The Warrior Page 3

“’Tis time ye showed her the door anyway,” Ian said. “But I’d advise ye to take her dirk from her first.”

  They were talking nonsense, but Duncan let them have their laugh.

  Suddenly the doors to the keep burst open with a rush of wind and rain and banged against the walls. Duncan was on his feet with his claymore in his hands before he saw the tiny hunched figure silhouetted in the doorway.

  God in Heaven, what is the ancient seer doing at the castle? Teàrlag was as old as the mist and older by two, as the saying went. She had not left her cottage in Duncan’s memory.

  “I’ve had a vision!” Teàrlag wailed. “Woe, I bring terrible news!”

  Chapter 3

  Sean finally released Moira and left her to make her own way back to shore. She glared at his back as she coughed up salt water and fought the pull of the undertow.

  “If I see that dog again, I’ll slit its throat,” Sean shouted at Ragnall as he passed him in the water. Ragnall was in up to his knees, with each wave threatening to knock him over, but Sean continued to shore without looking back.

  “Don’t come any farther!” Moira called out to her son.

  She stumbled and fell headlong into the water and came up gasping. Her knees and palms were cut and bleeding from the barnacles, but she concentrated on her son’s face and kept moving. Finally, when she was within a few feet of him, Ragnall ran into her arms. A wave crashed into her from behind, nearly causing her to lose her footing again on the slippery rock.

  Ragnall took her hand and pulled her toward shore.

  Once they were on the beach beyond the reach of the waves, she collapsed onto the sand. Ragnall ran to fetch the blanket they had brought to the beach, then dropped it around her shoulders and crawled into her lap. Her teeth chattered uncontrollably as she rocked her son, a ball of heat that she enveloped in her icy body. Seawater from her hair streamed down to mix with the tears on his face.

  “We cannot stay here any longer,” she said.

  Moira had felt the lash of Sean’s tongue almost from the start of their marriage, but this was the first time she had been in fear for her life. Though Sean had become increasingly volatile these last months, she had fooled herself into believing she could control him by cajoling and flattering him, as she always had.

  The moment Ragnall raised the stick at Sean, everything changed. She should have known her son would try to protect her. Ragnall had an innate sense of honor that Sean could not comprehend—and it would put her son in danger.

  “I don’t know how yet, but we will go home to Dunscaith Castle. We’ll be safe there.” She rubbed her son’s head and stared out at the empty sea toward Skye. Whatever she had to do to get her son to safety, she would do it.

  “I wish he weren’t my father.” Ragnall paused, then asked in a small voice, “Will I be like him?”

  “No.” Moira took Ragnall’s face in her hands and looked hard into his eyes. “You’re nothing like him, and ye never will be.”

  “How do ye know?” Ragnall asked, worry tinting his dark blue eyes, the only part of him that he got from her.

  “Because at six you’re already a better man than he is.” She brushed his hair back from his face. “Ye will grow up to be a fine warrior and the best of men. Ye will make your mother proud.”

  Sàr reappeared and lay down next to her, smelling of wet dog.

  “He’s trying to warm ye,” Ragnall said.

  “He’s a good dog,” she said, scratching the wolfhound’s shaggy head, “but you’ll have to let him go. Sean will kill Sàr if he sees him.”

  Ach, Sean was a demon to force a child to choose between his beloved dog and his mother’s life.

  “My father will never catch him,” Ragnall said. “Sàr is too fast.”

  “Until we can make our escape, we must do our best not to provoke Sean,” she said. “Do ye understand?”

  Ragnall buried his face against her. “But how will Sàr eat?”

  “Whenever we can, we’ll leave food for him in our special place in the old fort.”

  Ragnall was quiet for a long while, then he asked, “Can we take Sàr with us when we go to Skye?”

  Moira was tempted to lie, but she had been raised on lies and false hopes, and she would not do the same to Ragnall. She brushed the hair back from his face with her fingers and kissed his forehead. “I don’t think so, mo chroí.” My heart. “But you and I will escape.”

  No matter what she had to do, she would save her son.

