Chapter Twenty-Five
The Vale of Morning (Vale of Demons)
This was where they’d first met.
It was almost in this very spot, in fact.
Right at the crest of the path that ran through the vale, closer to Lindsay lands than to Keith.
As Isadora plunged through the icy foliage that had grown up over the footpath, she remembered that day very well.
It was the day her life had changed forever, although she didn’t know it at the time.
She certainly knew it now.
Isadora smiled as she remembered Cam on that day and the bird eggs she’d smashed, blaming him for it. That was typical of her at that age, unwilling to accept responsibility for her actions. But he clearly didn’t hold it against her because now he was going to marry her.
Perhaps she’d even get her birdhouse, after all.
It was just after dawn on a cold, crisp morning after a night of heavy rains.
It wasn’t cold enough to turn the rain to snow yet, but that would come soon.
Isadora could tell by the way the trees were turning color.
It always happened in the Highlands right before the first snows.
That was why she was particularly industrious this morning—once the snows came, it would be difficult to forage or even hunt, so she had to build up their stores.
There were Scottish chestnut trees in this vale and the last she’d seen, which had admittedly been weeks ago, they had been heavy with ripened chestnuts. She had a big stick with her, for slapping at the tree branches, and two big sacks.
Isadora was determined to collect all she could.
Winter could be long and they needed food that would keep well in storage.
She could only hope that the other women of Auchnacree hadn’t come out to the vale to do the same thing she intended to do.
She knew the women of the village were afraid of the vale, afraid of a Lindsay patrol, but Isadora wasn’t afraid.
She could take care of herself.
Still, she had another purpose coming out this early in the morning—so Cam could speak to her father.
Last night had been an excellent opportunity for Cam and Niall to become better acquainted over talk of the village defense and Isadora thought they knew each other well enough by now.
She didn’t want to wait any longer to become Cam’s wife, so she pulled a dirty trick on him, telling her father before she left the cottage that morning that Cam wanted to speak to him.
If Cam wouldn’t go to Niall, then she would send Niall to Cam.
A dirty trick, indeed.
It made her smile to think on it. Taking a smaller trail off the footpath, she plunged into the heavy foliage until she came to the distinctive crisscrossed bark of the chestnut trees. There were several and she looked up, seeing already that many had been stripped of their nuts.
Fearing she had come too late, Isadora continued to move through the grove until she found a tree that hadn’t been stripped.
The branches were low and bushy, too. Thrilled, she set the sacks down and was prepared to beat the chestnut pods out of the tree when she began to hear voices off to the north.
They were female voices so she wasn’t alarmed, but she was curious.
Moving away from the tree, she pushed through some heavy growth until she came to a small clearing.
Immediately, she recognized a few women from the village, digging up some half-frozen green stems protruding from the ground.
One of the young women from the group caught sight of Isadora and she waved to her.
“Issie!”
Isadora recognized a sweet lass she’d known since birth by the name of Aggie.
“What are ye doing?” Isadora asked.
Aggie dropped what she was doing and ran over to her. “Digging for roots,” she said. “Did ye come tae help us?”
Isadora shook her head. “I’ve come for the chestnuts,” she said. “It looks as if most of the trees have already been harvested.”
Aggie nodded firmly, her brown hair licking at her pale skin. “The chestnuts were the first tae go,” she said. Then she pointed to the women digging in the dirt. “Now we’re gathering wild onions before the ground freezes. Soon the snows will come.”
Isadora nodded. “I know,” she said. “If ye find enough, can I have some? I’ll give ye some extra chestnuts.”
Aggie wrinkled her nose. “We have plenty of chestnuts, but I’ll give ye some wild onions anyway.”
“I’d be grateful.”
Isadora flashed her a smile and turned back for the chestnut trees.
She’d just made it back to the tree and was preparing to lift her stick when she heard a chorus of cries go up from the women.
Startled, she raced back to the clearing in time to see several men swooping down on the women, grabbing at them.
Fear swept Isadora. It was a natural reaction to something that happened all too often, another Lindsay raid, one of the many they’d had over the years. Isadora could have run away at that moment, but it simply wasn’t in her nature. Her instincts demanded that she defend the women.
She wasn’t going to flee like a coward.
In her hand, she was still carrying the heavy stick that she was going to use for the chestnuts. Now, that stick became her weapon. Clutching it in both hands, she lifted it like a club.
