by The Captive
They set out walking, she trying to keep stride with his longer legs. Her skirts dragged across sand and salty grass draped with strands of seaweed. At last, she and Arch reached a more solid support of pebbles, rocks, and boulders. “Where do we go from here?” she asked.
He pulled his cloak’s hood up over his wind-lashed red curls. "Beyond. Past the sea caves. In yon dense oakwood.”
The coastal trek led by barnacle geese who, in conjunction with a multitude of seals, provided an unexpected, noisy background. One old, asthmatic bull protested their presence. They skirted his domain and tramped past King’s Cave. It was almost concealed by plumes and fans of white spray rising from hidden reefs.
Here, so Arch told her, was where a disheartened Robert the Bruce was inspired by the patience and determination of a web-spinning spider.
Kathryn’s determination to find Enya was infinite. But the distant woodland, with the tallest trees in Scotland, remained just that.
Her suede boots were wet, her feet cold, her teeth chattering. There was no shelter from the whistling, whipping wind. She halted in a midst of brown bracken. Her blue lips were compressed so as not to betray her quivering jaw. "How . . . much farther?"
He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and tucked her into the hollow of his body. His hunter’s-green cloak of thick, soft wool enveloped her. "According to my source of information, not more than an hour or more.”
"We'll, I hope your source is reliable.”
“The Knights Templar are the most reliable source on the face of this earth. At their zenith they were the most powerful and influential organization in the whole of Christendom, with the single possible exception of the papacy."
She knew he talked to keep her mind off her misery. Pausing to help her negotiate a tiny burn flowing from rounded, tree-crowned hills above, he then resumed his discourse. "With the power to make or break monarchs, they were bankers for Europe’s kings and advisers to Eastern potentates. There are those who claim the warrior-monks, knight-mystics are custodians of an arcane wisdom that transcends Christianity.”
She knew that this part of Scotland was pagan to the point of superstition. Belief in things unseen—along with the mountainous geography—had left it straggling behind in ignorance.
When she and Arch reached high moors, grassed with marram, the journey became easier. She almost took the ancient monument for a random arrangement of boulders. Small, rounded granite-boulder circles and much taller red-sandstone monoliths formed chambered cairns.
A wraithlike mist had descended over the stone, and their looming shapes seemed to come alive. It was not difficult to imagine strange rituals taking place here in the misty past of the Celtics.
Arch ushered her through the maze and into a thicket of mossy oaks that cloaked a derelict kirk of crumbled gray stone and fallen timbers. In the kirkyard were some grave slabs and a wealth of stone carvings bearing Masonic motifs: the Celtic cross, the ankh, the cross pattee, the crescent moon of the Mother Goddess with stars.
From the comer of her eye, a shadow moved. Her imagination? When it coalesced into another shape within the kirk’s fallen doorway, she almost screamed. A scraggly bearded man in a dirty, tattered brown coat with a ragged tartan wrapped around his neck stepped forward with a sprightliness that belied his advanced age. A merlin perched on his shoulder. “Ye be lost?”
"We’re looking for directions,” Arch said.
The wrinkle-enfolded eyes narrowed so that the old man resembled his pigeon falcon. "Who be ye?”
"I come by the recommendation of Bernard of Rosslyn Chapel.”
Like a magpie, the man’s frosty gray head canted. "Directions, ye say? Now where is it ye wish to go?”
"I seek the abducted daughter of milady here.” "And the daughter? Her name?”
"Enya Afton of Ayrshire,” she said.
It seemed the rheumy eyes flared. "Aye, there is one who knows of her whereabouts.”
She was losing patience. "Arch, I thought you said he would—”
"Sssh,” Arch said, holding up a silencing palm. "Could we talk with that one?”
"He will meet with ye at the Bellochant Inn in Oban. ‘Tis on the mainland, where the Firth of Lome enters Loche Linnhe.”
"When?”
The wings of the merlin flapped with impatience. "Day after the morrow. As to the hour, he’ll contact ye, of that ye can be sure. Ask him about Ranald’s Reivers.”
Like ghosts, the old man and his merlin faded back into the murk.
