Two days and three nights had passed since Eleanor escaped Glen Craggan. She and her small band of Douglas companions had been traveling all that time in the near constant rain. They’d stopped the first night to hobble the horses and catch a few winks of sleep, but other than an inadequate little fire that barely warmed the wood it burned, there were no comforts. Eleanor curled up on the rough, damp ground with the men, and shivered inside her flimsy surcoat all night.
They were off again at dawn. She had never been more grateful for the morning.
They had a long way to go, and the riding had been slow. They kept off the main roads as much as possible, circumventing villages and castle holdings lest any of Lord Agnew’s men were following them.
Her companions passed her between them as they rode, like a parcel each had to take a turn to carry. At regular intervals she would be made to dismount and saddle with a fresh horse and rider so that no one horse would be forced to bear the weight of two bodies the entire time. Eleanor’s favorite riding partner was the man who had persuaded Ranald MacNaughton to let her join them that fateful night. Thomas was his name. The two others, Manus and Gabhan, were fine companions, too, but it was Thomas she liked best. He was the youngest of the four, the closest in age to herself. When she was riding with Thomas, he almost made her forget how miserable she was. He told her anecdotes of what life at Glen Craggan was like for its guards and servants, he told her stories his mother used to tell him when he was a lad, and he told her everything he knew about the woods and the paths and the braes all around Kinross.
His stories made Eleanor wish she’d known Kinross in the intimate, natural way Thomas did. She’d never been allowed to explore as a girl; her knowledge of Kinross stopped at the gardens and orchards on the grounds of the castle. And she’d never been allowed to know the very essence of life that teemed around her at Glen Craggan. It was in the everyday bustle of the servants, their daily trials and tribulations, contentments and comforts. They were the real Glen Craggan, she realized as Thomas talked. Her own world of nobility had only been a small part. A fable.
She envied Thomas his simple existence. The freedom he’d enjoyed all his life.
“Well, ye’ve got yer freedom now, My Lady,” he pointed out when she said as much. “More than ye’ll ken what to do wi’, I’d reckon.”
She fiddled with the cracking leather of the saddle, tracing the rough ridges with her forefinger. “I suppose ye’re right.”
“Ye dinna sound so sure.”
“It doesna matter whether I am sure or no’.” She glanced back at him over her shoulder. “There is no use looking back, only forward, and no point in wasting the freedom I have now by sulking over the freedom I didna have then. If my head will roll for what I’m about to do, then I shall make the most of the time I have until then.”
“That’s the spirit, lass,” Gabhan exclaimed from behind them. “Although we’ll likely see the hangman before we see an executioner’s axe. But ye’ll be an inspiration to us all when we’re standing on the gallows together.”
The others laughed, and Eleanor, too, managed a sheepish grin. When she caught Ranald’s scowl, her grin disappeared.
Ranald MacNaughton was the man she enjoyed riding with the least. He didn’t like her, and he made it clear. When he helped her mount, he grabbed her roughly beneath the arms. So rough, in fact, that the first time he left two thumb-sized bruises on her ribs. He never spoke a word to her when they rode, except for the occasional command that she move her head or shift her weight. On these occasions, he would bark at her, and call her “woman.”
When Ranald looked at her, it was with undisguised loathing. Except for every now and then when he would look at her with something…else. Eleanor preferred not to think about what kinds of things might be going through his mind when he looked at her like that.
Though he wasn’t making the journey any easier, she was pretty certain she would have been no less miserable if Ranald weren’t there. She knew now she had underestimated how rough it would be. She was perpetually cold and wet, for the rain would not let up. Since they escaped, Eleanor had seen just about every kind of rain there was, from maddening downpour to soul-draining, ultrafine drizzle. Her surcoat and shift, the clothing she had fled in, were less than useless. The thin fabric clung to her legs, outlining her shape in embarrassing detail and impeding her movement.
“Take my cloak, My Lady,” Thomas offered when they decamped one morning.
