Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
The first man Roy encountered inside Dun Ard was carrying a sack of oats.
He came through the storeroom door with his head turned toward the corridor, complaining loudly that Cormac had ordered every entrance watched but neglected to say who was meant to finish preparing the funeral meal.
He did not notice the armed men emerging from beneath the sea wall until Roy took the sack from his hands and placed it carefully upon the floor.
The clansman stared at him. Roy placed one finger to his lips. The man drew breath to shout. Hamish caught him neatly from behind and lowered him into unconsciousness with considerably less care than Roy had shown the oats.
Donaldina looked down at the fallen man. “Was that necessary?”
“He was about tae call the guard.”
“I meant the oats.”
Roy glanced at the sack, which stood unharmed beside the wall.
“I dislike waste.”
Something shifted near her mouth, though she turned away before he could determine whether it had been amusement or disapproval.
The councilors and loyal clansmen stepped out one after another from the tight passage, filling the lower rooms with the scent of damp wool, saltwater, and drawn steel.
Their numbers made secrecy impossible to maintain for long.
Boots scraped against the flagstones. A sword hit the side of a grain barrel with a muffled clang, then a whispered curse echoed.
Roy looked toward the stairway.
“MacNicol men first,” he ordered quietly. “Any guard who yields keeps his blood. Any man who raises steel against Lady Donaldina loses the privilege.”
The councilors exchanged glances. Donaldina did not. She stood beside the lantern with her wet skirts clinging darkly around her ankles and Cormac’s bruises already deepening upon her wrist. Her face was pale from cold and fatigue, yet there was nothing fragile in the way she held herself.
Roy had seen men twice her size enter battle with less composure. He did not find the comparison reassuring. He found himself wondering how often her courage had been mistaken for invulnerability and how many men had therefore allowed her to face danger alone. The thought displeased him.
“Stay behind us,” he told her.
Donaldina raised one brow. Roy reconsidered the prudence of issuing any command that relied upon her obedience.
“Remain where I can see ye.”
“That isnae the same instruction.”
“It is the one most likely tae be followed.”
Her eyes narrowed, but she inclined her head. Roy took what victories he could obtain.
They climbed from the stores into a narrow servants’ corridor. The castle seemed to hold its breath around them. Smoke from the upper hearths settled beneath the beams, mingling with the scent of rushes, damp stone and the rosemary scattered earlier for Lachlan’s funeral.
Somewhere above, Cormac’s men shouted orders. They believed danger waited outside the gates. Roy almost pitied them… almost.
At the first turn, two armed guards appeared. One saw Donaldina and stopped suddenly, causing the man behind him to bump into his shoulder. “Me lady?”
Donaldina stepped forward before Roy could prevent her. “Lower yer swords.”
The elder guard obeyed at once.
The younger hesitated. “Cormac said MacIver had taken ye.”
Donaldina looked toward Roy, who stood no more than a pace behind her.
“As ye see, I have suffered nae such misfortune.”
Roy studied the side of her face.
“I begin tae suspect it may yet occur,” he murmured.
She ignored him with dignity. The younger man’s sword lowered.
“Cormac holds the hall,” he warned. “He told the men ye had chosen MacIver over the clan.”
“I chose nae tae be dragged over a cliff.”
“A reasonable distinction,” Roy smirked.
This time, she looked at him. There was unmistakable amusement in her eyes, though she buried it as quickly as she could.
Roy turned to the guards. “Stand aside or come with us.”
Both came. Word moved ahead of them, as news inside castles always did.
By the time they reached the kitchen passage, the silence had broken into shouts.
Doors opened, and servants fled into alcoves, while armed clansmen rushed down the stairway in confused groups.
Most surrendered when they saw Donaldina.
Those who did not were disarmed before they understood how many men had entered behind them.
Roy struck one sword aside with the flat of his own and drove its owner into the wall with his shoulder.
A second man came from the left. Hamish caught the blow on his blade, cursed the narrowness of Highland corridors in terms unlikely to have pleased Father Maol, and kicked the attacker’s knee from under him.
Steel rang against stone. A rushlight fell and went out beneath a boot. Smoke curled bitterly through the passage.
