She ought to simply relax and enjoy the hearty welcome she expected from the MacIans. It might be the last chance to sleep in a warm bed and eat something other than ship’s rations for a while.
As an added benefit, she’d be safe from Corbin Lochwood whose unsettling gaze had followed her every move and added to the challenges of bringing the galley safely to Ardnamurchan.
It wasn’t reasonable to feel threatened. She was surrounded by armed clansmen loyal to her father, and to her. Nevertheless, she resolved to keep her distance from the Lochwood laird, though that might prove difficult aboard the Lanmara when there was no safe haven ashore.
Before disembarking, she asked for volunteers for the night watch, fully expecting Nicolson to offer. He tended to be a loner who usually preferred his own company. However, Corbin Lochwood’s eagerness to share the duty with the trusted navigator took her by surprise, especially when he encouraged Adrian to go ashore.
She wondered briefly about his motive. He didn’t strike her as a man keen to sleep outdoors under canvas. However, he did have a great deal invested in their cargo. At least she’d be free of his constant staring.
“Goodnight, then,” she said.
“Goodnight,” Corbin replied with a wink, furling his plaid around his shoulders. “Don’t worry about a thing.”
Hazard
Searching out what Corbin foresaw as his most lucrative source of revenue had been too risky in Skye. News that he’d purchased opium would have inevitably reached Laird MacKeegan’s ears and put a speedy end to his trade negotiations, and possibly his life.
The MacKeegans were nigh on fanatical about the evils of the drug. His host had rambled on, recounting some story about Lady Isabel’s father, but he hadn’t really listened. When you’d heard one convoluted clan tale, you’d heard them all.
As he’d anticipated, the docks below Mingary Castle teemed with vessels. It should be a simple task to find pirates among them who would willingly sell him the drug.
He doubted the taciturn Nicolson would object if he wandered off. “I’ll help you put up the canvas then go for food,” he offered.
The navigator looked up at the clear sky and shook his head. “Willna rain. One o’ the lads’ll fetch us victuals.”
“Right then,” Corbin replied. “I’ll just stretch my legs for a bit, if it’s all right with you. Too long on the boat.”
Nicolson looked at him as if he’d lost his mind, then set about lighting candle lanterns.
Corbin climbed the ladder to the dock, irritated that his limbs were, indeed, stiff and sore. He’d be in dire need of the redhead’s soothing touch by the time this escapade was over.
He wandered about for a while, hands clasped behind his back, feigning interest in peering down into the galleys and other sundry vessels, until he found what he was looking for. A group of six or seven grubby ruffians sat or knelt in a circle on the deck of a battered birlinn. Apparently, these men weren’t welcome in the castle. From the sound of it, they were involved in a dice game that Corbin thought might be Hazard, though he couldn’t understand a word of their jubilant chatter.
“Pointless to quote Chaucer’s opinion of the game to these ne’er-do-wells,” he muttered under his breath. “It made a man or undid him in the twinkling of an eye.”
A frisson of apprehension marched up his spine when every one of them turned to scowl at him. He hadn’t meant to utter Chaucer’s witticism aloud, but they must have sensed his presence.
His instinct was to saunter away. However, nothing ventured, nothing gained. He fished a small bag of coins from his pocket and made a show of hefting its weight in his hand, all the while whistling as if he hadn’t a care in the world.
As he hoped, one man broke away from the group and climbed up to the dock. “Dè tha thu ag iarraidh?”
“I don’t speak Gaelic,” Corbin replied, trying to hide his disdain.
The sailor hacked up a gob of phlegm and spat it out. “English?” His tone spoke of mistrust, but his eyes remained on the purse in Corbin’s hand.
“No, I’m a Scot, from Annandale.”
The man wiped a tattered sleeve across his runny nose and repeated his question. “What do ye want, Lowlander?”
This was going nowhere. Corbin decided to cut to the chase. The coins clinked as he dangled the purse. “I’m interested in buying some Stones of Immortality.”
