The Hawk: A Highland Guard Novel (21 page)

Once a prominent stronghold of his Norse ancestors, the castle had descended to his cousin Angus Og from their great-great-grandfather Somerled—the mighty King of the Isles who’d given Erik’s clan its name: MacSorley, sons of Somerled. The little nursemaid would probably find it appropriate that Somerled meant “summer traveler,” a reference to going “a viking.”

The long swim and cold water had sapped his strength, but as Erik drew closer his blood fired with a renewed burst of energy. The real danger was about to begin.

The castle’s sea-gate was just ahead. As last time, he was covered head to toe in black seal grease. It not only helped to insulate him from the cold but allowed him to blend into the night, so he should be able—like last time—to slip under the gate without being detected. The gate had been fashioned to keep out a boat, not a solitary swimmer.

It had taken the English months of sieging to breach the castle walls; he would need less than a minute.

Taking a deep breath, he dove into the tomblike blackness. The water was no more than ten feet deep at this point, and it took him only seconds to touch the rocky bottom. Using that as his guide, he skated along the seafloor until he knew that he was clear of the bars. Only then did he surface—carefully and soundlessly.

He opened his eyes to torchlight and the cavelike stone chamber deep in the bowels of Dunaverty Castle. He was in.

But he wasn’t alone.

Erik held perfectly still, not breathing, as a solitary guard made his rounds past the gate. But luck was with him again. The Englishman barely glanced at the water below him. Why should he? The gate was down. Unless ships were suddenly capable of diving underwater—Erik smiled at the ridiculous notion—the guard had nothing to fear. Or so he assumed.

Erik waited for the guard’s torch to fade into the distance before levering himself out of the water and onto the stone platform that served as a dock.

The blast of cold air felt like shards of ice pricking through his skin. He was tempted to use the “silent kill” that his cousin Lachlan “Viper” MacRuairi had perfected—a dirk stuck in the back through to the lungs—to get some clothes, but Erik knew it was better if his comings and goings went unnoticed. Bruce wanted the Highland Guard to operate in the shadows, not only to be harder to detect, but also to increase the fear in the heart of their enemy.

So, naked but for the black grease on his skin and the dirk tied to his waist, Erik made his way up the staircase, along the dank tunnel, and into the lower vaults of the castle. He kept to the walls, hiding in the shadows, as he made his way to the kitchens.

Just like last time, he passed no one.

The gradual increase of warmth, felt keenly by his shivering body, alerted him that he was nearing his destination. A welcoming blast of heat from the kitchen fires, kept smoldering all night, hit him as he ducked under the stone archway of the kitchen. He peered around the room in the semidarkness, relieved to see the sleeping form of a man rolled up in his plaid before the fire.

Seamus MacDonald was one of the best cooks in the Highlands. Angus Og had been reluctant to forgo his skills, but had realized that the old man could better serve as a cook to the English. Most of the castle servants were his cousin’s men. The English brought plenty of soldiers and weapons, but they made use of the locals for labor. The arrogant knights, accustomed to the strictures of feudalism, discounted the danger of “peasants,” failing to understand that many household positions in the Highlands were a sign of prestige.

“Seamus,” he whispered, nudging the man with his foot.

Knowing the danger of waking a sleeping Highlander, Erik stood back, which was a good thing when the old man sprang up like a lad of two and twenty, dirk in hand.

Erik smiled in the darkness. “I thought you’d be expecting me.”

The cantankerous cook—a redundancy, in Erik’s experience—scowled at him. “Why do you think I’m here and not sleeping in the comfort of my bed?” His gaze dipped over Erik’s blackened body and hair. “God’s blood, you look like something just dredged up from a bog.” He threw Erik a plaid. “Cover yourself before you kill someone with that thing.”

Erik grinned. As he’d said before, he’d never come up short in his life. “The lasses don’t seem to object.”

The old man chortled. “What do you need this time?”

Seamus had never been one for pleasantries.

“Any word from our friend?”

The cook shook his head. “Not yet.”

“But you were able to send word?”

“My man left the next morning. If something had happened, I would have heard.”

Erik nodded. He would have preferred confirmation that his message had reached Bruce, but it would have to do for now.

