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“Try again,” Duncan commanded. “I must know where Kieran is before I worsen.”
Kieran? Who is this Kieran? Laurel wanted to ask, but she was reluctant to intrude on a conjuring in which she could take no part. Silence filled the chamber, broken only by the crackle of the fire and the rasp of Duncan’s uneven breathing.
“Ah!” Nesta exclaimed.
“Ye’ve seen him?” The rope-bound bed creaked as Duncan levered himself up for a peek.
“Aye.” Firelight glinted in Nesta’s red hair as she turned her head toward the bed. “I’ve found him, Da.”
“How far from Edin?”
“He’s on the far side of the pass, for I see the river and foothills beyond him. Ellis has met him, and they are talking.”
Laurel frowned. Why had the captain of Edin’s guard made no mention to her of meeting this Kieran, she wondered.
“And not a moment too soon,” Duncan muttered. “Well, don’t just sit there gaping, lass, tell me how he looks.”
Nesta turned back to the bowl, studied it for so long Laurel thought she’d go mad with the waiting. “Hard.”
“Hard? He’s no more than three and twenty,” Duncan said.
“Oh, his face is young, but his eyes are cold and har—”
“Mayhap ye’ve got the wrong man. Describe him to me.”
“Black haired he is, with strong features, a cleft in his square jaw and...and violet eyes.”
Violet eyes! Disbelief drove Laurel forward. Denial crowding her throat, she stopped beside her aunt and beheld an image floating in the murky water. ’Twas him. Recognition drove the strength from her legs and she sank down, scarcely feeling the cold stones beneath her knees. It couldn’t be, yet it was.
The man from her dreams.
“Wh-who is he?” Laurel murmured, transfixed by the sight.
“’Tis Kieran Sutherland,” Duncan replied. “The knight I’ve hired to protect us from those damned reivers.”
Laurel straightened. “You’d bring a stranger here?”
“He’s known to me. A mercenary whose exploits I’ve followed for some time.” Flushed with excitement, Duncan went on to enumerate Kieran’s feats in battle and on the tourney circuit. “He’s the grandson of a lass I’d a mind to wed. A few years ago I wrote her and...well, never mind that now. Suffice to say when a friend sent word Kieran was returning to Scotland, I took a notion to meet him. Never guessed I’d have need of his skills. Luckily my message found him still in Berwick. Luckier still, he agreed to take service with us.”
Laurel stared at the image, remembering her dream and the hunger in Kieran Sutherland’s eyes. “I want everything you are and will be,” he’d said. Greedy sot. Like Aulay before him, Kieran wanted Edin. “He cannot stay,” she choked out.
“I know ye’ve a distrust of outsiders, lass, but young Kieran’s our only hope.”
“He wants Edin,” Laurel insisted, and when her grandfather pressed her for details, she mumbled, “I...I dreamed about him.”
“Are ye saying ye had a vision of Kieran attacking me?”
“Nay, but he—”
“Is here to help us.”
“Grandda!” Laurel began, hurt and frustrated.
Nesta laid a hand on her arm. “What did ye see?”
Laurel sighed. It hadn’t been what she’d seen but what she’d felt. Danger. No one would believe her. She’d just have to find some way to prove Kieran Sutherland didn’t belong in Edin Valley.
Kieran squinted against the sun just peering over the jagged ridge of mountains that lay before them. As majestic as they were unexpected, the peaks seemed to leap from the rolling hills of the Border country like the teeth of some ancient beast roaring at the sky. So rugged was the terrain, that if he hadn’t known better, he’d have thought he was back in the Highlands where he’d been fostered, instead of two days’ march north of Carlisle. In fact, had Ellis MacLellan not hailed them as they rode along the river, Kieran would have passed right by.
At Ellis’s direction, they’d forded at a low spot in the rushing river and now faced a sheer cliff face. “Do you propose we walk up the side of that?” Kieran inquired.
The older man grinned, teeth gleaming in his russet beard, laugh lines crinkling the corner of his eyes. “Nay. The entrance to the pass lies just there.” With that, he kneed his horse around a bend in the trail and disappeared into a cleft in the rock.
Kieran’s gut tightened as he eyed the dark aperture.
“Let me go in first,” Rhys offered. A steel helmet obscured the young Welshman’s features, all save the black eyes narrowed with equal parts concern and determination.
“Nay” He’d not send another where he wouldn’t go himself. “You and the others wait here whilst I see what lies within.”
“Kieran, it could be a trap,” Rhys warned.
“Unlikely, but if so, you’ll be free and able to spring me from its jaws.” He scanned the fifty armored men who followed him, capable fighters all and his responsibility. “I’m not a hotheaded youth who charges rashly into danger.” Nay, he’d learned patience and caution the hard way, and they both knew it. “Stay here till I signal ’tis safe to enter.” Swinging his shield from shoulder to forearm, Kieran drew his sword and nudged Rathadack, his warhorse, into the cleft.
Darkness swallowed him up, pressing all around as Kieran moved cautiously forward. His eyes ached from trying to pierce the shroud. A hundred long paces later, his horse turned to the right. Ahead lay a patch of light. Silhouetted in its welcome brilliance, a single mounted man waited. Ellis.
