Clara’s Vow

by Madeline Martin

  Sister Seraphina’s long fingers rested on Clara’s hand and gave a gentle squeeze. “Did ye pray for their souls?”

  Clara nodded, her eyes filling with hot tears.

  “I suspect,” Sister Seraphina said slowly, “that had ye no’ killed them, neither of ye would be here now.”

  Clara nodded again and tried to swallow the lump in her throat.

  “Then I’ll pray for ye that ye might find peace.” Sister Seraphina released Clara’s hand and resumed wiping at Reid’s back. “Sins can be forgiven, and these are trying times.” The nun pulled the stopper from a jar and dipped her tapered fingers into a pale yellow-green salve. “But dinna be too quick to decide yer future.” Her gaze settled on Clara. “The life of a nun is no’ for everyone. If ye choose this path, it must be with the whole of yer heart.”

  It was an opportunity to not commit to taking vows. Why then did it sit like a stone on Clara’s chest?

  “May he remain here for a few days?” Clara asked. “I have an important message to deliver in Dumbarton, to ensure the safety of the people.”

  “By all means,” Sister Seraphina said. “Ye may borrow one of our horses if ye like. They’ll be fresher than the mare ye’ve been riding all day.”

  Clara inclined her head with humbled gratitude. “Thank ye.”

  “Why do ye need a fresh horse?” Reid mumbled.

  Sister Seraphina lifted her brows and picked up the gambeson from the ground. “I’ll see this is washed and leave ye two to speak.”

  Reid turned his head to regard Clara and repeated from where he lay on his stomach, “Why do ye need a fresh horse?”

  She steeled herself against the onslaught of protest she knew she would receive. “I’m going to Dumbarton.”

  Reid shifted on the small bed to better look at Clara. His back ached, but not like before, thanks be to God. If nothing else, he was plagued with terrible fatigue.

  “I’m going to Dumbarton with yer message.” Clara folded her arms over her chest, that stubborn spirit he knew so well sparking in her otherwise gentle nature. It would be endearing if it weren’t so damn dangerous.

  “Like hell ye are,” he said.

  Someone cleared their throat. And older nun, Sister Agnes, he thought he heard her being called, was shaking her head at him with a slight frown. He grimaced, recalling that they were in Paisley Abbey, the place where Clara intended to live the remainder of her life. Apparently, after charging into war.

  “’Tis no’ safe for ye to go to Dumbarton alone,” Reid protested.

  “I’ll get there before the English.” She spoke sweetly but in a way that indicated the matter was not up for discussion.

  “How do ye know they’re no’ already there?” He tried to roll over, but his back was still fiercely uncomfortable, even if it didn’t hurt as bad as before.

  She shrugged. “I don’t.”

  “Ye’ll get yerself killed, Clara.”

  “And if ye go, ye most certainly will.” She reached down to him and helped him to a sitting position.

  Not only did it ease the pressure at his back, but it was easier to speak to her when he could see her, when he could look into her lovely blue eyes.

  “I know ye don’t want me to go.” She settled her hand over his with tender affection. “But ye’re in no condition to make the trip, nor would ye be able to fight. Ye need only recover yer strength and allow yer injuries to heal a bit, and then ye can join me. Just a few days, really.”

  A few days were far too bloody many as far as he was concerned. He hated this forced convalescence and how it rendered him so helpless. Ever since he’d been able to bear the weight of a solid sword in his hands, he had not been reliant on anyone.

  That was how he liked it best.

  He was a man who protected, not one who needed saving.

  He would never be that lad again.

  “I’m sorry, but ye know this is what must be done.” Clara sank onto the narrow bed beside him, her hand still on his. “Ye were struck with a mace on yer back,” she explained. “It reopened yer wounds. Yer body needs to recover from that.”

  It rushed back to him then, the memory of that explosive agony at his back and how it had rendered him incapacitated. How Clara had been left defenseless.

  But she wasn’t entirely defenseless…

  “What happened to the Englishmen?” he asked. “The ones who attacked us?”

