TemptationinTartan (24 page)

“Which king?”

“The Merrie Monarch.”

Kieran had avoided answering questions about Gareth,
specifically about the length of Gareth’s life. Mayhap Kier had been unable to
answer that question because that life had never ended.

The Gwynn priest had said that vampires were long-lived,
even immortal.

Kier wasn’t Clan Kilborn’s vampire. Gareth was.

He looked surprisingly good for someone who was well over a
century old. Though the midnight-black hair that distinguished most Kilborns
was white, and his cloud-pale skin as wrinkled as a crumpled sheet of
parchment, he moved with speed and ease, more quietly than a much younger man.
His black eyes and clothes contrasted with his hair and skin. He wore funereal
but elegant garb, perfectly attired from the top of his behatted head right
down to his feet, shod in the same heeled boots she’d seen weeks earlier. They
looked as though he’d taken some time to dry them out properly and even to
shine the old-fashioned buckles.

She gathered her wits. “Yes, I’ve heard of your exploits on
behalf of Charles before the restoration.”

The old man preened. “’Twas an honor to play some small part
in history.”

More Kilborn arrows whizzed by, now aiming for climbers on
the cliff path as well as down into the beach.

“Some of our enemies have found their way into my home,” Sir
Gareth said calmly. “Forgive my haste, milady, but I must tend to my uninvited
guests.” He doffed his long-feathered, curly-brimmed hat and disappeared.

At her elbow, Owain said, “He’s the reason we needn’t worry
about the Dark Tower. As I say, what the auld laird has, he will keep.”

Astonished, she turned. “You knew?”

“Aye, of course. Milaird didnae tell ye, I reckon, because
he thought you wouldnae believe him.”

After a pause, she said, “You’re right. I wouldn’t have, not
without the evidence of my own eyes and ears.” She surveyed the battle again.
“Is it possible, do you think, to do something about that?” She gestured at the
cottages clustered near the castle.

Owain thought before his lips firmed. “Milady, we dinnae ken
how long they will attempt to besiege us. Thus we must not waste water. The
homes can be rebuilt when the siege is lifted.”

“Pray that will be soon. How much water do we have?”

He grinned. “Ye have noticed, I would imagine, that the
weather hereabouts is a mite…dampish, even in the summer.”

“Dampish. Yes. You could say that. So all the cisterns are
full?”

“Aye, we’ve ample stores, refreshed and renewed. We can
withstand a lengthy siege. But they cannot.” He nodded his head at the Gwynn
forces. “They are not numerous enough to leave us unguarded to hunt or steal
from our flocks. Remember, milaird left with enough men to mount an attack from
the south.”

“Only half a dozen or so, I ke—I believe.” She caught
herself before tossing out the Scottish phrase. She thought it would be well to
learn Gaelic, but “I ken” would be too much.

“That’s ample for milaird.”

She coughed and blinked. Smoke billowed nearby—too near. She
turned and gasped.

Smoke seeped from beneath the old keep’s door and from atop
its turret.

The Dark Tower was afire.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Though the autumn sun shone brightly in the noonday sky,
shadows swarmed below Kilborn Castle—or so it seemed to young Edgar MacReiver.
The warm day had lured the rival clans like an exposed rock tempted an adder to
sunbathe.

Near the base of the castle, the crofts and huts smoldered.
His belly clenched as he saw the thatched roof of old Mhairi’s cottage alight
with orange flames. Blinking back tears, he remembered spending many happy
hours at her knee, drinking fragrant tea and listening to stories of the clan.

But he didn’t see any fleeing figures, heard no cries of
woman, bairn or animal. Davy was right. The clan had been warned and had taken
shelter in the castle. Edgar hoped everyone was safe.

He lingered with Kieran in the shadows at the edge of the
forest, with the rest of their escort quietly behind them, concealed. Edgar
scrutinized the attackers as they formed ranks just beyond the moat of Kilborn
Castle. “Who are they, milaird?” he asked Kieran.

