Off His Head
Ewan came close to colliding with Donald at the door of the keep.
“I was on my way to find ye,” the elderly steward panted. “Walter’s back.”
The news came as a surprise and raised his hopes. “Already? With Morley?”
Donald shook his head. “Only Niall. Hands tied to the pommel of a donkey. Looks done in. Just now arrived in the bailey.”
Ewan hurried out, wondering if Mungo was dead, but the grim look on Walter’s face quickly dispelled that notion. “Where did ye find him?” he asked.
Gilbertson dismounted. “Not far distant. Tied to a tree.” He poked Niall’s arm. “I’ll let him tell the tale.”
When the bleary-eyed wretch looked up, Ewan saw that his nose was badly broken, his swollen face smeared with blood. He frowned at Walter who shook his head. “Not my doing.”
“The mon’s a lunatic,” Niall rasped.
“Mungo did this to ye?” Ewan asked.
“After we made good our escape, he blathered on and on about taking Ailig’s body with us.”
“The ruse wouldna have worked then,” Ewan said.
Walter cut the rope binding Niall to the pommel and slid him from the donkey. Off balance, Morley touched the back of his hand to his nose and winced. “I said as much, but he whined on and on, insisting we had to come back. So I told him he’d have to return alone.”
Ewan had an inkling what was coming next. “He wanted the horse.”
Niall coughed and spat out blood. “Aye, and when I refused, he attacked me like a wild thing, punched me in the nose and tied me to a tree with the same rope we used to secure him to the donkey. He’s my kinsman but he’s nay right in the head. I regret the day I chose to follow him. He’s nay the mon his father was.”
Ewan almost felt sorry for the wretch. “Weel, my friend, many’s the Highlander who’s followed the wrong path because a kinsman demanded it of him.”
Walter seized Niall’s shoulder and pushed him into the arms of two of his men. “Take him to the infirmary.”
Gooseflesh marched across Ewan’s nape as he watched the warriors hoist Niall under the armpits and drag him away. While everyone had been distracted by the wedding, Mungo had probably infiltrated the castle. “Morley may already have discovered Ailig’s body is no longer in the cells. Question is, where is he now?”
*
A loud banging on the door jolted Shona and Ruadh awake. Her heart calmed. It was Ewan’s voice demanding entry. She patted the hound’s head when he tried to get up. “Lie down, it’s all right, though it doesna sound like there’s news of Mungo.”
She lifted the bar and opened the door, startled anew when Ewan gathered her into his embrace and leaned his forehead against hers.
“I had to make sure ye were safe,” he growled. “Mungo is here.”
A chill raced across her nape. “In the castle?”
“He’s gone completely daft. Tied Niall to a tree and came back for Ailig’s body.”
She struggled to understand. “But…”
Ewan tightened his grip around her. “Aye. It’s been buried, though I dinna ken where. Might even have been thrown in the cesspit.”
It was no surprise he wasn’t aware of the clan’s burial ground. The MacCarrons preferred the Mackinlochs not get wind of the location close to disputed territory. “Likely in the communal grave in the cemetery near Loch Alkayg,” she revealed. “But if he finds out, what will he do?”
“No telling with a lunatic.”
Shona shivered as a horrible memory assailed her. “I suspected he was mad when we were in the ruined church.”
Alarm clogged her throat when hurried footsteps sounded in the corridor. Ewan drew his dagger and turned to protect her, sheathing the weapon when Moira and Isobel rushed into the chamber, clinging to each other. Red-cheeked and panting hard, both lasses looked like they’d run a considerable distance. Moira’s lovely blue wedding frock was disheveled, the hem torn and dirty. Grey smudges had replaced the happy glow on the new bride’s face.
“The village,” Isobel sputtered hoarsely. “Fire.”
*
Ewan stalked to the window, alarmed to see smoke billowing outside the gates. “This is Mungo’s handiwork. Two, possibly three cottages alight.”
Shona shouldered her way to stand beside him and gasped. “Oh no, looks like Walter’s might be one of them.”
“Aye,” Moira confirmed, “we were on our way back to Mam’s when we espied the smoke. We raised the alarm in the bailey. There’s men on the way with buckets.”
“Stay here, all of ye,” he ordered, heading for the door.
“Nay,” Shona exclaimed. “Members of the clan might be hurt. It’s my responsibility to be there. We’ll go by the Still Room and fetch salves and supplies.”
“I’ll come with ye. Where is yer aunt?”
“I dinna ken. Mayhap with Uncle Kendric.”
As he was crossing the hallway, Jeannie came out of Kendric’s chamber, her eyes wide. “Fire,” she exclaimed.