  Her confident posture stiffened unnaturally, and her stare slid away.

  “Clara, did ye…”

  She pressed her lips together, and she nodded silently.

  His stomach clenched at the idea of having left her to kill those men. He was a warrior. Death was a part of what he did. It was what he was used to.

  But Clara…

  She healed while he killed. She was gentle while he was fierce. She was everything good and kind in this ugly world, and she had been forced to go against her very nature to save them both.

  “I’m so verra sorry,” Reid said, his voice soft with the force of his emotion. “I know how painful that was for ye.”

  Her chin quivered, and his heart broke.

  “Come, lass.” He opened his arms to her, but she shook her head and wiped at her tears.

  “There isn’t any time.” She looked at him, resolute.

  “Ye did what ye had to,” he said vehemently.

  She lifted her face higher, her expression one of bravado. “And I may well have to do it again in Dumbarton.” Her hand was in a white-knuckled fist in her lap.

  Despite her firm resolve, he knew her better. He knew how those men’s lives burned like hot coals in her gut, how she would forever remember the looks on their faces as their life drained away. She was dreading what she may have to do, even if she wouldn’t admit it.

  He tried to swallow down his stubborn ire. “Ye shouldna have to be the one doing this.”

  She shook her head again. “I’ve been too long shielded from this world’s horrors. ’Tis my turn to protect others, and I will not see innocents put to death.”

  Though he wanted to protest that she should not go, and insist he should be there in her place, she was right. He was not in any condition to go. Not that he would ever admit it aloud, of course. Even as they spoke, even as he begrudged his weakened state, his body suffered from the unmistakable pull of exhaustion.

  He reached for his bag where it sat on the table by his bed and handed it to her. “Ye said ye’ll return in two or three days. If ye dinna return by then, I’ll come for ye, even if my horse has to drag me.”

  “I’ll be back.” Her hand closed over the bag, and her lovely, light blue eyes met his. He could lose himself in those eyes. Hell, he wanted to. Right now. In the future. Forever.

  With her.

  The very thought echoed through him. But it was one he could not entertain. They were at war. There were lives to be saved. And Clara was taking all the risk.

  He held tighter to the bag, preventing her from pulling it away just yet. “Be safe,” he ordered as if mortality could be commanded.

  Still, she met his gaze and nodded with as much determination as any soldier did. “I will.”

  Her stare roamed over his face for a long moment before she got to her feet and left. He felt her absence immediately, and that silent, solitary sense around him that had so long been a companion now felt like a chasm.

  “I’m sure she’ll return soon.” Sister Agnes approached his bed with a cup of something steaming hot and fetid smelling.

  Though he hoped the foul concoction wasn’t for him, he was almost certain it was.

  “Dinna worry yerself, lad.” As he had feared, the nun handed him the mug. “’Twill only be a wink of time before ye see yer sister again.”

  He paused with the cup held between his fingertips, its unappetizing odor no longer as great a concern as it had been moments before.

  His sister?

  Something in his chest flinched.

  If Clara had referred to h
erself as his sister, that meant she was trying to protect her reputation. It was the definitive confirmation of her intent to pursue life at the abbey.

  Once she returned and he was well, he would never see her again.

  12

  Dumbarton Castle was difficult to miss. Clara made it out far in the distance before her arrival, her gaze fixed on it as she closed in on her destination. This was where the king and queen had sheltered from the English nearly a decade ago, and it was rumored even to offer refuge to Merlin in the days of old.

  And as she beheld its magnificence, it was no wonder it held such a prestigious history.

  The castle sat aloft on what appeared to be a massive twin-peaked hill set apart from any other in the area. Jagged land hugged either side of the castle, protecting it from nearly every angle, save the front where the white-capped waters of the River Clyde rushed by. A curtain wall framed the massive keep, and various turrets rose from behind the heavy stone, stretching up toward the sky.

  It appeared impenetrable.

