by L. L. Muir
“This is it. This way,” she said in the smallest of voices. Surrounded by rock, they all heard her clearly. No doubt all that sniffling could have gone undetected as well had they been anywhere else.
He wished they were anywhere else. Jillian standing so near the door which led to the witch’s hole made him panic. Suddenly the smell of earth was overwhelming, as if he were being buried alive. He might well wish to be if she made it up into the tomb hole before he stopped her.
“Hold,” he growled. “That is not the way.”
Jillian spun around in a swirl of dust and skirts. Her eyes were lit with a combination of hope and the dancing flame of the torch she held. For a moment, he savored and memorized her face this way. His next actions would erase that look for some time to come.
“To your left, MacKay. You know the way. Take them both along.”
He finally looked at the two he’d been ignoring. Morna’s shock turned to outrage. Ivar’s smirk told them all he was not surprised in the least. He stood aside and gestured for Jillian to go before him.
“The new Montgomery never ceases to disappoint,” MacKay said.
No matter. Let him talk, so long as he moved along without fighting. Although, if Monty did have to kill him in defense, the women may forgive him sooner.
They worked their way down into the bowels of Castle Ross, past the cistern and deeper still until the light ahead stopped abruptly. She’d seen it, then.
Montgomery moved forward, pushing MacKay before him, fully prepared for the man to come to his senses and fight his way out. But he didn’t; with one hand firmly anchored around one of Morna’s, he seemed content to embrace his fate, whatever it may be.
Jillian was reluctant to release the torch, but a stern stare led her to reconsider and she took a step back from him. The hope, he could see, had truly left her eyes. He wanted to chide her, tell her she was foolish not to trust him, but he could not. He had to look away lest he lose his purpose.
“In you go. Ladies to the right. MacKays to the left.”
Jillian looked confused.
“All ladies, MacKay and otherwise, to the right, please.”
She shuffled her feet into a cell that was blessedly empty. She looked at the floor and swallowed hard.
Could he really go through with this? Was she wondering the same? Were they all? No matter.
“Get on with you Morna Gordon.”
“Bastard,” Morna screamed and ran at him. He dropped the torch and grabbed one of her clawed hands and spun her around, unwilling to drop his sword to get hold of her other hand. For a wee moment he savored holding his sister in his grasp, hugging her back to his chest, wishing he could be the one to comfort her, wishing he weren’t the reason she needed comfort. Again.
“Morna, join Jillian if you please.”
She straightened, leaned out of his embrace then stepped away. Before he could stop her, however, she fled into Ivar’s arms, who reached out and pulled his barred door closed.
Monty walked down the tunnel and came back with keys.
“For pity’s sake, Mr. Ross, let them alone.”
Jillian’s voice was stronger now, but cold. Menacing. When all of this was over it would take time for her to forgive him. He knew just how he’d begin to warm her. But for now, he had to worry about getting Ivar back on MacKay soil and keeping Morna put until the Runt arrived on the morrow.
“Her husband will arrive come morning. If she bides the night with Ivar MacKay, The Gordon will start a war. Men will die. Do you know death, Jillian? In your world, do you know what it is to have families starve because their menfolk are killed in wars they had no hand in? Do you ken wars, Jillian Rose MacKay?”
Her chin came up, bless her. She hadn’t given up yet. Thank God.
“My world knows plenty about war, Mr. Ross. More men than are alive today will die in a single war. Families will starve for much less reason than their men dying.”
He could not help but step up to her, to take every advantage.
“Why would you want to return to such a place, lass?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” she asked, without hesitation.
Dear God, she was asking him for a reason, but he could not give it now. These men in her wars were not men from her clan, from her home, from her family. She would not drag a man’s body off the field and to his door, not be there to hear the first soul-wrenching screams of his widow.
He could only smile and turn away before she realized what a sad smile it was. He had to leave before her pain became as unbearable as the widows in his memory. It was for the would-be widows of the future that he had sought the alliance with the Gordons. He would not undo it for the approval of any two women.
Once again he took the keys toward Ivar’s cell on the opposite side of the room.
“I said leave them be. The Gordons need never know.”
This time Jillian’s voice was angry, but she knew little of anger. Once she’d been betrayed by someone, she’d look back on this day and understand.
“Consider this, Ross,” came Ivar’s voice. “if she grows heavy with child, The Runt can claim the honors.”
Morna pulled away from MacKay and reached a pleading hand toward Monty.
“Brother, if you ever loved me half so much as you loved our Isobelle, let me have this night.”
Half so much? “Are you mad? I never loved her best.”
How could she think such a thing?
“Oh, Monty, you never would have mourned me so.” Morna’s pleading hand dropped to her side.
“Not so. I mourned the loss of you the day I found you and your traitor at The Burn.” Not a soul in the dungeon wanted to relive that day. He could not believe he’d mentioned it now. A year ago they’d agreed upon one fact; they disagreed about all of it.
