Page 25 of The Thief (Castle Blackstone #3)

Ian!

He hadn’t changed position since she’d last looked at him. Laying a hand on his face, feeling heat, Kate’s panic tripled. He was burning with fever. She shook him. “Ian! Wake up. Oh, please, you need to wake up!”

Oh, dear God. She had to get help, had to get to shore. But in what direction? Grasping both sides of the boat, Kate carefully rose up on one knee, intent on gaining a higher perch by kneeling on the seat, and in doing so set the boat to rocking violently in the swells.

Do not think about whales and sharks. Do not think about the squid. Just do it, one knee up and then another.

Slowly she let go of one side and straightened.

At the top of the swell she saw land to her right. To her left she saw white splashes dotting the horizon. Ships. Most likely English.

She scrambled for the oars that were dragging in the water and made the mistake of looking into the waves. “Ooooh.” Bile rose in her throat. Oh God .

Don’t look, just row. You’ll be fine. Just row.

Having no idea of the time of day but thinking it still had to be morning, she angled the boat’s bow toward what she hoped was the northwest and pulled back on the oars. Every muscle in her body screamed in protest.

You can do this. Just row.

With her gaze locked on the closest set of white sails, she pulled for all she was worth for land, disheartened to realize the water felt heavier, which made pulling back on the oars more difficult. The boat also sat higher in the water, which in her estimation could not be a good thing, would make it more likely to tip. Worse, the waves made judging her progress next to impossible.

Just row. Don’t think about the waves, the distance or the ship. It appeared to be angling slightly, taking a more head-on tack, directly toward them.

When she realized the oncoming ship was gaining on her, she didn’t take the time to rise on the bench and assess her distance from land, she simply prayed and doubled her efforts.

Too soon and too far from land, the ship loomed large before her. Black as pitch, its sharp bow easily sliced through the waves that she had been fighting with body and soul, a flag flapping at the stern. But the sun’s glare made it impossible for her to tell the colors, much less the nationality. As it drew closer still, she could hear the slapping of sails, hear voices and creaking .

Please Lord, let it be anything but an English war ship. Please, I’m begging you, please .

After all Ian had been through, being rescued by an English ship would be the cruelest of ironies.

Barely able to lift her arms, she pulled the oars in. It was too much to hope that the ship would simply pass them by. As if reading her mind, sailors were suddenly scrambling up rope ladders and onto the yardarms. Sails suddenly collapsed and were gathered in. The ship loomed larger but at a much slower pace. It was going to stop.

All was lost.

Kate reached for the wineskin behind her then slipped off the seat and sat next to Ian.

“I’m so sorry I failed you.” It took what little strength she had left to lift his head and shoulders onto her lap, to hold him a final time.

Running her fingers along his jaw, feeling the soft brush of golden whiskers, her heart folded in on itself. “I love you so very much. So very much.”

He was dying and there was nothing she could do to stop it. Nothing anyone could do. “I never meant for any of this to happen. Never, I swear. Had I foreseen...” She pressed her lips to his hair. “God forgive me. I would give my life to see you whole again, to see you home, safe and sound.” Her tears splashed onto his cheeks, making streaks through the blood and dirt coating his once-handsome countenance. “Did I ever tell you how beautiful I find you?” She nodded. “Or how impossible I find your caring for me to be?” Tracing a finger along one gold-winged eyebrow, she whispered, “I shall never love another, never. You own my heart and soul, what there is left of it.”

Sobbing, squeezing him to her breast, knowing she could not hurt him further for he was well beyond it, she rocked him. “Dear God, what have I done?”

Too soon their little boat went into a violent side-to- side pitch, and she felt a great shadow loom over them. Eyes closed, she tightened her hold on Ian. Metal screeched on metal and then something—-mayhap an anchor--splashed into the sea. Wood groaned, protesting its halting, deflated sail snapped and cracked in the breeze only yards above her. Voices, the words indiscernible, were carried away on the wind, yet still she held tight to Ian, not daring to look up. Not wanting to know what awaited them.

“Ahoy!”

English. She heard what sounded like cursing, and a ladder being dropped over the side and someone scrambling down.

Oh God, not yet. Please. They’ll take him away, and I’ll never see him again. Please God, no.

Something banged against their small hull, and she felt the boat lurch then thud against the ship’s hull.

Above her a man shouted, “’Tis MacKay and his wode lady, Madame Campbell, Home!”

