Chapter Fourteen
Aye, that’s what I said, just!” Valdar leaned back in his great carved laird’s chair, his mailed shirt gleaming brightly beneath
his plaid. “He rode out well before sunrise. And, nae, he didn’t tell me his business.”
He looked around the high table as if seeking agreement, seeming pleased when the kinsmen sitting there responded with assorted
grunts and nods.
Even so, Gelis wasn’t fooled.
She took a deep breath. “He told no one where he was going?”
Valdar snorted. “My grandson?”
Anice, just setting down a platter of buttered bannocks and cheese, flushed and hastened from the dais. She stopped only long
enough to right an upturned trestle bench, then quickly disappeared into the bustling hall.
Several men at the high table cleared throats or scratched at their elbows.
Sorley and the other garrison guards did the same at a nearby long table, each one studiously avoiding her gaze. Gelis frowned
watching them. The men who’d readily helped her get Buckie and her Viking tent out to Creag na Gaoith now seemed far more
interested in gobbling their oats and examining the floor rushes.
Some appeared to inspect their fingernails.
Ignoring them all, Gelis folded her arms. “I must speak with him, Valdar.”
He’s in danger.
She held back the words, not wanting to alarm the old chieftain.
Though, in truth, she was certain he knew.
“That one was e’er a man of his own mind,” he blurted, sitting forward to snatch up his ale cup. “We’ll not be a-seeing him
until he comes hallooing back in through the gates. Like as not, sometime late this e’en.”
Gelis pounced. “You know where he is.”
Valdar wagged his bearded head. “I’m a-guessing, lass. No more.”
“Then where do you guess he is?”
“Off to Kyleakin to see about acquiring malt for MacHugh’s brewhouse, mayhap,” he offered with a shrug. “Word is our stores
are low. Or” — he winked broadly — “perhaps he’s chasing down the peddler said to be journeying through your da’s territories
these days. Could be he wants to fetch a few fine gee-gaws and ribbons for you!”
Gelis didn’t believe a word.
But Valdar held her eye, the image of graybearded innocence, save that he had donned a hauberk.
A precautionary measure if ever there was one.
Especially in light of the long, two-handed sword propped just a bit too casually against his chair and the wicked- looking
Norse battle-axe resting on the table.
Called Blood Drinker, or so she’d heard, the axe held pride of place next to a wooden bowl of slaked oats and a jug of watered-down
morning ale.
Gelis narrowed her eyes. “His absence wouldn’t have anything to do with all the steel in the hall, would it?”
“Steel?” He blinked, not quite managing to look surprised.
“Aye, steel.” She made a sweeping gesture. “And I don’t mean your men’s eating knives.”
Valdar coughed.
Grabbing his ale cup again, he helped himself to a healthy swig.
The other men at the table rushed to fuss at their plaids, clumsily trying to conceal the telltale glints and bulges of weapons
peeking up from their boots or other sundry hiding places.
A quick glance into the crowded lower end of the hall showed that every MacRuari present was equally well armed. Gelis swallowed
a curse, then scrunched her eyes to see better through the smoke-and-torch haze hanging above the long rows of tables. Her
heart caught when she spotted at least two other Norse battle-axes propped against trestle benches.
She also spied young Hector perched in a window embrasure, Buckie sprawled at his feet. And — no great surprise — the boy’s
newly acquired sgian dubh wasn’t tucked into a boot or beneath his belt, but proudly displayed atop one of the window seat cushions.
Most disturbing of all was the giant figure of Hugh MacHugh lurking near the hall’s vaulted entry. Pacing to and fro in front
of the massive oaken door, he held a sharp-bladed meat cleaver clutched in his hand.
Her stomach lurched at the sight.
Everyone knew a master cook had too many duties not to be busy at his kitchen fires.
Especially at this early hour of the day.
She frowned.
Then she puffed a curl off her brow and stepped closer to the high table. “Dare is readying for a siege.” She didn’t bother
to make it a question. “I’ve lived through enough at Eilean Creag to tell.”
“Dare is e’er prepared for trouble.” Valdar dug his spoon into his bowl of slaked oats, stirring. “The showing you see this morn has more to do with you than any foe who might or might not be bearing down on our walls.”
Her brows rose. “With me?”
“So I said.”
“But that makes no sense.”
Valdar stopped stirring his oats. “It did to my grandson.” He glanced up, eyeing her. “That much I can tell you. Before he
rode out, he ordered every man not on the walls to hie himself into the hall to guard you.”
For one shining moment, a surge of pleasure wrapped round and filled Gelis, swelling her heart and warming her until she realized
the true meaning of Valdar’s declaration.
