Chieftain By Command Read online

  “Oh, look,” cried Lhilidh, pointing up at the sky where the lights had begun dancing over the top of the mountain. Morag had always called them angels, and Nhaimeth hadn’t liked to tell her different, for he had grown up with the lights at Dun Bhuird. Some years they never lit up the sky, but when they did it was a wondrous sight.

  “Mayhap it’s an omen,” laughed the wee lass with a catch in her breath, as if she needed a sign.

  Well, if she thought it was a message frae Geala, it wouldn’t be a good one. Omens, he had found, could be either for good or for ill, and given what had been happening around Dun Bhuird, he’d an inkling tonight’s one wasn’t for the best. There had been a stirring in the air, a low murmur of unrest, ever since Harald cut Gavyn in a training fight.

  As if to prove his point, a group of clansmen rumbled out of the hall’s great doors, chased after by two huge housecarls. They all began cursing and throwing fists, eventually tussling with each other on the ground outside the hall.

  Nhaimeth took one look and made up his mind. “The hall isn’t the place for you tonight, Lhilidh—not when ye can’t shelter in Kathryn’s apartments.”

  “I seldom sleep there anymore since the Laird came home.” She giggled. “I’ve a feeling he likes to gang about it with a lot of noise. Sometimes I sleep in the kitchen, or in Geala’s house. By right’s it’s mine now.”

  “I dinnae like the thought of ye there on yer own, but anything would be better than the hall. Rob and I will accompany ye there.”

  As Rob fell into step with them, heading back down the slope, Nhaimeth said to him, “Ye have never seen where I was brought up, lad. When we get there you’ll see why I like Cragenlaw so much, what with its windswept battlements and the waves crashing halfway up the cliffs. It makes me homesick just to think of it.”

  Rob never said a word, just looked cannily at him as Nhaimeth turned his back on the hall that should have been his by rights, the way Lhilidh had claimed Geala’s auld house.

  Chapter 14

  After Kathryn did as Gavyn asked and spent the remainder of the night in the big bed, he’d had time in abundance to think. In avoiding Kathryn during daylight hours, he had trammelled his chance of actually coming to know her.

  Reaching down, he grasped another log and threw it on the fire. It might be summer outside, but these auld log walls held the chill of more than a hundred winters, father to son, over and over—and now it was at an end, an end he had had a hand in. No matter that he had managed enthral his wife with the pleasures of the marriage bed, his history with the McArthur would always stand against him.

  He watched the flames lick up the sides of the log, lighting up the consistently dark room. Soon Kathryn would be up and about, and he didn’t intend to start the day with her looking askance at him if the fire was naught but grey ash. The one certainty in their relationship was that she would no longer rant and rave at him as she had on their wedding night, and for certain that was a place he didn’t want to go back to, ever. They were both different now. In no more than a month, he had realised the huge chance he had taken by leaving everything to Magnus and Abelard. It had been more than risky, it had been foolish; but he couldn’t get his first sight of Dun Bhuird out of his mind. And through his continued absence, Kathryn had been forced to take on more than anyone had the right to ask of her. He had never once considered the necessity of getting to know one’s wife, and he didn’t mean in the biblical sense. Last night had showed him that mayhap some day in the future, he and Kathryn could become friends, not simply bedmates.

  He chuckled under his breath at the irony as he hoped that next time his arrival was delayed, she wouldn’t feel the need to fire an arrow at him.

  Over in the bed, he could see Kathryn begin to stir, watched the covers move in the shadows. Without a second thought, he sat up in his chair and started to stretch out his back then eased from side to side to stretch out the kinks. “God’s teeth,” he yelled, the forgotten cut in his side making its presence felt.

  The shout wakened Kathryn, sent her rushing to his side, “What happened, are you bleeding again?” She knelt beside him, her hair tangled from sleep, in disarray about one shoulder and a mark showing low down on her neck—his mark.

  He wanted to reach out, to touch, to apologise for handling her roughly, but his hand stilled, and all he said was, “No, lass. I forgot that Harald had sliced me.”

