Chapter 23
“By the hounds, Donall!” Gavin MacFie scrambled to his feet and launched himself as far forward as his ankle chain would allow. “Gods be praised!” He grinned, pulling Donall into a rough, bear-like embrace.
“The bastards wouldn’t give me word of you.” He released Donall and slapped his back, a broad smile lighting his bearded face. “I thought you were dead.”
I should be. Donall stifled the truth.
He also couched the pain of his friend’s well-meant and hardy greeting. Gavin wasn’t aware of his stretched and achy muscles, his hours dangling from a chain.
“At least I knew they hadn’t served you up to their swords.” He returned Gavin’s grin. “They’d just as soon see me swing from a gibbet.” He glanced at Niels and Rory who were fastening his chain to an iron ring on the wall of Gavin’s cell. “Either that or have me drowned.
“They failed,” he added, hooking his thumbs in his belt. “I refused to die so easily.”
“Poxy windbag,” Rory snarled and jerked on the chain, testing the ring’s hold. Satisfied, he strode to the door. “Were it not for our misguided ladyship, I’d smash my fist into your mouth until you spit out every last one of your teeth.”
“Have done.” Niels gave him a dark look, then stepped aside to admit a stream of wide-eyed kitchen lads, each carrying a bundle of some sort.
“Make his pallet in the corner,” he ordered them, then turned again to Rory. “Summer Solstice is fast upon us. You can spit on his bones soon enough, after the crows pick them clean.”
“Oh, aye?” Gavin fisted his hands. “Give us our swords and we’ll see who ends as carrion fodder.”
“We needn’t bother.” Donall laid a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “You ken what they say. A dog who barks overmuch does so because he cannae bite.”
“Ah, well.” Gavin cracked his knuckles. “If I dinnae punch him now, ’tis only because the men who live longest are those who keep their temper.”
“Indeed.” Donall’s smile returned.
To his amazement, even Niels looked ready to chuckle before he caught himself. Rory sputtered, his eyes blazing with such fury it wouldn’t have surprised him to see steam shoot from his ears.
“Breathe your last, you bastards,” Rory seethed, whipping out his dirk.
He raised his arm, preparing to rush at Donall and Gavin. But just as he lunged, the older knight Lorne entered the cell, his brows drawn together in a frown.
“Becalm yourself, lest you wish to muck out the cesspit.” He aimed a fierce look at Rory, then jerked his beard at the double-edged dirk in the guardsman’s hand. “Sheathe it.”
“Ram it down his gullet is what I’d like to do,” Rory groused. With a last glower at Donall and Gavin, he jammed his blade into the leather holder at his belt, and stomped out the door.
“See he cools his blood,” Lorne ordered Niels, and then nodded toward the door in a gesture for him go after Rory.
The giant obliged, ducking beneath the door’s low lintel to disappear into the poorly lit passage beyond. The kitchen lads scurried after him, looking relieved to be gone.
The moment their footsteps faded, Donall leaned against the cell’s cold stone wall. If the stony-faced graybeard didn’t soon hie himself away as well, he might not be able to keep up his pretense of hardiness.
Every bluidy inch of him ached so bad he could almost understand why some men, when battle-wounded, plead for the mercy of death. The pain even sat his bone marrow. But he wouldn’t give Lorne the satisfaction of seeing his agony.
He also didn’t want to worry Gavin.
So he struggled against a grimace and glanced at the pallet the kitchen lads had assembled for him.
Made of a coarse linen sack stuffed with straw and dried bracken, then topped with a worn tartan blanket, the pallet’s dubious comforts beckoned more than his magnificent four-postered bed at Baldoon.
Gods, but he was weary.
“You should be comfortable enough here,” Lorne said then, looking at him strangely.
“More so than in the Otherworld,” Donall owned, biting back a groan. “Though I wouldn’t mind the crackling fires, saucy wenches, and mead said to found there.”
“Humph.” Lorne’s gaze flicked over him. “A good warm meal will arrive shortly, and later a bath.”
Gesturing to the cloth bundles against the far wall, he added, “Your clothes. Everything is there. Untouched, save your weapons. I can do nothing else for you.”
“You can let us-” Gavin broke off at Donall’s warning glance.
Ignoring Gavin’s surprise, Donall returned the graybeard’s nod. “It is enough, and appreciated,” he said, glad his voice no longer sounded like a croak.
His words might have been grudgingly spoken, but they weren’t without respect. The older knight had kept his promise, abiding by the ancient rules of chivalry between men who’d knelt to take the blow of honor.
“Then, sirs, I bid you a good night.” Lorne made a stiff bow, then left, closing and barring the door behind him.
Gavin glanced at Donall. “Who the hell was that?”
“A friend.” The answer came from someplace so deep inside Donall even he couldn’t explain its reasoning. “Dinnae ask me why, but I believe he is a friend.”
