by Alisa Adams
Something had happened to her husband of only a few hours.
Caden was gone.
It was also troubling that Rhona and her brother could not be found. Kaithria and Gillis had looked all over the house for Caden and had found the house suspiciously empty.
The women could not stop Cat from leaving the house.
Sure enough, as soon as Cat stepped outside, she could hear that Iris was making a fuss. But not a happy fuss. She was braying pitifully and nervously. Cat hurried over to her and stopped as she stared up at the huge mule. Iris would not look at her or listen to Cat. She was staring off into the distance making that wheezing hee-hawing sound.
The other women hurried to Cat’s side.
“Look at Iris. Caden is not in the house,” Cat said firmly. “I believe something happened and he is out on the grounds somewhere. Look at the horses too,” she said to her friends and the aunts.
The horses were milling about with their chests out, their necks arched high as they made sharp blowing noises through their noses. They were clearly upset.
Cat hurried to the gate to the warhorses’ paddock. Only Eckle came galloping to her. His torn ear flopped sideways as he tilted his head to see her out of his one good eye. His nostrils flared, though one of those was torn and had healed oddly. He butted Cat’s hand, sensing her urgency.
The other horses were at the very far end of the field still blowing sharply through their noses as they looked off into the distance.
“May I take Eckle?” Cat asked Gillis urgently.
“Please!” Gillis said with relief. “I shall ride Old Inch, but we are coming as well!” Gillis said.
Cat turned to them. “We must split up and search the grounds! We must find him. Something bad has happened, I feel it. So do the horses!”
Cat grabbed Eckle’s halter and quickly put it over his head, then she touched him on the knee. The horse instantly knelt down. Cat grabbed up her skirts and slung one leg over his back.
Gillis watched her in awe. “I did not know that horse could do that,” she whispered.
Kaithria grabbed the other halters. “There is much those old warhorses can do that we have not even learned. Let’s go find my brother before I lose him again.”
Cat cantered Eckle over to Iris’s paddock. She leaned down and grabbed Iris’s halter and opened her gate. The huge mule did not wait for it to be fully open but charged into it with her chest, causing it to fly open. Luckily Cat had urged Eckle aside. Iris trotted off as if she knew where she was going.
“Follow her, Eckle!” Cat said to the scarred warhorse. Remembering his bad ear and his deafness, she nudged him in the sides. He trotted off after the mare with an exuberance that Cat had come to expect in these warhorses.
“Cat!” Kaithria called out. “Wait for one of us to go with ye!” She watched as Cat did not slow down or look back. “Be careful!” Kaithria called worriedly.
But Cat did not have time to be careful or to be sick or weak. She put Eckle into a canter as she followed the agitated mule.
The mule brayed and bellowed as she cantered away from the paddocks and fields, past the house, and towards the barns. She made her way around the long building that was built into a hill. It encompassed the stables, the storage barns, and the grain barns, with the bottle kiln on the far end. It was there at the bottle kiln that Iris got very, very upset. She was so upset that she turned and kicked the clay wall of the bottle kiln with both hind feet.
Eckle raised his head high at a crooked angle to see out of his good eye. He let out a sharp warning snort as his ears pricked towards the kiln.
“Caden!” Cat called out urgently.
She slid down off of Eckle, grabbed up her skirts, and made her way to the loading fire door of the kiln. She could not budge it, not with her feeble strength. She ran carefully up the grassy incline to the door of the grain barn. This door was open. Inside was a dirt floor, level with the land outside. She gathered her skirts and made her way through the barn that was lit only by shafts of sunlight with swirling motes of dust and chaff in them. She looked around, getting her bearings in the dim light. Then she picked up her skirts once again and ran to the end where there was a door to the second floor of the kiln.
Cat pulled and yanked on the door to no avail. Is it locked from within? she thought frantically.
She called out Caden’s name again and waited with her ear to the door, listening for any sound. All that she could hear was Iris’s braying and kicking, and every now and then a sharp snort from Eckle.
She looked up to the second floor of the barn. If she could get up there and open the third door, she could look down the kiln’s well hole and see each floor of the kiln.
