Chapter 10
Down, down, down, they pushed and pulled him.
A spiraling descent ever deeper into the dark, dank bowels of Dunmuir’s ruinous sea tower. Fury alone kept Donall from slipping on the slick stone steps, slime-smeared as they were and so ancient they bore hollows worn smooth by centuries of trudging feet.
At the bottom of the steps, thick muck covered the floor of a long, dank tunnel lit only by crude slits cut into the rock walls. The oozing sludge proved more than ankle deep, glistened blackish-green, and reeked of raw sewage.
Donall’s skin crawled as Niels and Rory shoved him along the low-ceilinged passage, clearly the receptacle for Dunmuir Castle’s latrine chutes.
“I told you your new quarters were hard by the jakes.” Rory chuckled as they trudged deeper into the stinking passage. “And as you’ll see, there’ll be ample water to freshen your fine self for your nightly visits to our lady.”
“Cutting your fool throats is what you’re doing.
” Donall dug in his heels, ignoring how the muck surged up his shins.
“Do with me what ye will – my brother will lead an army here. If the gods have mercy, you’ll only be put to the flames.
If my brother’s fury rages…” He let the words tail off, knowing Iain’s reputation would fill in the rest.
“We dinnae fear you or your clan.” Rory sneered at him, his eyes glittering in the dimness.
Donall shrugged. “Tell that to Iain when he tears apart your keep. He will – stone by stone, and he’ll make you watch. Then he’ll crush the lot of you.”
Niels snorted. “You can call for your brother after we leave you. But he’ll no’ be hearing you.”
A chill sea wind swept around a curve in the tunnel then, and before Donall could argue, Niels tilted his head. He appeared troubled by the drip of water echoing from a crevice in the tunnel wall. Rory also frowned and tipped an ear toward the gap.
Little more than a vertical-running crack and scarce wide enough for a man to slip through, the opening cut deep into the rock’s slime-coated surface.
A black-looming entrance to some hellhole, silent except for the plops of water and the light crunch of someone’s footsteps over loose stones.
“Gods save us.” Rory made the sign against evil and began backing away.
Donall saw the horror in his eyes and suspected he feared the vengeance-seeking ghost of some poor wretch whose bones had long since been picked clean.
Niels showed no such worry and, turning sideways, wiggled his bulk through the gap, disappearing into the darkness beyond.
“By the hounds!” he quickly bellowed, his deep voice echoing from inside the gap.
Niels squeezed back out of the gap almost immediately, and to Donall’s astonishment, he dragged a thin, wide-eyed boy behind him.
Keeping a grip on the lad’s arm, Niels fixed him with a stern look. “How many times must I warn ye to stay out of this pile of rubble? Thon devil’s den has an oubliette.” He jerked his head toward the crevice. “Do you ken what that is, Lugh?”
The dark-haired lad nodded, his gaze downcast, his hands clutching a grimed sack of something.
Small, writhing somethings with wings, from the look of it.
Niels snatched the pouch and peered inside. Donall caught a quick glimpse of the contents.
Bats.
Displaying none of Donall’s surprise, Niels closed the pouch and returned it to the boy. “Does Devorgilla know where you are?”
Lugh shrugged.
“An oubliette is a hellish thing, laddie.” Niels set a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “A jug-shaped hollow dug deep in the earth, is what it is. Evil-doers are dropped through a long, narrow shaft into a place so small they can neither sit nor stand.”
Rory tousled Lugh’s hair. “You dinnae want to poke around in there,” he said with a glance at Donall.
Lugh also looked at him. The boy’s face held curiosity. Rory’s revealed how much he’d enjoy hurling Donall into the chamber of little ease as oubliettes were called.
A muscle in Donall’s jaw twitched, while dread curled icy claws around his innards. Hunched in such cramped confines, waiting for the release of death, was not how he cared to end.
“You fiends should fill in such vileness.” Donall gestured to the opening.
Rory looked amused at the suggestion. “It has uses.”
