Chapter 29
“Ye canna mean to consider this lunatic’s proposal!” Lachlan slammed his fist on the ornate travel table positioned in the center of Stewart’s pavilion. The large tent was furnished as comfortably as if it were a room in his keep, complete with a camp bed, a wash stand, and a wolf-pelt rug. Drummond’s camp was far more spartan than his wealthier ally’s. “We had an agreement!”
Stewart’s eyes glittered dangerously at him. “And I’m of a mind to alter that agreement.” He returned his attention to the stack of missives that had come by courier earlier that day, as if he were totally unconcerned by Lachlan’s outburst. At least one of the messages bore the royal seal. “So far, there’s no evidence MacLaren has harmed my daughter. She looked healthy, clean, and well fed. She even smiled a time or two while I looked at her. Why should I not consider what he had to say?”
“He admits she was injured. The bastard shot her with a crossbow bolt.” Lachlan paced the perimeter of the tent. “I saw him do it with my own eyes.”
“Aye, so ye say.” Stewart looked up from his missives only briefly. “He denies it.”
“Are ye calling me a liar?”
“I’m saying it was dark, and the eye can play tricks.”
Lachlan dragged a hand over his face. “Ye’re distraught, so I’ll let that go for the sake of our bonds.”
“What puzzles me is why ye dinna wish to fight the MacLaren,” Stewart said, laying aside the stack of correspondence. “I’ve a feeling if the tables were turned and ye had stolen his bride at the altar, heaven and earth couldna turn him from taking up his sword against ye.”
“I dinna know why ye hold the MacLaren’s actions up to be admired and repeated. He broke the sanctity of a kirk, for Christ’s sake! He stole your daughter. Probably stole her maidenhead as well. The man’s no’ exactly sane.”
“He seemed perfectly sane to me, and you will keep your scurrilous assumptions to yourself. There’s no evidence he’s harmed Elspeth in any way. It appears she’s been accorded every respect.” Stewart rose to his feet and stared at Lachlan until he was forced to look away. Then Stewart took his seat once more and picked up another oilskin packet, breaking the seal with his dirk.
“But he demanded we sever our alliance.”
“And if ye kill the MacLaren in single combat, perhaps we’d renew it. Ye can take him surely,” Stewart said. “All in all, his demands dinna seem unreasonable.”
Stewart would think that. He wasn’t risking his neck in single combat with the bloody MacLaren. Lachlan had the reputation of being a wicked swordsman, and it was well deserved in his younger days. But drink and soft living had caused him to lose a step or two, more than might be expected of a man who should be in his prime. Sometimes, his hand shook uncontrollably when he took up a blade, one of the reasons he’d shifted to the crossbow as his weapon of choice. Now he fought only men he was certain he could kill. Whether by superior swordsmanship or by cunning.
He didn’t feel confident either would help him best Rob MacLaren.
“What do ye intend on the morrow, Stewart?”
“I havena decided.” Alistair Stewart sent him a withering glance. “Ye’ll know when I give my answer to the MacLaren, but if I were you, I’d polish up my swordplay. Now will ye leave me in peace? I’ve been gone from home too long, and there’s a great deal here that requires my attention.”
Lachlan shoved out of the tent flap and stomped toward his encampment. Matters were spiraling out of control. He had to get a grip on them again. His body servant had lit the lamp inside his tent and stood by ready to serve, but it would take too long for him to pour wine into a horn. Lachlan lifted the wineskin from its peg and upended it into his mouth in a long stream of red.
“Leave me,” he growled and swiped his mouth on his sleeve.
The fellow, whose name Lachlan couldn’t even remember, bowed and started to sidle out.
“No, wait.” An idea suddenly rushed into him. “Send Randall to me.”
Randall was the best marksman under Lachlan’s command. He was wicked enough with a long bow, but deadly accurate with a crossbow. And best of all, he owed Lachlan more fealty than was common, since he’d killed a man and Drummond had covered the deed for him by accusing and executing someone else for the crime. Randall was bound to serve the House of Drummond by an oath he dared not break.
When the man appeared, Lachlan didn’t acknowledge his presence for about ten heartbeats. He was still poking at his idea to see if he could detect any flaws. He found none.
“I want you to leave camp this night.”
“Where am I bound, my lord?”
“I want ye to find a place to hide near the castle walls, a snug spot from which ye can shoot a bolt far enough to reach the place where we held parley this day.”
“Ye mean for me to kill the MacLaren by stealth?”
“No,” Drummond said with a sly smile. “On my signal, I want you to plant your bolt in the heart of Alistair Stewart.”
After a few more instructions, the man left, ready to make his way to a place of concealment. On the morrow, because of the direction of the bolt’s path, it would seem as if one of MacLaren’s men broke the truce and killed Stewart. After that, Stewart’s men would never let MacLaren or his second reach the safety of their castle. They’d be torn to pieces before their own walls.
If there were men worthy of the name inside the castle, they’d not suffer their laird to be cut down before their eyes. The Clan MacLaren would throw open the gates and flood out to meet the angry Stewarts. Lachlan would quietly lead the Clan Drummond from the field.
And when the dust settled and the bodies were collected, there’d be two clans in want of leadership, weakened and broken. And they’d both be beholden to him for keeping his head and negotiating a peace settlement between them, a settlement that would include fealty and yearly tributes to be paid to the Clan Drummond.
Lachlan might be laird in all but name of three clans by the time the moon rose twice.
