Chapter 14 #2
“They seem to have formed a bond,” Isabail said quietly.
He glared at her. “I know precisely what you are thinking, madam, and I cannot endorse it. He’s an old man. Hardly a reliable champion with whom to entrust Ana’s care.”
“I disagree. He travels the roads alone and carries a sharp sickle at his belt.”
“He could be a cad, or a thief,” he said. “We know nothing of him.”
“The same could have been said about you,” Isabail pointed out. “Sometimes we must base our choices on the options presented to us, rather than on what we truly desire.” She rounded the campfire and joined the other two. “Ana? Might I have a word?”
The two women stepped away, Ana limping stiffly.
To Magnus’s relief, Isabail did not appear to coerce Ana into making a decision.
She simply asked the healer a question and listened at length to the answer.
Ana ended the conversation with a pat to her staghorn-handled dirk, and they returned to the fire.
“If it is not too much to ask, Bhaltair,” Ana said to the old man, “I wonder if you might remain with me for a few days while I regain my strength? My companions have a pressing need to reach Tayteath forthwith, and I’m afraid my horsemanship is not up to the task.”
Bhaltair nodded graciously. “Of course. In truth, it would be greatly to my benefit to spend a few days with such a learned herbalist.”
Isabail smiled and returned to Magnus. “So, are you game to continue?”
“Aye.” He helped her mount her horse. “This lad you’re so determined to save must be a very worthy sort to inspire such devotion.”
She waited for him to vault into the saddle. “That he is, Magnus. That he is.”
* * *
By the time Niall returned with the news that Daniel de Lourdes had been identified by several of the villagers and that he had arrived at the keep with a young lad in tow, Aiden had reached a decision on how to breach the keep. Drawing a map in the snow, he shared his plan.
“Our best option is to start here.” He pointed to the base of the cliffs. “At the evening low tide, we walk out to the base of the cliffs. From there, we scale the rocks until we reach the castle, and then we enter through a window.”
“Climb the cliffs in the dark?” Niall asked.
“It will be difficult,” acknowledged Aiden. “But the rear of the castle will be unprotected. We have a far greater chance of success with the cliffs than with a frontal attack.”
Several of the men nodded, seeing the wisdom of his plan, but most remained silent.
They would do whatever Aiden asked of them, but he wanted more than blind obedience.
Pointing at the keep through the trees, he lowered his voice to a firm intensity.
“Inside those walls lies the crown of our great ancestor, Kenneth MacAlpin. The last true king of the Picts. Do I want to retrieve it? Aye, I do. I’m sworn to protect it.
But more important than any piece of treasure is kin.
One of our own is held within that keep, perhaps in pain or suffering.
Jamie is not only one of us; he’s the son of one of our finest warriors.
He’s paid the greatest of sacrifices, losing his maither and his wee brother to a murdering thief.
I, for one, am willing to pay the same price to see young Jamie freed. Are you with me?”
This time the response was enthusiastic. “Aye!”
Even Niall, who was a cautious fellow by nature, brought his fist to his chest with a resounding thump and joined the chorus.
“Pack lightly and pack quick. We leave for the cliffs at nightfall.”
* * *
Isabail and her hired warrior arrived at Tayteath just as dusk was falling. Noting an air of quiet around the castle, she wondered what had become of the MacCurran. If not laying siege to the castle, where was he? Surely, he would have arrived well ahead of her.
She voiced her thoughts to Magnus.
“Were I him,” he said, “I’d be camped in that wood.” He pointed to a thick forest a half league to the west. “No sense alerting your enemy to your presence until you’ve gathered all the information you’ll need to breach his walls.”
“Do you think you could you find him?”
Magnus smiled. “Of course.”
He spurred his horse into a canter and headed for the trees.
Isabail did the same, even though she’d long since reached the limit of her endurance.
Exhaustion tugged at her shoulders, and holding up her head had become a monumental chore.
A short distance into the woods, Magnus reined in his mount and swung to the ground. “We walk from here.”
“Why?”
“The horses make too much noise. They’ll hear us long before they see us.”
Isabail frowned. “Don’t we want them to find us?”
“Find you? Aye. Find me? Nay.”
“Do you have a grievance with the MacCurrans?”
“Possibly,” he said, leading her through the brush and showing her where to step.
At the short trill of a bird, he halted.
