Chapter Five

If they had wanted him dead, he told himself over and over as they rode on, they would have simply slit his throat behind the mess hall.

It did little to calm his nerves, for in the darkness behind the hood, time twisted and warped. He had no idea which direction they rode or how long they’d traveled.

At last, they halted. He was roughly dragged down from his horse and pushed forward. Ahead, he heard the hinges of a door squeak softly. Several hands prodded him toward the sound, and suddenly he felt rushes underfoot rather than mud and trampled grass. He sensed himself pass into a building of some sort, then heard the door close behind him.

Just then, the canvas hood was yanked away from his head. The candlelight filling the room blinded him for a moment. He squinted, whipping his head around.

Two of the burly men he’d seen behind the mess hall stood at his sides. Hervey was nowhere in sight.

Kirk quickly scanned the modest chamber in which he stood. A large hearth took up nearly an entire wall, a fire roaring in its belly. Two decorative swords hung above the hearth, their dull blades glinting orange in the firelight.

Besides a few chairs, the only other feature in the small space was a large desk opposite the hearth. Kirk tensed as his gaze fell on a solitary man sitting behind the desk.

The man’s hair was pitch black except for a shock of white that cut back from his right temple. That band of silver hair appeared like a bolt of lightning in a night sky.

The man rose slowly, revealing a strong, broad frame that seemed only slightly diminished with middle age. His black eyes assessed Kirk coldly.

“Free his hands,” the man said softly.

Without hesitation, one of the guards produced a dagger and slashed the ropes around Kirk’s wrists. His hands had long ago gone numb from the tight bindings, but he resisted the urge to rub the feeling back into them. Instead, he stood stock-still before the man who could be none other than the head of the Order of the Shadow.

“Kirk MacLeod.” For such a striking, powerful-looking man, his voice was deceptively soft.

“Aye, sir.”

“Do you know who I am?”

“Nay, sir.”

“Of course not.” The man’s lips curved into a little smile, and Kirk was suddenly reminded of a snake preparing to swallow its prey whole. “My name is Roland Gervais, and I control the Order of the Shadow.”

Kirk’s stomach twisted. It was as he had suspected. This man, Roland Gervais, held Kirk’s life in his hands—and they both knew it.

“Hervey has been keeping me up to date on your progress.”

Kirk didn’t know what to say in response, so he simply stood silent and unmoving.

“Though Hervey is not one to dole out praise, especially for a Scot, he informs me that you have taken to the throwing dagger quite quickly.”

Kirk shifted slightly. Was this truly a compliment, or was it some sort of trap? If he admitted to having never thrown a dagger before, would his sincerity—and motivation for being here—come into question?

“Aye, sir,” Kirk said at last. “Years of training with other weapons made me a quick study, I suppose.”

Kirk had made no secret of the fact that he’d once worked for Robert the Bruce. Most mercenaries had served in an army at some point. He’d bent the truth in his initial interview, claiming that after so many battles in the name of the Bruce’s cause, he’d lost interest in fighting other men’s wars. If he was to be a fighter for hire, he’d said, he might as well earn a mercenary’s income rather than a soldier’s. It had been enough to placate the men who screened the Order’s recruits—but was it enough to satisfy the head of the entire organization ?

Roland’s dark eyes reflected the fire in the hearth behind Kirk. They seemed to glow orange and yet remained cold somehow. Roland tilted his head ever so slightly in acknowledgement of what Kirk had said.

“Indeed,” Roland said, slowly rubbing his chin. “And do you know why we use the daggers?”

“A sword is a knight’s weapon, sir,” Kirk said automatically. It was another one of the little “lessons” that had been repeatedly beaten into all the men at the Compound.

“That’s right.” Roland sidestepped around Kirk to gaze at the decorative swords hanging over the fire. “Chivalric knights must show their tail feathers, as it were. They unsheathe their blades at their leisure and take their time with each swing of the sword. Even soldiers have the luxury of time when they face off against another man with a sword.”

Roland gave a little sigh and walked slowly back around his desk, lowering himself into his chair. “But we can’t afford such luxuries, can we? We must move with the shadows, strike quickly, and disappear again with our quarry. The sword is a weapon of the light. The throwing dagger is a weapon of the darkness.”

Kirk didn’t know what to say in response to the man’s philosophical waxing, so he remained quiet.

