Parris Afton Bonds

by The Captive

  "Your cousin—Ranald Kincairn,” she said, seeking as much information as she could from Jamie, "is really a laird, then?"

  "Actually, my father is hereditary chief, but he canna ride well anymore; arthritis. A man who canna ride a horse well canna be regarded as a true leader."

  She nodded. "I understand, but why your cousin and not you? Are you not next in line?"

  "Oh, I do not have the disposition toward warfare that Ranald does. Ahead is Lochaber. Its castle is just beyond where the road forks. The branch to the left is the main approach to Lochaber from the countryside below."

  She saw an old dame glance up, startled, from the water she was drawing at a moss-laced mill standing beside a rushing spring-fed burn. It fed a loch bordered with red clover and blue bells and yellow wild irises.

  A herd of hardy Highland cows trotted across the old wooden bridge leading into the village itself. The head cow man tugged at his forelock in deference to Jamie, who hailed him by name.

  She spotted an iron forger, bellows in hand, who came out to watch the procession of riders, as did patrons of an alehouse, a linen shop, and a butcher’s stall. The pungent odor of fried herring drifted from the low open doorway of a shuttered house. Over the narrow, winding street, upper windows opened, and inhabitants gazed down with curiosity upon the captives.

  The first drops of rain began to beat at the shop signs. Jamie gave a signal, and the horses were spurred ahead. Enya’s pony’s pace quickened, also. Steam rose from its smelly flanks.

  At the marketplace, the road divided. The lead horses turned right sharply to ascend a precipitous incline and clattered across a drawbridge lowered over a moat. Hoisted iron portcullises that were badly rusted allowed access to twin gatehouses and the bailey.

  Sudden sunlight shafted through the scudded clouds. Enya glanced up. Serrated parapets, slim pepperpot turrets, and spires of silver granite embedded with mica chips glinted like a million mirrors. Tall, lancet windows slitted the lower portion of the castle, while larger bowed ones looked out from above.

  Gargoyles snarled in silent menace from the battlements. Fluttering from the highest spire was the standard of an arm in armor holding a black dagger with the Gaelic words Skean Dhu inscribed at the bottom.

  "A suitable place for ghosts and evil spirits," Duncan commented drily.

  In the bailey below, stone rubble was piled as if the place were an ancient ruin. A blackened, skeletal wing of the castle’s twelve-foot apron walls revealed that cannon bombardment had gutted it long ago, probably during the first Jacobite Rebellion of 1715.

  So, this was the Cameron’s temporary stronghold. Did Ranald Kincairn really think to rid Scotland of the English? Then the brute was truly ignorant.

  Enya felt a frisson of excitement. The prospect of dealing with the man offered unanticipated diversion. Surely she could keep the Highland chieftain at bay with her wits until she found a means of escape or help arrived. The clanking chains of the drawbridge rising behind her were not reassuring.

  Within the keep, stablehands scurried to take the weary horses. The outbuildings were in shadow. Jamie came to assist her in dismounting, but she put out a halting palm. She would not present herself as some weak-kneed lassie, however tired, wet, and miserable she was.

  With her maidservants and Duncan in tow, she followed Jamie up a flight of crumbling stone steps built into the wall. The cavernous hall was already lit with rush torches against the encroaching darkness. Shafts of dying sunlight sifted through the high window slits. Between the windows were hung weapons and shields. In the ceiling’s exposed jousts, spoked beams radiating from a center post, nested birds twittered noisily.

  A huge fireplace beckoned her to warm her hands, but noisy conversations from the room’s far end drew her attention, as did the savory smell of food. She noted the greasy rushes strewn on the floor had not been changed in months. Probably not since Kincairn took possession of the castle.

  Weaving his way through servants bearing trays and coming-and-going diners, Jamie advanced toward the head of the lengths of tables that formed a T-shape. Several men sat along the width of that table section. Her breath held, Enya waited to see who Jamie approached.

  Incredibly, he stopped before a man who had to be as old as or older than her own father. Both the man’s hair and beard were grizzled with gray. The stern set of his mouth betokened a man accustomed to authority. As Jamie talked, she felt, rather than saw, the older man’s eyes shift to her. With a curl of his finger, he beckoned her.

