The Guardian

by Margaret Mallory

  When Ian neared the top of the bluff, he looked up to see Teàrlag and Duncan’s sister Ilysa clutching their arms against the wind and peering over the side.

  “I saw ye coming,” Teàrlag called out, and he knew she was referring to the Sight for which she was well-known.

  The women rushed him inside and directed him to lay Connor on blankets they had already laid out before the fire. Ilysa went almost as pale as Connor when she saw the condition he was in.

  “Go fetch the others,” Teàrlag said, waving him off.

  When he returned to the boat, he was relieved to find Duncan was awake and able to hold onto Ian’s back. He was a huge man, though, and Ian nearly lost his balance more than once on the slick rock steps. The wind was blowing a thin, icy rain now. By the time they reached the top, Duncan was shivering violently. His body, already taxed to the limit, could not take the cold and wet.

  Ian banged through the cottage door and staggered across the room to deposit his burden onto Teàrlag’s bed. It was a box bed built into the partial wall that separated the main room of her cottage from the byre, where her cow was mooing in complaint.

  Ilysa threw a blanket over her brother while Teàrlag shoveled a hot stone from the fire to place at his feet.

  Without pausing to rest, Ian returned to the beach for Alex.

  “I can walk up, if ye give me a hand,” Alex said.

  “No, I’ll take ye on my back,” Ian said. “It’ll be quicker, and I’m in no mood to argue.”

  Alex didn’t like it, but that was how it was going to be.

  Ian grunted as he hefted Alex onto his back. “God help me, the three of ye must eat like horses.”

  Ian’s legs were cramping by the time he reached the cottage the third time. Alex insisted on sitting in a chair. He made no complaint, however, when the women whisked a blanket around his shoulders, a warming stone under his feet, and a cup of hot broth into his hands.

  Ian sat down heavily on a stool by the table. He had succeeded in getting all three men here alive, though Connor was hanging on by a thread and Duncan was not much better. Ian was grateful that both women were skilled at healing, though he suspected there was little that could be done now except keep the men warm and feed them broth.

  And pray.

  “Ye mustn’t tarry,” Teàrlag said, fixing her good eye on him. “Your wife is in danger.”

  Sìleas. He jumped to his feet, feeling as if he’d been kicked in the stomach.

  “What can ye tell me?” he asked.

  “Only that she’s very frightened,” Teàrlag said.

  “Take this,” Ilysa said, shoving a wrapped cloth of oatcakes into his hand as he went out the cottage door.

  The heavens opened on his return trip, soaking him to the skin. He shouted in frustration when it forced him to bring down the sail and row. As he strained against the oars, his heart seemed to race in time to the rain pelting his face.

  If Sìleas had not left the dirk with Niall, she would stab Angus with it now. The foul smell of the man surrounded her, suffocating her as they rode. She looked down at the massive thigh rubbing against hers and imagined plunging her blade into it over and over again. Every time he moved the arm around her waist up to press against the undersides of her breasts, she rammed her elbow into his ribs.

  Angus made no sign he noticed.

  “How many little girls have ye raped since the last time I saw ye?” she said, and jabbed him again.

  “I don’t count them,” he said, sounding amused. “Shame ye have grown up, Sìleas. You’ll do, but I liked ye better before.”

  “Ach, ye are a disgusting beast! Ye will burn in hell for sure.”

  “I confess to the priests,” he said. “When I hold a blade to their throats, the penance is no so bad—except for that damned Father Brian. He’s a self-righteous bastard.”

  “My husband is going to kill ye before ye have a chance to confess again,” she said. “Ye will die with your soul black with sin.”

  “Your marriage is a sham, and everyone on Skye knows it.” He leaned down until his filthy whiskers touched the side of her face and his breath choked her. “But you’ll soon have a real husband—the kind who knows what he’s supposed to do with a wife.”

  The taunts she had used to hold back her fear left her. Ian would come for her, but when? He thought she was safe, in Gòrdan’s care. How long would she be inside Knock Castle with Angus and Murdoc before Ian learned she was there?

  As if to dampen her hopes, a cold rain began to fall.

