Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Esme hurried downstairs as soon as she heard the horn, and looked up at the night sky, which was rapidly lightening to the strange green color that passed as daylight here. “Something is wrong with the time. Sunset was only a couple of hours ago.”
The old man who worked in the gardens came to her. “You should go to the dungeons with the other females, lass.”
“I don’t like the dungeons,” she murmured absently. How many attacks would there be today? Or was it still tonight? When she saw the laird’s wife stride out of the stronghold she went directly to her. “Is it happening again?”
Watchers on the outer wall began to blow their horns all together as the thunderous sound of horses grew loud on the other side of the gate.
“I don’t know. I think this is different.
” Ava looked over at Alec’s wife, who joined them.
“Olivia, go and arm the household maids. Ask those who want to fight to go guard the passages outside the laird’s chamber and the infirmary.
” She drew her sword and then looked at Esme.
“Tasgall warned me that this event in the cycle is going to get ugly once the MacBren makes it through the outer gate. Are you sure you want to fight?”
She nodded. “I don’t run from bullies. The guys need more help.”
Together she and Ava ran for the inner wall gate, and retrieved the bundles of arrows and spears from the weapon storage rooms to one side before carrying them up to each clansman on the wall, assuring they were fully armed.
“You should go into the stronghold, my ladies,” Sawney said after he took four spears from Ava, and a bundle of arrows from Esme. “’Tis the day I shall die defending the stronghold from the enemy. I dinnae wish any woman to witness such.”
“You remember?” the laird’s wife asked, looking shocked.
“Never before this cycle, my lady,” the guard admitted. “I’ve been dreaming of my death for months now.”
Ava touched his arm. “Rory says that if the spell is broken, then Dun Talamh will be returned to the twelfth century before any of this business with the MacBren happened. You have a good chance of getting your life back.”
Esme stared at her. “Is that true?”
“’Twould be a kindness, but I’ve died nine hundred times already, Mistress,” Sawney said. “I dinnae fear the end, for I shall go to the Well of Stars where my lady màthair and her kin await me.”
“Down,” Ava said, pushing Esme behind one of the stone battlements.
A hail of arrows came over their heads, striking two of the guards but missing Sawney.
He trotted over to pull one man to cover before taking his place and hurling a spear.
Esme almost screamed when a dozen arrows pierced the guard’s face and chest, causing him to topple over the wall and fall to the ground.
The sight of Sawney being killed suddenly made everything very real for Esme. “Ay, Dios mio, Ava, what is this place?”
“We need to retreat to the gardens,” the laird’s wife told her, and kept crouched over as she went with her to the stairs.
Once they descended Ava made a dash for the granary, where they found Una and Elspeth waiting with shields and spears.
“Here, my lady.” The head chambermaid gave the laird’s wife her wooden stave, and offered Esme a sling and a pouch. “Armorer sent this for you, Mistress.”
“He’s a mind reader.” She took an iron nugget out of the pouch and loaded it into the cradle, and then glanced up. “There’s a sky light in the roof. I’m going to climb up there to get a look while there’s still some light.”
Ava and the other women helped hoist her up to the rafters, but by the time she climbed through the hole the sky had gone black.
She could see the clansmen on the inner wall, but the outer had been overrun.
Then she saw Darro leading a group of the biggest clansmen up to the inner bailey gate, where they formed two ranks as he stood blocking the grates in the portcullis with his own body.
“What are you doing there?” Esme whispered furiously as she sat on the edge of the skylight. Green light suddenly filled the sky as the portcullis lifted, and a big, gray-haired man dressed in red came riding in on a huge white stallion, followed by a dozen men in black.
“MacBren at the front,” Ava called up to her. “You can’t kill him or his men, but he can kill you.”
“Okay. It’s official, I hate this prison,” she muttered as the enemy laird and his entourage halted in front of Darro, who simply stood there. “Why are you doing that? He’ll trample you with that big horse. Get out of there, you idiot man.”
“I shall escort you to the laird, my lord,” the chieftain said to the MacBren. “If you’ll leave your mounts to be watered and fed.”
“I’ve come to give your mule-headed brother a final chance to do right by my Torra,” the laird said, and dismounted before handing his horse’s reins to a waiting stable hand. “If he doesnae agree, many shall die on McKeran soil this day, Chieftain.”
