Devil Black

by Laura Strickland

Bertram nodded to the guards. “Bring the other wench. I told you, Father, the best message we can present to them, when they arrive, is the babe cut from her womb.”

  “No!” Isobel struggled to her feet. “You shall not harm her! Use me!”

  Randal MacNab nodded at the barber. “Take a finger. No doubt her pretty hands have been all over him.”

  “A lock o’ hair—” the barber suggested again.

  Randal glared at him. “You will do as you are told, man, if you wish to keep that wee bit cottage over your eight—is it eight?—squealing children’s heads. And that wife o’ yours—she is ill, is she no’? A shame to force her out into the winter snow.”

  The barber, avoiding Isobel’s eyes, reached among his knives and selected one. “Hold her.”

  In the end it took four strong men to hold Isobel and another to stretch her hand on the hearth stones and pin it there. She struggled and fought with every drop of her strength, but they bore her down until she could only watch the barber move, like something in a dream, slow and deliberate.

  She did not want to scream, but the sound tore from her—not when the barber’s knife severed the smallest finger on her left hand, but when he pulled an iron from the fire and cauterized the bleeding stump.

  Then, even before her eyes rolled back in her head, she bellowed like a banshee, “You shall pay for this! He will come! I tell you, the Devil Black will come!”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  “Open the gates, MacNab!” bellowed Dougal MacRae. “Open to me! You have something that is mine!”

  The filthy weather had cleared at last, and a weak sun had now sunk into the horizon, stealing all light. In the dense gloom, the stones of MacNab’s stronghold looked dark and forbidding. Surrounded by the handful of men left to him, Dougal knew himself to be utterly vulnerable. If MacRae let him in—and he would—there existed a good chance Dougal would never ride out again.

  At his side, Thomas sat his horse, looking grim and uneasy. No fool, he. The man knew the odds. Yet he had been the first to declare himself ready to ride into the monster’s lair.

  “I am no warrior,” he said, “but I am willing to die for the woman I love. My life is nothing without her anyway.”

  Those words hung in Dougal’s mind and played over and over again. Aisla, the woman he had always loved, had died here in MacNab’s hands. Dougal could no longer say what he felt for Isobel. He still believed himself incapable of the fine emotion called love, but the idea of failing her made him go cold and hollow inside.

  He could not fail her, but curse him if he knew how he could win.

  The gates opened like the doors to hell and he and his small party rode inside. MacNab’s warriors ringed the forecourt, all armed. Dougal knew Rab and his warriors had slain more than a few during the assault on his keep, yet these put on an impressive display.

  Hate burned in his heart; it brightened when he saw Randal MacNab strut toward him.

  “Welcome, neighbor,” MacNab said. “Kind in you to call.”

  “Curse you, MacNab. I am in no mood for games. I ha’ come for my wife.”

  “Your wife? Have you lost her, then? And what makes you think I have her? Och, wait. Would that be the lustful, red-haired wench who has been entertaining my warriors? Or her sister, with the swollen belly?”

  Beside Dougal, Thomas grunted. Dougal hoped he would not lose his head, and his life. This was Dougal’s battle to fight.

  “What do you want?” he asked, looking Randal in the eye. “What price have you set on them?”

  “What will you pay? Perhaps you should come in, and we will talk it over.” Randal smiled, a terrible thing to see. “And, lest you have any doubt your wife is the wench in question, I ha’ something inside to show you.”

  “I demand to see her!”

  “I think not. Part of her, perhaps.”

  Dougal’s stomach plummeted. He exchanged looks with Thomas as they dismounted, cautioning the man to contain his ire. If only Dougal could manage the same.

  “Leave your army here,” Randal sneered, eyeing the small group of warriors at Dougal’s back. “You will not need them.”

  Dougal nodded at his men and, with Thomas at his side, entered his enemy’s walls. The air inside smelled dusky and singed, the way he imagined it might in Hades. Randal led them to the great hall, where the bastard Bertram waited. The man stood in front of the fire, juggling a small object in his hands.

