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“Aye, my lord,” the steward shouted back. “Just coming up.”
“See ye’re quick about it!”
Hunter smiled, the fear that had plagued him since receiving Jock’s call for help easing. “He sounds the same.”
“A bit testier is all.” Old Hutch herded them through the tower’s only entrance, a set of double doors, one of metal grating, the other made from thick oak planks banded with steel. “Go on up, ye know the way. Young Hutch’ll see yer men settled in the barracks building across the way. Tell Jock I’ll be along directly with ale and meat.”
“Come with me, Gavin.” Hunter led the way through a maze of kegs and oat sacks that filled the ground floor storage room to the turnpike stairs. The tightly coiled steps spiraled clockwise, so right-handed attackers would find their sword arms pinned against the wall as they tried to fight their way up.
“Practical folk, these Borderers,” Gavin mused, his steel-clad shoulders clanging on the close walls.
“Oh, aye, you’ll find they’re a breed apart, fiercer even in some ways than you Highlanders.”
“Ha, that I’d like to see.”
“Likely you will if I cannot persuade Uncle Jock to handle this matter my way.” Though why should he, when I mishandled things so badly last time? Hunter thought, sobered by the memory of his aunt’s abduction and subsequent death.
“Aye, well, your Border reivers will find this Highlander battle-trained and well protected.” Gavin thumbed his fist on the steel breastplate made in France of Spanish steel.
“Our armor is stronger than, their quilted leather jacks, but they’re a tough lot, hardened by a life spent constantly at war with reiving English and raiding Scots alike.”
They crested the stairs and found themselves in an entryway the size of a horse stall. It was as dark as one, too, the faint light of a single torch playing over walls whose only decoration was a coat of soot from a long-ago fire.
“Charming.” Gavin wrinkled his nose.
A muffled bellow turned both of them toward a heavy, iron-banded door, the worse for a few ax cuts.
“Coming, Uncle.” Hunter reached for the door latch and took a deep, steadying breath. It did nothing to ease the knot that had cramped his belly from the moment Jock McKie’s disheveled messenger had banged on the gates of Carmichael Castle. It wasn’t fear, it was the hunger for revenge dueling with his inbred sense of justice.
“The Murrays have paid for what they did to my sister,” his father had told him before he left. “Jock saw to that. There’s been enough blood spilled—on both sides,” added Ross Carmichael, a man of peace and reason. “Jock would not listen to my pleas he end the feud, but now that he’s sent for you, use that golden tongue of yours to make him see reason. More deaths will not bring our Brenna back.”
Nay, nothing would do that, Hunter thought, his hand tightening on the latch. But he would give all he owned—coin, property—to be cast back twelve years and have a chance to plunge his blade into Alex Murray’s black heart. He wrenched open the door and was driven back a step by the harsh light, the stench of smoke and unwashed bodies.
“Dieu,” Gavin whispered, goggle-eyed. “I’ve stayed in taverns that were more...”
“Civilized? Luncarty was once.” When his aunt was alive. And yet, the great hall was much as Hunter remembered—narrow, dark and low ceilinged, a peat fire smoldering in the corner hearth, hard-looking men in rough wool seated jowl to jowl at the scarred trestle tables, eating and arguing fit to raise the dead. It was a world away from Carmichael Castle with its linen-draped tables, tapestry-covered walls and multicourse meals served by liveried maids while a minstrel plucked at a harp and his parents spoke of books or his mother sang an ancient poem.
Hunter sighed. “When I came here to visit, I thought this the grandest place, so wild and free. Of course, with Aunt Brenna the lady here, things were much finer and cleaner.”
“Hunter? Damn and blast, where is that lad?”
“Here, Uncle.” Hunter squinted through the smoky pall to spy a big four-poster bed set square in the middle of the room.
“Does he not have a bedchamber?” Gavin whispered.
“Aye, he does, I expect, but Uncle Jock would have to be dead to stay away out of the thick of things.”
The man propped up in the bed was nearly as unchanged as his tower, Oh, time had dulled Jock’s black hair to steel gray and cut ragged lines in his square face, but the eyes staring from beneath beetled brows were as sharp as ever.
“Well, I’ll be damned. Ye’re bigger even than old Lionel Carmichael was. Come here, lad!” Jock waved an imperious arm.
Conscious of the grinning McKies, Hunter flushed and trailed across the room, feeling like a lad again.
“Aye, ye’ve your mama’s coloring, but yer grandsire’s size. Foul-tempered old bastard, he was. Always liked that about him. What of ye?” Jock grabbed hold of Hunter’s forearm and squeezed hard enough to draw a wince. “Not bad... not bad. See,” he shouted to the room at large. “I told ye he’d have been lifting something weightier than those bloody books of his da’s.”
“I—”
“Chief justice of the king’s court, he is.” Jock’s whiskered jowls lifted in a huge grin. “Mighty proud of ye, lad. Mighty proud. Aren’t we?”
