by Carmen Caine
“No, please.” The crutches tapped the floor as she pattered toward him. “I have only started to respond to Brother Wesley’s treatment.”
He glared with a disdainful scowl. “Your treatment has ended. ’Tis time you return home.”
“Will you…?” She couldn’t say it, but she knew full well John had the power to ruin her.
He stopped pacing. “I shall pen a missive to Duncan and you’d best pray my ire cools before I touch my quill.” He stormed past her and slammed the door.
As her crutches dropped, Gyllis staggered to the bed and dropped face down. Just when she thought her luck had changed, everything came crashing down and crumbled at her feet.
***
Silently, Gyllis rode with an escort of guards and monks. John hadn’t joined them, nor had he seen her off. Brother Wesley hadn’t come to say goodbye either. She felt filthy like a fallen woman—a leper who was too diseased even to be tended by the faithful.
Her own brother had cast her from his priory. What treatment could she expect from her family? Will they lock me in my chamber? Will they fear me? And what rueful words did John impart in his missive to Duncan?
When the grey stone curtain walls of Kilchurn Castle loomed ahead, Gyllis’s stomach clenched into a tight ball. Upon the battlements, the ram’s horn sounded, indicating the Campbell guard had seen them. Mother, Duncan—everyone would now know they were approaching. Dear Lord, please make everything all right.
The gate was open and the retinue rode straight through the barbican and into the courtyard. The reins slid in Gyllis’s sweaty fingers. From the keep’s great doorway, Duncan, Lady Meg, Mother and her sisters all stared at her. Was that fear Gyllis read on their wide-eyed visages?
The lead guard dismounted, drew a missive from his doublet and handed it to Duncan. “This is for you from the prior, m’lord.”
Gyllis nearly fell off her horse. If only she could have read its contents first, she’d at least know what to expect. Would Duncan take the strap to her? He was fully within his rights if he chose to do so.
When Duncan slipped the missive into his doublet, she breathed a sigh of relief. She would have died if he’d stood in the courtyard and read it aloud as if it were a proclamation.
Mother pushed past him, followed by the lassies. “Praise the good Lord, Gyllis has returned to us.”
Mevan, Mother’s most trusted man-at-arms stepped beside her mount and reached up. “Welcome home, Miss Gyllis. Can I assist you?”
“My thanks.” She hesitated and searched for the monk bearing her crutches. When she saw he’d already dismounted, she braced her hands on Mevan’s shoulders and let the old guard help her down. “How is your wife?” she tried to make conversation as if her world weren’t falling apart.
“She is well, thank you.”
Gyllis took the crutches from the monk and faced her family. Mother’s eyes were red and welled with tears. “At last you have come home.” She pulled her into an embrace.
Mother always smelled of sweet lavender. And her hug was soft and warm and welcoming. Gyllis closed her eyes while her own tears welled.
Perhaps the family would not fear her.
Before she knew it, she was surrounded by her sisters, all chatting and hugging, laughing and crying. Gyllis looked to Meg with Elizabeth in her arms. “You’ve returned from court?” She grinned at the babe. “My, the bairn has grown so much. I cannot believe it.”
Meg beamed, her blue eyes twinkling with the sunlight. “Aye, she’s a healthy lass.” She inclined her head to the nursemaid behind holding the other redheaded twin. “Colin as well.”
“A moment,” Duncan boomed.
Gyllis could have fainted. Has he read John’s missive already?
Mother stood aside. Duncan grasped Gyllis’s shoulders and hugged her. “Welcome home, sister.”
Her resultant sigh of relief nearly made her swoon. “’Tis good to be amongst you once again. Though the monks did so very much to help me, not a day passed where I didn’t miss you.”
Mother straightened Gyllis’s veil. “I am surprised John sent you back so soon. From his last missive, I assumed you’d remain in his care through autumn.”
Gyllis tried not to cringe, though her cheeks burned. “We agreed I could complete the remainder of my training at home,” she hedged and looked toward Helen and Meg. “After all, I have three sisters and a sister-in-law who can help.” If only she could have read what John had scribed in that missive before she opened her mouth.
Meg grinned. “I think we might try a new treatment when you’re ready.”
