“A likely story,” Matthew said, rolling his eyes. “It’s a shame our expert is away at the moment, or I’d get all of this sorted out tonight. But she’ll be back in the morning.”
She? Bethany had only seen men in the camp so far… who could Matthew be talking about? But he didn’t seem interested in explaining himself to her.
“In the meantime… Sven, what’s your theory, here? You’ve met witches before.”
“She doesn’t seem like a witch,” Sven said thoughtfully, his cold eyes settling on her face. “More like one of their drones. My bet would that she’s been ensorcelled by them. It would explain the loss of memory… they’ve stolen her knowledge of who she is from her, all the better to take advantage of her.”
“So maybe she is Graham’s lady wife after all?” Matthew looked amused. “Well, Graham, a good night for all of us. Your little wife here just might be the key we need to destroy the MacClarans.”
Graham’s jaw was tight. “What do you plan on doing with her?”
“Well, nothing for now,” Matthew said, waving a hand. “We all need to get some rest before morning. The rest of the army should be arriving any day now, and if our contacts in the village are telling the truth, there have already been questions about our presence here from the castle.”
Bethany’s eyes widened. The questions she’d asked in the tavern earlier — they’d already gotten back to these men. Did that mean there were people in the village who were enemies to the MacClarans? Delilah had said it was a possibility. This was a bigger problem than she’d thought.
“Cristabella will have more to say about this creature, at any rate,” Matthew said dismissively. “Keep her captive until then.”
“Sir, permission to keep the captive in my tent?” Graham said quickly.
Matthew turned back to him, a lascivious look in his dark eyes. “Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? I bet it’s been a cold, lonely two years. Well, far be it from me to keep a man from his woman.” Sven was chuckling too, low in his throat, and Bethany suppressed the urge to snap at both of them. She didn’t like being treated like a sex object, didn’t like being reduced to Graham’s plaything… but the fact was, it would be much more beneficial to her to be imprisoned by a man with as much sympathy for her as Graham had. So she ducked her head shyly, playing the role of the meek, submissive woman as Graham took her by the arm and led her toward the door of the tent.
“Do try to get some rest at least,” Matthew said, grinning an ugly, lusty grin. “And never say I never do anything nice for my men.”
Graham nodded tautly, his jaw working to keep his anger under control. He had her gun and her phone in his hand, and her heart leapt — that was an unexpected boon. If she could manage to escape with her gun and her phone, so much the better. But for now, the most important thing was to get away — to get back to the castle as soon as possible to warn them that an army was being mobilized against them, led by a man who was convinced that they were all witches who had killed his brother. How much of that was true, she didn’t exactly know… but she wasn’t going to hang around here any longer than she had to.
But how was she going to manipulate Graham into letting her go back to the castle when he believed that she was his long-lost wife?
Chapter 11
There was a surprising amount of activity through the camp as Graham led her down the winding paths between tents. She tried to keep her eyes ahead, not wanting to entertain any of the jeers or taunts from the men they were passing with any of her attention… it was like a fire that had to be stifled, not fed. It felt strange, to be a civilian among soldiers — usually, she’d have been one of these men. This was the kind of place she should have felt at home.
Graham kept her close to his side, and she could feel the worry in his body as he ignored or rebuked the taunts and snide comments of the men they were passing — clearly, the presence of a woman in camp was unusual, and merited attention. Still processing what she’d learned from the conversation with Matthew and the other men, Bethany wondered who Cristabella was. Matthew had said ‘she’ in reference to whoever it was — was she his wife, perhaps? He didn’t seem the marrying kind. And they’d spoken of her with a curious kind of regard, as though she had opinions they respected… was it possible she was a woman with some kind of military clout? As much as Bethany wanted to get out of this camp as soon as humanly possible, a part of her was very interested to meet this Cristabella. She had a personal interest in how to earn that kind of respect from men like Matthew.
But as they headed down the rows of tents, her mind turned to another potential problem — which was that she, a woman, was going to a man’s sleeping quarters with him, unaccompanied. So far, Graham had treated her with a reasonable amount of respect, given that he was a member of a mercenary company that she had been spying on… but would that change when they were alone together? After all, he seemed to believe that she was his wife. Would he feel entitled to her affection, to her body? The other men certainly spoke as though they viewed women as sex toys… she could feel anxiety building in her bones and she fought it down, taking a few deep breaths in the effort to calm herself. She could talk her way out of this, surely. She’d use what she’d learned about Graham to hold him back. He’d seemed to honestly love his wife — his joy at seeing her alive again hadn’t been feigned. Surely he wouldn’t do anything against her will? But then again, it was the fifteenth century… not exactly a time period well known for the power and sexual autonomy of women…
Graham’s tent was at the end of the row. Like all the others, it had a much higher roof than the ones she was used to — it was possible to stand up and move around inside. On one side of the tent was a large bedroll — on the other, a rough wooden table, battered and damaged from life on the road, on which Graham placed his sword… and, she noticed with a thrill of adrenaline, her gun and phone. Could she make a break for it now — grab the gun, grab the phone and run into the night while he was disarmed?
