Dougall was beginning to lose hope. After a sennight of searching the immediate lands surrounding Glen Craggan, they were forced to abandon their efforts and return to Glendalough to report their findings—or lack thereof. He had taken young Davey with him, from among his own guard, as well as the man called Gregor Douglas of the Glen Craggan Douglases. He needed someone who could recognize the Lady Eleanor by sight, for Dougall’s own hazy recollection of the lass was more than a decade past being useful.
No one they encountered had any knowledge of her whereabouts. Or, if it be God’s will, her fate. The common folk of Glen Craggan village were of no use. They would not speak to him of what they knew…if indeed they knew anything at all. Agnew’s men were a constant presence, and the villagers were afraid.
Regardless, Dougall and his men helped them bury their dead, for which they were grateful.
He was reluctant to return to Kildrummond with no news for his master. The thought of letting Lachlan down sat heavy with him.
“Ye must go farther afield,” Lachlan insisted. “I’m sorry to ask it of ye, but I must do everything in my power to find Lady Eleanor. I owe Lord Albermarle that much at least.”
“Aye, of course,” Dougall agreed.
“Is it possible she’s making her way to England to join Lady Albermarle?” Moira enquired.
“Aye, quite possible,” Lachlan acknowledged. “I dinna ken what—” He halted mid-sentence and glared at Moira, who had only just come upon them. “I thought I told ye to stay in bed. Ye’re no’ to be about the castle in yer condition.”
“And I thought I told ye no’ to be giving me orders. Ye’ll live a very frustrated life if ye keep trying to do that.”
Lachlan chuckled and pulled his wife to him, placing a tender kiss upon her brow. Dougall averted his eyes. Privately, he smiled. Even through their constant bickering, their affection and love for one another was strong.
“That’s what ye must do then,” Lachlan instructed Dougall. “Make yer way to the border. See if ye can hear anything of her. She should be recognizable. A tall, stately lass wi’ golden hair? Someone’s bound to remember something.”
Yes, they were bound to remember something…if there was something to remember. Of that, Dougall had his doubts. A lady of gentle birth, on her own in the wilds of the Highlands? She was likely to be picked off by wolves, if not vagrants and outlaws. She had no money, no friends, and, he hazarded to guess, no survival skills.
If they did find her, Dougall would put money on it that they’d find her body only.
“She is a sprightly thing,” Gregor recalled for him and Davey as they rode through the lands south of Loch Tay. “Hair as golden as the sunrise, and eyes the color of a loch after a storm.”
“I’ve always loved a pair of deep, dark eyes,” Davey mused. “Always thought lasses wi’ black eyes were mysterious. Like the Dowager Countess, Lady Glinis.”
“Black?” Gregor scoffed. “I didna mean black, I meant green. A green like the lochs after a storm.”
“What lochs have ye been looking at after it storms? All the ones I ken are black.”
Dougall shook his head. “We are never going to find her if the one man we’ve brought along that kens her canna even describe her properly. Ye sure her hair isna red? Some men might say a sunrise is red.”
“Dinna be daft, a sunrise is golden.” Gregor’s thick brows knitted together. “She’s golden hair. Gold like the Countess of Albermarle. That much I ken.”
For several nights now, Dougall dreamed of Lady Eleanor. Her face was never clear, and thanks to Gregor’s unreliable description, sometimes she looked at him with green eyes and sometimes with black. But always her hair was a ribbon of liquid gold, so bright it burned his eyes just to look at it.
In his dreams, she was always just beyond his reach. No matter how hard or far he ran toward her, she always drifted farther away. Help me, she would call to him. Dougall, I need yer help. Save me.
He never spoke of his dreams to his companions. He was wary of acknowledging them even to himself, for it was likely he was dreaming of a dead lass whom he could never save.
“I dinna think we will find her,” he confessed to Gregor one night as they made camp. “It has been nearly a fortnight and we’ve had no sign of her.”
Gregor glanced to Davey, who had already fallen asleep. His head rested upon his pack, and he was wrapped so tightly in his feileadh mhor that only his face peeked out from a shroud of Douglas plaid. He was younger than Dougall. Only one-and-twenty. Time had not yet hardened him. Dougall envied the lad his easy sleep.
“I fear the same,” the old man reluctantly agreed.
“We are on a fool’s errand—I’ll no’ give up, mind. But for a delicate young lady of gentle birth to survive this long on her own…’tis no’ possible.”