“I for one am happy you’re here.” Helen placed her hand on Gyllis’s shoulder. “I’ve much to tell you.” Helen’s expression appeared strained.
Unusual. Something is wrong.
Gyllis arched her brow. “I cannot wait.” She moved toward the keep, painfully aware that everyone watched how she managed with her crutches, praying that no one asked how she acquired them.
“Can you climb stairs with those?” Mother asked.
“Aye. I can do almost everything.” Gyllis winked at Helen. She seemed to need a lift of spirits. “And I intend to be walking without them soon.”
“You mustn’t push yourself, dear,” Mother said.
Gyllis looked to the sky. If Ma wasn’t telling someone what to do, she wouldn’t be happy. “It has been a long ride. I’d like to retire to my chamber until the evening meal.”
Helen walked beside her. “I’ll escort you.” Her tone was too chipper. Something was afoot for certain.
Together they left the others staring after them.
Gyllis had surmounted the first hurdle. She had no doubt she’d face Duncan later, but for now she and Helen would have an afternoon to themselves. And it seemed they both needed to talk. If there was one person on earth Gyllis could confide in it was she. When they were but young lasses they had made a pact that anything spoken in confidence could never be repeated.
“You move along very well with those,” Helen said as she led Gyllis up the stairwell.
“Sir Sean made them for me,” she whispered.
Helen stopped. “Are you jesting?”
Gyllis inclined her head toward the landing. “I’ll not utter another word until we are behind closed doors.”
“At least you’ve had some fun?” she asked, waggling her brows.
“That’s the first time I’ve ever heard anyone call paralysis fun.”
Helen opened the door. “You ken what I mean.”
Gyllis hobbled into her chamber and sighed. She’d never really appreciated the grandeur of her rooms. Her four-poster bed had yellow drapes embroidered with wildflowers. She’d forgotten how pretty they looked. Heading toward the overstuffed couch in front of the hearth, she inhaled. The chamber smelled of rose oil. A ray of sunlight shone in through the narrow window with a breeze fluttering the yellow canopy above her bed.
She plopped onto the couch and rested her crutches on the floor. “Come. Tell me what is afoot.”
Helen plodded across the floor and sat with a huff. “’Tis not fair.”
“What?”
“Remember when I told you Duncan and Meg went to court whilst you were away?”
“Aye, I was surprised to see them in the courtyard.” Gyllis reclined against the padded backrest, wishing Duncan and Meg were still at court, and would remain there for the next fifty years.
Helen heaved an enormous sigh. “It appears Lady Meg decided it was up to her to play matchmaker.”
Gyllis leaned forward, eyebrows drawn together. “Have you ever mentioned to her your affinity for Eoin MacGregor?”
“Wheesht.” Helen glanced over her shoulder as if someone would burst into the chamber. “Of course not.”
Gyllis cringed. “Oh, dear.”
Helen grasped Gyllis’s hand and squeezed. “Duncan would never allow a MacGregor to marry one of us. He believes them beneath the Campbells.”
“They pay fealty to our clan. T
hat makes them no better or worse.”
“Aye.” Helen again glanced around as if she expected spies in every corner. “Well ’tis too late for any of that now. If you had arrived a sennight hence, you would have missed me altogether.”
“Pardon?”
“In two days Mother will be escorting me to Ardnamurchan where I will marry Sir Aleck MacIain, Seventh Chieftain of Ardnamurchan.”
Gyllis could scarcely swallow. She’d only arrived home and now her dearest, most beloved sister was leaving—not only leaving, but wedding someone Gyllis knew nothing about. “You are to be married?”
“Two days hence.”
“Oh my heavens.” Gyllis couldn’t believe it. Helen could not possibly leave now. Not when she—they both—needed an ally. “H-have you met Sir Aleck?”
“I’ve never seen him. Meg tells me he’s agreeable and Duncan says our marriage will make a necessary alliance with the MacIain Clan.”
“He’s chosen your husband to make an alliance? I ken that’s the way of things but, Helen, ages ago we agreed we’d never settle for an arranged marriage—we shall marry for love.”
