Highland Destiny

by Hannah Howell

  “I had heard that a lad down there had required some discipline,” she replied, fighting to keep her voice calm and sweet, to not reveal in any way the anger and hatred she felt churning to life inside of her. “That can sometimes leave a lad with a few small injuries and I thought I would see if he needed or wanted some salve.”

  “Such kindness.” He leaned closer to her and frowned. “Who are ye, lass?”

  “Maldie Kirkcaldy.” She held her breath when he spoke, for the stench of rotting teeth was almost too strong to stomach.

  “Why are ye here?”

  “I am a healing woman, my laird. As the minstrels do, I travel about to do my work. They soothe the ears and troubled hearts with their music, and I soothe the pain of illness with my salves.”

  “I have ne’er liked the whine of minstrels. Kirkcaldy? I believe I have heard that name before. Where are ye from?”

  Rage tightened Maldie’s insides. The man did not even recognize the clan name of the woman he had seduced and abandoned. Margaret had never forgotten him, but Maldie suspected Beaton had forgotten her mother the moment the woman had born him a girl child.

  “Kirkcaldy of Dundee,” she said, realizing the anger she could not control had begun to seep into her voice when the man with Beaton tensed and watched her with narrowing eyes.

  There was a chance that Beaton’s companion recognized her name. He was obviously the man who stood firmly at Beaton’s right hand. If he had done so for a long time he could well recall a lot more about Beaton’s past than the man himself did. That would be necessary if he was to know who all of his laird’s enemies were. Sometimes the person one considered the least important could become his deadliest enemy. Maldie also recalled her mother speaking of a thin, long-faced man who shadowed Beaton’s every step. She was sure that this was the man.

  And that made him the one to watch, she mused, struggling not to let anger steal away all caution and good sense. Maldie suspected there was little chance that she would even get to see Eric now, at least not today. What she needed to do was to get out of the great hall alive and without having roused any dangerous suspicions about herself. The sharp look upon Beaton’s companion’s face told her that it might already be too late to avoid the latter. The heedless, fierce rage churning inside of her told her that she would have to work very hard not to do something that would only get her killed.

  “I have been to Dundee, havenae I, Calum?” Beaton asked his companion, all the while keeping his gaze fixed unwaveringly upon Maldie. “Years ago?”

  “Aye,” replied Calum, with a deep voice that one would never have expected to arise from such a thin chest. “Twenty years past, mayhap longer. Ye lingered there for a wee while.”

  “Ah.” Beaton gave Maldie a nasty smile. “Are ye one of my bastards then?”

  Maldie saw no reason to deny it now, for it was clear that Calum knew exactly who she was. “Aye, begot off of Margaret Kirkcaldy, a gentleborn lass that ye seduced and abandoned.”

  “Margaret, eh? I have kenned many a Margaret. But, aye, the longer I stare at ye, the more I begin to recall. Ye have the look of your mother, I suspect, and ’tis why ye stir a memory or two. A verra dim memory, for I have yet to meet a woman who deserves more than a good rutting and a hasty fareweel.”

  It took all of her willpower not to strike the sneer off his face. With the sad condition of his skin she knew that even a light slap would be an agony for him, and she ached to give him that pain. She did not think she had ever been so angry or so filled with hatred. A small voice in her head told her that he was simply not worth such strong emotion, that the only one who would suffer from any sort of confrontation with Beaton was herself, but she found it hard to listen to. The violent nature of her thoughts both alarmed and appalled her, but even that did not calm her down. Her mother had wanted the man dead, but Maldie wanted him to suffer the agonies of hell first.

  “So speaks a mon who thinks only with his pintle, which usually means that he ends up sadly lacking in wit.”

  Calum moved to strike her, but Beaton halted him with one sharp gesture of his hand. “Did ye come here looking for money? To try and fill your wee purse with my coin simply because we are related by a blood kinship?”

  “I wouldnae touch your coin if I was naught but starved flesh hanging off brittle bone and groveling on my belly in the foulness that fills the gutters. And there simply isnae enough coin in your chests to pay for all of your crimes.”