  “Ah!” said Bertram with a ghastly grin, “our erstwhile neighbor. Pray tell, MacRae, how went your audience with the King?”

  Dougal did not deign to answer Bertram. “Where is my wife—our wives?” he amended with a glance at the silent Thomas. He spoke to Randal, his anger a banked fire. “If you have harmed either of them—”

  “Define ‘harm,’ ” Bertram commanded. “It can encompass so much; there are so many ways to inflict pain.”

  Thomas gave a strangled growl and started forward. Dougal seized his forearm in a grip of iron. His own anger barely under control, he said, “You cannot just seize a man’s wife. There are laws in this land.”

  Randal threw back his head and laughed. “You, to cite the law to me? ’Tis a crime to steal a man’s wife? But no crime to steal his betrothed?” The older man’s face grew hard. “You cost us a fine estate that would have come to my son on the death of the wench’s father. Now you shall make up for it.”

  “How?” Dougal’s heart sank. Half distracted, still trying to identify the object with which Bertram played, he scowled at Randal.

  Randal smiled again, and this time it looked cold as the north wind. “I am a kind man at heart, MacRae. I will let you ransom your women, and let bygones be bygones. Forget the sins of the past.”

  Dougal gritted his teeth. Some things could never be forgotten, yet his heart told him now was no time to assert that truth. He needed Isobel back again. “Name your price.”

  MacNab pretended to think about it. He exchanged a look with his son and feigned indecision, even though Dougal knew this scene had been planned weeks ago.

  “The price I require is: the whole of your lands.”

  Dougal’s mouth went dry and his heart clenched so hard he thought he must fall down.

  “Do it,” said Thomas, beside him. “Agree. Get them out of here.”

  Aye, it seemed the canny response. But Dougal said, “Wait! Those lands have been in my family for generations. My ancestors bled for them. They are not mine to give.”

  “They are.” No uncertainty tainted Thomas’s voice. “Just agree.” Softly, for Dougal’s ears alone, he added, “These men have no honor. You can break the agreement later and fight it out.”

  Fight with what? A handful of warriors and no legal right? The old snake would make him sign a paper. That he did not doubt.

  “No time to waste,” said Bertram, his eyes gleaming. “Perhaps this will persuade you.”

  He tossed the object he had been juggling so playfully. By instinct, Dougal caught it and cradled it in the palm of hand. A curious thing—small, narrow and tapered, with a bloody stump at one end and a delicate nail at the other. In dawning horror he realized it was a finger.

  Dougal’s world tilted around him, sickeningly, and went dark for an instant.

  “I am sure you recognize that,” Bertram leered. “No doubt you ha’ seen it often enough, wrapped round your cock. Do you doubt it belongs to your wife?”

  Dougal launched himself at the grinning face, his control snapping abruptly. What had they done to her—the bastards, the bastards! He would kill Bertram MacNab slowly and then feed his heart to his misbegotten sire…

  He managed three damaging blows before he was hauled away by a number of MacNab’s guards who stepped forward from the shadows. Too late now to feign indifference or disbelief. When they released him, he stood trembling with rage so powerful he had to consciously fight it down. Nay, he did not doubt from whence they had taken the grisly trophy. Had he not marveled a score of times, as she caressed
him, that such a slender being could contain so much fire and courage? Isobel! All at once his longing for her had a power that should have moved mountains.

  Randal shot his son a look. “Bring her. Her husband should harbor no doubt. And she should witness what he does or does no’ think of her, and his lack of honor.”

  Bertram, now trickling blood from one corner of his mouth, went, and Dougal retrieved the grisly treasure from the stones, where it had flown. A treasure it was. They had taken this from her by force, in terror and pain. How his Isobel must have felt—the same hurt and loneliness Aisla had endured.

  He had failed Aisla. He could not fail Isobel now, not at any cost.

  Had he believed in anything, he might have prayed; he would call upon the devil, if he thought Satan might respond. Beside him Thomas, dead pale, stood like a rock.