  Chapter 4

  While they all gaped at Teàrlag, who stood at the entrance to the hall moaning and waving her arms, Ian’s seventeen-year-old brother Niall came in behind her and pulled the doors shut.

  “Are you the fool who brought Teàrlag out in such weather?” Ian asked him while Connor and Ilysa helped the old seer to the chair closest to the hearth. “Ye could have killed her.”

  Niall looked sheepish and came to stand next to Duncan. “I tried to tell her no,” Niall whispered to him, “but the old woman threatened to cast a spell that would make my manly parts shrink to nothing.”

  Duncan chuckled. Teàrlag was well known for her foretelling and no doubt had the gift, but she made use of her reputation to suit herself.

  “What have ye seen that is so important that ye left your cottage, and in such bad weather?” Connor asked, kneeling beside the old seer.

  She looked around her with her one good eye. “Will no one fetch an old woman a cup of whiskey before I die of a chill?”

  Ilysa retrieved the flask from the head table and poured Teàrlag a small cupful. All eyes were on the old seer as they waited to hear her news while she downed her drink.

  Teàrlag wiped her mouth on the back of her hand and gave Connor a mournful glance. “My own jug is pathetically low…”

  “I’ll send a new jug home with ye,” Connor said, patting her arm and showing the patience of a saint. “Are ye ready to tell us now?”

  Duncan did not trust what he could not see. His mother had had strange visions on occasion—or thought she did—and the whole business made him uneasy. And he sure as hell did not like that his sister was learning the Old Ways from the seer.

  “I saw a great storm at sea.” Teàrlag swayed in her seat and waved her gnarled hands in the air. “Thunder came rolling over the water, and lightning cracked.”

  It didn’t take The Sight to see the storm outside. Duncan glanced toward the stairs, wishing he could leave the hall unnoticed, though with his size that was never possible. Ach, he was leaving anyway.

  Before Duncan had taken two steps, Teàrlag’s next words stopped him in place.

  “Just before the storm, I heard Moira’s voice.”

  “My sister?” Connor asked. “Is she safe?”

  “Would I leave my cottage for the first time in a dozen years to tell ye all was well?” Teàrlag snapped.

  Duncan crossed the room and pushed the others aside to stand in front of Teàrlag. “What do ye see?” he asked.

  Teàrlag closed her eyes and made a humming sound before she spoke again. “I can’t see Moira, but I hear her voice…and then I see a pool of blood.”

  Duncan felt as if he had taken a blow to the chest.

  “So much blood!” Teàrlag wailed.

  “But is it Moira’s blood?” Connor asked.

  “I’ve no notion whose blood it is,” Teàrlag said, coming out of her “trance” with alarming speed. She got to her feet, but she was so hunched over that she looked no taller standing than sitting. “Now I’ll have a wee nap before I return to my cottage.”

  “Stay here tonight,” Ilysa said, resting her hand on the old woman’s shoulder.

  “No. My cow will need milking.” Teàrlag fixed her good eye on Duncan. “You, lad, help me upstairs to a bed.”

  Duncan walked her across the hall to the stairs at an excruciatingly slow pace and wondered if it would hurt the old seer’s pride to pick her up and carry her.

  “Do ye remember,” Teàrlag said between
wheezing breaths as they climbed the circular stone staircase, “when I predicted ye would suffer great sorrow?”

  “Aye.” That wasn’t something a lad of eleven was likely to forget.

  Teàrlag had seemed older than the mist even back then, so he, Connor, Alex, and Ian had gone to her cottage hoping she would predict their future before she died. Being lads, all they had wanted to hear was what great warriors they would become. Instead, her predictions had been about love and women. The old seer had always been contrary.

  “I told ye then that sometimes a man can change his fate,” she said when she stopped to catch her breath. “’Tis time ye changed yours, Duncan Ruadh MacDonald.”

  He had changed it—he was no longer just the nursemaid’s fatherless son. Whoever sired him had violated the Highland tradition that required a man to claim his child, regardless of whether he was wed to the mother. Duncan had risen from that shame to become captain of his chieftain’s guard, a respected warrior with a fearsome reputation.