Eleanor clutched the warm wool garment, which had been greased to keep the rain off, and looked at him with concern. “I canna take this. What will ye wear?”
“Dinna fash about me.”
“The riding too hard for ye, Yer Majesty?” Ranald sneered as he pulled himself up onto his animal.
“Leave her be,” Manus chastised.
“We should have left her for dead. She’s slowing us down as it is.”
“She is His Lordship’s daughter,” Gabhan argued.
Eleanor fastened the cloak at her throat and threw Ranald a challenging stare. “The riding is rough, aye, and I may no’ be accustomed to it. But that, sir, is something I can remedy. Ye, on the other hand, will always be a steaming pile of heifer’s shite, and there isna one thing ye can do to change that.”
Ranald spat. The others roared with laughter.
“She’s no’ wrong,” Manus chortled, his heavyset frame gently shaking his mount.
“Aye,” Gabhan agreed. “Well said, My Lady. Wish I’d thought of it first.”
Eleanor’s triumph was short-lived. Not long after they set off, a nagging understanding plagued her. Ranald truly wanted to leave her for dead. That thought on its own didn’t surprise her. But she had tried so hard all this time not to utter a word of complaint, not to be a burden. Did the others feel as he did? Truly, deep down, did they wish they hadn’t spared her after all?
She thought on it all day, and by the time they dismounted again for the night, she resolved to do more. Her goal had changed from not being a burden to being an asset. She would damn well prove she was no different than they were.
“I shall take a watch tonight,” she announced as they set the fire for the night.
Ranald looked up from the flint and steel he was striking. “No’ bloody likely.”
Eleanor bristled. “Why no’?”
“What good will ye be if we’re attacked, eh? Can ye wield a sword? Can ye do anything other than get yerself raped and killed?”
“I have had just about enough of ye, Ranald MacNaughton. If we’re attacked by a band of brigands ten strong, what is the likelihood that any of ye could do anything? Other than get yerselves killed, that is. Aye, and raped, too, should any of them have buggering on their minds. I’ve heard vagabonds are a desperate bunch. They may well be desperate enough to give yer ugly arse a pounding from the rear.” The others erupted in laughter, amazed at demure Lady Eleanor’s suddenly vulgar tongue. “What I can do is watch and shout an alert. Same as any of ye. Besides, we’ve no’ encountered anyone in all this time.”
She and Ranald locked eyes, each determined to break the other’s will. It was Thomas who interrupted the intense silence.
“I wouldna mind sharing the watch duties, Ranald.”
“Nor I,” Gabhan echoed.
Eleanor set her eyes on Manus. “And ye?”
Manus looked between them and then shrugged. “I agree wi’ Thomas and Gabhan.”
Ranald was not pleased. He glared menacingly at Eleanor, his eyes raking her up and down with loathing.
“Fine, ye win. Ye want to be a woman in a man’s world, then ye can take a watch. But for this first night, though, ye’ll be doubling up wi’ me. I’ll no’ trust my safety to ye just yet. No’ until I see what ye’re made of. Manus, ye take the first watch, we’ll go after.”
The prospect of spending time alone with Ranald was not something Eleanor looked forward to, but she was not about to let him know it. She nodded, once, determined he would not intimidate her.
With Manus stationed several paces away, and the fire burning low but steady, Eleanor snuggled under Thomas’s cloak to sleep. The rain had lightened to something between a drizzle and a mist, though Eleanor was so tired she could have slept through a hailstorm. As soon as she closed her eyes, she was deeply asleep.
Her watch started two hours later with a rough shaking of her shoulder. She opened her eyes, blinking rapidly to bring her surroundings into focus. The rain had stopped, and a thick, rolling fog had moved in. The low arms of the fire illuminated the mist, so that it looked like an ungodly orange light creeping over the ground.
A booted toe prodded her in the side. She looked up to find Ranald standing over her.
