Chapter Eleven
“You have a sister and a brother,” Grace said from her seat on Little Warrior. They’d camped a second night. Grace had once again slept alone in the tent, or rather tried to sleep inside the tent with evergreens under her and thoughts of Keir rolling around her traitorous mind. They’d risen at dawn and had ridden all day across the snowy landscape toward Mallaig. “And a nephew who is ill, and a grandmother, your father’s mother, who is still alive.” She should learn all the players in this dreadful adventure so she could make her plans for escape.
“Aye,” Keir answered.
“Fiona Mackinnon,” Brodie called from where he rode several yards to the side. “Now, she’s a strong woman.”
“Physically or mentally?” Grace asked.
“Both. She was a warrior in her youth,” Keir said.
Grace twisted in her seat to see Keir. The breeze teased his loose hair around a strong jaw that held a week’s growth of hair. “She battled?”
“With perfect aim,” Brodie said.
“After her husband died, she would ride into battle with her son. She was talented with the bow, staying in the rear and picking off the enemy from the back of her horse. She was quite fierce,” Keir said.
“Still is, just more with her tongue now than with her arrows,” Brodie added with a chuckle.
“And your sister, Odara, isn’t married?”
“She goes by Dara,” Keir said. “And no, she hasn’t met a man strong enough to lure her to the pulpit.”
“If this new fellow works out, she might wed. He’s a warrior from the south who’s become friends with Rabbie,” Brodie said. “Has lots of scars and a crooked nose. He might be strong enough to handle her.”
“Dara’s been working to heal Lachlan, but nothing seems to be helping,” Keir said.
Grace worried at her bottom lip and took mental stock of what herbs remained in her satchel. She’d used most of the feverfew, garlic bulbs, and honey for Keir and his horse. Despite her fury with Keir and his brother’s orders, the boy deserved her healing talents. “Since you’ve demanded my help, I will need more medicines. Does he have a fever?”
“At times he feels hot, flushed, but it was the weakness that first took hold of him. He began sleeping for great lengths of time, and when awake, he complains he can’t lift his limbs.” Keir’s voice had taken on the heaviness of concern.
“What has he been treated with?” Grace asked, wishing she had Ava with her to confer.
“He’s been bled and given blessed water with rosemary. That seemed to revive him for a bit. Sometimes he vomits. My sister never leaves his side, but she is not a healer.”
“There are no healers on the Isle of Skye?” she asked, finding that hard to believe. Skye was larger than Mull from what she remembered of her studies back in England.
“Our clan is renowned for our warring, lass,” Brodie said. “Not our healing. Healers can be found within the other clans on the isle but none whom we could trust not to kill Rabbie’s heir.”
“And yet you trust me? I could be as malicious. An unknown woman who is furious that she’s been stolen from her original journey.”
“Furious?” Brodie asked, his face breaking into a grin. “I’ve seen frolicking kittens more furious than ye, lass.”
She frowned at him, narrowing her eyes. But guilt tightened her stomach, not anger. She was a terrible prisoner. Bitterly, she considered ordering Brodie to drink a purgative as a preventative to some made-up illness with which she sensed he was coming down.
Keir spoke behind her, his tone even. “Regardless of your mood, Grace Ellington, ye are a kind woman. Your character would not allow ye to harm a child.”
“And,” Brodie called over, “ye don’t know Rab well enough to kill his offspring.”
“God’s teeth, who would hate a man enough to want to kill his child?” Grace caught the glance between the two men from the corner of her eye.
“Any opposition to a king with an heir,” Keir said.
“Humph,” Grace said, though she knew it was true. England’s King Henry had been overly worried that his Princess Mary would be murdered by assassins or die from illness like his son, Henry, who had died soon after birth. It was still whispered that Queen Catherine had been poisoned, thus causing her son to die. “Well, your brother is not a king,” she said.
“In our clan, he may as well be,” Brodie said. “He is the chief, and the clan moves according to his say.” Brodie’s face hardened with his words, making Grace’s stomach tighten. She wasn’t sure she wanted to meet Keir’s brother.
“You said his wife died in childbirth,” Grace said, listening to the regular plodding of the horses.
“Aye,” Keir said.
“Was it long ago?”
“Two years now. We buried Bradana with her newborn bairn,” Keir said, his voice flat. Neither Highlander said anything more. Grace remembered the larger cross with a tiny one next to it, etched over Keir’s heart. They were both ornately drawn with intertwining lines.
The horses walked swiftly, their hooves breaking the crisp surface of the deep snow. Evergreens stood, draped with white, while oaks and birch trees looked like gray skeletons, their bony arms reaching to the sky. As the sun began to slide behind the branches, the smell of woodsmoke tinged the breeze.
