Page 27 of Chieftain By Command (Chieftain #2)

The last time Nhaimeth had felt like the centre of attention he had been wearing cap and bells and playing the Fool for Astrid at Cragenlaw. All that ended with the arrival of Morag .

Strange how he always remembered the occasion as the arrival of Morag and not the death of Astrid—yet that was when his new life began, when it was easier to think of himself as a dwarf rather than a Fool.

When he had been a Fool, he had haunted Dun Bhuird without anybody noticing his presence—and gained a lot of information he wasn’t entitled to … and some Astrid had given him for free.

“I ken that by the time we get away, they’ll be at least three hours ahead of us, but they’ll be going around the foot of the mountains, and I ken a shortcut.” He looked at all their faces—Farquhar, Abelard, Rob and Jamie, the last still looking none too happy since he had heard the news about Brodwyn.

He saw disbelief writ on their faces and could tell they thought he was building himself up, making his family knowledge into something big. “There is a way through the mountain, and nae, it’s not a myth. The way is secret, known only to the Comlyns.”

Nhaimeth raised his eyebrows, waiting for the ultimate question. They didn’t say a word, but their eyes asked, and he told them, “Under the falls, there’s a tunnel, ancient, with a natural cavern. Astrid showed me. There’s a story the exit was hollowed out by the same folk who built the stone circles at the Orkneys. Folk of the auld religion.”

Rob didnae actually say it was a load of drivel. Instead he commented, “Doesn’t sound as if it could be much of a secret. Lots of folk must have been under there.”

“It’s no’ easy to find, and it’s no’ at the bottom of the falls.

It’s closer to the top and not that easy to reach. There are steps cut into the cliff behind the water. It’s not for the faint of heart,” he assured them, “but it can be done. The Bear has done it.”

That last made all the difference. If the Bear with all his bulk could make it up there, so could they.

“Show us the way,” Farquhar said.

And Nhaimeth did.

The next time Kathryn woke up, she could hear Lhilidh crying. Cold from lying on rough, damp grass, her eyes were blinded by the scratchy worsted plaid wrapped about her head.

The weave was thick and dark but didn’t shut out noise, which meant she could hear every word Brodwyn spoke, and they weren’t kind. “Oh, whist your bawlin’ and greetin’, Lhilidh. Mop up yer tears and go to sleep. Ye’ll be needing all ye can get after yon Norsemen get a look at yer innocent wee face. After they’re through with ye, though, I very much doubt ye’ll be looking quite so bonnie.’

“Be quiet, Brodwyn. If ye want her to stop crying, best no’ scare her.”

The sound of an indrawn breath was audible even behind the plaid, then Brodwyn chuckled, saying, “Och, Harald, are ye feeling a bit grumpy after all the excitement of seeing to Magnus? Mayhap I can make ye feel a bit better. If anybody kens what ye like its me.”

“For Christ sake, Brodwyn, stop treating me like a bairn, as if I need placating to do what ye want. Everything that was done was what I wanted. I needed no encouragement to kill Magnus. I slaughtered the other two as well. Now there’s something ye didnae ken.”

“Ye what? But ye went to visit Olaf.”

“Aye, and managed a wee bit of enjoyment on the way there, though I’ll admit the results were disappointing. I was hoping to set the clansmen and mercenaries at each other’s throats. Making myself indispensible to Kathryn was never going to work, truth to tell. I only went along with it because ye were so keen to have things go yer way.” Kathryn’s spine tingled as she heard Harald give a long, low dirty laugh. “Even going so far as to get down on yer knees afore me and letting me tickle ye with ma belt… Aye ye were desperate—and me, I just enjoyed myself and made sure everything went my way.”

“You bastard!”

“Ha hah, never that, lass. Ye ken that would never dae if I was to step into Farquhar’s boots, which was always part of yer plan. I had nae choice but to move when Farquhar announced she was carrying his bairn, but it was easy seen he’s in love with her. If he wants her back, he’ll give Dun Bhuird up to get her. With Olaf behind us, he’ll have nae choice; then we’ll be in their place. The Chieftain and his Lady. How does that sound Brodwyn? It’s all we ever wanted.”