“Our turn,” he hissed.
Sitting up, Eleanor stretched the kinks out of her back. She’d been sleeping on a rock she found, which had left an ache to the right of her spine and between her shoulder blades. It would likely be a bruise come morning.
Sluggishly, she moved to the fire, squatted before it, and held her palms to the flames for warmth. A prickle at the back of her neck made her turn her head. Ranald remained where he was. He stared at her with disgust.
“Ye’re no’ helping any of us by hating me in silence,” she told him. “Whatever ye have to say, say it. Just stop wi’ yer pointless glaring. Ye look like ye’ve caught a bad smell.”
In answer, Ranald passed his tongue over his teeth loudly. “Ye sit by the fire, ye’ll make yerself night blind.”
“Night blind?”
“God almighty, ye really are daft. The light from the flames will make ye blind to anything out there in the dark. If ye’re night blind, ye’ll no’ see an attack coming, but they’ll see ye just fine. If ye’re so determined to keep a good watch, ye canna expect to have the comforts of warmth and company. Ye must go a distance into the woods. Ye willna be so easily seen, and ye’ll be able to see anything coming.”
Eleanor’s cheeks flamed. Ranald was right, she was daft. His wisdom made perfect sense. So why hadn’t she come to that conclusion herself? She had a long way to go and a lot to learn if she were to become a proper outlaw.
A proper outlaw—imagine such a thing!
She stood, more alert now. “All right, then. Tell me, how far into the woods must I go?”
To her surprise, Ranald didn’t argue with her. Nor did he sneer or taunt her. Instead, he waved a hand to the unending blackness that stretched around them.
“We’ll scout the perimeter.”
“Together? Or separate?” She disliked the man, but she disliked the idea of being alone in the dark more.
“Should be separate, but I’d no’ trust ye to walk five steps on yer own. Ye’re likely to fall and break yer neck. Or mayhaps be eaten by wolves, helpless as ye are.”
“I am no’ helpless,” Eleanor shot back—louder than she meant to; Gabhan snorted and rolled over in his sleep.
“I am no’ helpless,” she repeated in a whisper. “Or at least I dinna mean to be for long.”
“So ye say, but that remains to be seen. Fine then, let’s get started.”
Ranald began to walk away.
“Wait. Do I no’ get a sword or a knife? Something for protection, if needs be?”
“No’ bloody likely. Ye’d just end up sticking yerself.”
Eleanor muttered a curse under her breath but followed after him.
The night was eerily still, the low-lying fog making it difficult to see the ground beneath her feet. Stones and fallen tree branches would rise of a sudden, like monsters from the sea, to collide with her shins and overturn her ankles. Thrice she stumbled, scraping her palms and bruising her knees.
Ranald moved fluidly, with the grace of a seasoned hunter. Eleanor envied him his feileadh mhor, which fell to just below the knee. Her own drenched shift, which clung to her ankles, impeded every step she took. Her feet might as well have been bound with rope for all the movement she had.
Farther and farther into the darkness they walked. Strange night sounds broke the silence, making her turn her head every which way to catch the source. A deer? An outlaw? A wolf? Agnew’s men?
Ranald had been right about one thing, though. Away from the fire her eyes did adjust, and with the light from the moon, which poked its silvery fingers through patches of receding clouds, she could begin to make out the outlines of trees and rocks and hills.
They were ranging far from camp. Too far, she thought. What good was it to be so far from the men one was meant to guard, if one was too far away to guard them? But she held her tongue. She would not question Ranald again. Despite her reservations about the man himself, it was clear he knew what he was doing, and she did not.
Eventually Ranald slowed to a halt. He looked around, circling slowly. Eleanor did the same. Her eyes and her ears were alert for anything that might be amiss, though what she was meant to be listening for she hadn’t the dimmest idea. The sounds she did hear were all strange to her. They were very far from the camp. She could not see anything of the fire anymore.
