Findley's Lass

by Suzan Tisdale

  “Ye lied! Ye lied to me, Maggy!”

  “Traig,” Maggy said, her voice trembling with fear. “I’m sorry! I had no other choice! I did it fer Ian’s sake!”

  “Aye, ’tis what ye keep sayin’ and I want to ken why! Why did ye lie? Ye had to ken Ian was Gawter’s! Ye can tell by lookin’ at the lad that he isn’t mine! Yet, ye pretended no’ to ken that Gawter and Helena were sharin’ a bed when I told ye!”

  “I didn’t ken, I swear it!” She hadn’t known. Aye, she’d known Gawter had bedded many women during their marriage, but she had no clue that Helena, the woman she loved as a sister, was one of them. She felt more than just betrayed by her friend; Maggy felt like a fool.

  “Lass, no’ even ye can be that stupid! It had to be goin’ on fer years. How could ye no see it by just lookin’ at the boy?”

  Maggy’s head was spinning. Traig was going to kill her; she could see it in his glassy, angry eyes. Mayhap if she kept him talking, explained the truth of it, she could get him to change his mind.

  “Traig, yer right, Ian is no’ yers,” she swallowed, her throat dry, her voice hoarse from crying, pleading for her life, and lack of water. “But he’s no’ Helena’s either.”

  Traig looked at her as if she was the one who had lost her mind. “That makes no sense!” he shouted. “I’ve had enough of yer lies, Maggy!”

  Findley had taken a step into the room, but Maggy’s words stopped him in his tracks. What on earth did she mean that Ian was neither Traig’s nor Helena’s?

  “Traig, listen to me, please!” Tears flowed down her cheeks as she fought to spill the secret she’d been holding onto for more than eight years. “Do ye remember when I was pregnant with Liam, months before I had him, I grew ill and nearly died?”

  Traig studied her closely as if he were waiting for the slightest hint of a lie or trick. He did remember it. Everyone but Gawter had been terribly worried over Maggy. She had become violently ill and was abed for a week. Everyone in the clan thought she would lose her babe, or worse yet that she would die. And that would have been a horrible loss for everyone. Everyone, but Gawter.

  He nodded his head. “Aye, I remember.”

  “’Everyone thought ’twas food poisonin’, but they were only half-right. My food was bad, but it was done on purpose. Gawter tried to kill me, Traig. He poisoned my tea.”

  Traig remained suspicious but Maggy could tell he was thinking over what she was telling him.

  “I ken it was Gawter. I heard him talkin’ to someone, not long after I recovered. He was quite angry that I hadn’t died! I could no’ see who he was speakin’ to, but he admitted that he should have used more poison. He wanted out of our marriage and he didna care if our babe lived or died. He hated me Traig!”

  The more she told him, the more he loosened his grip on her hair. But the dagger still remained pressed to her throat.

  Maggy took another breath. “Ye and Gawter left not long after. Ye were gone fer months, and still gone when I gave birth,” she said. Tears were rolling down her cheeks and neck and they began to pool along the edge of the blade.

  “When ye returned, ye learned that Helena had given birth to yer son,” she paused, choking on tears and guilt. “Ye remember, Traig, ye were so surprised because ye didna ken she was with child when ye left.”

  He remembered that as well. Helena had explained that she hadn’t realized she was with child until after he had left. He had been so glad to have a son that he hadn’t bothered to question her explanations. The look of suspicion remained etched on his face as Maggy spilled forth with the truth. With his brow furrowed, he nodded for her to continue.

  “Helena was my friend, Traig. I trusted her more than I trusted another living soul,” she said, taking another deep breath. The pain of Helena’s betrayal was still very fresh.

  “How is Ian no’ hers?” Traig asked, believing he already knew the answer.

  “Because he’s mine,” she whispered. “Ian is mine!” She swallowed hard. The guilt was building in her stomach, the bile rising in her throat. “I gave birth to Liam and Ian!”

  The words hung in the air like heavy smoke. Findley was frozen in place as he tried to make sense of what Maggy was telling Traig.