  As Knock Castle rose out of the misty rain on the headland, fear weighed down on her chest, making it hard to breathe. She had not been inside the castle since the day she escaped through the tunnel after Murdoc beat her. As they crossed the drawbridge, she looked up at the massive iron and wooden gates and shivered. Dear Lord, how would Ian ever get her out?

  Sileas wondered if the ghost of the castle would appear to her as she used to. The legend was that the Green Lady, as she was called for the pale green gown she wore, would smile or weep, depending on whether good news or bad was coming to the family who occupied the castle.

  The ghost had always wept for Sìleas.

  CHAPTER 34

  By the time Ian finally neared the shore below his parents’ home, the muscles of his arms and shoulders felt ready to tear from the bone. He narrowed his eyes to peer through the freezing rain still pelting his face. Someone was on the beach waving his arms.

  It was Niall. Ian’s heart dropped to his boots. Teàrlag was right. Something had gone wrong. He jumped out of the boat and splashed toward shore, hauling the boat with him, as Niall waded into the rough surf to help.

  “They’ve got Sìleas,” Niall shouted over the wind and rain whipping around them, as he grabbed the other side of the boat.

  “Who has her?” Ian shouted back.

  “The MacKinnons and her step-da,” Niall said, and Ian could see that his brother was near tears. “Angus was with them.”

  Ian slammed his fist against the boat. God, no!

  As soon as they had lugged the boat above the tide line, Niall told him in a rush of words what had happened.

  The MacKinnon devils had taken Ian’s wife—and almost killed his brother.

  “I tried to save her,” Niall said in a choked voice.

  Ian clenched his jaws against the rage surging inside him and squeezed his brother’s shoulders. “I know ye did.”

  “Ian! Niall!”

  At the shouts, Ian looked up to see Gòrdan running toward them along the path above the shore.

  “Tell me the MacKinnons did not take her,” Gòrdan called out, as he scrambled down the bank to them.

  How did Gòrdan know it was the MacKinnons? Murder pulsed through Ian’s veins. He pulled his dirk and started toward Gòrdan. “What do ye know of this?”

  Niall held Ian’s arm. “Gòrdan wouldn’t harm Sìleas. Let him talk.”

  Gòrdan had the wild eyes of a distraught man, and he had come to find them. Ian lowered his dirk, but he did not put it away.

  “When Sìleas came to talk to me last night, my mother thought she was making plans to leave ye—to marry me,” Gòrdan said, looking pained. “She sent the boy who works for me out in the night to Knock Castle. She gave him a message for Murdoc, telling him that the four of ye had brought Sìleas back from Stirling and were here at your folks’ house. The boy just told me about it now.”

  After Niall told Gòrdan what happened, Gòrdan sank to the wet sand and held his head. Ian left him on the beach without a backward glance. Damn Gòrdan and his mother.

  “Murdoc will have Sìleas inside Knock Castle by now,” he said to Niall, as they headed up to the house. “I’ve got to get her out.”

  Ian clenched his fists, remembering the scars Murdoc put on her back. He was going to kill him, regardless. But if Murdoc had laid a hand on her, he would tear him limb from limb.

  “Ian,” his brother said, turning worried eyes on him. “She let Murdoc
believe that ye don’t care for her and that ye never… well, that your marriage was not completed.”

  Ian waited for the rest.

  “He intends to wed her to Angus.”

  The thought of Angus’s meaty hands on Sìleas’s delicate skin made his own hands shake with fury. He had to rescue her—and quickly. If he did not save her before Angus raped her, he would never forgive himself. Never.

  He could not allow his rage to cloud his thinking. He forced himself to focus his thoughts on the problems before him. The first thing he had to do was make a plan to get Sìleas out of Knock Castle. Then, once he had her safe, he needed to save his clan from Hugh. With the others injured, there was no one else to do it.

  He took what comfort he could from her whispered message to Niall. Tell Ian I’ll be waiting for him. She believed he could not fail her.

