Medieval Highlands 01 - Highland Vengeance (55 page)

*

Daniel rode hard to the village. Assuming Maryn had intended a visit with Jesslyn, he went directly to her cottage. Leaping from his mount, he strode to the door and pounded upon it.

“Daniel!” Alleck threw his arms around Daniel’s legs. “Look what I can do!” He rolled each side of his tongue together and stuck it out.

Smiling down at the lad who was clinging to him like hoarfrost on heather, Daniel replied, “That’s very well-done, lad.” Looking around, he said, “Where is your mama?”

“She’s gone to Niall’s house to get back our bucket. Where’s Bao?”

“He’s bathing in the soldier’s—”

“Daniel?” Jesslyn said from behind him.

Daniel turned and smiled a greeting. “Is—”

“I’m so pleased to see you! The negotiations went well, I pray?” She scooted around the two and tugged on Daniel’s arm to bring him further into her home, Niall directly behind her.

Niall showed Alleck something he had taken out of his pocket and the two walked further into the room to inspect it, whispering to each other.

“Aye, quite well; I’ll explain later. First, I must find my wife—have you seen her? The stableman said she rode her mare down to the village not long ago.”

Jesslyn frowned in confusion. “Nay. I was expecting her to visit me, but when she did not arrive, I supposed other duties had intruded.”

Niall raised his head and piped, “She rode off with one of them people that tell those merry tales. I saw ‘er.”

Daniel thought he’d surely misunderstood the lad. “What did you say, Niall?”

“She rode off on her horse with one of them player people,” he said with more force.

Thinking the man may have needed assistance with something, but still fighting alarm for his wife’s welfare, Daniel said, “Do you know why she rode off with the man, Niall?”

“Aye, he tol’ her that her papa was hurt and wanted her to come get’im.”

Daniel’s heart stopped and then pounded a rapid tattoo inside his chest as, with a gasp, Jesslyn shot a glance at him and whispered, “Godamercy”. He fell to his knees in front of the lad and grasped his upper arms. “Where?” he asked harshly. “Where did you see them—can you show me?”

Niall nodded. “Aye. They was on the path from the keep.”

In the next instant, he was on his feet once more, with Niall in his arms, and striding toward the entry. Jesslyn swung the door wide and told Alleck to stay behind, giving him her sternest stare and Alleck nodded, a worried look on his face as he watched the three of them leave.

In low tones Daniel said to Jesslyn, “Laird Donald is safe at his keep, I know this because Bao and I left him there early this morn.” To Niall he said, “Which direction did they go in?”

Niall began to cry. “They took off o’er th’ glen. Did somethin’ bad happen to the lady?”

Daniel rubbed the lad’s back and gave Jesslyn a supplicating look.

“Nay, nay,” Jesslyn rushed to say, jogging to keep up with the pair. “Be at ease, Niall. The laird only wants to see his wife. For he has been gone many days and he misses her sorely.”

Niall nodded and sniffled as he scrubbed away his tears on the back of his sleeve.

Daniel sighed in relief. Handing Niall to Jesslyn a moment, he mounted his steed before hoisting the lad up onto his lap. Then, realizing that Jesslyn was determined to go with them, he helped her to mount behind them as well.

They took off at a fast clip. “You’ll show me the exact place you saw them on the path, will you not, lad?”

Niall nodded and smiled, clearly calmed by Jesslyn’s half-truth. “I’ve never been on a horse before! It’s merry to be so high up—and the wind’s blowin’ my face!” After a second, he sat forward and pointed to a place just ahead on the road. “There! They was right there by that bushy thing. He got on the horse behind ‘er and then they rode off that way.” He pointed to his right in the direction of the glen.

“What were you doing all the way up here this morn, Niall?” Jesslyn asked.

“I was lookin’ for shiny stones. I’ve a pile of ‘em now. I was over there”—he indicated the area behind the shrub—“when the man tol’ the lady that her papa needed her to come get’im. And then they took off!” He slapped his hands together, sliding one palm over the other and arcing his arm into the air.