  “I ken Gawter would try to kill me again and I worried he’d try to kill me sons! If he’d poison me whilst I was carryin’ them, I kent he’d try again! I wanted me boys to live, Traig! I had to keep them safe! If I couldna save them both, then I could at least save one! ’Twas Helena who came up with the notion. She said she’d love him as if he were her own!” she began to sob as the truth spilled out.

  “Helena said she would take one of them, raise him as her own. I’d no’ have to send one of them away. I’d be able to see him every day because ye lived in the keep with us! I didna ken what else to do Traig! I was terrified of Gawter! And I had every right to be! Months later, he tried again to poison me. But we were better prepared, we were expectin’ it. Helena kept several antidotes ready, fer nearly any kind of poison he might use,” her voice was nearly gone and if she hadn’t been chained to the wall, she would have collapsed to the floor in utter exhaustion and heartache.

  Giving up Ian had been the single most difficult decision she had ever had to make. Although she had been able to see him nearly every day those first few months, it was not the same. When Traig had learned he was a father and insisted he and Helena move into one of the cottages nearby, it had nearly done Maggy in. Every day, she had to remind herself that she had made the right decision. If Gawter succeeded in killing her, and, God forbid, Liam, then at least one of her sons would live. At the time, it had made perfectly good sense and it was the only thing that had given her hope.

  Findley was shocked to hear Maggy’s confession. He was certain that Maggy spoke the truth. If Gawter had not already been dead, Findley would have been tempted to gut the bastard. Not just for the attempts he made to kill Maggy, but because she had been forced to give up one of her sons in order to insure he had some future and lived beyond his first year!

  “So ye let me believe I was the boy’s father?” Traig whispered. His eyes were glazed over as he stared across the room. His mind reeled. Aye, he’d known the moment he laid eyes on Ian that the boy did not belong to him. Deep down however, he had been holding on to one last thread of hope that the boy was his. Maggy had destroyed that. After a long moment he looked back to her.

  “Ye lied, Maggy! Ye let me believe he was mine!”

  Fear enveloped Maggy’s heart and her stomach tightened. She had hoped her confession would bring back the man she had once called her friend. She had hoped he would realize why she had done what she had done and he would be able to forgive her for it. “Traig, I be sorry! I didna ken what else to do!”

  Traig tightened his hold on her hair and slammed her head back and against the wall. His voice seethed with hatred and anger. “Ye could have told me! I could have helped ye! But instead, ye chose to lie like the whore I married!”

  Findley knew that Traig had finally toppled over the edge. He knew time had run out and there was no hope that Traig would come to his senses and let Maggy go free.

  In the length of two heartbeats, Findley pulled a dagger from his boot and flung it across the room. It landed in the back of the man’s neck with a sickening thud. The man jerked around, still holding to Maggy’s hair.

  “Who the bloody…” his words trailed away. A confused look came to the man’s face as death took him in that moment and he fell to the floor.

  Maggy sobbed as large tears streamed down her cheeks. Her eyes were tightly closed and her body shook uncontrollably. She was unaware of anything going on in the room around her.

  “Maggy,” Findley uttered her name as he crossed the room to come to her aid. Rowan sheathed his sword and pulled the dead man away so that Findley might have better access to her.

  “Maggy,” he repeated as he took her face in his hands, unable to control his own tears of relief.

  Was she act
ually hearing Findley’s voice, or was she imagining it again? Long moments passed before she could open her eyes and several more before could convince herself that he was really there. When recognition finally set in, her tears increased and it was very difficult for her to speak. “Findley,” she whispered.

  “I hurried, as fast as I could,” he told her as he brushed a kiss against her forehead. Though he was relieved to see her alive, the vision of the woman he loved chained to the wall tore at his gut. Had he tarried any longer, she would be dead. The dead man who lay dead at his feet would have killed her.

  Bile rose in his throat at thinking he had been only a heartbeat away from losing her forever. He pushed those thoughts aside as he pulled her head to his chest.

  “Please, Findley, I want to leave,” she choked. Her emotions ran from relief to terror to anger and back again. She wanted her son and she wanted to get as far away from this place as she could.

  “Aye! We’ll be gettin’ ye out of here now, lass!” Findley said. “Do ye ken where the key to the shackles are?”