“A lady and of gentle birth Eleanor Douglas may be, but delicate she most certainly is no’! She is her father’s daughter through and through. If any lady of gentle birth has a chance of surviving on her own in the Highlands, ’tis that one. I tell ye this, Dougall MacFadyen of Glendalough. My head may tell me the lass is dead, but I confess my heart willna let me believe it. No’ just yet, anyway.”
Dougall turned Gregor’s words over in his head as he watched the feeble flames of their fire through a haze of damp smoke.
“D’ye think there’s any merit to what the villagers are saying?” Gregor put in after a while. “That a number of Douglases from all over have flocked to Stirling?”
“If it is true, ’tis no good thing. I can think of only one reason why they might be concentrating in a place that is the seat of the king’s power.”
“To free Lord Albermarle and the others,” Gregor said unnecessarily, nodding his great head. “Then I must wonder: D’ye think Lady Eleanor might have heard the same talk?”
Dougall did not like the direction in which Gregor’s thoughts had turned. If the lady were still alive, it was entirely possible that she’d heard the same rumors about Douglases in Stirling that they had. For they’d heard it from several different villages.
It was more than possible, in fact. And if that were the case, then a woman of gentle birth such as Lady Eleanor Douglas could not possibly have any idea of what her clansmen might be up to, and what dangers they might bring to her once she reached the city and found them.
Dougall’s blood chilled at the scenario as it played out in his mind.
“I think that if she’s alive, then that’s the most probable place she’s gone,” he said heavily. “And if that’s so, then ’tis urgent we find her before the king’s men do. For a daughter of Lord Albermarle to be found in Stirling…well, I dinna need to tell you she’ll be taken for a traitor wi’out hesitation.”
Gregor nodded, the weight of such an outcome bearing heavily upon his old heart. “To Stirling, then.”
“To Stirling,” Dougall echoed. His eyes slid to Davey, who continued to sleep, blissfully unaware for at least a few hours more of the new and dangerous path their mission had just taken.
They would be Douglases in a place where Douglases were condemned. He hoped to God that saving Lady Eleanor was worth the risk they were taking in trying to find her.
***
The Thistle and Thorn was a shady, dilapidated tavern that squatted on the outer edge of Stirling. Only the lowest rank of humanity occupied these streets, drinking away their cares in this and other like establishments. There was a gap between the door frame and the slatted door, which was caused either by the hinges being so rusted and warped, or the door frame having partially rotted. Or both. When it opened, the tavern exhaled a waft of unwashed male reek into the fetid air outside.
Inside, tallow candles were suspended from the high-beamed ceiling, occasionally dripping greasy, foul-smelling wax onto the trestle tables below. There were no windows to let in the dim afternoon light, nor were torches mounted on the walls to alleviate some of the gloom. Eleanor could make a pretty good guess at why, considering the quality of the patrons. They were loud, drunk, and looked like they were ready to draw daggers and fight one another at the slightest provocation.
Whores slinked through the crowd, making lackluster effort to drum up business. Tavern wenches carried ale and inedible-looking food to and from the tables. In truth, there was nothing to distinguish the whores from the tavern wenches except the pitchers of ale. The women looked every bit as rough as the men. Square them against a murderous ruffian in a dark alley, and the odds would be made just about even.
Before anyone could take notice of the attractive young lass who stumbled across the threshold, Eleanor had been whisked through to a small, filthy room at the rear. In here, a broken brass lantern burned low on top of an unopened cask of ale, throwing shadows up to the ceiling and over the thick cobwebs that were strung in every corner.
She stood now in front of a man called Angus Beag—Little Angus, though why he was called “little” was anyone’s guess, for he towered over Will who was himself unusually tall. She squared her shoulders and looked firmly at the man as he did her. Angus Beag’s one good eye raked her up and down as though she displeased him; the other did not move, but gazed to the left, a cloudy gray film over yellowing jelly. Dark, stringy hair fell to his shoulders. It looked as though it hadn’t seen a wash in at least a year.
“Ye’re having me on,” Angus Beag declared. “This lass hasna seen a day of work in her life. Look at those lily-white hands.”
“She’s tougher than she looks,” Will insisted. He stood behind her, arms crossed over his chest.
“But a lady. What good will she be to us in freeing those in the towerhouse? She’s like to cause us trouble, I’d reckon.”
“I promise ye, sir, I shall no’.”
