Chapter 14
Fourteen
It was long after dark when Lochlan, Braden and Sin sat with Nora’s father alone in the great hall of Alexander’s keep.
“I can’t believe we got Ewan married off before Lochlan,” Braden said. “We needs be careful, Sin. I think the Second Coming might be upon us.”
Sin laughed. “Perhaps.”
“Have you any more word about the MacKaids?” Alexander asked.
Lochlan shook his head. “None of my men have found a trace of them. Have yours?”
“Nay.”
“That sits ill with me,” Sin said. “I have a feeling we haven’t heard the last of them.”
“Most likely not,” Lochlan concurred.
“So what should we do?” Alexander asked. “I’ve notified my cousin of what they’ve done, and he has issued an order of execution for them, but until they’re caught...”
“There’s not much we can do,” Braden said.
Sin finished off his tankard of ale. “Sure there is.”
“What?” Braden asked.
“Marry Lochlan off.”
Lochlan shoved playfully at Sin’s arm. “You’re drunk.”
“Is he?” a feminine voice asked.
They looked up to see Sin’s wife, Caledonia approaching the table. She moved around the side of it until she was behind Sin’s chair. “I had a feeling my wayward husband was spending far too much time down here.”
“Come, my lord,” she said, taking Sin’s hand. “We have a long journey home tomorrow and I promised my brother Jamie that we would be back in time for his birthday.”
Sin kissed her hand, then rubbed it against his cheek.
Lochlan was amazed by the gesture that was so alien to Sin.
“Goodnight gentlemen,” Sin said, rising to follow after his wife.
They passed Maggie in the entranceway.
Lochlan smiled. “Look lively, Braden. ‘Tis your turn to have your ears boxed.”
Braden scoffed, “My sweet Maggie knows better than to box my ear, eh, love?”
“It depends on if you’ve done anything to have them boxed for.” She smiled at Alexander and Lochlan. “Do you mind if I steal him away from you?”
“Not at all,” Alexander said.
Lochlan watched them leave.
“So,” Alexander said once they were alone. “Have you any plans to take a bride?”
Lochlan swirled the ale around in his cup as he considered that. “Mayhap one day.”
“Aren’t you a little old now not to be looking?”
Perhaps he was. But Lochlan had too many things that demanded his time, and marrying a woman sight unseen wasn’t something he relished.
“To everything there is a season.”
Alexander laughed at that.
Footsteps sounded outside the room, followed by the door opening and closing. Lochlan and Alexander exchanged puzzled frowns.
It was far too late for company.
An old servant entered the hall with a youth behind him. The boy hadn’t quite reached his majority.
Dressed in rags, the boy carried a satchel.
“Forgive me, my lord,” the servant said to Alexander. “The lad said he had news of Lysander.”
Alexander motioned the boy to come forward. “Is there a problem?”
The boy hesitated, then shrank back. He looked at the servant then to Lochlan.
“Speak, lad. No one will harm you.”
“I have word, my lord. This man came to our village and he told me I was to bring this to you.” The boy rushed forward, dropped the satchel on the table, then ran back to a safe distance.
Lochlan frowned at his fearful actions.
Alexander ran his hand over the worn leather. “Is this Lysander’s?”
“I know not, my lord. I was only told to give it you and to not open it.”
By the pallor of the boy’s face, Lochlan could surmise the child hadn’t listened.
“Who gave you this?” Lochlan asked.
The youth scratched his neck nervously. “He said there was a letter for Lord Alexander inside and...and to tell his lordship that next time you should hire yourself someone better than a French knight.” The boy was shaking. “Can I go home now, please my lord?”
Alexander nodded.
The boy shot from the room as if Lucifer’s hounds were after him.
Alexander studied the bag. “How very strange.”
“Aye,” Lochlan said, leaning forward to look at it as well. “It is indeed.”
Alexander opened the satchel and dumped its contents onto the table.
Lochlan stood up the instant he saw the green and black plaid that their father had commissioned years ago for his sons. He’d never known anyone other than he and his brothers to have it.
His blood went cold.
Alexander opened a small piece of parchment while Lochlan pulled the plaid closer to examine it.
“Canmore,” he read, “I don’t like being made a fool of. You can tell the gypsies that they are next on our list. You should have never told the king about us. Had you stayed quiet, your daughter might have lived. Now we’ll be coming for her and the rest of the MacAllisters.”
Alexander’s hands shook and his face turned dark with rage. “It’s signed Graham MacKaid.”
Lochlan barely heard the words. He was too fixated by the initials embroidered in the corner of the tattered and worn plaid.
K.M.
Kieran MacAllister.
But how?
Who would have had his brother’s plaid?
Seeking more clues, Lochlan unfolded the material and cursed as a disembodied hand fell to the floor.
Alexander’s own curse rang out as he saw it and the strange brand that was on the back of the hand. “So help me, I’ll kill every one of those bastards for this.”
Lochlan found it hard to breathe. Hard to focus. He ran through his mind the man whom he had met briefly. A man he had paid all too little attention to.
“Who was Lysander?” he asked Alexander.
“I don’t know to be honest. I found him in France about five years ago when I went to visit a friend. He had just come back from Outremer and refused to speak of it.”
“And this plaid?”
Alexander shrugged. “It was wrapped around him when he asked for work. Does it mean something to you?”
It meant more to him than his own life. “Did he say how he came by it?”
He shook his head. “I only know it was very dear to him. My wife’s maid tried to take it from him once to clean it and he almost tore her arm for the trouble. He was rather feral in the early days of his employment.”
Alexander retrieved the hand and went to find the priest to dispose of it.
Lochlan ran a corner of the plaid through his fingers.
How had a Frenchman found Kieran’s plaid?
None of the brothers had ever journeyed further than England except for Sin, and Sin had never taken a plaid with him.
If not for the initials, he might think that perhaps the weaver had created more of the design and sold it.
But those initials matched the one for his plaid, Braden and Ewan’s.
Nay, this was Kieran’s. There was no doubt it was his brother’s and by the looks of it, it was quite old.
Which meant that Kieran hadn’t died that day when he’d gone out to the loch on his own.
For some unknown reason, his brother had faked his own death.
But why?
Lochlan sat down as the news sank in.
No doubt the MacKaids had found the plaid after they killed Lysander and had sent it back to them.
They would have known exactly who this belonged to and what it meant.
Lochlan drained his ale in one gulp.
Somewhere out there, Kieran MacAllister might still be alive.