Chapter Thirteen
I must have fallen asleep, because when I opened my eyes, twilight had descended on the Western Isles, turning the sky dark purple. The boat was still, no longer cleaving through waves. I heard hushed voices as the dark silhouettes of men moved about. No one manned the oars, and I looked over my shoulder to see that Iskair had vanished from the back of the birlinn. I rose up on my knees to see that the boat was pulled up to the edge of a shoreline. Water slapped against the hull of the boat.
Andrew appeared at my side, placing a finger to his lips.
“Iskair sent me to tell ye that we have arrived, mistress. I am to stay wi ye here on the boat.”
“Oh no!” I exclaimed to no point. Iskair had been safe as long as we were at sea.
“Dinna fret, mistress. I shall watch over ye.”
“I didn’t mean you, Andrew. Of course you will. I just meant that they’re getting ready to go into battle, aren’t they?”
“Aye. There is no other choice. They fight for the women and bairns, for the people, for our home.”
The pride in Andrew’s voice sent shivers up my spine. I truly had no idea what it was like to fight for the people I loved, for my home. I scrambled to my feet, searching the shadowed figures for the curly-haired Scot.
A shade taller than most, I soon found Iskair and tapped him on the back as he spoke with John and Torq. He turned to look down at me. His expression was unreadable in the growing darkness.
Before I knew what was happening, I threw myself against his chest, wrapping my arms around his waist.
“Please be careful!” I whispered. “Please be careful.”
Iskair’s arms came around me, and he pressed me to him. I felt his chin on the top of my head.
“Aye. Of course, lass.”
“Don’t you dare get yourself killed and leave me alone here. I will never forgive you!”
I heard laughter rumble in his chest. I refused to look up at him, embarrassed at my lack of control, my neediness.
“I will return, Debra.”
“Let us away, lads!” John said. “Andrew, see to Mistress Debra.”
Andrew came and pulled me gently from Iskair.
“Watch over her, Andrew,” Iskair said.
He turned away, and the men slithered off the side of the birlinn, splashing lightly down into the water as they waded toward the beach. They moved in darkness, and their silhouettes vanished. I wanted to run after them but knew I would be nothing but trouble.
I stood in the bow of the birlinn, listening, scanning the darkness. I could see little beyond my immediate surroundings.
“Mistress, will ye no sit?” Andrew asked from behind me.
I turned around reluctantly and took a seat on one of the benches at the front of the boat next to Andrew. I drank some water but declined food. My stomach was too tense to eat.
“What’s going to happen?”
“I dinna rightly ken, mistress. They may lie in wait to free the prisoners, or they may seek to take the castle first.”
“But there are only about twenty men!”
“Aye,” he said, his young voice grim. “Too few.”
I breathed in and out, wondering how long until I knew what happened, until someone returned.
“I can’t just sit here and wait!”
“Ye must, mistress. Ye canna help.”
“I know. I know.”
I rose again impatiently and paced the deck between the benches, hitting my knees more often than not.
After an hour passed, I tired and settled down, not on the bench but onto the deck boards to rest my back. Andrew stretched out on a bench, and we whiled away the time silently, listening to the wind and creaking of the boat.
Despite my fears and anxieties, my eyelids drooped. Almost asleep, I didn’t hear water splashing until too late. A ruckus inside the boat ensued as I felt myself lifted by my underarms to my feet, a hand over my mouth stifling a scream.
Andrew shouted and launched himself at my attackers, for there was more than one, but one of them struck him or something because he moaned and hit the deck with a thud.
I tried to scream, to call out for him, but I couldn’t get a word out. The men hauled me roughly over the edge of the birlinn and carried me wriggling and struggling onto the beach. Finally, I heard voices speaking harshly in Gaelic.
A cloth was tied over my mouth and my hands pulled behind me and secured with something, perhaps cloth. While my eyes were left uncovered, I could make out very little except moving shapes. I heard more water sloshing, as if someone else waded in from the boat, and a body hit the mud next to me. A moan suggested that it was Andrew and that he was still alive.
I contemplated running, even bound by the wrists as I was, but abandoned the idea altogether. Not only was it pitch dark and I had no idea where to go, I couldn’t leave Andrew.
One of the men grabbed me, and I was hauled painfully up to my feet. He dragged me across the beach, through rocks and up onto what felt like turf. I looked over my shoulder to see moonlight outlining the furled white sails of the birlinns behind us.
I wanted to ask who the men were, but I couldn’t get any words out. I growled deep-throated sounds, and my captor gave me a hard shake and said something in Gaelic, which I interpreted to be “shut up.”