Her cultured tone and noble accent made Angus Beag wince. Eleanor heard it, too, and frowned. “I’ll work on that.”
“She wants to free her father,” Thomas put in. He was the other party in the room. Gabhan and Manus remained outside to guard the door.
“We all want to free her father,” Angus Beag noted dryly. “Doesna mean we’re all suited to the task.”
“But surely there is something I can do,” Eleanor pleaded. “I can run missives. I can read and write. I dinna care what I do, as long as I’m here where he is. I must help—in any way I can.”
“Wi’ the look of ye, ye’ll be found out in less than a sennight for who ye are.”
“I dinna think anyone’s looking for her. For all Agnew’s men ken, she escaped wi’ Lady Albermarle and the family.”
“Perhaps. But I’m no’ willing to risk my neck on that.”
“Can we no’ think of anything she might be of help with?” Thomas pleaded on Eleanor’s behalf. “Ye could give her work at least, keep her close until ye’re feeling safe, and then ye can see where she might be of use.”
Eleanor blanched. Work? Here? She had no useful skill save embroidery and household management, which her mother insisted she learn. What could she do here?
Though she was not about to say it. She would be damned before handing Angus Beag the reason he clearly itched for to dismiss her outright.
“Work. Aye…perhaps,” the man allowed. “D’ye think ye could leave yer good graces and high speech behind and blend in wi’ my tavern wenches?”
“I could learn. I’m sure I could.”
“Ye’ll no’ be treated like a noble here, so dinna expect us to call ye ‘My Lady.’ There shall be no one bowing and curtseying to ye.”
“Sir, I have already resigned myself to my new, no’-so-noble life. That is all behind me.”
“Is that so? ’Tis rough out there, especially when the hour grows late. My patrons are like to grab ye and try to fondle ye. Can ye handle that?”
“Yes,” she answered, with a little too much confidence.
“Oh, really?” Angus Beag was amused. “Let’s put ye to the test, then.”
Before he’d finished speaking, the man grabbed her about the waist and whirled her around. Eleanor pitched sideways and nearly crashed to the ground before Angus Beag’s strong arms caught her and plunked her firmly on his lap, the two of them struggling on top of an unopened crate. He laughed as he pulled the hem of her tunic up over her knees.
Eleanor fought against him. Almost belatedly, she remembered the sgian dubh strapped to her ankle.
“Oh, no ye dinna,” he taunted, and trapped her hand beneath his on her upper thigh.
Panic seized her. No, this could not be happening, not again. Had she survived Ranald’s attack only to fall victim to this man?
But then, just as suddenly as he’d grabbed her, Angus Beag let go. Eleanor tumbled to the floor, landing on her bottom with a thump. Angus Beag roared with laughter. She stared at him, dumbfounded. It was then that she realized both Will and Thomas had been watching all along, and neither of them had lifted a finger to help her. Will looked disapprovingly at Angus Beag, while Thomas laughed along with him.
Eleanor’s face grew heated. Angrily, she clambered up off the floor.
“That, lass, is what ye can expect of the men out there,” Angus Beag declared, still chuckling. “I canna always be at the ready to save my wenches. Ye’ve got to learn that for yerself. Ye’ve got to be ever vigilant. Never let yer guard down for one minute. That way, ye’ll be ready a heartbeat before anyone has the notion of trying it on.”
He reached for her again, his hands moving so swift she nearly didn’t see—nearly. Reacting, in part, on instinct, Eleanor leapt backward, out of his reach, and when Angus Beag stumbled, she stamped down hard on his booted toe with her heel. The move sent a monstrous shock of pain through her ankle, her thin leather rivelin a poor substitute to the heeled slippers she was accustomed to. But it had hurt him, too. Angus Beag howled and hopped in place.
“Ye wee bitch!” He sized her up. But he was not angry. Instead, he looked at her with grudging admiration. Thomas and Will, too, looked upon her with a touch of pride.
Bitch…? Well, she supposed she should get used to such sentiments. She’d likely be hearing them often enough if she were to take up work out there on that tavern floor.
“All right,” Angus Beag relented. “We’ll give it a try. But ye’ll have to be doing something about that hair. Should there be anyone looking for ye, I’d wager they’d recognize that hair straight away.”
“D’ye want me to cut it?”
“Nay, lass. I’m no’ thinking cut.”
Will frowned. “What d’ye have in mind?”