The foul odor of rotting black teeth nearly felled him when the sailor grinned, but he deftly rescued the bag out of the pirate’s grasping reach. “The drug first, then you get the coin.”
Beady eyes darted from the bag to his shipmates and back to Corbin before he cocked his head in the direction of his galley. “Come wi’ me.”
“You must think me a fool,” he drawled in reply, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt. This gang of miscreants would think nothing of murdering him without batting an eye. No one aboard the MacKeegan birlinn would have an inkling what had become of him. He opened his plaid to reveal the pistol shoved into his belt. “Meet me at the end of the dock. Come alone, and I want the black pills, not the balls of raw opium.”
The sailor snickered. “A good choice.”
Corbin walked away slowly with his hand on the butt of the pistol, filled with the uneasy feeling the pirate didn’t consider the weapon a threat.
*
Looking forward to a good night’s sleep after a delicious meal of pigeon pie, Kyla beckoned Boban when she saw him enter the Great Hall with his companion. “All’s weel?” she asked. “Ye delivered the food?”
“Aye,” the sailor replied, scratching his head. “But I’ll wager Nicolson will wolf down the whole pie if yon Lowlander doesna return soon.”
A knot of worry tightened in her belly. “Lochwood isna aboard?”
“Nay.”
“Did Nicolson say where he went?”
“Nay.”
“Did ye inquire?”
“Nay.”
She tamped down her exasperation. It was to be expected these Highlanders wouldn’t care a whit what a Lowlander did. “Get the lantern. Ye’ll escort me back to the galley.”
It was a lot to ask of a man who had already been obliged to leave the warmth of the castle to take food to the night watch. He was likely as tired as she, but, like a true Hebridean, he showed no outward sign of irritation.
A few minutes later, he met her at the entryway, brandishing an unlit torch. “Gettin’ a mite windy for a candle lantern,” he explained.
Bundled up in their plaids, they exited the castle, heads down against the stiff wind. Boban lit the torch from another affixed to the curtain wall and they approached the shadowy docks. The wind had blown out every lantern aboard the Lanmara. The sailor lifted the torch high to illuminate the deck. Sitting cross-legged in the shelter of the cargo, Nicolson glanced up and narrowed his eyes against the dancing flame.
“Where’s Lochwood?” she shouted, filled with a sense of unease. It wasn’t safe to go wandering off in such a place where ships of every nationality docked.
Nicolson shrugged and stuffed a piece of pie in his mouth.
The wind whipped her hair over her face as she peered down the dock, relieved to see Corbin hurrying toward them. “Where have ye been?” she asked, wishing she’d not betrayed her anger when he scowled at the irritation in her voice.
“For a walk,” he panted, climbing down the ladder with some difficulty as he struggled to keep his plaid wrapped tightly around his body.
It was on the tip of her tongue to launch into a lecture about the responsibility he’d accepted to watch over the birlinn and the foolhardiness of his actions. But Corbin wasn’t a man to be scolded. She had a feeling he’d eventually find some way to retaliate and his presence already made her nervous.
She turned to walk back to the castle, deeming it odd that sweat trickled down Lochwood’s forehead despite the chilly wind. And why had he been so determined to remain bundled up in his plaid? What was he hiding?
&n
bsp; “We need to keep a wary eye on the laird,” she told Boban as they made their way back to the castle.
“Ne’er thought elsewise,” he replied.
Changing Course
Five days later, Kyla looked to the top of the mast, relieved to see the southwesterly wind fill the birlinn’s sails as they entered the wide mouth of the Solway. It would give the rowers a much-needed rest after the long, and sometimes difficult journey.
The crew cheered, many doffing their woolen caps to her. She appreciated that they recognized she’d brought them safely through some challenging seas. Pride in her maritime heritage filled her heart.
However, she was anxious for the voyage to end, despite her love of the sea. Corbin had ceased his suggestive comments and kept mostly to himself, confirming her suspicion he was hiding something. However, he hadn’t stopped watching her with a strange glint in his gray eyes that sent shivers of apprehension up her spine.