She glanced quickly around. This was her barn! She knew there was a ladder here, somewhere. She had inspected the barns extensively when she first came to Sanside and knew that she had seen a ladder here.
Cat finally found the ladder. It was behind some barrels and was lying crooked and tilted on its side on the floor as if someone had thrown it there. She quickly dragged it out and managed to heave it to a standing position against the loft. She hoisted her skirts up in one hand and began climbing the ladder. Her legs were shaking and her heart was pounding but she did not care. She knew Caden was in that kiln. Why he was not answering her was what was terrifying her.
She clambered from the ladder onto the dusty loft and ran to the end towards the kiln. This door had to be unlocked. How else could someone have come and gone?
She gasped with relief when she was able to pull the door open and look inside. “Caden!” she screamed frantically. “Caden!”
The top floor of the bottle kiln was open by a sharp shaft of light coming from the opening at the top of the kiln, She took a step out onto the grain drying floor and carefully walked to the center where the well hole was. She knelt on her knees and peered down into the hole. The light continued down to the second floor. She leaned in and tried to see.
“Caden?” she shouted. “Answer me! Please!”
Cat heard a slight moan.
“Caden!” she shouted again.
“Catriona…” his voice came weakly.
“Caden!” Her voice broke on a sob of relief. “Are you hurt?” she shouted down.
“I am well, though I was hit on the back of the head and it hurts like a...never mind,” Caden growled.
Cat heard him struggling.
“I am tied up, my fierce heart,” he said. “And it looks like the door has a wooden jam against it.”
“I know, I couldnae open it. I am going to drop down the well hole. Move away so I dinnae land on ye!” she called down to him.
“Nay!” he shouted. “You’ll break a leg or an arm, Catriona!” he insisted with worry in his voice.
“There is no other way, my husband,” she shouted back with firmness in her voice. “I can do this! It is not a high drop,” she said with a smile as she gathered her skirts tighter in her hand. “Why, when we were children and came to Sanside with my parents we would jump off the cliffs that are up the hill beyond this barn, straight down into the sea. ’Twas very invigorating!” she said. And then before he could tell her again not to jump, she dropped into the hole in a flurry of skirts and petticoats.
She sat there in the middle of the grain floor in a shaft of light with a cloud of creamy, dusty skirts all around her. She had a smile on her smudged face as she looked at her husband.
“Hello, Husband,” she said softly as her eyes roved over him, looking for any injuries.
“Hello, my fierce heart,” he whispered. “Can you untie me?”
Cat scrambled to her knees and quickly untied his wrists and booted ankles.
Caden stood up, hauling her to her feet as well. He looked down at her and shook his head with a crooked smile. “Only you would have jumped down a hole,” he whispered before he pulled her to him and kissed her with a sense of urgency and hunger and relief and love. So much love was in that kiss.
; “I love you, of course I would jump down a hole for you,” she whispered as she held his face to kiss him again. “Though it would have been a softer landing if this kiln had been full of grain,” she said with an arched eyebrow.
He laughed and then sighed deeply, “I am the luckiest man alive. I love you so, Catriona.” He turned and looked at the door. “Let’s get out of here, my beautiful wife.”
Caden easily kicked the door jam away from the door and opened it. A whoosh of cool air rushed into the kiln. “Iris!” Caden hollered. “Cease that noise, I am coming!” He turned back to Catriona and offered his hand with a grin.
“She led me right to you!” Cat said as she stepped into the barn. She grabbed up her skirts in her hand again as they quickly ran through the barn. “I owe that mule quite a depth of gratitude!”
When they reached the door of the barn, Caden put his arm out to stop Cat from leaving. He wrapped his arm firmly around her waist.
“Hold,” he whispered. “I want to make sure they are gone.”
“Dinnae ye think Iris would be fussing again, or Eckle snorting his dragon snort?”
Caden looked down at her. “Ye brought Eckle the dragon?”
