Page 14 of Laird of Sighs (His Highland Heart #5)
CHAPTER 14
T he day looked to be fine outside, with a warm breath of air slipping in the window and out again, like the world was breathing. Anders enjoyed the sensation, but guilt tainted his pleasure, as well. None of his clansmen in the dungeon could feel this, or see the bright blue sky. For two days, Anders had paced the dimensions of his chamber, front to back, side to side, again and again, until he thought he might go mad with the need to act. The Sutherland heir languished in the Sinclair dungeon. And Sinclair held even more Sutherland men. Men the clan needed. Himself included.
He had no doubt Sinclair had sent his ransom demands by his fastest horse and most experienced courier. They were probably in Sutherland already. He hated to think how his father was taking the news that both he and Stellan were here, and that much more than the birlinn ’s crew were being ransomed. Mariota would be frantic for Stellan. Would she ever again see her husband and father of her children? How could their good intentions to take needed herbs to MacKay have gone so wrong?
How long before Sutherland would arrive with an army at his back to demand the return of his men?
Anders was under no illusion that his father would willingly pay a ransom. He was much more direct than that. And with the coalition of allies he’d amassed, Anders didn’t think Sinclair could stand up to him, even if Sinclair managed to get Orkneymen or the Norse king involved. Sinclair was in for a siege at best, a battle at worst that would see its keep destroyed, its men killed, its innocent women and children hurt—for what? And if it came to a fight, Anders didn’t give the Sutherland prisoners a chance in hell of living through it to walk out Sinclair’s gates as free men.
Sutherland knew that. So did Sinclair.
Anders wanted to talk to Stellan. Between them, they could argue courses of action, pros and cons, relative dangers, and find a way out of this. But he didn’t have that luxury. The only people he could speak to now were Maighread when she came to check on him, whoever brought his food and removed his chanty , Tasgall when he had the guard duty on Anders’ door, and, he hoped, Ailsa. He missed her already, and he didn’t blame her for what her father was doing. He doubted she approved, but he had no way of determining that. As he’d feared, she was avoiding him now that she knew who he was.
What would she think of him, Stellan and the other men when Sutherland showed up in force to retrieve them, at great risk to her clan? Would she blame him? Had he ever told her why he and his men had been sailing by in time to get caught by the storm? Perhaps if she knew, she’d understand he never meant any harm. None of them did. Would he ever get the chance to tell her? And after what she now knew about him, would she care?
A gate guard brought a missive to Mariota that a courier had just delivered for the laird.
“Where is he?” Mariota asked. Usually, they would offer a meal and a place to sleep, but the guard shook his head.
“He left.” He shrugged and turned to go.
Puzzled, Mariota thanked him and went to find the Sutherland. As expected, he was in his solar, but the door was open. “Laird?”
“Come,” his said without looking up from whatever he was reading, spectacles perched on his nose.
“This just arrived, Laird,” she said and handed him the missive.
He eyed the seal with a frown, glanced at her, then cracked open the parchment’s seal and unrolled it. As he read, his face went white, then redder and redder. Mariota sank into a chair. “What does it say?”
“’Tis from Sinclair. He has the birlinn and its crew. He demands cattle and gold for the return of the men. But he’ll keep the birlinn .”
“Does he say how many men? Are they all there? All well?”
He shook his head. “He doesna say, save that he does have Anders. He wants a boon for their safe return, or he’ll throw them back in the sea—without the ship.”
The relief Mariota felt at the news that Anders was alive evaporated in an instant. She gasped. “Surely he doesna mean?—”
“Surely he does, lass. Sutherland and Sinclair have been at odds for generations.”
“Anders and his men wouldna be there if there hadna been trouble of some sort. What happened to Highland hospitality?”
“Sinclairs and Sutherlands, lass.” He sighed and set aside his spectacles. “There’s more. Stellan and his men are also in Sinclair. They were picked up by a patrol while searching for Anders and his men, as Seamus told us he would. Save for yer son, Sinclair holds the future of Sutherland. Now, we must use the missives ye wisely advised me to prepare, to call on our allies.”
Mariota dropped into the seat behind her. Her chest was suddenly so tight, she couldn’t get enough air. Stellan, captured. All her fears crashed out of her mind and into her body at once, making her heart race. “We’re going to war?”
“With enough support, we will mount a siege. Sinclair will expect that, and likely started preparing even before he sent this missive.” He picked up the parchment, frowned at it, and dropped it back to the table top. “Rather than do what Sinclair demands and pay him, I’ll bring a thousand men to his walls.”
“What’s to stop him from killing the hostages?” She put a hand on her belly.
“No’ a damn thing, lass, and that’s why we will tread carefully. I ken we will risk some of the Sutherlands that Sinclair holds, and I dinna want to do that, but I will have to. Sinclair will reserve Stellan and Anders until the very end, since he kens their value to Sutherland. Ye can take comfort in that.”