Less than an hour later, Eleanor found herself seated on a crudely crafted stool, in a dark upstairs room at the Thistle and Thorn. She had been placed in front of a table by Angus Beag, and left there to wonder what he had in store for her. On top of the table was a single wooden bowl.
These upstairs rooms, she quickly surmised, were for the whores who frequented the tavern. Of course, Eleanor knew that such things went on in such places, sheltered though her upbringing had been. Even in Moray there were brothels, and her father’s men were no strangers to the comforts of a hired woman. It had never occurred to her, however, that such things went on inside a tavern. That such an establishment could have a sort of understanding with fallen women—a mutually beneficial understanding, it would seem—was an astonishing thought.
She tried not to hear the sounds that were coming from the room next to her. But it was hard not to imagine the goings-on in between the rhythmic thumping of a bed frame against the crumbling lime plaster wall. The frequent moans from the gentleman being…serviced didn’t make ignoring any easier.
Eleanor did not think she could be any redder if she held her breath until she fainted.
The low door opened, its hinges groaning. In walked one of the wenches from downstairs. Eleanor had glimpsed her on the way in, but she could not tell if this one was a whore or a serving wench. In one painfully small hand the woman held a glazed clay pitcher. Her wrist was so thin and sharp, it looked as though any more weight put upon it might snap the bone clean in two.
Eleanor eyed the wench warily, unsure of what to expect. But she soon put Eleanor at ease when she smiled and jerked a thumb at the wall.
“He sounds like he’s getting what he paid for—” A long howl interrupted her. “Oh, there now. He’s finished.” When she grinned playfully, Eleanor saw the woman was missing several teeth. She didn’t want to think of how they might have been lost.
“I…em…I’ll take yer word on that one, mistress.”
The wench cocked her head sideways and placed her other hand on her sharp, jutting hip. “They were right about yer tongue. Ye sound too proper, like one of those upper crusts. That tongue will get ye into trouble around here.”
“So I’ve surmised,” Eleanor agreed. “But I am willing to work on it.”
“I like that. A noblewoman willing to work. We shall get along just fine, I reckon. I’m Roisin. Angus Beag says ye’re Nolie?”
“Nay, my name is El—”
“Ah, no more.” Roisin held up her free hand. “If Angus Beag says ye’re to be called Nolie, then Nolie ye’ll be called—oh, good day to ye, sir,” she called to the surly gentleman who stalked past the open door.
Eleanor’s eyes boggled as the man adjusted himself through his plaid. Behind him sauntered the woman who had serviced him. She leaned her voluptuous figure against the door frame, looking utterly bored. Her hair was red as a flame and was piled loosely on her head. She might have been pretty once, if she’d chosen another profession. But she, like Roisin, was missing several teeth, and from the odd bump at the bridge of her nose where it had most likely been broken at least once, it was obvious she’d been handled rough.
“What, no smile from the gentleman?” Roisin jested. “Ye’re losing yer touch, Muirne.”
“He’s always a miserable bag of ballocks once he’s got to pull his purse out and pay.” The woman named Muirne glanced at Eleanor with veiled hostility. “What do we have here, then?”
“No need to be unkind. This here be Nolie, and she’s no’ after yer customers—aye? Ye’re no’ in that business, right?”
“Heavens no—” Eleanor blurted, realizing too late who she was speaking to. “That is, I’m…er…’tis no’ a profession I—”
Muirne laughed. “Calm yerself, lass. Ye’re all right. Well then, I’ll be off. I’ve more in me to give this night, if I can find any customers that will take me.”
Winking at Roisin, she slinked away. Her heels clicked on the stairs as she descended.
When she was gone, Roisin closed the door and approached the stool. Placing the pitcher beside the bowl on the small table, she turned Eleanor by the shoulders and began unplaiting her hair. The thick twirl of locks unfurled like a river of sunlight down her back. Roisin ran her fingers through it enviously.
“’Tis such a shame to lose this beautiful hair. I should be mad wi’ grief if I were ye right now. Mind ye, my own hair were never so beautiful.” She patted her wild, wispy curls of dark brown.
Eleanor’s stomach fluttered. “Angus Beag never told me how he planned to change my hair.”
“Wi’ this.” Roisin reached for the pitcher and tipped it so Eleanor could see what was inside.
Eleanor sniffed, then recoiled at the odor. “What is it?”
