by Amanda Scott
Rob knew he might easily have become like many other noble heirs, who grew up believing that when they inherited their father’s lands, they could simply impose their will on their tenants as nobles in the past had done. His father had taught him otherwise, and Rob’s own experiences as a warrior and leader of other warriors had taught him even more than Lord MacAulay had about some things.
Lady Muriella had seemed only naïve when she had put herself in Dougal MacPharlain’s path. But today’s behavior proved she had learned nowt from that experience. Pluff would have done better to have kept the postern gate shut this morning, and he might have done her a greater favor that first day by just keeping silent.
Shaking that angry and admittedly stupid thought from his head, Rob thought instead of the way she had stomped outside before the driving rain had chased her across the clearing through its puddles. Even that image failed to cheer him.
What if something did happen to her? How would he feel then? How much of his anger arose from the fact that she had invaded his privacy as she had?
To Scáthach, he said soberly, “I suppose we cannot let her tramp home alone without making sure that she gets there safely, can we, lass? I’ll just change from this wet tunic into my leathers and fetch my wool cap and an oilskin. Then we’ll go after her. She need never even know that we are following her.”
Having turned onto the narrower, less traveled path to the Wylies’ cottage, Muriella cursed MacAulay again under her breath. In truth, she would rather have shrieked her curse to the heavens, or wherever curses flew. But shrieking with one’s head down, to avoid an unfortunate sluice of icy water into one’s face from the overhanging trees, or worse, into one’s hood or down one’s neck, was nearly impossible and the feeble result not worth the effort.
Water had soaked through her rawhide boots, so her feet were wet and getting cold. Under her cloak, her clothing felt damp against her skin.
Thanks to the thick fur-lined wool of that cloak, and by tucking her hands into her armpits, she was warm enough otherwise. Nevertheless, Annie’s cottage seemed farther from Dree’s than it had ever seemed before.
“May the devil fly away with that horrid man,” she muttered grimly.
With her head down, her hood limited the view ahead while she watched her footing on the narrow path. By glancing up now and then to mark her progress she also made sure that she did not inadvertently bump into any lurking low branch.
Her gaze had lingered on the wet pathway for some time when suddenly a pair of large black boots appeared right before her, their toes pointing her way.
She looked up into Dougal MacPharlain’s smirking face.
“Ay-de-mi,” he murmured. “How thoughtful of ye to meet me here, lass.”
Rob loped across the clearing faster than her ladyship had, with Scáthach splashing at his heels. He slowed when he reached the trail to Andrew’s tower but lengthened his stride. He hoped she had not got too far ahead but had no reason to hurry until it occurred to him that if she was still angry and getting well soaked, she would be walking faster than usual, perhaps even running.
Scáthach ranged ahead, moving here and there around trees and shrubbery as if she were finding interesting scents beneath the leaves and not following any particular scent. Surely, the lass would not have taken such a circuitous route. The path between Mag’s cottage and the tower was plain to see.
They soon came to a place where Scáthach hesitated and glanced at Rob. He saw that a barely discernible fisherman’s path forked away downhill and northward along a rushing but still narrow rill that rainwater was trying to turn into a burn.
“If you are saying that we might want to hurry back, lest we have to ford this thing later, I do see it,” Rob said. “But I’ll wager it won’t get wider than a foot or two.” He gestured for the dog to move on and stepped across the rill to follow.
Moments later, Scáthach paused to shake herself after passing under leafy, low-hanging, wet shrubbery, and Rob realized that anyone moving ahead of them would have struck the branches in passing. Muriella could not possibly be so far ahead that, in the time since her passage, the shrubs had loaded up again with water.
He called the dog to heel and made his way more carefully. Studying the path and shrubbery, he soon became certain that her ladyship had not passed that way.
“She must have gone to the Wylies’,” he muttered.
A barely audible canine sound of inquiry drew his glance back to the dog.