  “Ye try an old woman’s patience. Ye were fated from the start to be a great warrior.” Teàrlag stretched her arm above her head to tap her knobby finger on his chest. “But are ye brave enough to trust in a woman’s love? Because that is your only hope of truly changing your fate.”

  That would change his fate, all right. For the worse.

  “Do ye still carry that old bone whistle?” she asked.

  Ach, the old woman’s mind was growing weak with the way it wandered.

  “Aye,” he said, touching the eight-inch whistle that was tied to a leather thong around his neck. It was a gift from his mother, and he always carried it with him.

  “Good,” Teàrlag said. “Ye will need it before your trip is done.”

  His whistle?

  “And in our clan’s time of need, your music will provide the answer.”

  * * *

  Moira hated having to do this. Her heart pounded in her ears as she glanced at Sean again to be sure he was immersed in the fabricated tale he was telling the men on the other side of him. Then she met Colla’s eyes across the table and slowly ran her tongue across her upper lip. Colla leaned forward with his mouth hanging open like a fish.

  Ach, she should have chosen a man capable of subtlety. Once she scratched the men with wives and children off her list, there were few to choose from who owned their own boats. Besides, Colla had wanted her for years. It should not take long to convince him to take her away, and she was in a hurry.

  Moira stood up from the table and put her hand on her husband’s shoulder. When Sean turned his face toward her, she remembered how handsome and charming she had thought he was when she first met him. The charm had evaporated a long time ago, but his drinking had not yet softened his warrior’s body or made the skin over his broad cheekbones blotchy.

  He had the eyes of a snake.

  “The wine is getting low,” she said. “I’ll see that the new barrel is opened.”

  “Be quick about it,” Sean said.

  She clenched her teeth as he slapped her bottom. Ach, he had the manners of a pig.

  She could not risk a quick glance at Colla on her way out of the hall. Even blind drunk, Sean might notice. She hurried down the stone steps into the damp coolness of the undercroft. To her left, the kitchen was noisy and lit with torches and cooking fires. She turned to her right, into the dark corridor that led to the storerooms.

  Using the key tied to her belt, she unlocked the door to the room in which they kept the whiskey, wine, and ale. The smell of spirits and dank earth filled her nose as she slipped inside. Her heart hammered as she waited and watched through the crack in the door.

  Would Colla come? She did not know which she feared more—if he did or if he did not. Playing on a man’s desire without letting him have what he wanted was a difficult game to play, and the stakes could not be higher.

  Footsteps echoed against the stone walls. Her chest tightened while she watched the boots and then the legs of a man appear as he descended the stairs. A moment later, she saw that it was Colla. After pausing to glance furtively toward the kitchens, he strode toward the storerooms.

  “Quickly!” She opened the door for him and then shut it behind him.

  Colla pulled her against him at once, before she was prepared for it. She turned her face when he tried to kiss her.

  “Did I misread ye?” Colla’s breath in her face smelled of onions and ale. “Or are ye playing coy with me?”

  She tried to ease him away. “Ye didn’t misread me, but—”

  “God, how I’ve wanted ye,” he said as he began planting sloppy, wet kisses down the side of her throat. When she shivered, he mistook her revulsion for excitement and increased his efforts. Ach, men saw what they wanted to see. They were all vain as peacocks.

  “We don’t have time for this now.” Moira gripped his shoulders and gave him a hard push. “And ’tis not safe here.”

  “Can ye get away and meet me in the field behind the castle tonight?” Colla asked, breathing in her face again.

  “In the field behind the castle? Is that all ye think of me?” She did not have to pretend to be affronted.

  “I think the world of ye,” Colla said, leaning too close again.

  “’Tis too dangerous for us here,” she said. “If Sean caught us, he’d murder us both.”

  “If ye could slip away for an afternoon,” Colla said, “there’s a quiet bay a couple of miles to the west.”

  “Do ye think I’d leave my husband for a man who only wants to roll around on the grass with me a time or two?” she asked.

