The Bard

by Greyson, Maeve

  Chapter Fourteen

  They didn’t speak as they stole out of the stable and crept across the courtyard with the stealth of thieves. Sliding along the walls, his back pressed tight against the stones, Sutherland cautiously peered around every corner. Greyloch had said he would leave the entrance to his private solar unlocked in case they needed it. He had told them to access it through his gardens.

  Even though it was the gloaming, the eerie time of day that was not yet morning nor no longer night, they still risked running into servants required to rise early to start their daily tasks. He saw no one and motioned for Magnus to follow. They darted into the entrance and crossed to the back stairwell without encountering anyone. Up the steps they silently vaulted and rushed down the hall. When he tried the latch to Sorcha’s sitting room, he discovered the door locked.

  “Damn it to hell and back,” he cursed under his breath.

  “Ye wouldha raged like a beast if he had left it open, and ye couldha just walked in,” Magnus retorted.

  After a metallic clinking and the sliding thud of the bar on the other side, the door flew open, revealing Greyloch with his sword raised. The old warrior blew out a heavy breath and relaxed. Waving them into the room, he closed the door behind them, set the lock, and replaced the bar across it. “I take it all our efforts were for naught?” he asked through a yawn.

  “All we discovered was that Gibb and War Chief MacIlroy are both in the clear. Ye’ll be pleased to know they’re loyal to yerself and Lady Sorcha.” Sutherland poured himself a drink, downed it, then poured another. It had been a long, disappointing night.

  Magnus joined him at the sideboard and helped himself.

  Dropping to a couch he had pulled over next to the bedchamber door, Greyloch propped his sword beside him, then leaned his head back on the cushions and rubbed his eyes. “Well, damn. Right back to where we started.”

  “Now what?” Magnus asked. “Ye said yesterday, yer lady wife wouldna be fit for travel for several days.”

  “I dinna have a feckin’ clue.” Sutherland sagged down into a chair and nursed his drink. This was why he hated planning and plotting. Too many times things went awry.

  “As far as ye staying here longer, just say the lady changed her mind when she awakened with more soreness than she had expected,” Magnus suggested.

  “Not a Greyloch alive will believe that,” the chief said without opening his eyes. “All know my Sorcha to be as fierce and stubborn as a Highland goat.” He cracked open an eye and glared at them both. “And if either of ye tell her I said that, I’ll call ye a liar.”

  “Then ye could always ask her and see if she wishes to try the trip,” Magnus said with a dubious look.

  “I fear she would try it when she shouldna do so.” Even though he felt sure his dear one was healing, a trip in the back of the wagon could easily change that. One wrong bump or shifting could send a broken rib right through her lung.

  Greyloch responded with a loud, whistling snore.

  Magnus finished his drink, then removed his pistol and sword and placed them on a nearby table. “I agree with the chief. Perhaps we should sleep for an hour or so. Maybe something will come to us.” He stretched across the cushioned bench in front of the bay window. “Wake me soon as ye need me,” he said, pillowing his head on his arms.

  Sutherland sat there, stewing over the failed trap until Magnus’s rumbling snores competed with Greyloch’s. “The hell with this.” He pushed up from the chair, stepped over his father-in-law’s outstretched legs, and entered the bedchamber. As soon as he stepped inside the darkened room, he frowned. “Damned cold in here,” he muttered under his breath. What the hell was wrong with Jenny, letting the room get so chilled? He loaded wood into the hearth and stirred the coals until flames roared and crackled.

  Much better. And now he could see so as not to trip over something and wake the women. Jenny had said she would sleep on the small sofa on the other side of the room. Weariness weighed so heavily upon him, he’d pull a chair close to the bed and sleep in it so as not to jostle Sorcha but still be close enough to touch her. He turned from the fire and froze. The bed was empty. Stripped down to the bare mattress and the pillows scattered everywhere.

  “Sorcha!” he roared. He spotted a pale foot sticking out from under the bed. “Oh, God, no! Dinna let it be…” Charging forward, he dropped to all fours and grabbed hold of the ankle and did his best to ease the body out from under the bed as gently as possible.

  The bedchamber door banged open. Hurried steps thumped toward him.

