Chapter Nineteen
THE NIGHT WAS eerily dark. Thin black clouds veiled the feeble light of a slivered crescent moon. The keep was far from quiet. The sound of men’s restlessness punctuated the darkness. Metal and leather. Footsteps and shouted commands.
I was glad of the darkness and the noise.
We could keep ourselves hidden and stay well clear of the gathered clusters of soldiers, whose raucous activity seemed to suggest that they were well stocked in whiskey and were ready to partake now that the sun had gone down.
If we were seen, the consequences were too dire to consider.
Women didn’t wander alone, out of doors, and in the dark of night.
Not unless they were asking for trouble of one kind or another.
And especially not on a night like this, when only a few hours ago, an invading army who had allied themselves with an aggressive and mutinous faction of our clan had infiltrated our keep.
With the sole purpose of proving their domination of everything and everyone in their path.
The risks were daunting indeed. But I had no choice but to find Kade and to free him. If there was anything I could do to ease or end his agony, I would do it. No matter what it cost me.
So Maisie and I walked quietly, arm in arm, toward the blacksmith’s hut. I feared for her safety as much as my own, yet I was glad of her stubbornness. I was grateful not to be alone.
The tradesmen’s area was located at the near edge of the village, easily accessible by clan members from the manor and the fields, as well as by the soldiers.
There were leatherworkers’ huts, wood turners, inventors, weavers, agricultural equipment builders, stonecutters, glassblowers and metalworkers, among many others.
We made sure to keep a comfortable distance from the soldiers’ barracks, which was not far from the tradesmen’s huts.
Even from a distance, it was easy to see that the barracks were crowded, noisy and well lit.
Our journey was slightly longer than it should have been, because of this detour, but we found our way over uneven ground.
“I have a sleeping potion in my pocket,” I told Maisie quietly. “And three weapons. If we find the dungeons, we can try to drug the guards.”
Maisie glanced over at me as we walked. “’Tis a good plan, Stella.
Once we find these elusive dungeons, which are in a top-secret location privy only to the highest-ranking officers in our fractured army, I’ll hold down the guards while you pour the potion down their throats.
And if they don’t submit quietly, we’ll wield our weapons, experts as we are, against the most feared, lethal, bloodthirsty rebels in all the Highlands.
I don’t see any problem with your plan whatsoever. ”
Of course she was right. I was daft to even be considering doing what we were about to attempt to do. “I have to try,” I whispered.
“I know, sister. I would try, too, if it were me. That’s why I’m here with you. I want to help you. I want to...make it up to you.”
I’d always loved my sister, despite her complex and sometimes-exasperating character, but I had never loved her so much as at that moment. “You don’t have to—”
“Aye. I do. But after this, consider us even.” She laughed lightly and despite our situation, I couldn’t help smiling back at her. “Besides, I have an idea.”
“What idea?”
“Just leave it to me, when the time comes.” She paused as we made our way over a small stream, stepping on dry, upraised rocks to get across. “What is it that changed your mind about him? About Kade?”
I thought about this. “I don’t know. I realized I’m a better, happier, stronger person when I’m with him.” It took me a moment to try to put it into words. “He makes me feel powerful...yet protected at the same time.”
“I know what you mean.” She fell quiet then, and I understood why.
“You’ll find someone else, Maisie. I know you will. I’m going to help you.”
“We’ll see,” she said. We needed to keep silent then as we drew closer to the buildings.
We had reached the village. At this time of night, few people were around.
Most had gone back to their cabins in the residential areas, or to their farmhouses.
The occasional window was lit from within by candlelight as we passed by, and we were able to reach the hut without being seen.
It was clear long before we reached it that there were no candles burning in Caleb’s windows. When we tried the door, it was locked.
“What do we do now, Stella?” Maisie whispered.
“We try to find the dungeon on our own,” I replied, not at all sure how to go about doing that.
As if in an answer to my silent prayer, I heard laughter. A man’s laughter. From somewhere afar, over the rise of a large, rounded hill. The sound of it was familiar to me. I knew who it was from the beatings I’d been subjected to at his hand, and Aleck’s.
Hugh.
He’d found it amusing, my tears and my pleas.