She found him increasingly repulsive and had already reiterated her father’s instructions to the crew that she never be left alone with him. Once the cargo had been unloaded in Annan and the return goods taken on board, they could be on their way back home. She doubted Corbin would lend a hand with the laborious tasks of loading and unloading that awaited them. In any event, she was prepared to follow her father’s advice and lodge a complaint to the Warden of the Solway if the promised trade goods didn’t materialize.
She’d tied her hair in the usual queue, but the buffeting wind muffled sound. Lulled into inattention by the warmth of the sun on her face, she didn’t hear Corbin approach until he was standing next to her at the prow, his hand on her elbow.
She looked up at him sharply, annoyed she’d allowed him to take her by surprise.
“Just helping you stay upright,” he teased with a tight smile.
She didn’t require his help to keep her balance on a ship, but tolerated his support for a short while, confident the crew would come to her aid if necessary.
“We’ll sight Southerness Point at the end of yon sands,” he eventually shouted over the wind. “The Firth narrows and you’ll see England across the water.”
She squinted into the distance. “Miles away.”
“Give the order to change course to the northeast once we pass Southerness,” he said gruffly.
Her hackles rose. “But that will take us to England.”
“Bowness, to be precise,” he smirked. “Closer to Carlisle.”
She yanked her arm from his grasp. “I’ll nay take my father’s galley into English waters,” she yelled, tempted to add that a voyage to the Lowlands was risky enough.
“You’ll do as I say,” he replied menacingly, “or the journey will have been for naught. England and Scotland are one realm now that James sits on the throne. In any case, we must turn away from the estuary of the Nith.”
This might have been a good opportunity to expound on her father’s opinion of the union of the two crowns, but the matter of a course change was more important. “Why?”
“It’s Maxwell territory. I don’t want that cursed clan meddling in my business.”
The man was evidently living in the past. “Why would they do that?”
“Broderick Maxwell’s been appointed Warden of the Solway.”
Wondering vaguely if he had some other motive for avoiding the Warden, she scanned the vast expanse of choppy sea ahead, dotted with numerous vessels going in both directions. “He canna possibly police every ship that plies these waters.”
Corbin clenched his jaw. “Notwithstanding, we’ll change course at Southerness Point and, no matter what happens, you’ll maintain that heading.”
*
“’Tis impossible to search every vessel entering the Firth,” Broderick admitted to Aiglon.
The eagle squawked agreement from her perch next to where he stood at the prow of his galley. She opened her wings and let the stiff breeze lift her as much as the jesses would allow; she, too, loved the sea. She was his token figurehead since the original one had been removed and replaced with a small saker cannon. He’d even renamed the vessel Iolaire. The Gaelic seemed more suitable than the English Eagle.
Usually the threat of cannon fire was sufficient to convince most vessels to allow his crew to board, but the two expert gunners had been obliged to shoot across a couple of bows.
Intrigued by reports from his falconer that Corbin Lochwood was headed home from the Isles, he’d patrolled the coast south of Caerlochnaven Castle every day. “He’s reportedly carrying cloth and hides, but I wouldna put it past him to include contraband,” he mused aloud to his captain. “’Tis in his nature.”
Delft agreed. “I suspect we’re watching for a vessel that suddenly changes course at the Point.”
“Likely a birlinn if they’re coming from the Hebrides.”
They patrolled the waters to the south for another hour. Broderick began to doubt the validity of his desire to intercept Lochwood. Was he really motivated by the responsibility to make sure peace reigned in the Borderlands, or was it a long-standing hatred for the enemy gnawing at his innards? Perhaps he was as much at the mercy of his thirst for revenge as his late father.
“Birlinn sighted, my laird,” the lookout called from the top of the mast. “They’re changing course for England off Southerness.”
Broderick’s gut churned. An inner voice told him Lochwood was aboard the vessel and was up to no good. He gritted his teeth. “Set a course to intercept,” he told Delft, “and arm the cannon.”
