The Pledge (37 page)

“So are you,” Latura riposted, then she went around a MacKay coming through the door and left the chamber.

Morrigan stared after her, then gestured to the nearest MacKay.

Diuran appeared at once, his face creased with concern. “Milady?”

“All is well. The laird wishes to speak to the men. Since all can’t fit in this room, bring representatives, and he shall
state his case.”

“I will,” Diuran stated, slamming his hand across his chest. “I will follow any and all dicta you give me, also, milady, including
battling at your side.” He turned and ran down the stone steps leading to the entry, calling out to Urdred to guard the chamber.

Men seemed to erupt from the walls, surrounding her.

Morrigan smiled at the MacKays. “You are a credit to your clan.”

“Nay, milady,” Urdred informed her solemnly. “You are.”

Shaken, she glanced at each one in turn. “Thank you.” She hesitated. “I should tell you that the witch, Latura, fears that
all betrayal isn’t at an end. Even she doesn’t know whence it comes, or from whom. If ’twere anyone else, I might not give
it credence. With her I do. I would ask you to be vigilant.” She gazed at them. “ ’Tis not my wish to think of my people,
the
Welsh, as disloyal to me, but some might feel I’ve betrayed—”

The nays interrupted her.

“Thank you, but I think we should ponder all avenues in which an assassin might appear. I beg you to question the smallest
thing that seems strange to you.”

Diuran went by with his group of MacKays, eyeing them in open curiosity.

“I will talk to you later,” Urdred told him, his features tight.

When Diuran disappeared into the chamber, and the door was closed, Urdred looked around him at the other MacKays. Without
further words they drew their weapons and waited.

“We will keep to our posts, milady, and—”

A commotion had him spinning about, weapon high and ready. Another pushed Morrigan to the middle of the group, so that she
was surrounded by MacKays.

“Let me up, you fools. I would see my cousin.”

“And I would look upon my godchild.”

Morrigan exhaled. “Rest easy, friends. ’Tis Father MacKenzie and Lady MacKenzie.”

The men around her melted back, though they still hovered close.

Maud MacKenzie came forward, hands outstretched. “However did you manage such a brilliant move, my dear? We are all in your
debt that you saved our Hugh. We’ve come to see him.”

Morrigan smiled. “You are in truth an archimage,
dear lady. How else could you’ve come this far and this rapidly?”

Lady Maud waved a hand before embracing Morrigan. “Nay, I think not. Would that I could speak their hocus-pocus, though. ’Twould
be a fine talent, I’m thinking. As for Kieran and myself, we’ve not come a great distance. A friend’s holding is just beyond
this one and across the border.”

“Dunsinane? Has he come around to Hugh’s way of thinking, then?”

“He has. But let us not talk of mundane matters when I would see Hugh for myself.”

“Of course. This way. How are you, Father?”

“Kieran, please, Morrigan. We are family.”

Morrigan smiled and opened the door. “There he is. Hugh, you have company.”

Hugh opened his eyes, studying the newcomers, bidding them welcome.

“Hugh!” Lady Maud sailed across the room, bending to embrace her godchild, kissing him many times on the mouth.

“Maud, Maud, I’m not dying.” Hugh smiled.

Morrigan saw his tiredness, but she was loath to send Hugh’s family away. When she saw Kieran with his unguents, she went
to him. “Surely he doesn’t need the last rites. He’s getting better.”

Kieran smiled. “I know. I would give him the blessing for the ill, to speed his recovery, if you wouldn’t mind.”

Morrigan shook her head. “He needs all the blessings he can get.”

“Wife, how can you speak so?” Hugh’s gibe had mirth, though his voice was raspy and not as strong as it should be.

She laughed. “ ’Tis my duty to keep you holy.”

Everyone laughed, especially the MacKays who’d lingered in the room after the new arrivals.

Morrigan noticed how Maud was frowning as she looked about her. She moved close to her. “Something upsets you, milady?”

“Methinks there are too many persons in this room, taking up the good air needed by the laird,” Maud chided, scowling at the
MacKays’ jocularity. “Tsk, tsk, this is a sickroom. You must go, good sirs,” she said as she chased the attendants from the
room.

“There, that’s better. We can move about more freely, and you”—Maud pointed to Hugh—“can get your rest.”

“And I can get on with this,” Kieran said, smiling.