“You mourned me by punishing me. You mourned Isobelle by building her a shrine in your own hall.”
“You’re speaking madness. Had the churchmen come for you, to burn you for your sins, I’d have done no less. And if it were you inside, would I not also have lost my sanity worrying we may not reach you in time? I swear upon my soul I would. You are both as dear to me as the other.”
Morna frowned. He must not have explained it well enough.
“She didn’t know,” Jillian said behind him.
His chest lurched, as always, with the sound of Jillian’s voice, but he dared not look upon her lest some strong wall inside him crumble.
“She didn’t know what?” he asked the floor.
“Morna didn’t know until just now that Isobelle is alive. I’m sure it’s wonderful news, but Ivar, you’d better catch her.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Already at her side, Ivar lowered Morna to the ground and wrapped both arms about her shoulders before he turned his stunned face toward his old friend.
For the next hour, the four sat amiably enough while Monty related every detail about their plan to get Isobelle away without so much as singeing her hair.
Morna finally found her voice.
“You owe me dearly, brother, for not telling me sooner. Do you know how I’ve worn out my own throat over the death of my sister?”
“That was a convenience, I think, to keep The Runt away from you.”
Morna had the grace to blush in the orange flame-light.
“Yes, it was,” she confessed, “but the convenience was not worth the breaking of my heart, believing I was the cause of her death.”
The room went eerily still. Even the torch seemed to burn in rigid silence. Hairs raised on the back of Monty’s neck.
“It is late. For once in the past sennight, I will sleep undisturbed in my own bed.”
He finally looked to Jillian as he stood. Her head bowed over her knees. She ignored him until he picked up the light and moved it, which made her start.
“I’ll not leave you in the darkness, Jillian MacKay.”
Moving about the room, he touched the torch to three others.
�
�In a few hours I’ll be back for my sister. Don’t make plans, MacKay. You’ll not be able to stop me from sending her back.”
No argument came from the shadows but movement receded far into the dark cell and he gave up trying to distinguish shapes, knowing there would be only one now as the lovers clung to each other. As he would like Jillian to cling to him one day soon.
Now the difficult part.
Reluctantly, he turned to find Jillian also moving deeper into her cell. If he took her with him, she’d not only demonstrate how much she loathed him but she’d find a way to come back to free Ivar and Morna before morning.
And they’d try to escape through the witch’s hole.
Slowly, painfully, he shut Jillian’s barred door. He imagined her flinching, though he could not see her, and his soul flinched with her.
One last task before he could stretch out on his big bed and sleep with both eyes closed for a change.
* * *
It had sickened Monty to see Jillian so near the workroom but a wee while ago. Now however, standing inside, alone under the gaping hole, Monty admitted he relished the thought of quitting the place.
The sealing stone lay in pieces below the hole. For his clumsiness, Ewan was going to have to fashion another. Tonight, however, it was convenient not to need to remove the heavy thing with but the hands of one man.
Rolling a cask under the dark maw, Monty was able to reach into the tomb where he set his torch. Swinging himself up into the light was accomplished easily enough. At one end of the oblong space, in a small nook made naturally by a difference in the thickness of the stones, sat Isobelle’s necklace.
“Forgive me, Isobelle. This cannot be left here, where she might use it.”
He lifted the necklace in his hands, but he could not see it well for the light was below it. No matter. He would examine it another day, when the menace was gone.
When Jillian would never wish to leave him again.
He opened his sporran and lowered it in, then lowered himself just as gently onto the barrel. When he reached back inside to collect his torch, he saw something shiny on the wall.
Strange, but he was sure there was naught else but the torque in the tomb. Had Jillian left something behind when she had been inside?
Once more, he swung up into the torch’s light and stood. There, in the same alcove, was the cursed necklace.
The hairs on the backs of his hands rose with every other hair on his body. The prickling around his ears made him want to run howling from his own home, but he remained.
Quickly, he lifted the flap of his sporran. Monty was logical enough to know the necklace would not be inside, but foolish enough to be surprised when it was not.
It may have been his imagination, but if he listened closely he could hear the twin laughter of a couple of sisters. He chose not to listen that closely.
A Ross was not that easily defeated. Perhaps one merely needed to show the thing that it was, indeed, not in charge of its own fate.
Once again, he lifted the oddity from its perch, but this time he held it in his hand. Securely. He carefully lowered himself on to the barrel then reached back inside for the torch. With the aid of his light, he looked at his left fist.
His empty fist.
He had never released the thing, and yet he could not say when it had left his grasp. He had it in his fingers as he was lowering his feet to the barrel, and by the time he lowered his hand, it had vanished.
Just as Jillian would vanish, he heard himself think even as he fought against that image.
Fine then. Ewan would begin working on the stone at first light, and he would not stop until the hole was sealed, the workroom filled to overflowing with the heaviest items he could find...and the door guarded by no less than a wolf.
He couldn’t possibly let her out of that cell until it was done.