  “Sutherland!” Magnus hovered over him.

  Greyloch came to a halt beside him, his sword raised. His arm slowly dropped, and his shoulders slumped as he watched Sutherland ease Jenny the rest of the way out. “How the hell can this be happening? Where in God’s name is Sorcha?”

  “God bless ye, Jenny,” Sutherland rasped as he yanked a knotted cloth out of her mouth and cut a rope from around her wrists. The poor lass draped as limp as a rag as he lifted her and placed her on the bed. One side of her face was covered in blood, and a nasty bruise rode high on her cheek.

  “She breathes,” Magnus observed. “Barely, but I saw her take a deeper breath after ye pulled the gag away.”

  “Fetch the healer,” Sutherland ordered as he turned her head and examined the wound. “She’s taken a nasty beating.”

  “I’ll tear this keep apart a block at a time and hang every servant one by one ’til my Sorcha is found. I want that bastard’s head on a pike!” Greyloch stormed out of the room, bellowing at the top of his lungs, then fired a shot for good measure.

  “It appears he found my pistol,” Magnus observed as he bent closer and studied Jenny. “Look how much easier she’s breathing now. Look at that gag’s coloring. I’d lay odds if ye untied that rag, ye’d find herbs inside to keep her quiet. Pray she comes around and can eventually tell us what happened.”

  “I’m done with prayers.” Sutherland made a circuit of the room, ripping every tapestry and weaving off the walls.

  Whoever had made off with his lady hadn’t escaped through the sitting room. Even if the old chief had nodded off and not heard any noise from inside the bedchamber, he would’ve risen had someone exited the room. The wily man had taken precautions in case he dozed off. With his couch pulled close to the door, Sutherland felt sure the man had stretched his legs across the threshold, just as he had done earlier. Anyone leaving with Sorcha would’ve tripped across him.

  “Help me find it, Magnus, or get the chief so he can show us where it is. There has to be a secret passage leading out of this damned room.”

  “We need more light.” Magnus went to the hearth, snatched up a taper, and touched it to the flames. With the burning brand, he lit every candle in the room and ripped open the draperies at each set of windows. Morning was almost full upon them, and thankfully, the pair of windows on either side of the headboard faced the east.

  “I see nothing!” Sutherland pounded on the walls. “Greyloch!”

  “The moon turret,” the old chief shouted as he charged back into the room. “Sorcha’s escape passage is hidden in the turret.” He pointed at an arched wooden door centered in the curve at the far corner of the room.

  Sutherland yanked it open, examining the entry, the floor, and the walls. Thankfully, he found no blood. Just a scattering of downy feathers he could only assume came from Sorcha’s bedding. She had to still be alive. He would not consider otherwise.

  “Twist that far torch holder to the right, then step back. The wall will swing wide and reveal steps to the passages,” Greyloch instructed from the doorway. “Ye can either go up to the roof or down to only God knows where. There’s several connecting passages, and damned things move. Walls open and close like a feckin’ puzzle. I’ve never used this side of the maze. ’Twas a favorite game of hers and her mother’s of hiding and searching for one another in it.”

  “Who else knows these tunnels?” Sutherland yanked on the blackened bi
t of iron, then stepped back as the wall opened.

  “I feel certain Jenny does,” Greyloch said, his voice cracking. “When they were both wee things, they used it to sneak back and forth between their rooms when they shouldha been fast asleep.”

  “Aye, well someone other than Jenny and Sorcha knows of it. Who else?” Now was not the time for emotional reminiscing. Sutherland took the lantern Magnus provided and started down the steps.

  “Wait!” Magnus called out. He disappeared for a few moments, then returned with Sutherland’s sword and another lantern. “Yer weapon. I’ll guard the back.”

  Sutherland took the sword and pointed it at Greyloch. “Find out who has gone missing other than Sorcha. That will reveal our fiend in case poor Jenny doesna awaken for a while—or ever.”

  “It shall be done.” Greyloch turned to go, then paused and turned back. “Find my bairn,” he ordered quietly. “And bring me that bastard’s head, aye?”