Bewildered, she looked at Arch. "That’s all?”
He spread his palms in a helpless gesture. "At least ’til the day after the morrow.” He gave her a consoling grin. "I suggest we repair to Oban and the Bellochant Inn to warm our tootsies.”
She closed her eyes. "That sounds absolutely heavenly."
The Bellochant Inn was heaven and more. A converted hunting lodge, it had a sitting room with a flagstone floor and a toasty log fire rather than a peat-burning hearth. The bedroom—one of twelve—to which the rotund host showed them was within earshot of the sea. Here the water, leaving the deep, narrow loch, foamed and fought with the sea tide, creating turbulence and curious cascades that lulled one to sleep.
All but Kathryn.
Arch slept in the adjoining room. The memory of his strong arms encircling her young body and his gentle touch was old yet ever new. How many nights that memory had sustained her during Malcolm’s groping worship of her body, followed by his quick subjugation of it! Since he contracted the hideous disease, her body had not known a man’s touch.
Argyllshire was characterized by long, dark winters. Though only autumn, this night might have been her longest.
“There is no point in sitting and waiting,” Arch told her over steaming tea and marmalade and scones the next morning. "Nothing can be done until this contact shows up. Let’s explore, find out what we can on our own."
The idea appealed to her. Throughout the morning she and Arch scoured Oban from waterfront to foothills for information on Ranald's Reivers.
"Of the half a dozen people we’ve questioned,” she complained at midmorning, "no one knows anything. And this Gaelic. Tis unintelligible!"
"Oban is a fishing fraternity. We’re foreigners, to their way of thinking.”
"These people aren’t going to answer any questions about Ranald’s Reivers.”
"Probably not. They stand to lose as much as they gain. Repeated sweeps by the English armies have left lawless wakes in which raid and counter raid have became a way of life here. The Highlander clans survive by communal ventures, including cattle raids. I imagine that Ranald’s Reivers are, in these people’s minds, heroes."
By midday, failure to ferret out information combined with hunger coaxed them to abandon their search for a couple of hours. Like the youths they had once been, they climbed the hills above the inn. Nippy air pinked their cheeks. Sheltering firs dripped the wetness of a fine mist. Below, the coast was riven with a crinkly fretwork of deep inlets, where the sea probed far inland.
On a bed of bell heather, they lunched on tiny, bittersweet blaeberries bordering a spring-fed bum. Without touching, they reclined close to one other; he on his back, her on one side.
“Arch,” she asked, propping herself up on one elbow, "what happens after this? If... after we find Enya... do you go back to spreading the word of your God?”
He reached across and wiped a smear of blue from the corner of her mouth. She trembled at his touch. “That’s always a part of me, Kathryn. But I have another side. A side that strives for changes. Changes for the better. You really know so little of me. Despite what . . . we’ve been to each other.”
"Oh, look!" A red deer darted from the underbrush, startling them. The diversion was a blessing. All these years of keeping her emotions tamped. They had become numbed, so that now she rarely felt anything. At least, not until Enya’s abduction.
He rose and held out his hand for hers. "Time to go. The more information we ca
n find out about Ranald’s Reivers, the better.”
The waterfront of Oban was less than savory, but it was legitimate. Enough fishing boats plied the river that Kathryn could have crossed the jammed harbor from deck to deck on the moored boats without wetting her feet.
In the guise of a woman of the streets—rouged cheeks and tight bodice—she easily entered the Stag’s Head Pub with Arch. The pub was located at the end of a cobbled wend. Smoke-darkened beams, a wall paneled with nautical charts, and a peat fire gave the place a warmth that the proprietor and patrons lacked.
Near the fire, three sailors played shove-hal’penny on a slab of slate. Their weather-beaten visages were less than friendly.
She pulled her black woolen scarf farther up over her head. "Surely we don’t look any less couth than our cohorts," she whispered to Arch and nodded to her left, where a hump-backed man with an eye patch, no less, hunkered over his tankard of ale.
Arch slid onto the bench opposite her. "I’m sure word is probably out by now that we’ve been asking about Ranald’s Reivers.”