Daniel’s mouth went dry. “So the man was nice to her, not mean?”

“Aye. He jes’ tol’ her ‘bout her papa bein’ hurt by some freed boosters an’ that she should come help her papa.”

“My thanks for your help, lad,” Daniel said to Niall. He looked over his shoulder at Jesslyn. “Make haste back to your cottage. I must find my wife.”

Jesslyn nodded grimly and dismounted. She took the lad in her arms as Daniel handed him down to her. Setting Niall on his feet, she took his hand and looked back at Daniel. “You must find her quickly, Daniel,” she said before turning and hurrying back toward the village with Niall in tow.

Daniel kicked his horse into a gallop and headed back to the fortress. His guts churning, his only thought to find his wife as soon as possible. But first he must gather a group of his men together to organize a search. Not one inch of terra firma would remain unexplored.

*

Maryn watched as Clyde Ramsey leaned to his side and opened the satchel he’d evidently brought to the ruin sometime earlier. Taking out a small cask, he opened its spout and poured ale down his throat. He drank as if he was dying of thirst and the spirits were his only salvation.

With each new draught, she became increasingly more alarmed. Fearing he’d be even more vicious if he became drunk, she worked more quickly on the tie at her wrists. Wanting to keep him talking until she’d managed to free herself, she said, “So ‘tis vengeance and your prior position you seek with this plan.” She’d almost gotten the binding on her wrists loosened enough to take it off.

“Aye, ‘tis all I’ve thought of since the night you ruined my life.” His face, already flushed from the effects of the fermented brew, now turned a deeper shade of scarlet. His eyes narrowed and his lips thinned. “I was derided by everyone, including my underlings, for many days, and then I was banished.
Banished!
After all the years of loyalty and service I gave the Macleans! And ‘twas all due to you and your meddling.”

Maryn did not want him to become so enraged that he decided to end her life forthwith, so she pretended a contrition she did not feel. “Pray pardon me, sir, I had no idea you had been subjected to such insults.” The last knot finally loosened, she slipped her wrists out of the loop, but kept her hands behind her back.

“Puny words of penitence cannot temper the bitter tincture of degradation and loss you’ve forced down my throat. I hate you. You, with your perfect life, have judged me and toppled me from my hard-earned status without thought or any real justification.” Clyde Ramsey came to his feet in a swaying motion. “And now you will pay for your meddling.” He reached down and grabbed her arm, roughly yanking her up as well.

Maryn did not have time to grasp the tie on her way up. It fell to the ground behind her.

Clyde Ramsey saw what she’d done and gave a rageful growl. He shook her with such force, it jarred her neck and spine. And then he belted her hard across the face with the back of his hand.

She cried out as a searing spike of pain spread across her cheek, going bone-deep. Her neck twisted with the force of the blow and she would have fallen to the ground if the evil man had not kept such a bruising grip on her arm.

“You thought to get away from me, you red-haired witch? I see I must prove to you that you are mine to do with as I will.”

Her brain spun. Terror made her body weak, her limbs, liquid.

He brought his fist back.

She cringed. “Please! No—” she said in a whispered whimper, past the tears that clogged her throat.

But he swung it forward, pounding it into her belly, twice, in rapid sequence. The force of the blows lifted her off her feet. Agony, fire-hot and eviscerating tore at her insides forcing a scream from her lips. In the next instant, bright white lights flashed before her eyes and she hit the ground. ‘Twas like a dream. Like falling on a cloud. For her only sensation remained centered in her abdomen.

Far off, as if an echo from another room, she heard Clyde Ramsey’s laugh of diabolical satisfaction. “Now let us see if your neck snaps as easily as that of the players’ maid.”

Through her blood-red haze of racking pain, Maryn saw the demon loom over her, his hands, like the talons of some bird of prey, reaching toward her. She vaguely realized he meant to kill her now, but she was too dizzy, too broken to move. “Daniel,” she whimpered just before her world went black.

*

After giving orders to his men to scour the area further out, Daniel and Bao rushed across the glen in the direction Niall had indicated. They’d decided to search the region around the loch.

