Highlander Avenged (12 page)

If he was to keep Jeanette safe, and by extension, her clan, he had to know exactly what the enemy was thinking and what the stakes were for success and for failure. Now was the moment when he had some leverage to get these answers and he wasn’t about to let it pass.

He wasn’t sure what to ask first until the question he most wanted answered slipped from his lips. “Why do they say you are a witch?” he asked Rowan. He wanted to ask if it had aught to do with her being the Guardian of the Targe but he had promised Jeanette not to speak of that knowledge to anyone.

Everyone went deathly silent. Rowan and Jeanette locked eyes on each other. Nicholas would not meet Malcolm’s eyes. Only Scotia glared at him.

“He must swear fealty to Rowan before anyone says anything,” the younger woman said. Her voice was hard and he thought she would run him through with a sword if he gainsaid her demand.

Quietly, and without prevarication, he held her glare. “That I cannot do, Scotia. My fealty resides with my father and my clan.”

“Then he must leave now,” she said, not taking her eyes off Malcolm, but clearly speaking to her own chief, Nicholas. “He asks too many questions for an outsider.”

“Nay,” Jeanette said, breaking away from whatever had passed between herself and Rowan and looking to Malcolm, now. She reached for his hand and he stepped close enough to enfold hers in his. “I have not finished my promise to him, to heal his arm. And even were that finished, we need his knowledge of the English and how they fight.”

Scotia started to argue, but Nicholas stopped her with a glance. Malcolm doubted most people could do that as easily as Nicholas could, once the lass set her mind to something.

“Jeanette is right,” Nicholas said. “We have need of his knowledge. I know much of the things that drive the English to battle, but not much of battle itself. Malcolm has that experience, and we can benefit from his insight if we are to defend ourselves against this incursion. The more he understands of our situation, the better he can help us.” He closed the space between them.

Jeanette squeezed Malcolm’s hand tighter, and his heart warmed at her unwavering support.

“You have sworn fealty to your chief and your clan.” It was a statement from Nicholas that needed no answer. “You have sworn fealty to your king, Robert the Bruce?”

“Aye. I have served in his army. He is above my father and there is no conflict within my fealty to both of them.”

“Good. Your fealty to King Robert seals your lips on matters of import to him, aye?”

“Secrets, strategies, plans. Aye.”

“Then your promise to honor your fealty to King Robert will suffice since what we must tell you pertains to the safety of not only our king, but the entire country of Scotland.”

Malcolm glanced at Jeanette and found her eyes trained on his. She nodded at him.

“Your promise, Malcolm,” she said. “Please.”

“Of course,” he said, making a point of looking each of the women and Nicholas in the eye, then offering his dirk, hilt first, to Nicholas. “You have my promise that I will keep whatever secrets you tell me. I also promise that while I bide with your clan, I will do everything within my power to help repel the English and keep your clan safe from them.”

“Rowan?” Nicholas said. “ ’Tis up to you if we take Malcolm into our confidence.”

“Jeanette?” Rowan took her cousin’s hand. “Do you trust him with this?”

“I do,” Jeanette said. “I trust him with my life, and the lives of my family. And though I cannot say why, I am certain he was sent here so I could help him, and he us.”

Malcolm swallowed around a large lump in his throat. He had the trust of his clan, his men—a niggling idea that maybe that one wasn’t as true as it had once been tried to distract him—but never had he received such explicit trust from anyone. He had done little to earn such trust from Jeanette, but he made a vow there and then to be worthy of it, and of her.

“Jeanette, you ken more than any of us about . . . ,” Rowan said.

“He already kens that you are Guardian, and that the MacAlpins are said to guard the Highlands.” There was grumbling from
everyone. “He figured out much of it on his own”—she looked pointedly at Nicholas and Rowan—“as Nicholas did. I but corrected the knowledge he had gleaned. He kens a little of what the Targe is, and what Rowan can do.” Quickly she told
Malcolm
the rest of the lore that he had not figured out about the Highland Targe and its long line of Guardians. “The Guardian is meant to draw upon the power of the Targe in order to safeguard this route into the Highlands from invasion.”

Malcolm let the information settle over him. He had heard the tales of such a mythical Targe but to know it was real tested his beliefs.

“Clearly it has not prevented the English from invading so far,” he finally said.

“The lore has been lost,” Jeanette said. “My mother was able to set protections over the clan, the castle, and use blessings to ensure the fertility of our land and animals. We knew of no need for more than that until Nicholas came amongst us.”

“I was sent to steal the Highland Targe.” Nicholas took up the story. “Neither the king, nor anyone outside these parts, knew that it was not a true targe. No one knew it required a Guardian.” He smiled at his wife.

