Morganna (The Brocade Collection, Book 4)

by Jackie Ivie

  “Then, why did you take me?” Morganna asked softly. She could have bitten her tongue for saying that much, however, as it seemed the glacial blue of his eyes warmed for the smallest moment. She knew why. She’d been goaded into an answer.

  “You’re the ticket to my freedom, lass…my pass out of this country and back into power. I may have a price on my head, but what Highlander would harm me when I’ve got Squire Morgan of the Clan FitzHugh? And what king would turn me away when I possess the means to ridicule and ruin his enemy, The Bruce?”

  Morganna answered him with silence again. He smiled shallowly.

  “We waste words, when we should be preparing. Drink. Eat. You won’t have much time for such, you know.” He gestured to a side table, dim against the wall. Morganna didn’t move her eyes. “It’s in your best interest, lass, for you will na’ like me once I force you.”

  “I doona’ like you now,” she replied.

  He laughed at that. “No matter that. We’ve a long journey ahead, you’ve a bairn to protect and birth, and we’ve a king to impress at the end of it.” He rubbed his hands together.

  “Let the hag go,” Morganna replied.

  The hand movement halted, but he kept them clasped at his belly. “Now why would I go and do a fool thing like that?”

  “I have a bad aim sometimes. It comes and goes.”

  “And your sister has a lot of flesh to lose should you attempt it.”

  Morganna didn’t move. Elspeth did. Her head started back and she stared, almost unseeingly, at Morganna.

  Morganna shrugged, almost imperceptibly. “You have me. That’s all you need. Let her go.”

  “Oh…I think I like her better right where she is.”

  “Why? So you can rape her again?” Morganna saw Elspeth’s frown from the corner of her eye. She didn’t dare move her gaze in that direction.

  “Ah, lass. Lass. You’re confusing her. She charges for her favors now, she does. Has naught to do with rape.”

  “You took her? Again?” Elspeth’s frown was changing as Morganna continued speaking with a low-toned, non-emotional voice. “Was na’ beating, killing and raping the one time sufficient for you, FitzHugh? You dinna’ get your satisfaction?”

  “Doona’ place words in my mouth lass. I doona’ like it.”

  “Then, let the hag go. You don’t need her.”

  “I dinna’ say that,” he replied.

  “So…you do need her?”

  “Na’ for the meaning you put to it. I need her to control you. I should think that much easily seen. And, despite your words, I ken the truth. She speaks of little else save her bairn. Her wee one. That would be you, no doubt. And I dinna’ touch your sister this time. The lass sells herself now. I’d catch the pox.”

  “Let her go, then.”

  “She does na’ have much to go back to.”

  Elspeth didn’t just pale at those words, she went ashen. Morganna tried to ignore her, but the wide-eyed look of shock on the woman right beside Phineas was reaching clear to her breastbone.

  “What have you done to her croft, Phineas? ’Twas na’ much, but all she had. Doona’ tell me you razed it…too.” Morganna clucked her tongue after she finished, and waited during the pause for her words to sink in. She knew it had as tears slipped from Elspeth’s unblinking eyes and down her cheeks.

  “There was…a fire,” Elspeth whispered brokenly.

  “You burned her croft, dinna’ you?” Morganna asked.

  “She dinna’ give up anything willingly. We had to tear the sett you’re wearing from her arms after she ran back into that hovel after it. Stupid lass, risking her life over a bit of material. That appears to be another KilCreggar trait, does na’ it?”

  Morganna swallowed, but it felt as dry as ash would as it scraped all the way down her throat. Elspeth had gone back into a fire-eaten croft after the gray-and-black feile-breacan? She very nearly turned her eyes to her sister, but she knew she couldn’t bear to see the suffering sure to be written on her sister’s face.

  “You’d best wish your horses brought soon, Phineas,” she whispered.

  “Why would that be, lass?” he answered in the same type of whisper.

  “Because you are about to reap what you have sown. Elspeth?”

  “You bastard!”

  Elspeth reacted on cue. Her screech and movement to pummel at Phineas gave Morganna all the time she needed. She dropped to a knee and started fumbling for her blade.