  The village resting at the foot of the ridge, however, was not. Small homes with ribbons of smoke curling from their chimneys clustered in a group made up a bustling area, as well as many more that dotted the surrounding land. It appeared to be a market day, and the people were out in droves—women with their baskets, children darting about and pleading with their parents for goods, vendors hawking their wares.

  All were vulnerable.

  It further justified her decision to come to Dumbarton. Though, she had spent her entire journey thinking of Reid. Not only the begrudging manner with which he’d finally acquiesced to allow her to come in his stead but the way he had regarded her so helplessly when they first arrived at Paisley Abbey.

  Is this where ye leave me forever?

  His question still haunted her. The pleading look in his eyes, as though parting would cause him as much pain as her.

  Recalling the moment prodded at her heart and made it ache like a wound, yet she could not seem to keep from doing so over and over again.

  A new sensation tightened in her stomach as she neared the massive gates leading up to the castle—nervousness. This was what the last sennight had been for, what Reid had nearly died for, what she had killed for. She steeled her resolve.

  Four guards stood before the closed gates. Each wore chainmail with a white-and-red tunic belted over it. One with a tuft of dirty-blond hair poking from his helm stepped forward, arms crossed. “What have ye come to see us for then, ye bonny lass?”

  Clara lifted her chin. “I come with a missive for Lord Tavish.”

  “She sounds English,” a dark-haired man muttered.

  “Are ye English?” asked another, one whose face had gone ruddy in the cold.

  “My mum is Scottish,” she replied.

  The men scoffed.

  Anger sparked to life. While she didn’t fight its flare, nor did she allow herself to burn up with it. Nay, she kept her head about her and allowed her ire to infuse her words with power. “I am the granddaughter of the Chieftain of the Ross clan.”

  The men glanced at one another, uncertain how to take this new information.

  Her horse shifted under her, its hooves thudding into the packed dirt. “I demand to speak with Lord Tavish.”

  The ruddy-faced man called out to someone behind the wall. A thunk sounded, followed by a groaning creak as the gates slowly parted. They nodded up a steep walkway, which the abbey’s strong horse navigated with ease.

  Once the stable lad took her steed, she was led to the great hall where several people had gathered. Peasants, in dun-colored homespun cloth tunics, with their grievances mingled among the castle guards and several nobles adorned in such finely crafted garments that Clara was suddenly aware of her simple kirtle.

  The hum of conversation echoed on the high ceiling overhead with crisscrossing beams so large that they must have taken the length of an entire tree to construct. Pennants adorned the wall, along with swords and stag heads, while fires blazed and crackled in the massive hearths on either side of the open room.

  She tightened her hold on the bag at her side, the one containing the missive, and approached the dais. The rushes underfoot were spongy and in need of changing.

  A guard lowered a halberd in her path, stopping her and obstructing her vision with the red flag hanging from the thick, wooden pole.

  Apparently, this was to be the way of it.

  “I have an urgent message for Lord Tavish,” she said.

  The guard scoffed. “Ye’re only a lass.”

  “Aye, I’m a lass, and I’ve proven myself to the men at the gates already,” she replied. “I’ve got an urgent message for Lord Tavish that could be the difference between life and death.”

  “By all means,” a man drawled in a bored, heavily accented brogue. “Let the messenger through.”

  Clara exhaled a sigh of relief. At last.

  The halberd lifted, and she was permitted to approach the dais. Lord Tavish sat upon an ornate hardbacked chair with a jeweled chalice clutched in his hand. He wore a white tunic with embroidered red lions along the hem, and his dark hair was shorn to his ears. His pale gaze slid down her kirtle, rumpled and dirty from her travels. She saw herself from his eyes at that moment and humiliation scorched through her.

  He lifted a brow. “Ye have a message for me?”

  She pulled the battered missive from Reid’s bag and stepped forward, handing it to the lord.

  Despite her self-consciousness at her disheveled appearance, this was a moment of victory. She had done it—the missive had been delivered.

