Page 22 of The Thief (Castle Blackstone #3)

Despite it being gloaming, the lanes and roadways were still crowded as Ian, Kate’s cape balled under his arm, made his way toward the Tower of London. Eyes scanning for livery, soldiers in the Henry’s service, he made his way east on High street to Emms Lane, where he turned left and entered a mercantile. He passed a dozen market stalls selling all manner of food stuffs from fish to grains and as many enclosed shops of thatch, clay and brick offering all manner of cloth, house goods and baubles. At a fruit vendor’s he purchased a wee woven-reed cone full of raspberries and farther on a wedge of farmer’s cheese.

He had eaten all but one raspberry by the time he reached the Thames, where he turned east and walked down the wharf, passing hundreds of ships and boats tethered to quay after quay. Despite a slight breeze the air felt heavy, carrying the scents of sewage, spices, leather, wine, sweating bodies and mildew.

The dock men and seamen, consumed with moving and counting cargo, paid him no heed as he weaved his way around the mountains of bales and casks. Seeing a bale of cotton with a flapping rope, he remembered his need for twine and slipped his sgian duhb from his forearm. Without breaking stride he sliced a goodly length of rope free from the bale and continued on.

When the Tower of London finally came into view farther ahead and to his left, Ian slowed, again struck by the very size of the place. Surrounded by a moat and fronted by the Thames on the south, enclosing hectors, the Tower was a most impressive sight. Built on a Roman fortification, he’d heard the walls were fifty-feet thick and didn’t doubt it. Before him--in the center of the river facing wall--stood the formidable Traitors Gate.

Walking a few yards farther he found the roadway that went past the west wall where he knew another, less-formidable gatehouse to be.

As he turned into the lane, he took his time examining the Bell Tower on the southwest corner. To the best of his knowledge he need only enter the west gatehouse, cross the moat on a footbridge, pass through another guardhouse, go over another wee bridge and tra-la , he would be at the Bell Tower, which would also be guarded.

‘Twas doable. Had to be.

The only uplifting aspect was seeing that a goodly distance lay betwixt the Bell Tower and the massive keep the pockpuds called the White Tower, the royal residence, where most of the guards should be concentrated. He hoped.

He continued on, looking for a hidey-hole until such time as the bells struck nine.

Spying a carriage shed, he eased open the right side of the double doors and slipped into the close interior. Leaning against a wheel he pulled the balled-up destrier’s tail from inside his sleeve, wrapped a short length of the rope that he’d pilfered about the clubbed end and then made a loop. After combing out the bits of straw with his fingers he began to braid the coarse hair, so unlike Kate’s except in length and color.

His preparations done, he settled on the ground, his back to the footman’s box. He would try and catch what sleep he could. ‘Twould likely be a very long night.

~#~

At Benochie, near Aberdeen, Shamus sat seething upon his roan destrier high above the flat moor of Harlaw beside the wee river Drie, looking at what many a Highlander thought of as the gateway to the Lowlands through the Grampian range.

Behind the ridge at his back awaited 10,000 furious Highlanders. All were hungry for revenge after Donald, Lord of the Isles, had fired their blood with tales of how his original forces—-which included Donald Dubh and the Camerons--had charged, brandishing fire and sword, through the Stewart-held Inverness and Dingwall, only to be soundly routed by Albany’s forces after Albany had announced that the earldom of Ross wouldn’t go to Donald as expected but to his son John.

The fact that the raging liege lords were all cousins mattered naught.

Land and power were at stake. Mayhap even the crown. Which meant none behind him would leave this field until those before them were routed, or they themselves couldn’t raise an arm. And Shamus had no doubt that the opposition was of the same mind.

Mounted on the opposite side of the field sat Albany’s son John, earl of Buchan, and his cousin Alexander Stewart, earl of Mar. Selfish bastards both, in Shamus’s opinion. With them sat Irvine, Davidson and Sir Andrew de Leslie and his six battle-hardened sons. Beside them stood or rode every burgher of Aberdeen.

Yet that wasn’t the worst of it.

Having studied long and hard, Knowing the area and more importantly what Ian would advise, Shamus had spent the better part of last night arguing with the Highland command in his brother’s stead for a three-pronged attack, but being outranked, he’d been overruled. They would go forth at dawn, he was told, in a straight frontal attack. Donald and Cameron were dead set on plowing through the enemy, using their larger numbers in a wave-after-wave fashion. Worse, knowing Mar’s battle strategies of the past, knowing their steeds would be well armored, Shamus felt certain the enemy would be closely packed with long spears aplenty.