“‘Tis Maryn’s slingshot!” Daniel shouted, pointing to the device lying on the heath not far from their destination.

“We’re on the right track, then, thanks be to heaven.” Bao replied.

The two men kept moving, not taking the time to retrieve the weapon.

“Look you, Maryn’s mare!” Bao said a few minutes later. “See it there, tethered to that bush by the old ruin?”

“Thanks be to God!” Daniel replied. Spurring his mount into a trot, he called back over his shoulder, “I will kill the man with my bare hands if he has harmed even so much as one hair on her head!”

“And I will help you hang him by his ballocks in the courtyard as a trophy,” Bao added.

The overriding fear that his wife’s life was in danger would not leave Daniel. And his finding the slingshot had only increased his dread. Tho’ the weapon would not have provided an easy means of overcoming her captor—if, in fact, the man was her captor—it would have given some protection, if used cunningly.

Bao caught up to Daniel. With a nod of his head toward the dilapidated structure, he said, “A hermit inhabits the place. I have only seen him from a distance a few times when I fished the loch for dinner during the time we abided in the forest.”

“Did any of the traveling players have the same look as the hermit?”

Bao thought a moment and then his eyes widened. “Aye! There was one of the players that had a very long beard and hair—remember?”

“Aye—‘tis no doubt the same man. But we shall soon find out for sure, I vow!”

They’d barely made it within three hundred yards of the ruin when they heard bloodcurdling cries coming from inside its walls. Daniel’s heart leapt into his throat. “Maryn!” He kicked his mount into a gallop.

*

Clyde had his hands on Maryn’s shoulders, preparing to lift her up far enough to twist her lolling head and snap her neck. He jerked around when he heard her name called and the sound of horses’ hooves beating the ground. “Blood of Christ!” he growled. Knowing his plan had failed, he rushed out the door toward the mare, set on evading capture.

When he jumped on Fia’s back, she went wild, trying to buck him, but he would not lose his seat. Clyde forced her into a hard gallop in the opposite direction of the two men.

*

“You catch up to him—I must see to my wife,” Daniel shouted to Bao.

“‘Tis done!” Bao shouted back over his shoulder, taking off after the villain.

Daniel leapt off his mount and flew through the door of the ruin. A cold dread filled him as he ran to the place where his wife lay crumpled in a heap, her hand on her stomach.

He fell down to his knees beside her still form. “Maryn?” he murmured brokenly as he brushed the hair from her face with a shaking hand. When she did not respond, he rolled her to her back. Her arm fell limp to her side and panic hit him full-force in the chest, making it hard to take in a breath. Tears he did not know he shed fell onto her cheek and he brushed them away with his sleeve then cradled her face in his hands. Seeing the red mark on its rise, he said through gritted teeth, “The man who did this to you will not survive the day!”

He put his ear to her chest. When he heard the slow, but strong beating of her heart, he closed his eyes and whispered, “Praise be to God.” After a moment, his healer’s instincts took over and he began a thorough examination of his wife’s injuries. Worried at the way she’d been holding her stomach when he came through the door, he started there, fearing she might have lost their babe. Lifting her gown, he looked for signs of miscarriage and was relieved when he found none, though he knew ‘twas still a possibility. There were two rather large red welts that were quickly turning into bruises on the mound of her belly. This was why she’d screamed so horribly. That same rage, that same horror, that same disgust, the same
fear
he’d felt upon finding his mother and grandfather that day of the massacre filled him now and he threw his head back and roared.

*

Clyde rode Fia recklessly, caring more that he not be caught than that he might fall and break his neck. For he would rather die in that way than be captured and subjected to the humiliation of being brought to the Maclean holding and publicly flogged. The mare was blowing hard now and slowing despite his vicious kicks to her side. He’d managed to get himself away from the loch and across a large portion of the glen. He was speeding toward the wood, hoping he’d be able to lose himself in its depths, and then come out on the other side and travel far away from here. Mayhap even to
Locarbaidh
. Aye, ‘twas a good plan.