To Tame a Highland Warrior (35 page)

Ronin took a deep breath and nodded tightly. “Let’s hope you’re right. Are the banners hung, Gilles?”

Gilles grinned and nodded. “You do look regal, milord,” he added proudly. “And I must say Tuluth has made a fine showing for us. The valley fairly sparkles. Any lad would be pleased to see this as his future demesne.”

“And the Hall of Lords, has it been cleaned and opened? Are the torches lit?”

“Yes, milord, and I’ve hung the portrait in the dining hall.”

Ronin gulped a breath of air and began pacing. “The villagers have been informed? All of them?”

“They’re waitin’ in the streets, Ronin, and the banners have been hung throughout Tuluth as well. It’s a fine homecoming you’ve planned,” Balder said.

“Let’s just hope he thinks so,” Ronin muttered, pacing.

Grimm’s fingers tightened on Jillian’s waist as Occam carefully picked his way up the back pass to Wotan’s Cleft.

He had no intention of taking Jillian to the cold damp caves where a fire could smoke them out if the wind suddenly changed course down one of the tunnels, but from the Cleft he could assess the village and the castle. If any part of it was still standing, he could scan for smoke from a hearth if anyone inhabited the ghost village. Besides, he preferred Jillian to see immediately what a desolate place it was so she might wish to hurry on to Dalkeith as soon as she was able. She seemed to be making a rapid recovery, although she was still weak and complained of intermittent queasiness.

The sun topped the peak of the Cleft. It wouldn’t set for several more hours, allowing him ample time to assess the potential dangers and secure shelter somewhere in the ruined village. If Jillian was well tomorrow morning they could race for the shores of Dalkeith. To avoid leading the McKane to the Douglas estate, he planned to stop in a nearby village and send a messenger for Hawk. They would meet discreetly to discuss the possibility of raising an army and plan Jillian’s and his future.

As the tall standing stones of Wotan’s Cleft came into view, Grimm’s chest tightened painfully. He forced himself to take deep, even breaths as they navigated the rocky path. He hadn’t anticipated the force with which his bitter memories would resurface. He’d last climbed this path fifteen years ago and it had forever changed his life.
Hear me, Odin! I summon the Berserker …
He’d ascended a boy and descended a monster.

His hands fisted. How could he have considered coming back here? But Jillian snuggled against him, seeking warmth, and he knew he would enter Tuluth willingly even
if it were occupied by hordes of demons, to keep her safe and warm.

“Are you all right, Grimm?”

How typically Jillian, he marveled. Despite her own sickness, her concern was for him. “I’m fine. We’ll be warm soon, lass. Just rest.”

He sounded so worried that Jillian had to bite her tongue to prevent an instant confession from escaping.

“In just a moment you’ll be able to see where the village used to be,” he said, sorrow roughening his voice.

“I can’t imagine what it would be like to see Caithness destroyed. I didn’t mean to bring you back to a place that is so painful …”

“It happened many years ago. It’s almost as if it happened in another lifetime.”

Jillian sat up straight as they topped the crest and searched the landscape with curious eyes.

“There.” Grimm directed her attention to the cliff. “From the promontory the whole valley comes into view.” He smiled faintly. “I used to come up here and look out over the land, thinking that a lad had never been born luckier than I.”

Jillian winced. Occam moved forward, his gait steady. Jillian held her breath as they approached the edge.

“The caves lie behind us, beyond that tumble of stones where the slope of the mountain is steepest. My best friend Arron and I once vowed we would map out every tunnel, every chamber in that mountain, but the passages seemed to go on forever. We’d nearly mapped out a quarter of it before … before …”

Remorse for dragging him back to face his demons flooded her. “Was your friend killed in the battle?”

“Aye.”

“Was your da hurt in the battle?” she asked gently.

“He should have died,” Grimm said tightly. “The McKane buried a battle-ax in his chest clear to the hilt. It’s amazing he survived. For several years after, I assumed he had died.”

“And your mother?” she said in a whisper.