Roy pressed forward. He fought in forests, bogs, ruined villages and fields so thick with rain that men drowned before they bled to death. A castle corridor was inconvenient, but not unfamiliar. Its limits were honest. The walls did not pretend to be anything except obstacles.
Men were less accommodating. Cormac’s supporters fought without formation, driven more by alarm than loyalty. They expected an assault upon the gates. Instead, Donaldina appeared within Dun Ard at the head of the very men they had shut outside.
Their certainty broke first. Their defense followed.
“Lay down yer arms!” Donaldina called.
Her voice carried through the passage, clear above the clash of steel. Several men obeyed.
Roy spared a moment to look back at her. She remained where he could see her, though she interpreted the instruction liberally enough to advance whenever he did. Two councilors stood near her, and the older guard placed himself at her side.
It should have been sufficient, but it was not, and Roy’s attention returned to her too often.
Every movement beyond her shoulder became a possible threat.
Every open doorway required examination.
The knowledge that Cormac was somewhere within the castle moved beneath Roy’s skin like the warning ache of an old wound.
Then they reached the great hall. The doors stood open, one hanging crookedly where a struggle had damaged its hinge. Inside, tables had been overturned to form makeshift barriers. MacNicol warriors crowded near the dais, with Cormac at their center.
Lachlan’s bier was gone. The absence struck Roy harder than he expected.
For an instant, he saw Lachlan as he had last known him: with mud upon his face, rain dripping from his hair, laughing because their supper burned and declaring that no Highland army had ever been defeated by poor porridge.
Then the memory faded, and in that instant, Cormac saw Donaldina.
His face shifted. Up to that moment, he had been giving orders, trying to rally his men into a basic defense.
But when he saw her, he lost all composure.
A look of desperation took over his face.
It was the expression of a man witnessing his power slipping away.
“She is with him!” he shouted. “MacIver has turned her against her own clan!”
Donaldina moved into the hall.
“Nae man turned me against ye. Ye accomplished it without assistance.”
The words traveled farther than a cry. Men shifted uneasily behind the barriers. Cormac glanced around and saw that they had heard her. Roy saw the exact moment he realized he was losing them.
Cormac vaulted the nearest overturned bench as Roy moved.
Three men closed in on them. Roy struck the first man with his shoulder beneath the ribs, sending him over a table.
He turned the second man's blade, hit his wrist, and heard the sword drop.
The third man hesitated, giving Roy a chance to pass.
Across the hall, Donaldina moved away from the councilors to speak to the men on the dais.
Cormac was the first to reach her, grabbing her injured arm.
She cried out in pain. This sound removed all other thoughts from Roy’s mind.
Cormac then pulled her backward, twisting her against him as he pushed toward the courtyard doors.
“Retreat!” he shouted to the men nearest him. “Take the western road! Bring her!”
Donaldina swung at him with her free hand.
Cormac quickly pulled her arm up, and pain flickered across her face before she regained control.
Roy’s vision blurred as he hurried across the hall without paying attention to the distance.
Cormac saw him coming and drew his sword with one hand, still holding Donaldina with the other. “Come closer, and she bleeds.”
Roy stopped. Donaldina’s breath came quickly. Cormac’s grip had caught the bandage upon her forearm, staining the white linen red. Roy looked at the blood, then at Cormac.
“Release her,” Roy snapped, staring at the blood blooming beneath her bandage, right where Cormac’s hand gripped her.
Cormac backed toward the courtyard. “Order yer men away from the gate.”
“Nae.”
Cormac tightened his grip. Donaldina flinched.
Roy kept his voice level. “Ye have already failed tae take her once today. Dae ye intend tae make humiliation a habit?”
Anger coursed through Cormac just as Roy intended. The sword dipped slightly. Donaldina stomped firmly on his foot, prompting Cormac to curse and shift his gaze toward her.
Roy closed the distance. Grabbing Donaldina by the waist, he pulled her sharply aside, while his sword clashed with Cormac’s blade, sending the man stumbling sideways. Donaldina tipped against Roy’s chest, and he pushed her behind him.
