Warrior and the Wanderer (4 page)

She sheathed the claymore and placed it on the bed.

“Lachlan kens me dead,” she said. “He kens not that one of his own saved me.” That was a cool comfort; one she feared would not stay long with her.

She could not help but wonder why one of Lachlan’s clan would save her. The question plagued her as she walked with determined strides to an oak chest with three carved panels. The panels on each end were carved with profiles of her mother on the left and her father on the right. In between was an ornate heart topped with a brass key lock. Along the top of the chest was carved:
Ne obliviscaris.
Do not forget. The motto of her clan.

“I will not forget until revenge is mine.”

She reached into a slit in her outer skirt and curled her fingers around a key. This she inserted into the lock. She opened the lid and looked into the dim recess of the chest that her parents had been given on the day of their wedding, along with the great cold bed that rested opposite the hearth in her chamber.

She rummaged in the contents of the chest, pushing aside plaids, tunics, her brother’s clothes, and finding what she had hoped would be there. Her fingers touched something that would not move as easily as the clothes. Her nails scraped across leather stretched over metal, hammered iron plates, thin as wafers. That was what her brother had told her anyway, the frequent times he went off to protect their land.

She hefted the doublet from the chest, clasping it to her breast, her eyes welling with hot tears. Her brother had not worn this the day he had gone hunting in Glen Feochan Forest on the western shore, where one could see the Mull if the weather was friendly that day, but it had not been. She had sat in her chamber, high in Castle Duart embroidering badly, waiting for the man she had married to come to her. Waiting to give herself to him, wondering if this would be the day she would feel like a wife. She had sacrificed herself to him in marriage to protect her clan, to unite with the MacLean, love was not her motive, never had been.

“And he stormed into my chamber with my brother’s blood on his sword, and a promise of death for me.”

She opened the armored doublet. She slipped her arms through the openings and drew the front across her breasts. The tawny leather fit perfectly. She threaded the metal points of the gut lacings through the holes and cinched them as tight as she did her bodice. She smoothed her hands down over the armor. It may stop a blade for a moment, and give her a chance to strike back. Her brother and her father had taught her how to wield the claymore, something she should not have been doing according to her mother. She had told Bess that there were things to embroider, lots of things for her marriage chest. When Bess invaded Duart Castle where it rested, she would turn the marriage chest to kindling wood.

Bess stood. She took long strides to the bed and picked up the claymore. She hoped her mount was saddled and provisioned. Hoped that Ian MacLean was well tethered behind. She guessed those fine boots of his would take him many leagues. He had seventeen leagues to travel before he knelt before the queen regent’s man and told him what he knew: that the chief of his clan, Lachlan MacLean, had murdered one of the Stewart monarchy’s favorite Highland chiefs and had attempted to murder his wife, the sister of that favored chief. Ian MacLean would do this for her or he would die.

“Ian MacLean will bear my proof against my husband, or I shall make his life more miserable than the deepest misery.”

Once such proof was delivered, then the queen’s army would bear down upon Castle Duart and rout out the pestilence that dwelled within. That was her hope. That was her unflinching goal.

It was her only plan, her finest plan. Yet, there was something that did not quite fit. She would figure out what it was on her journey to Stirling. In the five days it would take her to get there, she would find out what bothered her about this plan. She feared it had a new name: Ian MacLean. Her enemy and her rescuer. The why gnawed at her no matter how she tried to ignore it.

* * * *

There was no escape from this Highland cos-play festival gone bloody mad. The lack of incessant piping, clan tents, fried dough, and lemonade stands made Ian think that this was no Highland festival. He had only been to one, at the beginning of his career, to sing some Scottish songs in an accent he had tried to discard. The money had been great. And after a half-dozen rounds at the beer tent he would have sung any Gaelic song in his old accent even though he preferred classic rock from the sixties and seventies.

So, here he stood in the center courtyard of some castle, in where he guessed was northern California. He had not been that far east of Tahoe when he filled up at Last Chance Gas, when his car decided to break hell for leather and plunge into one damn big lake. Lake Tahoe was the closest body of water on the Nevada–California border, but it wasn’t salty was it?

Where was he and who were these people? He kept asking himself that over and over but still found no answer.

He also found no answer to why his wrists were bound tight to the end of a long rope either, or why the other end was secured to the saddle on a horse. And that horse stood silently inside a square castle courtyard or bailey. He could not remember the right term. Why the hell should he?

He glanced around at the people, all dressed in different interpretations of Highland garb. They stood quietly about the courtyard staring at him. He was taller than all of them, except…

…He stole a glance over his shoulder at Braveheart who stood silently with sword bared, the tip a foot from his back.

His gaze crawled up the gray walls surrounding him, at the dour sky overhead, when he heard a voice from overhead.

“Is he ready?”

Ian wrenched his gaze to one wall. He spied a narrow set of stone steps that rose from where he stood in mud, straw and horse crap.

“Oh my God,” he snorted. “If it isn’t Fiona, Highland Warrior Princess.”

She took one step at a time, emerald stare devouring every inch between them. Ian could not get over how bloody different she looked when she was not dripping wet and wearing a torn, wet, see-through hippie dress. He liked very much what he had seen.

But this, this definition of beautiful stepping toward him, was another woman altogether.

“And how very together she is,” he said under his breath.

Her hair was the color of sunset. What she had managed to tame hung in a heavy braid across her shoulder. The rest of her flames floated in loose tendrils about her pale face. No. Stop. Not entirely pale. Her cheeks were flushed with pink. The details of this woman became so very clear with each of her bold steps forward. Ian was powerless to look away. He tried, but could not. He did not want to anyway.

