Chapter 21
Thank God Worthington took the sword, Lex thought as he climbed the stairs back up to his chamber. At least it would buy him some time to change his plans. He had not wanted to involve Sandra in this matter between men, but Worthington had forced his hand. She was part of this now whether he liked it or not, and a very big part.
"I was able to get rid of him...this time," his words trailed off as he looked around the room for Sandra. The wardrobe curtain was pulled back and his trunk was thrown open, half its contents spilling over onto the floor. From there his eyes followed the sprinkled trail of gold coins that ended under a heap of plaid, his plaid, or at least what was left of the shredded material.
His heart began to pound with fear and his mind raced with the possible implications of what lay before him. Where was she, and why had she done this to his tartan? Even if it was MacLachlan, he knew every piece of Scottish clan plaid was like a sacred relic to her. Something was wrong. He had to find her.
His first instinct was to head for the women's quarters where she had been earlier, but when he looked both ways out in the hallway, he saw where she had been and his heart nearly stopped.
Off to the side of the top stair was a smashed pile of white soap he had not seen on his way up. As he drew nearer to it his hand began to tremble. He reached down and salvaged one tiny blue flower that stuck to the tip of his finger. The others were completely crushed into the cracks of the floorboards, obviously by the pressure of a small boot heel, the petite size of which left no doubt as to whose foot had done the damage.
"Damn you, Worthington!" he swore. The man had forced his hand to do what was against his own moral code. He looked down to the hall below from where he knelt on the floor. She surely had seen everything. She knew he had given Worthington her family's sword and the land charter, which meant she knew of his intent.
He crushed the remaining chunks of soap under his own boot when he thought of what a fool he had been. With all the years of hatred and bloodshed between their two clans, how could he have thought his feelings for one woman could change anything, that a few pretty soaps and tender nights of sharing could wash away the entire past. She was probably on her way home right now to wage a war on his clan. He had to find her before it was too late. If she reached Castle MacEwen before he reached her everything he had already set into motion with Worthington could be ruined.
The cold of the wet winter air cut into his face as he drove his horse on through the thickening snowfall toward MacEwen Castle. Not surprisingly, the front gates were already drawn shut when he reached them.
"I am here for my wife," Lex stated to the stocky man at the gate who sneered at him as he looked over his solid black attire and blatantly missing tartan. "I am Lex MacLachlan, appointed tanist to your own chief." Lex just hoped that the man had yet to hear of Sandra's tales from MacLachlan Manor.
"I knows who ya are, but I do not see wee Sandra or my chief at your side right now. That makes ya no better than that horse your butt's ridin', maybe even less." A chunk of thick spit flew from his mouth and landed on the horse's hoof. "Now the horse I might let in for the night, but no English--"
"Open the gates," came an order from right behind the guard on top of the gate. The man who appeared was a giant of a man and towered over the guard by at least a shield's height. There was no doubt that he was the captain of the MacEwen forces in times of battle, and he looked as if could smash down an entire Highland clan with his lone fist. "The chief has deemed it so." The man with his auburn hair flying about in an unruly bush around his head did not seem any happier about giving the order than the stocky man who was raising the gate. Fortunately neither of their opinions was needed.
"I have come for Sandra," Lex stated plainly to the huge man who nearly came to Lex's chest even astride his horse.
"Then there be no use for ya ta be gettin' off yurr mount. She ain't here. Hasn't been for some nights, but you knows that. Do ya not?" The captain's furry brow rose over his left eye and trembled slightly from the sneer that was holding up his lip. His response was a statement of facts that had trailed off into a challenge.
"Tell her father she will be safely at my side by dusk." Lex turned his horse and spurred him on, back in the direction they had come.
"She best be," one of them roared out behind him. From the threat laced through his words, Lex knew the mountain of a man had yelled it. "If she is not here or at MacLachlan Manor there is only one place she could weather-out this stormin'."
