Chapter Five
Kara stared at Duncan, aghast. “What do you mean, we should do nothing? Do you want the priests to die?”
“They are not priests,” Duncan repeated.
Kara looked at the scowling Eoin, then at the men riding down the plain. They were closer now and she could see their bare feet swinging against their mounts’ ribs. “They wear homespun robes, tied at the waist with rope, I think. And look there, is that not a crucifix about that one’s neck?”
“It may be, but they are not priests,” Duncan growled. “And if you try to help them, the MacGorys will wipe you out.”
“You belittle our fighting skills?” Eoin snapped.
“Quite the contrary, I applaud your bravery, but ’twould be spent in a lost cause.”
“We cannot just sit here and watch the priests die.”
“Why would you care? You do not worship God.”
“What do beliefs matter when there are lives at stake?” Kara exclaimed, amid shouts of agreement.
Duncan glared right back at her. “I am trying to save lives—yours. Only you are too impetuous to listen—”
“Ah,” Kara said, brightening. “You have a plan. Are you going to sneak down and—?”
“I am not going to lift a finger.”
“Oh, you...you—” Angry and disappointed at her craven hero, Kara punched him in the chest. It was like hitting solid rock. “We will go without you.”
He caught her arm and tugged her back against him. “You are not going anywhere.” His grip was painless but inescapable. “That’s better,” he said when she stopped struggling. His thumb whisked over her reddened knuckles. “You’ll have more than a few bruises if you don’t listen.”
“I’ll listen,” Kara snapped. “Then I’m going down—”
“Think a moment, all of you,” Duncan said angrily. “What would a dozen priests be doing here? Kara herself told me that Father Luthais comes only a few times a year.”
“Mayhap they come in force to convert the heathen Gleanedins,” Eoin said.
“More likely, ’tis a trap,” Duncan countered. “Think. The day is warm, yet they wear thick cloaks and cover their heads. Why?”
“Mayhap God’s servants are immune to the heat.”
“I spent three years crusading with some of the most devote priests and monks. They do hunger, thirst and sweat as we do, and some are none too quiet about it.”
“If you are wrong, twelve priests die,” Eoin grumbled.
“I am not wrong.”
Kara felt the steady beat of his heart against her back and wondered how he could be so cool, so certain. “But—”
Duncan released her and stepped away. “Shall I go down alone and prove I’m right?”
“Nay.” Kara caught his arm, steadied by the strength of his muscles. “I could not bear it if we were wrong.”
“’Twould not please me, either.” He smiled faintly, giving her a glimpse of the softness he hid.
“What do you suggest we do?” she asked.
“Wait.”
Kara grinned. “We Gleanedins are not very good at waiting, but we will do as you suggest.” There was a bit of grumbling from the youths, who hungered for battle, but everyone settled down on the rim of the plateau. As the minutes dragged by and the others watched the procession draw closer, she studied Duncan’s rugged face.
He was concerned but calm, the tick of a muscle in his cheek the only evidence he was not completely relaxed. Suddenly he shifted, hand falling to the hilt of his sword.
The column had reached the concealed MacGorys.
Kara held her breath, going up on tiptoe to see.
A scream ripped across the plain, startling the birds from the trees below. They took flight in a shrieking plume as the MacGorys leapt from hiding and raced toward the cowled men.
“God have mercy.” Kara grabbed hold of Duncan’s arm, twisting her face away from the grisly sight. His hand cradled the back of her head, holding her close to his chest. The links of his mail pinched, but no less than her conscience.
“Shh. It’s over,” he murmured, stroking her hair.
“So quick?” Kara turned and beheld an incredible sight. The MacGorys and their would-be victims milled about on the road, shaking their spears and screaming curses at those on the cliff.
“They’re furious we didn’t take the bait,” Duncan said.
Kara’s relief was so great she sagged against him. “Bloody hell, what if you hadn’t been here to stop us?”
“But I was...and don’t swear.”
Kara leaned back, staring intently into his dark eyes. “Aye, you were here, and you saved us. Just as I knew you would.”
He jerked as though she’d scorched him, then let go of her. “Do not read more into it than there was.”
“I am not. The facts speak for themselves.” Kara’s heart was beating so fast she clasped her hands over it. “You saved us, just as the Beltane fires predicted.”