The chorus of congratulation barely swelled when Jock cut across it. “Still ye must have found a few quarrels ye couldn’t settle with them fancy words yer da pounded into ye.”
“Actually, it was the university in Paris that did the pounding,” Hunter said dryly. His concerned parents had shipped him off to study only a few weeks after bringing him home from Luncarty—as much to prevent him from joining Jock’s war against the Murrays as to educate him. Distance, time and exposure to the fundamentals of law had accomplished their goals. He’d returned to Scotland four years ago a cautious, educated man who weighed the outcome of a step before venturing to take it.
Belatedly recalling his manners, Hunter turned and beckoned Gavin over. “This is Gavin Sutherland of Kinduin. You may recall that Aunt Elspeth wed Lucais Sutherland. Gavin is my second cousin, the son of Uncle Lucais’s—”
“Whatever. Welcome, Gavin. Robbie!” Jock bellowed, causing a young man to spring from those crowded around the bed. “See young Gavin has food and drink. And give my nephie and me a bit of privacy.” While the space around them cleared, Jock waved Hunter onto a stool beside the bed.
“’Tis good to see you looking better than I’d expected,” Hunter said.
“And glad I am to see ye.” Jock’s wide cheeks deflated. “Though I wish it’d been under better circumstances.” He waved at his left leg, a huge mound under the coarse blanket. “Broke it in two places trying to get away from Mad Danny Murray.”
Hunter sat forward on the stool. “He attacked you?”
“Aye, under a flag of truce.” Jock’s lids sagged. “I lost three men before we brought him down.”
“Your message said Daniel Murray was dead.”
Jock smiled. “Aye. The last of Alex Murray’s sons is dead.”
“So, it’s over, then.”
“Over!” Fire leaped into Jock’s eyes. “It’ll no’ be over till I’ve wiped out every one of the murdering bastards who stole my—”
“But the man who took Aunt Brenna is dead, and his sons, too. You burned the Murrays out of their tower five years ago,” Hunter added, summing up the facts as he did in many a case from the high bench. “So ’twould seem the feud is at an end.”
“Nay!” Jock sat up straighter, cheeks puffing, face red. “There’ll be no end to it till I’ve found and killed them all.”
“But, Uncle, there can be little left of the Murrays except old men, women and children.”
“Aye, what of it?”
“’Tis not Christian to make war on women and children.”
“Was it Christian for that rutter, Murray, to take my Brenna away from her home and family? Was it Christian of them to send her bones back to me when he was done with her?”
“Bones?” Hunter’s blood ran cold.
“Aye. Six years ago they sent her bones in a bag, her cross still around her neck, my ring on her finger.” He waved his left hand under Hunter’s nose, light glinting off the gold band on his little finger. “Dod, I wish I could kill Alex Murray again.”
Hunter shivered. Twelve years he’d spent trying to forget, now the pain and the rage flooded back. “I did not know of this. My father never said—”
“Likely trying to prevent ye from riding down here and helping me and the lads deal with these bastards.” Jock clapped Hunter on the knee. “Narry fear, lad, ye’re here now, and yer help’s most welcome, what with me unable to sit a horse.”
“What would you have me do?”
“We need to find out where they are holed up. They’re a wily lot, these Murrays, dodging and hiding from our patrols. Owen Murray will be leading them now we’ve finally gotten rid of Mad Danny, and Alex’s oldest daughter may be riding with them.”
“A woman reiver?”
“Aye, that Allisun Murray’s a hard bitch, and canny, too, they say, like her cursed sire.”
Hunter frowned, picturing an ugly crone dressed in riding leathers and wearing a sword.
“Rumor has it she was seen treating with Ill Will Bell.”
Air whistled between Hunter’s teeth.
“Ye’ve heard of him, even in Edinburgh, I see. Dod, the man’s a vicious beast. I dinna need to tell ye what’ll become of the McKies if Allisun seduces III Will into making war on us.”
“Nay,” Hunter said slowly. “I’ve a warrant outstanding against the Bells for kidnapping, ransom, thievery...”
“Oh, aye, and that’s only the evidence presented by folk who were brave enough to complain—or still alive to do it.”
“Why does Sir Andrew Kerr do nothing about this?”
Jock hawked and spat onto the rush-covered- floor. “Ill Will’s got Andy by the short hairs. Took his youngest daughter in a raid on Kelso last year. Threatened to send her back in pieces if Andy moved against him. ’Course—” Jock shrugged “—if she’s still alive, she’s doubtless in a bad way. Will’s got a taste for rape, they say.”
Disgust rose in Hunter, a bitter, choking wave. What kind of people lived like this?
“But—” Jock brightened “—we’ve set a wee trap for the Murrays. If they take the bait, ye can follow ’em home and wipe out every one of them,” he added with relish.
Bloody hell. The thought of killing women and children went against everything Hunter believed in. “I’ll take them and bring them to trial, Uncle.”