  After the storm that they had ridden through, and Reid’s infected wound and even being ambushed on the trail—finally, Dumbarton would know of the impending attack.

  Lord Tavish lowered the missive with an irritated huff. “Is this some foolhardy jest?”

  Clara stiffened. “I beg yer pardon?”

  The young earl scoffed. “Ye even sound English. ‘I beg yer pardon?’” he mimicked. Several of the well-dressed people standing nearby tittered.

  Scorn. It was a constant in her life. Scottish who distrusted her for being English. English who distrusted her for being Scottish. And all their unease soured into malice with words that cut, and laughter that mocked.

  She squared her shoulders, refusing to allow their cruel sport to hurt her.

  “We’re a well-fortified castle,” Lord Tavish said dismissively. “Ye expect me to believe this. When it comes from ye, a woman? And an English woman at that?”

  Clara clenched her hands in the folds of her skirt. “The messenger was injured. He is convalescing at Paisley Abbey. I came as quickly as possible to ensure ye received the missive. So ye could take the proper precautions.”

  “And I presume ye were given a ring to accompany this message?” Lord Tavish raised his brows.

  Clara patted the bag at her side. There had been no ring in its depths. She hadn’t even considered that she might need to ask if there was one. But Reid had never mentioned it. “I don’t believe so.”

  “Ye dinna believe so?” Lord Tavish smirked. “I assure ye, we are well protected. Now go before I have ye arrested.” His eyes narrowed with disgust. “We dinna much care for the English here.”

  “What of yer peasants?” Clara demanded. “They are no’ protected behind a curtain wall.”

  The people around the young lord went quiet, and the man’s face reddened. “Dinna presume to tell me how to care for my people. Guards!”

  There was a flurry of movement on either side of her as his soldiers leapt to attention to come to his aid.

  “What I tell ye is true,” Clara cried out while she still had time. “I am a granddaughter of the Chieftain of the Ross clan. I assure ye I am no Englishwoman. I have Scottish blood in my veins, and I tell ye—”

  “And yet the Ross Chieftain is riding farther south to raid as I understand it, and not here.” Lord Tavish shook his head. “Even if ye are his granddaughter, why din
na he accompany ye here to help?”

  Disappointment crushed within her chest. She shook her head, unable to provide a reasonable answer. At least not one that would aid her cause.

  “Leave here at once.” Lord Tavish arrogantly waved his hand. “Or I’ll have ye arrested.”

  Her gaze fell on the missive, but he did not offer it back. It didn’t matter. It was his to keep. Even if he refused to do anything with the news, he had received it.

  Still, his disinclination stung.

  After everything she and Reid had sacrificed to get to him in time, it hadn’t been enough.

  And the people…

  “Yer people will suffer,” she protested.

  He stood up. “Guards!”

  Clara backed away this time as several men approached her.

  “Leave my sight,” Lord Tavish growled.

  This time, Clara did not argue. She raced from the castle as fast as possible, pausing only to reclaim the abbey’s horse. As she passed through the gates, the market scene met her once more.

  A woman with two children waiting patiently at her side, their hands interlocked, purchased bread at a nearby stall. Off to the side, a little girl was slipping a bit of food to a dog whose tail wagged with happy affection. Yet another woman passed by as she kissed the crown of the babe’s head she held cradled in her arms.

  All innocent.

  All at the mercy of the English and their own obstinate lord in his protected fortress.

  Clara could not leave them to such a fate. There had to be something more she could do. Reid was not yet able to travel, but there were other lords in the surrounding area. Mayhap, she could appeal to them to help Dumbarton.

  As she made her way from the village and into the quiet forest, however, a creeping sensation slithering down the back of her neck told her that she wasn’t alone.

  She was being watched.

  Reid had been sitting in that damn bed for nigh on four days. He had no fever, and he didn’t feel any discomfort from his back, mayhap thanks to the nuns and their perpetual insistence that they apply salves and linens. His energy had even come back after the third day, leaving him restless and grating with irritability.