“So it does,” Niels agreed, then patted the boy’s shoulder. “Off with you now, before you land in more mischief.”
Lugh cast one last wide-eyed glance at Donall, then bolted away.
“Ho, lad!” Rory called after him when he tore off in the opposite direction from the steps. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Leave him be,” Niels said, watching the boy streak around the bend in the tunnel. “He’ll want a newt from the sacred well to go along with his bag of bats. He’ll be gone once he has what he’s after.”
Rory shook his head. Mumbling to himself about stagnant wells, newts, and cauldrons, he tightened his hold on Donall’s chain and slogged forward through the muck, Donall and Niels following him.
Then they rounded a curve and Donall’s heart stopped, for the tunnel ended abruptly, leaving them perched on a narrow skirt of rock that jutted out above a choppy sea, its surface silvered by a near full moon.
A wild wet wind blew, its roar joined by the crash of waves against a mass of black, barnacle-encrusted boulders and a jumble of fallen masonry that could only be the tumbled walls of Dunmuir’s ancient sea tower.
Salt spray bit into Donall’s wrists and ankles, searing skin rubbed raw from days of wearing irons, but he hardly noticed. Nor did he puzzle about where young Lugh had gone. Though he’d dashed off in this direction, the lad was nowhere to be seen.
Donall felt for him, but he couldn’t help the boy.
He had other worries.
A matter filled with ramifications for his clan. It also weighed heavier on his heart than the disappearance of one strange and silent lad.
He knew why Niels and Rory had brought him here.
The bastards meant to drown him.
The laird’s solar at the MacLean stronghold, Baldoon Castle, was as dark and gloomy as the drizzly night beyond the room’s tall, arch-topped windows. Other than the glow of the hearth fire, hardly any light graced what had often been praised as one of Baldoon’s finest chambers.
Not one of the wall torches burned. And though the solar boasted several elaborately-wrought candle stands, their beeswax tapers remained unlit. Also ignored was a hanging oil lamp, its silvered sides cold and useless.
For days now, the sumptuous solar, the pride of every MacLean, had been plunged into darkness and desolation.
By order of Iain MacLean - to suit his glum mood.
“Drowned,” he muttered as he whirled to stomp across the solar’s rush-strewn floor for what had to be the hundredth time. “Drowned, drowned, drowned,” he repeated the word like a chanting monk gone mad and kicked the leg of an oaken trestle table.
A slight shuffling noise sounded somewhere behind him and he swung around to catch Gerbert, Baldoon’s aged seneschal, attempting to light a brace of candles just inside the door.
His brows winging upward, Iain stared at the white-haired steward a long moment before he marched across the room and blew out the old man’s handiwork with one furious huff.
Straightening, he glared at the graybeard. “Think yourself above my orders, Gerbert?”
“Nae, sir.” Gerbert returned his glare with an unblinking stare.
Iain waved his hand through the smoke of the extinguished tapers. “Can it be you doubt my authority in my brother’s absence?”
“Of a certainty, nae, my lord.”
“Then why were you lighting candles?”
Gerbert’s chin came up. “Because it is dark in here.”
“Indeed.” Iain folded his arms. “I want it so.”
“Candles should be burning in your lady wife’s honor.” Gerbert tsked.
“Her alive, is what should be!” Iain strode to the table and grabbed the wine jug. He filled a cup and drained it in one gulp.
“We all know you’re in pain, sir.” Gerbert hurried after him. “But candles-”
“There are enough candles ablaze in the chapel to light her way to heaven and beyond.” Iain slammed down the empty cup. “A waste of wax is what they are.” Whirling around, he scowled at Gerbert. “Do you no’ see?”
“I do.” The old man’s shoulders sagged. Rather than saying more, he shook his white-tufted head.
“She doesn’t need candles guiding her to the ever-after.” Iain fisted his hands, struggled against the urge to hurl the wine jug against the wall. Nae, the truth was he wanted to throw the whole table across the room.
Instead, he closed his eyes for a moment and drew a ragged breath. “She doesn’t belong with saints and martyrs. She should be with me.”
