Chapter 26 #2
The blood drained from her face. There in her crystal, before the motte and tower raged a blue, four-legged bird, its beak dripping with blood…
and then a wounded and bleeding wolf… Keane would be that wolf.
Even as Sorcha tried to make sense of the images, she knew it for truth.
The four-legged bird… it was the sigil of William fitz Duncan.
White-faced, Sorcha peered up at her sisters. “We must hurry back to Dunràth!”
Look to your heart, not to your head.
Una’s words echoed in Keane’s head. Logic told him he should stay and fight beside his king, but his heart said he must go.
With the sweep of a hand, he could lose everything: Lianae. Dunràth. Lilidbrugh, and perhaps even his kinsmen, if Lianae had betrayed them. All for what? For a chance to hold his own seat under a sovereign his people never recognized?
But nay, that was not why.
He’d done everything for Lianae—for the woman who held his heart.
He had been willing to lie, to accept the sins of another man, to eschew his best friend—because, in truth, it should have been Cameron to hold Dunràth in his stead.
If only Keane had not taken command of their men.
And still, Cameron had stood beside him.
The man’s greatest sin had been to withhold the news that Lianae’s brothers were awaiting sentencing at Dunràth, and this was why Murdoch fled as well.
Keane would not fool himself into believing that Lianae had chosen him for love.
All she needed to do now was to free her rebel brothers and then hand over the keys to Dunràth to them—a stronghold from which they could mount a new rebellion against the king.
There was no way to tell what might come thereafter, for half of Moray remained loyal to óengus the Mormaer, even unto the grave.
For five years, David had held those lands per force.
Why would he now put the Kingdom of Moray at risk?
The king had pushed his pieces around his chessboard, marrying this laird with that lady, assimilating rather than conquering, despite that his armies grew and grew.
But, then, he ought to know by now that you could not force Highlanders into subjugation.
Even in death, the sons of óengus would plague him still. Unless…
And suddenly he realized…
It was a test.
A test Lianae must not fail.
She held the keys to Dunràth and David’s writ. David mac Mhaoil Chaluim had placed them knowingly into his wife’s hands, and he must have known she would find her brothers—and what then?
Did he have men at the ready to crush a rebellion? Did he mean to ferret out the rebels using Lianae? Even now, was fitz Duncan preparing to ride on Dunràth under the king’s command?
Alas, but the one piece of this puzzle that David could not have anticipated was the Stone of Destiny, and Keane realized that Lianae knew. He spied the truth in her face the day he’d ridden out from the vale.
Aye, she knew.
When he arrived, would her brothers put an arrow through his heart the instant they spied him?
Would they open the doors for the new laird of Dunràth?
Would Lianae hand over the keys to Dunràth willingly?
Would the king’s men turn on her if she chose the wrong path?
She had fifty good men at her disposal, but how many of those men were loyal to David and how many remained loyal to óengus?
I am not witless enough to leave any stronghold of import without men enough to guard her, he remembered David saying. And he knew instinctively it would be true.
Heartsick, Keane picked up his gait. He could smell it now—the salt fury of the ocean, and he prodded Beithir faster, faster, eager to arrive—eager to set eyes upon his wife—eager to know whether his life would be crushed as easily as the Destiny Stone had been removed from their grasp.
“Riders, m’lady!”
Lianae peered up from the house ledgers she’d been studying for the majority of two days.
If she was not mistaken, there were discrepancies in the accounts.
Cartloads of their supplies had been requisitioned by Kinneddar.
What this meant, she hadn’t any clue, but she wouldn’t put it past fitz Duncan to empty the coffers and pantries of all demesnes under his control. “Do they bear the royal standard?”
Balloch shook his head. “If they fly any, m’lady, we canna see it.”
Lianae worried the pen in her hand, unaccustomed to making such decisions, and just now, the moment of truth had come. She could read and write and keep the ledgers as well as any man, but could she hold Dunràth against invaders?
Here, there were no ramparts to hide behind, no rooftops from which to set loose missiles.
The hallhouse itself sat high enough on the motte that any men firing from the three-foot rampart surrounding the keep would have an advantage for but a very short time.
There was little time to prepare if they meant to fight and hold what was theirs.
Even if she were inclined to, it was too late to send riders to Kinneddar, and there was little assurance fitz Duncan would aid them anyhow.
For all she knew it could be him out there, though she wasn’t about to lose what she’d fought so hard to win.
“The men to arms,” she commanded the steward. “Women and children to the hallhouse. Gather everyone straightaway.” If the attackers should ascend the motte, they would protect themselves by setting fire to the ditch. “Go and tell my brother—quickly!” she urged Balloch.
“Aye, m’lady!”
By the rood, if Lael and her sisters could dress themselves for war, so then could she!
Bound to protect her people, Lianae raced up the tower stairs to the lord’s chamber to don the lord’s armor—not much more than a boiled gambeson and tunic, but the tunic bore Dunràth’s sigil so that her men might easily recognize her in battle.
She knew little about how to wield a sword, but she would try nonetheless—if only as a show of strength.
Alas, but she tried to lift the heavy claymore displayed upon the wall, and it sank to the floor with a mighty thud, hacking pieces from the floor.
Muttering curses beneath her breath, Lianae abandoned the sword where it lay, cursing it to rot, and snatched up her trusty little blade from the bedside where she’d left it.
Hurrying over to the cold brazier, she dirtied her fingers with ash. It wasn’t the same as woad, but this too would have to do. She swiped two fingers across her cheeks and brow and hurried out into the courtyard, shouting for the men to bring around her mare.
Cailleach have mercy, she would soon discover how well Una’s horse could handle blood and gore. But then suddenly, before she had the chance to mount, she peered down the motte to spy the approaching horde.
At the foot of the hill, twenty men riding without banners spilled from the woods and fell upon a smaller band of eight. Of those eight, she recognized the leader at once—his hair black as midnight and his coat dark against his snow-white mare.
Keane.