Silence. Followed by the sound of mouths slobbering and groaning, then Brodwyn gasping, “We cannae here. What about the housecarls?”

“They’ll do what they’re paid to. They ken what’s guid for them and have their eyes on all that silver under the mountain. But yer right, we have to be on our way again.” Kathryn heard him chortle and wondered if Brodwyn noticed there was little humour in it. “We’ll have to be quick, lass, so down on yer knees.”

“Dear lord,” Kathryn prayed under her breath, wishing her hands were untied so she could push her fingers in her ears. And what of Lhilidh? She must be shocked. If they had put them closer then she might have been able to comfort her … the way she wanted Gavyn’s arms circling her to take comfort from them.

The way she wanted her husband with her.

What if she never saw him again? The thought was unbearable.

Trying to shut out the noises made by her cousins, she busied her mind by asking herself if what Harald had assumed about Gavyn’s feelings for her could really be true.

Did Gavyn love her?

She hoped with all her heart he did. Hope he loved her the way she loved him.

“I’ll go first.” By the flickering light the torch cast over Farquhar’s unhappy expression, Nhaimeth recognised he wasnae too pleased about letting a wee man lead the way. “Dinnae be worrying yer head o’er it. I’ve been up here afore and ken where the iron ring is. When I reach the top, I’ll tie the rope off. That’ll make it safer for the rest of ye to join me.”

Farquhar’s sigh of resignation was anything but gracious, and loud enough for them all to hear, but Nhaimeth didn’t take it to heart. Years of playing the Fool had helped him grow a thick skin.

“Very well, Nhaimeth. When you put it like that, it sounds reasonable. Just be sure to tie the rope around your waist. If you drop its length when you reach the top, it would be time wasted climbing back down again after it.” Farquhar warned. The Chieftain was in none too good a mood.” None of them was. Farquhar fretted for his wife and, after seeing what Harald was capable of, none of them could blame him.

Jamie, on the other hand, had been of a foul disposition since he discovered Brodwyn’s duplicity. Young fool. The bitch had led him around by the hairs on his scrotum and he’d been too enamoured to see the truth of the matter. “Aye,” Jamie grumbled, “mind ye don’t come down with the rope, Nhaimeth, or we’ll have to send a man up to do the job for you.”

Nhaimeth turned his shoulder on him, and it was left to Rob to castigate Jamie. “Remember who you’re speaking to. Nhaimeth was your friend long before you fell into Brodwyn’s clutches,” he growled, then went on to say what they had all been thinking, “though a body has to ask why you didn’t wonder at the secrecy of the whole affair. Ruthven would have had none of it, as you know well.”

Three stone-cut steps behind him, Nhaimeth heard, “If you think I’m climbing up there, putting my life in danger and my wife at risk over a petty quarrel, well I’m another one who’ll have none of it, do you hear?” Farquhar raised his voice above the noise of the falls, leaving no one in any doubt of how it would feel to be under his command.

Listening to them, Nhaimeth’s lip curled. Not the best time for a lesson; however, better frae Farquhar than an enemy with nae care for them. The steps were moist under his palms. There would be less spray higher up, but there would be other dangers. He hooked his fingers into a notch carved above the next step. Astrid had tried to tell him Erik the Bear had chipped out these life-saving hollows, but Nhaimeth had never believed it. The Bear never had enough patience. Nae these little handholds had been shaped by an ancient race, and their name hadn’t been Comlyn.

Without climbing higher, he looked back over his shoulder and called out, “I forgot to mention, watch out for the ravens when ye get near the top.” Realising how his words could be misinterpreted he let loose a bark of laughter. “Not to be mixed up with the Laird, ye ken. The ravens up here nest in the crevices and fly up in fright if ye get too close.”

A fact that should have been obvious to any who had watched them fly out frae the cliffs, but then he was none less worried than the rest of them, and stating the obvious was simply a symptom of his fears.

