Highland Storm (26 page)

She held the keys to Dunràth and David’s writ. David mac Mhaoil Chaluim had placed them knowingly into his wife’s hands, and he must have known she would find her brothers—and what then?

Did he have men at the ready to crush a rebellion? Did he mean to ferret out the rebels using Lianae? Even now, was fitz Duncan preparing to ride on Dunràth under the king’s command?

Alas, but the one piece of this puzzle that David could not have anticipated was the Stone of Destiny, and Keane realized that Lianae knew. He spied the truth in her face the day he’d ridden out from the vale.

Aye, she knew.

When he arrived, would her brothers put an arrow through his heart the instant they spied him? Would they open the doors for the new laird of Dunràth? Would Lianae hand over the keys to Dunràth willingly? Would the king’s men turn on her if she chose the wrong path? She had fifty good men at her disposal, but how many of those men were loyal to David and how many remained loyal to Óengus?

I am not witless enough to leave any stronghold of import without men enough to guard her,
he remembered David saying. And he knew instinctively it would be true.

Heartsick, Keane picked up his gait. He could smell it now—the salt fury of the ocean, and he prodded Beithir faster, faster, eager to arrive—eager to set eyes upon his wife—eager to know whether his life would be crushed as easily as the Destiny Stone had been removed from their grasp.

* * *

“
R
iders
, m’lady!”

Lianae peered up from the house ledgers she’d been studying for the majority of two days. If she was not mistaken, there were discrepancies in the accounts. Cartloads of their supplies had been requisitioned by Kinneddar. What this meant, she hadn’t any clue, but she wouldn’t put it past fitz Duncan to empty the coffers and pantries of all demesnes under his control. “Do they bear the royal standard?”

Balloch shook his head. “If they fly any, m’lady, we canna see it.”

Lianae worried the pen in her hand, unaccustomed to making such decisions, and just now, the moment of truth had come. She could read and write and keep the ledgers as well as any man, but could she hold Dunràth against invaders?

Here, there were no ramparts to hide behind, no rooftops from which to set loose missiles. The hallhouse itself sat high enough on the
motte
that any men firing from the three-foot rampart surrounding the keep would have an advantage for but a
very
short time. There was little time to prepare if they meant to fight and hold what was theirs. Even if she were inclined to, it was too late to send riders to Kinneddar, and there was little assurance fitz Duncan would aid them anyhow. For all she knew it could be him out there, though she wasn’t about to lose what she’d fought so hard to win.

“The men to arms,” she commanded the steward. “Women and children to the hallhouse. Gather everyone straightaway.” If the attackers should ascend the
motte
, they would protect themselves by setting fire to the ditch. “Go and tell my brother—quickly!” she urged Balloch.

“Aye, m’lady!”

By the rood, if Lael and her sisters could dress themselves for war, so then could she! Bound to protect her people, Lianae raced up the tower stairs to the lord’s chamber to don the lord’s armor—not much more than a boiled gambeson and tunic, but the tunic bore Dunràth’s sigil so that her men might easily recognize her in battle.

She knew little about how to wield a sword, but she would try nonetheless—if only as a show of strength. Alas, but she tried to lift the heavy claymore displayed upon the wall, and it sank to the floor with a mighty thud, hacking pieces from the floor. Muttering curses beneath her breath, Lianae abandoned the sword where it lay, cursing it to rot, and snatched up her trusty little blade from the bedside where she’d left it.

Hurrying over to the cold brazier, she dirtied her fingers with ash. It wasn’t the same as woad, but this too would have to do. She swiped two fingers across her cheeks and brow and hurried out into the courtyard, shouting for the men to bring around her mare.

Cailleach have mercy, she would soon discover how well Una’s horse could handle blood and gore. But then suddenly, before she had the chance to mount, she peered down the
motte
to spy the approaching horde.

At the foot of the hill, twenty men riding without banners spilled from the woods and fell upon a smaller band of eight. Of those eight, she recognized the leader at once—his hair black as midnight and his coat dark against his snow white mare.