“This is as far as I go. Head straight toward that half-fallen birch. If they’ve got their wits about them, as I suspect they do, they’ll find you within a pace or two beyond that. ”
She frowned. “And where will you go?”
“I won’t be far,” he said. “If you run afoul of the MacCurrans, just yell. I’ll find you.”
Isabail lifted the hem of her dress and ripped open the seam. She removed the silver deniers sewn there and pressed them into Magnus’s hand. “Thank you. I could never have made this journey without you.”
He shoved the coins away. “Thank me after the lad is safe. Before that, there’s nothing to be rewarded for.”
He gave her a gentle push in the direction of the fallen birch, then melted into the shadows and was gone.
* * *
Niall marched across the camp to Aiden’s side. “You’ll never believe whom we found in the woods.”
Aiden glanced about. “Who?”
He followed Niall’s pointed finger and found the disheveled yet still amazingly lovely face of Isabail Macintosh. “Bloody hell.”
As she stepped out of the woods accompanied by two of his men, Aiden shook his head. “How is this possible?” he asked her. “How did you get here?”
“Never mind how,” she said. “I’m just glad I arrived before you laid siege to the keep. I will go to the castle and demand entry. They are my men, so they’ll raise the portcullis, and we can enter without bloodshed.”
He sighed heavily. “That won’t work.”
“Of course it will.” She shot him an exasperated look. “Why is it men always want to solve problems with their swords?”
He grabbed her elbow and led her out of the earshot of Niall and the others.
He was tempted to kiss her, but thought better of it.
She might get the idea that he approved of her reckless race across the countryside.
“It won’t work because de Lourdes has replaced all your loyal soldiers with mercenaries from France. ”
“What?” She blinked at him.
“Mercenaries,” he repeated. “The villagers confirmed it.”
“Oh.”
She looked so absolutely shattered by his news that he tugged her to his chest. “I know you were attempting to aid Jamie, and your efforts are appreciated,” he said softly into her hair. “Even though I should paddle your arse for coming all this way on your own.”
“My bottom is quite sore enough,” she said, her voice muffled against his lèine. She sagged against him. “I truly believed I could help.”
“I know.” He tipped her head up and planted a firm kiss on her lips. “Now, I must ask you to stay here and wait patiently for my return.”
“Where do you go?”
“We enter the keep tonight.”
She frowned. “How?”
“Promise me you’ll make no attempt to follow.” When she nodded, he explained. “Up the cliffs.”
Her hands gripped the front of his lèine. “You’re mad. That’s a sure way to meet the Maker.”
“For lads born in the Highlands, ‘tis a simple feat,” he assured her, even though it was no such thing. “And these Lowlanders will never expect it.”
“I’ll be praying for your safety.”
“Will you?”
She looked at him, her eyes dark and serious. “Do what you must, but come back alive.”
“I’ll do my best.” He kissed her again, then let her go. “Stay out of trouble, lass.”
“What trouble can I get into here in the wood?”
He snorted. “You’ve a knack for finding it wherever you might be.” He turned to leave, but she caught his sleeve.
“I love you,” she said quietly, as if haste would somehow minimize the importance of her words.
His heart thumped heavily in his chest. He took her chin and peered into her face.
It was a moment that begged for heartfelt words and promises of devotion, but saving Jamie would not wait.
“I’m going to hold you to those words. When I come back, we’ll have the discussion we ought to have had some time ago. ”
And then he kissed her again. Hard. “Godspeed, lass.”
* * *
When the men had departed, Isabail lit a small fire. When she was certain the wood had caught, she sat on a stump with her hands toward the flames and finally let weariness curl her shoulders. She’d raced all this way—and forced Ana to race with her—for naught.
Daniel was not at all the man she’d thought him to be.
His betrayal of her was not some spontaneous thing, some madness.
He’d been plotting against her for months.
How else could he have replaced her soldiers?
It was even possible, though it made her heart ache to contemplate it, that his love for John had been a sham, that John’s death hadn’t been the accident he insisted it had been.
She tossed another branch on the fire and watched a plume of sparks leap into the night air. What a fool she was. Now Aiden was risking his life scaling the cliffs to her castle and she was unable to do anything but wait and pray.
“I take it your plan to spare lives was not well received?”
Isabail looked up. Magnus stood just inside the circle of light cast by the fire, the black outline of trees at his back.
“It was a naive plan,” she responded dismally. Like all of her plans.
He advanced. “It was born of a genuine desire to help the lad. Who could find a fault with that?”