Chapter Seven
Kirkburn Castle
Seat of Drostan Lindsay
“I am sorry tae hear of yer troubles, Cam.”
Drostan stood in the great hall of Kirkburn Castle, facing a young man covered in soot, exhausted in body and grieved in mind. He’d known Cam Netherton for years, much as he’d known the man’s grandfather, and he was quite shocked to see that Cam had survived the raid on Netherton.
“They’re dead,” Cam rasped, interrupting Drostan’s thoughts. “Everyone is… dead.”
Drostan nodded sympathetically, but it was all for show. He felt absolutely no guilt that he’d been the one to give the order that saw the village devastated.
“I am aware, lad,” he said quietly. “We know it was the Keith. They raided Netherton and burned it tae the ground. But that was two days ago; where have ye been?”
Cam blinked, dazed as he tried to recall.
“Looking for my grandfather,” he said. “I wasna there when the raiders came. I was coming home from Brechin because my grandfather sent me tae old Albe the smithy. The man talks too much and before I realized it, the time was gone. I was just hurrying back when I saw the smoke.”
“Did ye find yer grandfather?”
Cam’s eyes filled with tears that he quickly blinked away. “Nay,” he said. “Not a trace.”
Drostan grunted, presumably with sorrow.
“Then ye must assume he’s dead,” Drostan said, seeing that he might be able to use the situation to his advantage.
The fact that Cam was still alive could be a complication.
“I’m sorry for ye, lad. The rage we all feel toward the Keith is unquenchable.
They’ve been our enemies since years past, but the raid on Netherton is beyond what I thought them capable of.
We feel yer anger toward them, lad. This willna go unanswered. ”
Drostan hoped to focus Cam’s rage toward the Keith in that statement, but Cam grasped his arm in desperation. The expression on the man’s face wasn’t the Cam that Drostan had known all of these years.
There was agony there.
“Someone told me once that there was a place where a man could learn tae fight,” he said. “Fight like a warrior, I mean. They called it the Ludus Caledonia. Have ye heard of the place?”
Drostan couldn’t help the surprise on his face. “Aye,” he said. “I know of it. Why do ye ask me that?”
Grief had a way of changing men and Drostan could see that Nikolaus’ presumed death had changed Cam; the peaceful smithy, the man who always seemed to be calm and in control, was no longer there.
The destruction of that bucolic life had warped his mind somehow until all he could see or feel was the lash of that anguish.
Two days amongst the dead had changed everything.
“Because I heard of it years ago,” Cam said, trying to put his thoughts into words.
“I’m not a warrior. I canna fight back against the men who did this terrible thing.
And then I remembered—the Ludus Caledonia, where men can become warriors.
Is there really such a place that will teach men tae fight? ”
Drostan nodded, curious where Cam was going with this train of thought. “There really is a place,” he said. “But the Ludus Caledonia is a place of secrecy, hidden in the Lowlands south of Edinburgh. It’s not for every man.”
“Will they teach me tae fight?”
Now, Drostan understood. “Do ye intend tae fight the entire clan, then?”
“I intend tae have my vengeance, I swear by God.”
Then, it hit him; Drostan could see the solution to his problem in that softly uttered question. If Cam went to the Ludus Caledonia, then Drostan wouldn’t have to worry over him any longer. Perhaps the Ludus Caledonia would accomplish what Drostan’s raid failed to do—get rid of Cam.
As the grandfather was eliminated, the grandson would be also.
“I only know tae go tae a tavern in Edinburgh called The Sticky Wick,” Drostan said, eagerly now that he realized he could send Cam away. “Ask for the Ludus Caledonia and they’ll help ye find it. But know this—ye dunna go tae The Cal. The Cal will come tae ye.”
Cam’s pale face had a hint of hope to it now, something to cling to. “The Sticky Wick,” Cam repeated. “Then that’s where I’ll go.”
Drostan’s gaze lingered on him. This was a better outcome than he had expected when Cam had stumbled into his hall.
“Godspeed, lad,” he said quietly. “Be on yer way.”
Without another word, Cam staggered from the hall, heading out into the night. Once he was gone, a man who had been standing off in the shadows of the hall came forward. He’d been watching everything and could no longer remain silent.
“Are ye mad, Dros?” Ternan demanded quietly. “What was that about?”
Drostan held up a hand as he looked at his cousin.