Keane.

H
aving fled Carlisle so swiftly
, Keane had abandoned more than half his promised men. He was ill prepared to meet more than twice his number on the field of battle. But the attackers came not from the
motte
, he realized, unsheathing his sword, and placing himself between his men and the assailants, to give his men precious seconds to prepare. But seconds was all the time he could buy, for they flew at Keane, one by one.

“To the laird!” his men cried, rallying themselves to fight.

“To the laird!”

The clash of swords rang against the twilight. Metal struck metal. Sword against axe. Axe against sword. Men shouted battle cries unto the heavens and Keane felt the cold bite of steel pierce his shoulder...

“
T
o the laird
!”

“To the laird!”

Riding hell bent through the pinewood forest, the dún Scoti sisters heard the cry to arms and spurred their mounts to greet the battle, with Lachlann and Luc close at their heels. They reached the melee as the battle engaged.

There were no banners flown, but Lael had no need to know whose blood she would spill to defend her brother. “To Keane!” she shouted, unsheathing her great sword along with a nine-inch blade from her belt.

Standing in her stirrups, Cailin drew her crossbow, slamming the butt against her shoulder.

Crying out in vengeance, Sorcha, drew her sword.

Together, the dún Scoti sisters shouted dún Scoti war cry. Painted in woad, and ready to die for their kin, they joined the battle at the foot of the Dunràth’s hill.

B
y the gods above
—every last one—Keane had never been more relieved to see three women in all his days! He recognized the war cry of their ancestors and grinned—for the sound was no less terrifying coming from a woman’s tongue. He heard Lachlann’s shout as well and knew the battle would be turned.

If he’d been surprised by his sisters’ arrival, the assailants were all the more so and their momentary stupor was their undoing. Keane felled one, and cut down another as Lael came galloping by, wielding her long blade alongside him, cutting down another.

Already, his arm was covered with blood, making it difficult to wield his sword. He gritted his teeth and fought through the pain, struggling to retain command of the heavy blade. Lachlann flanked him on one side, Lael on the other, and together they fought, parrying every blow. Cailin’s arrows came whizzing by. Unlike Keane’s hunting bow, hers was made for war. Each and every arrow met their marks with deadly thunks. He lost two of his numbers before another thirty warriors came marching down the
motte
, and another ten circled, attacking from behind. “To the laird of Dunràth!” they shouted to a man.

“To the laird!”

Like rats before a torchlight, the assailants fled into the woods.

So swiftly, the battle was done. But in the space of minutes, more than twenty men were felled—a few of his own. The mottled snow was strewn with bodies and peppered with blood. Dismounting, Keane saw to his fallen men. Only one of the assailants remained alive. He lifted the man to his feet and hurled him toward Lachlann. His brother’s captain held a blade to the man’s throat before he could take a step. “Take him to the gaols,” he commanded. “Find out who sent the bastards and why.”

And then he turned and saw her.

His wife.

Mounted upon a snow-white mare, like the ones his sister rode, she trotted down the
motte
, with ten more men at her rear. She wore a heavy gambeson over a bright green dress, but the look did not suit her. And still, she was lovely to behold. Overcome with emotion and relief, Keane sheathed his sword and went to her. Without a care that his men—and sisters—might witness a grown man cry, he went to greet his Moray bride. Spilling into his arms from her saddle, Keane swung Lianae jubilantly, covering her with his blood.

She didn’t seem to care. Her amber eyes were liquid. “Ye’re hurt!” she cried.

“Nay, Lianae, I am whole again,” he said; and only now did he know it for truth. She was the piece of him he’d been missing most of his life.

Lianae wept unabashedly, soaking his blood-stained coat with her tears. “Welcome home,” she sobbed, hugging him fiercely. “Welcome home, my prince!”