  Ire rose like sour mash in her mouth. Who was he to summon her like a servant girl? Still, the better choice was to comply, at least, for the moment.

  Picking up her skirts, she walked down the long aisle between the tables. A frowsy-looking servant girl in brown kersey cap and gown darted her a glance of curiosity before turning her attention back to the trencher of bread she set on one of the tables.

  Head high, Enya paused beside Jamie, who introduced her. "Father, this is Lady Murdock. Ranald’s . . . guest. Lady Murdock, my father, Ian Cameron.”

  Closer, she could see the deep furrows across the bridge of the man’s nose and high forehead. His lids were lowered, as if he perpetually squinted against sunlight. His bird-claw hands clutched a haunch of venison.

  “I trust you will find comfort here at Lochaber Castle," he said, his gravelly voice betraying a weariness that echoed her own.

  She used a tone of authority reserved for minions. "How long am I to be held hostage?"

  The brows rose like ladder rungs on his forehead. "My nephew hasn’t informed you?"

  She wasn’t certain who was in high command here. She hedged. "Ranald Kincairn discussed the, uhh, terms, not the length of my . . . stay."

  He flicked a questioning glance at Jamie, who said, "Ranald took three men with him to scout out Fort William. He hasn’t returned yet?”

  Ian Cameron shook his head. "Ye hear no bagpipes, do ye?” He rubbed his temple with grotesquely gnarled fingers. "I could sorely use the comfort tonight."

  “I’ll install Lady Murdock in the undamaged wing."

  It was more a question, and Jamie’s father responded with a nod of his head. “Do that. I’ll speak with Ranald when he returns.”

  Rush torches lit another staircase that spiraled up several flights. Following Jamie and two other kilted men, she inventoried her chances for escape. Even with access to the occasional cluster of weapons along the walls, flight from the castle would be nigh impossible tonight.

  Perhaps tomorrow, with the aid of disguise . . . but that thought was banished by Elspeth’s crusty admonishment to Mary Laurie, both of whom hurried to keep up with her. "Fall behind and ye’ll find yeself the sport of some of the Highland churls."

  The old woman spoke verily, for several armed men, dicing at one end of the hall, looked up with interest glinting in their eyes. They rose from where they knelt, but, at Jamie’s negligent acknowledgment, resumed their gaming.

  Not only did she have guards with which to contend, Enya realized, but she also had Mary Laurie and Elspeth to consider. And where had Duncan been taken?

  They passed another room, the iron-studded door open. A big man sat at a desk hunched over a book. He nodded at Jamie, who returned the nod and continued on down the hallway. His spurs clinked against the stone floor.

  The room in which she was to be incarcerated was chilly, with no tapestries to warm the stone walls and only a small window to let in the waning light. A steward scurried to light the candles. Shadows receded from the gray, sepulcher-like room, revealing little more than a bed with tattered curtains that would be little use against the coming winter’s errant drafts. Rafters crisscrossed the room at a low height.

  "It could be worse,” she murmured.

  "Did you expect a block and ax?" Jamie teased.

  “I stay with milady, ye maggot of a—"

  Enya whirled back to the doorway, where Elspeth and Mary Laurie were being hustled away by the kilted men.

/>   "They will be given a room not far from this," Jamie said at her side.

  Enya flashed him a withering look. "You expect me to be pleased. The room is no larger than a monk’s cell."

  "We occupied the place less than a month ago. The best—and safest—winter accommodations Ranald could find at the last moment.” His Friar-Tuck cheer gave way to a truly contrite expression. "When you are settled in it will be easier for all of you.”

  "I demand to see your cousin—Ranald Kincairn—when he arrives.”

  “You already have."

  Chapter Four

  How long, O Lord? Wilt Thou forget me forever?

  How long wilt Thou hide Thy face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart all the day?

  How long will my enemy be exalted over me?