Cold comfort, to be sure, but Mariota would cling to it until all hope was gone for the rest of their men, and for them.
“We will take most of our warriors,” he continued, “save for a few to man the walls with yer ladies ye’ve taught archery.” He waved Mariota’s objection to silence even before she could speak. “I willna let lasses go with the men. If it comes to fighting, they will be at risk of death—or worse than death. Seamus will bring MacKays soon after from the west to flank Sinclair. Rose will sail across the Moray firth, and even Brodie, if we need them, will come later, or come here to reinforce the guard. That is how we planned it. That is how ye wrote it in the missives we will now send. Ye will coordinate all the clans’ movements from here, and keep lines of communication open. In the meantime, at Sinclair, we’ll talk. Or try to break in. Or help the lads break out.”
“They have both twins.” Those words kept echoing in her mind.
“They do. I have thought it inevitable ever since Seamus told us Stellan had headed into Sinclair searching for the lost birlinn . He would not give up until he found them, or he was stopped.”
Suddenly, he looked twenty years older. Stellan’s heir was in the nursery with his nurse. Their second child was still in Mariota. But the fact that the next generation of Sutherland lairds was already in place didn’t make the possible loss of his heir any easier to bear. She could see that, even amid the agony that thought caused her. “I’m so sorry,” she said.
“Sorry for what, lass?”
“I never should have questioned whether anyone had ever found the fastest way to get to MacKay.”
“’Tisna yer fault lass. I agreed to the race. It served our alliance with MacKay to ensure the herbs they needed to save the bairn reached them as quickly as possible. No one could foresee whatever befell the birlinn . But we now ken at least some of our men survived and where they are. We will do all in our power to get them back.”
Two days later, Ailsa stood on the battlements in the afternoon sunshine. The wind blowing off the North Sea behind her, salt-filled and chill even for late summer, teased wisps of hair from her braid. They wrapped around her head and tickled her face or stung her eyes.
Her father and brother stood nearby, and guards lined the walls, separated by only a few feet from the men on either side of him. A show of force that Sutherland appeared to be paying no attention to.
Instead, Sutherland was setting up tents in the woods where they’d be sheltered from arrows fired from Sinclair’s high walls. She got glimpses between tree boughs of tent fabric, Sutherland plaid, men carrying arms and shields, and could hear shouted orders and the neighs and whinnies of horses being tied off somewhere further into the trees.
There was no conversation on the wall. Sinclairs watched grimly as her father’s prediction came true even sooner than anyone expected. Sutherland must have set out the same day the Sinclair’s missive arrived. Her father quietly asked Raghnall if all the hunters were back inside the gates. Raghnall’s gruff, “Nay,” was his only reply.
So, there were at least a few Sinclair men out there. Men who knew the forest better than the invaders. Men who could harass the Sutherland forces from the rear, then fade into the trees. The hunters might not be armed for battle, but they were armed for boars. Ailsa didn’t see much difference. As long as their supply of arrows held out, they might be a factor in Sinclair’s favor.
What could Anders see from his window? Not much, she was sure. But he’d know something was going on. The stakes had just gotten higher—for all of them, Sutherlands and Sinclairs alike. She wished she knew what to do about him. She still wrestled with her feelings for him and the sense of betrayal she’d felt after hearing him conspire with his brother and their men. But her mother’s words, and Tasgall’s favorable opinion of him, confused her.
When her father turned to Raghnall, Ailsa feared what he would do. “Move Anders to the dungeon with the other men,” he ordered. “With that force out there, I dinna want a Sutherland free to move about within our walls.”
“Aye, laird. I’ll see it done now.” Raghnall went to another of his men and conveyed the laird’s order.
Ailsa crossed her arms, dismayed at Anders’ impending change of state, but also confused about how to feel about it. Now that she knew he’d lied to her, now that she knew he was a Sutherland, she could no longer trust him. Putting him with his other men would simplify guarding all of them, and keep the rest of the Sinclair keep safe from anything Anders might have been tempted to do to aid his clan outside their walls. Like finding a way to help them get inside. From the dungeon, he was powerless to act, but he would also feel betrayed, promises made to him broken.
Surely he’d know that the arrival of a siege force changed everything.
But Tasgall had told her he had lied to her father to protect her. What was she to make of that? She shouldn’t feel what she felt for Anders, not any more. But he’d gotten into her heart. He’d been kind, gentle, friendly, curious, all things she valued and admired. He was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. Even his twin was less in her eyes than Anders. He cared for her, too, she’d been sure of it. But was that also a lie? If so, he’d not only fooled her, he’d fooled her mother. Ailsa didn’t think that was possible, but perhaps she’d been wrong. She blinked wetness from her eyes. This is what she deserved for letting a stranger into her heart. He broke it. How much more would he break before he left Sinclair forever?