Chapter Seventeen #2
And I, almost forgetting myself, had a sacrifice of my own to make. There would be no more hiding, no more secrets. “Warrior,” I said. “I need to tell you—”
“Enough!” Dougal barked at me, cutting me off.
He turned to Wilkie. “As touching as this all is, I’m afraid your plans are out of the question.
We need to be on our way. We have a captive to deliver.
Ogilvie has us out hunting night and day for this very lass, using valuable men to scour the Highlands, climbing walls and staging raids.
’Tis all becoming fairly tedious, I can assure you of that.
Not a mere kitchen servant, after all, is she.
” Mimicking a melodic noble accent, as though impersonating Laird Ogilvie, he said, “‘The king’s issue. Bring her to me immediately, or die.’” He chuckled, the sound sinister and unnerving.
Wilkie glowered, but his brain appeared to be working on a number of levels. He addressed Dougal. “What did you say?” This was followed immediately and aggressively with, “What’s your meaning, soldier? ‘The king’s issue’?”
Dougal laughed uproariously at Wilkie’s question. “I’m surprised you didn’t discover it for yourself, if you’re as smitten as you claim to be. You must be losing your touch, Mackenzie.”
Obviously highly secure in his estimations of his soldiers’ abilities and apparently amused by Wilkie’s ignorance, Dougal said to my aggressor, whose name I didn’t know: “Show him the mark. Between her shoulder blades, Ogilvie said.”
“Don’t be daft, Dougal,” growled the man whose sword was still held to my throat. “Shut your mouth, you fool.”
But Dougal was enjoying his advantage and wanted to revel in it further.
“There’s no harm in it, Gregor. There’s six of us and two of them.
’Tis no contest. Let him realize what’s just slipped through his lucky Mackenzie fingers.
” An ominous chuckle rumbled in his chest at the thought.
“Apparently, Mackenzie, your luck has run out.”
The man who held me—Gregor—reluctantly obeyed. He turned me, removing his sword’s touch from my throat yet keeping it firmly in range to strike easily, and roughly yanked the cloth of my tunic down my shoulder to reveal my tattoo.
Wilkie lowered his sword and stepped closer and was permitted by Ogilvie’s men to inspect the inked mark for himself. I gasped when his fingertips touched my skin.
He whispered, disbelieving, “It can’t be.”
“Oh, but it is,” Dougal confirmed cheerfully. “She will ensure great wealth for Laird Ogilvie—and his highest-ranking officers.”
What Ogilvie’s men were insinuating seemed too wildly preposterous to comprehend.
The possibility refused to even settle. My elation at Wilkie and Kade’s arrival was being overwhelmed by panic.
I had heard Dougal’s statement, but the meaning of his words stayed buried beneath the years of careful secrecy, of hiding, always, my hated inked mark.
And now it was revealed for all to see. The sunlight seemed to burn me where my skin was bared.
Even if there was a small chance that we could fight these Ogilvie warriors off and escape to the safety of Kinloch, there was no way Wilkie would want me now.
I knew what I was: a witch. It was a reality I had privately lived with for most of my life, and I could not believe otherwise, not yet.
The weight of my secret had been held for too long and was too ingrained to lightly dismiss.
I closed my eyes, hanging my head in shame, and waited for Wilkie’s reaction.
But instead of repulsion in his voice, I heard amazement. Where there should have been fearful disgust, there was wonder and a hint of questioning respect.
“How have I never noticed this?” Wilkie’s hand reached to cup my jaw, tilting my face up to him. And his eyes were as vibrant as the sky above him. “Roses? Did you know of this mark?”
I couldn’t speak, but I nodded with only the slightest movement.
“Why? Why did you never show this to me?” he asked.
My voice was barely above a whisper. “I—I was afraid to.”
“You didn’t think I might want to know you have the seal of King William inked to your shoulder?” he asked, incredulous.
My mind was whirling, struggling with lies and truths and all that had happened and all that was happening. “What?”
“Do you know what this means, Roses?”
Understanding was, in fact, beginning to edge into my consciousness, overriding the fear, the shame, the loss.
Gregor was getting impatient. Apparently, he was ready to claim his reward for my deliverance, and sooner rather than later. “It means that the lass is the lost child of King William. The one he searches for. The key to the king’s estate at Ossian Lochs.”
“We were told that the king’s lost child was a lad,” Kade said.