Kate’s head snapped up, her eyes wide. “Home? Home ! ”

The Sea Witch rocked beside her in all her leaking-and-squeaking glory. “Oh thank God! Home! Come quick, he’s dying!”

The man with the grappling hook dropped into the boat. “Let go, mistress, so I can see.” Kate leaned back so the seaman could run his hands over Ian. A moment later he was swearing and issuing instructions in Scot too fast for her to discern. Ropes dropped over the side, one falling loose into the boat.

On deck Captain Home shouted, “Get Mr. Bones!” He then scrambled down the ladder and into their boat. Together he and the sailor made a makeshift sling out of the rope and Ian was hauled, hand over hand, up and on to the ship. Home then turned his attention to Kate. “Can you climb the ladder?”

Kate nodded and stood. Either the boat rocked or her legs wobbled, but in any case she lost her balance and grabbed Home’s arm. When she let go and reached for the ladder, Home growled, “God’s teeth, woman.”

Kate followed his gaze. Blood smeared the sleeve of Captain Home’s otherwise pristine white shirt. “I’m so sorry.”

She turned her hands palms up and was surprised to see they looked like something she might find hanging in Butchers’ Lane.

Home sighed. “Christ’s blood, they look like raw haggis.” He bellowed up to the men on deck, “We have need for another sling!”

“No, really, don’t bother.” Her hands no longer hurt. They were numb.

“Lady Campbell, as long as I’m master ye’ll follow my orders.”

Too tired to argue, Kate muttered, “As you wish.”

“Damn right as I wish.”

In short order Home had the length of rope looped around Kate’s waist and bottom and then she was airborne, being bumped and scraped up the side of the Sea Witch. The moment her feet hit the swaying deck she asked, “Where’s Ian? Is he alive? I must see him.”

Charging down the narrow companionway stairs, Home growled, “What the hell happened to him?”

“He was captured trying to enter the Tower.” Kate explained as much as she knew then added, “We didn’t have time to make a splint for his broken left arm. He could barely walk, so something else must be broken or dislocated.”

“We’ll find out soon enough.”

Before Kate’s eyes could adjust to the Sea Witch’s darkened interior, the men at the capstan had hauled in the anchor, wenches and yardarms squeaked, and the ship began moaning its way north.

“Over here.” Home walked to a long plank dining table. On it lay Ian, naked and discolored from his brow to the soles of his feet.

Kate’s gaze raced over the huge welts on his chest to his swollen joints to the massive bruising covering him. Merciful mother in heaven , how could any sane person inflict so much damage on another ?

Home, his gaze also raking Ian, asked the wiry sailor at Ian’s side, “Well?”

“Broken left forearm, several broken bones in his left foot, two—-mayhap, three—-broken ribs, and a swollen liver. His shoulders had been dislocated but were reset properly and should mend. I’ll work on his fever after I set his bones. As for his head injury,” he shrugged “that is in God’s hands.”

Kate, light-headed and nauseous from the report, slowly slid to the floor. Ian, beautiful and gregarious, the man she loved with every ounce of her being, lay battered and broken...and all for naught. James was still fuming in ignorance in the Tower.

“Madame Campbell?”

Kate blinked the tears from her eyes to find Home squatting before her. Ian apparently had not told him her real name. “Yes, Captain?”

“Come, lass, we need to tend to yer wounds and feed ye.”

Kate shook her head. “Tend Ian.”

“Mr. Bones will tend to Ian.” He took her arm and helped her to her feet.

Eyes locked on Ian, she murmured, “I can’t leave him.”

“I’m not asking ye to. Sit there.” He pointed to a bench tucked between two cannon carriages.

While they waited on the ship’s carpenter to make splints, Mr. Bones cleaned Ian’s wounds, and Captain Home directed another man to clean and apply salve to her palms and wrap her hands in cotton sheeting. He handed her a lead tankard and ordered her to drink. She did and immediately choked. “Augh! Visgebaugh.”

What Fraser and Ian had called the water of life.

Home stood over her, his hands on his hips. “Keep drinking.”

Eyes watering, throat still burning, Kate eyed the remaining foul liquid. “But--”

Home tapped the tankard. “Drink or I’ll pour it down ye.”

Not doubting he would, Kate took a tentative sip and shuddered as another dose of liquid fire ran down her gullet.

Home growled, “More.”

Augh!

He stood over her until the drink was gone—-which, after the fifth or sixth sip, wasn’t so bad--then nodded to a sailor who handed her a wooden bowl of mutton stew.

