Once a Warrior (17 page)

“How much longer until we can defend ourselves and you can leave?”

Malcolm lifted a brow. “You make it sound as if you are anxious for me to go.”

“You didn’t want to come here, MacFane,” he reminded him tersely. “You only came for the gold, and you said you wouldn’t stay longer than three months. After last night I thought you would be more anxious than ever to leave.”

“How do you know about last night?” demanded Malcolm, stunned.

Rob gave him a dry glance. “I was hit by the arrow. Remember?”

Of course. The arrow. What the hell was the matter with him?

“If you think I will be driven away by fear, you can put your mind at ease. I’m not going anywhere.”

Rob’s jaw tightened. If Malcolm hadn’t known better, he would have thought his answer displeased the boy.

“As for your clan,” he continued, “I don’t believe they will ever be able to defend themselves. At least not against a seasoned force. Your people are learning well, now that they have decided they want to learn. But they lack the ruthlessness it takes to be a warrior. And brutality isn’t something I can teach them.”

“Are you saying we’re just wasting our time?”

“No. At the very least I can train you to fend off a small attack. But for anything more than that you’re going to need help. Which is why you must make alliances with the surrounding clans.”

Rob shook his head. “We MacKendricks have never made alliances. An alliance means we would be forced to go to war whenever the other clan demands it. We have always been a clan of peace. I could never ask my people to consent to such an agreement.”

“It is not your decision to make,” pointed out Malcolm. “This is a matter that must be put before the council.”

“Then present it to the council,” said the boy, shrugging his slim shoulders. “They will never agree.”

He was probably right, Malcolm realized. The peace-loving MacKendricks might be willing to learn to defend their own homes, but going out to fight for others was another matter entirely.

“If you won’t make alliances, then you’d better hurry and find yourselves a new laird with an army, before you are attacked again.”

“It’s not that simple. He has to be the right one.”

“The right one for what?”

“To lead my people,” said Rob impatiently.

“At this point I would think anyone who was a relatively decent sort with a good-sized army would do.”

“Perhaps for some clans,” declared Rob scornfully. “Not for the MacKendricks.” He turned to study the loch again. “The next MacKendrick laird must be far greater than that. He has to be exceptionally strong, relentlessly brave, and driven by his innate sense of honor.”

“As I was?” asked Malcolm, half joking.

“Yes, MacFane,” he agreed tautly, hurling a stone at the water. “As you
were
.”

The insult cut far deeper than Malcolm had expected. Why was he sitting there taking abuse from this filthy slip of a boy? he wondered angrily. He had better things to do with his time. He rose and began to limp toward his horse.

Ariella regretted the words the instant they were out of her mouth. She did not know why she had tried to hurt him. But something had changed between them since last night. He had wrapped his arms around her and drawn her close, and she had felt life and heat quicken within her. Somehow, despite his battered body and his drunken, drugged state, he had kindled a flame of desire in her. For one brief, impossible moment she had felt safe as she’d stood shielded against the power of his body—she, who was keeper of the sword and had a solemn duty to give her heart to none other than the next MacKendrick. Her behavior was as incomprehensible as it was shameful. That was why she wanted him to go. From the moment he had seated himself beside her, she had felt an overwhelming need to drive him away. Yet now he was leaving, and she was gripped with loss.

“MacFane.”

Malcolm stopped.

“I—I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

“Really? How did you mean it, then?” His tone was heavily mocking.

She paused, trying to choose her words carefully. “You did not come here because you wanted to help us. You came here for the gold. All I meant was, the true MacKendrick would not be motivated by thoughts of his own reward.”

“You are deluding yourselves if you believe such a man exists,” Malcolm stated harshly. “Any warrior who becomes your laird will do so because he wants control of your lands and your clan. Once here, he will see how skilled your people are at making beautiful objects, and he will want those as well, to sell to other clans and villages for more gold. He will take a pretty girl to his bed and father children. And as the years go by, if he is fair and just, no one will remember why he originally became laird. At some point it will cease to matter. But I tell you now, any man who comes to rule your clan will do so not because of what he has to give, but because of what he has to gain.”