He’d enjoyed the small power it afforded him, to bully someone weaker than himself, and at his laird’s orders no less.
Something about the unbalanced hierarchy of it had satisfied him.
It occurred to me then that he didn’t know of Aleck’s death yet.
No one did, aside from me and my sisters.
It also occurred to me that Hugh was Aleck’s right-hand man; they always trained together, fought together, planned together: if Aleck was the cause of the division within our army, and the instigator of the Campbell alliance, then Hugh would no doubt be a part of it, as well.
And if Aleck wasn’t entertaining Campbell and his officers—he was occupied, they knew, with other pressing matters—then that task would have fallen into Hugh’s hands.
Hugh would be with Campbell and his men. The very men who had taken my husband away.
There were other voices, too, and laughter.
I pulled Maisie along with me, cautiously. “This way,” I whispered.
As we drew closer, the voices grew louder. There were many of them, maybe eight or ten. It would have been Campbell’s senior officers, I guessed. Gathered, very possibly, around the entrance of the dungeons.
The area behind the hill, as we made our way around, was covered in shrubby bushes and tall grasses; the brushy fauna seemed overabundant in the open space of the grasslands, as though it might have been planted there to disguise a doorway.
At least I hoped that to be true and I was looking for evidence that it might be.
And I was glad of the shrubbery; it would allow us to stay hidden.
From our distance, we peeked through the shielding branches to see a number of men gathered.
I counted them: eight in total. Seven of them were seated in an uneven semicircle around a small fire.
They were talking and passing around a bottle of whiskey.
The eighth was lying on the ground; he appeared to be asleep.
I focused more carefully. I could identify Hugh, and I could see that the other men were Campbell’s top-ranking officers.
The sleeping man, I thought but couldn’t be entirely sure, was Laird Campbell himself.
Several hours, perhaps, had passed since my husband had been taken by these men.
More than enough time to inflict very real damage on a prisoner.
Campbell appeared to be taking a respite from his torturous pursuits, satisfied perhaps that he had made a good job of it for now.
Behind them, near where Campbell slept, was the unmistakable shine of metal.
Hinges. And the frame of a door.
The dungeons. Clever, I thought, to situate the prisons so close to the barracks, but underground, with a secret entrance, hidden from enemies who might try to retrieve their prisoners.
I knew we had found it. I knew that behind that door was my husband.
Somehow we needed to get past these men.
The bottle of whiskey was placed to the side and I could see that it was less than a quarter full. If I could somehow pour the sleeping drug into it, I thought the proportions would be right: enough to knock them out for an hour, maybe more.
But how?
Maisie offered me the answer, as though I had asked the question aloud. My sister, for all her faults, was well versed in the ways of clever feminine wiliness. And she had a plan.
“I’m going to distract these men, Stella,” Maisie whispered. “And you’re going to sneak around behind this row of bushes and pour your potion into that bottle of whiskey.”
I looked at her in the semidarkness under a bold crescent moon and a myriad of bright stars.
The black clouds were gone now. I prayed that this might be a good omen.
“What are you going to do? You can’t show yourself, Maisie.
’Tis far too dangerous. These are uncivilized men. There’s no telling what they might do.”
“I can handle them,” she said. “I’ll promise to return to them with food and more drink. And perhaps a little more than that. They’ll allow me to leave. I can be quite convincing when I put my mind to it.”
I hoped she was right, and I feared greatly for her safety. I refused to let go of her arm.
“We’ve little other choice, Stella,” she said, prying my fingers loose. “Let’s do what needs doing. Go.” And with that, my sister unfastened the top two buttons of her gown and strode out into the clearing.
Galvanized with fear, for her, for me, for my husband most of all, I crept along behind the row of shrubbery, as quiet as I had ever been.
“Good evening, soldiers,” Maisie said coyly, walking right into their circle as if she were a long-lost friend of Campbell and his rebellion. “Hugh,” she greeted. “Campbells, welcome. I’ve been sent from the manor to offer our guests refreshments. Indeed you must be hungry.”
Her intrusion, for a moment, was met with silence. Then, with leering chuckles, followed quickly by lewd, suggestive comments. “You’ve no idea, lass,” said one of them, “and I know exactly what I intend to eat.”
This inspired bawdy laughter.