“But he’s no’ willing to free us?” Gavin sank onto his pallet.
“So it seems.” Donall closed his eyes and drew a breath against his achy bones. “We can try to reason with him.”
“These fools cannae tell the truth from an eel’s arse.”
“Eels dinnae have arses.”
“Exactly.” Gavin smiled.
Donall groaned. “Captivity hasn’t dimmed your wits.”
“Praise the gods.” Gavin settled back on his pallet, his smile deepening as he looked at Donall. “Who is the ‘misguided ladyship’ the angry lout mentioned? The fetching MacInnes chieftain perchance?”
“How would I know?”
Gavin chuckled. “Because you do.”
“Say you?”
“I am no fool.” Gavin’s eyes glinted. “The oaf wouldn’t have named her otherwise.”
“He didn’t.”
“You’re splitting hairs, my friend.”
Donall frowned.
Gavin was a font of good cheer. A loyal friend and fierce warrior, but also blessed with more uncanny insight than the most gifted henwife.
At times, anyway.
Donall hoped this was not one of them.
In case it was, he busied himself by shifting on his pallet. Deflection sometimes staved off Gavin’s observations and rambles. So Donall flicked out the woolen blanket Lorne had provided, and smoothed its scratchy warmth over his legs.
Gavin cleared his throat.
Donall waited for the good-natured jab he knew was about to come.
“Plucking your fingers on that moth-eaten rag gives you away.” Gavin pushed up on an elbow, grinning. “So she is Lady Isolde.”
“Aye, the lairdess herself.” Donall wouldn’t lie to his friend.
He did glance at the cell’s one window slit, though nothing could be seen there except silvery rain. Sheeting rain that blew sideways past the narrow opening cut into the thick stone wall. Thankfully, this cell’s walls were not dank and slime-coated.
Nor did a layer of soiled and smelly rushes cover the stone-flagged floor. A slant of torchlight fell through the cell’s other air slit, a hole carved high in the wood of the door. That bit of light, coming from a torch in the passageway, showed that the cell was well-swept and clean.
Gavin had been shown some courtesy.
Glad for that mercy, Donall glanced again at his friend. “What do you know of her?”
“Lady Isolde?” Gavin turned on his side and propped his head on his fist. “I haven’t met her. She must be of good heart, courageous, and intelligent. She held her father’s trust or he wouldn’t have left his people in her hands.”
Donall wasn’t so sure.
“She could’ve charmed him,” he said. “Fathers dote on their daughters. My own sire thought the sun rose and set in my sister Amicia, as well you know.”
“That I do.” Gavin chuckled. “You may be right. Some say Lady Isolde is the fairest maid in these isles.”
“Dinnae tell that to Amicia.” Donall smiled and leaned his head against the wall. “Lady Isolde is passable.”
She is a flame-haired siren with luminous amber-flecked eyes and I wouldn’t be surprised if bards didn’t sing of her in all the halls of the land.
“Tut, man! You’ve seen her?” Gavin sat up, interest sparking in his eyes.
“Aye, so I have.”
“But the tales are untrue? She isn’t a beauty?”
“She is,” Donall admitted. “I just haven’t seen the best of her. If she set out to charm a man, I am sure she’d bewitch him so thoroughly, he’d upend the world to claim her.”
“Ahhh…” Gavin grinned. “Sakes, but you are e’er so blessed. I’ve had nothing to gaze at but these miserable walls.”
“I haven’t been gazing at her.” Donall glanced again at the window, inhaled deeply of the cold, rain-thick air. He needed to clear his head for Gavin’s word choice was unfortunate. He burned to gaze at the lass. And not just in the ways he already had.
He wanted to see her stretched out naked on her bed, eager for his perusal.
His delectation, the gods help him.
Even now, with every inch of him aching and sore, he felt a tug at his loins.
“Bluidy hell…” He tipped his head back to stare at the water-stained ceiling.
“Hah! I should have known…” Gavin’s laugh echoed in the tiny chamber.
“You know nothing.” Donall whipped his head around to scowl at him.
“I know you’re smitten.” Gavin gave him a crooked smile. “That is the way of it.”
“The way of it is far beyond the bounds of anything even you could dream up.” Donall pinched the bridge of his nose, then pressed his fingers against the middle of his forehead. Damned if he didn’t feel as if he’d downed a barrel of soured ale. “You would no’ believe me if I told you.”
“Tell me anyway.” Gavin rested his arms on his up-drawn knees. “My ears demand it.”
“Have done, you fiend. I am exhausted and only wish to sleep.” Donall closed his eyes. “You’ll soon learn the nature of my involvement with the lady.”
“Involvement?” Gavin leaned sideways and poked his fingers into Donall’s ribs. “Dinnae think of sleep after such an admission. What are you about? Dallying with her?”
Donall’s eyes snapped open. “By the devil’s arse, MacFie. Do I look like I’ve been enjoying myself?”
