He moved around her to stoop under the tent, and she followed him to the ground where he knelt to snap out a blanket. “If ye are cold, ye can sleep by the fire,” he said, his back to her.
“Are you and Brodie sleeping there?” she asked, her voice small.
He pivoted on his toes, still crouched before her. They were only inches apart. “We will take turns sleeping and guarding while we keep the fire going.”
Grace searched his stony gaze in the darkness. “Guarding against animals or guarding me from escaping?” she asked.
“Ye will die if ye head off into the woods on your own,” he said, his voice rough in warning.
Grace stared back without blinking. “I am not afraid of death, either, Keir.” Let him make of her false boast what he will. Maybe he’d lose sleep over the worry that she’d try to escape, even though she was too tired to even consider it tonight. Biting back her usual polite “good night” she turned away from him and settled onto the boughs.
…
The sky was heavy with gray clouds, heralding more snow. Keir held Grace before him on Cogadh as they rode at an easy gait between tall, bare oaks, Brodie up ahead. The woods were silent, as if the birds felt an oncoming storm or…
Brodie stopped his horse before several large boulders that flanked a narrow pass farther on. He raised an arm, which meant “stop, caution,” and pointed to the ground without turning in his seat.
Keir leaned into Grace’s ear. “’Tis an ambush.” She sat up taller, nearly hitting his chin with her head as she turned to look at him, her eyes wide. “Stay behind my targe.”
Keir brought his shield from its mount on the back hip of his horse. Round and made of thick black leather, it would guard Grace against arrows. He yanked the Devil of Dunakin’s black leather mask off the back of the shield, quickly donning it before he set the targe before Grace. Sensing the unease, Cogadh’s ears flicked, waiting for danger to present itself.
Grace bent her knees, pulling her legs up under the shield. Smart lass. Keir adjusted his mask, the black leather with silver spikes and demonic wings on the sides. After a decade of wear, it fit the contours of his face perfectly. If he’d have had time, he’d have taken off his shirt to show the swirls of pigment that marked him as the legendary warrior, but the mask would have to do.
Keir brought Cogadh up to Brodie, the two of them side by side with their claymores drawn. “Caraid no nàmhaid?” Keir’s voice boomed out in Gaelic, making Grace bump against his chest. “Friend or foe?” he repeated in English.
Grace leaned her head to the right, peeking out around the edge of the targe. Keir pressed his hand against her forehead to push her back behind as five men, draped in furs, emerged. They were on foot and held crude weapons: three short swords, a wooden pike, and a pitchfork. “Who raises arms against the Devil of Dunakin?”
Keir felt Grace turn to look at him, but it couldn’t be helped. Her gasp at his appearance sat like a boulder in his gut, but he ignored it and shifted to his familiar role. Brodie sat his charger, his own sword out and ready if the fools attacked. There were only five of them, easy work if he rode alone, but he had Grace before him. Brodie knew, without orders, that he’d have to do most of the fighting while Keir protected the lass. Brodie gave him a nod, an anticipatory grin on his face. Aye, the man loved to war.
“They’d be bloody goats charging into a wolf’s den to challenge the Devil of Dunakin,” Brodie said and looked back out at the men. “Or do ye not recognize the harbinger of your own foolhardy deaths? Do ye wish to forfeit your heads to sit upon Mackinnon spikes?”
The man in the middle wore a fur hat that looked odd with his poorer wrapping. Thieves, no doubt. “Drop your moneys, and we will let ye pass,” he said, though his eyes stared out widely as he took in the devil’s symbol etched into the leather front of Keir’s targe. Were they still far enough south that his name and symbol didn’t bring avoidance? A pity for the doomed group.
“We do not bow to the demands of thieves,” Keir said over Grace’s ducked head. “Be gone, and leave unscathed, or I will paint the snow red with your blood.”
“God’s teeth,” Grace whispered and curled forward, grabbing tighter to the saddle horn.
Several of the thieves glanced at one another, but the leader kept his gaze straight. “Do your worst, Devil. I’d sell me own soul to feed my family.”
