Highland Steel (Guardians of the Stone Book 2) (8 page)

“God’s teeth!” David exclaimed rather peevishly. “Where in damnation have I sent ye, Steorling?”

Jaime grinned. “Some would say to hell, where I belong.”

From his mount, David guffawed, his inherent good nature restored with very little effort, but his laughter erupted into a fitful cough that sounded suspiciously to Jaime as though he might be taking ill under this adverse weather. “God’s blood! Tis naught but a pile of wretched stones,” the king complained. He peered about the bailey. “Remind me to bring my own bed next time.” His beard dripped with rain and he wrung it free with a fist. “Judging by the looks of it, I doubt I’ll find a decent bed inside without a mess of fleas.”

“You cannot even trouble yourself to come fully armed,” Jaime argued with a twinkle in his eye. “How will you ever rouse yourself to bring a bed, Your Grace?”

David chortled as he dismounted, plopping his boots down into a puddle of mud. Wet, black earth shot up the sides of his trews, muddying his legs. He met Jaime half way, embracing him like a long-lost brother, and Jaime returned the embrace, ignoring the icy prick of the King’s cold hauberk through his frozen tunic—worn to hide his Norman habit from these naked Highlanders. It would hardly serve to ride with a modest escort, only to betray himself by the gleam of his armor.

“Well done, well done!” the King said, clapping Jaime hard upon the back. The wide smile that curved his lips was genuine. At two score and two years, David mac Maíl Chaluim was now the same age Jaime’s father was when he’d died. His hair was graying at the temples and he wore a sheen upon his brow that made Jaime frown.

“I deserve no lauds, Your Grace. The battle was over ere I arrived,” Jaime confessed. “Last night MacLaren’s men caught seven men attempting to open the gates.”

More accurately, six men and one woman.

“Where are the bastards now?”

“One dead during the skirmish. Another tortured, and dead as well—we’ll speak of that anon,” Jaime entreated. “Another three perished by the hangman’s noose.”

“That leaves two,” David prompted, casting Jaime a questioning look.

“One more I placed in the gaols,” Jaime continued, though he paused, but not for emphasis, rather to determine how best to reveal the next bit of news to David. “The other… I sent to the tower.”

David’s voice rose with his question. “The tower?” He halted in his step and turned to face Jaime, but this was precisely what Jaime hoped to avoid, because he didn’t want any ears about to hear what more he had to say.

“I ask your indulgence, my liege,” Jaime entreated. “I have much to tell you, but I would prefer to enlighten you once we are alone.”

“Hmmm,” David said, his voice lower now. “The matter sounds grave.” His good humor seemed to sour at the prospect. “I trust you have the situation in hand?”

“I do,” Jaime reassured, and then bent his head to whisper. “Far better than you it seems, Your Grace. Art unwell?”

David whispered back. “Perhaps a bit peckish. Have no fear. A good meal and a night’s rest will do me good. I’ll be on my way on the morrow.”

“You’ve come just in time. We’re all rather famished after the long trek north. In fact, we ourselves have only just arrived. Come,” he bade the king and led him toward the keep.

“Where is Kieran? Arrived as well?”

“Nay. He comes most likely on the morrow, with seventy more men, including a few from the house of Moray and some from MacBeth.”

David eyed him with a lifted brow as they made their way inside. “We’ll see. MacBeth—the cur—has never kept his word. More’s the pity I canna catch him at his treachery, for I would serve him the same fate he dealt my grandsire.”

Jaime was well aware of the ill will between David, Moray and MacBeth—justifiably so. Together the two had led a rebellion that ended the life of his sickly grandsire. Jaime had thought perhaps it might please the king to know Moray had pledged a number of his men to Keppenach, but the king seemed predisposed to rancor, so he let it go. “I’ll order a bath before dinner,” Jaime promised as they entered the great hall.

David’s grin returned. “Good man! I vow I’ll never grow accustomed to the northern clime; it puts a ferocious ague in the bones.”

It wasn’t like the king to be so easily diverted, but Jaime was nevertheless relieved over the temporary reprieve. Knowing Luc would have set the laird’s chamber to rights by now, he led the way to the tower room he meant to occupy for himself, certain as he was that it would be the only room in the entire castle that was clean enough to serve their king. For the time being, he would take another bed. And now that he’d promised David a hearty meal, he only hoped he could produce something appropriate from Keppenach’s stores.

As they passed the room next-door, guarded by two of his men, the king arched a thick, dark brow. Thankfully, however, he said not a word as Jaime opened the door to the laird’s chamber and led the way inside to be certain it was clear. Keppenach might be secure enough for the time being, but he sensed a lingering cancer inside these walls and he would take no chances with his liege and king.

Inside the room, Jaime caught his breath. The state of it caught him by surprise. After walking through the disordered halls, he was more than a little shocked to find this room, not only clean, but far more well-appointed than any other room in the castle. Even the great hall, where they would entertain guests, seemed meager in comparison. MacLaren’s steward must not have concerned himself overmuch with the upkeep beyond this chamber, but the laird’s chamber was richly adorned with tapestries and a large, well-built bed that appeared as though it could accommodate half the village. And yegods, if he’d thought the rest of the castle devoid of art, this room was overflowing, as though it were all being hoarded inside this chamber.

David scratched his chin, clearly as dumbfounded as Jaime.

“I’ll have your bath prepared at once,” Jaime said, and refrained from explaining that it wouldn’t be overlong, since the tub now sat directly in the room next door. Whatever the girl was, she was no timid lass, and Jaime suffered a moment’s trepidation over placing David so near her room. Still, he lingered only another instant, lest David decide to ply him with questions. There would be time enough for answers later—after Jaime determined just who the girl was and exactly what to do with her.