  “It shall be done,” Sutherland promised, echoing the chief’s own words. He cast the light on the stretch of steps, thankful that these appeared to be a great deal drier and in better condition than the ones leading down to the dungeons. At least the kidnapper wouldn’t have lost his footing while carrying Sorcha. Pausing, he crouched, searching for any kind of sign that someone had recently accessed that way.

  “Any footsteps or markings?” Magnus lent his own lantern-light to the task. “I canna tell a thing in this accursed darkness, especially with the blackness of these stones.”

  “I canna either.” Sutherland resumed their downward journey. “Once we get off these steps and hit the passages…maybe then.” They traveled farther with little success at finding any signs, coming to a halt when they reached a connecting passage. “I hate these damned halls within the walls.” He shone his light down in the new direction, then shone it back on the route they were currently on.

  “Every good keep has escape tunnels,” Magnus said as he walked a few steps down the new way. “They’ve saved many a life. Wait here while I go a bit farther this way and see what I can see, ye ken?”

  “Nay.” There was no way in hell he could stand still and wait for anything. “I’ll keep to this path. If ye find nothing, backtrack and catch up with me.” He scored a large cross on the wall with his sgian dhu, then added an arrow pointing in the direction he planned to take. “To keep us straight, ye ken?”

  “Good plan. I’ll mark this one to show I’ve been down it.” Magnus scratched a five-pointed star within a circle, then held his lantern so Sutherland could see his face. “For protection and to show I’m the one who’s been here,” he explained. “We will find her and get her back. Believe, so the gods and fate will help us.” Pagan to the core, Magnus swore by the old ways, especially since, in his mind, Christianity had murdered his mother.

  “I willna allow myself to think anything less,” Sutherland said, then forged onward into the darkness. He strained to hear the slightest sound other than his own footsteps. Occasionally, he’d pause and check the floors and walls for any possible sign that someone had recently passed.

  The floor was always clean. Too damned clean. And then it hit him. He remembered Sorcha’s stripped bed. If the bastard had carried her away wrapped in her bedsheets and feather ticking, chances were that some of the material had dragged the ground. If that were the case, the floor would be swept clean behind them. Sutherland didn’t know whether to be thankful for the clean passage or frustrated. Footsteps would be so much easier to follow.

  The sound of scurrying or scratching whispered off in the distance. He paid it no mind. Vermin would be no help to him. But then the very walls around him seemed to shudder and, not too far ahead, the growling grind of heavy stone shifting made him lift his sword. At last. Sign of someone in this winding hell other than himself. Light flickered and danced along the walls.

  Rather than douse his own lantern, Sutherland placed it on the floor and charged toward the other light with his sword raised. The light blinded him as steel clashed with steel.

  “Sutherland!” Magnus barked as he swung his lantern aside.

  “Shite!” Sutherland stepped back. “How the hell did ye end up ahead of me?”

  “Greyloch said the place was a maze capable of changing. I came to what I thought was a solid wall. When I checked closer, I found a lever near the floor, and it triggered the wall to slide aside—opening the passage back into this one.” He turned and scratched another star beside the opening. “Who knows how many more do the same?” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “I will say that this passage feels to have a downward tilt to it.” Lowering his lantern to the floor, he held it close to the opening of the other tunnel. The floor of the passage in which they stood was not flush with the opening. It did indeed appear to be sloping.

  “I’ll fetch my lantern, and we’ll keep to this one until it plays out.” Sutherland turned back, determination tightening the knot in his chest. He scooped up the light and strode forward. If they reached the end of this tunnel with no success, he had a good mind to start tearing out walls until he found her and held her in his arms again. “Come,” he invited as he lengthened his stride. “Apparently, we’ve miles of tunnels to run and damn little time in which to do it.”

  *

  She couldn’t move and could barely breathe. Some sort of knotted rag had been shoved between her teeth, large enough to make her jaws ache. What in heaven’s name had they decided to do to her in the name of healing? Sorcha opened her eyes but discovered a blackness just as dark as if she still had them closed, maybe even darker if that was possible. Her bedchamber had never been so absent of light. Even the coals in the hearth had gone out. No wonder it felt so very cold. She worked her jaws and tried to shove out the gag with her tongue, but had no success. In fact, she wasn’t even sure her tongue was pushing. It felt strangely numb and thick.