“Is there something in particular I should be hearing or not hearing?”
Her whisper drew Ranald’s gaze. He contemplated, leaning his wiry frame against a young oak behind him. Almost lazily, he crossed his arms over his chest.
“Ye sure this is what ye want, My Lady? To become a proper commoner like us?”
“I am.” Eleanor was never more certain.
“There are many dangers a common woman faces, ye ken, that a noblewoman doesna. Ye’ll no’ have the benefit of yer birth to protect ye.”
“I didna have the benefit of my birth to protect me when Agnew stormed my home, either.”
What was he getting at?
Ranald shrugged. “Yer neck, I suppose.”
The way he was looking at her made Eleanor nervous. For the first time, she was acutely aware that he had somehow put himself between her and the way back to the camp.
“Ye’re a lovely lass.” He offered a smile that was somewhere between genuine and leering.
“Thank ye, sir,” she mumbled, and took a step to move around him.
Ranald pushed off the tree, quick as a whip, and took a step in the same direction. He was playing with her, like a feral cat. She suddenly felt every bit the frightened, helpless mouse.
“Where d’ye think ye’re going? Ye want to be one of us, eh? No true common woman would mind spending some time on her back for a man that wants her.”
“Perhaps the common women ye ken wouldna mind.” Her heart was beating madly now, and her voice had risen an octave.
They stared each other down, prancing from foot to foot. It was Eleanor that took off first. Feinting left first, she shot off to the right in the direction of the camp. But she’d not been quick enough. A hand clamped down on her arm, and before she could scream, another clamped over her mouth.
Instinct took over, and she sunk her teeth into the meaty flesh of Ranald’s palm. She tasted the fresh tang of blood, mixed with salt and grime.
Ranald grunted. It wasn’t quite the recoil she’d hoped for. In fact, her bite did little more than make him angry. With the full power of his strength, he whirled her around so she was facing him, then struck her hard across the face.
The blow stunned her. Eleanor reeled to the ground, striking the back of her head on a fallen branch. She was only just beginning to register what had happened when Ranald was on her again. This time, the blow came from his closed fist into her jaw.
He’d hit her as if she were a man!
When she opened her eyes, the sky was spinning around Ranald’s furious face. With a quick jerk of his shoulder, he unsheathed his sgian dubh from his boot, and pressed the cold steel into the flesh beneath her chin.
“Scream out, and that’s the last sound ye’ll be making in this life.”
A drop of spittle, propelled from his lips by the vehemence with which he spoke, landed on her cheek. Eleanor struggled against him. She pummeled uselessly at his arms and his body, despite the blade at her neck. He pushed in harder, until a searing pain brought her to her senses—he’d cut her. And he would cut her deeper if she kept it up.
“D’ye want to die?” he sneered, snatching both her wrists by one hand and pinning them together. “I will kill ye, make no mistake.”
Wrenching her arms to the side, Ranald rolled her onto her stomach. It happened so fast that Eleanor was hardly able to cry out before her face was shoved into the mud. Her right arm was trapped beneath her own body, and with Ranald’s weight on top of her, she was sure a bone would snap if she tried to break free. Her left arm scrabbled aimlessly over the dirt, clawing at the moss and leaves and mud.
“Dinna be daft and scream now,” he reminded her as he hitched her shift up over her hips.
An insensate terror left her mind a frozen void. She couldn’t scream, even if she wanted to. Her face was shoved into the dirt so forcefully that she could barely breathe. Moss and grass found its way into her mouth in clumps each time she turned her head for air; each time she did, Ranald would shove her face back into the dirt. She knew what he was doing with his own plaid, she could feel his clammy flesh on hers. But the need for air was all-encompassing. Of everything else that was happening, she was only dimly aware.
Heaven above, save me, she thought somewhere in the far reaches of her consciousness. He’s killing me!