  Ranald Kincairn closed the Bible, a translated version ordered centuries earlier by the Scottish king, James. He gave an utterance that was half groan, half sigh. It seemed to him that, like the biblical David, his success in battle, in the war he waged, ebbed and flowed according to his own doubts.

  From his most recent visit to Fort William, appearances indicated that the bastion was being further fortified with each passing week. English troops were quartered in every house, store, and stable.

  Were it not for Jamie’s abiding friendship, support, and, aye, love, he could not have continued to lead the Cameron clan ere this long. Jamie was his biblical Aaron, supporting Moses’s hands aloft so that the battle would continue to wax in the Israelites’ favor.

  At the foot of his chair, the old collie Thane snorted in its sleep. Ranald ruffled its shaggy coat, then shut his eyes and rested his head against the chair’s high-paneled back.

  Could he really expect to defeat the might of the English with only a handful of men? Some of his reivers followed him, not out of patriotism, but because of money, maintenance, or promise of loot. The scattered numbers of loyal clansmen amounted to a mere thousand, give or take a couple hundred, depending on the time of year: calving season, harvest, shearing time, the birth of a bairn, the death of a loved one.

  Loved ones. He could not even protect his own loved ones. Images fleeted across the back of his lids of his mother, his aunt, his brothers, and other family members, all tortured and murdered by the English for no more reason than they were Highlanders.

  Mhorag’s haunted eyes followed him even into his dreams. He could not restore his sister’s innocence, lost four years ago. But he could take vengeance on his sister’s violator.

  He thought of the woman who had just passed his study. Murdock’s wife. For all that she was highborn, she was a scrapper, that one. She would scratch and hiss and hurl things.

  Not wholly unlike Mhorag. But Mhorag contained her heart. And contained her hate. Mayhap, if she would but loose the raging beast inside her that fed on her pent-up hate, the beast would run out of fuel eventually. Now, even here at Castle Lochaber, the beast was feeding on her from within.

  The witches of auld would know what to do for her. He didn’t. All he knew to do was fight. With his last breath he would fight, for all that it would gain him.

  Outnumbered, he could not expect to hold the line. He could only vanish and reappear again with his men. He could not gather his forces for an Armageddon but for a slow wearing out by confrontation. The isolation of the Highlands’ treacherous geography was on his side.

  There, in the Bible, were laid out David’s and Joshua's own strategy plans. The object was not to maintain territory but to dispirit the opposition. Make them pay a higher price than they were willing to pay.

  Just how much would Simon Murdock pay for what was left of the spirited young woman now asleep only a few rooms farther down the hall?

  Ranald opened his eyes and rubbed absently at the welting bruise on his shoulder. An injury not from some sword-wielding Lobsterback, but from a bowl thrown by Lady Murdock.

  In how many ways could he make her pay?

  The eerie, mournful sound of bagpipes awoke Mhorag. She bolted upright in the bed. Fairy music, port na bpucai, her Gaelic ancestors called it. A wand of moonlight lay upon the floor. How long had she been asleep?

  The bagpipes’ skirl reached her once more. The piper played a reliquary air with its lilt and drone, tune and countertune. Ian Cameron was being comforted. Ranald Kincairn had returned.

  She shivered and snuggled back under the coverlet. She could not sleep now. For four years her sleep had been sporadic. Riding with the Jacobite reivers, modern-day Rob Roys, she had slept rough in heather and in bothies. But then, growing up with seven brothers had made the transition to hunted criminal easier.

  Hunted, haunted years. Of mounted Redcoats with stinking torches.

  Five years before, in ’45, when her brothers supported the Young Pretender, Bonnie Prince Charlie, and his claim to the Scottish throne, the nightmare, and nightmares, began.

  With the defeat of Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Duke of Cumberland had ordered the glens to be ravaged, men shot or hanged, women raped, homes burnt, and valuables stolen. Thousands of head of cattle and flocks of goats and sheep were driven south. The castles of those who aided the prince were burned. Forty Jacobite chiefs lost their land.

  Those Jacobite chiefs apprehended were beheaded or sent to the West Indies. Two of her brothers bent their head to the ax, another two met death in battle, Robby was sent to the West Indies, and Davy died in torture.