Content to stay out of the way, Morrigan backed toward the tapestry-covered walls. Now that Hugh was safe, she felt a lassitude,
a numbing relief that her husband would recover, that they would return to Scotland. She wanted a peaceful life with Hugh
and the children. The thought warmed her. Morrigan watched and listened to the banter between Kieran and her husband.

Idly she studied Maud, who’d moved back to the bedside, her eyes pinned to Hugh. Pale sunlight streaked through the window,
making her rich headdress glitter.

As though all of life went into limbo, Morrigan went still, alarms going off in her being. A sense of peril seemed to crawl
up her spine. She watched Kieran prepare his unguents and oils for a blessing of the sick, saw his mother hover over the bed
to aid him. A revelation flowered at the same time. She recalled the battlements, the sun hitting what she’d thought had been
armor. She looked at the gem-encrusted headdress.

“Wait!” Morrigan shouted, her hand going to the short sword at her side. “I’ve changed my mind. You will not put any of your
oils upon his lips or anywhere on his person.” She felt rather than saw Hugh stiffen, for she kept her eyes on the MacKenzies.
She drew her sword. “Back away from the bed, Kieran MacKenzie, hands high if you please, and away from my husband.”

“Hugh!” Maud raised her voice. “Your wife has run mad!”

“Has she?” In slow slides up the pillows, Hugh poised, then reached for the weapon on the side table.

“Don’t!” Kieran hissed, throwing down the oils and grasping his own sword.

“So? What’s this?” Hugh watched his cousin, in lazy scrutiny, settling his hands back on the coverlet. “What say you, wife?
A viper among us?”

“More than one, I’m thinking,” Morrigan answered in Gaelic. “ ’Twas your virulent gaze I felt on the day of our nuptials,
was it not?”

“ ’Twas, you insolent Welsh slut.”

“You poisoned the wine on our nuptial day, I would swear. And then you saw to it that Hugh was ambushed and captured. You
concocted that story that the king knew of Hugh’s death. Evil!” Fury filled her when Maud’s mouth twisted.

“Curse you for not joining Hugh in the drink of death,” Maud said through her teeth. “I watched you fawn over those crippled
spawn of Satan, and knew you must die. You bring such filth to the clan. You and Hugh cannot have this clan. It belongs to
Kieran.”

“Don’t malign ours. They are our children. And this clan is Hugh’s.”

“No!” Maud screamed.

“Hugh, I’m sure they didn’t just arrive.” She hauled in a deep breath, swallowing. “They’ve been here all the time.” That
was conjecture, but Kieran’s glare assured her she was right. Did Maud bare her teeth just then? How was it she’d missed the
agate hardness of those eyes? Morrigan shook with fury. “Guests of Goll’s were you? You needn’t deny it. Have you been in
league with him these many moons? Did you not conspire to take from my husband, from me?”

Maud glared. “The MacKay treasures belong to me.”

Morrigan was taken aback, though she masked her thoughts. “You’re not a MacKay.”

“Hugh was to marry me. It was decreed—”

“A lie,” Hugh said in a calm voice.

“No! I gave years to your mother. I was not much older than you. When I went to your father and mother
and suggested that I should become your wife in time, they smiled. Then, soon after they arranged my wedding with MacKenzie,
your cousin. It was wrong. When I had my own son, I… we devised a plan to wrest what was rightfully mine from our enemy.”
Maud gritted her teeth when Hugh laughed. Then she glowered at Morrigan. “How could you know about us? We made no mistakes.”

“The truth of it is I might not have. ’Twas Latura had a vision of an evil presence. Then you appeared. Perhaps had I not
been so warned, nothing would’ve come of my wonderings.” She stared at Maud, anger rivering through her. “There was another
incident. I saw the sun hitting your headdress as you stood upon the battlements yesterday. As you leaned over my husband
just now, the sun shone upon you again. Your penchant for jewels has brought you down, milady.”

Maud ground her teeth. “You Welsh spoiler! ’Twas not you who was to wed the laird. I was. I had talked to many of the earls.
They’d promised to press my suit before Edward. Before ’twas done, the compact was signed.”

Stunned, Morrigan stared. Then her glance went to her husband, who hadn’t taken his eyes from Kieran. “Hugh, do you hear?”

“I hear. Not an interdict from the pope himself would’ve made me do it.”

“Liar! You loved me,” Maud said through her teeth, sidling to the chamber door and throwing the bar across
it. “You think you can spurn me, Hugh MacKay, as your parents did? My son shall inherit your title and your holdings. All
MacKays shall be under our heels.”