  She looked guilty. “I told you yesterday, we can still send him away. I gave into Brodwyn’s pleading only to keep her quiet. You have no notion; some days her tongue never lay still. Call me a coward. I did it for the sake of peace.”

  A crease appeared between her eyebrows and, again, he held back when everything inside him wanted to wipe it away, give in to weakness wrought from wanting her. “I’d never name you coward, lass. She is your cousin. You did it to placate her. There is no shame in that.”

  “I was there at Cragenlaw when Harald tried to murder the McArthur, but I was too taken up with Astrid’s death, and what it meant to me, to appreciate the consequences.” She turned away as if looking him in the eye was too difficult, too hurtful, and instead she turned her attention to the strip of linen she had wrapped around his ribs to sop up the blood. He knew why, knew she’d loved her father and didn’t want to admit to him that the Bear had tried to arrange her marriage to Euan McArthur before Astrid’s body was cold and in the ground.

  He didn’t know what kind of man would sacrifice two daughters for the sake of his own ambitions. No, that was wrong; he did know. The Bear would have sacrificed anyone for self. Daughters, sons—he had fathered two of each and tossed the first of them away, so why should he be surprised over the Bear’s plans for the rest.

  He lifted her chin and stared into her eyes, so blue, so honest at first glance. But the more he sought out the secrets beyond the aquamarine-coloured pools, the more he became aware how little he really did know of what lay behind her eyes. A new maturity for certain, but what else what had changed? “You might not realise it, but the lass you are now has little in common with the lass I wed.”

  She blinked, her lashes casting shadows of doubt. “Are you sure? Two years away could’ve dimmed the memories you have of that day.”

  “I’m only two years aulder, not senile. I dare any man to say he could forget meeting and marrying a wee Scottish wildcat, back up, hair bristled and spitting mad.”

  She closed her eyes, sable lashes hiding her thoughts. The shock of blue when she reopened them made his cock thicken, lengthen with arousal, but her words—“I was frightened. Any wild thing will fight back if it fears being hurt”—quickly tamped down the urge to take her, fit his shaft inside her and find the kind of release that she always brought him.

  “So that’s why a wildcat bristles and spits. It’s frightened, not merely intent on ripping my heart out,” he said softly, a small smile playing on his lips.

  At last Kathryn flashed a him a white grin and quipped, “Your liver certainly, but not this.” She laid her palm over the centre of his chest and the traitorous organ that resided there began to race until she finished by saying, “Who knows what black things hide inside a dangerous mercenary’s heart.”

  He shrugged then winced as his wound pained him, but the pain didn’t prevent him saying, “You do. You know, for I’ve showed you every one of them on that big bed. Come to think on it, we’ll have to try something new while my wound is healing.”

  Pink flooded her cheeks. After a month of making love, she could still blush like a virgin. “They’ll have to be of your design then, for it would be hard to conjure up anything you haven’t already tried—not that I’m encouraging you … but I should examine your wound.”

  Kathryn slipped her fingertips under the linen and lifted it away. “I won’t touch this. The spider webs look to have helped the blood clot. Tomorrow I’ll put some healing salve on the wound.”

  The words had hardly left her mouth when they both started at a pounding against the door, and
a voice shouting—roaring at the top of someone’s lungs, “Laird, Laird, ye have tae come quickly, it’s murder, Laird. Bluidy murder!”

  “Give me a moment,” he yelled back, swiftly winding his plaid around his hips, tucking the end in to give the appearance of being dressed and pointing at Kathryn’s kirtle tossed haphazardly over a kist the night before. None but he would ever see the tempting image she made dressed in naught but her shift, her full breasts moving beneath the thin fabric. He waited while Kathryn flung her kirtle over her head and on bare feet ran after him to the door.

  To his mind, if someone had been murdered they weren’t going to get up and walk in the time it took to make themselves respectable. And whomsoever had killed in the night would either have already run or thought he was safe. Unlatching the door, he swung it open to reveal one of the housecarls. For a man used to fighting and war, the housecarl looked grey and drawn and, though Kathryn was the better dressed of the two of them, Gavyn put an arm out to block her way. “Where is the body?”