He squinted. “Mostly Gwynns, I trow.” He pointed, his voice
grim. “I recognize Laird Hamish. He’s the blond man on the brown, see there?”

“I think I see some of my people,” Edgar said. “MacReivers,
I mean.”

“Och, aye?”

“Aye. Angus MacReiver, who was one of my father’s trusted
men, and p’raps three or four others.” Strange that he felt no allegiance to
them at all. “They must have been away on patrol when, um…
he
attacked.”

“Aye, seems likely.”

“But who are the rest?”

“Whoever the Gwynn could gather, I believe. I imagine more
than a few MacLaynes. They fight anyone, anytime. I doubt there are any
Camerons or MacLeods—they’re related to us by marriage, and too canny to attack
us. P’raps a Fraser or two.”

Some were armed with claymores and swords. Others fingered
long-bladed dirks while other, poorer men, who’d been divested of their
weaponry by the Redcoats, held shovels and pitchforks.

“Why are they attacking? What are you going to do?” Edgar
asked.

“Watch and wait, for the now. Seems to me that Owain is
doing a good job. As for why…” He sighed. “I dinnae ken. ’Tis madness. Kilborn
Castle has never been taken and it willnae be today. I swear it on auld Euan’s
soul.”

Indeed, arrows rained down from the battlements of Kilborn
Castle onto the attackers, who were not faring well. Most had prudently
retreated to beyond the range of the crossbows wielded by the defense and now
milled about in disorganized chaos.

To their left, the Dark Tower smoldered. “What’s going on at
the auld keep?” Edgar asked.

“I dinnae ken. That’s
his
realm, ye ken? If he fired
it, he had good reason. P’raps we were also attacked by sea.” He turned and
gestured at their escort.

One of the guards detached from the group and approached,
bending his head. “Aye, milaird?”

“Duncan, slip awa’ toward the cove and come back quick with
a report. In no more than a quarter-hour.”

“Aye, milaird.”

“He’s a big man,” Edgar said, for Duncan was solidly built
rather than slender.

“But he’s stealthy. There’s no one better to reconnoiter.”
Kier dismounted and handed his buckskin’s reins to Edgar.

Tugging his claymore out of its sheath, he dropped to his
knees and slipped to the edge of the shadows and into the sun. He lifted his
polished blade, turning it this way and that so that it caught the light.

A sharp dazzle briefly blinded Edgar. He blinked, opening
his eyes in time to see an answering silvery flash from the upper wall-walk of
the castle.

After he returned, Kieran grunted with satisfaction as he
swung back onto his horse. “Good.”

“They now know we are back,” Edgar said.

“Aye.”

Edgar could see a subtle shift in the manner the Kilborns in
the castle fought. Before they’d ably defended themselves, but now they seemed
to straighten up, smarten up, knowing that their laird watched. Of course that
could be his imagination.

* * * * *

Would she ever forget the screams?

Those trapped within the Dark Tower did not suffer easy
deaths. When smoke began to seep from beneath the barred door on the wall-walk,
Lydia went downstairs to check on her people. She found everyone and everything
much the same as before. However, lunch had been cleared away, and now people
sat in the Great Hall in tense groups. Some of the older children amused the
bairns by playing games while the mothers told stories.

Rose, tucked into the nook off the kitchen, sweated, shouted
and pushed when told to do so. Lydia wasn’t completely ignorant of the process,
but she was no expert, either. “How many hours since her waters broke?”

“It hasnae been long.” Mhairi stroked Rose’s forehead with a
damp cloth. “She’ll be fine.”

Rose shouted something in Gaelic that Lydia thought she’d
heard from Kieran at some point, but she couldn’t remember when. “
Rachar
muin
? What does that mean?”

Mhairi and Grizel exchanged glances. Did a slight smile
curve Grizel’s lips? She said, “It means that I am never going to touch a man
or bear a bairn.”

Fenella and Mhairi howled with laughter, and even Rose
managed a weak chuckle while Lydia scratched her head and wondered.