“Mallaig is up ahead,” Brodie said.
“We will gather your supplies, lass, and pay the ferryman to take us across tonight,” Keir said.
She was tired, but she knew that every minute counted with an ill child. “We need to go straightaway to an apothecary to purchase feverfew, garlic bulbs, any fruits available…”
Keir shifted behind her, reaching for something. “My grandmother tends an herb garden for the family since Bradana died. There is garlic, as well as rosemary, still alive in the winter. We have fall apples and cabbages.”
Grace nodded while watching a path appear between the trees. Without examining the boy, she really didn’t know what would be needed. Perhaps the cure would be easy, and Keir would keep his promise to return her to her journey. But she’d keep vigilant and learn as much as she could about her captors. As soon as Lachlan improved, if there was any hint of Keir breaking his promise, she would find a way to leave on her own.
They followed where other hoofprints muddied the snow. Keir shifted again, making Grace turn. She blinked. “What happened to your shirt?” she asked. He sat behind her naked from the waist up. Dark markings wound about his thick arm, and the crosses could be seen running down one side to disappear under the draped sash that came up from the kilt. He wore black leather gauntlets and a severe expression.
He didn’t answer. Brodie cleared his throat. “We are coming into sometimes hostile territory. The Devil of Dunakin isn’t affected by cold, and the markings remind people who he is.”
Grace looked between Brodie and Keir. “Well, that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. You’ll freeze.”
Without bending his head, his gaze shifted to Grace. There was a warmth in his eyes despite the angular hardness of his features. “I am used to riding bare, even in the winter. Cold doesn’t affect me.”
“Bloody hell, you are human. Of course, cold affects you,” she said, turning to face front and rocking side to side to inch backward into his chest, silently giving him some of her heat. She leaned there, the feel of his mostly bare torso and chest against her back. “Absolutely foolhardy,” she murmured with as much seething as she could muster.
Mallaig seemed to be about the size of Kilchoan. Grace took note of a humble chapel, tavern, smithy, boatyard, bakery, butcher, and several rows of thatch-roofed cottages with smoke wafting from propped openings along the edges of the dwellings. Perhaps she could find help among these people. Were they God-fearing and kind or Devil-fearing and loyal to the Mackinnons?
“I’ll find the ferryman,” Brodie said and veered toward the tavern.
Keir guided Little Warrior to the right. “The apothecary sits at the edge of town.”
Grace didn’t answer. She was too busy watching a child scurry back from the road as they passed, his eyes as round as full moons. As they trotted past a woman sweeping her stoop, she looked up, her eyes widening like the boy’s, and slid the sign of the cross before her bosom. Several men at the smithy, who were covering the open fires for the night, stopped to stare at them. One man nodded solemnly toward Keir, but Grace saw another make the sign of the cross as if Satan himself passed. Ahead, two ladies, who were talking out front, hurried into the house, and an elderly woman snatched up a little girl, practically running to get her inside.
“God’s teeth,” Grace murmured. “Do they think you eat children?”
“Most likely.”
She twisted to see if he was jesting, but he stared ahead, the same hard scowl in place.
“But you don’t,” she said with angry confidence, turning back to frown outward. Were they all foolish, cowardly people who would be too afraid to help her? “They probably don’t want their children thinking it’s normal to ride out in winter without a shirt.”
He remained silent, guiding his horse to stop before a small cottage with a wooden sign over the door. A mortar and pestle was painted in burgundy upon it. “Come in with me,” she said, thinking to get him somewhere warm. The breeze had picked up, and she was cold even with her layers. “I worry who might be in there.” Although, she shouldn’t care one whit if he sickened and died from his own foolishness.
“The woman is Maude MacDonald. She is old and harmless,” he said, dismounting. With a grip around her waist, he lifted her down onto the snowy ground.
“I will be in after I check Cogadh’s hock.”
It seemed he wished to freeze, so she settled her satchel on her shoulder, turning toward the door. With a short knock, she pressed inward. The room was warm and held a pungent, mixed odor of herbs and medicines.
A woman peeked out from a back room. She nodded at Grace but wore a wary expression. “Co thu?”
Grace smiled. “I am Grace Ellington. I was told I could find some herbal medicines here. That you are Maude MacDonald.” Could Maude help her escape?
“Ye have coin?” the woman asked, stepping into the room, her eyes dipping to Grace’s bag.
“Yes,” she said and pulled out a leather pouch, which jingled as several gold and silver pieces rubbed together. Coins could make some people very brave.