“Wet and groused as you are, I’d say so.” Gavin pulled on his beard, studying him. “You could’ve come from a tryst in the sea. And now you’re vexed because the storm broke, wresting you apart?”
“I willnae even answer that.” Donall shut his eyes again, sought the peace of sleep.
He needed rest.
But Gavin’s lopsided smile and good cheer, despite the graveness of their plight, crept beneath his closed lids, stealing his slumber, and his ire.
Reminding him why he loved the MacFie as if they truly were brothers, and not merely fostered ones.
He slanted another glance at him.
“Sakes, but I am glad to see you alive,” Donall said, feeling a pinch where he supposed his heart beat in his chest.
Gavin’s smile broadened. Leaning across the space between their pallets, he gave Donall a friendly whack on the shoulder. “And I you.”
“Owww…” Donall winced.
“What’s this?” Gavin paled. “Guidsakes, what have they done to you?”
“All manner of villainies.”
Villainies, and a bounty of such exquisite tortures I may never recover.
Gavin fell back against the wall. “Gods, but I am sorry,” he said. “There I was jesting about wenches and such. I wanted to cheer you.”
“I know. And you did.” Donall rubbed his shoulder as he spoke. “My heart is already lighter.”
“Do you wish to speak of it?”
“Later.” Donall pushed the image of Lady Isolde from his mind as best he could, and again drew a deep breath of the rain-chilled air.
But the storm-washed night couldn’t cleanse her from his thoughts. Had she bespelled him, indeed? He didn’t know. If she did have some kind of magic, he wanted none of it.
Yet…
The truth was he suspected she’d already snared him.
“You’re quiet.”
“I’m weary.”
Gavin snorted. “You look glum for a man who has been in the company of such a beautiful woman.”
“I just dinnae wish to speak now.”
“When?”
“Perhaps after they’ve brought the supper and bath they’ve promised.” Donall fussed with the woolen blanket over his legs, hoping it wasn’t infested with fleas.
Relieved when he couldn’t spot any, he glanced again at his friend. “Just be warned. When I tell you what I’ve been about, you will think I’ve taken up the bardic arts and am spouting the most outrageous tale you’ve ever heard.
“You may no’ even believe me.” Donall shook his head. “I wouldnae.”
“Where have they been keeping you?” Gavin prodded, flicking his gaze from Donall’s plaid-covered legs to his still-damp hair. “Dinnae tell me they’ve taken their twisted pursuit of revenge so far they’ve lashed you to a rock in the sea?”
“It was almost that bad, aye.” Donall released a long sigh, then described the broch’s sea dungeon and how he’d spent his days suspended by a chain from its dripping ceiling.
Gavin jolted. “By all the gods!”
“I doubt there are any on this plaguey end of Doon.” Donall was sure of it. “They likely left centuries ago.”
Glancing around the tiny, stone-walled cell, he added, “I am glad the bastards gave you a less odious whiling place. No slime-coated walls, nor slithering creatures breeding in fouled floor rushes. No tide rushing in to freeze your danglers…”
“Gods’ bones, they’ve gone too far-”
“So they have,” Donall agreed, fixing his gaze on the torch flames he could see through the door’s crude-cut air hole.
The torch gave off a soft, buttery glow. A spot of comfort in the cold, wet night, and a warm contrast to the silver light that filled the cell with each crack of thunder.
A golden flame in a sea of darkness. The same red-gold as Lady Isolde’s hair. As well, the fire that coursed through her veins. Passion she didn’t know she possessed.
Until he showed her.
Donall started, then shot a quick glance at Gavin. Sakes, he must’ve fallen asleep. He didn’t know if he’d muttered those words, or if they’d only circled through his dreams. Taunting and teasing him just like the bonnie lass who’d inspired them.
“What did you say?” Gavin sat staring at him, his broad shouldered form backlit by the night’s eerie storm-washed light. “I cannae hear you above the thunder.”
Donall blew out a breath. So he had spoken aloud. But his friend hadn’t caught his words.
Devil’s luck.
“I said wait until you hear where I’ve spent my nights.”
“You didnae sleep in your cell? Or the sea dungeon?”
“Nae.” Donall tucked the blanket around his legs. He’d never been more cold. He could’ve been on the high moors, facing a fierce winter wind. The kind that brought the chill of coming snow.
He remained exhausted; his body so sore that breathing pained him.
A warm bath would be a relief.
“Did they torture you at night?” Gavin prodded.
“Nae,” he admitted. “But the trials I faced then were a worse torment than any I received by day.”
“Why do I think you are speaking of the lady chieftain?”
Donall frowned. As ever, Gavin read his mind. Indeed, he wouldn’t be surprised if the knave could peer through walls.
Gavin’s crooked grin appeared, hinting that was so. “Aye, why can’t I shake the feeling you mean her?”
“Because you are right,” Donall admitted. “I did mean her. I can think of nothing else.”