Ghost of the Thames (35 page)

“Barred?” Gavin interrupted, staring
at the tower.

“Aye. The worst of the damage is on
the far side, though, where the tower looks over the loch. That’s
where they were all sleeping when the fire started, God rest their
souls. By the time the rest of us in the Old Keep and the north
wing smelled the smoke, the whole south wing was
ablaze.”

Gavin strode to the stone wall and
peered through the slits of the lower windows. He could see shafts
of light coming through the rafters of the floors above.

“Why do you allow servants into this
wing?” Gavin asked shortly, making the old man’s face suddenly
flush red. “Those upper floors look dangerous, even from
here.”

“No living person, m’lord, has stepped
foot in this wing since the fire,” the steward responded with
conviction. “As I said, I myself had all the doors barred and the
inside corridors walled up. With the exception of some badger...or
a fox, perhaps...” His voice trailed off.

Gavin stepped back from the building
and looked upward at the windows in the tower, his eyes finally
coming to rest on the last one in the top floor. “I saw the shutter
in that chamber move.”

The steward stared briefly at the
tower windows, then looked at his new master.

“Aye, m’lord. We see the same thing
from time to time, but ‘tis just the wind.” As the new laird moved
along the front of the edifice, Allan followed along. “The smoke
was everywhere, and the stairwells leading up to it are ruined. Of
that I’m certain. The roof there may be sound, though, and a bird
or two may have taken up lodging there. And wings are what you’d be
needing to make your way into the tower.”

Gavin peered up again at the looming
tower. A number of shutters were banging against stone in the
rising breeze. Nature, it appeared, had the upper hand in every
window...but one. The window that he had seen open before, now
stood closed against the north wind.

So the birds of the Highlands can
latch a shutter, Gavin thought to himself. Turning without another
word, he started for the main entrance of the Old Keep, his steward
in tow.

*

No one ever dared step into her
domain.

The crumbling, fire-damaged roofs, the
gaping holes in the walls overlooking the sheer cliffs of Loch
Moray, and the scorched, unsteady floors all combined to make the
south wing of Ironcross Castle a forbidding place to enter. But as
Joanna made her way quietly through a blasted room toward the
wooden panel and the secret passageway that would take her down to
the subterranean tunnels and caverns, she suddenly sensed that
someone had been through there, and quite recently.

She paused and looked about her in the
encroaching dusk. There was little to be seen. Dropping softly to
her hands and knees on a plank by the doorway, she peered closely
at the ash-covered floor of the passage beyond the door. She
herself always avoided those corridors for fear of being discovered
by some intrepid soul snooping in this wing.

Squinting in the growing gloom, she
saw them clearly--the faint imprints left behind by someone coming
from the Old Keep. Whoever it was had gone in the direction of her
father’s study...or what was left of it. Quietly, Joanna rose and,
hugging the wall, followed the passage toward the study.

Standing rigidly beside the door, she
peeked inside the charred room. The chamber was empty. She peered
into the murky light of the corridor again. Since she had just come
from the top floor, whoever had come in here must have continued on
and descended the nearly impassable stairwell to the main
floor.

Relieved, she wrapped her cloak
tightly about her and glanced inside the study again. Her chest
tightened with that familiar sorrow as she stepped inside the
fire-ravaged chamber. Nothing had changed here since that terrible
night. All lay in ruin. Hanging from one wall were the scraps of
burned rag that had once been a tapestry. Elsewhere a scorched
table and the broken sticks of a chair. Everything
ruined.

Everything but the foolish portrait
hanging over the mantel of the fireplace. She stared loathingly at
the face that smiled faintly back at her. Her throat knotted at the
sight of herself, of the picture of perfection she had once been.
What vanity, she thought angrily.

She wanted to cross the room and take
hold of the fire-blackened frame. She wanted to pull it down, smash
it, destroy it as it should have been destroyed long ago. But the
unsteady floor stopped her approach. From experience, she knew
every loose board, every dangerous plank. Nay, she hadn’t survived
this ordeal so long just to break her neck falling through the
floor. But those eyes dared her. Challenged her to come ahead. She
hated that painting. Why should this blasted thing survive when no
one else had? No one, including herself.

As a tear welled up, Joanna dashed at
the glistening bead. Turning away from that vain and beautiful
face, she pulled her hood forward and headed for the darkness of
the passages that would take her deep into the earth, where no one
would see what she had become...a ghostly shadow of the past, a
creature of the night, burned and ugly, miserable. Dead.

Disappearing into the dark, Joanna
MacInnes thought once again of her poor mother and father, of all
the innocent ones who had perished in the blaze with
them.

Well, it was her destiny, now, to hide
and await her chance for justice.

*

As the fire’s embers burned out
beneath, a huge log crashed down, sending crackling flames and
sparks flying in the Great Hall’s huge fireplace.

The new laird’s face was in shadow as
he looked around at the young features of the three men sitting
with him. Scattered about the Great Hall, servants and warriors
slept on benches and tables, and a number of dogs lay curled up
amid the rushes covering the stone floor. Most of the household was
already asleep, either here or in the stables and outbuildings, but
Gavin had kept these three trusted warriors with him. In the short
time since they had all arrived, these men had been tasked with
determining what needed to be done to secure the castle. Each man
had gone about his business, and now the Lowlander leaned forward
to hear them.

Edmund began. “I heard with my own
ears the steward passing on your wish to have the south wing opened
for you to view in the morning...”

“Aye,” Peter broke in, gruff and
impatient. “And a couple of the grooms and the old smith hopped to
the task of pulling down one of the blocking walls.”

“The steward has fine control of the
castle folk,” Edmund added admiringly.