Mo chreach. Keir exhaled long and caught Brodie’s questioning gaze. He wouldn’t attack without Keir’s command. And a man desperate to feed his kin was not the greedy cods that deserved their heads on spikes. Yet, they couldn’t threaten innocent travelers without recourse, either.
Keir reached for the tops of his boots, grasping the four daggers he kept sheathed there. “Hold onto my shield, lass,” he whispered, his gaze directly on his targets.
“Oh God,” Grace said, ducking farther as her slender hands replaced his around the inside handle.
“Ye’ve been warned,” Keir said, and waited for the leader to raise his sword, his friends following. But instead of spurring Cogadh forward, Keir whipped each of his dirks through the air with a sharp snap of his wrist. And one, two, three, four, all the dirks embedded into the tops of the men’s right shoulders. One heartbeat behind him, Brodie hit the fifth thief in the same shoulder and the leader in both thighs. All five men yelled in pain, the leader dropping to the snow.
Keir pressed inward on Cogadh’s flanks, and his mighty war horse broke easily through the line of injured bandits. “Brodie!” he yelled and signaled to him to drop a sack of coins amidst the men as he plowed through, sending them flying to escape Cogadh’s hooves. The horses, fueled with battle frenzy, tore through the snow, their stout hooves finding purchase.
“Did you kill them?” Grace asked, grasping his middle to twist, looking behind him where he was certain she could see that they were not mortally wounded.
“Of course he did,” Brodie called over the heavy plodding and huffing of the galloping horses. “The Devil of Dunakin shows no mercy.”
Through the cutouts of his black mask, Keir could see Grace staring up at him, confusion on her features, but he returned his gaze to the path. He had no wish to see her judgment.
Another mile churned away under hooves, and Keir signaled for them to slow to a fast walk. Yanking up the back edge of his mask, he peeled the leather shroud away, clipping it easily to Cogadh’s saddle with his targe.
Grace sat against his chest, her face forward, where the wind tugged tendrils of hair from her hood. They rode in silence for another mile before her words drifted back to him. “You didn’t kill them, yet Brodie would have the world think you did.” She stared ahead. “The mask, the title, and the tales work to make you sound like a monster when you are not.”
Her words coiled inside him, relief that she understood something of him that he could not admit, mixed with regret—neither of which changed anything about Keir’s life. He was the protector of Dunakin, and he always would be. He’d sworn the oath as a young man, and believed in fulfilling his duty to keep the Mackinnon clan safe.
“My reputation alone can save people. The mask, title, and tales frighten them away before they come to harm. ’Tis a mercy,” he said. “Else I’d be covered head to toe in black crosses.”
Grace kept her face forward. “It sounds lonely.”
His gut hardened at the edge of pity in her voice. “The Devil of Dunakin is surrounded by warriors and family, revered and feared. There is no room for loneliness in the press of duty.”
“I’m not talking about the monster in the black mask,” Grace said. “I’m talking about Keir Mackinnon.”
Keir stared forward over her head. The snowy path wound between large winter-bare oaks. A small bird flitted from branch to branch, hopping higher until it could break free into heavy, gray sky. “They are one and the same, lass. I was raised to be the Devil of Dunakin, and I will die as the Devil of Dunakin.”
Chapter Eleven
“You have a sister a
nd a brother,” Grace said from her seat on Little Warrior. They’d camped a second night. Grace had once again slept alone in the tent, or rather tried to sleep inside the tent with evergreens under her and thoughts of Keir rolling around her traitorous mind. They’d risen at dawn and had ridden all day across the snowy landscape toward Mallaig. “And a nephew who is ill, and a grandmother, your father’s mother, who is still alive.” She should learn all the players in this dreadful adventure so she could make her plans for escape.
“Aye,” Keir answered.
“Fiona Mackinnon,” Brodie called from where he rode several yards to the side. “Now, she’s a strong woman.”
“Physically or mentally?” Grace asked.
“Both. She was a warrior in her youth,” Keir said.