She was going to give those Lindsay bastards a fight.
Rushing to the man closest to her, who was trying to toss Aggie over his shoulder, she came up behind him and crowned him over the skull. She hit him as hard as she could and he fell like a stone. As he went down, Isadora grabbed Aggie and pulled her out of the way.
“Go, Aggie,” she said. “Run for the village! Hurry!”
Aggie was sobbing, but not senseless. She took off at a dead run, disappearing through the wet foliage as Isadora focused on another man who had Aggie’s mother by the hair.
Very quickly, however, the Lindsay men saw Isadora and a pair of them began to stalk her while the others were busy binding the woman they’d captured.
Isadora, seeing that they were going to gang up on her, began to back away.
“Release the woman,” she barked. “Release her or I’ll take my stick tae ye.”
There were more men back in the foliage, now stepping through it. One of them had a young woman he’d grabbed when she’d tried to run away, but the second man…
God help her, she’d seen him before.
Disbelief filled her. The last time she’d seen him had been back at the Ludus Caledonia and Cam had been hanging on his neck, strangling him.
She began to feel sick to her stomach.
“Ye,” she spat at him. “What are ye doing here?”
The man stared at her with eyes that bordered on madness. “Drop the stick, woman.”
If he recognized her, he didn’t let on, but a strong sense of self-preservation told Isadora to back away from him. Cam had barely licked the man and, for him, it had been one hell of a battle.
As talented and knowledgeable as she was, Isadora wasn’t sure she could fight him and emerge the winner. She wasn’t sure she wanted to try. Something was telling her to run as fast as she could back to the village and sound the alarm.
The Beast from the Ludus Caledonia was in their midst.
“I willna,” she said, sounding braver than she felt. “Answer me. How did ye come here? Who are ye serving?”
“Astonishing, isna he?”
Another man appeared behind him, a short man with dark hair and a pale look about him. He smiled at Isadora and it would have been a pleasant smile had the situation not been so dire.
Isadora’s gaze moved back and forth between the man and The Beast.
“Who are ye?” she demanded. “What is that… that animal doing here?”
The pale man glanced at The Beast. “Him?” he said. “He now serves Drostan Lindsay. He’s come tae help us with the gypsies on our land.”
“What gypsies?”
“I think ye know who I mean.”
She did, but as for the rest, she was shocked to the bone. How on earth did The Beast come to serve Drostan? Last she saw of the man, he was being carried from the Fields of Mars after Cam had defeated him.
And now he was here.
My God… how?
Through her astonishment, Isadora retained enough sense not to push the issue. She didn’t ask again because however it had happened, it didn’t matter now. All that mattered was that it had. She continued to back away as The Beast moved toward her.
“One man canna drive us from our own lands,” she said steadily. “Harass us all ye want, but we’ll not leave. We have allies, too, or are ye too foolish tae realize that?”
The pale man kept her attention. “We’ve been rather brilliant tae bring the best warrior in all of Scotland intae our midst,” he said. “’Tis ye who are foolish if ye dunna realize that ye must leave or very bad things will happen.”
He meant The Beast and Isadora came to a halt when she backed into a bare sapling, her gaze now drawn to the pale man because there was something strangely familiar about him.
“I’ve seen ye before,” she said. “What is yer name?”
“Ternan. Who are ye, lass?”
“The daughter of Niall Keith. Ye know my family has held these lands for almost one hundred years. They belong tae us; they’re in our blood. Why can ye not leave us be?”
Isadora realized in hindsight that she probably shouldn’t have told the man who she was. She’d told him because it was natural to tell people who she was, and who her father was, but in this case, she should have been more prudent about it.
It was too late now.
“Niall’s lass,” Ternan said as if pleasantly surprised. “Ye dunna look like yer da.”
“I favor my mother. She was an Ogilvy. If ye dunna leave us alone, then that’s who ye’ll have around yer ears. My da has already sent word tae them.”
It was a lie, but she had to make it plain that she was nothing to be trifled with. She’d meant it as a threat. But Ternan didn’t seem concerned.
“Then they can take ye back ontae their lands,” he said. “This is Lindsay land, lass. It has belonged tae us longer than it ever belonged tae the Keith and everyone knows it. Ye should have been gone long ago.”
“Is that why ye burned Netherton and made it look as if we did it? Tae turn the clans against us and drive us out?”