I saw a man carrying a shape over his shoulder and assumed that to be Andrew, either unconscious or semiconscious. I supposed that Andrew was lucky he hadn’t been killed, and I wondered why. Such was my immersion in the lawless violence of the sixteenth century that I barely noticed I was wondering why someone hadn’t been murdered.
We entered a canopied area like a tree line, and I heard the distinct sound of horses snorting before I saw the dark shapes. My captor threw me over a saddle onto my stomach before he climbed up behind me. The horse moved out with me bouncing along painfully. I felt nauseous at the movement and the pain in my stomach, and whatever oatcakes and water I’d had earlier erupted. I choked on my vomit, unable to expel it from the cloth across my face. Coughing and sputtering, I didn’t think I had ever been more disgusted with myself.
Apparently my captor agreed, because he cursed, reined in the horse and jumped down, hauling me from the horse’s back and dropping me to the ground in a painful thud. I growled as loud as I could, begging him without words to release the cloth that was gagging me. My shoulder burned where he had dropped me, and I wriggled upright.
The other men on horses crowded around us, and one spoke. My captor pulled the cloth from my face, and I coughed and sputtered.
He spoke to me in Gaelic, and from his tone, none too kindly.
“I don’t speak Gaelic,” I muttered, trying to wipe my face on my shoulder. “Can you untie my hands? This is disgusting!”
“Aye! Ye are vile, that is certain,” the man said in English.
He untied my hands, and I pulled the gag from my face, using the ends to wipe at my mouth. I threw the cloth from me and looked up at the man towering over me.
“Who are you?”
“Who are you?” he asked me.
“I’m Debra Donaldson.” I deliberately used my real name to avoid naming the Morrisons.
“Where are they?” he growled.
“Who?”
The horses surrounding us stirred restlessly, or maybe it was the men. I couldn’t see their expressions.
“The Morrisons. The birlinns belong to the Morrisons.”
“I really don’t know.” Which was the truth. I rubbed at my wrists and swallowed against the awful taste in my mouth.
“Of course ye ken.”
Pain ripped through my head as my captor grabbed me by the hair and hauled me to my feet. He pulled my head back and breathed into my face.
“Where are they?”
“I don’t know,” I sobbed. “I don’t know.”
I clawed at his hands but didn’t struggle. To do so would only increase the sensation of having my hair ripped out.
“Stop! Please stop! You’re hurting me.”
He didn’t lessen his grip but dragged me back to the horse by my hair. Releasing his grip, he lifted me and threw me onto the horse, this time in a seated position. He climbed up behind me.
He stunk in a foul, soiled way, as if he hadn’t bathed or washed his clothes in a year, and I felt nauseous again. I swallowed hard though, reaching up to massage my burning scalp.
He wrapped imprisoning arms around me and urged the horse forward into a trot. I heard the other horses move out as well behind us.
I wanted to ask where we were going or question him again about who he was, who the men were, but my head ached, reminding me that it was best I keep my mouth shut for a while.
I don’t know how much time passed until my captor slowed his horse to a walk. Neither his foul-smelling close proximity nor the bouncing on the horse’s back had done anything to lessen my desire to heave. His breath near the side of my face gagged me. I presumed he needed dental work.
I must have been a glutton for punishment because I tried again.
“Who are you?”
“Dugald Macleod,” he said in a guttural voice.
“Macleod?” I whispered.
“Aye. Whose woman are ye?”
“No one’s!” I retorted and then regretted my words. It might be better if the brute thought I actually “belonged” to someone, someone who would kill him if he harmed me. My thoughts immediately went to Iskair, but I didn’t want to betray him.
“Dylan Morrison!” I blurted. “Dylan is my man! And he will come after me!”
“Good! Now, where are they? And who is with them? Is the laird with them?”
“I really don’t know where they are. I was asleep.”
He stiffened his arms, tightening them so that I was crunched inside a vise. I struggled for air, my lungs pushed against my rib cage.
“Stop!” I gasped. “I don’t know where they are! I told you that!”
“Is John Morrison with them? Torq?”
“Yes, yes, and that’s all I know.”
“And yer man, Dylan?”
“Yes! Him too! Please loosen your arms.”
Dugald did, and I fell silent. He and the other horseman seemed to know their way in the dark. I thought I heard a dog bark, and I strained to see ahead in the darkness.
A faint yellowish light appeared, as if from a burning lamp, and as we moved toward it, I saw it move.
Dugald called something out in Gaelic.
I heard muttered curses and the sound of creaking, as if a hinge needed oiling. The light bounced again, showing the face of a Scot standing in front of a wooden gate between stone walls. I knew then that Dugald had taken Andrew and me to Ardmore Castle, and I wasn’t surprised.
I peered through the darkness at the massive building beyond. Unable to make out the details, I could only see by its silhouette that it was big and overpowering.