Darro inclined his head and accompanied the laird into the stronghold. When all of the MacBren’s men followed without attacking any of the McKeran flanking them, Esme climbed back down into the granary.
“The chieftain took them into the castle,” she told Ava, and started for the door. When the laird’s wife caught her arm, she nearly shoved her away. “I told you, Agent Travars, I don’t hide from bullies.”
“My lady, they’ll slay you,” Una warned. “Or do such to make you wish they would.”
“If we use the hidden passages, we can get inside and see what’s happening without the MacBren and his thugs seeing us,” Ava told her. “Come with me and I’ll show you.” To the maids she said, “Stay here out of sight.”
The scent of smoke from burning oil hung heavily in the air as Esme followed the laird’s wife across the inner bailey to an arch near the rear of the kitchens.
Inside Ava turned right and hurried down a narrow passage to storage rooms without doors, and ducked into the third, which was filled with hanging bunches of herbs and shelves with baskets of dried fruit.
“’It’s here,” she told Esme as she shifted a wooden rack of dried lavender and chamomile flowers to one side, revealing a narrow wooden door recessed into the stone wall. After lighting a candle, she opened it and stepped inside.
The cramped space behind the door barely seemed wide enough for the two of them, and a thin layer of dust on the floor rose with every step they took.
Esme didn’t look up for fear of seeing spider webs.
Ava guided her through a labyrinth of corners and curves, halting now and then to listen before continuing on.
The air inside the passage grew chillier, and a white mist wafted around them, causing the flame of the candle to flicker for a moment.
“That’s Torra MacBren’s spirit,” the laird’s wife said. “She must need to tell us something.” She extended her arm toward the mist as if to touch it.
Esme snatched her hand back. “No, let her use me. You’re the only one who knows where we are.” Before Ava could reply she walked into the mist.
At first a soft, cool breeze seemed to wrap around her, and then something completely beyond her experiences began speaking inside her head.
My sire, he’s been changed, and no’ just in the timing of his arrival, the young woman’s voice said. Never did he once wear any garment dyed red. ’Tis a color he considered unlucky.
“She says her papi never wore red in his life,” Esme told Ava. “The version that came here is in all red clothes.”
“It must be the enchantment altering his appearance.” The laird’s wife glanced to one side of the passage. “Will you allow Torra to stay with you until we can get to the viewing post? That way she can observe what’s happening with us.”
Esme disliked the sensation of having the other girl in her mind—it seemed creepy, and had already given her a headache—but to refuse seemed ungracious. “It’s fine, but not for hours, okay?”
Just permit me see my sire, my lady, Torra said behind her eyes. I shall ken any other changes made to him since last he and his men came to Dun Talamh.
Ava led her through another turn into a wider passage, and then climbed a short flight of stairs at the end to an elevated platform attached to a wall covered by a heavy canvas.
The laird’s wife touched her finger to her lips before she pulled back the canvas to reveal a row of slits in the stone, one of which she peered through before she beckoned to Esme.
Looking through the slit beside Ava’s allowed her to get a birds-eye view of the laird’s chamber, which was filled with armed, angry-looking clansmen standing guard in front of Tasgall and Alec.
As the MacBren and Darro walked in, all of the McKeran brandished their swords, drew daggers and otherwise prepared to fight.
“McKeran,” the enemy laird called out as he planted himself directly between his men and Tasgall’s.
“I’ve found a spark of mercy in my heart that may save your hide and keep your clan alive.
Oblige me as the mormaer of Scotland by agreeing to wed my Torra this very day and I shall spare you and your men.
Refuse me, and ’twill serve as your final words, for I shall slit your throat myself thereafter. ”
Since becoming the king’s second my sire never spilled blood by his own hand, Torra whispered inside her. He considered it beneath his dignity, and wouldnae threaten such, even as a jest.
Esme noticed while the MacBren was speaking several of his men seemed to go blurry, as if her eyes were filling with tears.
She rubbed her eyes, leaned over and murmured what the girl had told her to Ava, and then nearly fell on her face as a white mist came out of her and poured through the slit to hover over the men in the laird’s chamber.
“What is she doing?” Ava demanded in a whisper.
Esme shook her head. “No idea.”