Direct Hit
Kyla suspected Lochwood was unaware they were being followed. She gave the crew a series of discrete hand signals to slow their progress, confident he had no knowledge of what she was doing.
Despite her anticipation, she nevertheless clenched her jaw when a command was bellowed on the wind. “Heave to in the name of King James.”
Her innards knotted when she half-turned to give the order. Corbin held a pistol to her head. “Keep going,” he hissed. “I’ll blow her head off if you approach,” he warned her crew.
The enormity of his stupidity struck her. Any one of her men could captain the boat. If he shot her, they would quickly overwhelm him before he had a chance to reload.
However, she’d be dead.
“It would be better to obey the order,” she said, hoping he didn’t detect the fear in her voice. “We have naught to hide.”
He pressed the barrel against her temple. “I will not stop for a Maxwell.”
Memories of her stubborn stepgrandfather came to mind. Rory MacRain refused to divulge the secret location of his clan’s Faerie Flag to the MacKeegans even after his daughter married into that clan.
The command came again, interrupting her reverie. “Heave to or we’ll fire.”
Time and gentle persuasion had changed Rory’s attitude, but she doubted persuasion would work in this situation. Corbin had evidently gone mad. Either that or he was, indeed, smuggling something.
She risked a glance over her shoulder. “’Tis a gunboat,” she exclaimed as gooseflesh marched across her nape. “We have nay choice.”
“To oars,” Corbin yelled to the men. “Row as if your lives depended on it.”
Kyla took advantage of his momentary distraction to take a good look at their pursuers. The huge eagle she’d mistaken for a figurehead was real. The knot in her belly tightened. There’d be no escape from a ship guided by the king of birds.
A deafening crack robbed her of breath. She cringed, expecting to fall lifeless to the deck. A wave of nausea surged up her throat when a cannonball splashed into the water on their starboard side and she realized the noise hadn’t come from the pistol. She gripped the railing in an effort to allay the tremor vibrating through her body. If this folly continued, her father’s boat would end up at the bottom of the Solway. “Kill me if ye wish,” she hissed through gritted teeth, “but I willna allow ye to put my crew’s lives in danger for no good reason.”
“Take evasive action,”
Lochwood yelled.
She shook her head. “We’re heavier than the smaller galley. We canna outrun her.”
Jaw clenched, he turned and fired the pistol at the gunboat, a measure of his desperation since they were too far away for a shot to find its mark.
She whirled and shoved him hard. He dropped the weapon in an effort to regain his footing, but fell over, landing heavily on the deck.
Three crewmen hurried forward to hold him down at the very moment round-shot chewed into the port side of her beloved Lanmara. Splintered wood exploded and the waters of the greedy Solway rushed in to fill the gap.
*
Broderick’s elation at his gunners’ direct hit was short-lived when the birlinn began to sink, her crew jumping overboard into the choppy waters.
The captain’s refusal to heave to and his wild potshot confirmed Broderick’s suspicions the ship was smuggling. However, that didn’t mean the Hebridean crew knew of any contraband.
It was difficult to tell, but it appeared the navigator had been arguing with the captain and may even have shoved him when he fired at Broderick’s boat. The shot into the port side of the birlinn had perhaps been premature, but the damage was done and the law of the sea demanded he save as many of the shipwrecked sailors as possible.
He loosed Aiglon’s jesses. “Search,” he commanded, confident the bird would stand a better chance of spotting men swept away from the sinking ship by the incoming tide.
The eagle flew off, swooping low over the water, then soaring to swoop again.
His crew launched two rowboats and each made their way to where he pointed, following Aiglon’s calls.
Scanning the water alongside the sinking ship, he caught side of a head, just before it disappeared beneath the waves. A redhead. The navigator had red hair.
As they came closer, the man reappeared, struggling to extricate himself from his plaid.
Kilty Pleasures (Clash of the Tartans Book 3) Page 3