Dugald passed through the gate, and we entered some sort of enclosure.
Once inside, he started shouting near my ear, deafening me, again in Gaelic. Torches were lit, showing the outline of the castle courtyard. Dugald stopped his horse, and someone ran up to grab the reins. He slid down and pulled me off with him, thankfully by my arm. I was growing used to small favors.
Flickering lights appeared on various stories of a building across the courtyard, a tall tower house and seemingly the largest portion of the castle.
“Is this Ardmore Castle?” I asked.
“Quiet!” Dugald ground out. He turned to one of his men slipping off his horse. I saw a bundle on the horse’s back. Andrew!
Dugald barked out some orders. The man threw a still-unconscious Andrew over his shoulder and grabbed my arm, propelling me toward the tower. As full as his hands were, I could have pulled from his grasp, but I had nowhere to run. The gate behind us had been closed, and the men scurrying around the courtyard brandished pistols and clanked with swords.
A door at the base of the tower opened, and a plump woman looked out. She held a lantern that reflected her shocked expression. With her spare hand, she clutched a grayish shawl over a long white shift, a nightgown. A cap covered her hair, but I saw white curls peeping out.
She spoke to my manhandler in Gaelic, and he responded. A smile lit her face for a brief moment before she frowned. She spoke again, as if admonishing the Scot, and he retorted.
“He says that ye dinna speak Gaelic?” she asked me.
“No, I don’t. What’s happening? Where is he taking us?”
“Dugald gave James orders that ye are to be locked in a room.” She spoke to the man again and stepped back, allowing him to enter with his burden. She took the lead and, holding her lantern high, led us across a great hall and toward a set of stairs.
James, a tall, scruffy fellow with stringy hair and unkempt beard, said something, and the woman responded in an angry tone.
“Who are you?” I asked breathlessly as we began to climb a narrow set of spiral stairs. James had thrust me in front of him, and I followed the woman up the staircase.
“I am Mrs. Mackay, the housekeeper. That is James. We shall speak when we reach a room.”
We reached the next floor, and I followed her down a narrow stone corridor. She opened an oak door and stepped into a room.
“Go!” James said, huffing a bit with Andrew still draped over his shoulders. He gave me an unceremonious shove, propelling me into the room behind Mrs. Mackay.
She set the lantern down, lit a candle in a candlestick and moved around the room, lighting various candles. She spoke over her shoulder.
“I dinna ken who ye are just yet, but dinna think to burn the castle down. Ye will only burn yerselves alive and no the stone of the castle.”
James had dumped Andrew onto the bed without care and turned to say something to Mrs. Mackay before striding from the room. I ran to Andrew’s unconscious form and checked him over now that we had light. Mrs. Mackay appeared at my side.
“What happened to the lad?”
“I don’t know. I think they hit him. It was dark, so I couldn’t see.”
She leaned forward to look at the blood on his temple.
“I recognize him. Is this Andrew Morrison? I have no seen him for some years.”
I turned to stare at her.
“Yes, how do you know? When would you have seen him?”
“When he lived here at the castle with his family.”
“But I thought—” I wasn’t sure what I thought. “Didn’t you come here to Ardmore Castle with the Macleods?”
“Nooo, I have been in service here since I was a wee lass, a kitchen maid.”
“Oh! And Angus Macleod doesn’t mind?”
“So long as I keep the castle running smoothly, he pays me no mind.”
She leaned forward to look at Andrew again. “He will mend.” She lifted her head to look at me. “Who are ye then, lass? Why did Dugald bring ye here? It seems that ye are to be a prisoner.”
“My name is Debra Donaldson.” Since I had given Dugald my real name, I continued. “You would probably know better than I why Dugald brought us here. I don’t know what he intends to do with us.”
“But who are ye, if ye ken my meaning? Who are ye to the Morrisons, for if ye were captured wi young Andrew here, ye are kin or friend to the Morrisons, no?”
“I’m definitely not related to them, but I do know some of them. I was...visiting...when someone warned—” I paused. “When we heard that the Macleods were coming to take Angus Macleod’s grandchildren, and probably the rest of the women and children. So we fled Dun Eistean with the Morrison clan. Ultimately Angus did find us...or them—I wasn’t in the castle at the time—and he took all the women and children, including his grandchildren. I don’t know what happened to the men.”
Her face drooped. “He has Archibald and Sarah then?”
“Yes, I think so. Do you know them?”
“Aye, I helped Mary wi their birthing.”
“That’s right! Mary was a Macleod.”
“By marriage.”
I nodded.
“Who warned ye that Angus was coming for the bairns?”
I stared at the woman whom I had just met.