Having warned those below, he carried on climbing, aware those who came after him would have a much easier road. As he reached the top, he deliberately stirred up a flurry of ravens, setting them rising in the dark under the lip of the falls, their cawing echoing in his ears like confirmation of the warning he had given them.

It was surprisingly warm under the mountain. The sweat beading Gavyn’s forehead was the result of the humidity and not, as some might imagine, cold sweat wrought by fear of heights. Kathryn’s life meant as much to him as his own … more.

He set his chin at a stubborn angle and gritted his teeth till the noise of his breathing hissed in his ears. He was determined to bring his wife home to Dun Bhuird safe and sound.

Afore that, he would take Harald’s pathetic life.

After the crimes he’d committed, the dung weevil wasn’t deserving of any leniency.

Ach, he had no intention of falling into the same trap as had others before him—the McArthur, Erik the Bear and aye, even Kathryn—all of them taken in by Harald’s handsome, almost bonnie face and long blond hair. Too late now to realise that a beast lurked beneath an inoffensive mask, witness the malevolent acts of mutilation done to the bodies of the men he’d murdered—nae slaughtered.

Gavyn’s gut clenched at the thought of Kathryn in that madman’s possession. Instinctively, his hand reached down to clasp the handle of his sword. He hadn’t worn this blade since France. He had won the perfectly balanced, exquisitely fashioned piece of steel as ransom off a rich Norman knight—for only the rich could afford such a weapon. Strangely, the sword felt as if it had been made for him, and he had put it to good use in battle against other Normans and had named the blade ‘the Raven’s Claw’, since every time he used it in a fight, the deadly piece of steel felt like an extension of his arm.

After what seemed like years walking through the darkness with only torches to light their way, he, Nhaimeth and the lads came out the tunnel blinking against the bright sunlight. After the musty darkness inside the tunnel, with the added effort of ducking every time a raven flew past them, their journey had felt like an adventure into a strange underworld fashioned by the hands of Norse gods. From this side of the mountain, there was very little he recognised. There were mountains, aye, but none he had seen frae this angle afore. It was like entering another country.

He gulped down air that tasted of heather and pine. The only thing that would have pleased him more was to find Kathryn waiting for him. A sigh shuddered out of his lungs as he realised he would have welcomed her even with her bow in her hands. He’d put up with anything as long as she still lived.

His heart caught in his craw, swollen with emotions he’d never known that irrational organ to feel in his lifetime. He sucked in a breath to still its pounding. All well and good. If he wanted to save his wife, he now had to move past the power that needing her used to twist his heart and mind.

He turned to the lads, who were brushing their hands over the their faces and hair as if the creatures they had heard moving in the tunnels clung to their heads like veils, and Jamie moaned to Nhaimeth, “You didn’t mention the bats before we climbed into that long, dark tunnel.”

“Nae, that wasnae bats—” The words were hardly out of his mouth when another flock of ravens flew into the daylight.

“I didn’t expect…” Jamie began, but Nhaimeth simply shook his head and slanted a quick glance at the lad, as if to say he wouldn’t understand.

Changing the subject for a more immediate problem, Gavyn jumped into the question, “Where are these horses?”

Nhaimeth had turned into the authority on everything to do with Bienne á Bhuird, and he had explained that an auld stable-hand had shifted, in Erik’s time, up to a broche where he looked after some of the horses used to ride the boundary. That had been Gavyn’s first query, aware that shortcut or not, they would never catch up with his wife and her abductors afoot.

Leading the way, the wee man looked back over his shoulder and muttered, “About the ravens…”

The mention of the birds made Gavyn lift his eyes to where black shapes that matched the one on his shield dipped and floated through feathery-leafed rowan trees laden with red berries.

“…I stopped being surprised by anything when Morag and I saw the Green Lady at Cragenlaw. I have nae notion why they’ve come through the tunnel with us. Howsoever, if the gods have sent us help, I for one will nae turn it aside.”

