Chapter 22
The following sennight flew by in a whirl of busy activity and steamy nights.
True to her word, Marin had begun to include Bran in her meetings with the pertinent members of the household to ensure they cooperated with him in helping her run the keep. Not only was he eager to be part of the castle’s daily life, she found he excelled at the duties.
Each day they worked more closely together, and each day, Marin found herself all the more endeared to the man she’d been forced to wed.
Outside, the Grahams still hovered on the grounds.
Their presence was disconcerting when the food stores had not been sufficiently restocked since Bran’s arrival.
His forces had depleted their supply when he first assumed control of the castle.
Though the number of men had been greatly reduced due to abandonment and death, the perpetual presence of the aggressive Grahams had kept anyone from going out of, or into, the castle.
Leila had not developed another fever and had followed all the strict rules given to her by Isla as her wounds healed. After many, many requests to do so, Leila was finally allowed out on the battlements.
Marin hovered over her youngest sister and tried not to let her worry and fear show.
“I’ll be fine.” Leila caught Marin’s hand the way she had done when she was a small child.
In truth, Marin had hoped Leila might be able to offer some insight on the great sadness she’d spoken of, the one on the horizon.
The one that had not yet come to pass. But seeing Leila looking out over the Graham forces, Marin didn’t want the information, not when the cost was so high. Leila was too young, too delicate.
She never should have allowed Leila out there.
Bran curled an arm around Marin, protective and loving. “I promise nothing will happen to her.”
Marin leaned into Bran’s strength, grateful for his confident assurance. She needed it to put her mind at ease.
“If it gets dangerous, Leila, you will have to return to the keep.” Marin’s concern put an edge to her tone she had not intended.
Leila did not reply but stared out in the distance and tilted her face to the wind, as though doing so might enable her to read something unseen to all others.
Marin cast an anxious glance at Bran. While she trusted her husband, she did not like Leila displaying her abilities so blatantly.
She knelt beside her sister. “Leila, I—”
A tear slid down Leila’s face while her eyes watched something in the distance.
Fear dragged an icy chill down Marin’s spine. “What is it?”
“Do you not see it?”
Marin looked to the horizon, empty save for a few Graham soldiers. “What do you see?”
“It is coming.” Leila blinked but still the tears fell down her cheeks.
Marin pulled her small sister into her arms. “We must get you inside.”
“Rider,” Bran said above them.
Marin jerked her attention to the distance once more and spied a man on horseback, his body slumped over his horse. Graham reivers rode on either side of him, whooping and shouting. Something was amiss.
“Summon Cat immediately.” Marin stood and nudged her youngest sister toward the castle. “Leila, get inside. Now. Send for Isla in case we have need of her.”
Whoever the man on the horse was, he did not appear well.
Leila ran, filling the battlements with the slap, slap, slap of her leather shoes over the stonework.
“Archers,” Marin bellowed. “Ready your bows.”
The creak of over a dozen bowstrings being pulled back answered her call.
“Something isna right,” Bran said. “I’ll be at the gate in case we need to open the portcullis. If those bastards get through, my reivers will be waiting for them.”
Marin tore her gaze from the rider to that of her husband. “Bran, nay.”
His mouth lifted in a lazy half smile that made her stomach twirl. “Dinna worry about me, lass. I can handle myself.” He caught her around the waist, gave her one final, searing kiss and was gone.
She spun back to the rider and found two Grahams closing in on him from either side.
Footsteps thundered up the stairs. “I’m here,” Cat shouted breathlessly.
“Stop them.” Marin indicated the Grahams.
“Aye.” Cat drew back the string of her newly fashioned bow, slightly larger than the others, and loosed her first arrow. It soared beyond the stopping point of the other arrows and continued onward, straight into the chest of the Graham on the right.
He fell from his horse and the rider lost one pursuer. Cat gave a hiss of victory and pulled another arrow from her quiver. Marin squinted in the distance. The rider did not appear in a hurry to escape them and seemed stiff, unmoving. “Wait.” Marin held up her hand.
Cat sucked in a breath. “Marin, I do not think that man is alive.”
The horse carrying the stiff rider trotted closer and the odor of rot rolled in on a breeze. Disgust knotted in Marin’s stomach and something gripped her heart. Fear.
Her father had not come home. Timothy. Geordie. So many who had not yet come home. Could it be one of them? A taunt of the worst kind?
“Arrows,” Marin said weakly. “We cannot kill the dead, but we can kill the Grahams.”
Cat gave the call and volleys of arrows sailed over the battlements, peppering the field surrounding the castle. The Grahams shoved the corpse from its horse before the castle and rode away with the empty mount.
Werrick arrows flew in earnest, no longer mindful of sparing any lives. The Grahams immediately fled and not one fell before they reached a distance out of the archer’s range.
Marin sent a message for Bran to claim the body. Mayhap there was something on this man’s person to indicate his being there. Her chest tightened. Or perhaps he was someone they might recognize.
Not Father. Not Timothy. Not Geordie. The words came in a form of a chant in her mind. Repeated over and over again until they scored her heart.
The low, scraping groan of the portcullis sounded and Bran’s men ran out under the cover of watchful archers to grab the body and draw him inside.
Marin remained with the archers until all of Bran’s men were off the grass and the portcullis had dropped closed once more.
Secure in the knowledge all was safe, she locked her heart in her throat and ran down the stone stairs to discover who the dead man was, and what secrets he held.
The man’s face had been beaten and his body mangled.
His death had occurred some time ago given the gray pallor of his skin and the purplish hue of his lips.
And the smell. God’s toes, the smell. Bran pushed the sleeve of his forearm to his nose and stared down at the man.