  “At the bottom of the ridge, but he didnae fall.” As a statement, it told Gavyn a lot. “Magnus is there. He sent me to fetch you.”

  “Give me a moment or two to dress and I’ll go with you.” Gavyn closed the door and blocked out what little light came through it. Kathryn’s hair was limned in gold from the fire behind. She looked like an angel painted on the ceiling of a small private French chapel he’d seen. Most of it was in ruins, but part of the vaulted ceiling still remained. They had camped in the chapel, and he had fallen asleep looking at the painting in the light of auld Tam’s campfire. The feelings he’d had then, like a fist clutching his heart, he experienced now observing his wife. Before he could say anything she said, “I’ll come with you. I’m more likely to recognise the man.”

  “Mayhap if I hadn’t returned that would have been expected, but Magnus can tell me the man’s name, if he knows it. It would pain me to see you distressed. It’s one thing to be able to shoot a man, another to retrieve the arrow. You saw enough blood yesterday to last you a while yet.” He stepped forward and placed his hands on her shoulders, gentle but firm.

  Her expression could hardly be described the same way. “I’m not a bairn to be coutered. As you saw when I bound your wound, I’m no stranger to blood flowing, no matter whose blood is spilling.”

  “I think it’s more.”

  “More?”

  “Worse. To put it crudely, the housecarl who brought the news gave the impression of a man who was in dire need of vomiting.” His grip on her tightened. “Let me view the body and judge whether it is fit for a woman’s eyes. Mayhap there will be some who require some of your tonics when we’re done. But for now, I need a belt.”

  He’d been wise to refuse her company.

  The remains—for they could no longer be called a man—would have been unsurprising on a battlefield. One might have walked on by after a battle, unless searching for a friend, but here, without the company of other fallen, it turned the stomach. The murderer—butcher—must have hated the victim to hack at his body so viciously, even after the victim was dead. He could leave it to Magnus as constable to discover who had perpetrated the crime. He could, but he wouldn’t.

  This heinous act offended him as a man.

  As Chieftain of Dun Bhuird, to look on this obscenity was to take personal offence and fill him with a desire to seek revenge.

  Kathryn admitted to hovering. She couldn’t bear not to know. It was her right.

  Pushing trepidation aside, she walked to the ridge’s edge, but too many folk crowded about the base, blocking her view. Her heart pounded, as it had that day Gavyn came home. A trickle of fear licked down her spine, as it had then, bringing with it the knowledge that she had no wish to see who was down there. Her husband had spoken the truth; she had never been on a battlefield, never seen the slaughter. As for what lay at the foot of the drop, naught so outrageous had at occurred at Dun Bhuird while the Bear was alive, naught that ever troubled his wife or bairns. Their lives had taken place away from all of that. Apart from her wedding day, the only time she’d had to scrounge up a skerrick of courage had been when she fired that arrow.

  At last Gavyn broke away. She watched him stride to the foot of the wee brae leading to the top of the ridge where she waited. She hurried to meet him, impatient for news, good or ill. “Did someone identify the man?”

  “Aye, they did—what was left of him.”

  Her breath caught as her imagination shunned such dread thoughts. “God’s blood.” her curse raised Gavyn’s eyebrows. She knew it was unladylike, but she didn’t care. That such a thing, a murder, could happen here, in her home…. “Who could have done such a thing? Did anyone see?”

  “No one admits to it … so far.” Gavyn’s face was strained, but it wasn’t the wound in his side that caused his pained expression, and his words didn’t encourage her to hope this would soon be over. Yesterday, Harald had conceded his fault but claimed his action as no more than accident; but when she had thought upon it, she remembered the glance Gavyn had thrown her way and had laid the blame in her hands. But she couldn’t think on that now.

  A look at Gavyn’s face told her he had used up any leniency he could be said to have laid claim to the day before.

  “What did Magnus have to say to the tragedy? Was it one of his men, or a crofter? If anyone knows most of the clansfolk by name, it would be he.”