‘Twould prove a friggin’ blood bath.

Shamus cursed and looked to the sky. His gaze on the North Star, he prayed for Ian’s safety wherever he might be and for the lass who had captured his brother’s heart should Ian ever catch up with her. As for himself and those at his back, he murmured, “Thy will be done.”

~#~

Church bells rousted Ian out of a fitful slumber as they had repeatedly over the last two hours. He rose and stretched. ‘Twas time.

He shook out Kate’s hooded cloak with its embroidered front placket and brought it to his nose, inhaling the scent of roses and woman. How many moons would have to pass before he’d next lay eyes on her? Feeling pain bloom in his chest at the very thought, he gave himself a shake, threw the cloak over his shoulders and threaded the bone button through the loop. Gathering his shoulder-length hair into a queue, he caught it in the remaining bit of rope, and then settled the loop attached to the horsehair braid on his right ear. Using the last raspberry he darkened his lower lip to what he hoped would approximate Kate’s rosier hue. He then pulled the braid forward so that it hung down the front of the cloak, giving ample testament to his supposed sex, and pulled the hood forward, masking his upper countenance.

Ian silently thanked Kate for her long stride so he had no need to mince as he approached the Tower of London’s west gatehouse and the spike-toting guards.

“Well, if it ain’t the Templeton cow,” the guard muttered at Ian’s approach. “Come to pay his lordship a call, have ye?”

Praying he didn’t sound like a squeaking door, Ian murmured, “Yes.”

The guards guffawed and uncrossed their spikes. As Ian passed, the guard on the right pumped his hips in lascivious manner and said, “When you’re through servicing his lordship I’ll be waiting, sweets.”

Ian’s hands clenched, wondering how many times Kate had had to endure this kind of abuse. Deep breath in, deep breath out. Now isn’t the time. On the way out, he would have ample time to drive his fist into the bastard’s balls.

It took willpower to keep to a sedate pace and to keep his temper in check as more guards verbally abused him at the next gate. God’s teeth! He’d kill them all if one said another disparaging word.

At the Bell Tower door, the single guard grinned as he lifted his spike and reached for his key. “Hey, you’re back. How was Salisbury?”

Ack! Now this one wanted to chat him up. Relying on Kate’s favorite word, he squeaked, “Fine.”

“Good to hear it. By the way, they brought in a bear cub yesterday. Cute bugger. ”

“Ah.” Please shut up and open the damn door!

The door finally opened on silent hinges—-a blessing—and Ian entered and waited to hear the key turn. It did. On silent feet he took the winding stairs two at a time. On the first two landings he saw no light beneath the doors and no guards and continued on to the third. There he found a guard dozing and gold lamplight oozing from beneath a door.

He tapped the guard on the shoulder. The man jolted and rose. “Good eve, mistress.” Without another word, he inserted a key and shoved the door wide.

Ian nodded his thanks, stepped into what was now James’s royal apartment, and the door closed behind him.

A slender lad sat at a desk on the opposite side of the circular room, his back to him, apparently reading. In slow fashion, James I turned to face him, and Ian saw that he was pale to the extreme.

“Oh, ‘tis only you.” He turned his back and pointed to a ewer at his elbow. “Pour me some wine.”

Ian threw back his hood and pocketed the horse hair braid. “Pour it yerself.”

James spun, mouth agape. “Who...Who are you?” Since the lad had sucked in a lungful of air and looked about to bellow for the guard, Ian crossed the room in three quick strides, grabbed James by the scruff and slapped a firm hand across the lad’s mouth.

Quietly Ian hissed in Scots, “Ian MacKay, my liege, and I would much appreciate it if ye’d keep yer bloody voice down else the lot of us rot in here for all eternity.”

Bug-eyed, James, near death-white, nodded.

“Good lad.” Ian released his hold and looked about taking in the cold fireplace, the worn carpet, the barren stone walls, the multiple books on the desk and the few tallow candles.

Humph. No fragrant bee’s wax for our laddie.

Keeping his voice low, Ian asked, “Where’s Sir Campbell?”

James silently pointed to an adjacent room.

Ian smiled at the lad who so looked like his father. “Please be so kind as to fetch him, Your Majesty. We’ve much to discuss and precious wee time to do it in.”

James ran. A moment later Sir Gregory Campbell, his faded green robe askew, came through the doorway, and Ian was taken aback despite Kate’s warning. The man had aged terribly.

Ian held out his hand. “Dinna look so shocked, Campbell.”

Gregory Campbell came forward and took his hand. “Ye are the last man on earth I expected to see.”