She took a quick break to go to the Laird’s Tower, use the
garderobe and freshen up with Elsbeth’s help. She then went outside to the
bailey and across to the massive barred door that sealed the lower entrance to
the Dark Tower. A group of p’raps six guards surrounded it, twitching with
unease.

She pushed her way through, with the men respectfully
parting for her. As she neared, she could smell smoke, see it sneak through
cracks in the door, hear coughs, shouts and the pounding of fists on the thick
wood from the inside.

“They’re mostly smotherin’ to death, milady,” a guard said,
his voice and stance stolid. “From the smoke, ye ken.”

“Yes.” She pressed her lips together, reminding herself that
each man had selected his fate. As she stood there, she heard a mighty crash,
followed by screams from inside the keep.

Would she ever forget the screams? One, higher pitched than
the others, rose to an unearthly screech.

Jolted, she wrapped her arms around herself. “Is that a
woman?” she asked.

“Mayhap.” The guard’s brow furrowed. “’Tis hard to tell. But
how? Did ye see a wench on the boats, milady?”

“Nay, I did not.” She frowned. The only person who would
know was the vampire, Sir Gareth. And where would he be? Not trapped inside the
keep. He was too clever for that to have happened. She climbed the stone stair
to the upper wall-walk, carefully lifting her gown’s skirt to above her ankles.
Her mother would be scandalized, but Lydia felt ’twas better to risk a guard
glimpsing a bit of her stocking than to fall and bash out her brains on the
narrow, steep steps.

Up on the battlements, matters were much the way she’d left
them. Archers stood attentive at their posts, shooting an occasional arrow at a
Gwynn or a MacLayne who ventured too close. The cliff path and the beach, both blotched
with the dark blood of the fallen, were strewn with the silent dead and those
who were injured or dying, their lamentations now diminished to whimpers.
Louder were those trapped in the old keep.

She slipped behind the line of archers toward it, blinking
to keep her eyes clear, for the Dark Tower was ablaze, sending a pillar of
smoke into the sky. Its roof must be wood, she thought, and tried to remember
what she’d seen when she’d explored the place. She dimly recalled a rotting
ceiling that admitted slivers of light. Now it was aflame. The stone would not
burn, but everything and everyone inside would be destroyed.

From the wall surrounding the topmost turret, a voice
cackled with glee. Looking up, she squinted through the thick haze to see a
black scarecrow dancing on the highest parapet. The stamp of Gareth’s boots and
the gales of his laughter merged with the screams of the dying from within the
Dark Tower. She’d not get any sane comment from Sir Gareth.

Owain touched his hand, clad in a leather glove, to the
tower door. “Hot,” he told Lydia. “Best stay away from it. It could blast open
at any time.”

Kendrick bellowed something in Gaelic and the archers moved
away from the door, giving it at least ten yards’ berth. Lydia could see that
the Kilborn forces on the northernmost walkway copied their kinsmen.

The keep’s roof crashed down with a roar and a shower of
sparks. “Moi-ra! Moi-ra! Bad Moi-ra’s gone!” Gareth danced and twirled. “Sweet
bad baby, Moira’s gone!”

Lydia frowned as she watched. What did that mean? Had Moira
been in the keep, or had mad Gareth imagined her presence? Or was he talking
about some other event?

His clothes were alight with flame as he skittered around
the turret. When he’d reached its westernmost point, he spread his arms and
leaped.

Her breath stuck in her throat. There was no breeze to speak
of—the pillar of smoke floated almost straight up into the sky—but somehow
Gareth seemed to fly, his jacket catching a seaward wind. Rushing to the wall,
she leaned over it to see him fall into the ocean.

He never came up.

The Kilborns on the wall-walk were silent. A few took off
their caps and covered their hearts with clasped hands, a tribute to the mad
old creature who had been a part of their lives for as long as any could
remember.

Emptiness filled Lydia’s chest, but she did not know the
reason for her feelings. She did not love the old vampire. Despite Sir Gareth’s
massacre of the MacReivers and the Kilborns’ subsequent annexation of MacReiver
land, she believed that he had caused more harm than good. If Owain was right,
Sir Gareth was the reason for the Gwynns’ attack and the deaths of many men.