“That he does,” Peter agreed. “Though
a body would think barring a door might have been plenty good
enough. Building a wall to stop trespassing!” The thickset warrior
spat critically into the rushes on the floor. “Why, most of the
servants are too old even to lift a latch unaided!”

Gavin interrupted the two men. “I can
see Allan’s concern. He told me that after the fire, he wanted to
be sure that no one would go in that wing, not until such time as
Lady MacInnes or the next laird came along to go through what was
left.” The Lowlander sat back and lifted a cup as he looked about
the silent hall. “With so many accidents plaguing the lairds over
the years, I am certain it shows good judgment to leave everything
untouched. What did you find, Andrew?”

Andrew cleared his throat and spoke.
“In my ride over to the abbey, m’lord, I ran into some of the Earl
of Athol’s men heading north. They all spoke of how strange it was
here after the fire. None of the last laird’s warriors stayed
behind, they said. It seems that they all fled into the mountains
as if they had the devil himself on their tails.”

Gavin drained his cup and put it back
on the table as he turned to Andrew. “What can you tell us of the
abbey?”

“‘
Tis an odd place, that
abbey. Nary a league from here, following the shore of the loch,
but ‘tis nothing but a heap of stones and ruined wall in the
shelter of the high hills. The place is surrounded by pasture and
farmland and some crofters’ cottages, though there is an odd lack
of farm folk about the place.”

“But there are religious there, we
were told.”

“That I don’t know, m’lord,” Andrew
replied. “Those who remain live in the center of the ruined
cloister, in stone cottages they’ve patched together from the old
buildings.”

“Is there an abbot, or someone in
charge?” Gavin pressed.

“Aye, a woman they call
Mater.”

“A woman?” Peter blurted
out.

“Aye,” Andrew responded slowly.
“They’re all women there. All that I saw before they disappeared,
at any rate.” He paused. “And that abbey, m’lord, seems quite
unprotected, sitting there in open as ‘tis!”

“And isn’t that like these
Highlanders,” Peter huffed, “leaving a pack of women...”

Gavin felt the hackles on his neck
rise as his attention was drawn to the far end of the Great Hall.
In a dark corner by the passage into the kitchens and the north
wing, something had moved. A shadow...something...he was certain of
it. Peering into the darkness, the firelight at his back, Gavin
studied the sleeping figures on the benches as he continued to
listen to his men. The servants had been dismissed hours ago. Other
than the three men sitting with him, it was unlikely that anyone
else in the keep would be roaming about.

“I took it upon myself, m’lord, to
tell Mater that you would be stopping by yourself in a day or two.
To pay them a visit.”

“That’s fine,” Gavin answered. He
shook his head slightly at his fanciful imaginings and filled his
cup with more ale. He was tired, he decided, dismissing the notion
with a last glance at the far end of the Hall. His first night in
Ironcross Castle, and already he was falling prey to the
strangeness of the place. Suddenly, he realized one of the dogs had
come slowly to his feet. The gray cur trotted toward the kitchens.
Pushing the mug away, the laird came to his feet as
well.

“Also, the Earl of Athol’s men
mentioned that he’d be giving you a visit before the week’s end.”
Andrew’s eyes followed his leader as Gavin rounded the table where
they sat. “‘Tis only a day’s ride, they said, and if that’s
unsuitable...”

“
That’s fine,” Gavin
answered absently without turning around. “All three of you, get
your rest. There is a great deal to be done tomorrow.”

The three men watched in silence as
their master walked quietly toward the darkened
kitchens.

**

These newcomers were going to be more
than a nuisance, she thought. They were going to be downright
dangerous. And there were so many of them.

Coming out of the passages after the
sounds of feasting had died away, Joanna had been surprised by the
number of people remaining in the Great Hall. From past experience
she knew that she would have more chance of finding food there than
in the kitchens, but clearly that plan would no longer work. She
only hoped the usually tightfisted Gibby had not locked everything
away, as was her custom.

Entering the kitchens, Joanna peered
into the corners for stray sleepers, but with the warmer weather,
not a body was in evidence. The embers in the huge fireplace
flickered, and she could see the rows of bread dough rising into
loaves on a long table.

Moving to a sideboard, she found a
large bowl with broken scraps of hard bread. Scooping out a
handful, Joanna placed the bread carefully in the deep pocket of
her cloak, then cocked her head to listen. With more people around,
she would have to be far more careful than she had been in the
past. Being discovered would mean the end of her plans. It would be
the death of her only wish--the one that had been driving her to
hang on to her threadbare existence. If she were discovered, there
would surely be no dispensing of justice to those who had murdered
her parents. Of that she was certain.

Joanna glided silently down through
the kitchen, and then paused with a sigh by a locked larder. The
gentle nudge of the dog’s nose against her hip made the young
woman’s heart leap in her chest. Shaking her head as the corners of
her mouth lifted in a wry smile, she crouched down to pet the
gentle beast. All the dogs in the castle were quite accustomed to
her, but shaggy Max was the only one that ever came to her.
Accepting a wet kiss on the chin, Joanna gave the dog’s head an
affectionate pat. Wordlessly, she straightened and continued her
search for more food.

The heavenly smells of bannocks and
roasted mutton still hung in the air, making her mouth water, but
to her dismay there was nothing else left over that she could find.
High in the rafters, she could see the dark shapes of smoked meat,
but she didn’t dare be so bold as to steal anything that would
raise a hue and cry. Hearing Max sniffing in a dark corner, Joanna
spotted two balls of cheese hanging from strings on a high
pegboard, just out of the dog’s reach. Gratified at the chance to
add something different to her spare diet, she reached for
them.

“I am certainly sorry you’ll have to
shoulder the blame for both of these,” she whispered with a smile
to the happy dog. “But you can only have one.” Rolling his share
playfully along the stone floor, Joanna placed the other in the
pocket of her cloak.