A wee while later, Monty tossed and turned, stretched and sighed until he admitted he could not enjoy his rest. Though he sought to fill his mind with other, more pleasant images, he could not manage to lock out the sight of Jillian huddled in the darkness, under his home.
What if the torch did not last? Was it so much she asked of him? Air. Light. And water.
Dear Lord, he’d left her no water!
* * *
“Jillian?” came Ivar’s whisper from across the dungeon. “Lass, are you awake?”
Jillian had tried to give the sweethearts a bit of privacy...by humming. She’d never been much of a voyeur; it had always been too painful to watch lovers kissing or wrapping themselves around each other when she’d never had anyone of her own. The difference now was that she imagined herself doing such things with Montgomery Ross and the frustration was infinitely worse.
She didn’t know if the two would take advantage of what may well be their only time together, but she’d hummed as long as she could. When her voice had finally given out, it had been blessedly quiet.
“Jillian.”
“I’m here. I’m awake.”
“We need to make a plan, lass, before The Ross returns.”
Only one torch remained lit. Funny how, in her wallowing, Jilly had not noticed before how imminent was the arrival of complete darkness. Perhaps it was because she was not totally alone that the fear was held at bay. Perhaps it was because she could imagine worse things, like failing her task.
Or maybe she feared completing it.
“We won’t be able to get to the hole this time. Not with Monty guarding it like he is. We will have to try another day, when he doesn’t know we’re all together.”
“You’re probably right, Ivar. But it took so much to get you both here. I’m afraid we’ll never pull it off again.”
“She’s right, mavournin’,” came Morna’s strong voice. Jilly could only imagine what a strong woman her older sister Isobelle had been. “In but another sennight, the clan will be allowed back inside the hall. Monty will have decided what he is going to do with Jilly by then. After that, I doona like our chances.”
The subject didn’t care for the sound of that. She wanted to know what Morna suspected her brother capable of, but she dared not ask. But there was something else. Something Morna had said earlier.
“What does ‘mavournin’’ mean?”
Morna laughed. “It means ‘my dearest one.’”
Jilly had suspected something of the sort, but knowing he’d called her his dearest one didn’t mean she’d ever be able to get around his pride. For it had to be pride holding him back. Monty would never admit he was wrong. Even if she bashed him on the head.
Now there was an idea.
“You can’t just overpower him, Ivar? Tie him up, or something?” She tried not to think about what things she’d like to do to him while he was thusly incapacitated. Just a few hard kisses before they left --
“I cannot best him, lass. I never have. I’d have to have help.”
“What about Ewan?” Morna chimed in.
Something moved down the hall leading from the dungeon and all of them went silent.
The silence stretched out with no further disruption. “Don’t worry, ladies,” Ivar murmured. “The rats will stay away from the light.”
Before the echo of his voice had finished bouncing around the stone room, the orange glow faded to black.
“Are you all right, Jillian?”
Oh how she wished it were Monty’s voice she’d heard.
“Yes, Ivar. I’m fine.” She hoped she would be. “Maybe if we keep talking, it will keep them away.” He probably thought she was talking about rats; but she was referring to new nightmares -- ones about leaving a certain Scottish laird in the past.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
By naming his youngest and smallest son Cinead, no doubt the “Cock of the North,” Laird of the Mighty Gordon Clan, hoped most Scots would see something in his runt resembling the First Scottish King, Cinead Mac Alpin, or at the very least, something noble. But not even the Gordons could summon up such a vision.
Monty, looking down upon the miniature man, wondered how he’d ever forced his sister into such a marriage. Perhaps he’d not been thinking clearly a year ago. Perhaps he’d not been seeing clearly, or perhaps it was just the height of his steps that made the man seem so much smaller than before.
He descended slowly, hoping against hope that Cinead would grow before his eyes. But if anything, the man looked to be even smaller. And with his wee tantrum barely contained, Monty had the urge to take this child over his knee and correct his character.
“Where is she?” the mite demanded.
Monty could not trust himself to speak. He just turned to Ewan, who still stood at the top of the steps, and gestured for his cousin to fetch Morna, who pouted just inside the door. She wouldn’t come out for her brother, but she wouldn’t harry Ewan.
Just as predicted, she came willingly enough and carefully descended the narrow steps. Ignoring both Montgomery and her husband, she walked, head held high, to the riderless horse beside Cinead’s and waited for Ewan to lift her onto the saddle. When he handed her the reins, she turned her mount and urged it majestically through the portcullis as if she were unaware of anyone else being out of doors that day.
Ewan’s smile did not falter as he gestured to the little Gordon prince his offer for a leg up, but the latter ignored him, climbing up a clever series of stirrups and onto his enormous horse’s back. As Cinead rode away, Monty noticed the smug smile on his face and realized, as her husband must have, that Morna was no longer weeping.
Good Lord. Even though he knew full well what the trio had planned the night before, The Runt may have a hand in things after all. Three days, and three nights, was a very long time indeed.