“Why such venom, milady? Have you not been fed and clothed by them, lo these many years.? My mother took pity on you. My father
bestowed upon you your only legacy. How foolish we were to hug vermin to our tartans.”

“How dare you!” Maud drew a short sword.

“Was it not my clan that tutored you, even in using a weapon? Ungrateful tart,” Hugh taunted.

“Never speak to my mother in such a way,” Kieran bleated, swinging his sword at Hugh, even as MacKay took the bolster behind
him and tossed it in his cousin’s face.

Maud screamed and made a rush at Hugh.

Morrigan was there with her own sword. “Don’t, madam. ’Twould not take much for me to kill you. You have threatened my husband,
our clan—”

“Your clan? Hah! You’re not a Scot. I am.” The two women faced each other.

“You lied about the king’s runners that day when you came to commiserate with me, did you not?”

“I was enraged that the two of you weren’t beneath the ground,” Maud spat. “You were meant to die with him.”

“Instead we live.” Morrigan couldn’t look toward Hugh, though she feared for him. He was too weak to
fight his cousin, even if MacKenzie was a poor swordsman.

Hugh clambered out of bed, his reaching hand grasping his ceremonial claymore, that had been brought from Scotland under Morrigan’s
banner. Too clumsy for the chamber, better suited for the jousting field, it was all he had.

Kieran chuckled as he whipped the Venetian rapier in front of him. “Look to yourself, cousin.”

“Kill him, Kieran!”

When Hugh staggered back, he hit the small table at the side of the bed, overturning it, and spilling Kieran’s unguents to
the floor. Shards of the container littered the area under Hugh’s bare feet.

Thudding began on the chamber door. Shouts penetrated the thick wood. “Hugh! Milady!”

“To me!” Morrigan yelled.

As she did, Maud charged her with her sword outstretched.

Morrigan danced away, beginning a battle that would take too much time. Hugh needed her. “Think not to enlist the aid of any
MacKay, Maud MacKenzie. They will see through your wicked ploys.”

“My son will become the laird. The treasures of MacKay will be ours. Hugh had his opportunity. Now he must die.”

“He never wanted you. Few would,” Morrigan taunted, needing a leverage to help her finish off Maud. “Too many coincidences,
milady. I vow only the crazed
would give you homage if aught happened to our laird. Methinks you’ve taken on too much this time.”

“Kill him, Kieran, and help me,” Maud ordered.

“Your son, spawn of the devil that he is, will need all his strength to fight Hugh, and he’ll not be victorious,” Morrigan
hurled at Maud, stepping away from a hard thrust. “Did you think to come at my husband with impunity? Have you forgotten MacKays
outside this door who’d hunt you to your home in Hell if you come at Hugh? Already you’ve forfeited your life.” Morrigan was
fast losing breath. She’d underestimated Maud’s skill. It took every effort to battle her and keep talking to undermine her.
“Listen to the MacKays, Maud. Even now they call to us and threaten to break down the barrier.”

Hugh stumbled and fell. He just made it to his feet, swaying there, swiping at his sweating face.

Kieran smiled. “Fear not, Mother. You’ll die, Morrigan.”

“Never!” Hugh cursed.

Kieran ground his teeth and charged, aiming his sword at Hugh. “And MacKays will hear that she attacked you, Hugh. I’ll say
I couldn’t save you, but I killed her.” The rapier swished through the air at Hugh’s chest.

The heavy claymore came up from the floor, two hands on the powerful blade, slicing up and through the middle of Kieran MacKenzie.

“Traitor,” Hugh rasped.

“No!” Maud screamed, then rushed to her son, falling forward on her short sword, impaling herself over his body.

The door crashed open, armed MacKays pouring through the opening, battle cries issuing from their mouths.

Morrigan threw herself at her husband. “Take me home, Hugh MacKay, take me home.”

“At once, beloved. Not another sennight do we reside away from Castle MacKay.” He looked at his men. “Diuran, get rid of the
garbage. They’re not to be shriven.”

Diuran glanced down at the two bodies. “ ’Twill be done.”

Scotland was warming again. All was serene, beautiful. Even the wild Pentland Sea seemed more calm. Laughter could be heard
in the distance as children romped.

Eamon and Urdred were playing a game with Avis, Conal, and Rhys, and the laughter was loud and long.