“I ken Rowan is the Guardian now,” Malcolm said. “And Jeanette told me she can move things with naught but her mind.”

“Aye,” Nicholas said.

“And that is why the king of England wants her dead, why they call her a witch?”

“ ’Tis.”

“Cannot Rowan repel the English with the Targe?”

“I have only just come into my gift recently, and became the Guardian even more recently. I did not have the benefit of previous training for my position, as Jeanette and Scotia did.”

“And Jeanette thought she was to be the next Guardian,” Malcolm said. It was slowly coming together for him, all the little pieces of information merging to form a picture of an ancient, powerful relic that King Edward would kill to have for his own.

“Aye. After my mum. It might have been Scotia, but . . .”

She didn’t finish the sentence. Jeanette and Scotia didn’t look at each other, though tension sprang to life between them, as if it bound them together and repelled them at the same time. Malcolm could only guess that the assumption that Scotia would not take her mother’s place must be a difficult topic for the sisters, though certainly they were on the same footing now. This explained much of the tension between Rowan and Jeanette, too, and Malcolm began to see the parties in this particular skirmish in a new light.

Jeanette must have been devastated not to follow her mother as Guardian even though she seemed reconciled to it now.

“Why was Rowan chosen then?” he asked, feeling an odd indignation that Jeanette had been passed over in favor of her cousin.

“Her gift. ’Tis strong, defensive. ’Tis what we need, the clan and Scotland, in this time. I have no gift, nor does Scotia. There is no other explanation that I have been able to find or dream up,” Jeanette said quietly, as if she were, even now, scouring through her knowledge for a more satisfying answer.

Malcolm resisted the urge to enfold her in his arms and comfort her, for clearly she was unhappy with this situation, though she did her best to move forward and accept it.

And then Jeanette’s description of Rowan’s gift cut through his emotions and settled in his warrior’s mind. Her gift was defensive—though he knew not how powerful, nor how it worked . . . yet. Thanks to Jeanette’s odd understanding she’d obtained from the stag, they had escaped discovery yesterday, leaving them in a position of knowledge, of which the English were unaware. His mind began to sort out the things he knew and the things he needed to know.

It was like looking down from the heights over a battlefield—assessing strengths, weaknesses, advantages. And then he remembered the castle bailey and the open space that should have been the curtain wall.

They said the last Lady, the last Guardian, had been able to protect the castle despite the crumbled curtain wall . . .

“What can you do with your gift, Rowan?” he asked.

“So far? I can throw things, bring down stone ledges, topple a tree or two. Mostly I can protect myself, but little more.”

He turned his attention from his memory of the castle to the tall, willowy frame of the woman. Fleetingly he thought how much he preferred the soft curves of Jeanette, but he pressed that away lest it distract him from his own particular gift—battle strategy.

“Throw things? Like what? Rocks? A knife?”

Nicholas actually chuckled. “She has thrown a shoe from a window . . . with her mind.”

“With her mind.” Malcolm shook his head. He had heard the words from Jeanette and now from Nicholas, but he could not imagine how such a thing could be done.

Scotia glared at him, as if she waited for him to question the truth of her cousin’s ability. Jeanette smiled, clearly proud of her cousin in spite of the lingering tension between them. Duncan stood with his fists upon his hips, as if daring Malcolm to make light of their Guardian. Nicholas crooked an eyebrow at his wife and she stood, then reached for an ermine sack that Malcolm only now realized always hung at her waist. She did not open it, simply held it in her hand, closed her eyes, and seemed to mutter something under her breath. When she opened her eyes Nicholas held out his hand, Malcolm’s dirk laying flat on his palm.

“You’ll be wanting to stay on your toes, lad,” Nicholas said with a grin.

The next thing Malcolm knew, the dirk was flying out of Nicholas’s hand without the man moving any muscles even a wee bit. It flew at Malcolm, just barely missing his head. “Och!” he cried, ducking to the side too late to have it be of any use, but the reflex would not be denied. “God’s bones!”

The dirk sliced through the tent, and landed with a thunk that sounded like it had hit a tree.

Rowan grinned. “ ’Tis not much yet that I can do, but I am getting the hang of it.” She released the sack to hang by her side again, and sat back down.

Malcolm was so surprised, he had a hard time forming words. He’d never seen such a thing. “ ’Tis a formidable weapon if it can be used under duress.”

“I have done so,” Rowan said, notching her chin up. “I brought down a stone ledge upon the English soldiers who came before in the midst of a battle where I myself had been fighting for my life.”

Malcolm added this to his list of assets the MacAlpins could call upon in the coming battle.