The right corner of Ian’s lip lifted. “So I ken.” Without waiting to be asked if he was thirsty, Ian poured wine into what he assumed was Campbell’s tankard and drank his fill. He then faced them. “I’ve come in the hopes of exchanging vital information. My goals being to see James and ye set free and to see Scotland safe...and not necessarily in that order.”

Sir Gregory nodded but skepticism was written all over his countenance as he settled on a stool. James stood at Campbell’s shoulder, his hands behind his back.

Ian looked James in the eye. “Ye’ve not been forgotten. We want ye back. Many a chieftain has been sacrificing, hording coins for yer ransom.” He rattled them off, starting with his own liege lord and ending with Duncan MacDougall of Castle Blackstone in Drasmoor. “These men have left much-needed repairs slide, kenning the ransom will be high.”

Campbell held up a hand. “What do ye mean will be ? It was made.”

Ian looked at Campbell. “To whom was the ransom demand sent?”

Campbell, his color rising, sputtered, “Ye damn well ken who. To Albany.”

Oh God. So it was true, all that Kate had told him. Ian collapsed onto a nearby stool. His head in his hands, he asked, “When?”

“Four years ago. Exactly a year after we were hauled in chains into this godforsaken place.”

Bile rose in Ian’s throat. For almost a decade he had served Albany faithfully and to what end?

More importantly Scotland had been betrayed. Scots were already on the brink of civil war--just a heartbeat and a lie away—-because no one was “officially” on the throne. If Albany’s duplicity now became public...?

He shuddered, knowing too well what would happen .

God, he was going to be ill.

Campbell rested a hand on his shoulder. “My God, man, ye really didna ken, did ye? Does anyone?”

Ian shook his head, not yet ready to speak.

After a minute, having decided he would confront Albany and kill him if need be, Ian straightened and rubbed his hands across his face. “How much is the ransom?”

“The document His Majesty affixed his signature to, as proof that he still lived, said 60,000 in silver.”

A king’s ransom and unfortunately not to be had in Scotland’s coffers. Ian knew that for a fact, having seen the registers.

To James he said, “We—-those I named--will get ye out, my lord. Of that ye can be sure.”

Exactly when would prove the problem.

Campbell asked, “How did ye come to be here?”

Ian rose, needing to pace. “Ye have a good friend in Kate Templeton.”

Campbell blew out a breath. “So she got to Scotland.”

And no thanks to you, she nearly got killed. “Aye, she did, and she’s back, safe and sound where she had best remain.” Since James had no inkling of what Campbell had set into motion, Ian left the rest unsaid but his tone told Campbell that Ian would brook no disagreement.

“And my ladywife?” Campbell asked. “Is she fairing well? ”

Oh, shit. “Campbell...Greg, I’m so sorry to be the bearer of—-”

“Nay!” Campbell, suddenly the color of whey, began to waver, and Ian reached for his arm.

After settling Campbell on a stool Ian murmured, “She passed peacefully in her sleep, Greg.” Thinking a lie might prove more comforting than saying naught, he murmured, “At her funeral, I was told that her last words were prayers for your safekeeping and return.”

In a broken sob Campbell asked, “Ye were there?”

“Of course. Margaret was a respected lady of the realm, Greg. How could I not be?”

“Thank ye.”

He patted Campbell’s shoulder. In truth, Ian had been there only to recover any documents Margaret might have left in her wake.

Suddenly the room was reverberating with the sound of bells. Ian slapped his hands over his ears. To his amazement James and Campbell didn’t appear to notice. When the ringing finally stopped both within and without his head, Ian grumbled, “God’s teeth, how in hell do ye stand it?”

King James shrugged. “Ye get used to it after a few years.”

“Ah.” ‘Twas ten o’clock and he needed to leave. He hauled up his mail shirt, reached into his sporran and pulled out what few gold coins he had. He handed them to James. “’Tisna much, but they might buy ye a few boons whilst ye wait. More will be on the way.” To Campbell he said, “I must take my leave.”

Ian donned his braid, pulled up his hood and bowed to James. “Never lose hope and never forget who yer friends are, my liege.”

Nodding, James said, “I willna forget, and God’s speed, MacKay.”

Ten minutes later Ian was again at the west gatehouse. The foul-mouthed guard, seeing his approach, hooted and grabbed his groin, “Hey, how ‘bout a suck before you take leave, sweets?”

Ian, head down, was hard-pressed to ignore the man, but ignore him he did. Unfortunately, the bastard made a grab for what he perceived to be Kate’s breasts.