No — her hands were still bound. And besides… a part of her was deeply curious about this strange man, this blue-eyed, intense young man who’d welcomed her with such heartbreaking joy as his own lost wife. She wasn’t his wife, of course… how could that be? But her mind had been ticking over the recognition, and she’d remembered what Delilah and the other women had told her about meeting their own husbands … that each one of them had mistaken them at first for a lost love from their past. Hadn’t all the women asked her if she’d met ‘her’ MacClaran man, yet? And here was this blue-eyed stranger, calling her Galena…
But how could that make any sense? Delilah had explained the magic to her in detail — it was a family curse, laid on the MacClaran men. Any woman who fell for a MacClaran man would die… and then a distant descendant would be brought back from the future to take her place. This certainly fit that pattern. From what Graham had said, Galena had drowned two years ago… that would have been before Delilah did whatever she’d done to lift the curse. And here was Bethany, pulled back through time and space, apparently the spitting image of the lost woman…
But there was one piece of information that didn’t fit. The curse had been laid on the men of Clan MacClaran. And this man, despite his rather lovely Scottish accent, wasn’t a MacClaran. He was a traveling mercenary, a member of a band of outlaws who clearly had plans to do harm — he served the deeply unpleasant Matthew, didn’t he? What honorable MacClaran man would have found himself in this kind of situation? Unless… she bit her lip, thinking hard as she watched him unbuckle his armor. Could he be some kind of exile from the family? Or perhaps a bastard child, unrecognized but still part of the family bloodline? Those keen blue eyes were familiar, after all… she was itching to find out. And though it might have been unwise, she decided against making a break for it straight away. More information was always valuable. She’d gotten herself into this mess… the least she could do was take full advantage of the situation.
Maybe, if she brought
some interesting new information back to the MacClarans at the castle, they’d be less angry with her for endangering herself and everyone at the castle by getting caught like this.
Graham turned to her, and she tensed a little, keenly aware that they were alone together, that he was a man and she was a woman… but the look in his eyes was anything but predatory. He moved toward her, but stopped a comfortable distance away, eyes fixed on her face.
“Are you alright?” he asked softly, nothing but concern in his eyes.
She blinked, a little confused by what he meant… then remembered that Matthew had struck her hard in the face. She’d had worse, of course — she’d taken harder hits sparring with her friends — but Graham didn’t need to know that. It would benefit her to play the fragile woman, so she did, raising a hand to her cheek and delicately touching it. No blood, even. She really had taken harder hits in her sleep.
“I think so,” she said, imagining that Galena probably wouldn’t have reacted to a punch in the face so dismissively. “I’m a bit shaken up.”
“I’m sorry about Matthew,” he said in a low voice, steering her over to a battered chair that stood by the table.
She sat down, not letting her eyes move to her gun or phone, even though they were tantalizingly close… no need to give him any reason at all to suspect her.
“He’s not as bad as he seems… he just has a lot of strong feelings about witches and the MacClarans.”
“I’m not a witch,” she said, staring down at her bound hands. Should she ask him to untie her, or wait for him to volunteer to do it? She fidgeted with her wrists as though the ropes were hurting her. “If I was a witch, I’d have better things to do with my time than spying on a bunch of soldiers.”
Graham uttered a short laugh, taking a seat next to her — she could feel the warmth of his body, quite pleasant in the chill of the night air, but he didn’t sit close enough to make her feel uncomfortable. “‘Soldiers’ is a compliment.”
“You aren’t soldiers? You’ve all got swords and stuff…” Was she overdoing the innocent woman act a little?
“Mercenaries is a better term.” He shrugged, confirming her suspicions. “The vast majority of these men care only for coin. Sven’s an exception — his loyalty is to Matthew. And Adolf would take a fight wherever he could find it. But the rest of them… money’s what drives them, not honor or loyalty.”
“And what about you? What motivates you?” she asked gently, curious despite herself… and wanting to goad him into talking more about the army. They were mercenaries, men for hire — that was good. That meant that cutting off the source of their pay would be enough to cripple the army completely. Graham was looking at her sadly.
“You really don’t remember me, do you?”
“I don’t,” she said softly, and the apologetic expression on her face wasn’t feigned.
He seemed a nice enough man… it was a shame to have to mislead him like this, to use his own feelings against him. She reminded herself that he was her captor, that her hands were bound, and she was in this dangerous place because of him… and as if he sensed her thoughts, he reached forward to untie her hands, tossing the rope aside and gently rubbing at the red marks where the ropes had been.
“Thanks,” she said, meaning it.
“Just don’t go running off,” he warned her with a slight smile. “The men here… they’re not good men. If they catch you …”
She shuddered at the look on his face. “I won’t,” she promised. And she meant it… she had no intention of running away. Not just yet, anyway. Not until she’d gotten to the bottom of a few questions she had. “So — a mercenary army? What are you doing here?”
“We’re witch hunters,” he said simply, a hard look coming across his face that sent a chill through her. Witch hunters. This was exactly what Delilah had warned her about. “The castle up on the hill, the place you’ve been staying? It’s a nest of witches.”
