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“A fine kettle, this,” Mary Campbell, a formidable woman herself, squared off with Bridget, blocking my way to the door.
“I am fine,” I insisted, taking two steps to prove it. Thankfully, nothing was wrong with my legs. The sling Bridget had fastened from one of Collin’s shirts held my arm in place nicely, so it was only the stabbing pain from my ribs that made me see spots with every move.
“If you couldn’t keep your mouth shut, you oughtn’t have tended her today.” Mary shook a finger at Bridget, then swung around, pointing the appendage at me. “Back to bed, lass. You’ve no reason to be up.”
“I’ve every reason.” My gaze swung from Mary and Bridget to Earnan, standing tense at the window. “You cannot expect that I’ll lie abed and let others be harmed when it’s me Ian wants.”
“Did he not try to kill you once already?” Mary demanded. “And did you not shoot him with a pistol since? You’ll be going to your grave, and after Earnan risked his hide for you, and I’ve worked so hard to mend your arm proper. Was not an easy task, gone near a week out of place like that.”
“I am grateful to you both.” I took another shuffling step, and a cold sweat broke out along my forehead. “Which is why I have to at least try to appease Ian. If I can save even one Campbell from harm...”
“You’re a braw lass, just like your mum.” Bridget stepped toward me, as if she wished to give me a hug, but I tensed and held up my good hand.
“And your ribs all mussed too. You ought to have told me,” Mary scolded.
I hadn’t been conscious to tell her when she’d finished her torture session with my arm. In the two times she’d come to check on me since, I had been too cowardly to mention it. I supposed I knew she might be able to do something to make the pain better. But I’d also guessed that the process of getting to that point would make things worse before.
“Will you fetch my cloak, please?” I asked Bridget.
Her face fell. “We burnt it,” she said. “And all the clothes you were wearing when Earnan brought you up. “They were foul beyond cleaning, plus we wanted Brann to see their remains and to assume...”
That I had burned too. “Never mind the cloak.” I took more halting steps toward the door. “A sheet will do, if you have one.”
Bridget pulled one from the bed and tied it carefully around my shoulders, covering my sleeping gown as best she could. I’d declined her offer of assistance to get dressed, the thought of my ribs being encased in a corset or of moving my arm through the sleeve of a gown being simply too much.
“I’ll help you down the stairs,” Earnan said.
“No.” My tone was sharper than I’d intended. “I don’t want any of you coming out of this room. You’re not to reveal yourself to Brann. Let him think I’m a ghost crawled from the pyre. I don’t know what will happen out there, but I don’t want any of you suffering repercussions for my sudden return to life.”
“He ought to thank us,” Bridget muttered. “If up to him, you’d be dead, and he would be facing Ian MacDonald on his own.”
“It’s tempting to let him.” I reached the door and clung to the bar a moment, steadying myself. “If I believed for a minute that Ian would harm no other than Brann, I would not go.”
That wasn’t entirely true, but at least I also had an unselfish motive for sacrificing myself. I had no doubt Mary was right. There was every possibility Ian would end my life at first opportunity.
But somehow before, I would make him listen to me. If the MacDonalds he’d brought with him were truly as Earnan had described them, I had little chance of saving anyone here. My best hope was that Ian cared enough for his brother that he would go after him, and Collin might be rescued before a ship carried him far across the sea.
Bridget pulled open the door, and I stepped into the dark hallway. “Close and bar it,” I whispered, then made my way over to the wood rail overlooking the hall below.
Brann and his council huddled around a table, arguing one with another about what must be done.
“Find another lass who looks like her, and send her to meet him,” one suggested.
“There is no need for that.” My voice was not loud, but carried nevertheless in the high stone chamber.
A chorus of gasps and a flurry of Gaelic sounded as the men looked up at me. I left the rail and started toward the stairs, moving carefully to spare my ribs, and with the draped sheet floating around me, as if I really was a spirit.
Perhaps I would be soon. Bridget, at least, would see that my brief legacy here lingered long after I was gone.
No one moved as I descended the stairs, my eyes locked on Brann’s. His face had drained of color, and a tiny part of me gloried in the tables being somewhat turned, at seeing him frightened. But I couldn’t focus on that for long. Just putting one foot in front of the other took all of my concentration, and beneath my thin nightrail it felt as if my heart might leap from my throbbing chest.
Facing one of the men who wanted me dead was terrifying enough. Facing them both made for impossible odds. I didn’t want to die. But more than that, I wanted to save Collin. Ian was my best, my only, chance.
I reached the main floor and stopped, looking directly at the table containing the council and Brann. “Collin warned you,” I said. “He told you his brother would come if you did not produce the dowry.”
“Appease him,” Brann hissed, rising from his seat, leaning forward. I saw through him, that he would not dare do more than that, not when he was unsure if I was real or spirit.
I held my ground. “There is no appeasing Ian MacDonald.”