  “Aye, he recognised him, and he said you would have known the man as well, if I’d dared let you within an arm’s length of that horror.” His voice sounded bereft of feeling, as if he had to steel himself to speak of the man. No, not a man, a thing of nightmares.

  She felt the colour drain from her face, and just as swiftly Gavyn bent his arm that she might rest her unsteady hand upon it. “Tell me.”

  “A man he knew as Grogan. Magnus said that he came up afore both of you yesterday when you sat in judgement at the high board, said you gave him the rough edge of your tongue.” Gavyn quirked an eyebrow at her as if to say, is that true?

  Indignant now, she said, “I mentioned him to you. He was complaining that one of your mercenaries had stolen his woman. I merely informed him he had no rights in the matter having never hand-fasted with the woman let alone married her. Are you trying to say he threw himself off the ridge because I told him he only got what he deserved? If he had a grievance with anyone it would have been with one of your mercenaries.”

  Twin lines bracketed his mouth, cut deeply at his displeasure. “I might have expected that. It’s seldom you have anything good to say about my men.”

  “You have to confess there have been a fair few quarrels since they arrived. Everyone is aware your men will have silver to spare—a hard fact for poor clansmen with naught but a few cattle and a share in the harvest to take easily; however, a woman has to look to her future.” She was out of breath by the time she finished, but felt she had acquitted herself well.

  Mayhap too well, from the look of Gavyn’s face.

  “And you, my dear wife…” Gavyn’s voice was rough yet had a cutting edge like a well cared-for sword. “Are you looking to your future as well? For truth be told, I brought back more silver and gold than that of all my mercenaries put together. Aye…” he paused and his gaze was like to leave frost behind it as it slid from head to toe. “As I said today, you have changed, quite miraculously, from the Scottish wildcat who faced up to me on our wedding night.”

  She tilted her chin, and let a smirk form on her lips. “And you, my sweet husband, forget that all your gold and silver couldn’t buy a tithe of the Bienn á Bhuird lands that came to you the day you wed me,” she countered, her breasts heaving with hot emotions. How dare the oaf.

  Kathryn swallowed the insult. “You believe I’ve changed, and I won’t gainsay the truth of that for I have. I’m still young and, God willing, have many years ahead of me. Excuse me for trying to make the best of a marriage forced on me by a king who has never even laid eyes on me, yet thinks fit
to control my life by sending me a husband who has less Scots in him than my … my little toe.”

  “Go back to our apartments. I must seek out the man responsible for Grogan’s murder. It’s like to create unrest on both sides, and I would regret any trouble impinging on that long life you see in your future.” With that he turned on his heel and left her watching him walk away, knowing that all her efforts to be good, to try and make him love her had melted away like the snow in summer, leaving naught behind but soughing muck, a mess that would be difficult to wade through.

  He told her he had been wrong, that she hadn’t changed from the wildcat he had wed. Kathryn wished that were true, and she hoped he never knew how wrong he was, had to be. Why else would she feel so bereft?

  Betwixt them, Gavyn and Magnus set about arranging for men to gather up the remains, a task for his mercenaries he decided, after seeing some clansfolk lose the contents of their stomachs through an excess of curiosity.

  Slaughter held few surprises for his men, though to Gavyn’s mind the familiarity of the setting added an extra edge of revulsion to the scene. The sooner it was cleared the better. At last, with the first of his commissions under way, he was able join the constable outside the palisade. They turned in the direction of the shieling Magnus had been informed was the abode of the woman, Flora, who had deserted Grogan.

  The shieling looked to be in need of the silver that Grogan was under the impression had cost him his woman. The building looked to be no more than a single room with naught in the way of headroom. One wee window and an animal hide covering the door. The roof was typical for the district—low-pitched, formed from alder and sod, and if Grogan had once lived there, he had done little to keep the weather out.

  As they approached, the hide was pushed aside and a woman filled the space, stirring up dust with the birch besom in her hands and her kirtle tucked into her girdle, leaving her legs bare. As she heard them come close, the woman held the besom out in front of her like a weapon.