“You’re wrong!” spat Ariella, jumping to her feet and closing the distance between them. “There was a time, MacFane, when you would have come only because you were needed. That would have been more than reason enough. You found ample reward merely in the act of helping someone. Maybe you have changed, but you cannot make me believe there is not another out there, somewhere, who lives his life by the same standard of honor you once revered.”

“Then you better goddamn well find him,” drawled Malcolm, “before you are attacked by another who decides to butcher you one by one until he gets what he wants.”

Vivid, brutal memories rose to Ariella’s mind. She wrapped her arms around her body, trying to protect herself from those chilling images. “I will find him,” she vowed in a trembling voice.

Malcolm stared at Rob in surprise. His arms were closed tightly around his small frame, as if he found the gesture comforting. Malcolm’s memory of Ariella returned: She stood before him once again, her slim form taut with anguish as she wrapped herself in her arms. Her height had been about the same as the lad’s, her head barely reaching the middle of Malcolm’s chest. Disconcerted, Malcolm studied the slight figure before him. Rob’s shoulder-length hair was tangled and dirty, making it impossible to assess its color, other than the fact that it was dark. He focused his attention on the face, trying to see beneath the layers of grime. The boy’s grubby cheekbones were high, his nose small and straight, his chin a determined little thrust—a delicacy of structure Malcolm knew well, for he had studied it endlessly as he’d gazed at the statue of Ariella in his chamber. But, he reminded himself impatiently, this filthy, insolent pup was not the woman who had awakened such desire in him last night. He shook his head, wondering what the hell was the matter with him. If there was a resemblance, it was probably because they were somehow related. Ariella MacKendrick was dead. Hadn’t Alpin assured him of that?

And so she remains, watching over us, trying to guide us along the next path.

No, he realized suddenly. Alpin hadn’t told him she was dead. He had said a part of her had died. And that, more than anyone in the clan, Ariella was a fighter.

If there was one thing Malcolm knew, it was that fighters didn’t kill themselves.

He frowned.

There was something strange, Ariella noticed, about the way MacFane was staring at her. His expression was hard, and his blue eyes burned with intensity, as if he were trying to see deep within her. Unnerved, she turned away, fearing she had revealed too much to him.

“Believe what you like, MacFane,” she finished indifferently, scratching her hip. “The matter is no concern of yours.” She spat upon the ground for effect, pulled on her boots, then slumped her shoulders and began to stalk toward her horse.

He grabbed her by her wounded arm, causing her to cry out.

Malcolm eased his grip, but he did not release her. Instead he grasped the neckline of her shirt and tore it down with one quick motion, exposing her bandaged arm and part of her chest. Ariella gasped in outrage and jerked the fabric up, but she knew it was too late. He had seen the swath of linen binding her breasts flat. If that weren’t enough, she could see that the sight of her bandage was bringing back the memory of the night before.

Malcolm stared at the girl before him, dumbfounded. She was as filthy and ragged as she had been an instant earlier, but suddenly he could not imagine mistaking her for a boy. Her features were too fine and delicate, her gray eyes too wide and beautiful. Anger had eradicated her slouched, boyish stance, straightening her spine so she could face him with the full height of her fury.

“My God,” he breathed, overwhelmed, “you’re alive.”

“Yes!” she spat, casting him a look of pure rage. “With no thanks to you, MacFane!”

“But why?” he demanded, still struggling to believe the boy he had befriended was actually a woman. “Why did you pretend you were dead?”

“I had no choice!” she hissed. “Roderic attacked and murdered my father because he wanted me for his bride, even if it meant he had to kill every one of my people to force me to agree. Only my death would make him stop his brutality.”

Roderic.

“Once I realized you weren’t coming, and my clan could not possibly defeat his warriors, I set the tower afire, knowing I could escape through a secret passage that led to the lower level of the castle.”

It couldn’t be the same Roderic.