“Aye,” Cat grinned. “He was the only one that came galloping up to help me. The two others were too busy snorting and prancing about telling us there was danger. But Eckle ran towards the danger to help. A sweet old horse!” she said with a happy smile.
“Sweet old horse? That one is a warrior, ’tis what he is trained to do.” Caden looked around them with a tight jaw. “But the other horses not coming and still sounding the alarm? They were telling you those men who knocked me over the head and dragged me here are still about,” Caden said in a low whisper. “Where were the other two warhorses? Was one of the horses Kaithria’s Dummernech?” he asked. “He knows the men who attacked us that day.”
“Aye, ’twas Dummy and Inchturfin,” she answered quietly. “They wouldnae come, but were staring off into the woods.”
“Which woods?” Caden quickly turned to scan the tree lines around the barn.
Cat pointed to the woods in front of the barn with dread. “Those woods,” she said in a clipped voice. “They are still there somewhere, arnae they?”
“Aye,” Caden whispered.
He peered around the corner of the door to see Iris and Eckle, grazing the grass, but with each bite looking up at the woods. Their ears were alert. Caden knew this meant they may have a chance. The men could not be that close or the mule would have set up a ruckus, and Eckle would be snorting a warning.
Caden turned his face up to feel the wind. Unless the wind was blowing away from the horses’ noses, that is. And it was. The horses knew something was in those woods, but they could not smell anything.
Caden looked at Cat. “We must make haste to Eckle and Iris. Dinnae look back, just keep going as fast as you can, no matter what! Do you understand?” he said urgently.
Cat nodded her head. “I can run,” she said. But she knew in her heart if something happened she would not leave without her husband.
Caden leaned down and kissed her deeply. “Go!” he said as he grabbed her hand and started running.
He let go of her hand and turned to look behind them. Sards! The warhorses were right! The men were coming out of the woods towards them. There were six of them.
“Caden!” Cat screamed as she slowed down and turned to see him standing there, legs braced, ready to take six men on. “Come on! Our best chance is on Eckle and Iris!”
Caden turned to her and then looked back at the men. His wife was correct. He turned and ran. He did not stop until he reached Cat, grabbing her up as he ran. He slung her up onto Eckle’s back without stopping and then he leaped onto Iris’s back.
“Here!” Cat yelled as she tossed him Iris’s halter.
Caden caught it in one hand and leaned forward to quickly slide it over the mule’s face. He grabbed the rope and put his heels into her sides. He watched as Cat surged past him in a gallop on Eckle. Iris immediately lunged into a gallop and caught up to the old warhorse.
“Our way to the house is blocked but we can take the woods trail around,” Caden shouted to Cat as he galloped beside her. “Follow Iris, she knows where the traps are. Maybe we can lose a few of those men! If she jumps something, even if it looks like a pile of leaves, you and Eckle must jump it too!” he shouted. He pushed Iris on and the huge mule surged past the black warhorse.
Cat smiled grimly and nodded her head. She leaned down over Eckle’s neck as they galloped towards the woods on the opposite side of the barns. Caden’s mule is surprisingly fast, she thought as they galloped away from her.
She could hear the men shouting as they ran behind them. A sound like a pistol shot went whizzing past her ear. “Faster Eckle! Faster!” she said as she leaned down further along one side of his neck. “Ye cannae let a mule outrun ye, now can ye?!” she shouted as her cheek pressed to the side of his neck.
She hoped it was the side with the ear he could hear out of. She watched as his ears turned back at her voice. He lowered his head and neck and surged forward with a burst of speed, holding his head slightly crooked so he could see out of his one good eye.
“Come on, Eckle, come on!” she yelled as another bullet went whizzing past. Too close! she thought. Much too close!
They made it into the woods and she watched as Iris leaped over a pile of leaves in the middle of the trail. The mule made a huge jump. Cat bit her lip, not knowing if Eckle could jump like that. She asked him for more speed, then kicked him hard as she raised herself off of his back. He surged up into the air, leaping over the pile of leaves and coming down neatly on his front feet on the other side. He immediately galloped off again, his head still sideways so he could see.