There was a silence, broken only by the sound of shale crushing beneath Occam’s hooves. “We’ll be able to see it any moment, lass.”

Jillian’s gaze fixed on the cliff’s edge where the rock terminated abruptly and became the horizon. Hundreds of feet down she would find the ashes of Tuluth. She drew herself up straighter, nearly tumbling from the horse in her anxiety, and braced herself for the grim scene.

“Hold, lass,” Grimm soothed as they took the last few steps to the cliff and gazed out over the lifeless valley.

For nearly five minutes he didn’t speak. Jillian wasn’t certain he breathed. On the other hand, she wasn’t certain she did either.

Below them, nestled around a crystalline river and several sparkling lochs, a vibrant city teemed with life, white huts washed to soft amber by the afternoon sun. Hundreds of homes dotted the valley in even rows along meticulously maintained roads. Smoke from cozy fires spiraled lazily from flues, and although she couldn’t hear the voices, she could see children running and playing. People walked up and down the roads where an occasional lamb or cow wandered. Two wolfhounds played in a small garden. Along the main roadway that ran down the center of the city, brilliantly colored banners waved and flapped in the breeze.

Astonished, she scanned the valley, following the river to the face of the mountain. It bubbled from an underground source at the mountain’s base, the castle towering
in stone above it. Her hand flew to her lips to smother a cry of shock. This was not what she’d expected to see.

A bleak and dreary castle, he’d called it.

Nothing could have been further from the truth. Castle Maldebann was the most beautiful castle she’d ever laid eyes on. With its exquisitely carved towers and regal face, it looked as if it had been liberated from the mountain by the hammer and chisel of a visionary sculptor. Constructed of pale gray stone, it rose in mighty arches to a breathtaking height. The mountain effectively sealed the valley at that end and the castle sprawled along the entire width of the closure, wings stretching east and west from the castle proper.

Its mighty towers made Caithness look like a summer cottage—nay, like a child’s tree loft. No wonder Castle Maldebann had been the focus of an attack; it was an incredible, enviable stronghold. The guard walk at the top was dotted with dozens of uniformed figures. The entrance was visible beyond the portcullis and postern and soared nearly fifty feet. Brightly clad women dotted the lower walkways, scurrying to and fro with baskets and children.

“Grimm?” Jillian croaked his name. Ruins? Her brow furrowed in consternation as she wondered how this could possibly be. Was it possible Grimm had misunderstood who lost that fateful battle years ago?

A huge banner with bold lettering rippled above the entrance to the castle. Jillian narrowed her eyes and squinted, much as she chided Zeke for doing, but she couldn’t make out the words. “What does it say, Grimm?” she managed in a hushed whisper, awed by the unexpected vista of peace and prosperity stretching before her eyes.

For a long moment he didn’t answer. She heard him
swallow convulsively behind her, his body as rigid as the rocks Occam shifted his hooves upon.

“Do you think maybe some other clan took over this valley and rebuilt?” she offered faintly, latching on to any reason she could find to make sense of things.

He released a whistling breath, then punctuated it with a groan. “I doubt it, Jillian.”

“It’s possible, isn’t it?” she insisted. If not, Grimm might genuinely suffer his da’s madness, for only a madman could call this magnificent city a ruin.

“No.”

“Why? I mean, how can you be certain from here? I can’t even make out their plaids.”

“Because that banner says ‘Welcome home, son,’” he whispered with horror.

“H
OW AM
I
SUPPOSED TO MAKE SENSE OF THIS
, G
RIMM
?” Jillian asked as the tense silence between them grew. He was staring blankly down at the valley. She felt suddenly and overwhelmingly confused.

“How are
you
supposed to make sense of it?” He slid from Occam’s back and lowered her to the ground beside him. “You?” he echoed incredulously. He couldn’t find one bit of sense in it either. Not only wasn’t his home a ruin of ashes scattered across the valley floor as it was supposed to be, there were bloody welcome banners flapping from the turrets.

“Yes,” she encouraged. “Me. You told me this place had been destroyed.”