“Find a way, or there will be consequences.” Brann’s head tilted back, looking up to the stairs behind me and my room beyond, his eyes sharp with suspicion. It would not take much to confirm my timely resurrection had been aided by others.
“Because of you, there will be consequences for all of us,” I said. “Prepare yourselves for battle.”
I turned from him too quickly and paid for it in a wave of pain that temporarily blinded me. I continued walking, skirting the tables widely, hoping they wouldn’t see the sheen of sweat across my forehead. No doubt I looked as white as the sheet cloaking me. I hadn’t moved this much in over two weeks and each step was excruciating. It would be a miracle if I could make it all the way outside the gate to meet Ian.
Reaching the front doors without stumbling or crying out seemed a victory. At Brann’s command, two men hurried to open them for me. I continued my gliding walk outside into a gloomy afternoon beneath a drizzle of rain.
More stairs. These were uneven and unkempt, with weeds growing up between. Wet now too. I wasn’t certain I could manage without a rail to cling to. Alistair ran across the courtyard toward me, rubbing his eyes as if he, too, could not believe what he was seeing.
“What are you doing?” he whispered as he came up beside me.
I placed a hand on his arm for steadiness and took the first step carefully. “You were late. I came to see you instead.” I attempted a jest, though neither of us smiled.
“This is madness,” Alistair said. “You can’t go out there. It will be suicide.”
“Your wife said as much already.” I made it down the second stair. Two to go. The doors closed behind us. Brann had let me walk away. One evil man passed. My odds at coming out alive were perhaps slightly better than they had been when I’d teetered at the top of the stairs.
“I need a horse. Ian’s preferably, if it is still here.” Or might that anger him more? A reminder that Collin and I had stolen it from him.
“And how are you supposed to seat a horse in this condition?” Alistair caught my elbow, keeping me from falling on my face when my foot missed the third stair but hit the fourth with a jarring step. I cried out and clenched my teeth.
“I have no choice.” I turned to him, pleading. “You’ve seen what Ian is capable of. If I don’t go out there, what might he do? And I can’t walk that far.”
“He’ll do it anyway,” Alistair said.
“I have to try,” I insisted. “In my situation you would do the same.”
“I’ll come with you, then.”
I shook my head, thinking of Mary upstairs and their pretty, red-headed daughter. “Just help me get on a horse.”
“And once you’re out there, what is your plan then?”
Nothing. “No plan. I’ve had no vision.” That was what he was asking. Was there something I’d not told him that might make this decision less foolish than it appeared? “I have only my life in forfeit. It was me Ian asked for. Perhaps that will be enough.” I could see by Alistair’s sober expression that he didn’t believe that anymore than I did.
I waited near the corner wall as he went to retrieve a horse. The usually busy yard and outbuildings were eerily still today, their occupants in hiding somewhere, waiting anxiously to see what would happen.
I thought of Ian when I had last seen him close up, face to face at the riverbank when he had held a knife to my throat, expecting me to cry out for Collin. So he could murder him as well.
Was I a complete fool to even hope Ian would attempt to save his brother from the English? Or would Ian simply be glad Collin, the obstacle in his quest to be laird, had been removed?
Why am I doing this? I glanced toward the castle doors, knowing there was no turning back now, not when Brann knew I was alive.
Alistair returned with Ian’s black stallion. Seeing the beast brought strange comfort. I had last ridden him with Collin. This was as close to him as I might get.
Alistair helped me climb onto a low wall and from there to Ian’s horse, sitting side-saddle instead of astride, and even that not without a great deal of tears and struggling on my part.
To my dismay, Alistair took the reins. “I’ll go with you to the gate at least,” he said.
“Thank you,” I said, relieved that he would stay with me that long but would not endanger his life more than necessary. His presence was a comfort. I sat upright, as straight as possible, and cradled my arm against my stomach, my balance precarious at best.
We had no words until we reached the gate and waited for the guard to open the small door for us. All else had been secured— the first time I had seen it so since my arrival.
“This isn’t right,” Alistair said suddenly. “What kind of a man sends a lass out to face the enemy?”
“One whom the lass commands to do so,” I replied. With great affection I looked down at him. “Nothing has been right here for a very long time, I think. If I am to shortly meet my grandfather and mother, I should like to be able to tell them that I tried my best to change that.”
Alistair nodded and swiped the back of his sleeve across his eyes. “God bless you, lass.”
“And you.” I reached to take the reins from him and caught the glint of gold in a patch of grass.
“Look.” I pointed. Alistair crouched and combed his fingers through the blades until he came up with a five-guinea coin. One of those I had thrown the morning Collin was taken? Alistair handed it to me, and I clutched it in my hand. It wouldn’t be nearly enough to convince Ian to let me go and leave us in peace, but possibly it might entice him to follow the trail of the English, in search of treasure if not of his twin.
With a last look at Alistair, I entered the narrow corridor between the walls and heard the gate close behind. It took but a minute, and I came to the other side.
Out of the wolf’s den to meet the lion.