  “Leave your husband?” Colla straightened and blinked at her.

  Had she misjudged how badly he wanted her? Moira did not have much time to persuade Colla to take her and her son away. Sean was like a pot of oil on a hot fire ready to explode. She took Colla’s hand and placed it on her breast.

  “O shluagh,” Colla murmured, calling on the faeries for help.

  Moira swallowed back her distaste. Even through the cloth of her gown, his hand felt hot and damp.

  “Please, Moira, I’ve wanted ye for so long. Just tell me where ye want to meet.”

  When will this be over? His hand was on her breast like a limpet.

  “I want ye to take me far away from here,” she said, “to a place where Sean could never catch us.”

  “Meet me tomorrow and we’ll talk about it.” Colla’s breathing grew harsh as he rubbed his thumb over her nipple. This was taking longer than she’d anticipated.

  “The only place we’ll be safe is at my brother’s castle on Skye,” she said and removed his hand from her breast. “My brother is chieftain of my clan and would welcome us.”

  Connor damned well better welcome her, after all she’d been through.

  “Ye would take me as your new husband?” Colla asked. “My heart has been yours for years, but I didn’t dare hope ye would consider marrying me.”

  Colla may have convinced himself that his heart was engaged, but Moira knew precisely what part of him he hoped to engage with her. And, typical man, he did not even notice that she had failed to answer his question.

  “I won’t be parted from my son.” She folded her arms beneath her breasts to draw his attention to them.

  “Ach, I don’t know about taking a man’s child from him…”

  “I will not go without Ragnall,” she said.

  Colla dragged his gaze from her breasts to her face. “Whatever ye want, Moira.”

  She let her breath out slowly. This time, when Colla pulled her into his arms, she gritted her teeth and let him for a moment.

  “I must wait for an opportunity,” she said, leaning back from him. “Ye cannot tell a soul. Sean is a dangerous man.”

  “Ach, I’m no afraid of Sean,” Colla said, puffing out his chest. “I’m willing to fight him for ye.”

  Men. She had told him that to make him cautious, not to prick his pride. She cupped his jaw with her hand and smiled up at him. “Please. I don’
t want a fight.”

  “All right,” he said.

  Panic rose in her throat when Colla crushed her against him. She felt cold and clammy as he began running his hands over her.

  “I must go before Sean sends someone looking for me.” Feigning reluctance, she eased him away. “We’ll have all the time we want once we are away from here.”

  “How will I know when and where to meet you?” Colla asked.

  “When I wear my dark red gown, that means I will try to get away that night,” she said. “Ye know where the old wooden fort is?”

  “Aye.”

  “I’ll meet ye there at midnight.”

  Chapter 5

  I’ll leave for Ireland in the morning,” Duncan said.

  He and Connor were sitting alone having a last drink. Alex had taken Teàrlag home to her cow, and Ian had gone home to Sìleas and their babies. After all the commotion earlier, the hall had settled down to a quiet hum of voices.

  “The winter storms are still upon us,” Connor said. “Wait another month or two.”

  “After what Teàrlag said, ye know I can’t,” Duncan said.

  “The meaning of Teàrlag’s vision wasn’t clear, and she’s getting old and confused,” Connor said. “I expect you’ll find that all is well with Moira.”

  For all Duncan’s years of misery, his one consolation had been that he had done the right thing in leaving. He had believed that Moira would wed a chieftain and have the kind of life that would make her happy—the kind that he could never give her. A thousand times he had imagined her as mistress of a fine castle, with servants, jewels, and pretty gowns. And in his mind’s eye, she had always been smiling and laughing.

  If he had been wrong and he had made the sacrifice for nothing, he could not bear it.

  “All the same, I’ll be going in the morning,” Duncan said, looking into his cup.

  Duncan’s affair with Moira was the only secret he had ever kept from Connor. Ian had been at court in Stirling that summer, so he had not known of it, either. But Alex had been around Dunscaith and, being Alex, had guessed what was going on between Duncan and Moira long before Connor’s father did.