  It didn’t help to curse women’s clothing, or the impulse that had made her swathe herself in the KilCreggar plaid, but she did anyway. She was losing precious time getting to her skean, and it was her own fault. She had but another moment or two before Phineas would be overpowering her sister, and she wasn’t going to waste them. Then, it was moot as a booming sound came, so loud, so abrupt, and so intense, the antlers in their sconces rattled.

  There was a moment of shocked silence. Then, Elspeth started up her screeching again. A second boom came, even louder than the first.

  “They’ve broken through the bailey!”

  Robert MacIlvray yelled it as he ran in, dropping a tree-sized bolt across the double-door behind him.

  “Why was it na’ guarded, like I ordered?”

  “It was! They dinna’ come that way, as we expected, but the rear. And I dinna’ have enough men for that!”

  “The sneak-thieves!”

  Phineas’ cursing gave way to more of Elspeth’s screams, and Morganna finally had her blade. She was almost to her feet when another boom came, this one harder and louder, and making the floor tremble so much that she was safer at a crouch. She went back down.

  They were ramming the castle. From the sound of it, they were already at the large, oaken doors of the keep, too. Morganna eyed Phineas from her position near the floor. She’d freed her blade, but it had taken too long. Phineas had her sister in front of him and they were both struggling.

  “Get her, Robb!” he shouted from behind the shield of her sister. His words were full of frustration and anger, and they blended with Elspeth’s wild screeching, making the walls echo. “We’ll need the squire! They’ll bargain for her!”

  He made a choking noise at the end of his speech. Another hit came, this one bringing roof and floor material raining down on everything. Morganna wiped at her eyes with the backs of her hands, blinking at the dust and debris. Robb MacIlvray’s arms were just as hard as they’d looked, as he wrapped about her from behind, lifting her easily from her crouch.

  “Good! You’re got her! Hold her! Hold!”

  Elspeth wasn’t screeching, anymore. She was clawing and slapping at Phineas. Morganna couldn’t help. She was above the floor, and MacIlvray’s arms weren’t giving her any space, even for breathing. She sliced out blindly, curving the blade into his arm. Then, she was dropped.

  Phineas hadn’t been lying about his status, after all. Morganna’s eyes widened at the outpouring of armed clansmen into the room from every orifice the chamber seemed to have.

  “You canna’ fight them, you fools! There’s too many! Get the squire! Get her! They’ll stop if we have her!”

  Phineas was having trouble speaking. It had something to do with Elspeth’s fury in his arms. Morganna spun from the sight. She dodged chairs and stools and men. Then she was running, slamming into the first man she reached, and using that force to push a way out of the room at exactly the same moment the doors gave. She didn’t escape easily, and lost the KilCreggar feile-breacan as someone tried to use it as a hand-hold. Behind her, she heard oak splintering, and sounds of battle as claymores hit shields and more. Morganna didn’t hesitate. She couldn’t. She refused to be the bargaining wedge Phineas used to escape justice.

  Doors opened for her, beckoning her one way, and then another, and they closed behind her as soon as she passed through. She caught more than one glimpse of a servant woman as it happened. Hadn’t Zander told her once that Phineas abused his servants? She twisted her lips grimly as she ran. His serva
nts appeared to be repaying the treatment.

  “Here!”

  Another hissed whisper, another opened door, and Morganna waited while it was bolted behind her before moving again. She had gained distance and time, and a pain in her side from her flight. Unfortunately, she may have lost every sense of direction, too.

  She spun. The woman who had helped her was just disappearing behind a tapestry. A body hit the door, bowing the bolt inward as she watched.

  Morganna gasped a breath and started running again. The castle was a maze of halls, caverns, and interconnecting rooms. One room led to another, and from there to a third. Nothing looked the same. Morganna’s heartbeat was loud in her ears. She stopped, sucking in breath. There wasn’t a hint of a pursuit.

  “Where is she, Phineas?”

  The muffled yell was Zander, and it was coming from above her. She found a door, gained a hall, and debated which way.

  “If you have harmed a hair on my wife’s head...a hair—!”