Helen coughed out a rueful laugh. “’Tis easy for you to say. If you hadn’t come down with paralysis, it would be you heading to Ardnamurchan.”
Gyllis clapped a hand over her mouth. Helen was right, she would have been the one to suffer marriage to a complete stranger had she not been away ill. “This cannot be so.”
“Would I jest about something so grave?”
“My God.” Gyllis cringed at her blasphemy and moreover, her failure to be there in support of her sister. “I feel responsible.”
Helen spread her palms and shook her head. “At first I blamed you…but then when I thought about it, I realized I’d rather marry a chieftain, and help the family strengthen relations with the northern clans than be in your predicament. Oh Gyllis, is it so wrong of me to think that way?”
“Of course not.” Her stomach twisted in knots. If only she’d come home sooner. Poor Helen would never have been able to stand up to Duncan with Gyllis away. Gyllis had always been the stalwart spokesperson between them. “Why did you not refuse?”
Wringing her hands, Helen hunched forward. “What should I have done? I am soon to be twenty with no other offers, no other prospects.”
“What of Eoin?”
Helen smirked. “I’ve admired him from the battlements, but now he’s off patrolling the borders or carrying out some other inordinately important task for Duncan and the king. I’ll most likely never see him again.”
“I cannot believe this.” Gyllis pounded her fist on the couch. “Why are you not fighting?”
“And go against Duncan, Mother, and what is best for the clan?” She clapped her palms to her cheeks. “It is my duty.”
The guilt encircling Gyllis’s neck couldn’t have closed her throat any tighter. She scooted closer and placed her arm around Helen’s shoulders. “You are right. It should have been me making this sacrifice.”
“Aye.” Helen threw up her hands. “And you had to go contract paralysis.”
Gyllis bit her bottom lip. Never in her life did she think she’d feel guilty for her ailment. Already twisted inside for her indiscretions with Sir Sean, the wretched lump in her throat returned. “I suppose I did.”
“If ’tis Sean MacDougall you want, he’d best propose soon, else you’ll be wed to some old chieftain aiming to make a Campbell alliance.”
Gyllis slid her arm from Helen’s shoulder. Given her sister’s sacrifice, she couldn’t allow her happiness to bubble over.
She must have looked shamefaced because Helen knit her brows. “I thought you’d sworn off Sir Sean after his deplorable actions at Beltane.”
Gyllis couldn’t meet her sister’s gaze. She stared at her hands. “I did, until I learned the reason for his disappearance. His father died that day. ’Twas the healer who embraced him after she and her husband told Sir Sean the news.”
“How awful.” Helen leaned closer. “And then he visited you at the priory?”
“Aye.” Gyllis would not admit to anything else.
“Oh no, you’re not pursing your lips. Sir Sean gave you the crutches? How often did he visit you?”
Gyllis clapped her hand over her mouth to hide her grin, but Helen pulled it away. “Very well…” She divulged all except the night she’d spent at Dunollie. She’d speak of that to no one.
Helen pressed her fingers to her lips and smiled. “If anyone deserves to be happy after all you’ve endured, ’tis you.” She held up a finger. “However, I meant what I said. Sean had best have a serious conversation with Duncan, and soon.”
Gyllis wouldn’t let on how much the butterflies flitted around her stomach. Two things worried her…How long would it be before Sean discovered she’d returned home? And what was written in that meddlesome missive from John?
Chapter Eighteen
Alan MacCoul lunged, thrusting his sword. Missing his mark, he threw his head back and cackled. If his sparring partner hadn’t been fast, he’d be dead. Though Alan needed well-trained men, poor fighters would be culled. He advanced on the sentry, hacking his two-handed blade left and right, giving no quarter. Wearing his partner down renewed his strength. Lust for blood pulsed through his veins, the stench of fear bled through his sparring partner’s pores.
“M’lord.” The booming voice behind him registered, but Alan didn’t stop.
His opponent tripped and fell on his backside. Alan pounced, pointing his blade against the coward’s neck.
The man held up his hands then pointed. “Y-you’d best turn around m’lord.”
If this was a trick to draw attention away, he’d skewer the miserable sop.
“M’lord,” the gravelly voice behind came again.
