Chapter 4
Pelna rode toward the border of the Wallace lands, flanked by two of the family’s most trusted guardsmen; Aidan, a seasoned, battle-scarred fellow who resembled nothing so much as a man-shaped callus with bushy white eyebrows and whiskers on it; and Jamie, a doe-eyed lad who had joined up with the keep’s warriors only a handful of seasons before.
Aidan had long since proven himself as a stout-hearted and dependable fighter and had fought and survived in many battles against both the Sinclairs and the McDaughs. He was good at hefting and swinging a war hammer and was surprisingly nimble despite his age and paunch.
Jamie’s prowess as a soldier had come as something of a surprise to all concerned.
He was a slight and gawky young man with a soft demeanor, a shy voice, and eyes that almost always seemed directed down at his own boots.
He’d been the son of a cobbler who had traveled to the Wallace lands when his own distant village was raided and burned by brigands, and his petition to join the guardsmen had almost been rejected out of hand.
Indeed, no one at the keep had been convinced that the boy could manage to pick up a sword, let alone harm someone with it.
But oh, had he proved them wrong.
Once he’d been handed a wooden sword and told to prove himself, he neatly managed to disarm three of their best soldiers in as many minutes.
His timid manner belied his lethality with a blade, and he had made it home from four skirmishes so far—two against the Sinclairs, and two against the McDaughs, and all without so much as a scratch upon him.
“Perhaps ye should not have come along on this errand, my lady,” Jamie suggested meekly. His voice was so quiet that it could barely be heard above the sounds of the horses’ hooves. “It could be quite dangerous, and I would not risk yer life fer anything.”
“That is very considerate of ye, Jamie,” she replied, “but the matter requires immediate attention. My father is ill, and my brothers are, alas, indisposed. Therefore, it falls tae me. Indeed, I’ll be going on many such errands in the days tae come, I shouldn’t wonder,” she added to herself darkly.
As she rode, she did all she could to concentrate on her surroundings—the fresh open air, the immense cobalt sky above, the wide and misty expanses of the moors.
However, her mind kept dragging her back to the room that held her father’s death bed.
The smell of his sickness remained in her nostrils no matter how much she attempted to clear them of it, and her head ached from her worry over him.
The notion that he would be truly gone forever—and soon, from the look of it—still hadn’t fully penetrated her brain. She could not imagine life without him, but more than that, she feared for the clan without his leadership.
She wished they’d had a chance to finish their talk before news of this grave matter came.
He hadn’t yet told her how she might preserve the order of the clan upon his demise.
Would they truly be at the mercy of her older brothers’ whims?
Stefan would almost certainly bury them deeper in war and bloodshed with the other clans to satisfy his lust for killing.
For his part, Daric would surely continue to ignore the whole affair as much as possible and would doubtless be discovered dead either from too much carousing or from drunkenly stumbling in front of a horse and cart.
This was one of the many occasions when Pelna, as her father had earlier, bitterly lamented her own gender.
If she had only been born a boy, then she might be in a position to lead the clan herself.
True, the line of succession would still be a difficult needle to thread, but even then, all it would have taken was for her father to name her as the new laird and her brothers would likely have honored that, albeit grudgingly.
Now, though, she was forced to watch things play out helplessly in slow motion, waiting to see which disaster would manage to bring the entire clan down. Try as she might, she could see no happy end to any of it.
And if the clan fell, what then?
Under normal circumstances, a laird might realize he could not win a conflict and choose to negotiate a surrender. He might agree, for example, to swear fealty to the opposing clan from that day forward and agree to be taxed by them as well.
With Stefan as laird, however, she knew with grim certainty that it would be another matter entirely.
Stefan was too bullheaded and violent to surrender in any event.
He would continue to order their soldiers into battle again and again, no matter how hopeless these conflicts might be.
And when he ran out of soldiers, he would surely command all households to provide any menfolk who remained, no matter how young or old, so that they could fight to the last man.
In other words, the Wallaces would be utterly butchered.
Then their enemies would swarm their lands and take everything for their own.
The banners of the Wallaces would be shredded and burned, never to fly over these valleys again.
The homes and farms and shops would be overrun by Sinclairs or McDaughs; the women and children would be at their mercy; and within a handful of years, it would be as though the Wallace clan had never even existed.
