Page 12 of Proven By The Highlander (Highlander Forever #15)
CHAPTER 12
“ D o you mean about meeting the Monster? I can’t remember much, I’m afraid… only that she brought me to the surface and then to the shore.”
The tanist Malcolm chuckled, his smile warm. “I see you and my wife share a fondness for the creature,” he said, eyes sparkling. “I’m glad to hear you two have struck up a friendship. But we wanted to ask about the man you met after you came ashore.”
“Oh!” She wrinkled her nose. “Sorry. Of course.” Typical of her to go into far too much detail on the wrong part of the story. “Yeah, he was very kind to give me shelter. I don’t know what would have happened if I hadn’t found him in the forest there.”
“What did you say his name was?” Brendan was leaning forward, an odd look in his eye. She glanced around at the other men, feeling a little uneasy.
“Caelan Grant, he said. I did ask after him with Nancy and Elena, but they couldn’t place who I was talking about.”
“You’re sure that was the name he gave?” Brendan’s expression was intent. “And your description of him — tall, dark blond hair, gray eyes — that was accurate?”
“Yeah, that’s him.” She frowned. “Is everything alright?”
“My apologies,” Laird Donal said, glancing sidelong at Brendan with an unspoken warning. The Captain sat back in his chair, but she could tell he was still focusing intently on what she was saying. “The man you’ve described… well, if he is who he says he is, then the situation is somewhat complex, I’m afraid. Where did you say he’d set up camp?”
She frowned, trying to remember. “It’s hard to say,” she said apologetically. “I know it took about half an hour to walk from there to the Keep?—”
“He came to the Keep?” Brendan said sharply.
“No, he didn’t come all the way to the gate. He said he was still on duty, that he couldn’t come back to the Castle with me, so he left me on the mainland, about a quarter mile from the gate and I walked the rest of the way.” She shrugged. “I didn’t mind the walk. It was sunny by then.”
“On duty,” Brendan repeated thoughtfully, shooting Graeme and Hamish a pointed look.
Leanne frowned. “Sorry — I’m a bit confused. Is the man I met not a member of the Guard?”
“Not anymore,” Brendan said darkly. “Our apologies for the interrogation, Leanne. You haven’t done anything wrong here, of course. But the man you met isn’t a member of the Guard and hasn’t been for quite some time.”
“Oh.” She felt a strange curiosity itching at her and wondered whether it would be inappropriate to question the men. Thankfully, she didn’t have to, as Malcolm stepped in, clearly sensing her hesitation.
“Caelan Grant is a deserter,” he explained, his expression grave. “Quite some time ago, there was… a tragedy, resulting in the loss of his twin brother Bram. After that… well, understandably, Caelan went a bit mad.”
Leanne took this information in wide-eyed, reflecting on the night she’d met Caelan. He hadn’t seemed mad, she thought with a slight frown. Though there had been something unusual about his disposition that she’d noticed despite her own state, hadn’t there? A certain watchfulness, a certain haggard exhaustion to his bearing. The way he kept looking over his shoulder, the way his steps had dragged as they’d neared the castle, the way he’d refused to go any further than a quarter mile from the Keep… it all made sense in the context of his having deserted his fellows at the Keep. But why lie to her about it?
“He didn’t seem especially crazed to me,” she said slowly, wondering if she was speaking out of turn. “Tired, perhaps, and vigilant. But given that a strange woman had just run up to him and started babbling about the future, I thought that was understandable.” She hesitated for a moment… then plunged ahead. If she wasn’t going to be brave enough to ask questions, she was never going to get a sense of what was going on around here. “Can I ask what happened to his brother?”
“Aye, an awful thing.” That was Laird Donal, leaning forward in his chair with a shadow in his eyes. “Shouldn’t have happened. One of our boats was crossing the Loch one night, and Bram fell from the side and vanished without a trace. Caelan searched for him for weeks, swearing up and down that his brother was a strong enough swimmer to have made it to shore, that he shouldn’t have drowned. But as the weeks turned into months and there was no trace of him, Caelan’s theory began to change.”
She remembered the way Caelan had looked out over the waters of the Loch. the restless, searching look in his gray eyes, and a chill ran down her spine. “What does he think happened?”
“He couldn’t accept that his brother had simply drowned. The cold night, the disorientation of being far from shore… he refused to accept that this alone has been the death of stronger swimmers even than Bram. His theory, given that it was night, was that the Monster ate him.”
That made her sit up sharply, her heart pounding in her chest. The Monster? The creature who’d gently born her up from where she was thrashing in the depths of the Loch… the creature that had gently but firmly delivered her to the shore when she’d been foundering? The creature who had, by most accounts, had a little something to do with every single one of her fellow time travelers getting safely from the Burgh to the shore… “Why?” she heard herself asking before she could even wonder if it was wise. “Why did he think the creature would have harmed anyone?”