  “Oh…you’re here…to kill...me anyway. What does…it matter what I did to her...or how much…she enjoyed it?”

  Phineas was huffing between the words, but they were still brutal. The resulting roar from Zander had pain at its core. It also had Morganna’s feet flying. She didn’t care whether she was going the right way; she only knew she had to get out and let Zander see her.

  “Where is she, Phineas?” Zander yelled again.

  Morganna had to twist the door knob with both hands and then she was out in the wind-whipped rain. Her eyes found them easily. They were on the battlement between towers, two stories above the ground, and climbing higher with each lunge and thrust of their swords. Morganna was directly below them, but apart. She moved to the rock wall, looked up the black rock sides and then down into groundless mist. There was nothing she could use—no access, no steps, no ladder. There didn’t look to be any way from her position to theirs without flying there.

  Her fingers massaged the dragon blade she still carried, drawing on the strange power that it possessed as she looked back up. The combatants had moved from her sight. She had to stumble backwards until her angle was right again. She couldn’t hear how the battle was going, didn’t know where every other clansman was; all she saw was Zander and Phineas.

  Her breath caught, then came again as she watched. Zander was a warrior. Phineas was not. It looked like the outcome was already decided as Zander backed Phineas against a battlement, slamming his claymore over and over, putting dents in Phineas’ shield deep enough that it was concave. Still, he wasn’t satisfied.

  Morganna watched as time and again Zander pummeled Phineas, using his left arm to inflict the most punishment. With one blow, he appeared to have him, and then the laird was dancing away, rolling himself along the crenellations to escape further punishment.

  Then, Morganna saw the red-haired Robb MacIlvray. He was in a tower above Phineas and Zander and directly in her line of vision. He had his bow already pulled, and he wasn’t aiming for Phineas. Morganna set her feet and let fly the dragon blade, straight for Robb’s eye.

  She didn’t know what gave her away, or why Zander pivoted, but her eyes widened with the horror as he caught the blade in his shield at the same moment his eyes met hers.

  “Zander...nay!”

  She was screaming it as Robb MacIlvray’s bow twanged, sending an arrow behind the stone wall, where she couldn’t see. Phineas and Zander disappeared, and there wasn’t any sign of Robb anymore, either. Morganna panicked. Her heart caught in her throat with fear, and her breath came in great gulping gasps that hurt.

  Then, she was running. She had to find the way to them, and the passages weren’t any help. Morganna flew along them, scraping the soles of her feet in the women’s slippers, and slamming full-length against each oaken door she came to, before taking the knob in both hands to twist it, and opening the door so she could shove through it. And she was lost. No faceless servant women were guiding her, no unseen hands were opening and closing doors. Tears were fogging her eyes, burning at her lungs, and making her nose a mass of clogged tissue. Still, she ran.

  She came to a double-door, the match to the entry one. That was ridiculous. Her mind disavowed it even as her eyes ran over it. She was not in the great room with the banqueting tables, nor was she outside on the stoop. FitzHugh Castle must have another door, identical to their front one. She grabbed a handle and pulled. Nothing.

  The door swung out, Morganna with it, and then Zander was there, grabbing her to him before the force he’d yanked the door with, sent her to her knees.

  “Morganna!”

  His orator’s voice hadn’t lost a note of stridency, but she didn’t care. She was up in his arms, against his chest, her legs about his waist, as her hands ran all along his shoulders and back to check for the arrow shaft, and she was raining kisses on his face the entire time.

  “Oh Zander...oh love! Zander!”

  She didn’t get another joy-filled note out, as he had her mouth. Her laughter was at odds with the tears streaming down her face as she checked him over and found nothing. He wasn’t letting her get far enough from him to see and verify it, though. He had her arms linked atop his, his hands at the back of her head, and was making certain she lived with every movement of his lips on hers.

  “I really hate to intrude, but it is devilish weather outside, and you are blocking the door, Lord Zander KilCreggar-FitzHugh. Oh. Pardon the intrusion. I see it’s your lady. We’ll just stand in the elements and await your reunion. Won’t we, lads?”

