CHAPTER 9 #4
“You should stay here and watch my father show the men how to fight without weapons,” David said. “My father is wonderful at that.”
“I’m sure he is,” Isabella agreed politely. “But I find wielding a spear so much more fascinating.” With that she quickly began to follow Brodick and his men to the west wall.
“She seems quite taken with our Brodick, poor thing,” observed Clarinda, shaking her head. “No doubt he charmed her from the moment they met.”
“Actually, he held a dirk to her throat and threatened to kill her,” said Gwendolyn, removing the mangled feather from one of Isabella’s arrows and replacing it.
“He did?” gasped David, clearly intrigued. He watched as Isabella daintily made her way through the churning maze of grunting warriors to be closer to Brodick. “How can Isabella like him if he did that to her?”
“ ’Tis a strange thing, losing your heart to a man,” mused Clarinda, smiling. “Sometimes it happens when you’re most certain you cannot abide him.”
“Isabella, for God’s sake be careful!” Brodick dashed into the fray to grab her. “You shouldn’t be so close to the men when they are training.”
“After ruining my life, I can’t see why you should care whether I get savagely mutilated by one of these spears,” sniffed Isabella. “I should think you would be pleased if I were sliced wide open and lay here bleeding to death on the ground as these great brutes crushed my bones into mush.”
“Bella, how can you say such terrible things?” asked Brodick, taking her arm and leading her out of the training area. “You know I would do anything for you….”
Gwendolyn shook her head, unable to comprehend why Brodick remained so gallant toward Isabella. “Are you cold, David?” she asked, adjusting the plaids she had arranged over him. “The wind is getting stronger.”
“I’m fine.”
“We shouldn’t stay out here much longer. Your father gave you permission to watch him train the men, but only for a short while.”
“But look,” David cried, pointing, “the men are starting to charge. Can’t we stay and watch?”
His blue eyes were bright and pleading, his thin cheeks faintly flushed by the cool wind blowing against his pale skin.
It had been six long days since that terrible afternoon when Gwendolyn had last taken him outside.
Since then she had kept the lad in his chamber, watching over him as he slowly recovered from his violent bout of illness.
But with Isabella’s arrival yesterday, the castle had been swept into a whirlwind of activity as the clan prepared for the imminent arrival of the MacSweens, and David seemed to have been energized by it.
No longer willing to remain in his bed, he had pleaded with his father for permission to watch the men as they practiced their fighting skills in the courtyard.
MacDunn told the boy he could view the activity from his chamber window, but David had remained surprisingly steadfast in his request. He had assured his father the small excursion would do him good, and promised to tell Gwendolyn the moment he felt the least bit ill or tired.
Finally, MacDunn had relented.
“Well, I’m cold.” Gwendolyn rubbed her arms. “If we are to stay out here awhile longer, I must fetch a wrap. Clarinda, will you watch David for me while I run up to my chamber?”
“Of course. Look, David, see how well your father fights with just his hands!”
“He is just like the mighty Torvald,” said David proudly, “in the story Gwendolyn tells about the time he must battle a ferocious sea monster….”
The great hall was empty as Gwendolyn hurried through it and mounted the stairs leading to the tower.
The looming arrival of Robert and his army had forced the MacDunns to set to work preparing for the attack.
Alex had assigned tasks to all in the clan according to their abilities.
While the fittest men trained to fight, the older men worked on fortifying the castle and preparing weapons.
Youths who were too young to participate in the battle had been enlisted to gather heavy stones from the surrounding area and haul them up to the parapet, from where they would be dropped onto the MacSweens as they tried to climb the wall.
The MacDunn women were busy making great stores of food in the event of a lengthy siege and were also helping to produce thousands of arrows.
Even the young girls were hard at work filling the enormous cauldrons positioned over the gate with endless buckets of water, which would be kept boiling until the moment they were dumped on the MacSweens as they attempted to breach the gate.
When Robert came, he would find the MacDunns prepared to meet his attack.
How much they would be willing to sacrifice for an unwelcome witch and a runaway laird’s daughter was another matter.
Gwendolyn frowned and blinked against the gloom as she pushed the door to her chamber open.
Someone had closed the shutters of her windows, blocking the afternoon light.
At first she suspected this was to conserve the essence of some smoldering herb meant to ward off her evil, but the air was relatively clear.