“Will I be sleeping any more nights on the floor?” Seamus asked.

“Perhaps a few. I hope to return once more before I leave.”

“Have care, lad, the English are looking for our friend but also for you. There is a price on your head of two hundred marks.”

Erik feigned disappointment. “Is that all?”

Seamus’s mouth didn’t even twitch. It was a fortune. Not as much as the three hundred they’d offered for Wallace, but more than offered for any other man except for Bruce. “It’s nay a joking matter, lad. There is something odd going on.”

“You worry too much, old man.” But seeing the concern on his friend’s face, he sighed. “I promise to be careful. Believe me, I’ve no more wish to see the inside of an English dungeon than you do.” He paused. “In the meantime, I have another request.”

“A message?”

“Aye. But this time to Ireland. Do you have someone?”

Seamus’s brows furrowed like two furry gray caterpillars. He stroked his long, bristly beard. “Aye, what do you need?”

“To reach someone in Ulster’s household.”

“Is this for our friend?”

Erik shook his head, not surprised that Seamus thought it was a message from Bruce to someone in his wife’s family. “It’s a long story. But I need to get word to the earl’s seneschal that Ellie the nursemaid is safe and will be returned home soon.”

Erik could tell the other man was curious but knew better than to ask questions. Suddenly, he frowned.

“What is it?” Erik asked.

“Could the lass have anything to do with the unusual fervor of the English hunt?”

Erik considered the question and then quickly dismissed it. Even if they’d connected the missing nursemaid with the woman who’d cried for help in the water, the English were not likely to be concerned about an Irish lass of little consequence. “Nay.” He shook his head. “It’s me they want.”

“I can only imagine what you did to rile their anger to such a frenzy.”

Erik just smiled. “How soon can you get it there?”

Seamus shrugged. “A day, two at most.”

“Good.” He slapped Seamus on the back. “Get some sleep, old man. I’ll return in a few days, if I am able.” He unwrapped the plaid from around his shoulders. “Here, you’d better take this,” he said, handing it to him. He would have to dispose of it before he got back into the water. No use ruining a good plaid for a few more minutes of warmth.

Seamus shook his head, looking him over. “You nearly scared me half to death the first time I saw you. I thought you were one of the devil’s minions coming for me.”

Erik chuckled. “Not yet, old man. You’ve still got a few more years to atone for the last sixty of hell-raising.”

Seamus snorted. “Sixty? I’m nine and forty, you arse.”

Erik laughed and took his leave.

He was halfway through the tunnel when he felt that first prickle of unease—the first sensation that something wasn’t right. Even before he heard anything, he knew someone was coming. Sliding the dirk from his waist, he stopped against the wall and listened. A moment later the soft rumble of distant voices confirmed what his instincts had already told him.

But instead of a single guardsman, as it should have been, at least a dozen men were coming from the sea-gate. A galley must have arrived.

Damned inconvenient of them.

Normally, taking on a dozen English soldiers single-handedly would be nothing Erik thought twice about. He’d been trained well. That he was naked and armed only with a dirk merely gave the English a fighting chance.

But he couldn’t, blast it. Though it went against every bone in his body to shirk from a challenge, he didn’t want to alert the English to his presence by leaving a pile of bodies around to explain, not if he could help it. Not only would it cut off Dunaverty as a source of communication, it would also draw unwanted attention to an area that was far too close to Arran a week before the attack.

Knowing he wouldn’t be able to make it past them in the narrow tunnel, Erik started to retrace his steps backward. He would hide somewhere in the kitchen vaults until they passed.

At least that was the plan.

It was a good one, too, except that when he ducked into the first storeroom, his quick scan of the room neglected to notice the lad who must have been nestled among the bags and barrels of flour, oats, and barley. He was so intent on trying to hear the conversation of the approaching soldiers, he didn’t sense the movement behind him until it was too late.

He spun around. The boy opened his mouth to scream and lashed out wildly in the dark with a knife.

Erik reacted almost instantaneously, clasping a hand over the boy’s mouth and pinning him to the wall with his forearm. He was quick enough to stifle most of the sound, but not quick enough to prevent the blade from slicing across his gut.