  He’d always had Connor, Duncan, and Alex at his side. As bairns, they played together. As lads, they learned to sail and to swing their first claymores together. As men, they fought side by side. Through the years, they had taken countless foolish risks together and saved each others’ lives. They watched each others’ backs.

  Now, when Ian needed them more than ever before, he was on his own.

  “Ye have me and da,” his brother said, as if reading his thoughts.

  Ian almost laughed. If he added Father Brian, he’d have a new foursome. But a one-legged man, a fifteen-year-old lad, and a priest were poor substitutes for experienced Highland warriors in their prime.

  “Should I gather what men I can?” Niall asked.

  “Men were willing to fight with us because they believed Connor could be our new chieftain,” Ian said, shaking his head. “Hugh will be spreading the word that Connor is dead or gone. Until Connor is on his feet again, it would put him in danger for us to let it be known he survived the attack.”

  “Then what will we do?” Niall asked.

  “We’ll do what Highlanders always do when our enemy is stronger,” Ian said, meeting his brother’s eyes.

  “What’s that?” Niall asked.

  “We’ll use deceit and trickery, of course.”

  CHAPTER 35

  Mice skittered out of the rushes as Murdoc dragged Sìleas down the length of the room. The castle’s hall was even filthier than she remembered.

  “Get some food on this table!” Murdoc shouted at a woman cowering in the corner. He kicked at two dogs fighting over a bone and turned to Sìleas. “We’ll have the wedding after we eat.”

  “Ye can’t do this,” Sìleas said. “I am already wed. And it was no trial marriage—a priest wed Ian and me.”

  Murdoc’s lips curled into a sneer. “So ye believed that drunk your chieftain found was a priest?”

  Sìleas was stunned. “Of course he was.”

  Even as she said it, she remembered how the priest fumbled through the words and the threat in the chieftain’s eyes when he looked at the man. Other things fell into place that had been buried beneath worse memories of that day: the priest tripping over robes that were far too long for him; his attempt to follow, rather than lead them up the stairs to sprinkle the bed with holy water—before Ian threatened to toss him down the stairs.

  “Ye are as easily fooled as your mother was,” Murdoc said.

  She was indeed a fool.

  “Ian and I said vows to each other, and that makes us husband and wife under Highland custom.” She swallowed. “And no matter what ye heard, I could be carrying his child.”

  She instinctively put a hand over her abdomen as the truth of her words struck her.

  “Ye think I care whose child it is?” Murdoc shrugged. “But if Angus doesn’t want to claim your brat as his own, well, babes die all the time.”

  She gaped at him openmouthed. She hadn’t believed even Murdoc capable of such evil.

  “If ye aren’t pregnant now, ye soon will be,” Murdoc said. “One way or another, ye are going to give me the MacKinnon child your mother should have. We need that child to have a clear right to the castle.”

  “I promise ye, Murdoc, ye will never have your hands on a child of mine.”

  “Don’t think ye can escape this time, because I’ve blocked the tunnel.” He gave her a hard shove. “Go help get food on the table. The men are hungry.”

  Ian pulled his plaid over his head as he passed within sight of Dunscaith Castle on his way to the church.

  Luck was with him, for he found the priest alone on his knees before the church’s simple altar. “Sorry, Father, but this cannot wait.”

  The priest crossed himself and got to his feet.

  “Are ye that desperate to confess your sins, Ian MacDonald?” Father Brian asked, as he brushed off his knees.

  “No, Father. I haven’t time for it.”

  “I thought as much,” the priest said. “ ’Tis a shame, for I suspect it would be a good deal more interesting than what I usually hear.”

  “One day I’ll give ye hours of confession over cups of whiskey, if ye like,” Ian said. “But right now I need a different kind of help.”

  “What kind is that?” the priest asked.

  “Are ye on good terms with the MacKinnons?”

  “Whether I am or no, I serve all the clans in these parts,” Father Brian said with a shrug. “As a matter of fact, I was planning to visit the MacKinnons next, as I do every year.”

  “Will the MacKinnons let ye into Knock Castle?” Ian asked.

  “If they have sins to confess or weddings to be blessed, they’ll open their gates to me,” Father Brian said. “Why do ye ask?”