Sir Richard and several of Bran’s men had dragged the poor bastard into the bailey.
The body was one of his reivers. The one sent to bring the missive to Kerr. The Grahams had caught him and had their fun with him first before finally killing him. The bailey was quiet, save for the violent buzz of a cloud of black flies feasting on the rotting flesh.
Isla regarded the man. “I dinna think ye need a healer.”
“The priest has been summoned,” Drake said.
“Then I’m no’ leaving until I see the look on his face,” Isla muttered.
A choked cry sounded from behind Bran. He spun around, but it was too late. Marin stood there with her hand pressed to her mouth, her eyes wide with terror.
“Marin, dinna look.” Bran tried to stand in front of the body, to keep the worst of it from her eyes.
“My father?” She paled and reached for Bran with trembling hands.
“Nay,” he answered quickly. “One of my men.”
“It was the Grahams.” Drake braced his feet wide, as if he required extra stability in light of the horror of this death. “This was done with intent, this torture.” His lips curled and he gave a thick swallow.
Bernard appeared, his panting suggesting his haste. “I came when…” His voice trailed off and his eyes went wide.
“Are ye well?” Bran asked.
Bernard blushed and nodded. His shaved pate glistened with a sheen of sweat. “Aye, of course. We are all God's creatures. That is, it matters not how we arrive to greet him. Which isn't to say this man's body is appalling, though it is a mighty shock but—”
Isla scoffed.
Bernard’s pale blue eyes shot up and found Isla. Immediately, he crossed himself.
Isla chortled at his reaction to her, as gleeful at his fear as ever. “In my younger years, he wouldna have been making that sign.” She rolled her hand in the air. “Get on with it, ye spineless sap.”
Bernard wiped his palm down the hip of his robe and began droning the last rites in Latin, his demeanor calming immediately with the application of his faith.
While the hum of his voice cast reverent stillness over the gathered men. Bran looked to Marin and nodded toward the castle, indicating she go inside.
She shook her head and stepped forward with her chin notched upward in that stubborn way of hers. Bran reached out and took her hand in his. Her palm was warm and damp, an indication she was not as calm as her demeanor would otherwise suggest.
But as the last rites were given over the body, Bran could not help the flurry of questions racing through his mind. How long had the Grahams had the man? Had the message to Kerr been delivered? Was there a reply?
Bernard made the sign of the cross over the body and it was done.
Bran regarded Marin. “See to your sisters. Ensure they are not too distraught over what has happened. I’ll handle the burial.”
Marin glanced to the body and then raised her eyes to meet Bran’s. “Are you certain? I can assist you if—”
“Nay, lass.” Bran shook his head. “Go to yer sisters.”
Bran pressed a kiss to her brow before turning to Drake. “Take her inside, aye?”
Drake gave a firm nod.
Marin squeezed Bran’s hand and released her hold on him. “Thank you.”
Her look of gratitude dug into his chest and squeezed at his guilt. He needed her gone so he could check over the body, to find any missive that remained to see how much the Grahams might have found, or not found. To verify for himself how far the man had made it.
Damn.
Things could not possibly be any worse.
With a heart fuller than it'd been in some time, Marin ran to her sisters. For years, there had been so many moments of having to choose between comforting her sisters or overseeing difficult tasks. But not this day.
In the face of horror and fear, Bran bore the brunt of the awfulness of the poor reiver's mangled body and tasked her with caring for what he knew mattered most to her.
The sisters had gathered in the sunlit solar. Anice hovered over Cat, gently resting a hand on her shoulder. Ella and Leila sat on a window seat with Piquette, their heads bent over a book. All looked up when Marin and Drake entered.
Marin immediately set to work caring for her sisters.
Ella had lost herself in a book and pulled Leila with her.
Cat had been distraught but had calmed down after drinking tea drizzled generously with honey from Isla.
Poor Drake had hovered over them, his helplessness apparent in the way he shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
Clearly wanting to offer his assistance, but unsure how.
Anice had tried to set him at ease by constantly reassuring him they were all fine until he finally left to return to Bran’s side.
In the distance, beyond the glass window, the sun sank into the landscape like a glowing ember and cast the sky in violent sprays of red and orange. Like watered down blood.
There is great sadness on the horizon.
A chill settled along the back of Marin’s neck and slid down her spine like an icy finger. She suppressed her shudder.
“My lady.” Sir Richard's voice tugged Marin from her thoughts of Leila’s warning.
Marin glanced at her sisters, and after confirming they had all calmed, she excused herself and met with Sir Richard in the hallway.
His mouth set in a grim line. “I brought the man's body in.”
Marin inclined her head graciously. “You have my thank—”
“I'm not telling you for gratitude.” Richard kept his voice to a low whisper. “This was on the man. I brought it to you as soon as it appeared to be safe.” He lifted his gloved hand where he pinched a folded square of parchment smeared with blood.
“Did you read it?” she asked even as she accepted the missive. She squared her shoulders, making herself a shield against prying eyes.
“Aye, in case it was about your father.”
She cast him a grateful look, knowing his intent to be good-hearted. However, any gratitude in her chest froze solid at the words written on the parchment. It was a call to the Scottish Middle Warden to send reinforcements to help secure the castle before the Earl of Werrick could arrive.
The name signed at the bottom in a slash of black ink over the gory parchment–Bran.
Marin gasped and tightened her fist on the parchment to keep it from slipping from her fingers. So, this was why Bran had wanted the castle. For Scotland. No doubt Kerr would see them all killed, including her father. Her sisters.
She shuddered at the thought. Never once had Bran indicated his intent for the castle was so dangerous, could cost so many lives.
She had been betrayed.