“This had better be good.” Alan looked over his shoulder and grinned.
Brus dragged a prisoner into the clearing, leading him by a rope tied around his wrists. The man’s face was purple and swollen. Blood streamed from his nose, and from the red soaked into his shirt, his nose wasn’t the only thing that had been bleeding. Even though the prisoner looked like shite, Alan still recognized him.
Fraser.
Before he turned completely away, Alan grazed his blade up his sparring partner’s cheek, opening up a stream of blood. “Learn to fight before you spar with me again, else it will be your last match.” He smirked at Brus. “Where’d you find this pox-ridden whoreson?”
“Spying for MacDougall—looking for us. His two accomplices are already dead.” Brus tugged the bastard forward. “But I thought you might want a word with this one before I ran him through.”
Alan examined his prisoner with an evil chuckle. Snot ran from Fraser’s bloodied and broken nose. Brus hadn’t been kind. From the dirt and grass covering his body, he’d not only been beaten, he’d been dragged. One eye was swollen shut and a cut at his temple still streamed red. “You’ve shown him our hospitality, I see.”
Fraser spat, hitting Alan in the chest.
Clenching his fist tight around the hilt of his sword, Alan thumped him in the jaw. “You always were a sniveling maggot.”
Blood trickled from the corner of the miserable wretch’s mouth.
“Did Sean send you?”
Fraser spat blood on the ground this time. “I kent you were causing the mischief at Dunollie. Why must you always be a bastard?”
“I’m asking the questions. If you hadn’t noticed, your life is mine to take.” Alan recoiled and slammed his fist into Fraser’s gut.
With a grunt, the Dunollie guard doubled over, his spittle spraying the dirt.
“I’m the lord and master here. You are but a rodent caught in my snare.”
The rat had the nerve to glance about. “It looks as if you’re preparing for war,” he growled through clenched teeth.
Alan threw back his head and roared with laughter. “My force is rather large. Perhaps I’ll take the crown.”
“You’re mad.”
“I’m a man looking to claim my rightful place. I’ve been ignored and shunned all my life and I’m weary of it. I’ve no choice but to take that which should have gone to me.”
Blood oozed from the corner of the prisoner’s mouth and his head hung forward. “What the devil are you raving about?”
Alan sauntered up to him and pulled his head up by the hair. “You’ll not be around to find out.” Gnashing his teeth, Alan sliced his blade across Fraser’s exposed jugular and watched the errant guard drop to his knees as his lifeblood drained into the ground.
MacCoul leered at Brus. “Deliver the body to Dunollie. I’m sure young Sean will be worried about his spy.”
“Straight away,” Brus sniffed. “I’ll leave at dawn.”
Alan glanced at the sky. It was afternoon, but he supposed it didn’t matter if his man-at-arms left on the morrow. After all, Fraser was dead. He’d just smell that much worse when he arrived at the castle.
Alan’s messenger rode into the clearing. “A missive, m’lord.”
He marched over and snatched the parchment from his hand. The Lord of Lorn’s seal, addressed to that sniveling maggot, MacDougall. “Where did you find this?”
“Intercepted it from Lorn’s runner.”
“What did you do with the body?”
The man threw his thumb over his shoulder. “He’s at the bottom of Loch Etive with a rock in his belly.”
Alan grinned. “Good man. Help yourself to an extra ration of whisky.”
“Thank you, m’lord.”
Brus stepped in. “What does it say?”
Alan ran his finger under the red wax seal and read, a wicked smile spreading across his face. “’Tis the invitation we’ve been waiting for.”
***
Sitting in his solar, Sean poured over the ledgers now kept by his new factor, a cleric. If he couldn’t trust a holy man to keep accurate accounts, there’d be no hope. Fortunately, thus far the man had proved to be precise.
To be honest, Sean was happy to have found a competent factor. Recently he’d had some difficulty concentrating. He hadn’t been pleased with the way he’d been forced to leave Gyllis at the priory gates. The monks had never kept the doors closed to him before. At his earliest opportunity he’d make a trip to Ardchattan and ensure John hadn’t made errant assumptions due to Gyllis’s absence. A rational man would understand there had been no choice.