“What clan was this Roderic from?” demanded Malcolm brusquely.

“He said he was a Sutherland. But most of what he said was lies,” she finished bitterly.

“How is it that he came to your lands?”

Ariella looked at him in confusion, not understanding his intense interest. “I found him two months before the attack, lying wounded near the MacFane border. He told me he had been fighting in King William’s army, and that when he had returned home, he’d discovered his parents had died. He claimed he was on his way to Inverness to find work when he was attacked by thieves who stole his money, his sword, and his horse.”

A compelling story, thought Malcolm. Bound to elicit nothing but compassion from a people as ingenuous as the MacKendricks.

“But his wounds were not life threatening,” he drawled.

“No,” said Ariella, shaking her head. “He had been stabbed in the shoulder and leg. He required stitches and rest, but nothing more.”

Nothing serious. Just enough that a guileless girl would take him home and care for him—giving him the opportunity to assess her clan’s castle and its defenses.

“What did this man look like?”

She snorted in disgust. “Some thought him handsome.” She paused a moment, then shrugged her shoulders. “I thought him handsome,” she admitted reluctantly. “He was a tall man, with a broad, muscular body that spoke of endless hours working outdoors.”

Or endless hours spent training.

“His hair was long and fair, and you could tell he was most proud of it. His features were fine, but it was his eyes that captured your attention. They were a most unusual color—”

Green.

“—a dark shade of green—”

A dull roar began to fill his ears.

“—really quite vain, which is why he was so furious when I cut his face,” she finished scornfully.

“You cut his face?” he demanded, astonished.

“When he was dragging me up to the tower. He told me he had mortally wounded my father, and threatened to kill everyone in my clan if I didn’t marry him. His words were horrible, so I took my dirk from under my gown and carved open his cheek.”

“Christ almighty, he could have killed you!” thundered Malcolm, by now fully convinced this man was the Roderic he knew.

“Or I could have killed him,” countered Ariella. “I was aiming for his throat. Unfortunately, he grabbed my wrist.”

Malcolm shook his head, trying to absorb everything she was telling him. Roderic had assessed the MacKendrick clan and decided he wanted it. So he had attacked, killed their laird, then tried to force his daughter to marry him. But she had killed herself, and he’d left.

“If Roderic wanted control of your clan, and you were just a means of gaining that control, then why didn’t he stay after you supposedly burned to death? He could have wed your sister instead.” Catherine was young, but not so young Roderic couldn’t have forced her to marry him.

“Catherine is not a direct descendant of the founder of our clan,” explained Ariella. “Her parents died of a fever when she was two, and my father brought her to the castle to live with us. Marriage to her would not have given Roderic a blood tie to our original chief.”

“Even so, he could have stayed and simply forced your clan to submit to him,” argued Malcolm. “He didn’t need you for that.”

Ariella hesitated. She couldn’t possibly tell him about the sword. If MacFane knew of its powers, he would want it for himself.

And he was not the one.

“He could have forced them to a point,” she allowed, “but not in their hearts. Roderic had murdered their laird, as well as a dozen other men, and caused me to kill myself. No MacKendrick would ever forgive him for that. If he was foolish enough to stay here, it would only be a matter of time before poison was placed in his food, or his throat was cut as he slept. No matter how many warriors he brought to guard him, he would never have an easy moment. He must have realized this, so he just stole what he could and left.” She shrugged her shoulders dismissively.

There was something she wasn’t telling him. Roderic was not a warrior who retreated from something he wanted. And he could hardly have believed he had much to fear from these pipers and poets. If he had thought he might be poisoned, he would have forced a child to taste his food for him first. No, there was something else Roderic had wanted. Something that Ariella’s death made him believe he could no longer have.

“Is this why you have pretended to be a boy?” Malcolm asked, putting the matter aside. “Because you think if Roderic learns that you live, he will return?”

She nodded. “He will be furious when he discovers I tricked him. With neither a laird nor an army, he knows how vulnerable we are. My clan knew I was alive, but I could not risk letting any outsiders know.”