All of a sudden, there was a sickening gurgle from Ranald. His body jerked backward, and a warm, wet spray showered the back of Eleanor’s head. Ranald pitched to the side, freeing her. Eleanor turned her head just in time to see his limp body fall dead beside her. His unseeing eyes stared through her. In death they held the final surprise he must have felt just before the life left him.
She began to shiver, cold to her very bones, and she thought she would be sick. Someone was tugging her shift and cloak back down to cover her, but she could not sit up to find out who it was. All she could feel was the waves of sick that threatened to heave upward and out. She closed her eyes, fighting it.
“My Lady? My Lady, are ye hurt?”
The voice was deep, familiar. Was she hurt? No, she did not think so. She tried to say as much, but no words would come.
“Here,” came the voice again. “Let me help ye up.”
A pair of strong hands circled her waist and hauled her from the dirt as easily as if she were a child. The ground dropped before her eyes, and then her feet came into view. It felt strange when they touched down far below her. She wobbled a bit, then looked into the face of her saviour.
Will!
It was Will. He’d saved her—again! When had he come? How? And how had he known what Ranald would do? Her lips worked furiously, trying to form his name, but her voice would not cooperate. She clutched at his cloak and gazed into his face with something between amazement and disbelief.
“Aye, ’tis me, My Lady.” Will held her by the arms to steady her. He gave her a reassuring smile, which barely masked the rage that simmered behind his eyes. “Let’s take ye back to the fire, shall we?”
He turned her by the shoulder, still supporting her weight, and began to lead her away. She stared dumbly at Ranald’s corpse as he steered her around it.
“Nay, lass. Dinna look. There is naught to see that ye need worry yer bonnie head about.”
In the fear-addled fog within her brain, Eleanor could not comprehend it. He’d been alive one minute, and breathing and on the verge of doing unspeakable things to her. And now he was not. Anger roiled inside her, and an unintelligible stream of curses spilled from her lips. She tore from Will’s grasp and fell upon Ranald’s corpse, kicking and hitting and scratching at his unmoving body. Never before had she hated a person so much. She wanted to feel his flesh scrape away from his bones beneath her fingernails. She screamed and cried and raged at the lifeless body until she was on the verge of losing consciousness.
“Shush, lass. He’s dead. He canna hurt ye no more.” Will gently eased her away from the corpse and ushered her away.
Sharp, heaving breaths roared in Eleanor’s ears, and the ground felt like it was rolling and pitching beneath her feet. She couldn’t stop shivering. Why was she so cold?
By Will’s gentle guidance, they returned to the fire. The others were still asleep, immersed deeply in their dreams with not an inkling of what had just transpired. Seating her on a flat, low stone, he removed Thomas’s sodden cloak from her shoulders, and replaced it with his own, drier one. Then he pulled a sheepskin of whiskey from the inside pocket of his tunic, and squatted in front of her.
“Here, then. Get this down ye. Aye, that’s it. More. Warm ye up nice and good.”
Once she was a little more composed, Will’s face changed from caring and tender, to blazing with rage. Without warning, he lunged at the sleeping man closest to him. It was Thomas.
The poor, disoriented man let out a startled yelp as he was wrenched from the ground and propelled backward into the trunk of an ash. Before he could take stock of his attacker, Will’s hands were crushing his throat. Manus and Gabhan leapt to their feet, grabbing blindly for their weapons.
“What kind of animals are ye?” Will shouted into Thomas’s face, which was swiftly changing from red to purple. “What kind of men would take it into their heads to defile Lord Albermarle’s own kin? How many times, eh? Have ye each had a turn wi’ her? Speak, man, or so help me, I’ll slit yer goddamn throat.”
Poor Thomas clawed at Will’s hands, his mouth opening and closing like a dying fish.
“Will, for God’s sake, what are ye on about?” demanded Manus.
“Rape,” Will howled. “I found Ranald trying at it wi’ Lady Eleanor in the woods while ye were all sound asleep. Dinna tell me ye kent nothing of it.”