She hoped they could make their way around the house to the others. They would have a chance then, in a group against those men. She turned to look back behind her. The men were far off; they could not hope to catch the galloping horses by running after them. Even with their pistols, she and Caden were out of their range. But then she saw more men coming out of the woods ahead of them.
“Caden!” she yelled. “Caden, stop!” she called out again.
Caden looked back at Cat and saw her slowing down. He pulled Iris down to a canter and then a trot as she caught up with him. He halted Iris, who started dancing in circles in excitement. Eckle was doing the same, whirling on his hind feet as he snorted.
“Where are we headed? They are in front of us and behind us!” Cat yelled as she tried to calm Eckle down. She heard the shot of another pistol. “They have pistols!” she called out as a second shot was heard.
“We cannae get back to the house without going through them.” He turned at another pistol shot; this time it came from in front of them. “They have pistols in front of us as well!” he snarled as Iris continued to pull and twirl. “There is no way we can get back to the house now!”
“Nay, we can get to the house!” she said fervently.
“We have no weapons, Catriona! I will not risk you getting hurt!”
Another shot was fired. Both horses leaped up and whirled, wanting to be off again. The sound of the pistols created an instinctual fight-or-flight response for both of them.
“We can fight them. We do have weapons! We have these two!” she yelled as Eckle reared up and snorted.
“There are six of them behind us, Catriona! And we dinnae know how many more ahead of us. We do not know how many have pistols. Either way, that is too many for one horse and a mule!” he yelled back at her. “And I will not risk you!” he shouted again.
Cat looked around, then up the hill. She looked quickly back at Caden. “Do ye trust me?” she said urgently.
“Aye, of course!” he said as he controlled Iris from rearing up.
“Follow me!” she called out as she loosened the reins and let Eckle charge up the hill. “Remember what I told ye about in the kiln?” she shouted over her shoulder.
&nbs
p; “About jumping off the cliff into the sea?” he shouted back with disbelief in his voice.
“Aye,” she called back in concentration as she once again leaned forward over Eckle’s neck and let him gallop full speed up the hill.
Caden gritted his teeth and followed her. He did not like this. Not one bit.
13
When Cat burst out of the woods at the top of the hill she pulled Eckle to a sliding stop.
Caden came crashing out of the woods behind her. She heard Iris let out a sharp hee-haw as she too came to an abrupt stop.
Richerd Redhed smiled up at them. “How very polite of ye to come to me,” he said with an oily smile as he stroked his bushy red beard.
A large group of men were behind Richerd. Richerd had a pistol, his men had knives, swords, and a random assortment of old weapons.
Rhona stood beside her brother, glaring up at Cat. She was wearing one of Cat’s favorite dresses.
Cat looked her up and down. “Ye are wearing my dress,” she stated in a clipped voice.
“Ye didnae need it. I did!” she spat back at Cat.
“What is the meaning of all this?” Caden’s voice thundered.
Richerd turned slowly from staring at Cat to looking at Caden with his cold, blue eyes. “Ye got in the way, Keith,” he snarled. “We had a lovely situation here until ye and those other women arrived. Nosey, all of you.”
“You were keeping Lady Catriona ill by poisoning her so that you could rape the estate! She is my wife now. She is not alone. If you value your life you will take your men and leave at once!” he roared.
Richerd stared silently at Caden. Then he chuckled softly. “Figured it all oot, did ye?” His expression abruptly and suddenly changed as he sneered. “Leave?” Richerd laughed quietly once again. “I dinnae think so. Ye will die and yer little wife will drink and eat the poison we give her so that we may still run the estate in her stead, as we see fit. And take all the profits.” He stared coldly at Caden.
“Why not just kill me?” Cat asked him. She had to know.
Richerd looked back at her with his hard, malevolent eyes. “That would never work, my dear. Another MacKay would inherit the estate. This has worked for us for a long time. It even worked at Castle MacKay while your brother was away, leaving ye to run the estate. It has always worked beautifully with none the wiser. Sorry about yer hair. But not really. I had to make it all seem real, ye understand.”