“You must stop this, Iain.” Lady Amicia stepped into the room, a bulging sack in her hands. “You cannot bring her back.”
“Think you I’m daft?” Iain glared at his sister. “I ken that fine. But I’d kiss the devil’s arse – even give him my soul - if he’d return her!”
“Iain!” Amicia looked shocked.
“Iain,” he echoed, thrusting his hands in the air.
“If you’d rather, I can fall to my knees and shout a hundred holy hosannas.
” On the words, the room chilled, almost as if he’d gone too far, indeed angering powers he shouldn’t.
But a wall-shaking boom and a blinding flash of light proved he was safe – the sudden cold heralded a storm passing by on its way to the sea.
Turning back to his sister, he grew even angrier at the pity on her face. “What?” He peered sharply at her, brushed at his plaid. “Should I pray? Light Gerbert’s candles? Think you any of that would help me? Would it mend my shredded heart?”
“Iain, please.” Amicia came forward, her eyes glistening. “You are making yourself miserable.”
“The MacKinnons have made me miserable.” Iain felt rage whip through him again. Given the chance, he’d tear the heads off each one of them. “They are blights on this land. Scourges, the whole hairy-nosed, flat-footed clan!”
Gerbert cleared his throat. “Come, my lady…” He placed a hand on her arm. “Let us speak to him by the light of day. We can do nothing when such a mood is upon him.”
“My moods are my own,” Iain snapped, refilling his wine cup.
He tossed back its contents and then resumed his pacing, letting his scowl warn them away.
“But the dog hair…” His sister cast a troubled glance at the bulging linen pouch she carried.
“Dog hair?” Iain froze and set his hands on his hips. “What are you saying?”
“You surely know.”
He glowered at her, knowing indeed. But he was too stubborn to admit it.
“Pretend ignorance if you will.” Amicia plunked the sack on a chair and then went to stand beside the seneschal. “It’s about the repairs to our galleys. You have been pushing the men to use great haste, even if it means-”
“Speak plain.” Iain narrowed his eyes at her.
“I am.” She held his gaze, her chin raised.
“Word is that in your rush to finish, you’ve been using moss and pitch to caulk the strakes.
Donall always ordered animal hair added to the mix when he oversaw repairs to hull planking.
” She drew a breath. “My ladies and I have gathered dog hair, as you didn’t-”
“Odin’s balls!” Iain banged his fist on the table. “Should my men have combed dogs when my wife’s murderers are free to loll about and make merry in their hall?”
“I do not think the MacKinnons had anything to do with it.” Amicia stood straighter, her gaze hard. “Further, when Donall finds out, he will be furious.”
“Aye.” Gerbert bobbed his head. “He swears by animal hair in the caulking.”
“My brother is well on his way to Glasgow by now!” Iain roared. “And the two of you will be out of here.” He started toward them, shooing them with his hands. “Now.”
“As you wish.” Anger blazed in Amicia’s eyes, but she hitched her skirts and headed for the door, Gerbert tsking loudly as he tagged along behind her.
“Your temper will see you to your grave,” her voice drifted back to him from the corridor’s gloom.
“If going there would reunite me with Lileas, I’ll no’ mind!” Iain called after her as he slammed the door. Still grumbling, he slid the drawbar in place, assuring his solitude.
Peace at last.
And with Baldoon’s two most persistent meddlers out of his hair, he leaned back against the door and cast a relieved glance about the darkened solar.
Not a candle flickered.
Even the hearth fire no longer burned. It smoldered now, with only the ghost of a glow, and nary a spark left to ruin the stillness with a defiant pop.
And so he pushed away from the door and resumed his march around the room. His pacing, which was all he seemed to do of late, besides trying unsuccessfully to sleep.
“You have the rights of it, sister,” he grumbled as he stomped past the chair with her bag of dog hair.
“Temper might well hasten me to hell, but I’m no’ going there or anywhere until I’ve sent on the MacKinnons to stoke the flames.”