Now that she was warmed, she pushed back the hood of her cloak. “Wouldn't a reward open someone’s lips?”
He shrugged with an easy grace. She loved that about him, how mobile his body was. His readily smiling lips, his quick mind. "The code of the Highland supposedly governs all conduct, including hospitality.”
"Their hospitality leaves a lot to be desired," she said, accepting one of the mugs their taciturn host brought them.
Arch leaned toward her, forearms braced on the table, and lowered his voice. "You have to remember that every Highland family has a Ranald somewhere. Tis common enough a name. Tracing him won’t be that easy."
The ale she swallowed was certainly stronger and heavier than that of Ayrshire. What she really could use was a bottle of strong port. "I'm not giving up so easily. Maybe this contact we're—”
"Couldn't help but overhear ye," the patch-eyed man said. He leaned on one arm and fixed them with his good eye. "Ye’re looking for Ranald’s Reivers?”
Arch flicked her a warning glance. "We've heard of them. What do you know of their leader?"
The coarse-looking man took another quaff of his beer, then wiped his mouth with his sleeve before answering. "He is no hero. He uses what he and his reivers take."
Her heart flinched. "Have you heard anything about a young woman he captured recently?"
“That Lowland lass? Enya of the Afton clan?”
“Aye!" she gasped.
“What do you know of her whereabouts?" Arch asked.
"Ye might as well count that one as lost. Ranald uses first one place as base, then another."
“If we could contact him,” Arch asked, “do you think we could negotiate for her return?"
Like a parrot, the man cocked his head. “I think he might give her up. In return for Simon Murdock’s testicles."
A muscle in Arch's cheek flickered. "If that canna be arranged?"
The man rose from his bench and staggered slightly. "If I were the lass, I would rather face the dragon of Loch Ness."
With a weeping heart, Kathryn watched the man lurch through the maze of tables to the arched door and fling it open. A cold wind whipped at his soiled coat. "Maybe the man who is supposed to contact us can give us more information." She wanted desperately to believe in hope.
"I think that was our contact,” Arch said. The expression on his face destroyed that last vestige of her hope.
Ranald straightened his earlier contorted body and peeled off the band and its eye patch. It was barely three o’clock. He was weary and wet and chilled. Every muscle in his body ached. With the receipt of the merlin’s message tied about its leg, he had ridden hard to reach Oban. Locating a man and woman asking questions about him hadn’t been that difficult. Restraining his pity, a deadly weakness, had been.
His thoughts went to the Lowland wench the couple sought. She should be entering the kitchens soon to start the fires. Like the breakfast fires, her tresses blazed a fiery roy.
Alas, the breakfast porridge she cooked tasted like reekin’ sheep offal.
Chapter Seven
In the castle’s outer bailey men mended saddles or cleaned muskets, the guard drilled, a cat stalked a frantically clucking hen, a stray blackface sheep bleated for its flock, and a handful of village children played prisoners’ base.
The game reminded Enya of her status at the castle. A reluctant October sun peeked through gray-fringed clouds. Her dark-blue velvet cloak was lightweight, barely warm enough for the nippy day. She strolled at a vigorous clip and with purpose.
Beside her, Annie Dubh pattered on. "Look at 'oo now! The way ’oo speak and walk. Tis clear ’oo were born to it!"
"Dias Muire!" Enya said, unconsciously resorting to the common Gaelic expletive of "God and Mary.” "If you but used your brain, Annie Dubh, half as much as you use your bum, you could pass yourself off as a lady with but little practice.”
Annie halted. “’Oo mean that? ’Oo would make a lady of me?"
A half step ahead, Enya half-turned to eye the slatternly wench. Sloe eyes the color of hot molasses, a complexion like whipped cream, and an hourglass figure were Annie’s assets. Frowsy hair that had been badly hennaed, nails bitten to the quick, and stained teeth were to be listed on the debit side. Those, and dirty elbows and neck, but a good bath could correct the latter.
“I didn’t say I would do it. Such an undertaking could take years."