Scáthach’s head was up, her muzzle aimed northeastward. Just then, Rob heard a distant, unnatural sound but one clearly audible over the rain still pelting the canopy above. It sounded like a bird’s cry, but—
The sound came more loudly, shockingly recognizable as a woman’s scream.
Signaling Scáthach to lead the way, Rob set off running toward the sound.
Muriella fought Dougal fiercely, but her strength was no match for his. When she screamed, he clapped a hand across her mouth. She bit him.
He snatched his hand away long enough for her to scream again but clapped it back so hard that she tasted blood and feared he might have loosened her teeth.
Holding her tightly against him, he put his mouth to her ear and said grimly, “I will make you sorry that you did that, lass. If you do it again, I’ll knock you senseless and carry you the rest of the way.” Taking what looked like a rag from somewhere under his plaid, as well as a slender rope, he ordered her to open her mouth, stuffed the rag in willy-nilly, and tied the rope across it to keep it in.
She wanted to tell him that she could barely breathe. Faith, she wanted to kill him! But she could do neither, so she fought to calm herself and to think.
Her first thought was that MacAulay would say she had come by her just desserts again because she had not obeyed his order to go straight home. Tears sprang to her eyes at the thought of home. What would Dougal do to her?
As if in answer to that question, he released her, saying, “Move along, lass. I’ll carry ye if I have to, because ye canna weigh more than a bundle o’ feathers. I’d liefer not do that, but I will if I must, and it’d be right painful for ye.”
When she hesitated, he shoved her up the slope ahead of him toward the pass. She walked obediently until he pushed her again and ordered her to go faster. Stumbling on a loose rock, she cried out under the gag but let herself fall, hoping to slow him down, just in case anyone had heard her scream.
Chapter 6
Through the still-driving rain, Rob scanned the few portions he could see of the high, rocky slope beyond the woods. Several times he caught sight of movement between the trees, but he could not tell exactly what it was that he was seeing.
Nearing the edge of the woodland, he saw brief movement again, near the pass where he had spied Dougal days before. Fear surged through him at that memory, but he forced it back into the recesses of his mind. He would do no one any good by leaping to conclusions before he had gleaned a reliable fact or two.
When he emerged from the trees and Scáthach stepped ahead of him, he saw that despite the rain, fur on the scruff of her neck had bristled, making her tension clear to the man who had trained her. He murmured, “Doucely, lass, doucely.”
Her perked ears twitched in response, but she kept close instead of ranging yards ahead, as usual. Although such behavior suggested that she anticipated danger, he knew she was likely only sensing and mimicking his state of mind.
Two figures came into view on the steep, boulder-strewn slope, two-thirds of the way to the pass. One, clearly female, walked just ahead of the other.
Recognizing Lady Muriella easily, Rob reached to be sure his sword was secure in its sheath, and the sheath secure on its baldric. He did not want to lose it while scrambling up the slope, although he knew that the other two were too near the pass for him to catch up with them before they reached it.
“Doucely, Scá,” he said again as he increased his pace. He had nearly come out barefoot, as he had that morning, for he ofte
n walked so in sunshine or rain and had assumed that he would be following the lass on damp, spongy ground. At the last minute, finding his boots beside the oiled skins, he had decided to wear them.
Grateful for the decision now, since raw leather would grip wet, slick granite better than bare feet would, he moved as fast as the rugged terrain allowed.
The next time he looked up, he saw that Muriella had fallen.
Growling low in his throat at the sight, Rob murmured, “I shall owe Dougal something special for letting that happen.”
Scáthach growled, too, and eyed Rob tensely.
Although he understood the dog’s uneasiness, he said, “Nay, lass. I’d be glad to see you put an end to that villain. But he’d likely see you coming, and I fear he’d be too skillful with his dirk for your safety or hers. He could injure or kill you both before I could catch up with you, so we’ll keep them in sight and seek a better chance to take him down.”