  Her husband had died with a bullet in his back. The Redcoats had bashed her baby, rosy-cheeked Claire, against the wall until it was red. Red. Red like the Redcoats.

  The Forty-five Rising had split families. Her childhood friend, Bryan Boyd, fought on the English side, while his father had stood loyally behind the Prince. The Chief of Clan Chisholm had sons fighting on both sides to avoid forfeiture.

  In London, Parliament had suggested re-colonizing the Highlands with “decent God¬fearing people from the South” and sterilization of all Jacobite women. When she would not flee Scotland, Ranald had no choice but to take her with him.

  Her thoughts turned to the young woman she had sighted from the gallery. Simon Murdock’s wife. Ranald’s captive. Perhaps there truly was justice in this cold, gray world.

  At thirteen, Kathryn had married the man who had captured her father in an interbaronial battle. All these years, she had abetted her daughter’s efforts to delay marriage. She had hoped that Enya would have the opportunity to make a marriage with someone who shared the same values and interests.

  Not that Kathryn would erase these twenty-six years of marriage to Malcolm. How could she not help but come to love the gruff man who, after an argument, laid a posy of wild flowers on her pillow? What matter they were bruised and wilted? He loved her as fiercely as he loved soldiering.

  She knelt at Malcolm’s bedside. Did her husband realize the anguish he had set in motion the day he had captured her father? Now his own daughter was apparently a captive somewhere.

  If not already dead.

  This news Kathryn could not share with him. Such information might worsen his condition. Still, he had survived far longer than all the doctors had predicted. “Malcolm, I go below to receive Simon Murdock. It is said he has word of our Enya.”

  Which was truth enough.

  "The mon should join our daughter. "Tis nae good, this dallying.”

  She tried to make light of the statement. “All dallying isn’t bad, husband of mine.”

  Malcolm’s disfigured hand stole out to caress the thick, black plait of hair draped over her shoulder. A weak smile eased his permanent scowl lines. “Well said, me love. I miss our. . . dallying.”

  She took his hand. “You have only to touch me, and all is well.” She kissed his brow and relinquished his hand to seek out her new son-in-law.

  Simon Murdock waited for her in the Chinese Room. The salon’s various shades of green were a foil for his black-figured silk coat and gold baroque satin vest. Froths of creamy lace dripped from his Ma
riner’s cuffs. His black greatcoat was draped over the back of a jade-lacquered, latticework chair, his cocked hat on its chartreuse padded seat. A gold knobbed cane was tilted against the chair’s arm.

  “G’day, Lord Murdock.”

  He gestured languidly at the carved mirror framed with gilt gesso. "A lovely piece, Lady Afton.”

  She disliked him at once. She could have said it was because of the parsimonious mouth, the nose that was just a wee too pointed, the eyes that were set too close. But they were less than authentic reasons. "Thank you."

  "I took the liberty of ordering my mount watered.”

  "Of course.” It was said the man prized his white stallion above his own mother. And, Kathryn wondered, his wife, also?

  “You have word of my daughter?" she asked crisply, going to stand at the hearth. Its cheerful fire eased the chill in her heart that had been there since the moment she had been informed that her daughter and her retinue had vanished en route to Fort William, two weeks ago to the day.

  Murdock withdrew a pinch of snuff, not from any ornate box but from a rather curiously made pouch of wrinkled hide or something similar. Instead of placing the snuff in one nostril, he crumbled the tobacco between the beringed fingers of his left hand.

  The action took a maddeningly long moment. "Well?" she prompted.

  With that disarmingly boyish smile, he looked up at her. "My wife, according to army dispatches, is the hostage of one of the Highland rebels."

  Her heart sank, but she reminded herself that, at least, her daughter was still alive. “What does this rebel want in exchange?"

  "My head, most likely.”

  "Tell him he can have it.” She regretted at once her reply. The glitter in those gray eyes told her he would not forget it.

  His fingers sifted the crumbled tobacco into the opened tea poy. "I’ll have his head, madam. You may count on that."