Chapter 39
Sheena curled up by the fire, wrapped in her cloak and in a plaid lent by Jannet.
It wasn’t terribly windy outside, but there was still a draft running along the floor where she lay.
At least she wouldn’t be sleeping on the cold dirt floor, for there was a narrow strip of plank on the ground, the covering of a store.
Sheena had been surprised, never having seen a store inside a crofter’s hut, but Roy explained that he had dug it for his wife.
Jannet was from the south, where hot summers necessitated a cool place for keeping cream, butter, and fresh game.
She had talked Roy into digging the hole before she learned that summers in the Highlands were not so hot as what she was used to.
Sheena was glad to have a smooth surface to lie on, even if sleep did elude her. Roy and Jannet were long since fast asleep in the far corner, Roy after securing the outside and checking his goats and sheep, Jannet after grinding meal for the following day.
They had been so kind to her, assuring her that Jamie wasn’t as terrible as he seemed and that everything would work out for them. She was to remember that prophecy later.
She wasn’t sure what they were, those first swirls of smoke. They seeped in through the roof, and she was staring right at them without comprehending. Impossible. Yet she had to believe it when flames appeared, eating a hole in the thatch.
Her first instinct was to flee, but that was stifled when she recalled the recent raid in which Jock’s and Hamish’s homes were fired.
It could only be another raid. Sheena cursed the bastards for sneaking up on them, hoping to catch them all asleep.
It was a dastardly thing to do, so devious, lacking any measure of honor.
Sheena was trying desperately to keep from panicking as she watched the hole in the roof getting bigger. They couldn’t leave the hut—or could they? Could the raiders have started the fire and then ridden on? Or were they still outside?
A torch fell through the roof, and she quickly smothered it with the plaid.
A torch! That was how the fire had started.
So it was a raid! Jannet screamed, having wakened to a nightmare, and Sheena turned to see Roy grabbing for his weapons.
She was sickened. She couldn’t bear the thought of kind Roy going out there to meet his death.
Yet they would all die if something wasn’t done quickly.
She ran to the window, praying that the raiders had gone on. But outside, in the glow from the fire, she saw five mounted men. They were just sitting there, waiting. Waiting until everyone inside had been burned alive.
At first the faces were a blur. All she could see was the color of their plaids. Her colors. Her mind would not accept what her eyes saw. But then she saw faces a little more clearly. She was such a fool not to have guessed before. William! That was William’s face!
Part of the roof fell in, and Sheena screamed, stopping Roy as he was about to open the door. She rushed to him, pulling him back with all her strength.
“You canna, man! There’s too many of them, and ’tis what they want. They’re waiting for you!”
He pulled her fingers off his jerkin and said, “Get back, lass. Get under the bed wi’ my Jannet. I’ll hold them off until help comes. We’re no’ sae far from the castle.”
“But there’s five of them!” Sheena was crying. Couldn’t he understand? “Jannet, tell him no’ to do it! Have you no water? We can fight the fire!”
Jannet was coming forward with a tin of water. Sheena’s skirt had just caught fire, and she doused it. She was calm, more so than either Sheena or her husband.
“She’s right, Roy. Yer canna go out there.”
“We’ve no’ enough water, Jannet!”
“I know. But there’s another way. We’ve the store. We’ve a better chance of surviving there than wi’ you being cut to pieces outside. Do as I say, man.”
“The fire will still reach us,” he insisted, even as he let her pull him toward the plank in the floor.
“It may,” she agreed, keeping her voice calm for their sake. “But no’ as quickly. Now open the trap and get inside,” she ordered as she splashed the rest of the water over the planks. “You, too, lassie. Quickly.”
The space was tiny, with just enough room for one person to move between the shelves lining each wall.
But it was also deep, with steps carved into the earth.
Roy went down. Sheena followed. Jannet was the last to enter, closing the trapdoor above them with a sickening finality.
They were crammed tightly into the hole, Roy pressed against the back wall, Jannet crouched on the stairs, Sheena in between them. It was very difficult to breathe.
“I told yer yer should’ve made the store bigger, Roy,” Jannet joked, knowing how frightened her companions were.
“What difference does that make if we’re sealed in a tomb?” Roy retorted.