  And then she was there, hauled in through the far doorway by the vile Bertram, her feet dragging on the ground. She looked twice as pale as Thomas, near to fainting, her clothes in disarray and her hair streaming down, a bright curtain. But her eyes found Dougal’s and held, burning with will and another emotion Dougal identified with a sudden rush of humility.

  “Take your hands from her!” he barked, and started forward to free her from Bertram’s grasp. To his surprise, Bertram released her. She half fell into Dougal’s arms; his eyes and hands both searched her avidly. He found her hand and lifted it in his own.

  They had not even bandaged her wound, the scunners. It showed as a blackened blight, doubly marred by cauterization, and he felt his gorge rise.

  “What ha’ they done to you?” He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it reverently. Tears flooded her eyes, but she did not speak.

  “You agree,” Randal MacNab said smoothly, “this is, indeed, your wife?”

  Dougal rounded on him. “You will pay for this—in hell, if not sooner to me!”

  “No doubt. But you will pay first. Agree to my demands, and you can take your wife and her sister home.”

  “Demands?” Isobel whispered. Dougal heard it in her voice—she was spent, her courage unraveling. But it held her still.

  Randal ignored her. “I have a scribe standing by—a lawyer, in fact. We shall make this legal, aye, so there can be no question later—no reneging by you, black devil that you are.”

  “You would ransom me?” Isobel questioned, her eyes clinging to Dougal’s. “What does he ask?”

  “Your husband will sign over to me and my descendants all his lands in exchange for your freedom and that of your sister.”

  “No!” Isobel cried before anyone else could speak. She straightened her spine and drew away from Dougal. “Go to the King, Husband. Make complaint. It is illegal, what he does here.”

  Dougal’s lips twisted. “He has destroyed my credibility with the King. Besides,” he swallowed hard, “how long would that take?” How could he leave her and Catherine in these monsters’ hands the while? What condition would she be in, if he did manage to get her away through legal means?

  “But your lands…” she whispered, eyes still holding his, “they mean everything to you. Everything.”

  “Aye.” The blessed land, the waters, the sky above both, remained as vital to him as breath, blood of his blood and bone of his bone.

  But, he realized with an impact that shook him, this woman might well be just as vital to him.

  He refused to fail her.

  He never knew, later, what Isobel saw in his eyes, but it caused her to catch her breath and round on MacNab. “I demand a few moments with my husband, alone.”

  “You demand?” Randal sneered.

  “And that my sister be permitted to see her husband before any agreements are made—or signed.”

  “What right have you, wench, to ask for anything?”

  Isobel’s chin came up. “You will grant my request,” she pronounced, “or I shall bid my husband leave me here. And then, sir, what will you have?”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  “Listen to me,” Dougal said, “we do not have much time.”

  They huddled close beside the fire in MacNab’s great hall, the four of them alone, as private as a room under guard could be. MacNab had ordered Catherine brought down from her imprisonment to join Isobel, Dougal, and Thomas. Catherine had gone into Thomas’s arms and not come out again; the two of them spoke in murmurs, oblivious of their companions.

  Isobel, standing beside her own husband, shot a half envious look at her sister. Of course she was glad Catherine and Thomas were together, however briefly, and she wanted Catherine to be happy. She had done much and gone far since their mother’s death to assure just that. Yet at this moment she felt inclined to weep for the fact that she, herself, could not burrow into Dougal’s arms where she so longed to be.

  She lifted her eyes and searched those of her husband. What she saw there made her throat tighten: banked rage, determination, and concern for her. Concern. That was all. She must have been mistaken when, a few moments ago, she thought she had glimpsed love.

  “Your hand—” he began.

  “You are right,” she interrupted him. “We have no time now to speak of that.”

  “Have they hurt you in any other way?” He tipped her chin up, his eyes plundering hers for the truth. “Bertram did not—?”

  Isobel shook her head. “Not yet. So far we have been kept together. There is no way out of our prison. I have looked. But that is not why I asked to see you alone. Dougal—”

  Passionately, he broke in, “I will no’ fail you, Isobel, I swear it. I will win you free from here somehow, so I do vow!”

