Chapter Thirty-Six
“Listen to me,” Dougal said, “we do not have much time.”
They huddled close beside the fire in MacNab’s great hall, the four of them alone, as private as a room under guard could be.
MacNab had ordered Catherine brought down from her imprisonment to join Isobel, Dougal, and Thomas.
Catherine had gone into Thomas’s arms and not come out again; the two of them spoke in murmurs, oblivious of their companions.
Isobel, standing beside her own husband, shot a half envious look at her sister.
Of course she was glad Catherine and Thomas were together, however briefly, and she wanted Catherine to be happy.
She had done much and gone far since their mother’s death to assure just that.
Yet at this moment she felt inclined to weep for the fact that she, herself, could not burrow into Dougal’s arms where she so longed to be.
She lifted her eyes and searched those of her husband. What she saw there made her throat tighten: banked rage, determination, and concern for her. Concern. That was all. She must have been mistaken when, a few moments ago, she thought she had glimpsed love.
“Your hand—” he began.
“You are right,” she interrupted him. “We have no time now to speak of that.”
“Have they hurt you in any other way?” He tipped her chin up, his eyes plundering hers for the truth. “Bertram did not—?”
Isobel shook her head. “Not yet. So far we have been kept together. There is no way out of our prison. I have looked. But that is not why I asked to see you alone. Dougal—”
Passionately, he broke in, “I will no’ fail you, Isobel, I swear it. I will win you free from here somehow, so I do vow!”
His earnestness made tears flood Isobel’s eyes.
She seized hold of him with her good hand; the other was paralyzed by pain.
“Yes, but you cannot surrender your lands. That is what I wanted a chance to tell you, Husband. I know what they mean to you, how dear to your heart!” Indeed, were his lands not the sole occupant of that fiercely-guarded chamber? “There must be another way.”
Slowly, he shook his head. “I have thought on it, on naught else. MacNab is a clever bastard and has long plotted to have my lands—do you no’ see?
Had the King condemned me to death, who but the King’s good friend would have been awarded stewardship over my confiscated holdings?
The greedy lout will have them one way or another. ”
Isobel said, as steadily as she could manage, “But you cannot sign away all you own, all your ancestors held—not for me.”
“I will not leave you here.”
“You are thinking of Aisla, are you not?” Isobel challenged. “You think on how she died here, in his hands. You regret—”
“Regret does not begin to describe it.”
“So,” Isobel drew a breath, “you act, still, for her and not for me.”
“You are wrong.” He reached out and his fingers touched her face softly, like the brush of feathers. Again, she saw something stir in the smoky depths of his eyes. “I care for you, Isobel, and ’twould murder me to leave you now. I care as much as I am able—”
“There must be another way.” Thomas repeated Isobel’s own words. He stepped to their sides with Catherine tucked into his arm. “What about a challenge?”
Dougal turned guarded eyes on him, with no reply.
Thomas spoke on, “My father used to tell us tales of the old times, as he called them, here in Scotland and sometimes, in Viking days, in Yorkshire as well. Great matters were known to be settled by single combat—one warrior pitted against another. If you challenge yon monster’s son, Bertram, honor will not let them refuse. ”
“Honor?” Dougal repeated the word as if foreign to him. “Did you not say, yourself, these men know nothing of it?” He lifted his hand and touched the deep scar on his cheek.
“It gives us a better chance, surely,” Thomas urged, “than signing away your lands? Even if you do that, how do we know MacNab will release our wives?”
“I agree,” Isobel cried. “You are a fierce warrior. I know you will win—”
Catherine, reading Dougal’s expression, spoke up unexpectedly. “He would win, did MacNab give him a fair chance. It is what you fear, is it not, Brother-in-law? An unfair contest?”
The room went suddenly still. Isobel, caught by the look in her husband’s eyes, felt some of the pieces of the past fall into place.
“It is what happened before, is it not?” she hazarded. “This would not be the first time you fought Bertram MacNab. Last time was for Aisla?”
“Aisla?” Thomas questioned.
Isobel glanced at Thomas and Catherine while Dougal stood as if carved from wood. “Bertram MacNab’s first wife, and the woman Dougal loved—loves still.”
Dougal stirred slowly, like a man moving through molasses.
“I was but a lad of twenty then,” he growled, “and a fool who believed in such things as honor and right. I came here, aye, after Meg received that letter from Aisla. I told no one, not Meg and not Lachlan, not then nor afterwards. I challenged Bertram MacNab to combat for her.”
Again he touched the scar on his face, and Isobel felt her stomach clench. “What happened?”