“Nay,” Wilkie mumbled, still aghast. “’Twas never confirmed either way.”
“Aye,” agreed Dougal gleefully. “The king was wary of imposters, so he never described the child’s identifying features.
Who knew that we would find the king’s lost child in our own kitchens?
That our very own servant is in fact heir to Ossian Lochs, the most coveted estate in all the Highlands?
And that she knew not of her own identity?
” He chuckled again, apparently highly amused by the mysteries of life, those same mysteries that had steeped many years of my life in turmoil and dread.
A cool and not entirely unpleasant sensation swirled throughout my body now, as their words sunk in.
I didn’t believe it could be true. Yet the story, and my past, I had to admit, it matched.
Delivered to a childless couple of a distant clan, to be safely and quietly absorbed into a far-away family, out of reach of the king’s vengeful wife?
Could it be true that the maniacal ravings of a superstitious old woman were unfounded and uninformed?
Once the ramifications of all that was realized settled into place, the mood of our tense gathering changed, as though a sudden breeze had renewed a vigorous animosity.
The unlikely conversation that had sprung up from a shocking revelation vanished, then, in the blink of an eye, transforming the scene back into the escalating conflict it was destined to be.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Wilkie grip his sword a little tighter and Kade raise his circular weapon subtly, incrementally higher.
“Now step aside, Mackenzies,” said Dougal, “and let us be on our way. The lass belongs to Ogilvie.”
The soldier Dougal was foolish indeed, if he believed Wilkie Mackenzie to be so accommodating. “We will not step aside,” said Wilkie evenly. “The lass comes with us.”
At Dougal’s covert command, one of the Ogilvie soldiers made a sudden move as though to attack Wilkie. But before the man even got close, there was a blinding flash of light, and the attacking Ogilvie soldier slumped heavily to the ground. Kade’s circular blade was embedded deep into his forehead.
With that, the battle was very suddenly on. Kade was now being quickly approached by the raised sword of an Ogilvie warrior whose name I knew to be Hayes; he had the reputation of a vicious and highly skilled fighter. They would be well matched, and I prayed silently for Kade’s success.
Dougal, enraged now by the death of one of his men, hissed an order at another soldier.
The man raised his sword at Wilkie, but before he could even gain a secure grip, Wilkie struck.
The lightning-quick jab speared cleanly and deeply into the small hollow at the base of the man’s throat.
In and out, before I—or the man himself—could quite make sense of what had happened.
The dying soldier looked entirely surprised and made a slight gurgling noise as black-red blood spurted from the fatal wound in his neck.
His eyes rolled back in his head, and his body slumped to the ground.
The remaining guards watched the fallen man for several seconds, as though waiting for him to get back up again. He did not.
Dougal roared a single word, “Attack!”
And the Ogilvie soldiers obeyed in unison.
Hayes engaged Kade, and the two others—Dougal and another—circled closer to Wilkie, striking as one.
The deafening clang of clashing swords echoed sharply as the men attacked and Wilkie deftly fought them off.
Panic lurched in my veins. I struggled in vain against Gregor’s strong hold on me.
Oh, how I wanted to step in and help him and keep him and distance him from the wrath and the danger!
To see my warrior, threatened and surrounded: the seething terror in my gut turned to anger.
“Don’t harm him!” I screamed at them. How dare you attack him! “Don’t touch him, he’s mine!”
Despite my terror, I could take some small comfort in the sheer authority of him. I could only watch in amazement at Wilkie’s skillful finesse. As terrifying as the sight was, his grace and flair had me momentarily spellbound. He was a warrior to his bones, and a gifted one.
Either one of the Ogilvie men would have been entirely outmatched by him.
The two of them, however, were a trained and cooperative team.
They seemed to work in well-rehearsed moves that each of them understood.
And they were dangerously close to overpowering him.
Dougal lunged, slicing across Wilkie’s bare upper arm.
Wilkie barely flinched, and I could see that the wound was not a catastrophic one but deep enough to possibly impair the movement of his stronger right arm.
The sight of his blood horrified me. I would rather give myself up to Ogilvie a thousand times than see Wilkie cut down by his men.
And I could not see Kade, although I could hear the metallic clash of his fight somewhere in the near distance.
Gregor pulled me farther toward the horses and Wilkie’s attention was momentarily diverted to the commotion, as I struggled against Gregor’s strength. But I could see what Wilkie could not.
“Wilkie!” I screamed. “Behind you!”