“Think,” Drostan said with irritation. “Nikolaus was the village elder. With Nikolaus dead, Cam could assume his grandfather’s mantle. Netherton will rise up if he asks them tae. They loved Nikolaus and they will follow his grandson. That is a problem we dunna need.”
Ternan eyed his cousin, not at all pleased with any of this.
Nikolaus wasn’t dead; he was very much alive in the vaults of Kirkburn, but Drostan didn’t know that and he never would.
It wasn’t as if Ternan could confess that he’d saved the old man’s life in a moment of weakness.
Therefore, he had to go along with the assumption that Nikolaus was dead.
“So ye send him tae The Cal where he can learn tae fight?” Ternan said. “He’ll come back and kill us all.”
Drostan gave him an expression that suggested he’d just said something ridiculous. “He’ll never survive The Cal,” he said. “’Tis a fight guild. They’ll chop him tae pieces and feed him tae the dogs, and we’ll be well rid of him.”
“Then ye’ve sent him tae his death?”
“Aye. I’ve no choice if we dunna want the added complication.”
No guilt, no emotion. That was Drostan. To him, the village of Netherton was simply a means to an end. He’d destroyed it and now he’d sent its native son off to be destroyed at the Ludus Caledonia.
*
He wasn’t sure he would even find her here.
Having just left Kirkburn Castle, Cam found his way to the Vale of Demons. Blindly, with a muddled mind and a shattered heart, but in spite of the hell of the past two days, he knew one thing—
He had to tell Isadora that he was leaving.
The vale was dark at this hour and he was moving by moonlight, the same moon that had been full and bright overhead on the evening that he’d returned from Brechin only to find Netherton in flames.
In that moment, everything had changed.
It was like a nightmare now, one that he would never awaken from.
Cam felt as if he was the walking dead, dead inside because of everything he’d seen.
Death in Netherton that he never imagined possible, seeing the bodies of friends and neighbors, seeing hell upon earth.
The smoke, the smell of flesh, had been so heavy that it had nearly choked him, but he soldiered on, searching the rubble for Nikolaus.
There had been no sign.
Cam was coming to think that his grandfather must have been caught up in the great fires that were still burning, his body reduced to ash. Perhaps he would never be found. As he’d told Drostan, there had been no trace.
Then ye must assume he’s dead.
That had been Drostan’s response. It was something Cam hadn’t been able to put into words until that moment, but hearing those words had been like a hammer to his skull. The pain had been intense.
So had the sense of vengeance.
But he couldn’t simply leave without telling Isadora where he was going.
He thought to ask her to go with him, but that wouldn’t be fair to her.
This wasn’t her fight. To take her away from the hills she loved and into something unknown and dangerous simply wasn’t fair to her, but he wanted her to know that leaving was something he had to do.
But he’d return for her.
That much, he would promise her. When all was said and done, and those responsible for his grandfather’s death were punished, then he would return for her. He would marry her and they would live wherever she wanted to live, in the hills or in a village. Perhaps they would even live in Brechin.
She’s from the hills. That means she’s either Ruthven or Keith.
More words that were like a blow to his heart. Cam closed his eyes tightly, trying to block out the implication. He knew the Keith had burned Netherton; Drostan had confirmed it. What if Isadora had been part of that group? What if it had been her own kin who had burned down Netherton?
But, no…
He didn’t know that for certain. He didn’t know for certain if she was a Keith.
He found himself praying that she wasn’t, praying that somehow, she would find him here in the vale and he could tell her everything he needed to say.
He could have looked for her in the hills, but he had no idea where to start. Moreover, he didn’t have the time.
He had a vow to fulfill.
By the time dawn began to color the eastern sky, Cam was forced to resign himself to the fact that he would not be able to find Isadora and tell her what had happened.
As he sat on a rock next to the stream where he’d first kissed her, it began to occur to him that even though he would not be able to tell her face to face that he’d return for her, perhaps he could leave her a sign.
Perhaps she would return to the vale at some point and see it and know Cam had been here.
Waiting for her.
Picking up a stick, he wrote into the dark, heavy mud on the banks of the brook.
Thu fhèin
He prayed she would see it.
Prayers, unfortunately, that were not answered. Later that day, after he’d left for Edinburgh, a storm rolled in from the sea and those two simple words were washed away by the rain, forever washed away in the brook that trickled down to the sea.