“Bertram told me he would accept my challenge, aye, but since Aisla was his wife under law, I should need to earn my right to face him in single combat.”
“How?” asked Isobel, trying to picture her husband at twenty, determined and idealistic.
“He said I must work my way up to him by first facing the members of his personal guard in succession, one on one, seasoned warriors all, and avid for it. I see now he wished only to humiliate me. In that he succeeded all too well.
“It took place here in the forecourt, myself surrounded by the pack of them, yelping like wolves. I loved her so much—” He closed his eyes for an instant, as if at a surge of pain.
“I thought I could overcome anything. I asked him for but one thing, that he might tell Aisla I was there. I wanted her to know I had come for her, however it ended. He refused. So she never knew. She never even knew.”
Thomas swore softly, and Isobel bit her tongue so hard she drew blood. So, this made the wound not yet healed. She did not want to hear the rest of it but knew she must listen.
Thomas spoke again. “How many did you face?”
“Sixteen,” Dougal said bitterly, “with Bertram himself the last. By then I was covered in wounds and could barely stand. The mind may remain willing, but the body gives out. At least, mine did that day. Bertram took me down on the stones and cut my face—deep—with his sword, giving me something to remember. As if I could ever forget!”
“What happened then?” Thomas asked softly.
“They hauled me up, half dead and bleeding, dragged me out, and dumped me beside the burn on the border of my land. I made my way home somehow and never spoke of it—not to anyone. I was too sore ashamed. Next morning, early, I told my servant I was off hunting. I took myself away to the wood, meaning to wait for my wounds to heal. And while there alone, I felt Aisla leave this world—believe that as you may. I returned home only to have Meg shout at me. Word had come that Aisla was dead. Meg called me a coward and blamed me for it. She has never stopped. Nor have I.”
“By God!” Catherine exclaimed.
And Thomas added, “But you cannot blame yourself, man!”
“Och, I do.”
“It was not a fair fight!”
“And that is what I should have known. That is what I have learned. MacNab does not play fair. I wasted my one chance, and Aisla died for it. How can I ever put that aside?”
Isobel caught her husband’s hand and, trying to speak round the emotion that clogged her throat, said, “The courage you showed on Aisla’s behalf surpasses what she could ever have asked. She would have forgiven you, had she known what you endured that night.”
“You do not know that.”
“Yes! If she loved you, she would forgive. Yet you have continued to punish yourself all these years and allowed Meg to punish you with her hate. Why did you never tell her? How did you hide your wounds, your scars, when you did return from the wood?”
Dougal laughed bitterly. “A many nights’ drunken stupor and a number of brawls can disguise many things. Aye, and I would have crawled inside my flask then. But as I have learned, there is no escape, even in the drink.” His eyes met Isobel’s. “I could not tell Meg, or anyone, and admit my shame.”
“There was no shame,” Thomas insisted, “for you were cheated.”
“Yes,” Catherine agreed, “and it will not end so, this time.”
Dougal rounded on her. “What makes you think I can trust them now, any more than then?”
“You are no child now,” Thomas said. “You have many witnesses, and you can insist Bertram face you fairly. Unless he is a coward, he must agree.”
“Must he?” Dougal grimaced. “Tell that to him.”
“I will, and gladly.”
“This decision,” said Isobel, speaking from her heart, “cannot be ours, Thomas, Dougal alone can decide.”
“There you are wrong.” Once more, Dougal touched her face tenderly. “’Tis yourself and your sister, Wife, who will pay the price, should I fail.”
“You will not fail,” Isobel said fiercely, her eyes holding his.
“I did, last time. You have no right to have such faith in me.”
“I have every faith in you. I entrust you with my life. Yet, I would not have you do anything in which you do not believe—”
“You know what will happen to you if I leave here without you, Isobel. Even if I go straight to Stirling to plead our case—against James’s loyal subject and friend, no less—’twill take too long. Once I am gone, MacNab will unleash his every perversion...”
“I know.” Isobel thought of that terrible room—Aisla’s prison and death place—the ropes on the bedposts, the threatened wave of warriors.
Could she endure it? Maybe not, but neither could she endure costing this man, whom she loved, the one remaining occupant of his heart.
“Yet surrendering your lands will beggar you. I cannot send you—send all of us—penniless into the world!”
“We shall not leave you here.” Thomas spoke. “I shall offer to fight the bastard myself, if need be.”
Dougal looked hard at Thomas before giving a tight smile. “You, the son of a bailiff, when here stand I, descendent of chieftains? I would fight the bastard in a heartbeat, man, if I thought we had a fair chance.”
“Then let us put our heads together,” Thomas growled, “and see how we can assure it.”