Erik winced at the sharp burn of pain and felt the dampness of blood dripping down his stomach, but didn’t make a sound.

The boy’s eyes widened as their gazes met in the darkness.

Erik couldn’t believe it. A lad of no more than seven or eight—probably in charge of keeping the rats away from the food—had not only gotten the jump on him, but had managed to inflict some damage as well. He didn’t want to think about how close that knife had come to gelding him.

Erik was sure as hell glad the other members of the Guard weren’t here to see this; he would never hear the end of it. Especially from Seton and MacGregor, who usually bore the brunt of his needling. It was their own fault for making it too easy on him. Seton for being a bloody Englishman, and MacGregor for that pretty face of his.

“What was that?” Erik heard someone say from outside the door. He went utterly still, disaster only the slightest sound away.

He kept his eyes on the boy’s and shook his head in silent warning not to make a sound.

The boy’s eyes grew even rounder. The wee lad was clearly too terrified to do anything other than stare at Erik as if he were seeing a ghost.

Walk by
, Erik silently encouraged the soldiers in the tunnel.

To no avail.

A moment later he heard a commanding voice order, “See to it, William.”

Erik grabbed the boy and moved soundlessly behind the door. He hoped William wasn’t too thorough.

The door pushed open. He held his breath and locked the boy in a near chokehold to prevent him from making a sound. He could hear William’s breathing through the heavy wooden planks of the door. A moment later, the storeroom flooded with light as a torch was extended into the room.

Every muscle in his body tensed; he was ready at a second’s notice to toss the boy aside and fight. Part of him—the part of him that wasn’t used to considering ramifications—hoped for the excuse.

“There’s nothing here,” the soldier on the other side of the door said. “Must have been a rat.”

A moment later the door closed, but Erik waited until the last sound of footsteps faded before he set down the boy.

“No screaming, lad,” he whispered in Gaelic. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Slowly, he released his hand from the boy’s mouth. The boy immediately scattered to the farthest corner of the small room to hide behind a big barrel. “Please, I’ll be good,” he whimpered in a trembling voice. “Don’t take me to hell with you. I promise to listen to my mum.”

Erik’s first instinct was to calm the terror-struck child. But then he recalled Seamus’s comments earlier and realized the boy’s fear would solve the problem of leaving a witness behind. If the boy told anyone what he’d seen, they’d just think it the child’s imagination. Perhaps some men wouldn’t hesitate to kill the lad, but Erik drew the line at murdering innocents. Like Ellie, the boy had merely been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

In the most eerie voice he could muster, he said, “Close your eyes, don’t move, and make no sound until morning or I will return. Do you understand?”

The boy didn’t say anything, but Erik was fairly sure he was nodding frantically.

He thought about trying to find something to bind his wound but knew it would only fall off in the water. After checking to make sure the tunnel was clear, Erik stepped outside. But knowing how the stories of a phantom army were already spreading across the countryside, he couldn’t resist one more warning to the boy. “Tell the English to leave Scotland or pay the price. We’re coming for them.”

He heard a gasp and knew the boy must have heard the rumors. Bruce knew that fear could be a very powerful weapon among their enemies and had encouraged the tales of his phantom army of marauders intent on hunting down every last Englishman in Scotland.

Fairly certain that the boy wouldn’t blink until morning, Erik didn’t want to take any chances and hurried down the tunnel toward the dock—this time uninterrupted. He held his hand over the wound across his stomach to staunch the blood as well as he could. Stopping to examine it in the torchlight, he was relieved to see that although it was bleeding heavily, it didn’t appear too deep. The salt water, however, was going to sting like hell. At least he’d be too numb after a few minutes in the cold water to feel it.

He sure as hell hoped there weren’t many sharks nearby. Wrestling sharks might have been something he enjoyed as a lad, but he’d lost the taste for it after one had nearly taken off his hand. Erik didn’t get scared, but facing a big shark at night came damn close.

Forty minutes and thankfully no shark sightings later, Erik dragged himself out of the water and was surrounded by his men before he’d hit the edge of the beach. The loss of blood coupled with the long swim had weakened him to the point of collapse. But he’d made it.