“Ach, my love… what good is a prince without a princess?” he asked, and set her down upon her feet, falling to one knee, bloodied though he might be. “From this day forward, Lianae of Moray, I pledge my troth to ye… to the bairns we’ll make together, to the land we’ll keep and serve.”

Weeping as she reached for him, her hands smeared blood and sweat across his whiskered face, but it was the most tender caress Keane had ever known. “My heart is yours, my laird of Dunràth,” she said. “I love you truly. And if ye can see it in your heart to forgive me, I will be your faithful wife.”

“I forgave ye before I left ye,” Keane confessed, and it was true. He had known from the first time their lips met that she was the only woman he would ever know again. To keep her, he realized he must trust her, and to trust her he knew he must love her.

The people shouted huzzahs, but neither Lianae nor Keane heard them. The world fell away as they kissed once more… one last kiss to change the fates.

S
ome would say
that Lianae had had the Kingdom of Moray at her fingertips and she threw it away.

But Lianae had won herself so much more that day. Praying by the rood that she would choose love over all, David mac Mhaoil Chaluim gambled and won.

So had she.

In retrospect, all of it had been no more than a calculated risk, for David mac Mhaoil Chaluim must have seen something more than Lianae or Keane had realized at the time.

And yet, David must have also known that Lianae would never allow her brother to hang and some day she meant to ask the king why he’d shown her brother such mercy, when his own brother Edgar had blinded their Uncle Donald and sent him to work as a scullion in the kitchens, for much the same offense.

In fact, now that she considered it, perhaps that was the reason, for it was said that David’s brother Edgar had died a miserable man, wasted with guilt for what he had done to his own kin. Say what they would of him, David mac Mhaoil Chaluim was smarter than that. He conquered less by the sword and more by his wits.

The wind whipped at Lianae’s skirts, tussling her hair. Summer was here and the chill of winter was long gone, but, like the lands themselves, the Highland winds could not be tamed. They blew as they blew, and if a man could not embrace the wildness of the North, it was simply not in his blood. Lianae lifted her face to the wind and smiled, enjoying God’s caress.

Alas, her brother Ewen was dead—perished of fever soon after coming to Dunràth. With Graeme’s help, she moved his grave to a spot high on the hill, beneath an elderberry tree. Whatever David’s reason for sparing Graeme, she couldn’t profess to know, but she was grateful nonetheless, and her brother no longer had any will to fight.

She made her way to the beach, bouncing their ten-month-old son in her arms. She’d named him Angus, after her father. Cooing sweetly at her ear as she made her way down to the beach where Keane was busy at work on a new boat, she held Angus close.

Keane had said he’d always meant to learn to fish, and now that he had the sea to challenge him more than the loch in Dubhtolargg, he found great joy in the thought of sharing a sail with their son—but not until Angus was old enough if Lianae had any say in the matter. In the meantime, he must be contented to share his time with her eldest brother.

She waved at the men, and Angus clearly said, “Pa-pa!”

“Aye!” she exclaimed, excited by her son’s first word.

Fat and happy as he should be, Angus clapped his chubby little hands.

“’Tis is your papa! Hi papa!” she said, waving again at Keane.

Almost in answer, the north wind lifted a briny scent to Lianae’s nostrils and she inhaled deeply of the scent as she made her way to the water’s edge, much as the women of Dunràth had been doing for centuries long before her.

She never saw her charm stones again, but she didn’t need them.

Uthreda’s son was a cruel snake, but no one could ever prove he was the one who’d beset Keane that day at the foot of Dunràth’s hill, so he continued to serve David as Moray’s Earl, denying aught to do with the treachery. The man they’d captured died later of his wounds, so they lived with a snake in their midst, keeping him at arm’s length.

As for her brother Lulach, he’d come around but once. Though even if the loss of her blood kin dampened her spirits, she had Graeme. And she had Keane… and the future of her clan right here in her arms…

“Pa-pa!” Angus said again.

“Pa-pa,” Lianae repeated with a smile.