Such a thing had never entered Gavyn’s mind. At Dun Edin a mere breath of the notion would have had some busybody crying witch. But this was Dun Bhuird, and if Harald was riding toward Caithness and his cousin, Jarl Olaf Olaffsen, great-grandson of the Dragon Slayer, Gavyn wouldn’t reject a wee bit of magic.

Behind them, Rob and Jamie were sniping at each other. Why, this time, he didn’t know, but he wouldn’t have any of it, no matter what was niggling at them.

Gavyn stopped to glance back over his shoulder. The look he gave them required no interpretation. Of that he was certain. “Put everything apart frae rescuing Kathryn and Lhilidh out of yer minds. Any other problem can wait until we have them home.”

His nephew’s shoulders rose and fell on a sigh, as if relieved that Gavyn didn’t believe their goal to be unattainable. “We will succeed,” was his last word as he followed on Nhaimeth’s heels and heard a horse whinny in the distance.

Kathryn feared for her bairn. It was hard to keep her balance, bouncing around like a bag of bones, her hands tied behind her while a housecarl held her upright. How could it be that men, housecarls she had trusted with her life, would turn on her? Her father must be turning under his cairn.

Harald and Brodwyn. Family. She couldn’t say she had ever truly liked them, but with family you had to take what the guid Lord gave you. Her heart squeezed under the arm holding her close as she came to the conclusion that the guid Lord had no more regard for her than her own father had had when he was alive.

Less.

Gavyn Farquhar might be the only man who ever had a care for her, yet she loved him for more than that, frae the moment they met, she had given him hell. She had tried to shoot him with an arrow. No, truth to tell, her aim was better than that. She could have hit him, killed him.

And would have if that raven on his chest hadnae appeared to fly straight at her.

Ridiculous. She didn’t believe in magic or witchcraft.

Fate was a different story.

The only magic that day had been hidden deep in her heart, and it had taken Gavyn to set it free, to make her feel as if they, as the Laird and his Lady, had been meant … but what now?

It was easy to believe in fate.

To want to believe that was possible.

But this calamity, being abducted, couldn’t be her fate, not the destiny she dreamed of for her and the bairn, stolen away with Gavyn searching for them in vain. For he was searching for them, of that she was certain.

Gavyn would follow Harald in his mad snatch for power. He would do it for them, her and their bairn. If only he wasn’t too late.

The thought made her feel dizzy, then she realised that, in reality she was swaying in the saddle as a result of the horse slowing. She should have felt relieved by the sensation of the animal drawing to a halt. To her dismay, the hairs at the back of her neck prickled as if something ominous awaited her.

Awaited them both, for she prayed Lhilidh was still with them.

Through the thickness of the plaid, she smelled the familiar scent of peat smoke, the kind that had permeated Geala’s croft. She was turning over the question of what this sign of other folk in the vicinity meant when the horse walked again, brushing through a grove of trees that blocked their passage. Though she couldn’t see, she could tell from the branches ruffling over her plaid, smothering her in the scent of pine as the housecarl lifted his arm to push the branches back out of his way.

That was when she heard Harald lift his voice and shout someone’s name. A name she recognised and dreaded. Her heart seized, stealing her breath.

He had named a man her father the Bear had if not feared, at least showed a lot of respect. A man who was the true reason behind the alliance he had sought with Euan McArthur, Comlyn’s motive for once considering betrothing Astrid to Harald. When she was but a bairn herself, he used to visit, but there had been a quarrel, o’er what she had never known, and everything had changed.

Now Brodwyn and Harald intended giving her and the bairn to their cousin Olaf, the Jarl of Caithness.

She had no alternative but to escape, get away before that happened.

Panic, fear of death raced through her senses as she attempted to spin in the saddle, to get loose. With more luck than judgement, her elbow slammed into a cage of solid ribs. Through the plaid covering her, a blast of hot stale breath scorched the side of her face. She struggled, fought, searched the way out from under the darkness enfolding her until, without warning, the branch smacked her alongside the ear and she began falling …falling …