  “Oh, aye, there is. One can solve many a trouble and wave aside most difficulties with money.”

  “Not this time.”

  “Nay? Your mother was willing to take my coin, like most whores are.”

  “My mother was no whore when ye lured her away from her kinsmen. Ye destroyed her. Ye lied to her, made promises that ye ne’er meant to keep, and then left her, shamed and penniless, when she didnae give ye the son ye wanted.”

  Beaton shook his head. It was something Maldie decided he should not do very often, for it made the scattered clumps of white hair upon his head flop around in a most unattractive way. She was almost pleased to see how ugly he had become. Not only did she consider it to be God’s justice, but it made it a lot easier to keep her distance, to think of him not as her blood father, but as just a man, a sick old man. Except in spirit this was certainly not the man her mother had so often described, not the man Margaret Kirkcaldy had loved and bedded.

  “I fear I have a hard truth to tell ye, lass,” Beaton said.

  “’Ware, Beaton,” she murmured in a cold voice, knowing that she was near to losing control completely. If he continued to belittle her mother, Maldie knew she could easily forget that she had wanted to get out of Dubhlinn alive. “Ye have no right to say such things about my mother. I willnae allow ye to spit upon her memory.”

  “Ye willnae allow it?” Beaton laughed, a broken, raspy sound that briefly became a hacking cough. “Ye dare to threaten me? My heart fair leaps with fear.”

  “Ye havenae got any heart. Only a truly heartless mon would treat my mother as contemptuously as ye did.”

  “I treated your mother just as she deserved. She was a lass with warm blood and little wit. I cannae be blamed for her foolishness. If she told ye that she didnae ken that I was married, didnae ken the difference between sweet words said in the fever of passion and the truth, then she lied to you.”

  Maldie shook her head, appalled when she actually considered his words for a moment. “Ye didnae tell her.”

  “Nay, why should I? Howbeit, I ne’er offered her marriage, but she left her kinsmen and came with me. Oh, she may have been untouched ere I had her, but she was still a whore in her heart. She gave up her maidenhead for no more than a few gifts and sweet words. And she enjoyed the giving of it. I swear I have rarely bedded such a greedy lass.” His eyes narrowed and he watched her closely as he continued, “I would wager that she didnae grieve for me verra long ere she wrapped herself around another mon. She loved a rutting too much to go without for verra long. Believe what ye wish, lass, swallow your mother’s lies if it makes ye happy, but dinnae come blaming me for all of your troubles. If I am at fault for anything ’tis just for showing your mother what she truly was—a whore, and a hungry one at that.”

  Her dagger was in her hand before he finished speaking. Maldie did not long consider the fact that she was one tiny lass with a small dagger facing two belted knights with swords. All she could think of was that she wanted Beaton dead. The demeaning way he spoke of her mother demanded that she do something. Such insults could not go unpunished. He tried to wash his hands of his own guilt by blaming Margaret for all that had happened to her. A still sane part of her whispered that one reason she was so enraged was because Beaton had put into words things that she had already thought of herself, fleeting ideas that had caused her to suffer guilt and shame. She pushed that realization aside as quickly as she had all those other traitorous thoughts and, raising her dagger, lunged at Beaton.

  She screamed i
n frustration when he knocked her back. Calum tried to grab her, but she neatly eluded him. Her dagger still clutched tightly in her hand, she faced the two men. Beaton looked amused. Calum stood just slightly in front of his laird, ready to take the next blow for the man. She was amazed by such loyalty. Beaton did not seem to be the sort of man who either deserved it or rewarded it. One look into Calum’s unblinking black eyes told Maldie that there was no weakness there to play with.

  It was hopeless and she knew it. Her rage had made her act without thinking of all the consequences, made it all too easy to push aside the one brief moment of sensible hesitation she had felt. Now she was as good as cornered. Even though both men had suspected she would strike out, they had not known exactly when or how she would. That small chance of surprise had given her an edge that could have given her what she wanted—Beaton’s death. All that was gone now. She could try to kill Beaton again or she could surrender. Either choice would surely get her killed.

