch the fellow. “Canna or willna, Brother?”
“Swore I wouldna.”
“Mungo evidently expected us to pursue them,” Walter surmised.
Fearing the worst, Ewan narrowed his eyes. “So ye swore not to tell about the ceremony?”
“Aye,” Horwich replied. “Man and wife. In nomine patri…son…holy…” His thin voice trailed off when he noticed Ruadh. “I like dogs,” he murmured, scrambling on all fours towards the hound. Wisely, Ruadh backed away and ran off.
“I’ll make sure Mungo dies a slow painful death for subjecting Shona to such a travesty,” Ewan promised as he watched the beggar get to his feet and disappear into the ruin.
Walter shook his head. “I canna believe he thinks to claim what transpired here as a valid marriage.”
“Who’s to naysay him? Shona is the only one who knows the truth and I’ll warrant he’ll keep her silent until he’s laird, and then…”
Feeling the need to pace, he tried to fathom what Morley might do next. The answer hit him squarely in the gut. “He’s taken her back to Creag. We’ve fallen into the trap and left folk at the castle unaware of what’s happening. We must ride back with all possible haste.”
*
Mungo didn’t remove the gag until Shona stopped struggling, too exhausted to carry on the fight. The more she fought, the harder it became to stomach his foul odor. It occurred to her they were heading back in the direction of Creag Castle. The prospect brought renewed determination. Surely someone there would come to her aid.
She kept her thoughts to herself, resolved not to give her abductor the satisfaction of hearing her complain. He seemed to derive pleasure from her agitated movements on his lap.
She wondered if Ewan Mackinloch was still at Creag, or if he’d returned to Inverness, disgusted with the MacCarrons. Who could blame him? She felt his loss keenly, not only for herself but for her clan. Kendric wasn’t a young man and his injuries were severe.
Her heart lurched. That’s exactly what Mungo and his vile brother had counted on. In her state of frenzied indignation she’d forgotten Ailig and his errand.
She worried for Kendric and Jeannie and prayed fervently nothing untoward had happened to Ewan. She was becoming more and more convinced the Morleys had played a role in her uncle’s accident, and probably her father’s sudden demise. Ailig had never forgiven the man who’d sentenced him to banishment and inflicted the hideous scar, though he’d left her father no choice but to defend Jeannie against his brutality.
Laird Beathan MacCarron was a staunch supporter of the laws of the land and clan traditions. He defended a man’s right to rule his wife, but was fond of boasting he’d never raised a hand against Shona’s mother. He made no secret of his contempt for men who used their fists to control a woman.
His death devastated his family and his clan, but the possibility it hadn’t been the mysterious accident everyone assumed made her blood boil.
She was anxious to reach Creag Castle, but her spirits plummeted when Mungo called a halt five miles from home near the abandoned fortress at Inverlochy.
Ailig rode out to meet them. “Welcome to yer lodgings, Sister,” he crowed.
A pulse thudded in her ears. A burning desire to accuse him of her father’s murder seethed within her, but she recalled one of Beathan MacCarron’s favorite mottos.
Keep yer powder dry, lassie.
She lifted her chin and looked down her nose at him. “I am not yer sister, and I will lodge nowhere this night but in Creag Castle.”
Narrowing his eyes, he leaned forward in the saddle to run a fingertip down her cheek. “Feisty bitch ye’ve wed,” he said to his brother.
She flinched, disturbed by the naked lust in his gaze, but Mungo saved her by pulling his horse back. “And ne’er forget she’s mine, Ailig,” he warned.
The low menace in his normally strident voice sent a shiver through her, but she tucked away the knowledge of their jealous rivalry.
“Did ye get it?” Mungo asked.
Ailig spat, holding something aloft. “Aye. Yon steward is careless.”
She stared hard at the small object he held, hoping against hope it wasn’t the vial of laudanum Cummings had left for her uncle.
“Alas,” Mungo said as he dismounted and lifted her down, “our bed in Creag will hafta wait one more night, my love. Ailig and I have business to attend to there, then I’ll come for ye on the morrow.”
Deadly certain they meant to murder Kendric with his own medicine, she surveyed the crumbling walls in the dying light. “Ye canna leave me here. This place has been deserted for nigh on ten years.”
Surprisingly, Mungo seemed genuinely saddened by her plight. “Brian and Niall will bide here as weel. They’ve got blankets to warm ye, and there’s bread and cheese left in…”
“Come on,” Ailig urged, turning his horse. “Her comfort’s of no consequence.”
“She’s my wife,” Mungo retorted.
“For pity’s sake, idiot. Keep yer eye on the prize.”
Her husband shrugged, pecked a kiss on her forehead and remounted.
“No fires,” Ailig shouted to the men left behind as the brothers rode away.
Scowling, Brian and Niall dismounted and led their horses towards the walls. Clearly they didn’t relish a night sheltering in the eerie ruin either.
She considered making a run for it; in the daylight she’d find a ford across the nearby Lochy, and make her way home, but in the dark…
As if they suddenly realized they’d left her standing in the field, both men turned. “Get a move on,” Brian shouted.
With no alternative, she traipsed after them into the keep. She’d never been inside Inverlochy when it was inhabited. The darkness rendered it impossible to see where the black passageways that led from the great hall went to. “Surely we can light a fire in here?” she grumbled, feeling her way across the cold stone mantel of the hearth.
“Ailig said not,” Niall replied nervously.
It appeared she wasn’t the only one afraid of the man.
But she couldn’t let fear rule her. She was the daughter of a Highland chief and the two Morley henchmen left to guard her had best not forget it.
Resigned to another uncomfortable night, she yanked the blankets out of their arms and made a bed for herself in a corner where the hearth jutted out from the wall. “Keep yer distance,” she snarled as the pair looked around for somewhere to sleep.
She curled up in the blankets, grimly satisfied she’d managed to intimidate them, but then if they were stupid enough to follow Mungo’s mad scheme…
Nevertheless, she couldn’t resist a parting shot. Why should she be the only one awake all night? “They say the Earl of Montrose still haunts this place, ye ken?” she said ominously.