“You cannot defend the whole clan, though?”

“Nay, not yet. My aunt could set protections but I have not mastered such a skill.”

“How many warriors have you, Nicholas?”

“A score, plus lads, as you have seen this day, who are willing, but not yet well trained.”

“Dinna forget the women of the clan,” Rowan said. “Even without a gift and the Targe, the women of Dunlairig will defend their homes and their families as fiercely as any man.”

Malcolm knew ’twas true of his own clan’s womenfolk. He did not doubt ’twas true of the MacAlpin women, as well, though women played a different role in battles. He considered all Jeanette had told him and all he had learned today. He layered upon it the condition of the castle, the English scouting party, and the threat to the “traitor and the witch.” He let his gaze linger on Jeanette, still amazed at how much she had come to mean to him in such a brief time, and he made his decision.

“Chief,” he addressed Nicholas formally, “do you wish for my help in defending your clan from this English assault?”

Nicholas nodded, moved behind Malcolm, and reached through the rip in the tent, pulling Malcolm’s dirk from its landing place. He handed it to Malcolm, hilt first.

Malcolm reached for it with his right hand, only realizing too late that he could not grasp it tightly with that hand. The dirk fell to the ground, its quiet thud loud in the silence of the tent. Malcolm retrieved it from the floor with his left hand, sliding it into its sheath, his humiliation burning in his gut.

Nicholas considered Malcolm for a long time—at least it seemed a long time—before he nodded. “We will take all the help you can give for as long as you can give it. In the meantime,” Nicholas said, “we have several immediate problems. Duncan, take Malcolm so he can show you where he and Jeanette lost the trail last night, and find the English party. See if you can learn more about how many there are and what their plans might be. Scotia, you must help Jeanette and Rowan to—”

“We need to return to the caves,” Jeanette interrupted. She pushed herself up from the bench. “If you can spare a few guards to return with me and Scotia—”

“I will not go back to the caves,” Scotia said, her arms crossed and her chin raised. “I can be of more use here. I can keep watch as well as any of the lads you have doing that task and I will go mad if I have to stay there with all the bairns and weans. I’ll not go back.”

Jeanette and Rowan exchanged a look that Malcolm could not read, then Rowan looked to Nicholas with a raised eyebrow.

Nicholas considered the lass, and to her credit, Scotia did not fidget or back down, even under the scrutiny of her chief. “You will do as you are told?”

She nodded.

“Without argument?” Rowan added.

“Without argument,” Scotia said.

“Very well,” Nicholas said. “We can always use more people on watch.”

Duncan looked at Malcolm. “We’ll away now,” he said.

“Do not leave without me, angel,” Malcolm said to Jeanette, wondering if he looked as tired as she did. “We can leave for the caves after this business is taken care of. I’ll not trust your safety to anyone else.”

Jeanette nodded and smiled up at him. “I will wait for you. Find those English soldiers, Malcolm. Find them.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

T
WO DAYS LATER
, Jeanette sneezed at the dust she was stirring up while sweeping out a tiny cave that would serve well as sleeping quarters for one of the families who were crowded into the main cave with all the rest of the women, children, auld men, and a small contingent of warriors. Jeanette leaned the broom against the wall just inside the cave and stepped out into the waning sunlight.

Malcolm and Duncan had tracked the English to where they had doubled back on Malcolm and Jeanette, but the trail vanished after that. She and Malcolm, along with a few guards, had traveled fast to return to the Glen of Caves and since then she had hardly had a moment to speak to him. He’d been busy training the lads who were big enough to wield anything even vaguely weaponlike, working with the warriors to make sure the passes were watched, and planning ways to protect the clan should the English discover them here. Jeanette had been busy helping the women of the clan clean out the many small caves that riddled the side of the ben, setting up small cookfires, and settling families into the caves as they could. There were far too many of them to continue living on top of each other in the large cave.

Her stomach growled and she yawned. She needed to eat. She needed to sleep. But even more than either of those she needed to get to the chronicles of the Guardians. Ever since that odd moment with the stag in the forest, she had felt there was something ancient at work in her, but she could not remember ever hearing of any Guardian who’d communed with living animals. Animal guides in dreams, yes. ’Twas a common thing for a Guardian to have portentous dreams, but she had not given her dream nearly enough weight, until she’d seen the roebuck in the forest.

She let her gaze settle on Malcolm where he sat near the mouth of the big cave. The day she had seen the stag had been wonderful and difficult. Enlightening and frightening by turns. The time she had spent in Malcolm’s company, especially in his embrace, had lifted her spirits and opened her heart to her golden warrior.