***
Elspeth felt better about attending supper this night. Rob’s people had been friendlier to her all day—all but Mrs. Beaton and her niece Margot. When Elspeth stood at the battlements, folk talked of her bringing their laird luck in his negotiations. And since he returned to the castle unharmed, she was considered good luck.
Rob had come to escort her down to the Great Hall again, and she was greeted warmly by several people who’d glared at her the night before as they took their place of honor. Rob looked so handsome, she could scarcely tear her eyes from him. Though he didn’t share what he’d discussed with her father, he assured her she’d be happy about it once he was able to tell her.
“At least, I hope ye’ll be happy,” he’d said, stealing a quick kiss in a dark corridor on their way down to the evening meal.
She didn’t think she could cram in much more happiness than she felt now. If only she didn’t have this niggling headache. It was like a claw at the base of her skull, and nothing she did could shake it.
She took a sip of wine, hoping that might ease the discomfort. Then one of the serving girls lit another candle at the end of their table, and suddenly her vision tunneled and Elspeth was sucked into the flame.
Brightness burned the backs of her eyes. Then the light dimmed, and she could see.
Oh, God! The battle scene. Not again.
Hundreds of bodies littered the field, bleeding into winter-brown grass. Corbies cried and circled overhead, waiting. Women culled items of value from the fallen or searched, weeping, for dead loved ones. A large carrion bird swooped down, impatient for the upright humans to clear the heath so the corbies could feast on the bodies that remained.
Elspeth wandered through the glen of death, looking for something. She knew not what. The only thing that made it possible for her to put one foot before another was her certainty that she had Seen this battle before. This was all but a vision, as insubstantial as a dream and over as quickly.
Someone groaned, a dying man among the dead. Another bleated piteously for his mother. Whose son was he? She couldn’t see his face.
No, he didn’t have a face.
She jerked her gaze away. It started to rain, heaven weeping for the fallen.
Oh, Merciful God! This vision was different. She saw something she recognized—a scrap of Stewart plaid. She ran toward it. Her father stared unblinking into the dripping sky. A crossbow bolt protruded from his chest. She sank down beside him, rocking in agony. A soft keening escaped her throat.
Then a shout drew her gaze. A rabble had surrounded a single man. He fought like a demon, slashing and turning, but there were too many. A blade cut him, and he roared in agony. They closed in like wolves around a wounded buck. As he went down, he turned toward her, and she saw his face for a blink before they hacked him to pieces.
Rob!
The blades fell like scythes on wheat.
Someone started wailing, a wordless cry with no end.
Elspeth had no idea the screams came from her. Even once the mists of Sight faded and she was back in the Great Hall of Caisteal Dubh, she couldn’t make herself stop.
***
Mrs. Beaton and Nessa followed Rob when he carried a shrieking Elspeth up the long stairs, away from the shocked faces in the Great Hall. While he paced outside the room, Elspeth calmed a bit, crying out only at intervals as portions of the vision seeped back into her in stark clarity.
The serving women stripped her of her evening finery and put her back into her chemise for bed, murmuring softly to each other but not to Elspeth. She wasn’t offended. Their words were only muffled sounds, garbled and wavering, as if they spoke underwater. She didn’t know if she could have answered them intelligibly anyway.
Mrs. Beaton sent Nessa for a steaming cup of willow-bark tea, and supervised while Elspeth drank it. Only then did Elspeth’s heaving sobs finally subside into sniffles. Rob burst into the room, despite his housekeeper’s protest, refusing to be kept out a moment longer.
“Hush, leannán,” Rob crooned, stroking her brow. They were the first words that made sense to Elspeth’s mind. “There’s no need for tears.” He turned to the servants standing by Elspeth’s bedside. “Leave us.”
“But, my lord, ’tis not seemly for ye to—” Mrs. Beaton began.
“And it’s no’ seemly for ye to question your laird,” Rob fired back at her. “If ye canna obey a simple command, mayhap ye need to seek employment elsewhere.”
“As ye wish, my lord,” Mrs. Beaton said, tight-lipped. The serving girl, Nessa, followed her out of the chamber. When the door was open, Elspeth caught sight of Albus’s long, worried face in the corridor. He’d taken up his post as her guard once more. Her heart was eased by his presence this time.
Elspeth thought she heard the brush of a corbie’s wing making a low pass over the room. She grasped Rob’s shirt and pulled him close. “Rob?”
“Aye, love, I’m here. There’s naught to fear. None will harm ye, no’ while I breathe.”
“Oh, but they’ll harm ye,” she sobbed.
“Whist, now, no one’s going to harm me.” He cradled her head on his chest. “Where d’ye get such notions?”
She sat up straight. “Because I’ve Seen it.”
In halting words, she started to recount the details of her horrifying vision.
“I told ye I have the Sight. My Gift visited me this night, and if ye leave the castle, if ye meet Lachlan on the field of battle…” Her voice faltered.
“Then I’ll kill the blackguard.”
“Ye’ll die, Rob. Ye’ll die horribly, and I willna be able to bear it.” She pounded a fist on his chest once. “And so will my father.”
Hot tears scalded her cheeks, and she fought for breath.
“But ye’re wrong, leannán. In your vision, ye see many men dead on a field of battle. But there won’t be any battle,” he said, stroking her softly. “On the morrow, I’ll meet Drummond in single combat. Your father will be in no danger. This vision isna a true one.”
“All my visions are true,” she said woodenly. He might not be planning a battle, but one would overtake him nonetheless. The knowledge pressed against her chest, heavy as an anvil. If Rob parleyed with Drummond again, he and her father would die.
Unless she did something about it.