Her gaze flashed to the Blood Drinker. “So we are under siege?”
“Nae.” He waved his spoon at her. “The Raven didn’t want you following him again. He set his men to keep watch so you canna
leave the hall.”
Gelis blinked.
Then she looked from him to the well-filled tables of guardsmen and back to him. Whether or not the Raven cared enough about
her to wish to prevent her from hastening after him — perhaps into danger — she still wasn’t happy with Valdar’s spoon-wielding
explanation.
“What about all the weapons?” She put her hands on her hips. “We both know those swords and dirks aren’t meant for use against
me. So” — she summoned her most persuasive smile — “just who is to be the recipient of their sharp ends?”
“That I canna say, lass.”
“Canna or willna?”
Valdar took renewed interest in oat stirring.
“I see.” Gelis tilted her head, pretending to consider. “Then I shall just have to find someone else to question.”
She glanced out over the torchlit hall, her eyes narrowed and searching, looking for the one soul she suspected might have
answers.
It took less than a wink to find her.
She’d only needed to study the shadows darkening the hall’s entry. There, where Hugh MacHugh paced in all his ruddy, rough-hewn
glory. Great- eyed Anice hovered near the door, the adulation on her face undisguised now that she felt herself unobserved.
Gelis smiled. Her pulse quickened.
Leaving Valdar to his oats and his spoon, she turned away and hurried from the dais. She strode across the hall, secretly
pleased when the Raven’s hard-faced, steel-toting stalwarts made way for her, each man stepping back respectfully at her approach,
clearing a path through their midst.
Soon, success would be hers.
A woman in love — and she was sure the timid serving lass had hung her heart on Dare’s cook — would never refuse help to another
woman suffering the same affliction.
Her own heart began to pound and her breath caught on the realization that she loved the Raven.
She shivered, a delicious swirl of warmth spilling through her. Truth was, she knew, she’d loved him ever since the morning
she’d first glimpsed him in vision. She could still see him that way, striding so boldly toward her on Eilean Creag’s little
shingled strand.
Making her blood heat and all the woman inside her quiver with desire.
She’d die if aught happened to him.
Remembering his kisses — and the horrible blackness she’d seen enfold him in her most recent vision — she hastened her step,
almost colliding with a kitchen laddie weaving his way across the hall with a platter of sausages and fresh-baked bannocks.
Somewhere a shutter cracked in the wind and someone slammed it shut, the noise overloud in her ears. Fearing the onset of
another vision, she pressed a hand to her breast, relieved when the buzzing in her head proved no more than her own blood pounding in her temples.
Almost at the entry, she skirted several castle dogs squabbling over a bone. She deflected the interest of another when he
trotted up to her, eager for ear rubs and back scratches. Then one of the iron-bracketed resin torches flared as she dashed
past, the flames leaping upward, dancing wildly and sparking a plume of bright, hissing ash.
And finally she was there.
The hall’s great iron-studded doors loomed but a few paces before her. Hugh MacHugh still marched to and fro, his stride long
and purposeful, the blade of his meat cleaver glinting in the torchlight.
But Anice was gone.
Disappointment swept her, but she tamped it down, hastening instead to insert herself in front of the cook, effectively blocking
his path.
“My lady.” He stopped at once. “A fine morn to you.”
“Aye, and it would be if I knew where my husband has ridden off to.” She leaned forward, so close she could almost smell his
nervousness. “I don’t suppose you can tell me?”
He shook his head. “Nae, I —”
She overrode him. “I already know . . . you canna say.” She drew herself up, said a silent prayer of thanks that she wasn’t
some wee slip of a maid, easily blown away on the slightest puff of a breeze.
“But I do wish to have a word with Anice,” she added. “Where is she?”
Hugh MacHugh swallowed. “Anice?”
“Herself, and no other.” Gelis lifted her chin. “She was here just moments ago. I saw her standing there” — she pointed to
where a little charcoal brazier hissed and glowed in a shadowy corner — “and watching you.”
Hugh MacHugh’s face reddened.
“I didn’t see her, my lady,” he said, shuffling his feet.
But his gaze flicked to the door.
“Ha! So she left the hall, did she?” Gelis darted around him, seizing the door latch. “Then I will just go after her. She
couldn’t have gone far.”
To her surprise, the cook didn’t argue with her.
Instead, he drew a hand over his thinning red hair and blew out a breath.
“She went to gather broody hen eggs,” he admitted, his big hands working on the shaft of his meat cleaver.
“Then perhaps I shall . . . help her!” Gelis hitched up her skirts and tugged on the door latch.