In the distance, a gleam caught the light. Kieran. Seated on
his massive golden charger, he advanced out of the shadows into the sunlight, showing
no fear of it whatsoever. The sun gleamed on his pale skin, shone on his dark
hair and reflected off his claymore, which he lifted and turned. A signal.

The priest had lied. Kieran was no vampire.

A great weight released her. She hadn’t realized how deeply
the priest’s lies had affected her, but now she felt as though she might float
away, a wisp of thistledown rejoicing on the wind. She wanted to spin and dance
and play.

Instead, she grabbed a dirk from the nearest soldier and
held it up, turning it until it flashed in the sun. She then shot toward the
staircase leading to the courtyard. “Raise the portcullis and open the gate!”

* * * * *

Duncan had reported that the Gwynn’s attempt to attack by
sea had ended in dismal failure and the death of every man who’d tried from
that route. Kier silently thanked his crazed old grandda for his brilliant
management of the situation. Igniting the Dark Tower had been an inspiration,
and Kier hoped that the vampire, insane and fearsome though he was, had
survived.

Kier, along with Edgar and their small group, still waited
at the forest’s edge. Protected by trees and brush, they watched the battle at
the castle. Between forest and castle lay the meadow. In it, the Gwynns’
forces, such as they were, had gone quiet, resting in the afternoon sun.

Energy flushed through Kier’s veins. “Now,” he told Edgar.

The lad, who had been leaning at his ease against a tree,
leaped to his feet and mounted Scout. Kier walked his horse forward into the
light, unsheathed his claymore and held it high until he saw another answering
flash from the upper wall-walk of his castle. He gestured; his guard jumped
onto their mounts and made ready.

“Blood for the clan!” Kier roared.

“Blood for the clan! Blood! Blood!” Swords sang as they were
unsheathed.

Kieran swept his blade forward and dug his heels into his
horse’s side. At the same time, the great gate of Kilborn Castle opened and the
drawbridge crashed down. A mounted, armed company thundered over the wooden
bridge toward the meadow.

The Gwynns and their allies, caught off guard, clumped
together in a frightened huddle. Some grabbed for their weapons while others
broke, mounted their horses and made for the hills.

Ten minutes later they were surrounded, with Hamish Gwynn,
Angus MacReiver and the cassocked priest in the center of a milling mob of
panicking soldiers, trapped by a frowning band of mounted Kilborns.

* * * * *

Hamish didn’t dare move as Laird Kieran approached. The
Kilborn’s horse, whose hide was an unusual shade of pale gold, glittered in the
sun, and its rider seemed bigger and more frightening in the midday light than
he had during the other occasions they’d met, when he’d been veiled by fog.

Far from being afraid of the sun, Kieran Kilborn rode
boldly, without hat or veil for protection. Old-fashioned braids framed a grim
visage pale as one of the clouds drifting overhead. A pin bearing the image of
a stag, the Kilborn clan badge, fastened his plaidie, the Kilborn tartan with
its muted blues marked by vivid red and yellow stripes. His claymore, half the
length of a man, seemed especially sharp and bright in the afternoon sun.

Bile rose into Hamish’s throat. He gulped it down and called
upon God and his angels to protect him. His horse shied, possibly sensing his
mood, and he quieted the restive mount.

He cocked his head, and one of his men rode to his side. The
Kilborns tensed, hands tightening on swords.

“Bring me the priest,” Hamish said.

The slow thud of hooves preceded the holy man. All else was
silent save for the screams and whimpers of the dying, distantly emanating from
the old Kilborn keep.

“What say ye now, Father Paul?” Hamish asked, gesturing at
Kieran Kilborn, glowering at them from atop his gleaming golden steed, bright
in the afternoon sun.

The priest said naught, but Angus MacReiver, who’d followed
the holy man, scowled. “Someone killed every man in my clan.” He pointed at the
top of the tower, where the monster had danced like one of the demons of hell.