  “Ye have my spirit, lass,” Beaton said. “’Tis almost a shame that ye are a lass.”

  “Oh, aye, I was yet another failure for ye in your never-ending search for a son. And ye always blamed the woman for that lack, didnae ye? Did ye ne’er think that it was ye yourself who was failing? That mayhap your seed is too weak to produce the heir ye so hunger for?”

  As Maldie had hoped, that enraged Beaton. She thought it was all nonsense, even deeply insulting to imply that producing a girl child was a sign of weakness, but had guessed that Beaton believed such a thing. The rage that transformed his ravaged face told her clearly that he had suffered such doubts about his manhood.

  Maldie braced for Beaton’s charge, but still only barely escaped the full brunt of it. She struck out with her dagger as she stepped aside, leaving a long gash upon Beaton’s arm. His scream of pain and fury as he fell to the floor was still ringing in her ears when Calum grabbed her. She tried to stab him, too, not wanting to kill him, just desperate to make him let her go so that she could flee. He got a tight grip upon her wrist and squeezed, twisting her wrist slightly at the same time, until the pain pulsing through her arm made her release her weapon. Calum only eased his grip slightly as he yanked her closer to Beaton. Two armed men stumbled into the great hall, drawn by Beaton’s screams, and Maldie felt all emotion leave her in a weakening rush. She stood, numbed, waiting to die as she watched Beaton stand up in front of her.

  “Ye have just made a verra foolish mistake, lass. A fatal one,” snapped Beaton, his voice hard and cold, holding a hint of the strong, imposing, and cruel man he had once been. Now he was just cruel.

  “My only mistake was in putting my dagger in your arm and not burying it deep into your black heart.”

  “Ye would kill your own father?”

  He asked the question without shock or horror, just simple curiousity, and Maldie found that chilling. In fact, the emotion Maldie sensed behind the question was admiration. From the moment her mother had pulled that oath from her she had been torn by the horror of the crime she was being asked to commit against the man who had sired her, and a sense of justice long overdue. Beaton clearly saw nothing wrong with trying to kill one’s own father. She briefly wondered how his own father had met his death.

  “Aye. I gave my mother a promise while she lay wracked with pain on her deathbed. I swore an oath that ye would finally taste the justice ye have eluded for so long.”

  Beaton almost smiled. “As I said, ’tis a shame that ye are a mere lass.”

  “Can ye turn your twisted wee mind to naught but sons and heirs?”

  “A mon needs a son.”

  Maldie shook her head, realizing that Beaton would never understand the cruelty of his behavior. He would never know how deeply he had hurt the women he had used, and the children he had cast aside as worthless simply because they were females. If he were not so ill, she suspected that he would still be doing so, still bedding any woman who did not have the sense or the speed to get away from him, and then deserting her when she did not bear him his son. For that alone he deserved killing, but she had lost all chance of delivering the retribution he so richly deserved.

  “And, so, desperate for what ye couldnae produce with your own indiscriminate rutting, ye stole a son from the Murrays.” She laughed, a short, harsh sound. “Do ye truly think that the world and its mother will believe he is yours?”

  “They will. He was born of my wife. And now I ken why ye were trying to creep down to see the lad. Ye are working for the Murrays against me, arenae ye? Was this betrayal part of your revenge?”

  “Ye are a fine one to speak so disparagingly of betrayal. ’Tis the verra air ye breathe. Ye have dealt in it so often that it has become a habit for you. If ye werenae so sick, ye would still be betraying woman after woman and feeling no remorse for your cruelty.”

  “Ye set too much worth upon what is merely the folly of passion. But what I may or may not do in the days to come isnae going to be your concern for verra much longer.”

  His smile was chilling, and Maldie had to struggle to hide her fear and maintain her look of calm disgust. “Nay? Are ye going to become a monk then?”

  Beaton chuckled. “Nay. Your executioner. At the end of market day ye will hang.”

  “Ah, ye dinnae think that the jongleurs and minstrels will be amusement enough for your clansmen.”