  Robert the Bruce, is here? she wondered. Morganna giggled, and the motion halted the vacuum of Zander’s lips to hers.

  He raised his head. Midnight-blue eyes searched for, and found what he was looking for. He started shuddering, and then he was burying his face in her neck, and he was barely keeping from sobbing. Morganna held to him, crooned to him, and waited.

  “Dear God, Morganna...I feared I would na’ be in time.”

  “You were in time,” she whispered back.

  “Phineas...he is a devil. He takes—! And after all I promised you! After the horror that was your childhood. I have never felt such fear as when my brothers entered camp without you. Never.”

  “I was na’ harmed, Zander.”

  He sucked in breath, and sniffed loudly with it. He wasn’t shuddering anymore, but he was trembling. He lifted his head. Morganna waited for him.

  “Truth?” he asked.

  “Truth.” She tipped her head to one side.

  “Thank God.” He had her to him again, and it was impossible to see anything except the skin of his neck, then his ear.

  “You are na’ hurt, either?” she asked.

  He shook his head. His light brown hair brushed her face with the motion.

  “Then, how? Who? I saw the arrow fly—” she began, but she was interrupted.

  “’Twas Squire Morgan you saw, my lady! Squire Morgan gained justice for the KilCreggar-FitzHugh clan! We all saw it! Dinna’ we, men?” The king was the one interrupting her, using every timbre of his booming voice on the crowd behind him.

  Zander pivoted at the same time that Morganna lifted her head from his shoulder. There was a sea of FitzHugh men on the walkway beyond the door, and all patiently awaiting entry since she and Zander had been blocking it. Morganna grinned and put her face back into Zander’s shoulder as the cheers grew.

  “Aye! ’Twas a great shot, too! From yon tower! Our Squire Morgan stopped the auld, Sassenach-loving FitzHugh laird in his track, an arrow straight through his neck. I have na’ seen the like! Isna’ that so, lads?”

  There was the correct response to this, although the bellow of cheers made it an indeterminate sound one way or the other. The king gestured with his arm.

  “Then there is the MacIlvray man! We all heard of his guilt, too, did we not? ’Twas just and fair that Squire Morgan got him, too! Why, he still lies, face-down in the courtyard below us. That was a great shot, too. Who else, save Squire Morgan, could have
made such a toss? Why, Clansman MacIlvray has a blade with a hilt made of two dragons, deep in his own chest, and all know who carries that blade! Squire Morgan! You see? He has not left us, my fellow countrymen! He comes when needed. He will always come when needed!”

  Morgan’s eyes sought Zander’s. “’Twas you who tossed the knife? You?” she repeated.

  “You are ever in doubt of your husband. I am a fair marksman. I toss. Your dragon blade used to be mine, remember? Besides, I tossed left-handed...under-handed.” He raised his eyebrows up and down several times. “I’ve been practicing.”

  “Lead us to the great-room, KilCreggar-FitzHugh. I fancy a sampling of the new laird’s mead! Better yet, get me Ari FitzHugh!”

  “Ari?” Morgan whispered.

  “Aye,” Zander replied. “All of them. They wasted no time getting back to us. ’Twas a good thing, too. They could na’ have taken the castle by themselves. It took a score of men just to hoist the ram used on the front gates.”

  “Step forward and pledge yourself to your king and sovereign! I am blessed to have you at the head of the mighty FitzHugh clan! I accept your allegiance to Scotland’s side, too. Where is the man?”

  Ari was being shuttled through the crowd nearest the balcony. He was puffing with exertion when he strode through the door and went to one knee at The Bruce’s feet.

  “As the new laird of the mighty FitzHugh clan, I pledge my loyalty, and my clan, to my just and true king,” he said solemnly. Then he stood, and turned to the crowd. “May it be recorded that Sassenach-loving FitzHughs are no more. A FitzHugh clansman is a true Scotsman. Now, and forever!” There was another wild cheer at the end of his speech.

  “Come then, FitzHugh, show us your hospitality. Serve us your mead, until we drain your supply. Roast us a sup! ’Twas a wild ride here, and no time for foodstuffs. My men thirst! They hunger!”