Lex knew that as well, and he knew where that one place would be. He had little time left to get there and back before the dark of night claimed what limited vision the storm allowed.
The frozen ground was now covered with a thick layer of wet snow that made it nearly impossible for his horse to scale the mountain path. The metal of his stallion's shoes clanged down hard with his every attempt to move forward, his efforts only being rewarded with a quarter the distance his powerful stead could normally take them in battle.
"Come on, boy," Lex coaxed into the horse's icicle-like ear as he leaned forward in a small effort to aid their progress. Four more clattering digs and they were there. The hunting shed looked quite different in the dimming light compared to the last time he had been there, especially since there was smoke coming from the fire vent in the roof and moving shadows decorated the crumbling inner stone walls.
Lex wasted none of the precious light of dusk he had left. With one swift kick of his boot he sent the propped-up door flying to the floor of the shed. His frame filled the vacant space like a fox ducking into a rabbit hole. He had hoped to catch the shocked but pleased expression on Sandra's face when he made his entrance and demanded she come back with him at once. What he was treated to instead were two sets of wide eyes staring back at him from where they huddled together by the small fire.
Lex said nothing. He looked at Sandra with one accusing glare, then shifted his focus to bore into Mangus.
"I thought you said no one knew where ya were?" Mangus sputtered to Sandra as he fell back from the fire to distance himself from what he was sure Lex thought the situation looked like.
"Where else is there for her to be?" Lex asked with a cock of his head. He wondered how the man had been chosen by the elders to be his replacement.
"What goes on here is none of your concern," Sandra said as she scooted up to Mangus's side again and held him there by grasping both her hands tightly around his thin arm.
"You are my only concern," Lex said as he grabbed her by the arm and pulled her free of Mangus, who seemed more than happy to let her go. "We have to leave now or we will never make it back down by dark."
"Mangus, do something!" she pleaded. "He will take me back to his manor and do unspeakable things to me again."
"Again?" Lex repeated with a questioning look to his lovely wife.
Growing more and more frantic as he pulled her to the door, she kicked at his legs and slashed out at his face with her nails. Mangus stayed seated on the ground. His back was now pushed up hard against the farthest wall and his eyes were wide as he watched them struggle. "Do not let him take me, Mangus. He will sell me to that Englishman just like he did my family's sword." Lex halted for a moment and stared at her. She did know.
"I will explain that all to you when we are alone in our chamber...tonight."
Twisting and turning her arms, almost pulling them free of her under-blouse, she fought Lex's hold even more after hearing his reassuring promise. "See, Mangus, he cannot deny it. He did it. He sold us all out to the English."
As if a red-hot coal had finally burned its way through Mangus's thin plaid to the tender white flesh of his butt, he lurched up from his huddled squat and drew his dagger. "Let her go, Englishman." He circled around the fire to better align himself and his blade with Lex's chest.
"I do not like you, Mangus," Lex said without flinching an eye or twitching a muscle. He really had no fear of the man. "I suppose it is because you want to bed my wife so badly, or maybe it is just because you are ugly and give us MacLachlans a bad name. Either way, I still do not want to have to kill you...but I will."
Lex saw the effect of his words shake through Mangus's body. His small blade was no longer so surely pointed in Lex's direction. "I...I would rather die saving the woman I...I love than to live as a traitor like you."
Lex patiently waited through Mangus's honorable speech before he turned to leave again with Sandra in tow, fighting and kicking. He had not missed the doe-eyed look she gave the stuttering fool when he professed his love. He wondered if that pity-filled look was what he would get if he did the same. Circumstances being what they were, he doubted he would ever have the opportunity to find out.
"I...I said let her go," Mangus half shouted at Lex's back. From Sandra's screech and the flinch of fear that crinkled her brow, Lex knew he was about to be stuck in the back by the coward.