The savior of Edin Valley scowled. “Fine. Now mayhap you will return my rubies, and I’ll be on my way.”
“I do not have them,” Kara said softly, her mind already leaping ahead. “And the MacGorys are not vanquished, merely thwarted for the moment. An enraged wolf is a dangerous adversary, Duncan. We need you more than ever.”
“And I need my rubies.” He turned and stalked away.
Kara gave chase. “Where are you going?” she asked.
“To search Edin Tower from top to bottom.”
As she watched him go, Kara hoped that the cursed rubies were either buried in the muddy riverbank where they’d found Duncan or that the thief had them well hidden.
Duncan came down to dinner that night in a foul mood. He’d spent the day exploring every corner of the old tower. The folk of Edin had given him leave to paw through their pitiful belongings. They’d emptied their pouches, pockets and even their boots. When that search yielded nothing, he’d gone looking for safe holes and hidden chambers. His shoulders were bruised from butting them against walls, his fingers scraped from grubbing for secret trip mechanisms.
“So, how was the hunting?” Fergus asked, stepping from the shadows at the bottom of the stairs.
“Futile.” Duncan had learned to judge men’s honesty by the way their gaze met his. Fergus’s was guileless. Besides, he’d been hunting at the far end of the valley when Duncan arrived.
“Kara thinks ’tis possible these gems were lost along the river when you were felled by the fever.”
“They were stitched into the lining of my leather pouch. The thread had been cut, the stones taken and the stitches reset.”
“Hmm.” Fergus scratched at his beard. “Could your traveling companions aboard ship have taken them?”
“How did you know I came by ship?”
“How else would you cross the sea?” Fergus questioned sagely.
“I still had the stones when I camped my first night out of Carlisle. I could feel them through the lining.”
“Well, ’tis certainly a mystery, but I’m glad you’re convinced we didn’t take them.” He threw a companionable arm across Duncan’s shoulder and steered him toward the great hall.
Duncan shrugged out of his grasp. “I am not convinced. Someone here took the rubies and my letter.”
“Letter? This is the first I’ve heard of a letter.”
“’Twas a short note.” Janet had slipped it to him when he left Threave. In it, she pledged her undying love and swore she’d wed him when he returned, whether he’d made his fortune or not, although his code of honor prohibited him from doing that.
“Well, it would be lost on the likes of us, for no Gleanedin can read or cipher.” Fergus threw open the big double doors and motioned for Duncan to precede him into the hall.
No sooner did Duncan step over the threshold than a great cheer went up, and he was mobbed by grinning, shouting people. Men pounded him on the back, women kissed his cheeks. and thrust their runny-nosed bairns at him.
“What the hell?” Duncan muttered.
Kara appeared to take his elbow, her smile radiant. “’Tis our way of saying thank you for saving us today.”
“By smothering me?” he asked.
“You’re a fraud, Duncan MacLellan,” Kara chided. “You’re touched but too stubborn to admit it.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed him. Not on the cheek, but full on the mouth.
Odd how the feel of her soft lips could harden the rest of his body. And she knew it, too, for when she moved away, she slanted him a teasing grin. “Come, sir knight, a feast awaits.” She held out her hand, and he took it, following her through the cheering throng like a man in a daze. Kara Gleanedin was a very dangerous woman.
There was no high table, no dais like the one from which Cousin Niall looked down on his retainers. But the table to which Kara led him had been spread with a flaxen cloth and laid with matching crockery instead of the wooden bowls and cups.
“Thank you. This is very fine, indeed,” Duncan said, surprised to find that he meant it, he who had eaten off silver plates with the kings of two nations. More surprising was the catch in his voice.
“You are kind to say so.” There was an edge to Kara’s tone, a twinkle in her eye that said she knew he was used to finer.
Duncan looked out over the sea of Gleanedins, dressed in their mended homespun, but what he saw was their shining faces, their genuine smiles. “’Tis a banquet fit for a prince.”
“It’ll be a cold feast if ye don’t cease talking and start eating,” grumbled the big man who stood at the side door that led to the kitchens.
Everyone laughed, then turned to seek their places at the rough-hewn trestle tables and benches. The servants streamed in, passing among them with heavily laden platters. Steam rising from them filled the air with the rich scent of roasted meat.
“I thought you were short of food,” Duncan murmured as he helped Kara step over the bench.