Grace twisted in her seat to see Keir. The breeze teased his loose hair around a strong jaw that held a week’s growth of hair. “She battled?”
“With perfect aim,” Brodie said.
“After her husband died, she would ride into battle with her son. She was talented with the bow, staying in the rear and picking off the enemy from the back of her horse. She was quite fierce,” Keir said.
“Still is, just more with her tongue now than with her arrows,” Brodie added with a chuckle.
“And your sister, Odara, isn’t married?”
“She goes by Dara,” Keir said. “And no, she hasn’t met a man strong enough to lure her to the pulpit.”
“If this new fellow works out, she might wed. He’s a warrior from the south who’s become friends with Rabbie,” Brodie said. “Has lots of scars and a crooked nose. He might be strong enough to handle her.”
“Dara’s been working to heal Lachlan, but nothing seems to be helping,” Keir said.
Grace worried at her bottom lip and took mental stock of what herbs remained in her satchel. She’d used most of the feverfew, garlic bulbs, and honey for Keir and his horse. Despite her fury with Keir and his brother’s orders, the boy deserved her healing talents. “Since you’ve demanded my help, I will need more medicines. Does he have a fever?”
“At times he feels hot, flushed, but it was the weakness that first took hold of him. He began sleeping for great lengths of time, and when awake, he complains he can’t lift his limbs.” Keir’s voice had taken on the heaviness of concern.
“What has he been treated with?” Grace asked, wishing she had Ava with her to confer.
“He’s been bled and given blessed water with rosemary. That seemed to revive him for a bit. Sometimes he vomits. My sister never leaves his side, but she is not a healer.”
“There are no healers on the Isle of Skye?” she asked, finding that hard to believe. Skye was larger than Mull from what she remembered of her studies back in England.
“Our clan is renowned for our warring, lass,” Brodie said. “Not our healing. Healers can be found within the other clans on the isle but none whom we could trust not to kill Rabbie’s heir.”
“And yet you trust me? I could be as malicious. An unknown woman who is furious that she’s been stolen from her original journey.”
“Furious?” Brodie asked, his face breaking into a grin. “I’ve seen frolicking kittens more furious than ye, lass.”
She frowned at him, narrowing her eyes. But guilt tightened her stomach, not anger. She was a terrible prisoner. Bitterly, she considered ordering Brodie to drink a purgative as a preventative to some made-up illness with which she sensed he was coming down.
Keir spoke behind her, his tone even. “Regardless of your mood, Grace Ellington, ye are a kind woman. Your character would not allow ye to harm a child.”
“And,” Brodie called over, “ye don’t know Rab well enough to kill his offspring.”
“God’s teeth, who would hate a man enough to want to kill his child?” Grace caught the glance between the two men from the corner of her eye.
“Any opposition to a king with an heir,” Keir said.
“Humph,” Grace said, though she knew it was true. England’s King Henry had been overly worried that his Princess Mary would be murdered by assassins or die from illness like his son, Henry, who had died soon after birth. It was still whispered that Queen Catherine had been poisoned, thus causing her son to die. “Well, your brother is not a king,” she said.
“In our clan, he may as well be,” Brodie said. “He is the chief, and the clan moves according to his say.” Brodie’s face hardened with his words, making Grace’s stomach tighten. She wasn’t sure she wanted to meet Keir’s brother.
“You said his wife died in childbirth,” Grace said, listening to the regular plodding of the horses.
“Aye,” Keir said.
“Was it long ago?”
“Two years now. We buried Bradana with her newborn bairn,” Keir said, his voice flat. Neither Highlander said anything more. Grace remembered the larger cross with a tiny one next to it, etched over Keir’s heart. They were both ornately drawn with intertwining lines.
The horses walked swiftly, their hooves breaking the crisp surface of the deep snow. Evergreens stood, draped with white, while oaks and birch trees looked like gray skeletons, their bony arms reaching to the sky. As the sun began to slide behind the branches, the smell of woodsmoke tinged the breeze.
“Mallaig is up ahead,” Brodie said.