The doorframe blocked him in on one side and Sandra was on the other. He released her wrist at the last moment and turned to fend off Mangus's attack. What he faced was as puzzling to him as it obviously was to Sandra, who was still at his side and staring at Mangus in shock.
Mangus's blade was raised up to the level of his red curling hair. His body was within striking distance and his mouth was open as if ready to scream his charge, but nothing came out. It was as if he had just been dipped into a freezing pond and then fished out to be put on display. The only things moving were his eyes, and they were filled with as many questions as Lex’s and Sandra's.
Suddenly, Mangus fell to his knees as if struck from behind by a battering ram. His head flopped forward and his arms hung at his sides like strips of limp seaweed.
"Iain, no!" Sandra screamed.
"I am sorry, love, but this time I have to side with my kin," Mangus said after his head snapped back up like a man given a second life from God.
Lex looked from Mangus's now calm and smiling face to Sandra's terrified pale one. Was this another one of her tricks? Could she really be so good at looking fearful?
"He sold my father, my clan. How can you side with him?" She was beyond fearful to panic. Her eyes were wide and she made no effort to stop the tears from rolling down her face as she backed away from both of them.
"I did not know you then," Lex said, taking a small step toward her. She had no weapons but lunged at him anyway.
"Let him take ya back to the manor, love," Mangus interceded again. Lex cast him a sideways distrustful look. Was he really all of a sudden on his side or just trying to get a better shot at his heart from behind?
"Stay where you are, Mangus, and you will not get hurt. It is Sandra I came for." With the skill of battling many men in close combat on a field, he used the size of his body to encompass Sandra on all sides, leaving her nowhere to run except into his arms. Once inside his trap, he turned her facing out from him and crossed her flailing arms tightly in front of her body, securely pinning her hard up against him and blocking any possible ambushes from Mangus at the same time.
"I will not be interfering with the wishes of your brother," Mangus said in a baiting tone as he inspected a small chip in the blade of his dagger with his thumbnail, acting as if nothing that had just happened interested him in the least.
"You are not old enough to even have known my brother." Lex held Sandra's squirming body as best he could and leveled Mangus with a deadly stare.
"He is here. In this place. Stuck like Derrdra and I are in that manor of yours."
"He does not believe in you, Iain," Sandra said to Mangus.
This was definitely another of Sandra's well-laid plans, and as usual she did poorly in disguising it from him. "My brother is dead and you will be joining him if you do not drop your knife and let us pass."
Mangus's knife hit the dirt floor with a thud, then bounced once and clanked against the rocks that made up the fire ring. "He is dead but not gone," Mangus said as he held out his hands toward the floor, palms up, as if presenting something of importance.
The flames of the fire flicked out in one blink of Lex's eyes as a gust of wind tore through the open doorway and swept directly over the spot Mangus motioned to. He shielded his eyes with one arm from the swirling of dirt and snow that blew in and with the other he held tight to Sandra and turned her into the protection of his body.
Silence, warmth, and light suddenly filled the shabby dwelling and alerted Lex's defenses even more. Drastic changes like that did not just happen instantly. Something was not right, not natural about this.
He could find reason for the wind dying down, and rationalize how the fire's coals could have revived themselves, but how could he explain away the bleeding body of his brother lying on the floor? It had not been there before. It should not be there now. He was dead. Long dead. Or was he?
For the second time since he had come to this land, he felt a leap of hope in his chest that all this was real. That his brother was there on the ground, only wounded but not dead. That he could be saved if Lex went for help instead of leaving him to die as his father had instructed.
"Lex." His brother's voice was faint and filled with a pain that drew a sick breath from Lex's throat. His arms fell free from Sandra, and his legs managed to walk two steps toward the groaning man before he fell to the floor, half in shock, half in fear. He felt twelve years old again. Twelve and scared. His brother was dying, his father was laughing, and all he could do was cry.
"Lex," Ronald said again, and this time it sounded very familiar to his ears, comforting in a way.