Aware that he was just thinking aloud, Rob lengthened his stride, giving thanks for the oiled skin as well as the boots. Not only was the rain still pelting down, but if he had to follow them far, he’d be camping that night under oilskin.
Her ladyship was standing again. Mayhap she would have the sense to limp or do something else to slow them down.
As the thought occurred to him, he saw Dougal pick her up as if she weighed nowt and sling her over a shoulder.
Being picked up and flipped over onto Dougal’s shoulder knocked the wind out of Murie but did not seem to affect Dougal at all. She tried to kick him, but the devilish man pinned her cloak-covered knees to his chest with one steely forearm. Then, using his other hand to steady himself as they went, he strode up the treacherous path with more speed than she thought could possibly be safe.
At least he had taken the awful gag from her mouth after she had fallen, so she could breathe more easily, and the rain was no longer stinging her face.
To think that I wanted to see that wretched pass, she reminded herself, trying not to watch the rocks slipping downward each time he took a step upward. When that thought ended, the image of Robert MacAulay filled her mind’s eye, frowning as heavily as he had when she had lied to him. Her memory shifted abruptly to the truth, that he had not frowned at all then. His expression and demeanor had remained as stoic as usual. So why did she feel now as if he had frowned?
And why was she able to picture that frown so easily?
The answer was not far to seek. She had sensed anger in the man at the time. But, having focused on his face, expecting him to frown, she had ignored what she was sensing. She had simply allowed herself to feel relieved that he was calm.
To divert her thoughts from MacAulay, she raised her head from Dougal’s back and observed the slope below. However, so strong was MacAulay in her mind that she imagined she saw him following them through the downpour. Boulders obstructed the phantomlike image then, making her certain she had imagined it.
Even so, and despite lacking strength enough to keep her head up for long with Dougal bouncing her as he picked a path amid wet bounders on wet granite, she raised it as soon as they moved into the open and she could see the slope again.
Seeing Scáthach trotting ahead of him told her that it really was MacAulay. Oh, why did he not order the fleet wolf-dog to kill Dougal?
The voice of common sense—one that, admittedly, she rarely heeded—suggested that Dougal might be wholly willing and able to kill the dog.
She continued to hope that MacAulay would catch up with them. Hard as it was to keep her head up enough to track his progress, she kept trying to do so until Dougal smacked her hard enough on the backside, even through two skirts and her cloak, to make her cry out.
“Stop wriggling,” he snapped, “or I’ll skelp ye good to make ye mind me.”
“Do your worst,” she retorted. “It won’t help you, because someone is following us. When he catches you, you will be the one who is sorry.”
To her shock, he chuckled, patted her backside again, and said, “Sakes, lass, d’ye think I’ve failed to plan for such?”
A chill swept through her. “What have you done?”
But Dougal just chuckled again, a fiendish sound if ever she had heard one. Only then did she wonder why they had not met any of her father’s watchers.
Rob saw that Dougal had reached the pass and disappeared amid the huge boulders there. But Rob, too, was making rapid progress and still had a good chance to catch them, especially since Dougal was carrying her ladyship.
The continuing rain was irritating, and the steepness of the slope took its toll on Rob, but the danger to Muriella and the plain fact that he bore at least some responsibility for her predicament spurred him on.
Reaching the crest of the slope, where its steepness eased at last, he could easily discern the way they had to have gone. Sheer, rocky walls and high cliffs flanked the uneven, boulder-strewn declivity that evidently served as the pass.
It looked as if someone had rolled boulders off those walls to block the way, though. Certainly no army could invade Tùr Meiloach by this route.
“Trail, Scáthach,” he said. The dog’s nose went down, up, then to ground again. Her ability unimpeded by the rain, she trotted confidently, following a mixed but unmistakable scent of humans that revealed the most common route to her.