  His earnestness made tears flood Isobel’s eyes. She seized hold of him with her good hand; the other was paralyzed by pain. “Yes, but you cannot surrender your lands. That is what I wanted a chance to tell you, Husband. I know what they mean to you, how dear to your heart!” Indeed, were his lands not the sole occupant of that fiercely-guarded chamber? “There must be another way.”

  Slowly, he shook his head. “I have thought on it, on naught else. MacNab is a clever bastard and has long plotted to have my lands—do you no’ see? Had the King condemned me to death, who but the King’s good friend would have been awarded stewardship over my confiscated holdings? The greedy lout will have them one way or another.”

  Isobel said, as steadily as she could manage, “But you cannot sign away all you own, all your ancestors held—not for me.”

  “I will not leave you here.”

  “You are thinking of Aisla, are you not?” Isobel challenged. “You think on how she died here, in his hands. You regret—”

  “Regret does not begin to describe it.”

  “So,” Isobel drew a breath, “you act, still, for her and not for me.”

  “You are wrong.” He reached out and his fingers touched her face softly, like the brush of feathers. Again, she saw something stir in the smoky depths of his eyes. “I care for you, Isobel, and ’twould murder me to leave you now. I care as much as I am able—”

  “There must be another way.” Thomas repeated Isobel’s own words. He stepped to their sides with Catherine tucked into his arm. “What about a challenge?”

  Dougal turned guarded eyes on him, with no reply.

  Thomas spoke on, “My father used to tell us tales of the old times, as he called them, here in Scotland and sometimes, in Viking days, in Yorkshire as well. Great matters were known to be settled by single combat—one warrior pitted against another. If you challenge yon monster’s son, Bertram, honor will not let them refuse.”

  “Honor?” Dougal repeated the word as if foreign to him. “Did you not say, yourself, these men know nothing of it?” He lifted his hand and touched the deep scar on his cheek.

  “It gives us a better chance, surely,” Thomas urged, “than signing away your lands? Even if you do that, how do we know MacNab will release our wives?”

  “I agree,” Isobel cried. “You are a fierce warrior. I know you will win—”

  Catherine, r
eading Dougal’s expression, spoke up unexpectedly. “He would win, did MacNab give him a fair chance. It is what you fear, is it not, Brother-in-law? An unfair contest?”

  The room went suddenly still. Isobel, caught by the look in her husband’s eyes, felt some of the pieces of the past fall into place.

  “It is what happened before, is it not?” she hazarded. “This would not be the first time you fought Bertram MacNab. Last time was for Aisla?”

  “Aisla?” Thomas questioned.

  Isobel glanced at Thomas and Catherine while Dougal stood as if carved from wood. “Bertram MacNab’s first wife, and the woman Dougal loved—loves still.”

  Dougal stirred slowly, like a man moving through molasses. “I was but a lad of twenty then,” he growled, “and a fool who believed in such things as honor and right. I came here, aye, after Meg received that letter from Aisla. I told no one, not Meg and not Lachlan, not then nor afterwards. I challenged Bertram MacNab to combat for her.”

  Again he touched the scar on his face, and Isobel felt her stomach clench. “What happened?”

  “Bertram told me he would accept my challenge, aye, but since Aisla was his wife under law, I should need to earn my right to face him in single combat.”

  “How?” asked Isobel, trying to picture her husband at twenty, determined and idealistic.

  “He said I must work my way up to him by first facing the members of his personal guard in succession, one on one, seasoned warriors all, and avid for it. I see now he wished only to humiliate me. In that he succeeded all too well.

  “It took place here in the forecourt, myself surrounded by the pack of them, yelping like wolves. I loved her so much—” He closed his eyes for an instant, as if at a surge of pain. “I thought I could overcome anything. I asked him for but one thing, that he might tell Aisla I was there. I wanted her to know I had come for her, however it ended. He refused. So she never knew. She never even knew.”

  Thomas swore softly, and Isobel bit her tongue so hard she drew blood. So, this made the wound not yet healed. She did not want to hear the rest of it but knew she must listen.