She could not help it. She was drawn to the man, thrilling at every small touch, every fleeting glance, every cocky smile and private wink. She always took a bit longer than necessary when tending his arm, taking advantage to feel the heat of his skin against her palms, taking the opportunity to let his scent fill her lungs and linger over her skin. Just thinking about him made her want him just as she had when they trysted near the heather, though ’twas not seemly for a maid to think about a man in such a carnal way.

Suddenly he looked up, catching her eye as if he had felt her gaze upon him. The heat that flared between them took her breath away. Aileas called out that the meal was ready at just that moment. Weans raced between Jeanette and Malcolm, breaking the hold he had on her. And when the clanfolk had settled, Malcolm was nowhere to be seen.

Disappointment was pushed aside quickly when she found him by the fire, getting his food. There was no future for either of them, with the English threatening everything, and his responsibility to his own clan, no matter how much they seemed to crave each other’s company, each other’s touch, or how many heated looks they exchanged. Nay, there was no future, just an ache that filled her chest. She chided herself for the weakness she allowed the man to create in her.

As everyone waited their turn at the venison, and then settled down around the fire for their meal with the weans, she knew this was her time, finally, to look to the chronicle scrolls. She hurried to the main cave, grabbed a candle, and lit it from the fire that was kept burning just at the mouth of the sheltering rock, then she made her way to the very back of the cave where she had put the scrolls for safekeeping, protected from the damp by their hardened leather tubes. She would find out if what she had experienced with the stag was some sort of gift that ran in the Guardians, for if she was showing signs of a true gift, at least she would have that connection to her mother, and the Guardians that came before her. At least she would have that when Malcolm returned to his own clan and all else had been taken from her.

M
ALCOLM RETURNED TO
the cookfire with his now empty trencher and refilled it, but not for himself. Jeanette had not joined the clan for the meal. He had hoped she would come and sit beside him, close enough that their hips might touch, and he might be able to lean toward her, whisper in her ear, and feel the heat of her against him. He had thought to tease a laugh from her again, though not in the way he had in the forest overlooking the heather meadow.

His loins reacted to that memory and he had to stop and calm himself. ’Twas a difficult thing to do when the lass had cast him such a look of wanting that he had contemplated dragging her back into that tiny cave she’d been cleaning all afternoon, so he could have her then and there.

He made his way with his laden trencher from the cookfire to the small cave, but it was empty. He looked about, in case he’d missed her, though he doubted he would not have noticed Jeanette’s pale hair. She was not amongst the gathering. Instinct had him moving slowly, so as to draw no attention, toward the large cave where their stores were kept and where Jeanette slept. He stopped just inside the gloom, letting his eyes adjust even though ’twas twilight outside. The faint flicker of candlelight shone from the depths of the cavern. He picked his way carefully past the belongings and stores that were amazingly organized and found Jeanette sitting cross-legged on the floor, at least a dozen large scrolls scattered about her. The candle was stuck in a blob of its own melted wax on a large rock she had pulled close enough to illuminate the scroll she was studying.

“Ahem.” Malcolm didn’t want to startle her.

She glanced up at him, smiled, and motioned for him to sit down. He set the trencher down long enough to move a few of the scrolls, so he could sit close to her, but also so he could look at the scroll that held her attention.

“I brought you food,” he said.

“My thanks,” she said, not looking up from the scroll and not reaching for the trencher he held up for her to take.

“You need to eat, angel. I have not seen you have more than a morsel since we returned.”

She nodded, as if agreeing with him, but she didn’t take her eyes from the scroll as she unwound it more, revealing a stunning illustration of fanciful beasts, surrounded by a border of intricate knots.

“I knew it,” she said, but he was sure she spoke to herself, not him.

His vanity was momentarily bruised by her lack of attention to him, but then he realized really, it wasn’t. She was absorbed in whatever she was reading, her brows drawn down over her clear blue eyes, the left side of her lower lip caught between her teeth. She almost glowed with whatever she was discovering.

Rather than pressing her, he let her focus on the scroll as he awkwardly cut up the meat into bite-sized pieces with his eating knife. He lifted one piece to her mouth and she opened for him, almost as if she didn’t realize what she was doing. Slowly she chewed and when she swallowed, he fed her another morsel. The third time he offered her the juicy meat, she looked at him, locking her gaze with his as she opened her mouth, then caught his hand with hers and closed her lips around his fingers, capturing the juice upon her tongue.

Jeanette’s breath was unsteady, her lids heavy, and the sigh she gave as he pulled his fingers from her mouth made him swallow hard. Twice.

“You are killing me, angel,” he said, knowing his voice revealed exactly how hard he was controlling himself right now. He fed her again and this time, when she closed her eyes and leaned her shoulder against his, he knew he was lost. He would do anything for this woman.