Annie, cheeks rosy with the brisk air, flashed her a good-natured grin. Enya suspected that Annie no longer worried about her setting her sights on the Reiver himself. ‘"Oo’r not going anywhere.”
God’s blood, but she hoped Annie was wrong. More than six weeks had passed, and she was still a captive. Surely by now her mother and Simon Murdock had been informed she was missing.
“I’m going to the smokehouse, that’s where." She set off again, with Annie trotting at her heels like Kincairn’s faithful collie.
"’Oo could teach me to read, ’oo could.”
Enya stopped again, and her dove-gray gown of Italian silk swished about the clogs she had taken to wearing against the ever-damp ground. Already her overskirts, hitched at her left side by a tassel in the French fashion, were frayed at the hem. She had brought with her no sturdy, working clothing. Of course, she had never thought she would be doing menial tasks. "You can’t read?"
The Lowlands’ near-obsession with education had resulted in at least one school in every parish. Certainly all of Afton House’s servants read.
"Me da’s a ploughman."
"That’s no excuse. Hornbooks are easy enough to come by.”
"Weel, will ’oo? Will 'oo make a lady out of me? Mind ye, I’m not asking to be a grand lady. Just a lady."
She rounded on the scullery maid. "Annie, I don’t plan on staying here. Understand?”
Her stained-toothed smile was confident. “If’n the laird says ’oo are, then ’oo are."
"G’day, milady—mistress," said Jamie, joining them. He wore a matching tartan plaid and a hunting kilt and gaily checked knee-high woolen stockings.
Annie turned a saucy eye on him. "G’day, sire.”
His blue eyes alighted on her. Head to one side like a kestrel, he said, "You’re Annie Dubh, aren’t you?"
Pleasure heightened the rosy color of her cheeks. "Aye, that I am."
At that instant Enya realized her suspicions had been in error. It was Jamie, not Ranald, in whom the illiterate maid was interested.
“Well,” he said, “tell Flora I am abducting her newest scullery maid.”
"I’ve already been abducted,” Enya said after a pouting Annie set off to do his bidding.
"Ever see a goldcrest?”
“A what?”
“Scotland’s smallest bird. Found right here in the Highlands." He took her arm. “Come along.”
“But Flora—she sent me for—”
“Fie on Flora. Should the old hag’s tongue lash y
ou, she will have her hands full with your Elspeth.”
“Right you are. Then show me this fascinating bird."
The outing was an opportunity to explore afoot the wooded countryside beyond the castle walls and their spying, grim windows.
If she and her companions had to escape on their own, any villager who observed them would report their flight. The forest offered concealment—but, also, the risk of getting lost.
Indeed, voluble Flora had said the quick weather changes had been the cause of many an accident and death. “Me niece’s husband went out one sunny afternoon to herd sheep. Found him the next morning sitting beneath a tree—frozen solid as yon loch, we did."
Enya and Jamie strolled along paths layered with leaf mold and trimmed with spindly saplings of fir and yellowing larch. Jamie talked of the wildlife. “The increase in human habitation has all but made extinct most of Europe’s wildlife. Even in England once common animals such as bear and lynx and fox are disappearing.”
“So will the hart and the hind, with hunters like Ranald Kincairn scouring the forest.”
“On the contrary," Jamie said, ignoring her spite, “the Highlands is their last refuge.”
"The Highlands is not my refuge but my prison," she snapped, then regretted her ill temper.
A prickly gorse bush snagged her overskirts hem, and Jamie knelt to free her. "You’re not properly attired for an outing, milady."
"Well now,” she chided, "I did not know I would be held captive in the mountain wilds of the Highlands.”
"An incident I most sorely lament.”
She stared down at his wavy auburn hair. Perhaps she should have been cautious about walking in the woods alone with him, but she trusted him instinctively. There was something in his manner—the eagerness of a jaded youth just beginning to appreciate life fully.
They resumed walking, and she said, “With your enthusiasm, Jamie, you should have been the Cameron chieftain.”
He did not miss her bitterness, but he continued to smile. “Alas, it seems I am not a leader of men. I don’t have a warrior’s heart.”