  Maggy shook her head. “Malcolm, I think he has it,” she choked. Desperation and panic began to set it. “Ian! Where is Ian?”

  “Me friend Nial and his men are gettin’ him lass,” he told her. For now, he would pretend that he hadn’t heard Maggy’s confession to Traig. They would have time to discuss that later. For now, he had to get her and Ian out of the keep.

  He studied the chains that bound her to the wall. They were too thick to cut through with his sword and the hooks that held them into the wall were just as sturdy. He tried pulling on the hooks in hopes they would magically pull from the wall. He’d need a hammer and chisel or the damned key!

  Rowan pulled on the chains with the same fervent hope, but to no avail. “We need the key, Findley,” he whispered. “Ye go find Malcolm. I’ll stay here with yer lass,”

  Findley did not want to leave Maggy. He’d tear the room down, stone by stone if he had to, to get her out of the shackles. He was torn between wanting to stay to protect her and wanting to get the hell out of the keep and back to Gregor.

  The best thing would be to find the key.

  “Maggy,” Findley whispered as his trembling fingers held her face gently. “This is Rowan, a good friend of mine. He’s going to stay here and guard ye while I go find Malcolm and get the key.”

  “Nay! Do no’ leave me, please!” she cried, pulling on the chains, as she had done dozens of times over the past few days. Fire burned in her wrists and sent shocks of pain up to her shoulders.

  “Maggy, I promise, I’ll come back with the key,” he told her before giving her forehead another kiss. “I promise!” he knew the longer he stayed, the longer it would be until he found the key.

  He turned to Rowan. “Ye guard her as if she’s the queen herself, Rowan.”

  “Aye, I will,” Rowan said. “Now go!”

  Findley reluctantly quit the room to go search for the key. He could hear Maggy crying and Rowan trying to console her as he stepped into the hallway. Her sobs wrenched his heart and tore at his soul, causing the anger to build with each step he took away from the room, away from the love of his life.

  He muttered under his breath as he raced down the long corridor. Malcolm Buchannan if ye be no’ dead yet, ye soon will be

  ~~~

  He’d be damned if he’d let the MacDougall’s or anyone else get Maggy or the boy out of this castle alive.

  When he’d woke to the sound of the warning alarms, Malcolm knew instinctively that doors to hell had just opened. As he threw on a tunic and trews, one of his men appeared at his door to let him know that hundreds of MacDougall’s, McKee’s and McDunnah's were attacking.

  No one needed to explain to him why they were here. The reports he’d received from the men he had posted in Stirling, had told him that Maggy was seen in the company of MacDougall men. It was enough information for him to put two and two together.

  He cared not what the reasons were behind Maggy being with the MacDougall’s. All that mattered was the fact that his plan was not working out as he had hoped. His future as an earl with vast holdings, power and coin, was rapidly slipping away from his grasp. He felt very much like a man who had just lost his footing and was now holding perilously to a thin vine at the precipice of a large chasm. At any moment, he’d slip and fall to his death.

  Malcolm pulled on his boots and donned his scabbard and sword as his mind raced in a thousand different directions at once. “Get me ten men!” he shouted to the man who stood in the doorway. “I want horses readied immediately.”

  He grabbed the key to Maggy’s shackles from the table by his bed, draped the leather tie around his neck, and headed out of his room, pushing the man aside.

  “But m’laird!” the young man called after him. “There are hundreds of them!”

  “I do no’ care if there are thousands!” Malcolm called over his shoulder as he headed toward Ian’s room. “Get me ten men, ready my damned horses and meet me in the whore’s room!”

  The young man’s brow creased as he watched Malcolm stomp toward the boy’s room. The orders his laird had just given him confirmed the rumours that had been going around the castle of late; their laird, their leader, had lost his mind.

  There were hundreds of men storming the keep and all Malcolm cared about was the woman and child. The young man tamped down the anger he was feeling toward his leader. Instead of defending their keep, as a good leader would do, his laird was planning his escape.

  The young man wouldn’t have it. Malcolm could ready his own damned horse and gather his own men.