Unable to fathom why someone would want to deprive her room of light, she went to the window and attempted to open the shutters.
They wouldn’t give. She went to the next window, only to find its shutters also locked tight.
She bent down and studied the latch, trying to discern what was keeping the shutters closed.
Suddenly aware of a whisper of sound, she started to turn.
Pain exploded in her head, brilliant and paralyzing.
And then there was nothing.
“Did Brodick really hold a dirk to your throat?” David asked.
“The beast most certainly did,” Isabella replied, still annoyed at having been ordered to return to her seat on the opposite side of the courtyard. “And he said if I so much as breathed he would carve my head off and trample it beneath the dung-filled hooves of his horse.”
David considered this a moment. “It would be a lot of work to cut off someone’s head with a dirk. In Gwendolyn’s stories the warrior uses either a sword or an ax.”
“I suppose he might have resorted to his sword once I had collapsed onto the ground,” Isabella speculated.
“But not until after I had suffered the most terrible pain, my last vision being of him seated on his mount high above me, his mouth twisted in an evil smile as he watched my blood flow like a river of scarlet around me!”
“That’s good!” exclaimed David. “Do you tell stories?”
“Certainly not,” she replied, insulted.
“But you would be wonderful at it! Just like Gwendolyn.”
Isabella regarded him uncertainly a moment, then realized he was actually complimenting her. “Do you really think so?”
“You certainly have a colorful way with words,” Clarinda observed, adding another neatly fletched arrow to the enormous stack beside her chair.
Isabella looked pleased. “Why, thank you, Clarinda. You’re very kind.”
“Maybe you could come to my chamber tonight and tell me a story,” David suggested. “I’m sure Gwendolyn won’t mind, since you are a friend from her clan.”
“Did Gwendolyn tell you that?” asked Isabella, surprised.
“Of course,” said David, although in fact he could not recall her exact words. “We watched you arriving from my chamber window, and she told me who you were. I was not allowed to come outside to greet you, of course, because I’m sick.”
“You seem quite well today,” Isabella noted.
“I have been feeling better since Gwendolyn stopped feeding me.”
“She stopped feeding you?”
“It’s part of a spell,” he explained. “To help me heal.”
“She does feed him,” interjected Clarinda, “but only certain foods in limited amounts.”
“Don’t you get hungry?” Isabella asked.
“Sometimes,” he admitted. “But today she let me have a little bowl of porridge with my bread, and if I am still feeling well tomorrow, I may have one slice of apple.”
“That spell would never work for me, I’m afraid,” said Clarinda, giggling. “With this bairn growing so large, I now eat more than Cameron!”
“I’m a little hungry myself.” Isabella sniffed the air, frowning. “MacDunn should really speak to the men in the bake house. They are burning the bread to cinders.”
“Fire!” shouted Cameron, pointing suddenly with his sword. “In the west tower!”
Alex stared in horror at the black cloud spewing from the shuttered windows of Gwendolyn’s chamber. He lowered his gaze to where she had been sitting with David, expecting to find her there.
And then he began to run.
Smoke was pouring from the bottom of the door.
Alex’s heart clenched as he jerked up the latch.
The heavy door didn’t budge. He slammed his shoulder against it, grunting with effort.
As the door gave, a searing cloud blasted from the chamber, choking him.
Coughing violently, he stumbled inside. The room was dark except for the brilliant flames dancing on the bed, feasting ravenously upon an unmoving mound.
Paralyzing fear overwhelmed him. His voice raw with despair, he called her name.
He clenched his fists as he stared helplessly at the blazing pyre, blinking against the acrid sting of the smoke.
He had failed her. He had saved her from fire once before, but it didn’t matter.
Ultimately the flames had found her. He sank to his knees and moaned, fighting to grasp the taut threads of his sanity, which were threatening to snap as he watched the flames consume her.
Suddenly there was a muffled cough.
Startled, Alex rose to his feet. “Gwendolyn!” he shouted, searching the foggy darkness.
There was another cough, a tiny, birdlike sound, which was enough to guide him to her.
His eyes streaming from the terrible smoke, he staggered past the burning bed and found her in a crumpled heap upon the floor. He pulled her into his arms and cradled her tightly against his chest, then ran with her from the blazing tomb.