“Takes a body by surprise,” Ellis called out as Kieran approached. Then his glance flicked to the unsheathed sword and his smile dimmed. “Did ye think we meant ye ill?”
Kieran shrugged, not the least bit shamed by his precautions. “I’ve learned to leave little to chance.” His words were lost in the clatter of hooves coming fast through the tunnel. Fearing the worst, he jerked around just as Rhys popped out of the darkness, sword aloft. Hard on his heels rode Martin and Sim. When they spotted Kieran, they ground to a halt in a shower of fine stone and ripe curses.
“I told you to wait,” Kieran shouted over the chaos.
Rhys lifted the visor of his helmet, completely unchastened. “Ye were gone overlong.”
“What if it had been a trap?”
“And ye caught in it. As your second-in-command—”
“Ye know there is no excuse for disobeyin’ my orders,” Kieran snapped, the Scots burr he’d tried to shake thickening.
“I’m sworn to protect ye, even from yerself.” Rhys glared at him as he used to when they were boys growing up at Carmichael Castle. Kieran, older by two years, had been the leader even then, but the Welsh were not easily led.
“You know the rules,” Kieran growled, furious that the rest of his men had followed Rhys and now waited to see if he’d enforce their strict code. Rhys had acted out of concern for his welfare, but discipline was what kept an army such as his in line. He couldn’t relax the rules. “The penalty for disobeying an order is five lashes. You all should feel its sting, but ’twas Rhys who led this revolt. I’ll defer punishment till we arrive at MacLellan’s Tower.”
Rhys nodded. “I will hold myself ready for ye then.”
“Now, now, surely that’s not necessary,” Ellis interjected. “He was only thinking of yer welfare, and there’s no harm done.”
Kieran turned on him with a snarl that made the man shrink back in the saddle. “My orders are law, as you’ll soon discover if your laird hires me to protect his holdings.”
Ellis blanched. “Aye, well, that remains to be seen.” He headed his horse down the trail, apparently uncaring whether Kieran and his men followed. Unfortunately, pressed as he was for funds, Kieran couldn’t afford to cast aside Duncan MacLellan’s offer of work. He needed every coin he could lay his hands on to finance the scheme he’d vowed to undertake.
“Made another friend, I see,” Rhys said cheerfully as they plodded along after Ellis’s reproving back.
“I’m a mercenary, not a courtier.” He found it best if those he commanded feared him. Still he regretted having to punish his only friend. Raising his visor on the pretext of scanning their surroundings, Kieran said stiffly, “I appreciate your concern.”
“I know.” Rhys glanced at the man whose back he’d guarded as they fought their way across the bloody battlefields of France. Tall and heavily muscled, Kieran was a born warrior, like his long-dead sire, the legendary Lion of the Carmichaels. Yet although he’d been gently reared by his aunt and uncle, “hard” and “cold” were two of the kinder things men said about Kieran behind his back. Rhys alone knew of the incident that had turned a happy, engaging lad of five and ten into an embittered man with but one goal... revenge on those who had betrayed him.
And yet, Rhys knew, too, that beneath the thick shell his friend had grown to withstand the pain of betrayal was a caring core. Though he feared that soon the canker eating at Kieran’s insides would devour even that sliver of gentleness.
Today was a perfect example. ‘Twas not his actions that had roused Kieran’s ire; ’twas the damnable situation Kieran found himself in. Back in Scotland after eight years’ exile, yet no closer to realizing his goal. Further from it, if the truth be known, for near every coin Kieran had saved over the years to finance his revenge had been spent to bring his little army hither when they’d been hounded out of France.
“Yon pass is well hidden.” Kieran’s overture of peace.
Rhys lifted his visor and smiled in acceptance. “’Twould be an easy place to defend, hell to try and invade.”
Kieran grunted in agreement and as they fell to discussing Edin’s natural defenses, the knot in his gut eased. He didn’t have so many friends that he could afford to lose one. Truth to tell, Rhys was his only friend... by choice. The fewer people a man let close, the fewer were in a position to wound him. His uncle’s deceit had taught him that those closest to a man could hurt him the most. ’Twas a lesson he’d never forget, a betrayal he intended to avenge...once he had Duncan’s coin.
“I didn’t realize the Borders sported such land.” Kieran scanned the sheer rock walls, crowding in so close it seemed the trail had been hewn straight through the mountain. In places it was narrowed by tumbled boulders. “You said you had patrols out, yet I haven’t seen any sign of them,” he called ahead to Ellis.
“Nay?” Ellis uttered a sharp whistle, and a score of men popped up from the nearby rocks. They wore conical helmets and the Scottish leine croich, a thigh-length quilted coat that offered less protection than the heavy metal armor Kieran’s men wore, but rendered them quicker and more agile. Each MacLellan held a six-foot spear over his shoulder, cocked and ready.
Behind him, Kieran heard his men gasp. Rhys gave a cough of something that was probably laughter. Kieran wasn’t amused, but he was impressed. His spine prickled with the possibility there was a spear trained there, too. “How many men have you?” Years of practice kept his voice steady.