As he followed, Rob’s thoughts drifted back to Andrew’s defenses and the guards who had stopped him at the south pass that first evening. In truth, both times he had taken that route to Tùr Meiloach, watchers had guarded it closely.
So where were Andrew’s watchers today? He had seen no one keeping guard and doubted that Andrew’s men would dare use rain as an excuse for shirking their duty. Also, although Andrew had said that his watchers let lone intruders pass but watched them carefully, no one had stopped Dougal on Monday or today, despite his having had a screaming, doubtless struggling Lady Muriella in tow.
Frowning, Rob ignored a flow of images depicting what Dougal might do to her and considered instead what he might have done to Andrew’s guards.
None of it eased his concern.
As he stopped, he spoke softly to halt Scáthach. Then, untying and doffing his oilskin, he shifted his baldric to draw his sword. Putting the baldric back where it belonged, he held the oilskin in place with his free hand and went on.
Making his way through the rubble-strewn pass with Scáthach moving confidently before him, he walked more rapidly than he would have on his own and soon was close enough to the east end of the pass to see the snowcapped peak of Ben Lomond looming into the sodden, gray northeastern sky.
The loch of that name soon came into sight below, its long, narrow northern tip all that he could see. The greater part, miles south of him, widened into an eventual five-mile expanse at its outflowing end. Without the rain, he knew he would likely see where the widening began. Mag had said the place lay twelve miles north of Inch Galbraith, his father’s island seat in the wider part of the loch. A few miles north of where Rob stood lay Arrochar and its Tarbet, a narrow neck of land that was flat enough for men to drag their boats from Loch Lomond to the upper end of the Loch of the Long Boats and the other way around.
From Arrochar’s Tarbet to the north end of Loch Lomond, Mag had said, was yet another seven miles. The loch’s west shore from Galbraith’s land northward was all MacFarlan land.
Pausing when the path began to slope downward toward the loch, Rob saw his quarry below but much farther down the path than he had anticipated.
Neither Lady Muriella nor Dougal was walking now. Evidently, Dougal had left a horse waiting, and not the usual small but surefooted Highland garron. Instead, the bay was large enough to carry them both with apparent ease.
Since Rob was as sure as he could be that her ladyship would not have mounted such a horse unaided, let alone with dispatch, he surmised that Dougal had put her on the horse, ordered her to sit astride, and then mounted behind her. They were moving rapidly down a track that, by comparison to the
pass itself or the rough track on Andrew’s side, looked rubble free. Realizing that he’d be unlikely to catch them before they reached Arrochar, Rob thought he might do better to—
Scáthach growled.
Whirling, casting the oilskin like a whip ahead of him as he did, Rob saw a longsword blade descending toward his head and—just beyond it—a flash of movement that he recognized as Scáthach leaping at something or someone.
“I wish you would not hold me so tightly,” Muriella said. “I don’t like it.”
“Be quiet unless ye want me to gag ye again,” Dougal said. “Had I known what a bletherer ye are, I’d ha’ thought twice afore abducting ye.”
“Then I wish you had known,” she said with feeling. “If you want me to be quiet, then tell me what sort of traps you laid for my father’s watchers and whoever is following us now. Whatever you contrived, I doubt it will succeed.”
“Och, but it will,” he said with the same awful confidence he had shown before. “Whoever followed us earlier is not following us now.”
She knew that was true, because after he had put her on his horse, she had taken a look backward whenever the path curved. To her regret, she saw no one.
“You simply cannot see him in this rain,” she said, striving to sound as confident as Dougal had. “I’ll wager you don’t know who he is, either.”
“I don’t care who he is. My lads will see to him.”
So he had posted armed guards to shield his escape.
Somewhat daunted by that realization, she said nonetheless firmly, “You should care who it is. My good-brothers say that Master Robert MacAulay is one of the finest warriors they know. And you must know that Sir Ian Colquhoun and Sir Magnus Mòr Galbraith-MacFarlan are two of the finest knights in all of Scotland.”