“We will gather your supplies, lass, and pay the ferryman to take us across tonight,” Keir said.
She was tired, but she knew that every minute counted with an ill child. “We need to go straightaway to an apothecary to purchase feverfew, garlic bulbs, any fruits available…”
Keir shifted behind her, reaching for something. “My grandmother tends an herb garden for the family since Bradana died. There is garlic, as well as rosemary, still alive in the winter. We have fall apples and cabbages.”
Grace nodded while watching a path appear between the trees. Without examining the boy, she really didn’t know what would be needed. Perhaps the cure would be easy, and Keir would keep his promise to return her to her journey. But she’d keep vigilant and learn as much as she could about her captors. As soon as Lachlan improved, if there was any hint of Keir breaking his promise, she would find a way to leave on her own.
They followed where other hoofprints muddied the snow. Keir shifted again, making Grace turn. She blinked. “What happened to your shirt?” she asked. He sat behind her naked from the waist up. Dark markings wound about his thick arm, and the crosses could be seen running down one side to disappear under the draped sash that came up from the kilt. He wore black leather gauntlets and a severe expression.
He didn’t answer. Brodie cleared his throat. “We are coming into sometimes hostile territory. The Devil of Dunakin isn’t affected by cold, and the markings remind people who he is.”
Grace looked between Brodie and Keir. “Well, that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. You’ll freeze.”
Without bending his head, his gaze shifted to Grace. There was a warmth in his eyes despite the angular hardness of his features. “I am used to riding bare, even in the winter. Cold doesn’t affect me.”
“Bloody hell, you are human. Of course, cold affects you,” she said, turning to face front and rocking side to side to inch backward into his chest, silently giving him some of her heat. She leaned there, the feel of his mostly bare torso and chest against her back. “Absolutely foolhardy,” she murmured with as much seething as she could muster.
Mallaig seemed to be about the size of Kilchoan. Grace took note of a humble chapel, tavern, smithy, boatyard, bakery, butcher, and several rows of thatch-roofed cottages with smoke wafting from propped openings along the edges of the dwellings. Perhaps she could find help among these people. Were they God-fearing and kind or Devil-fearing and loyal to the Mackinnons?
“I’ll find the ferryman,” Brodie said and veered toward the tavern.
Keir guided Little Warrior to the right. “The apothecary sits at the edge of town.”
Grace didn’t answer. She w
as too busy watching a child scurry back from the road as they passed, his eyes as round as full moons. As they trotted past a woman sweeping her stoop, she looked up, her eyes widening like the boy’s, and slid the sign of the cross before her bosom. Several men at the smithy, who were covering the open fires for the night, stopped to stare at them. One man nodded solemnly toward Keir, but Grace saw another make the sign of the cross as if Satan himself passed. Ahead, two ladies, who were talking out front, hurried into the house, and an elderly woman snatched up a little girl, practically running to get her inside.
“God’s teeth,” Grace murmured. “Do they think you eat children?”
“Most likely.”
She twisted to see if he was jesting, but he stared ahead, the same hard scowl in place.
“But you don’t,” she said with angry confidence, turning back to frown outward. Were they all foolish, cowardly people who would be too afraid to help her? “They probably don’t want their children thinking it’s normal to ride out in winter without a shirt.”
He remained silent, guiding his horse to stop before a small cottage with a wooden sign over the door. A mortar and pestle was painted in burgundy upon it. “Come in with me,” she said, thinking to get him somewhere warm. The breeze had picked up, and she was cold even with her layers. “I worry who might be in there.” Although, she shouldn’t care one whit if he sickened and died from his own foolishness.
“The woman is Maude MacDonald. She is old and harmless,” he said, dismounting. With a grip around her waist, he lifted her down onto the snowy ground.
“I will be in after I check Cogadh’s hock.”
It seemed he wished to freeze, so she settled her satchel on her shoulder, turning toward the door. With a short knock, she pressed inward. The room was warm and held a pungent, mixed odor of herbs and medicines.
The Devil of Dunakin Castle (Highland Isles) Page 9