  Ian’s stomach knotted at the priest’s mention of weddings to be blessed. He hated to think that Murdoc’s plan to wed Sìleas to Angus might serve as the key to the gate.

  “Murdoc MacKinnon is holding my wife at Knock Castle,” Ian said between clenched teeth. “I need to get her out. Will ye help me, Father?”

  When the priest did not answer at once, Ian said. “He plans to give her to Angus MacKinnon.”

  “Ach, not Angus. I’ve seen what that man has done to young lasses,” the priest said, his eyes snapping with anger. “What would ye have me do?”

  “We’ll talk on the way.” Ian hoped a plan would come to him soon. God had sent him Father Brian, and that was a start.

  Ian crossed himself before he left the church. Please, God, keep her safe until I can get to her.

  CHAPTER 36

  Sìleas’s eyes widened when she saw the woman leaning against the wall by the stairs that led down to the kitchens.

  “Dina,” she whispered. “What are ye doing here?”

  “One of the MacKinnon men took a liking to me,” Dina said. “I had nowhere else to go.”

  “I’m sorry for it.” Though Sìleas had reason to wish the worst for Dina, she was unhappy to see any woman living in this hellhole.

  “I am sorry to see ye here as well,” Dina said.

  “Will ye help me then?”

  “I can’t get ye out,” Dina said. “They’re keeping guards at the gate.”

  “Then I need to find a way to divert them until Ian comes for me,” she said.

  “You’re that sure he’ll come for ye?” Dina asked.

  “I am.”

  “I wouldn’t have done what I did if I knew ye wanted Ian,” Dina said. “Since ye weren’t giving him what he wanted, I saw no harm in it.”

  They were interrupted by Murdoc’s bellow from across the hall. “Where’s our dinner?”

  When his metal cup hit the wall by Sìleas’s head, she and Dina started down. It was dark on the stairs, but there was light and the sound of voices and pans coming from the kitchen below.

  “I have some poison,” Dina said close to Sìleas’s ear.

  “Poison?” Sìleas halted and turned to stare at Dina. “How did ye get poison?”

  “Teàrlag gave it to me,” Dina said. “I went to see her to ask for a charm before I came here. I didn’t tell her where I was going, but she said, ‘A lass as foolish as yo
u is likely to need something stronger than a good luck charm.’ ”

  Dina leaned down and reached into the side of her boot. “That’s when she gave me this wee vial. We can pour it in the ale, aye?”

  “I don’t want to murder them all,” Sìleas said.

  “Teàrlag said a drop or two will make a man ill.” Dina handed her the vial. “The pitchers of ale will be on a tray by the door. I’ll distract the men in the kitchen while ye do it.”

  “How will ye do that?”

  Dina laughed. “You’ll see. Nothing could be easier.”

  Sìleas followed Dina under the low vaulted ceiling of the undercroft into the noisy kitchen. She stayed by the door while Dina crossed the kitchen, hips swaying, toward a beefy man who had a cleaver in his hand and was shouting orders to the other kitchen servants.

  He stopped shouting midsentence when he saw Dina coming.

  “I’m starving, Donald,” she said with a purr in her voice. She laid her hand on the cook’s shoulder. “Do ye have something… special… for a hungry lass?”

  Everyone else in the kitchen paused in the midst of their tasks to watch Dina as she leaned closer to the cook and spoke to him in a low, suggestive voice. Sìleas saw a half-dozen pitchers of ale on the table next to her, ready to be taken into the hall. Turning her back to the room, she pulled the tiny stopper from the vial.

  How many drops should she put in each? It was hard to guess how much each man would drink from the shared pitchers. Her hands shook as she poured a few drops into each.

  “What are ye doing there?” The harsh voice behind her startled Sìleas, and she spilled the rest of the poison into the last pitcher.

  “Murdoc told her to bring more ale to the table,” Dina said, “so you’d best let her go.”

  Sìleas lifted the tray and hurried out of the kitchen, sloshing ale. At the bottom of the stairs, she paused to draw in a deep breath to steady herself. It would do no good to poison the ale if she spilled it all on the floor.