  Her temples throbbed as though she had partaken of too much wine and not enough food. The ache in her left shoulder and the burning pain in her sides with even the slightest intake of breath reminded her of the fall, but her thoughts were still a muddled mess. She distinctly remembered talking to Sutherland earlier. Maybe. Now that she thought more about it, had she talked to him or merely dreamt it? The more she assessed her current state, the angrier she got. Where was this place? Who had done this to her, and why in the devil, couldn’t she move?

  She opened her eyes wider and turned her head, searching for any hint of light. It was as though she had been buried alive. Damnation. She wished she hadn’t thought of that. Now, it felt even harder to breathe. Enough. She refused to panic. Since everything either ached, burned, or felt numb, she knew she wasn’t dead, and if she wasn’t dead, then it was time to figure out a way to escape this situation.

  Once safe and in a better state, she would plot a suitable revenge against whoever had done this. Forcing a calm she knew she needed in order to survive, she concentrated on sliding her uninjured right hand up her body and out of whatever had been wrapped around her. She pictured herself swaddled like a newborn babe. At least, that’s the way it felt.

  As her inner elbow pressed harder into her ribs, the resulting pain triggered a cold sweat and nausea. Even though it hurt something fierce, she eased in a steady breath and swallowed hard. She dared not vomit. To do so would make her choke to death with that infernal knotted cloth blocking her mouth. After a few moments, thankfully, the feeling passed, and she resumed worming her hand out from under the binding. If she could just get her fingers close enough to her face, she could yank out whatever it was between her teeth. That in and of itself would be cause for celebration.

  Bit by bit, she bent her elbow and steadily pushed outward with her good arm. She had no idea if that actually loosened the bindings, but it seemed easier to crawl her hand upward after each stretching of the material wrapped around her. Both the darkness and the silence were beginning to take their toll, but she refused to dwell on it and let hysteria overcome her. One wo
rry at a time. Get rid of the gag, breathe, and swallow for now. She would figure out the rest as she came to it.

  With her forearm pinned to her chest, she almost cried with joy as she felt cool air across her fingertips and brushed them against her jaw. No tears, she sternly reminded herself. At least not until she got rid of the gag and could draw in air through her mouth. Just a little farther. She tucked her chin and angled her face toward her hand. Three of her fingers pinched a fold of the gag, but she couldn’t reach far enough with her thumb to help with the chore.

  Bending her wrist and pushing with slow, steady force, she attempted to produce more slack. She reached again, straining to grab hold of the rag and attempt what she hoped was an actual pushing with her tongue. The knot worked out from between her teeth far enough so that she could finally spit it out.

  She wheezed in a great mouthful of air, then cried out with the burning pain it triggered. “I dinna care,” she whispered, working her aching jaws back and forth. Her tongue still felt strange, and her sense of smell was gone, but she felt so much better. “And now for my swaddling,” she said quietly, finding it a comfort to speak out loud.

  With her face turned aside, she worked her arm the rest of the way out, reaching up and around as far as she could. There was a cold stone wall behind her head and one to her right. It relieved her to no end to find out that she couldn’t reach anything above her. “At least, if they’ve stuffed me inside a tomb, it’s a large one.” Large, in her almost panicked state, meant plenty of air. She would take her blessings where she could find them.

  With her one free hand, she examined what was wrapped around her so snugly she could barely bend her knees. Whatever it was would make it impossible for her to sit upright. Bedclothes, maybe? Folded and knotted around her? As far as she had been able to touch, no rope had been used. She fumed about that for a while. With her wriggling and stretching, the tied cloth might be knotted even tighter.

  “It canna be helped. I had to be rid of that infernal gag.” But now her bare arm had gotten bitterly cold and transmitted the chill to the rest of her. Even with her teeth chattering, she yanked a fold upward to her mouth and did her best to tear the cloth. If she could get a good rip started, she might be able to free herself enough to unwrap the rest of the way and explore this dark, cold hell. “The more ye move, the warmer ye’ll be,” she promised aloud, then caught the sheet between her teeth and yanked until the movement pained her more than she could stand.