Cormac recovered and swung. Roy met the blow. Steel cracked through the hall. Cormac attacked with fury, each stroke too wide and too heavy. Roy turned them aside, advancing with every exchange. The man possessed skill, but anger overshadowed the discipline needed.
Roy drove him across the threshold and into the courtyard. Rain swept between the walls. The gates stood open now, raised by men who had abandoned the battlements once fighting erupted within. Beyond them, horses waited. Cormac’s remaining followers were already mounting.
Roy pressed him back again. Cormac’s heel slipped upon the wet stones.
Roy’s sword came to rest beneath his jaw.
For a moment, neither moved. Roy could finish it.
One thrust, and Cormac Gunn would cease endangering Donaldina, dividing her clan or speaking as though her life were an object to be administered by men.
The temptation was clean and powerful.
Then Donaldina called his name. “Roy!”
He looked toward her. She was standing in the hall doorway, with one hand pressed to her wounded arm. Her face had gone pale, and blood darkened the cloth beneath her fingers.
It was no more than a glance. Cormac seized it.
He struck Roy’s blade aside and drove his shoulder hard into Roy’s chest. Roy wobbled on the rain-slick stones, trying to steady himself.
Before he had a chance to regain his footing, one of Cormac’s men swiftly stepped in between them, making Roy dodge a desperate sword strike.
“Cormac!” Hamish shouted.
But Cormac was already running. He crossed the courtyard, caught the reins of the nearest horse and dragged himself into the saddle. Hamish started after him, but Cormac’s followers wheeled their mounts through the gates, with their blades drawn to cover their retreat.
Roy pursued as far as the archway. An arrow struck the stone beside his head and shattered.
Another buried itself in the timber of the gate.
By the time the MacNicol archers reached the walls, Cormac and his men were disappearing into the rain, their horses vanishing one by one into the mist beyond Dun Ard.
Roy stood in the rain until the hoofbeats faded. Only then did he lower his sword. His body became aware of itself by slow degrees: the burning in his shoulder, the tightness of an old wound beneath his ribs and the ache in his hand where Cormac’s blade had jarred against his own.
He exhaled heavily. Behind him, Donaldina approached. Her steps were careful, though she pretended otherwise.
Roy sheathed his sword and looked at the bandage upon her arm. “Ye are bleeding again.”
“It would seem I have developed the habit.”
He took her wrist before she could object and examined the linen. The cut had opened only slightly, though bruises darkened the skin above it where Cormac had seized her. Roy’s jaw tightened.
Donaldina watched his face.
“The castle is ours again,” she told him.
“Yers.”
She looked toward the courtyard, where MacIver and MacNicol men were already separating prisoners from those who had surrendered. “Ye played some small part.”
“A regrettably strenuous one.”
Rain dripped from his hair and traced down his face. He brushed it off with the back of his hand and looked toward the open gate.
“Claiming me promised wife is proving considerably more dangerous than I expected.”
The words escaped before he could consider them. Donaldina stared at him. Roy braced himself for an offense. Instead, she smiled.
It was not the restrained suggestion he had glimpsed in the passage, nor the brittle expression courtesy sometimes required.
It began slowly, softening the grief and exhaustion in her face until, for one startling moment, he understood why men wrote songs about women's smiles and then died embarrassed by the quality of the verse.
“Ye have only just arrived,” she replied, “and already ye are causing trouble wherever ye go.”
Roy regarded her quietly; a laugh would have been too much. He didn’t trust men who laughed too freely, and he hadn’t yet lost enough blood to join their ranks. Nevertheless, the corner of his mouth twitched upward, and Donaldina’s smile grew wider at the sight.
Roy released her wrist more slowly than necessary.
“Aye,” he agreed. “I have been told it is a talent.”
Dun Ard was still scattered with overturned furniture, wounded men, wet stones, and the aftermath of treachery.
Lachlan was still unburied, and Cormac remained at large.
The King’s agreement lingered between Roy and Donaldina like an unchosen bridge, one they might refuse to cross. None of it had become less dangerous.
Yet as Donaldina stood before him in the rain, smiling despite the blood upon her sleeve, Roy felt the first quiet alteration in the day. For the first time since he entered Dun Ard, the stronghold did not seem entirely determined to reject him.
Its lady, perhaps, had not decided.