Her family’s legacy would be reduced to dust and spread to the four winds.
And she would be forced to watch it all happen.
“Mightn’t we have taken more men along with us, my lady?” Aidan asked.
She forced a laugh, pretending that her black thoughts had not been circling sorrow like crows flocking around carrion.
“Why, Aidan? Are ye frightened?”
He cleared his throat gruffly. “Nae fer my own sake, my lady, nay. I simply wouldn’t wish fer anything bad tae happen tae ye, that’s all.”
“It seems tae me that whatever crime has been committed here, its perpetrators have certainly fled by now,” she pointed out.
“Nae necessarily,” Jamie spoke up. “Indeed, in doing so, they might have laid a trap, expectin’ one of yer brothers tae investigate. There could be men waitin’ fer us.”
This thought hadn’t occurred to her, and her stomach sank at the notion of it.
Still, to her way of thinking, it was too late to turn back now—and more to the point, she wished to show her courage to these men.
It was, after all, one of the traits she had inherited from her father, and she was fiercely proud of it.
“That seems unlikely tae me, but we shall be cautious just the same. At the first sign of danger, we shall ride back tae the castle at once. Whoever they are, if they’re even there, dare nae pursue us deep into our own lands, where they would surely be overwhelmed and dispatched by our own forces.”
“If ye say so, my lady,” Aidan grumbled, and left it at that. But she could feel his bristling discontent, and it was contagious, quickly spreading to her as well and putting a chill deep in her bones.
As it turned out, it was not difficult for them to locate the scene of the disaster. All they had to do was follow the sounds of wailing and lamentation.
A group of farmers and their families stood in a loose circle; several among them were weeping and praying. Pelna and her companions dismounted and walked over to get a closer look.
“Oh, Lady Pelna, it’s bloody horrible, so it is!” one of the older women cried out. “My Bran, he only went out this mornin’ tae herd the sheep, and… Oh, look what they’ve done tae him! Look what those murderin’ blackguards have done!”
Pelna gently made her way past the people and saw the body of Bran.
She recognized him somewhat as she’d done all she could in the past few years to familiarize herself with as many of the clansmen and their families as possible, quietly preparing herself for the day when she might be called upon to remind her older brothers of such use if they ever took control of the clan.
He’d been a cheerful and ruddy-faced fellow, and he’d always greeted her warmly whenever he’d seen her.
Now, though, the poor man was barely recognizable.
In death, his skin was an ugly mottled gray, and his expression was frozen in anguish and horror.
He had tried to fight back a bit, from the look of it.
His right hand held a dagger, but judging from the lack of blood upon it, it seemed as though he hadn’t managed to do any damage with it.
He was an old man, and no doubt he’d been overwhelmed by his attackers.
“A terrible thing,” Aidan muttered. “No doubt perpetrated by one of our enemies.”
“But why in blazes would they trouble themselves tae murder a farmer?” Jamie asked slowly. His eyes were fixed upon the wound in the man’s throat, and he was turning a pale shade of green. “How could this have even happened? Surely he’d have seen enemies ridin’ toward him and fled?”
“Nae quickly enough, it seems,” Aidan rumbled, pointing at the ground. “Those hoofprints and the bootprints around the body show that he was overtaken by at least two men with horses. An old man on foot would have nay chance of escape from such an onslaught.”
“They didn’t strike from horseback, though,” Jamie observed, frowning. “Don’t ye find that odd? That they would take the time tae dismount, seize him, and very deliberately cut his throat?”
Pelna stole a glance at Bran’s wife and saw fresh tears springing to her eyes.
“Er, perhaps we might wish tae continue our analysis of events in a more private setting,” she murmured uneasily. “We needn’t cause this woman further grief. In fact, I believe we ought to help her by carryin’ the body back tae her home and diggin’ the grave fer him, don’t ye?”
Aidan nodded, but Jamie was too busy examining the corpse’s other hand, the one not holding the dagger.
“Jamie?” she asked. “Have ye found something further?”
“I believe I have, aye, my lady.” Jamie held up a torn fragment of a tartan. “A clue, perhaps, tae the identity of the murderers.Is this not the tartan of the McDaughs?”