The woman waved her to the shelves that lined the back wall. Jars, filled with dried herbs, sat in orderly fashion. “You have quite a bounty,” Grace said sweetly. Her smile was reported to be her best weapon, and she used it whenever dealing with grumpy patients or apothecary crones who looked like they’d rather shoo her out the door than help her.
“What is it ye need?” Maude asked, her accent thick.
Grace studied the old woman. She seemed to live alone, but if she had a horse to sell, Grace might have a chance. “I’m not completely certain. Feverfew, one garlic cluster, burdock, roseroot, self-heal with goldenrod, and tormentil. If you have them.”
“Ye know the ways of medicines?” she asked, her frown smoothing into an assessing neutral look.
“Yes,” Grace said, helping the woman move a ladder to reach a clay jar on an upper shelf. “My sister is a wonderful healer. She and her husband’s mother have taught me much.”
“The husband, he is a Scot?”
“Yes. Ava and I have left England. We live with the Macleans of Aros on the Isle of Mull.”
Maude seemed to weigh her words, finally giving her a nod. She waved Grace toward a series of clay pots on a lower shelf. “Pick ye out a garlic while I scoop the feverfew.”
“I am fortunate to have found you,” Grace said, glancing around, but Keir was still freezing his ballocks off outside. “I was wondering if you might also have a horse for sale.”
Maude narrowed her eyes. “For the right amount of coin, I could possibly find ye a horse. What are ye needing it for, lass?” Maude asked, just as the door behind Grace opened. Keir stepped inside, his height and broad shoulders filling the space. Being confined within four walls reminded Grace how large he was.
Grace didn’t answer as she watched the woman’s face pale. Maude leaned back, knocking a jar from her shelf to shatter on the floor.
“Oh,” Grace said, rushing to help, but the woman stood there staring at Keir. “Are you well?” Grace asked, studying her fear-filled face, which told her that she absolutely wouldn’t be helping Grace if it meant going against Keir.
Keir said something in Gaelic, his deep voice without warmth. Grace frowned at him. He must know he was frightening the old woman, but considering his comments when riding into Mallaig, scaring her was probably his intent.
Grace smiled reassuringly as she picked up the broken pottery to set the shards on the shelf. She patted the woman’s arm and leaned in to her ear. “He isn’t as fierce as he looks.”
The woman turned her head to Grace, her expression full of worry. “God be with ye, lass.”
Keir said something else, and Maude began throwing herbs and a few other clay pots into a linen. Grace added her garlic cluster, and Maude gathered the cloth, tying it at the top. “How much does it cost?” Grace asked, looking to Keir for him to pay. After all, it was his nephew.
“Nothing,” Maude said. “A tribute to the Devil of Dunakin.”
Grace looked back and forth between the woman and Keir. He nodded, and Maude’s shoulders relaxed. Grace huffed softly. “We are paying,” Grace said and pulled two shillings out of her own bag. She wouldn’t steal from the woman, especially if she could be a future ally. As she placed them on the table, the woman’s eyes went wide. “A fair coin for your medicines,” Grace said, but Maude shook her head.
Grace jumped as Keir’s hand slapped down on the wooden top over the coins, and slid them back. He grabbed the bag Maude had fastened and nodded to her. “Thank ye,” he said. “I will be sure to let Rab know ye wish his son good health with your gift.”
Maude’s mouth fell open, and she nodded quickly. “Aye, that I do.”
He looped his arm through Grace’s and guided her out the front door. “Thank you,” she called, but as soon as the door shut, she rounded on Keir. “The woman needs that money.”
“She needs to feel like I will protect her more,” he said, tucking the shillings into the palm of her hand. He curled her fingers around them and then produced a much richer sovereign from the leather pouch he wore at his waist, dropping it on the woman’s front stoop. “Let her feel lucky to find it while still procuring my favor.”
Grace stood there, her lips parted, staring at the gold coin on the lip of Maude’s doorway. “Wouldn’t you protect her anyway?” she asked, following Keir to where he secured the wrapped herbs into a bag tied to his horse.
“Aye,” Keir said, “but it gives her ease to know I will do so not from the kindness of my heart, since she’s certain that the Devil of Dunakin has no heart.” He lifted her into the saddle, where Grace flipped her leg over to straddle the horse, tucking her skirts around her. Keir climbed on behind. As he leaned forward to take the reins, questions swarmed inside Grace’s mind, but she kept her mouth firmly shut. The boulder of anxiousness, which Grace tried to deny, cracked further open as she thought about the woman’s palpable fear. Who exactly was Keir Mackinnon, the Devil of Dunakin? She must keep her attention focused on finding a way out of this mess.