“In addition to thanking you for your quick thinking, we celebrate Samhuinn tonight.”
“The feast of the dead?” Duncan said, appalled.
“We prefer to think of it as the winter solstice. The day we bring our flocks to their winter folds and give thanks to all gods for the harvest. Still, I’m surprised you know of it.”
“My mother practiced the old ways.”
“You do not approve.”
Another memory flickered through his mind. A bonfire at dusk, people dancing around it, eating, drinking and laughing. His parents, holding hands as they gazed into the fire. “I was taught to think such things unholy.”
“By that dreadful cousin of yours?”
“Cousin Niall is a godly man.” If a bit overzealous.
Kara snorted. “Too much of a good thing can be bad.”
“I do not agree.” But he was beginning to question.
“I’ve saved the best bits for you.” The huge man who’d been by the door set a platter down on the table.
“Duncan, this is Black Rolly MacHugh.”
Duncan nodded. “You’re not a Gleanedin, then?”
“In spirit only.” He began heaping slices of roasted venison into Duncan’s bowl. “I was wed to Kara’s aunt.”
Duncan assumed she’d died in a MacGory raid, but when Rolly had moved on to serve Fergus, Kara leaned over and confided that Annie Gleanedin MacHugh had died in childbed several years ago.
“Black Rolly stayed on here. He was with Fergie when the MacGorys attacked and took a blow to the hip. Now his leg’s stiff and nearly useless. So much suffering,” she said sadly, looking out over the crowded hall.
It was tiny compared with the great hall at Threave, the vaulted ceiling so low the battle banners hanging from it nearly brushed the heads of the diners. Poor and mean, Cousin Niall would have called it, for the rough-hewn timbers were soot streaked from the smoke of countless fires. But colorful woolen hangings brightened the stone walls, and the rushes underfoot smelled of fresh herbs.
To Duncan, the greatest difference was the people.
“Your clansmen have endured much,” he said. “But their trials have neither broken nor embittered them.” Indeed, the folk of Edin bounded about like a brood of boisterous pups. They laughed and teased each other. They praised Black Rolly’s feast and devoured it with disarming relish. “Never have I seen people take so much enjoyment from a simple thing as eating.”
“Life can be harsh and short,” Kara explained. “We’ve learned to wring as much pleasure as possible from each moment that comes our way. The good times should be savored like sweet mead as a buffer against the troubles sure to come.”
Duncan’s throat tightened. Heathens, he’d called them, yet their ideals were far more Christian than those of many a seemingly pious knight he’d met on Crusade.
“What troubles you?” She laid a hand on his arm.
The casual gesture jangled every nerve in his body, made him suddenly conscious of her leg pressed against his beneath the table, the subtle scent of her hair, the sheen of her skin in the torchlight. He knew exactly what caused his heightened awareness of Kara. A passion he should be ignoring. Unfortunately, he didn’t want to. He wanted to sweep her from the hall, to take her away someplace dark and private. Someplace where he could act on the impulses that had plagued him from the first time he’d laid eyes on her.
“Duncan?” she asked softly.
“Hmm.” He struggled to bring his mind back to the business at hand. Food. Eating. “The meat is good.”
She chuckled. “Then why are you scowling at it?”
“I...” He stared into her upturned face, his mind veering down paths it had no right to explore.
“I know,” she whispered. “It is the same for me.”
“It cannot be.”
“Why?”
Because I am promised to another. The statement was not strictly true. In all honor, he was pledged to Janet, but he felt things for Kara of Edin that went beyond honor.
God help them both.
“There is no shame in what we feel,” Kara said softly. “’Tis a special gift that comes to very few.”
“Lust,” he said curtly.
“Mmm.” She cocked her head. “Aye, there’s a fire between us that I’ve not known before, but there’s more.”
Duncan wrenched his gaze away from the passion smoldering in her eyes, darkening them. “There can be nothing between us. We are too different...our hopes, our beliefs.”
“Our methods are different, I grant, yet we both value the same things—honor, duty and peace.” She reached under the table, lacing her slender fingers with his large, callused ones.
Duncan sucked in a sharp breath, the ordinary gesture rife with possibilities he dared not explore. Or did he?
If he could not go back to Threave, what was to prevent him from staying here? The notion was as tempting as Kara herself.