“’Tis crushed walnut in boiling water. It will stain yer hair—and my hands and all, I’ll have ye ken.”
“I’m…sorry. Can I do this myself? I should like to spare yer hands if I can.”
“Ach, ’tis no trouble. I’m only teasing.”
With a mournful sigh, and one last stroke of her fingers through Eleanor’s locks, Roisin set to work. First she poured the walnut liquid into the bowl, and then she guided Eleanor to turn around on the stool and lean back. From her pocket, Roisin pulled a clean square of linen and dipped it into the walnut. Combing the hair into a loose coil, she eased it into the pungent, steaming liquid, and began using the linen to stroke the dye up to the crown, saturating the strands from root to tip.
“Oh, ballocks! Forgive me,” she said when a rivulet of the liquid dripped down the side of Eleanor’s face. “That will stain, too.”
“No’ forever, I hope.”
“Nay. ’Twill fade in a few days.”
Roisin chatted happily as she worked. Eleanor listened closely, not so much for what Roisin was telling her, but for the manner of her speaking. The accent, she realized, was not so different, but the words Roisin used and, more specifically, the inflections upon those words were different. For example, if Eleanor were to say “dinna fash,” it would have been much more even, dinna and fash spoken with equal importance. But when Roisin said it, she uttered dinna so quickly and put heavy stress on fash. Eleanor was not certain she could pick up this strange manner of speaking, but at least she knew what it was she would need to change.
“There. All done,” Roisin said regretfully. She wrung the liquid from Eleanor’s hair back into the bowl. “Come downstairs. Ye can dry yer hair by the hearth.”
“What—inside the tavern?”
Roisin grinned wickedly. “Why? Ye frightened?”
“Em…no’ frightened, exactly.”
“I ken they look rough, but they’re kittens once ye learn how to handle them. In any case, I meant the hearth in the kitchen, so ye’re spared unwanted attentions—this night, at least.”
Eleanor followed her out of the room. Her hair dripped down her back, soaking the fabric of her gown. On the narrow stairwell, she had to press herself against the wall to let another whore and her customer by. The man leered at her as he passed. She kept her eyes on her feet, willing him to leave her alone. Several of the patrons glanced curiously at the unfamiliar lass with the wet hair as she descended the staircase, but the watchful eye of Angus Beag (his good one) kept them in check.
The kitchen was not linked to the tavern itself but was a squat, damp, hut-like dwelling situated behind the main building. Roisin took her through a rear exit and across a muddy patch of ground, no longer than a man was tall. Inside, Eleanor’s traveling companions were enjoying hot spiced ale and the heat of the meager hearth in the center of the room. A cooking pot was suspended over the flames, inside of which were the half-dried remains of stew, the meat gray and of indeterminate source. An old man with a potbelly and a single brown tooth held a wooden stirring stick in his sweaty hand. He, too, leered at Eleanor when she entered, but stopped when he caught Will’s threatening glare.
Roisin pulled her toward the fire and rubbed her arms like a mother might do to a child. “Come close to the warmth, and let yer hair dry some.”
Shuffling in between Gabhan and Thomas, Eleanor’s toe nudged one of the large, flat stones that outlined the hearth. A rat the size of a raven scurried from beneath it. She squealed and leapt sideways, colliding with Thomas and knocking him into Manus.
Gabhan caught her easily, steadying her. “Easy there, young one.” He laughed.
Will stepped forward, assessing Eleanor’s new hair. “Aye. That does change the look of her,” he mused. “But her scalp has turned the same color. It looks odd.”
“It’ll wear off,” Roisin insisted flippantly.
Gabhan squinted, the plaited locks at his temples swaying as he peered close. “I dinna ken. ’Tis an unsightly color, Lady Eleanor.”
“Nolie.”
The group turned to find Angus Beag looming in the doorway of the outbuilding.
“She is no longer Lady Eleanor, she is Nolie. Ye’d best be getting used to it, all of ye. If she is to be a part of this, I’ll no’ call her anything that might give her away, no’ when so many of our necks are on the line.”
Gabhan and Thomas parted as he approached Eleanor. Will instinctively stepped closer to her for protection.
“Ye’ll do nicely,” Angus Beag observed. “Are ye certain ye’re up for this?”
Eleanor swallowed thickly. She hoped she did not look as terrified as she was. “I am.”
“Right. Dry yer hair, and then ’tis out on the floor wi’ ye. No better time to get started than tonight.”