Amanda Scott (28 page)

Chapter 17

H
ow pleasant to see you both,” Waldron said with a deep bow.

“Where is Princess Margaret?” Adela asked, looking bewildered.

Isobel grimaced. “I warrant she is in her bedchamber, preparing for bed, and would be most astonished to learn that she had sent for us. What do you want with us, you villain?”

Waldron looked amused. “What I’d like most, Mistress Wasp, is to have the schooling of you long enough to teach you a woman’s proper place in this life.”

“Indeed, Isobel, lass,” Abbot Mackinnon said dulcetly, “a wiser woman wouldna speak to any gentleman in such an impertinent way. She’d show more respect, and forswear enmity, for good manners are the bulwark of civil behavior.”

Isobel met his harsh gaze and said evenly, “‘The path of the just is a shining light,’ or so I once heard you say, my lord abbot. If you are in league with this man, mayhap ’tis because you do not know his wicked ways.”

“Such evil words corrupt good manners,” the abbot said sternly.

“But truth is great and will endure,” she retorted, grateful for once for her aunt Euphemia’s deep-rooted habit of quoting Scripture and any philosopher whose words appealed to her. Isobel certainly knew Bible verses when she heard them, and if the Green Abbot kept spouting them at her, she would just spout them right back. “This man took me prisoner just a short time ago and threatened to let all his men have their way with me,” she went on. “You once claimed friendship with my family, sir. Do you condone such fiendish treatment of your friends?”

Waldron snapped, “Enough of this farce. Abbot Mackinnon knows I serve the cause of God, His Kirk, and His Holiness the Pope. Therefore, I am without sin.”

“If your god forgives what you do, he is no god of mine,” Isobel snapped.

Adela gasped. “Isobel, you speak sacrilege!”

“You do, indeed,” the abbot said. “Moreover, Isobel, Waldron is right. God forgives all who battle in the name of Christ and His Kirk, and He would want you to tell Waldron everything he wants to know.”

“I’ll tell him nothing,” Isobel said disdainfully.

“Aye, lass, you will,” Waldron said. “One way or another.”

“Mercy,” Adela exclaimed, clearly frightened. “Tell him, Isobel!”

“Even if I could, I would not, but I cannot, for I don’t even know what they are talking about.”

“This gets us nowhere, my lord abbot,” Waldron said. “Take the lady Adela out of the room with you for a few minutes. I shall talk privately with Lady Isobel, because I believe I can quickly persuade her to tell me what I want to know. If I cannot, you must bring Lady Adela back, and we will see if certain of my more persuasive methods, when applied to her, will not loosen Lady Isobel’s tongue.”

Isobel glanced at the abbot to see if such ominous words would persuade him of Waldron’s evil ways, but if they had any effect, she saw no sign of it. Clearly Hector and his grace were right, and the Green Abbot had long since lost any claim to goodness—if, indeed, he had ever had any.

Mackinnon took a firm grip of Adela’s arm, and still doubtless respecting his office if not the man himself, she allowed him to escort her from the room with no more than a helpless glance over her shoulder at her sister.

As Isobel watched them go, she turned slightly away from Waldron and moved to slip her hand through the slits in her skirt and underskirt to the dirk in its sheath. But to her shock, she found no slit, for the gown was one that Mairi had ordered for her. Having found that it fit her well, she had not thought about slits in her haste to dress for supper. Feeling a distinct chill of fear, she turned slowly back to face Waldron.

“Come here to me, lass, and we will see just how brave you are,” he said with a smile that she was sure emulated the devil’s own.

Raising her chin, she straightened her shoulders. “I am not afraid of you,” she said, hoping she could persuade herself of that, and quickly. As she held her ground, her steady gaze continuing to challenge him, she wondered briefly if Michael trusted her enough yet to believe her when she told him that she and Adela had not left the hall alone—if, indeed, she survived to tell him anything.

With a look of annoyance, Waldron moved toward her, and she backed away step for step, without taking her eyes off him, until she had backed into the wall.

“You see, my dear, there is no escape,” he said with another of his horrid smiles as she looked frantically left and right and saw no weapon to help her, only two wall sconces of candles that burned with irritating cheer. “Now, we will begin.”