“Trial?” Jock shrieked. “My Brenna died unshriven, and ye blather about niceties like trials and such.” His eyes narrowed. “Or mayhap it’s that ye’re afeared to fight the Murrays. There were some who said that was why ye didn’t stop Alex from carrying off my Brenna all those years ago. I told them ye were no coward, just a wee lad. But ye’re a man grown, now, with strength aplenty to wield that sword ye wear.”
“I’m no coward.”
“Jock! Jock!” A flushed and sweaty clansman dashed into the room. “There’s a party of raiders sniffing about the cattle.”
“Murrays?” Jock demanded.
“Aye.” The man seized a cup of ale and drained it, panting as he wiped the foam from his mouth. “There’s twenty or so of them, dressed for reiving. I spotted Owen Murray and the one called Wee Harry, for sure.”
Jock crowed and clapped Hunter on the back. “Go to it, lad. But mind ye let the Murrays lift what cattle they will so as ye can follow them. Then—” he grinned wolfishly “—ye’ll get a chance to see how we Borderers deal with thieves.”
The McKies clansmen roared their approval of the plan and swarmed from the hall like angry bees, shouting for their horses and buckling on their swords.
Hunter nodded grimly to his uncle, then he and Gavin trailed after the clattering McKies.
Jock looked up at the one man who’d remained at his side. “Well, Cousin, has he not grown into a likely looking lad?”
“Humph.” Red Rowy McKie was younger than Jock by a dozen years, but just as burly and ruthless looking, his muscular body straining the seams of his leather jack. “Dinna see why ye had to send for him. I’m yer heir, I should be the one—”
“I’ve told ye a hundred times, ye great ox, Hunter’s here to lend a bit of respectability to our little venture.”
Red Rowy spat a curse. “We dinna need him.”
“Aye.” Jock’s smile turned calculating. “Aye, we do, if I’m right about what Alex Murray did with those tally sticks Brenna stole from me. Now go along with ye. I need ye to be there when they breach the Murrays’ hidey-hole. Ye know what to do?”
“Aye. I know.”
Chapter Two
The moon, which had guided the Murrays to the steep-sided ravine a quarter mile from the herders’ croft, had disappeared behind a bank of clouds, draping the land in dark shadows.
Allisun shivered, hoping it was not an ill omen.
From the shelter of a copse of trees atop the ridge, she anxiously watched the plain below, a narrow valley that meandered between the rolling hills. All was still and quiet, not so much as a leaf or a blade of grass stirring.
Ominously quiet.
A half mile distant lay the shielings, squat stone huts where the herders lived during the summer while their beasts gorged on long sweet grass. No light shone from the huts, and the McKies’ vast herd was bedded down for the night, hundreds of black dots sprawled across the valley floor. They made a tempting target, guarded only by four or five men who slept rolled in their cloaks around a tiny campfire.
Too tempting? she wondered, shivering again.
“I do not like it,” Owen had said when they’d arrived. “Things are too quiet, too—”
“The McKies have grown careless in their arrogance,” Black Gilbert had muttered. “We’ll cut out what we need to replace the beasts they stole and be away before they’re any the wiser.”
Owen had grudgingly agreed, but he’d refused to let Allisun go down with them. “Bad enough I let you come this far. You’ll not be lifting any cattle.” He’d overruled her objections and ordered her to wait on the hill with Wee Harry as guardsman.
“Ach, there they are,” Harry whispered.
Allisun looked where he pointed, down to the black slash of stone and brush that marked the ravine’s entrance. A low-slung shape crept from the mouth of the gorge. In a quick blur of motion, it slipped into the long grass, leaving her wondering if she’d imagined it. Nay, there was another and another. The grass barely twitched as they crawled closer to their objective.
Her heart racing, her fingers clenched tight around her hobbler’s reins, she watched as her men rose suddenly from the grass and fell upon the slumbering guards. The scuffle was brief and nearly soundless, a single muffled thud the only outward sign the herd was now at the Murrays’ mercy.
Allisun breathed a sigh of relief when Owen stood and waved his arm, signaling the Murrays forward. They rode out from cover, leading the rest of the horses. As soon as they’d mounted, the men fanned out and moved slowly toward the herd. “They are going to do it,” she whispered.
“Dinna count them ours, yet.” Wee Harry frowned, dour as ever. “This is a chancy business. Cattle are queer things, like to take a fright over naught and run off or trample a man.”
“You are right, of course.” Sending up a silent prayer, Allisun rose in her stirrups, counting every step the men took. So absorbed was she in the drama unfolding below that she ignored the flicker of movement at the mouth of the ravine, thinking it must be a Murray left on guard.
The moon chose that moment to shake free of the encumbering clouds. Long, white fingers raced across the landscape, banishing the dark, lengthening the shadows, glinting briefly on something bright amongst the brush and bracken.
Allisun swung her head toward the gorge, saw moonlight sparkling off polished metal. Armor?
Lordy! It was armored knights ... the same ones she’d seen enter Luncarty a few hours ago. And with them came smaller, darker shapes. McKies!