Her eyes drew him closer, jagged emeralds that flashed…anger?

Ian finally tore his stare away from her and glanced down at his bound wrists. What indeed was happening here?

When he glanced up she was a few steps away from him. He quickly assessed her garb. Off-white shirt with puffy, long sleeves beneath some kind of leather vest that was stiff as if it were lined with metal. It was laced tightly against her body, pushing the tops of her breasts up and accentuating the slender curve of her waist.

When she stepped forward, her green wool skirt swayed from her hips. He looked down at her feet expecting to find her shod in the requisite hippie footwear, Birkenstocks. She looked the type, a granola-crunching, earth chick, here in this primitive piece of northern California. He suspected that once outside the heavy gates to this courtyard, he would find either an infinite stand of redwoods or acres of pot, perhaps both. She and the rest of these people fit the profile. He expected them to suddenly form a drum circle.

 
She could be an actress, and this Highland festival was the only gig she could get. With her looks, she could rival all of the Hollywood lovelies. She did not, however, look like one who would go anywhere near a casting couch. There was something hardened about this woman. Maybe it had to do with the huge sword strapped to her back.

She looked him up and down.

Ian spoke first. “That’s quite an authentic costume. Very nice, very
real
.” He had no idea what authentic was. But a compliment seemed appropriate, anything to break the tension.

Her eyes narrowed as if she did not understand.

Ian cleared his throat and raised his hands. “OK, I’ve gone along with this long enough. You seem to be in charge here. Untie me…
now
.”

She smiled, but not because she found him amusing, he guessed, she smiled because she had him captive.

He curled his lips over his teeth. “Listen,
lassie
, the joke’s gone far enough. Let me go. NOW!”

A sharp pain stabbed him in the small of his back. He turned quickly around, and pushed Braveheart’s sword away from him with his bound hands.

“Do that again, you bastard, and I’ll rip your head from your neck!”

“
Dèan stad, Alasdair,
” the woman Ian had saved from drowning said. “Stop.”

“Aye, well, it’s about time you showed your gratitude.” Ian held his hands up to her. “Now make good use of that sword and cut these ropes.”

She squared her shoulders. “No.”

Ian blinked. “
No?
”

She turned away from him and walked to the black horse. Expertly, she climbed up into the saddle.

“Hey!” Ian shouted. “I’m tied to that horse!” He immediately felt very stupid for saying something so damn obvious. He looked all around. The crowd just stared at him. There was no help there.

The flame-haired beauty took up the reins and clicked to her mount.

Ian glanced over his shoulder at Braveheart. But he was now on a horse, a mottled grey mount that seemed to sway beneath the big man’s bulk.

“Listen to me, dammit!” Ian yelled to the woman’s back. But she did not bother to look. She knew as well as he, no doubt, that he was powerless at least now. Just give him one chance and—

She rode her mount forward. The rope that led from her saddle to around Ian’s wrists tightened and jolted him forward as fast as his breath evacuated his body. He fell forward onto his stomach.

“Hey—” he gasped as his body was dragged through the soiled straw, mud, and God-knows-what-other filth. “Stop!”

Unbelievably, she did.

Ian scrambled to his feet. “Thanks,” he said with a generous dose of sarcasm. He did not look down at the garbage he had scoured up from the courtyard, did not brush off the debris from his clothes. He was too bloody angry.

“Why are you doing this to me?” he demanded. “Who the hell are you?”

Slowly, the woman turned around. She regarded him from the lofty place on her mount, her chin held steadily over her shoulder.

“I am, Bess, Chief of Clan Campbell of Argyll,” she said.

“And I am Ian MacLean, Chief of Clan Let-My-Ass-Go!” he shouted.

“Precisely,” she said and turned back around. “Ian
MacLean
.”

She urged her horse forward. This time Ian was ready. Ready for what was the bloody question.

I am Ian MacLean.

That had disturbed her before, on the sand, turned her into a rampant maniac. Oh, aye, it was she who had conked him over the head with a rock. And it had to have been she who brought him to this place, left him naked, tied to a bed with several dozen of her closest male friends to watch over him. Too bad. If he was going to be naked and tied to a bed by some actress playing Fiona, Highland Warrior Princess or chief or whatever she was about, then he would have gladly appreciated it if she had joined him in some fifty shades of medieval bondage and other naughty delights.

Why had she done these things or orchestrated them? Ian feared he knew why, there was one thing that seemed to push her demented warrior bitch buttons. His name.

He was famous. Everyone knew who Ian MacLean was. But they shouldn’t want to kill him. This had to be some bizarre kidnapping scheme.

He stumbled behind the horse and Bess Campbell, the Warrior. He fought the tether, yanking it back, and refusing to give in.

He would grudgingly play this game for a while, until he could escape.

He had his life to get on with after all.

Chapter Three: Anger, An Aphrodisiac

I
an bowed to a lake stretching north and south as far as he could see and vomited into the reeds. He clenched his abdomen with both bound hands and fell back onto the bank.

“Where the hell am I?” he asked the darkening evening sky.

He sat up, waiting for the queasiness to fade. The berries and herbs he had so greedily accepted from Bess a little while ago to satisfy the hollow coffers of his belly had come up on him. They were probably poisonous. She could have given him granola she most likely carried and he would have felt no more satisfied or any less poisoned.

Mercifully, she had left him alone in his misery while she and Braveheart had gone off to do what ever these Burning Man-Earth people do at sunset. Now alone, he should try to escape, were it not for the chain around his neck and the huge birch tree it was attached to and the woeful lack of rocks to bash the chains with. Braveheart had been quite thorough in following the order that warrior Bess had given him to: “Insure that the prisoner willnae leave our company.”