“Aye,” he confirmed. “We think Mungo set it. Stay here with the door barred.”
“Morley’s here?” she asked.
“No time to explain,” he replied.
She nodded and returned to the chamber.
Confident she was safe, Ewan beckoned the women and led the way to the Still Room where they quickly gathered what they needed. It irked that he was playing nursemaid when he should have been fighting the fire, but leaving Shona alone was out of the question.
They hurried out of the castle and down the hill. A grim-faced Donald came to meet them. “The flames are mostly out,” he said hoarsely.
Ewan surveyed the scene. Women and whimpering bairns huddled together, their faces pale and drawn. Shona and her maids hurried to offer help. Men with smoke-blackened faces and torsos tossed water on smoldering piles of rubble, but the chain of clansmen who’d formed a bucket brigade was breaking up, Fynn and David among them. He saluted his recognition of their help. He heard no weeping and wailing, which he took as a good omen. Cottages could be rebuilt. Lives lost were another thing entirely. “Damage?” he asked.
“Two homes partly destroyed. The thatched roof has collapsed on the third. Walter’s. Appears to have started there.”
He scanned the area for Gilbertson, perturbed when he saw Shona running towards him. “Come quickly,” she shouted. “Walter’s going mad, trying to get inside his cottage. He canna find Robbie.”
Ewan headed in the direction of the commotion, his heart bleeding for the man who’d become a staunch friend and ally. To lose a son…
Bellowing Robbie’s name, Walter struggled with several villagers trying to restrain him near the doorway of the smoldering ruin.
A lass Ewan assumed was Walter’s wife knelt on the ground, weeping, her face buried in her hands. Shona caught up and knelt beside her, pulling the distraught woman into her embrace. She looked up at Ewan, green eyes brimming with tears.
He stood nose to nose with Walter. “Ye canna go in there.”
Gilbertson gritted his teeth. “My son is buried ’neath the roof.”
Ewan glanced inside the ruin. The thatch was gone but heavy beams still hung precariously. “And if I let ye go in and ye dinna come out, what will become o’ yer wife?”
“Wal…ter,” the woman wailed.
Glowering, Gilbertson shrugged off his neighbors and knelt to console his distraught spouse. Taking advantage of the distraction, Ewan squared his shoulders and entered the smoke-filled ruin, turning a deaf ear to Shona’s shriek of protest.
*
Shona’s instinct was to follow Ewan. But she had a duty to comfort Walter’s wife in this time of dire uncertainty, just as Ewan had answered the call to save Robbie. She loved him for it, but what was he thinking?
For long minutes, there was no sound except the shouts of men extinguishing the last of the flames and women consoling frightened bairns. Then, suddenly, timbers crashed and smoke billowed from the doorway. Shona feared the worst, but Ewan’s shout calmed the snake writhing in her belly. “I’m all right,” he yelled. “Just a beam.”
He emerged a short time later, dirty, coughing and bleary-eyed, but without Robbie. Jaw clenched, Walter tried to push past Ewan. “I thank ye, but I’ll find him.”
Ewan blocked his progress. “Are ye sure he was at home? There’s no trace of him inside.”
Walter looked to his wife.
Heather clenched her fists in her lap, avoiding her husband’s gaze. “I left for a little while. Just to go for water. I stopped to chat with Kirsti. He was playing…I thought…”
“He was outside?” Ewan asked.
Heather nodded.
“Then where the fyke is he now?” Walter thundered.
A shout from Fynn drew everyone’s attention as he approached with two men. Shona thought she recognized them, but they were filthy, and her nose soon let her know they were the workers who’d begun cleaning out the cesspits.
Evidently aware of their stench, Fynn bade them halt while he came close. “I was on my way back to the kitchens to see about the stag when I ran into these men. They encountered Mungo as they were coming up the steps from the cesspit.”
Ewan drew his dagger. “He’s gone up to the secret chamber.”
“But why?” Shona wondered. “He’ll be trapped.”
Fynn shifted his weight, looking uneasy. “He’d a boy with him. He told them he’ll exchange the lad for Ailig’s body.”
“He’s a dead man,” Walter hissed, as he and Ewan started back towards the castle.
All heads turned to the tower. Shona gasped at the sight of the red-haired giant standing on the roof, waving like a conquering hero. “He truly is mad,” she murmured, narrowing her eyes at something Mungo had lowered over the side of the tower. “What’s he got hanging…”
The words died in her throat as Heather scrambled to her feet and set off at a run. “Robbeeeee!” she screamed.