“We didna ken,” insisted Gabhan, edging closer. “Come now, Will. Let Thomas go, he has done nothing.”
Eleanor watched the exchange unfold. She was desperate to say something, to stop this. Will had it wrong, and he was prepared to kill Thomas. And perhaps Manus and Gabhan too, if they did not kill him first. They’d be dead and it would be her fault because she hadn’t stopped them. Because she couldn’t make herself speak. Because she’d forgotten how.
She had to remember how! Sucking in a breath, she forced the air from her chest.
Will.
The sound came out a hoarse whisper. She tried again.
“Will.”
This time it was a croak. But it was enough. Will turned his chin a fraction, and his eyes slid in her direction.
“Will, t-they are right. T-They did-didna ken. I-It were only Ranald, and on-only the once.”
Will narrowed his eyes as Manus and Gabhan bobbed their heads in unison. Thomas still clawed at Will’s hands, his heels digging ruts into the mud.
“We’ve been nothing but kind to her,” Gabhan insisted. “Come on, Will, ye ken us. Let Thomas go.”
Will hesitated briefly before loosening his fingers from around Thomas’s throat. Thomas pulled in a painful mouth of air. Coughing and sputtering, he collapsed to the ground on his hands and knees.
“I thought I kent Ranald,” Will responded to Gabhan.
“We all did,” agreed Manus. “We were well aware that he didna like the lass along wi’ us, but we thought it ended there.”
“Where is he now?” asked Gabhan.
Will shot Eleanor a dark look. “Face down in a puddle of his own blood.”
Gabhan spat. “Well then, good riddance. If that be his way, we dinna want him wi’ us.” To Eleanor he added, “My Lady, I am truly, truly sorry. None of us kent what were in Ranald’s mind. We would never hurt ye. I hope ye can believe that.”
Still trembling, Eleanor looked to each man. First Manus, then Gabhan, then poor Thomas, who was still on his hands and knees. They had been her traveling companions for the last several days, and she’d come to rely on them. To like them, even. She could see from their alarmed and dismayed faces what she already knew in her heart: that they were not at all like Ranald MacNaughton.
“I b-believe ye,” she stammered.
***
Three days later, the weary travelers made it to the royal burgh of Stirling.
Eleanor surveyed the cramped, winding streets and haphazard dwellings with a detached, remote acceptance. So this was to be her home now. This might possibly be the last place she saw before she was executed for treason.
The Eleanor Douglas who’d left the sleepy little realm of Kinross, far to the north in Moray, was not the Eleanor Douglas who’d arrived in Stirling. This new Eleanor wore no fine gown, but rather a homespun woollen tunic that Manus had bartered from a peasant woman they encountered two days before. The garment was too short, and too tight in the shoulders and about the bust. No soft slippers for this Eleanor. Instead it was a pair of sheepskin rivelins. Her golden hair was not bound and plaited, but rather it hung loose in tangled, yellow wisps.
And strapped to this Eleanor’s ankle was Ranald MacNaughton’s sgian dubh.
She kept the weapon for two reasons. The first was that she swore no man except the hangman would ever lay a finger on her again if she did not wish it. She would sever his ballocks from his body before that happened. Each night when they stopped, she would have Will, or Thomas, or Manus or Gabhan teach her how to use the small, treacherous knife. And each night she got a little better with it.
The second reason she kept Ranald’s sgian dubh was because it was Ranald’s sgian dubh. It was the weapon with which he’d attacked her. It was not just a weapon to her now, but a symbol. It represented the life she’d left behind, and the new life that had taken its place. When that blade had been pressed to her throat, she had realized that her secure, safe little world at Glen Craggan was a lie. She’d realized that a life could be ended at any time, under any circumstances.
The Eleanor Douglas who surveyed the teeming city of Stirling was wizened. World-weary. And ready to face whatever may come.
She would free her father. Or she would die in the attempt.