Brendan cleared his throat. “The creature has been known to do men harm,” he said softly. “In Caelan’s defense. She regularly eats Unseelie Fae who creep through the Burgh — we owe her a debt for lightening our workload on that front. She’s also been known to defend the Keep when it’s under attack by human enemies, especially if they choose nightfall and ships to attack us by…”
A chill ran down her spine again at the thought of that great creature surfacing beside a ship with the intent to do it harm. “But Bram was a member of the Clan, right? She’d have no reason to harm him.”
“That’s right,” Donal said softly. “And that’s what we tried to explain to Caelan, over and over. The Monster had no reason to attack Bram unless he was attacking her — and there was no trace of her in the water that night, not according to any of the men on the ship. It was a stormy night, and we have reason to believe the creature doesn’t enjoy rough weather. It doesn’t make sense for her to have been there to do him harm.”
“If anything, she’d have helped him to shore,” Leanne said softly. “Though this does help me to understand why Caelan seemed so unwilling to discuss the subject when I told him how I’d gotten ashore.”
Donal sighed heavily. “Aye, a refusal to discuss the matter was the problem we had with him, too. The man simply would not listen to reason. Eventually, he issued an ultimatum — to his own Captain, mark you. Demanded that the Watch be mobilized to hunt and kill the creature, or he’d not serve any longer. We pleaded with him to see reason, but he gave us no choice.”
Brendan’s expression was dark. Leanne could tell from looking at him that this had been a decision that still weighed heavy on him. “He didn’t need to leave,” he muttered, clearly frustrated by the situation. “There was no need for him to desert the Keep altogether. The Clan has gotten through worse disagreements than that one… but no, he couldn’t remain under the same roof as the men he said were protecting his brother’s killer.”
“How long ago was that?” Leanne asked, frowning. If Nancy and the other women hadn’t ever heard Caelan’s name, how long had he been living out there like that?
“A few years at least,” Laird Donal said with a sigh. “We’ve done what we can to keep tabs on his whereabouts. He visits the village occasionally for supplies and the like, but overall he makes himself quite scarce. They know he’s a deserter, in the village. I can’t say I know what story he’s told them about why that is.” He rubbed his forehead. “There are usually harsh penalties for desertion, but in Caelan’s case I simply wish he’d see reason and come home.”
There was an uneasy silence in the room, broken only by the restless drumming of Malcolm’s fingertips on the table. Finally, one of the other men shifted in his seat and cleared his throat — Graeme, she remembered from the introductions. “Laird Donal, might it be a good time to talk about…”
“Oh, yes.” The Laird seemed to come back to himself. “My apologies. Leanne, would you mind giving Graeme and Hamish a description of where it was Caelan had made camp? Whatever you remember will be enough. They’re two of the best trackers Clan Grant has ever had.”
Leanne hesitated for a moment, biting her lip. “It probably won’t help,” she pointed out. “He broke camp the morning we left. Packed all his things onto his horse.”
“Nevertheless,” said Hamish quietly. “If we can find his camp, that will be the most recent sighting we’ve had of him for months.”
She shrugged and did her best to describe the place she’d been when she emerged from the lake, the landmarks she remembered, the speed of the horse and the length of time it had taken to reach the Keep. The men seemed happy with the information she’d provided, but she couldn’t help but feel a little like she was betraying Caelan’s kindness by giving this information about him over to men who were hunting him. That being said, it seemed much more like they were seeking him out for his own good, not to do him any harm. From the rough look of him, she could definitely believe he’d been living rough for quite some time.
“Leanne, can I ask…?” That was Brendan, sounding oddly hesitant. “You mentioned he was wearing a symbol.”
She nodded, gesturing to Brendan’s chest, where a similar symbol was pinned. “One of those brooches. He said it was a symbol of the work he was sworn to. Protecting people from the Unseelie Fae.”
The smile on Brendan’s face was bittersweet. “Still doing his duty,” he muttered, glancing sidelong at Donal, who also looked a pained mixture of worried and touched. “He must be hunting the creature alone.”
She felt another shiver run down her spine, this time thinking of the gentle eyes of the creature that had escorted her safely to shore that night. “Do you think he’d hurt her?” She frowned, trying to imagine how that would even be possible. The Monster was enormous.
“He’d try to,” Brendan said heavily. “Before he left, he was certainly set on bringing her down. I’ve seen that look on men’s faces before, and it never bodes well for their quarry.”
“Not to worry, Leanne,” Malcolm said softly, clearly reading some of her worry in her face. “The Monster’s a clever old girl, and she’s been around humans long enough to know when to keep her distance. He’ll have a hard time getting close enough to her to do her any harm.”
Still, she couldn’t help but worry as she left the men behind… firstly about the iron crossbow bolts she’d seen Caelan wielding, and secondly about Caelan himself. One night sleeping in the dirt by a campfire had been more than enough for her… the thought of doing so for years was unimaginable. She sympathized with his quest for vengeance because she knew how hard it was to accept a tragedy… but at the same time, she worried about him living out there in the forest all by himself.
Especially now that she’d effectively sent the whole Watch after him…