She took the trencher from him then, tugging it from his grasp, and used her own fingers to finish the food.

“Killing is not what I want,” she said, but she did not look at him when she said it.

It didn’t matter. She wanted him as much as he wanted her and that was enough for the moment.

“What are you reading?” he asked, knowing they needed to think of something besides each other, or risk being found in a very compromising position when the others returned to the cave.

She looked about her. “The chronicles of the Guardians. It is not a complete history of the Guardians, for most surely could not read or write.” She lightly touched several scrolls. “These are the oldest.”

He added the knowledge of the chronicles to the growing information about the Guardian and the Targe he had collected since he had first met Jeanette, which seemed like months ago but was really only a little over a sennight.

“What are you looking for?” he asked.

She shook her head slowly. “I do not ken exactly.” She let her hand trace a beautiful but simple drawing of a stag, her hand not touching the scroll, but hovering just over the lines. “You remember the roe deer at the abandoned cottage?”

“Aye.”

“I thought perhaps that might be the manifestation of some gift that runs in the Guardian line.”

He took her hand where it had stilled over the drawing and kissed her knuckles. “From what I have been told and have seen myself, there is no doubt that you are of your mother’s line.”

“I ken that,” she said quietly. “I just thought . . . Perhaps . . .”

“Perhaps you were coming into a Guardian gift now?”

She nodded. “ ’Tis silly. I ken it well. Rowan is Guardian and my only job is to see her trained in the ways of the Guardians, though she does not allow me to do that. I can accept her as Guardian. I have. She did not want it, but she has taken on the responsibilities, chosen her Protector—”

“Her what?” he asked, thinking that sounded like a good role for a husband.

“Her Protector. Nicholas. The Guardian chooses her Protector and he becomes both her husband and the chief of the clan.”

“Is that all he gets to do?” He was grinning at her, trying to lighten the mood a little, and he was rewarded for his efforts with a smile.

“He gets to father the next Guardian . . .” And her smile was gone, replaced by a faraway look that he was coming to recognize as Jeanette thinking hard about something.

“Angel?” he prompted her.

“I was just thinking that bearing the next Guardian was another thing that should have fallen to me.” She sighed. “ ’Tis the women of MacAlpin who have always been the Guardian for as long as the chronicle has been kept, until now. I suppose the next Guardian will be of the MacGregor line and I will be only the one to pen the tale.” She laid her hand on what looked to be the newest of the scrolls.

Malcolm didn’t know what to say so he rubbed his thumb over her knuckles where their clasped hands rested on his knee.

“Did you find nothing about . . . hearing animals?”

She smiled again and it was as if the sun shone down upon the two of them, wrapping them in light and warmth.

“There is some talk of animal guides, but it seems to be a part of other, stronger gifts, which I have shown no sign of.”

“Yet,” he said.

“I am well past the time my gift, if I were to have one, should have manifested. Scotia, too.”

“But didn’t Rowan just come into her gift?”

“Aye, but it seems she had it when she was a girl and denied it so long, it ceased to function—until it was needed again.”

She leaned against him, once more laying her head upon his shoulder. “I feel so lost, Malcolm. I know not what I am to do with my life anymore. And now Rowan will not let me help her learn the ways of the Guardians just when we need her powers the most.”

Malcolm shifted enough to put his arm around her and pull her closer to him, encircling her with his other arm as she put hers around him.

“I have not known you long,” Jeanette said, “but I feel . . .”

“I feel the same way,” he said, knowing he could not put into words the bond that was building between them anymore than she seemed able. He kissed the top of her head and they sat surrounded by the history of her line in the flickering candlelight until they heard the sounds of fussy bairns being brought into the cave, the first wave of clanfolk settling in for the night.

Jeanette pulled out of his embrace and laid a hand on his cheek. “Thank you for . . .”—even in the faint light he could see her cheeks flush—“for holding me,” she finished.

He laid his hand on her cheek, mirroring her soft touch that shot straight through him. “I would do anything for you, angel. Anything.”

She rewarded him with another smile, not the bright smile he most wished to see, nor the laughter she had gifted him with in the rainy wood, but it was better than the lost look in her eyes that had torn at him.

“The women and weans are well settled here, are they not?” he asked.

“There is still work to be done clearing out some of the smaller caves so we can spread out a bit, but aye, mostly the work of moving in is done. Why?”

“Tomorrow I need to do a bit more exploring of the glen. I have yet to make it much south of here. Would you come with me? You could say you need to search for herbs for your simples and I could protect you while I do my task, too. Would it raise too many eyebrows?”