The fire was burning too quickly. They heard it. Sheena couldn’t believe help would come in time. But she had to believe it.
Roy was growing more and more agitated. “Enough, Jannet! They’ve gone by now. Let’s go.”
“Mayhap they have gone, but the fire hasna. We’ve nae choice but to wait till the flames die down some.”
It might have worked out that way if part of the roof hadn’t fallen on the trapdoor instead of to the side of it.
At the sound of the crash, Jannet tried to push open the door.
It wouldn’t budge. Through the cracks in the door there was only a white blaze.
They couldn’t see smoke, but they could smell it, taste it, and their eyes burned. Breathing was next to impossible.
How long could that little bit of water on the planks keep the fire back? How long before the boards caved in on them?
Sheena was asking herself why Jamie had left her to this. And she was grieving for Roy and Jannet. Poor souls, none of this was their fault.
Jamie was racing blindly down the mountainside.
When he had been told of the fire and whose hut was being consumed, he couldn’t believe it.
He still wouldn’t accept it, not even when he saw it for himself.
The flames had lessened, but were still lapping greedily at anything that hadn’t been destroyed.
Jamie charged in, a man gone wild, burning himself as he tossed aside flaming wood and debris, praying, however futilely, that he would find Sheena alive, that she wouldn’t be dead, as reason insisted she must be.
“Mayhap you ken how I felt when my sister died this way.” Black Gawain’s quiet voice penetrated Jamie’s crazed state of mind. “She’s no’ dead! And if you’re no’ here to help find her, then get out!”
Black Gawain stumbled outside, running into Colen, who had just arrived that minute. “He’s lost his senses, lad. Try to get him out of there ’afore the walls cave in and we lose him, too.”
Colen ignored Black Gawain, ordering the men he’d brought with him to help search. He followed them in. Gawain shook his head and left the scene. As much as he had hated Sheena, he wouldn’t have wished that kind of death on her—not even to avenge his sister.
Every piece of rubble and scarred wood was moved. The search was for bodies now, for nothing could have lived through that fire. Jamie was nearly out of his mind, but the one little bit of sanity left demanded proof. He wouldn’t believe she was dead until he had proof.
There was great excitement when the plank door was found, charred but intact.
In his haste to reach the door, Jamie threw men aside.
He lifted the door. Three bodies were there, cloths covering their faces, unmoving.
Unmoving! Jamie couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe.
Then one of the bodies coughed, a tiny sound, and he couldn’t move fast enough.
He lifted Jannet out and handed her to Colen, then took Sheena in his arms and carried her out of the house, leaving others to see to Roy.
Tears coursed down his face as he set her down in the cool air away from the house.
No one came near him. Those watching turned away as Jamie knelt by his wife and began shaking her, slapping her, all the while shouting prayers and curses, one after another.
The first thought Sheena had when feeling returned was that the flames must have reached them, for her lungs were on fire.
Suddenly she was racked by coughing so violent she could hardly catch her breath.
But she did manage to breathe a little, and the air was so cooling, soothing her raw throat and burning lungs.
Then she was crushed in someone’s mighty arms and couldn’t breathe again. She began to struggle, fighting, and the grip lessened a bit.
Colen approached, so relieved he felt giddy. He could well imagine what his brother was feeling.
“Jannet and Roy are alive,” he informed Jamie. Then he delivered the bad news. “The croft below didna fair as well. Sheena and Roy and Jannet would be dead now, too, wi’out that place to hide. Do you know that?”
“I know.”
“What possessed you to leave her here unprotected, I’d like to be knowing?”
Jamie looked at Colen over the top of Sheena’s head, his face tormented. “Do you think I can ever forgive myself? I was so consumed with anger, lad, I didna think to post a watch over her. But that’s no excuse. Because of my fool temper, she might have died.”
Colen shook his head. “Then may I hope you’ll make an effort to control your fool temper next time?”
“There’ll be no next time,” Jamie said quietly.
“Will we be riding directly this time? They canna be too far ahead,” Colen said.
“Aye, as soon as I take Sheena to the castle.”
There was nothing wrong with Sheena’s hearing. Joy at being alive fought with bitterness. She pushed Jamie away from her.
“You havena asked if I want to be taken to your castle.” Her voice was only a whisper, and she rubbed at her burning eyes.