Michael was quietly talking with Hugo and the High Admiral at the high table when Isobel and her elder sister left the great hall. Watching them go, and noting their escort’s St. Clair tunic, he had returned to his conversation, thinking they must have decided to pay a visit to the garderobe tower, or even to take a short stroll outside to clear the claret fumes from their brains, as many others were doing.

Hugo sat on his right and Lachlan on his left with Hector Reaganach just beyond Hugo. Hector had been conversing with the gentleman on his right, but he turned now and caught Michael’s eye.

“I’m guessing you saw your cousin depart some few minutes ago with our irritating, unmitered, and rebellious abbot,” he said quietly.

“I saw Waldron and others from his table leave,” Michael said, “but in watching them, I failed to note the abbot’s departure. In truth, he looks unlike any abbot I’ve ever met, since he does not wear clerical garb. He blends into the crowd.”

“Aye, few who do not know him well would recognize Fingon for a man of the cloth, even at home,” Lachlan said. “Not only does he pay no heed to the dictates of Rome in his personal life, having lived with the same woman for years and sired a number of children with her, but he always wears the expensive clothing of a courtier. Moreover, as you have seen, he thinks nothing of disobeying a royal command by leaving the Holy Isle when it suits him. I warrant he believes his grace’s illness foreshadows his demise, or he hopes it does. I know you look upon Waldron as your chief enemy. Still, you should pay closer heed to the abbot.”

“I will indeed, sir, thank you,” Michael said, chastened.

Hector began to say something, but Lachlan interrupted him to ask Michael if he had recognized the gillie who had spoken to Isobel.

Michael frowned. “
He
addressed her? I assumed that she had sent for a St. Clair gillie to escort her and Adela to their destination, but I saw them all only as they were leaving the dais. I never had a clear view of his face. Did you, Hugo?”

“Nay, because I could not see Isobel or Adela from here any earlier than that, myself, not without leaning well forward and looking down the table. Hector Reaganach’s height clearly gives him an advantage over lesser mortals.”

A tingling at the back of Michael’s neck brought him to his feet, but his voice was calm as he said, “I believe I’ll take a stroll myself, my lords, if you will excuse me.”

“Nay, lad, we’ll all go,” Hector said, leaning down to pick up the famous Clan Gillean battle-axe from beneath his chair.

“You may go,” Lachlan said, smiling lazily at his twin. “However, you must not all depart at once. ’Tis better if only Sir Michael and his cousin leave now. You may follow them, but it would be as well to have some idea first of their direction.”

Hector nodded as Michael said, “You wait here, Hugo, whilst I ask the ladies Mairi and Cristina if Isobel or Adela said aught to them of their intentions.”

He moved at once to the ladies’ end of the table, where both women quickly apprised him of what they knew. Cristina looked worried, but Mairi said, “They can scarcely come to grief with my mother, sir, and even if they have left her already, you need not fret. Your lady is perfectly capable of looking after herself
and
Adela.”

“Under most circumstances I would agree with you, madam, but I do not trust my cousin. If he managed to lay hands on her—” He broke off, unable to continue because for once his emotions threatened to betray him. The thought of Isobel in Waldron’s hands was too much to contemplate. “If you will forgive me—”

“Wait,” Lady Cristina said. “Surely, he would not harm her! He must know she has powerful protectors.”

“I will see that he does her no harm, madam, but I must go at once.” With a hasty bow, he returned to Hugo, saying quietly as he bent to collect his sword and scabbard from beneath his own chair, “The gillie told her that Princess Margaret had sent for them. Lady Mairi said they thought it odd, because her mother had left the hall, intending to retire, and she rarely entertains anyone after supper.”

Hugo got up then, found his sword, and moved to stand next to Michael.

Michael told Hector they would seek the women first in Waldron’s chamber, after which the two men wasted no time leaving the hall. Once away from the crowd, each slipped the long leather strap of his scabbard over his head and across his chest, then shifted his sword high onto his back, where he could more easily reach over his shoulder to draw quickly.

“If they came this way, would Isobel not have realized they were going in the wrong direction?” Hugo asked when a gillie directed them to a wing at the opposite end of the palace from their rooms, as well as the princess’s chamber.