  “We will see how weel your spirit and that sharp tongue of yours endures when a noose is slipped about your bonny, wee neck. Now, since ye were so eager to see my son Eric, I will grant your wish. Calum, take my wee murderous bastard down to the dungeons and set her in Eric’s cell.”

  Maldie did not struggle as the cold-faced Calum led her away. There was no chance of escape, so she decided to try and go to her prison with dignity. Even as Calum pushed her ahead of him, down the dark, steep steps that led to the dungeons of Dubhlinn, she prayed that she was wrong about just when Balfour would attack again. Market day, she thought as the iron door of Eric’s cold cell was shut behind her, would be a very nice day for Balfour to ride to his desired victory over Beaton.

  Douglas cursed and edged away from the high doors to the great hall. Maldie had roused his curiousity, and now he knew why. She had come to kill Beaton. He had not been able to believe his eyes when he had looked into the great hall just in time to see her attack Beaton. Douglas wished he could have heard more of what she and Beaton had said to each other, but he had been too far away to catch more than the occasional small piece of their conversation. The girl could have her own reasons to want the man dead or she could be working for one of Beaton’s many enemies, including the laird of Donncoill.

  After only a moment of considering that possibility, Douglas shook his head. Balfour would never send a woman, especially not a wee, bonny lass, to kill his enemy for him. Nevertheless, Douglas was sure that this was something Balfour needed to know, and it was far too important to entrust to the tangled and often very slow line of spies and messengers Balfour had established between Donncoill and Dubhlinn.

  As he slipped out of Dubhlinn, Douglas knew that it was time to leave anyway. Since Malcolm had been discovered and killed, it had become dangerous for anyone to ask even the most innocent of questions. Douglas suspected this would be the last piece of information he would gather from Dubhlinn. It and all the other scraps he had been unable to send home had to be given to Balfour before the man tried to rescue Eric a second time. All the way back to Donncoill, Douglas found himself hoping that they could find some way to rescue the young woman who had so valiantly tried to kill Beaton.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Douglas?” Balfour paused in wiping down his horse, an activity that often calmed him as much as the long hard ride he had just indulged in, to stare at James in surprise. “What is Douglas doing here? Was he discovered by Beaton?”

  “I havenae had the chance to talk with the lad all that much,” replied James, as he led Balfour out of the stable and walked toward the keep. “He arrived but moments ago, dusty, exhaus
ted, hungry and thirsty. I swear to sweet Jesu, Balfour, the lad looks as if he ran all the way here from Dubhlinn. I told him to go to the great hall and get himself a drink, mayhap something to eat, and that I would fetch you. He is most anxious to speak with you.”

  Balfour softly cursed. “I pray that he isnae about to tell me something that will destroy all of our plans for the morrow.”

  “Nay, for they are good ones, holding a fair hope for success.”

  They were, and Balfour was hungry for a victory, even a small one. From the moment James had told him that Eric had been taken, it seemed as if nothing had gone in his favor. There had been misjudgments, betrayals, and failures. Even though he was still reeling from Maldie’s betrayal, he saw a chance to win against Beaton and he dreaded the thought that Douglas was about to steal that away from him.

  The moment he stepped into the great hall, Balfour saw Douglas. It was hard to miss the big handsome man. Douglas paced back and forth next to the head table, taking long drinks from a heavy silver goblet. The man did look as if he had suffered a long hard journey. He was covered in mud and dust, and, despite his agitated pacing, he looked battered and exhausted.

  “Sit down, Douglas,” Balfour said, as he moved to his seat at the head of the table. “By the look of ye, ye should be most weary of walking.”

  “So weary that I fear if I sit down I will fall asleep ere I can tell ye what I must,” Douglas said, even as he sat down on a bench to Balfour’s right, immediately across from James. “I ran more than I walked. My innards told me that I had little time left to reach you, and I dinnae ken where that fancy came from.”

  “Do ye think Beaton had guessed who ye are?” asked James.

  “Weel, there was no sign that he had,” replied Douglas. “He moved verra quickly when he discovered who Malcolm was. If he had guessed who I was, I dinnae think I would have been given time to think about what I should do. Nay, I would have been fighting for my life every step of the way.”