  ~~~

  As the alarm bells rang out, piercing the quiet night, Ian awoke, with a jarring sense of fear. When he heard the sounds of battle carried in through the cracks in the window of his room, his fear immediately turned to relief. He was certain that someone had finally come to rescue him and his mum.

  Ian leapt from his bed and fumbled around in the dark for his clothes. If he was getting rescued tonight, he’d want to be wearing his clothes and not a nightshirt. Dingle didn’t budge from his spot on the warm bed; he looked up only once, gave Ian a disinterested glance, yawned, and laid his head back on his paws.

  “Yer no’ much of a guard dog, ye flea-ridden beast!” Ian mumbled.

  Just as he was pulling on his second boot, Ian heard heavy footsteps coming down the hall outside his door. Quickly, he grabbed Dingle, who yelped in protest at having his sleep disturbed. Ian’s intent had been to hide in a dark corner or under his bed, but the door flew open before he could do any such thing.

  Ian spun around to see Malcolm standing in his doorway. Light from the torches spilled into the room. Ian swallowed, the fear rising with bitter bile that burned at the back of his throat.

  “Son!” Malcolm nearly shouted. “We’re under attack! I’m here to take ye and yer mum to safety,” he said as he held out his hand.

  Ian hated it when Malcolm called him ‘son’; he’d rather have his eyes plucked from their sockets by scavengers than to be Malcolm Buchannan’s son, real or otherwise.

  Ian knew instinctively that Malcolm wasn’t there to help. Something deep within his heart warned him not to leave with this man. They weren’t under attack by someone wanting to harm either him or his mum, that much he was sure of. Whoever was swarming over the walls and fighting with the Buchannans was here to help.

  “Come, lad! We must hurry! We have to protect yer mum!” Malcolm said as he extended his hand further.

  He couldn’t move, his feet firmly planted, not from a stubbornness but from sheer, unadulterated fear. Nay, Malcolm no more wanted to protect Ian and his mum than he wanted to jump from the nearest cliff.

  Having enough of the child’s nonsense, Malcolm rushed into the room and scooped the quivering boy into one arm. He grabbed Dingle by the back of his neck and tossed him on to Ian's bed.

  “Yer fearful, ’tis to be expected,” Malcolm said as they walked out of the room and into the corrid
or. “We’ll be out of harm’s way in short order, lad. Ye, yer mum and me will be ridin’ away this night.”

  There was something sinister in Malcolm’s voice, a menacing tone that made the hair on the back of Ian’s neck stand up. Chills ran down his spine and he had the sudden urge to pee. Fear kept him stiff and made his fingers tremble.

  Malcolm drew his sword with his free hand as they sprang down the stairs. Ian could see dozens of men in the great room below, dozens of swords clashing against swords, maces flinging through the air, and fists crashing against jaws. The smell of blood and sweat filled the air and made his stomach churn uneasily.

  As they rounded the corner Malcolm came to a dead stop.

  “Just the man I wanted to see.”

  Ian knew this man! ’Twas one of the men who had taken him back to his mum that summer!

  “Who the hell are ye?” Malcolm asked.

  “I’m the man whose here to send yer sorry soul to hell,” Findley said calmly. He was relieved to see that Ian was still alive and apparently well, though the child did look terrified. He hoped the boy remembered him.

  A flood of relief washed over Ian. Anyone that wanted to send Malcolm Buchannan’s soul to hell was a good man and friend.

  “Lad, ’tis me, Findley,” he said as he took a small step toward them. “Do ye remember me?”

  Ian nodded his head and took note of the blood splattered on the man’s, face, mail, sword, and hauberk. Finding courage, Ian began to wiggle against the tight hold Malcolm had on him.

  “Be still!” Malcolm warned, not taking his eyes from Findley.

  “Let me go!” Ian cried out. “I will no’ go with ye!”

  “Put the lad down, Malcolm,” Findley said as he took one step closer. He hoped Malcolm would be distracted enough so that he could get close enough to run him through without harming the boy.

  Malcolm tilted his head as he turned to look at Ian. “Shut up, ye brat!”

  Ian struggled against Malcolm but that only angered him further. “Be still or I’ll feed yer carcass to me dogs!”