Grimm couldn’t tear his eyes away from the vision in the valley. He was stupefied any hope of logic derailed by shock. Tuluth was five times the size it had once been, the land tilled in neatly patterned sections, the homes twice as
large. Weren’t things supposed to seem smaller when one got bigger? His mind objected, with a growing sense of disorientation. He scanned the rocks behind him, seeking the hidden mouth of the cave to reassure himself that he was standing upon Wotan’s Cleft and that it was indeed Tuluth below him. The river flowing through the valley was twice as wide, bluer than lapis—hell, even the mountain seemed to have grown.

Castle Maldebann was another matter. Had it changed colors? He recalled it as a towering monolith carved from blackest obsidian, all wicked forbidding angles, dripping moss and gargoyles. His gaze roved disbelievingly over the flowing lines of the pale gray, inviting structure. Fully occupied, cheerily functional, decorated—by God—with banners.

Banners that read “Welcome home.”

Grimm sank to his knees, opened his eyes as wide as he could, closed and rubbed them, then opened them again. Jillian watched him curiously.

“It’s still there, isn’t it?” she said matter-of-factly. “I tried it too,” she sympathized.

Grimm snatched a quick glance at her and was stunned to see a half-smile curving her lip. “Is there something amusing about this, lass?” he asked, unaccountably offended.

Instant compassion flooded her features. She laid a gentle hand on his arm. “Oh, no, Grimm. Don’t think I’m laughing at you. I’m laughing at how stunned we both are, and partly with relief. I was expecting a dreadful scene. This is the last thing we expected to see. I know the shock must be doubly hard for you to absorb, but I was thinking it’s funny because you look like I felt when you first came back to Caithness.”

“How is that, lass?”

“Well, when I was little you seemed so big. I mean huge, monstrous, the biggest man in the world. And when you came back, since I was bigger, I expected you to finally look smaller. Not smaller than me, but at least smaller than you did the last time I’d seen you up close.”

“And?” he encouraged.

She shook her head, bewildered. “You didn’t. You looked bigger.”

“And your point is?” He tore his gaze from the valley and peered at her.

“Well, you were expecting smaller, weren’t you? I suspect it’s probably much bigger. Shocking, isn’t it?”

“I’m still waiting for your point, lass,” he said dryly.

“I can see someone should have told you more fables when you were young,” she teased. “My point is, memory can be a deceptive thing,” she clarified. “Perhaps the village never was completely destroyed. Perhaps it just seemed that way when you left. Did you leave at night? Was it too dark to see clearly?”

Grimm took her hands in his as they knelt together on the cliff’s edge
. It had
been night when he’d left Tuluth, and the air had been thick with smoke. It had been a horrifying scene to the fourteen-year-old lad. He’d left believing his village and home destroyed and himself a dangerous beast. He’d left filled with hatred and despair, expecting little of life.

Now, fifteen years later, he crouched upon the same ridge, holding the hands of the woman he loved beyond life itself, gazing upon impossible sights. If Jillian hadn’t been with him he might have tucked tail and run, never permitting himself to wonder what strange magic had been
worked in this vale. He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. “My memory of you was never deceptive. I always remembered you as the best that life had to offer.”

Jillian’s eyes widened. She tried to speak but ended up making a small choked sound instead. Grimm stiffened, interpreting her sound for a cry of discomfort. “Here I am, keeping you out in the cold when you’re ill.”

“That’s not what … no,” she stammered. “Truly, I feel much better now.” When he eyed her suspiciously, she added, “Oooh, but I do need to get somewhere warm soon, Grimm. And that castle certainly looks warm.” She eyed it hopefully.

Grimm’s gaze darted back to the valley. The castle did look warm. And well fortified. Damn near the safest place he could take her, and why not? There were “welcome home” banners draped in dozens of locations. If the McKane were following him, what better place to stand and fight? How strange it was to return to Tuluth after all these years, with the McKane on his heels once again. Would the pattern finally come full circle and end? Perhaps they wouldn’t need to go to Dalkeith to raise an army to fight the McKane after all.