Knowing she’d be ill if so much as a joint touched her lips, Kate merely held the bowl and watched as Mr. Bones manipulated Ian’s forearm, wrapped it in cotton sheeting, braced it fore and back with wooden slats, and then secured all with leather strips. He then moved to Ian’s foot and did the same while Kate prayed Ian would flinch, groan, do something to indicate that he was still aware, if only marginally. But her only reassurance came with the rise and fall of his massive chest--the only indication that he was still alive and she could still hope.

Once Ian’s bones were set Mr. Bones called for his medicine box. When the foot-long wooden crate arrived, he took out two glass vials and sprinkled the black powders into a bowl of piping water. “‘Tis black willow and black currant. Should help reduce his fever.” After straining the concoction through a scrap of linen, he held out the bowl and a thin hollow reed to her. “Would ye like to give it to him?”

Kate nodded, grateful to be of some use.

“Just a drop at a time. No more, or he’ll choke.”

Having already managed to get Ian nearly killed, fearing she would now be his final undoing, beads of sweat broke out on Kate’s forehead and her hands began to shake.

Mr. Bones patted her shoulder. “He’s still swallowing his spit so he should do fine so long as ye take yer time.”

He watched as she parted Ian’s dry lips with a shaking finger and deposited a drop of the herb tea into his mouth. When Ian didn’t choke, Mr. Bones grinned at her. “See, ye’ll do fine. I’ll be back in a wee bit.”

~#~

Harlaw Moor, once green and lush, ran red with the blood of Scotland’s finest. Thousands lay dead or maimed as Shamus, soaked in blood and sweat, sheathed his claymore and grabbed his fallen liege under the arms. Dragging the MacKay backward, Shamus kept a wary eye on those few who remained from both sides as they checked their dead and dying.

“Ye’ll be alright, Angus,” Shamus panted. “Just a wee bit more, and we’ll be in the wood. Hang on.” The wood was still a good hundred yards behind them and at the rate Angus was bleeding—-he had been struck down by a poleax--Shamus was none too sure that the man would make it there alive but Shamus had to try, if for no other reason than to have the man die in peace.

Finally in the relative safety of the wood, he lowered Angus to the ground and wrenched his own shirtsleeve free and slipped it beneath Angus’s rent chain mail, pressing it to the man’s open chest wound. From his liege’s coloring and thready pulse Shamus strongly suspected that Angus only held on to life only by sheer willpower.

As Shamus craned his neck in hopes of seeing some of his clansmen about, Angus clasped his hand and hissed, “Promise...to take care of wee John.”

Before he could respond, Kyle, a powerful clansman and Angus’s master at arms, suddenly materialized at his side. Ignoring him, Shamus reassured his liege, “Aye, I promise, but fear not, Angus. We’ll get you home.”

“Aye,” Kyle agreed, “just hang on, Angus.”

Their liege looked from Shamus to Kyle. As his tears took shape, he whispered, “Fetch Ian home...laird until the laddie comes of age. Kyle...Keep them safe. ”

As they watched, helpless to stop it, Angus took a final shuddering breath, his head lolled to the side, and all went still.

Heartsick, Shamus closed his liege lord’s eyes, and with head in hands, cursed. His brother-by-marriage had been as querulous as they come, but he had always proved a good husband to their sister and a fair man when dealing with clan matters.

Aware that they couldn’t take time to grieve just yet, Shamus gave himself a shake and rose. “How many have we left?”

“Seven hundred, mayhap a few more.”

They both looked down on the blood-soaked moor—-now, in gloaming, much of it a rusty brown, cluttered with their dead and dying. The MacKays had come there three-thousand strong.

Kyle scrubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands as Shamus cleared his tear-clotted throat. Kyle clapped Shamus on the back. “We had best get to it. I’ll take some of the men and check the field for survivors if you’ll collect what horses you can. Take Robbie and Alex with you.” He pointed to a collection of boulders close to the ridge. “They’re all up there. Should you spy any unscathed stragglers, set them to cutting saplings so we can haul our wounded home.”

As Shamus turned, Kyle said, “In case you were wondering, Donald is sorely injured but did manage to ride away.”

His blood still hot with fear and the fury of battle, still seething with the loss of so many, Shamus stopped and faced Kyle. “Truthfully, I don’t give a shit what happened or happens to that man, and you damn well know why.

“Right now my only concerns are for what will become of my clan because of this ” he waved back toward the Killing Field, “and how I’m going to break the news to my sister that her husband of four years--the father of her three wee babes--is dead.”