“I haven’t met any witches,” she whispered, thinking of her niece — thinking of the half-dozen women who’d been brought back to this place through time by the curse of a witch. “The MacClarans have been nothing but kind to me.” She knew she had to tread carefully here. Disagreeing with him would be a useful way of getting him to explain more of his motivations, of what he and the other men were doing here and why… but she had to tread carefully to avoid making him angry. But he didn’t look angry — he just shook his head, a slightly sympathetic look on his face.
“Of course they wouldn’t reveal themselves to you,” he said softly. “They took your memory from you, Galena. They’ve clearly done whatever dark magic they do to you so that you’ll serve them.”
She hesitated, not sure how to play this one. Would Galena protest, say that she wasn’t serving anyone? But Graham was already moving on.
“No, they’re an evil group, through and through. Matthew and I know that firsthand.”
She tilted her head to the side, a little confused. “How’s that?”
He heaved a sigh. “Of course. It happened after you — after I thought I’d lost you. The MacClarans killed my father, Galena. First they banished him and ruined his life, many years ago. Then, when he returned to try to right that injustice and banish the witches once and for all… they murdered him.”
Bethany’s mind was racing. She knew the MacClarans — she’d only been there for a week, of course, but her sister had been there for a year, and she trusted her judgment completely. They’d never murder a man in cold blood, she knew that in her bones. Graham had been misled, somewhere… or was he lying to her? She scrutinized his face, relying on her training, looking for any sign that he was telling her something he didn’t actually believe to be the truth… and to her surprise, she saw no sign at all. This was something he believed. But why?
“Were you there?” she asked softly.
He hesitated, and a conflicted look came across his face. “No,” he admitted, looking a little sheepish. “I didn’t actually know my father. But my mother told me all about him. He was a soldier, an honorable man who fought against witches wherever he went. He served a priest called Brother Willows for a long time — they did all kinds of good for this country.”
A chill ran through her. A band of witch hunters? She could imagine the kind of ‘good’ they’d done, based on what she knew about the kinds of behaviors that usually got called witchcraft… basically any example of a woman understanding something a man didn’t seemed to qualify. How many innocent women had been harmed or killed because of Graham’s father and his little band of hunters?
“What happened to them?”
“The MacClarans happened,” Graham spat, his face twisting. “My father returned to the Keep to root out the witches he knew were there… it was the conniving of a witch that had gotten him banished from their service in the first place, you see, and her influence had only spread and grown since he was forced to leave.”
This story sounded like one he’d told a few times. Bethany leaned forward, trying to keep her facial expression neutral, even though everything he was telling her sounded like a bald-faced lie.
“But the witches were too crafty. They’d manipulated the men of the Clan into doing their bidding by then, you see. The whole group of witch hunters fought bravely, but they were undone by a witch called Morag. My father thought he’d defeated her — it was killing her that got him banished from the Keep in the first place. But witches are crafty, and she returned from the dead to end his life… and the life of Brother Willows.”
“She killed them with magic?” Bethany was thinking about the women she’d met — none of them seemed like the kinds of people who’d perform murder with magic. But the story of a woman returning from the dead… that sounded a lot like the way Delilah and her friends had been brought back through time to replace their ancestors… Bethany was beginning to realize how serious an accusation of witchcraft could be.
“In a way,” Graham explained, clearly warming to his st
ory. “Witches are crafty — they know that any outright display of their evil work would lead to them being cast down by righteous, God-fearing men. So they work indirectly, through influence and control. This witch Morag wore a new name and manipulated a man into loving her. Driven mad by his unnatural lust for her, he turned his blade on my father… and on Brother Willows, a man of God. His name was Gavin MacClaran, and I’ll have my revenge on him if it costs me my life.”
Bethany fought to control her shock. Gavin MacClaran? Her new brother-in-law? The gentle, thoughtful man who’d married her sister, the father of her bright-eyed little niece? She tried to imagine him in the role Graham had described — a cold-blooded killer, manipulated and controlled by a witch… but wait. If Gavin was the murderer, who was the returned witch who was manipulating him into loving her? Could that be Delilah? She had to stifle a grin, covering her face with her hands as though overwhelmed by the intensity of the story… and to her surprise, she felt Graham’s hand on her shoulder, comforting her.
“I know it’s a lot to take in,” he said gently, stroking her back. She didn’t discourage him… she had to admit, it felt rather nice. “The witches have probably manipulated you, too. There’s no shame in falling for their tricks… many strong men have fallen, too.”
She lifted her head, her amusement finally under control… god, she couldn’t wait to tell her sister that she was an evil witch who’d ensnared Gavin with her eldritch powers. She distracted herself with a point of clarification. “Brother Willows — was he a relative of Matthew’s, then?”
“Aye,” Graham nodded, his face solemn. “His brother, in fact. He owed him a life debt. Matthew was a knight, once. After an altercation with the daughter of his Lord, he would have been executed… but his brother interceded, arguing for his life, and managed to negotiate the sentence down to a banishment. Matthew’s determined to avenge his death, and to finish what he started in putting all the MacClaran witches to death.”
Highlander Avenged: A Scottish Time Travel Romance Page 9