“Thirty, Sir Kieran.” Ellis had turned in the saddle, his grin reflecting those of his men.
Their levity further roused Kieran’s ire. This was no game. “And how many men do you have outside the valley...in the woods by the river?” he snarled on a hunch.
Ellis’s smile faded. “None. After the reivers came and burned the pair of crofts along there, Laird Duncan thought it too dangerous to risk posting men in the open.”
“How can you know if the enemy is approaching?”
“We have lookouts in the rocks above the pass.”
“And by the time they scramble down and go for help, the outlaws could be through the pass and overpower your guards. Natural defenses alone won’t stop a determined foe.”
“Of course they won’t,” Ellis sputtered. “We have men patrolling the valley and another score billeted at the nearest croft in case they’re needed.”
“Insufficient. But we will look to improving things as soon as I’ve seen what we’ve got to work with. Martin,” Kieran called over his shoulder. “Take ten men and position yourselves on the riverbank below the entrance to the tunnel. I’ll send someone to relieve you at sundown.” Without looking to see that his orders were carried out, Kieran motioned for Ellis to lead on.
As the little cavalcade got under way, Rhys made another suspicious-sounding noise.
“You have aught to add?” Kieran growled.
“Just that these men are not yers to command.”
“They will be the moment Duncan MacLellan hands over the first half of the payment he’s promised.”
“True. Still, ye Scots are an independent lot, with no more liking for being ordered about than we Welsh.”
You Scots. The reference rankled, as did all mention of his heritage. From the moment he’d left Carmichael Castle, he’d become a man without a home, divorced from it and his ancestors. “If they want my help, they’ll follow my orders.”
“I think—” Rhys’s comment ended in a gasp as the party rounded a bend in the trail and broke free of the rocky pass. Ahead of them lay the valley, a lush plain bounded on all sides by the same steep-sided mountains that guarded the pass. Yet here the sun seemed brighter, the air sweeter, the grass greener. “Edin—’tis aptly named.”
Kieran nodded as his gaze swept over the tranquil scene. The strip of water meandering through the center of the valley reflected the deep blue sky overhead, as the fluffy clouds dotting it mirrored the sheep grazing on the grassy mountain slopes. More sheep than he’d seen in years.
Peaceful. Unspoiled. ’Twas like a balm to Kieran’s battered soul.
“It reminds me a little of the hills around Carmichael Castle,” Rhys murmured.
Kieran’s spirits plunged back to earth with a thud. “I asked you never to speak of that place.”
“Aye, so ye did,” Rhys said hoarsely. “And I’ve honored yer wishes, but I cannot forget the home where we were raised.”
Nor could Kieran. God knows he’d tried his damnedest to forget the castle and the people who’d brought him the greatest joy...and deepest sorrow. The castle that should have been his heritage. Stolen from him. He would regain his lost legacy, though the retaking would be steeped in blood... his uncle’s blood. “Lead on,” he told Ellis.
Fortunately the trail winding down from the mountains was steep. Negotiating it took Kieran’s mind from the past and focused it firmly on the present. And the future. His future, for the short term, was tied to defending this valley and earning the coin that would buy his revenge. When they reached the valley floor, he set himself to the task. “Duncan’s message said he’d been attacked on the way to market in Kindo.”
Ellis grunted. “Aye. They were lying in wait for him.”
“Who knew of his plans to take the lambs to market?”
“Everyone in Edin Valley, I suppose.”
“What? Has he no sense?”
“He’s a right canny man,” Ellis said stoutly. “He wouldn’t have lived to eight and sixty otherwise. Naught like this has happened to the MacLellans before. We’ve always lived in peace.”
“I hear hostilities have increased along the Border since Robert came to Scotland’s throne,” Kieran said. ’Twas the reason he’d gone to Berwick hoping to hire out his sword. “Doubtless these reivers thought to make off with your sheep.”
“Duncan was driving young lambs to trade at market when he was ambushed, but they took nary a one.”
“The bastards were likely more eager to save their own skins than lift yer stock,” Rhys said. “Duncan’s message said they’d twice returned. Mayhap they thought to rectify their oversight.”
“Aye,” Ellis said slowly. “We beat them back both times, and in their fury, they burned the two crofts.”
“No doubt they were hoping to draw you out,” Kieran said.
“Aye. So we thought, but the laird had already given the order to bring everyone into the valley, so no lives were lost.”
Kieran frowned. “You didn’t ride out and attack them?”
“We are farmers, not fighters,” Ellis said without shame or regret. “Duncan feared we’d be bested and the valley overrun.”
Cowards, Kieran thought. Clearly his services were desperately needed, for these people had little concept of warfare and no more spine than a flock of sheep. Deep in thought, he hadn’t realized they’d reached the stream until Rhys spoke.
“All this babbling water’s reminded my bladder ’tis been awhile since we stepped down.”
Kieran nodded, acknowledging his own need, and gave the order to stop in the shelter of a copse of trees. Normally his men took their ease in shifts, the rest standing watch, but the peacefulness of their surroundings lulled him into allowing the whole party to dismount. When he’d finished his business, Kieran walked over and knelt to wash his hands in the clear, cold water.