"I will get you help this time, Ronald. Just hold on." Lex stood, ready to race down the mountainside no matter the darkness or the weather. Ronald's hand stopped him. His fingers gripped Lex's wrist tightly for a brief moment then slipped off almost lifelessly, leaving a cold, wet trail of blood down Lex's whole hand.
"Father," Ronald rasped out through the gurgle of blood choking his throat.
Lex had heard that request before. It had played over and over in his mind for years. How could his last wish be to see a man they both hated, a man who had just ordered Lex to leave Ronald behind? "Father's gone," Lex said. A foul taste lingered in his mouth for just having to say the word.
"Remember the notches, Lex. Do not let him win."
These words were new to Lex. He had had years to contemplate and replay Ronald's last request for their father, but this changed things. He slipped his hand under Ronald's head and lifted it out of the blood that pooled up faster than the ground could absorb it. "He is dead, Ronald. Rotting in the frozen ground of these hills somewhere. We have already won."
Ronald shook his head back and forth with great effort and obvious frustration. The pain to do such a thing had to be unbearable from the huge gash in the center of his chest. Lex knew he was missing some part of Ronald's meaning. "Finish what I started...what the MacEwen started with mother. Do not let him win." He battled to hold his head up close to Lex's face. His eyes bulged from the strain. He coughed on his own blood. He was not fighting for his life any longer; it was clear he had already given that up. He struggled to grasp Lex's collar with both his hands, letting loose the clutching hold he had on the wound in his chest. Warmth soaked slowly into Lex's tunic as it flowed out of Ronald's body. Chest to chest, he held tight to his brother. He could not save him, he could not ease his pain, but at least he was not going to die alone this time.
Ronald's eyes looked into Lex's with a deep pleading and then rolled back into his head. His body grew heavy. His hands lost their grip on Lex's tunic, and his head fell back to drape over Lex's forearm. He was gone...again, but this time Lex did not feel as empty. The feelings of guilt that had haunted him across all of England were gone. He looked down into his brother's face and saw a slight smile curving his lips, and then he too was gone.
Lex remained on the floor, kneeling in the same spot and holding his arms in a cradle position as if Ronald were still there.
"He is gone, Lex," Mangus said from over his shoulder.
Lex turned and looked at the red-haired MacLachlan with different eyes. "Who are you?"
Mangus stuck out his hand in offer to lift Lex up. "I am Iain MacLachlan...well inside I am, anyway. Mangus is still with us on the outside, I believe. He might have fainted in here, though."
"You were inside me too, were not you?" Lex looked deep into Mangus's eyes to see if he could catch a glimpse of something mysterious there.
"Aye, I was with ya the first time ya laid eyes on wee Sandra to save her from you, then when you asked for her hand, and I was with ya for most of the night ya first loved her."
"Why?" His question sounded simple, but Lex needed many answers.
"Every spirit is here for a reason of his own. Derrdra and I wait for unity. You and Sandra were a possible means to our ends."
"And Ronald? Why is he still here? Why has he not found peace after all these years?"
Iain looked to the spot on the floor where Ronald's blood had been saturated only moments before but was now just brown dirt. "His life was cut off from its intended path and the one who severed him from it mocks him with laughter even in this place."
"Was it my father?" Lex needed to hear the truth spoken from someone who knew, even if he was a dead man.
"Aye. Your father killed him with the MacEwen's blade after he learned the truth of Ronald's heritage."
"And my mother?" The pain of her memory was even greater than that he had felt when he held Ronald in his arms. What kind of son does nothing when faced with the dead corpse of his battered mother lying next to his brother?
"He killed her as well. Said she took her life in grief, but if your mother had been that weak of a woman she would have killed herself long before for all the sorrow she endured."
"I failed her. I failed Ronald. It is out of my reach to make that wrong right." Lex pounded the frozen ground with his fists.
"There is a way."
Slowly Lex's head came up. "How?"
"She is running down this mountain as we speak."