With the very intention of discovering her identity, he left the king and sought out Rogan’s steward to speak with him directly. At the instant, it seemed Maddog was the man with all the answers, and Jaime intended to discover why it was that half the castle was being stockpiled in the laird’s chamber.

Hearing voices in the courtyard Lael hurriedly unlocked and opened the shutters. Alas, to her dismay she could see naught below. The metal bars on the window were far too close together so she couldn’t get a proper look out.

She loathed feeling so helpless, and the wait was driving her mad.

With a little grunt of disgust, she shook the bars, finding them perfectly sound. Her chamber door was sturdy and bolted from without. The walls were poorly mortared but solid nonetheless. There was simply no way out of this bower prison.

Yet there must be!

She had the wits to outsmart these men and she wasn’t afraid to use them. If only she could somehow manage to work the bars free—one would do—she might attempt an escape by night, save that one missed step would see her with a cracked skull fifty feet below. She slammed the shutters against the bitter wind, wishing the Butcher to an early grave.

As Aidan sometimes did whenever he was trying to solve a problem, she paced the chamber, back and forth, desperate to be free.

After a time, voices carried down the hall, toward her door. Male voices, English by the sound. But what they might be discussing, precisely, she couldn’t know. She could hear their heavy footsteps padding along the wooden floor. Laughter
.
More talk, then she heard the door to the chamber next to hers open and shut. For a moment, the voices were muffled, but then she heard the next words far too clearly for the sound to be traveling through stone.

“I’ll have your bath prepared at once,” she heard the Butcher say to his newly arrived guest, and she peered over her shoulder at the tub, realizing they must come to fetch it. It wasn’t likely they would have another. She only wished there were a way to fill it with acid. What she wouldn’t give for Lìli’s knowledge of alchemy just now—or Una’s for that matter, even if their wily priestess would no doubt ply her with words of wisdom simply for asking.

Startled by the clarity of their speech, she examined the west wall by sight, and then, curious about the occupant next door, she went to inspect the west wall and found a number of small holes in the stone where it appeared there was once a brace. Standing on tip-toes, she fingered the defaced stone—too high up on the wall for her to examine any closer without placing something beneath her feet to lift her higher. She was standing there assessing the weight of the bed when the knock sounded at her door. Lael barely had time to step away from the wall before the door flew wide. She turned to face the same golden-haired lad who’d ushered her into this chamber to begin with. With a face too angelic to belong to an English lackey, he sauntered into the room, followed by two more guards. Lael was certain the youth was scarce older than her sister Cailin, and some part of her wanted to scold him and send him home for his supper.

How silly,
she thought.
He’s my enemy not my child.

“My lord wishes a word w’ ye,” the lad announced, lowering his lashes diffidently, in spite of the fact that Lael was fully dressed and her tresses were plaited and done. She didn’t fool herself into believing it was a matter of respect. If aught, he was simply a boy with too little confidence to face a woman grown, which Lael most assuredly was at three and twenty years of age, no matter what her brother claimed.

She lifted a brow. “Where, then, is your
laird
?” she asked him. “If he wishes to speak wi’ me, why then send a boy instead? Does he think I will take a gander at your bonny face and spare ye my wrath?”

The words fell out before she could stop them.

Her brother was right; someday her mouth would be the death of her.

In truth, she did not relish the notion of meeting the Butcher for the first time in the privacy of these quarters, where he might do with her as he willed. She was no weakling, but neither was she any match for the man she’d come face-to-face with while on the gallows.

The youth’s face flushed, and he lifted a finger halfway to his lips, apparently shushing her. “My lord asks we bring you to the hall.”

Lael narrowed her eyes suspiciously. In the room next door, she heard a sudden bawdy outbreak of song… a voice she thought she recognized, but it wasn’t the Butcher. She wouldn’t soon forget the Butcher’s voice, but she
did
know that lilting speech—yet from where she could not say.

Lael opened her mouth to speak and the lad’s finger shot up once again, trembling before his mouth. She had the immediate impression he wanted her to be quiet. Whoever it was they had placed next door, he was clearly someone they did not wish to disturb, and for that very reason, Lael wanted to disturb him all the more. If she were fortunate enough, it might be someone with the power to set her free. She opened her mouth to let out a shriek, and although the lad seemed to shrink away from her at that instant, the guards accompanying him did not. They moved toward her, more silently and quickly than she might have expected for men of their breadth and height. One surly beast slapped a hand over her mouth. The other took her arms and twisted them, yanking one so to cause her pain. Her scream was muffled by callused, salty flesh, and her wrists were quickly bound once more. She champed down on the man’s finger but he yanked it away and produced a blade, which he did not need to put to her neck to make her hush. She wasn’t stupid, after all.

The youth gave her a rueful smile. “Will ye come?” he asked.

Lael gave him a lift of her black brow, eyeing the finely honed blade in the guard’s hand with no small measure of respect. Knives she understood quite well, and she had no intention of discovering firsthand if the man knew how to cut with this one as well as he seemed to wield it. “Do I have a choice?” she asked.

The youth shook his head no.

Lael presented him a false smile, and then conceded, “Well, then of course, how gracious of you to ask.” And she gave them all a look as cutting as the guard’s blade.

In the room next door, the man belted out a rude refrain, completely unaware of his audience, and Lael racked her brain, trying to recall where it was she’d heard that voice before.