“Nay, how could she?” Michael asked. “We went right to our own chamber, where Henry joined us. Isobel would have no knowledge of her grace’s location, and would trustingly have followed any gillie she thought to be one of our own.”

They hurried up the spiral stone stairway to the next level and along the long corridor upon which it emerged.

“This cannot be right,” Michael said a moment later. “These doors are all too close together. Unless each room here has two entrances, Isobel would not believe that Henry had put her grace into such a small one. Moreover, it is too quiet.” His heart pounded as if he had been running a great distance at top speed.

“You go up to the next level,” Hugo said. “I’ll continue on here to make sure, then join you upstairs. I warrant Hector Reaganach will be along soon, too.”

Michael did not wait to hear more but turned and ran back to the stairway, taking the spiraling stone steps two by two and hoping he did not meet Waldron on the way. As with most such stairways, the builder had given the advantage to a right-handed swordsman at the top rather than to an invader at the bottom. Thus, it twisted counterclockwise, putting Michael’s sword hand near the oiled-rope banister. A man coming downstairs, the banister at his left, could hug the wall, thus using the widest portion of the steps and leaving his sword hand free.

Emerging at the next level, Michael saw that the doors were farther apart, indicating more spacious rooms. Furthermore, the corridor was wider and boasted a bank of tall windows along the outer wall, overlooking the front courtyard. More important guests would be housed here than on the lower floor. Indeed, the only sign that this was a bishop’s home rather than that of a wealthy nobleman was the holy-water font at each end of the corridor for the convenience of his eminence’s guests.

As Michael hurried along the corridor, Lady Adela emerged from a room near the end. She looked distressed, and a tall man with shoulder-length gray hair emerged behind her, holding her left arm in what most people would consider an inappropriate manner for a man not closely related to her. He retained his hold on her as he shut the door behind them and turned toward Michael. It was the abbot.

Although tempted to reach for his sword, Michael resisted the impulse, letting his hand rest easy at his side as he watched their approach. Knowing that Waldron had ears like a cat’s, he did not want to make any noise until he had to, and the bright golden, dust-mote-strewn light from a sun low in the west made it unlikely that the abbot had recognized him or would fear one man approaching them. Lady Adela was another matter. She would know him at once.

She did. He saw as much in her eyes, but she did not speak. Still, she must have stiffened or otherwise given her captor warning, because he hesitated. He wore a long jeweled dirk in a sheath on his left hip, which told Michael that the abbot was right handed, but although Mackinnon shifted the weapon slightly as if to move its hilt more readily within reach, he did so with his left hand, his right still tightly gripping her ladyship’s arm.

Careless of him, Michael thought. Waldron would not have made that error. Praying that the abbot would assume only that Adela had hesitated at seeing another person in the corridor, and that he was more concerned that she would cry out for help than he was about the lone gentleman, Michael continued toward them.

He heard hasty footsteps on the stairway, knew them for Hugo’s, and a moment later, saw the abbot’s eyes widen. The hand near his eminence’s dirk moved slightly away from it, but he did not ease his grip on the lass’s arm.

Michael went on as if naught were amiss. Hugo, too, remained silent, but Michael knew from his rapid footsteps that his cousin was moving up behind him.

Keeping his face expressionless, he strode on, moving to his right as if to give room for the pair coming toward him. Although he avoided looking directly at Adela, who was near the window wall and well to his left, he could see that she was not watching him as carefully as she watched Hugo. He noted that the abbot’s hand tightened on her arm as they neared.

Knowing he had judged his timing well, he gathered himself mentally.

Two strides later, his right fist came up from his side and connected solidly with abbot’s chin. Mackinnon reeled backward and went down so swiftly that Michael nearly failed to catch him. As it was, the abbot’s head hit the floor with a thump loud enough to make Michael glance back at Hugo with a rueful grimace.

Hugo shook his head to indicate that he did not think the sound had been loud enough to carry far. His left hand was up, index finger at his lips, reminding Adela not to speak. She had not cried out when Michael had struck the abbot, and she nodded her understanding now without comment.

Michael signaled Hugo to look after their captive and the lass, then turned and strode silently to the door of the room from which the pair had come. Pausing there, he reached back for his sword.