“Aye, we are knights of a sort,” Roland went on, smoothing a hand over the silver streak in his hair. “For we have our codes and our rules. But we walk in the night, whereas they walk in the day. That is why we are called the Order of the Shadow.”

The room fell into a strange silence, with only the soft crackling of the fire behind Kirk breaking the tension.

“You accept your place in the Order, do you not, Kirk MacLeod?” Roland asked at last, his voice velvet soft.

“Aye, sir,” Kirk replied, swiftly and firmly.

“Then you accept that although you are a bounty hunter, meaning that you will be paid well for the work you do on your own, you are also a member of the Order, meaning that you answer to me. You belong to me.”

Kirk nodded in response.

“You see, I coordinate the assignments with our clients,” Roland said. “I choose the man for the mission. I collect payment and distribute it. And I also dole out punishments, when necessary.”

Despite the heat radiating against his back, an icy chill swept Kirk’s spine. “Aye, sir.”

Roland’s gaze seemed to focus suddenly on Kirk. “Are you ready for your first assignment, MacLeod?”

Kirk stiffened. He’d already learned a great deal this day. The head of the Order was Roland Gervais. He didn’t know exactly where he was, but he might be able to gather a few more clues before being returned to the Compound.

If he left on an assignment, it might set him back several sennights—or even months—in his efforts to gather more information about the Order. He would remain trapped by his promise to the Bruce to learn enough that the bounty hunter league could be destroyed once and for all.

But being sent on a mission was the surest proof that he was working his way into the heart of the organization, earning trust and proving himself a dependable foot soldier in the Order’s twisted hierarchy.

All this flashed through his mind in less than a heartbeat.

“Aye, sir. More than ready.”

“Good,” Roland said, deigning Kirk with a smile. “Because I’ve hand-selected you for this assignment. You are to retrieve the widow of Richard Fitzhugh, a Master Mason in charge of building Berwick’s town wall.”

Kirk’s thoughts raced as he took this in. A woman? His stomach clenched and tilted. Even after all he’d seen and done at Carrickfergus, he’d never involved a woman in warfare.

“And once I have her?” he asked, careful to keep his voice neutral and his eyes flat. “What am I to do with her? Where am I to take her?”

“You will return to the Compound with her. My clients will collect her, and your work will be done. They wish for her to be in good health when she arrives.” Roland lifted one dark eyebrow at Kirk. “Understood? ”

Kirk swallowed. “Aye. I willnae harm her.” Thank God for that. He wasn’t sure what he would have done if he’d been assigned to return with her head—or be the one to enforce whatever it was that Roland’s clients wanted done to her.

A new thought dawned then. Men didn’t seek Roland Gervais and the Order out to do good. Even if he weren’t required to harm some old widow, he was delivering her into the hands of men who undoubtedly would.

He clenched his teeth against the bile that rose up the back of his throat. This was what war did. It put the innocent in danger, let the powerful do what they pleased, and caused good men to fritter away their honor for personal gain.

Wasn’t that exactly what he was doing? He didn’t want any part of this war anymore, so he was getting himself out—at any cost. This widow, this Fitzhugh woman, would be just another casualty.

But the cost of denying this mission was greater than his own freedom, or even his life. If he failed to dismantle the Order from the inside out, then countless more innocent lives were at risk. How many more women like the Fitzhugh widow would be hunted down? How many more children would be kidnapped and ransomed, or men slaughtered while they slept, or women assaulted by the richest and most powerful men in England?

The chance to bring down the Order was greater than one man’s life—or one woman’s. To remain in Roland’s trust, Kirk didn’t have a choice. He had to find the Fitzhugh widow.

“If I may ask, sir,” Kirk ventured. “Ye said that ye’d hand-selected me. Why?”

Roland narrowed his dark eyes on Kirk, and once again he had the impression of a snake watching its next meal. But then the man tilted his head slightly and the tension around his eyes eased.

“The woman is believed to have been taken to Scotland. We have had some…trouble of late from an organization of bodyguards working for Robert the Bruce. The last man I sent to fetch Fitzhugh’s widow said that she disappeared, possibly with a Scot. He lost their trail not far across the border.”

Shite . The Bodyguard Corps was involved in this? Kirk couldn’t think on that for the time being, but if he had to cross one of the men in the Corps, his position both in the Order and with the Corps would get…complicated.

Roland pursed his lips for a moment, assessing Kirk. “You have spent time in Scotland more recently than your compatriot, Logan Mackenzie. He hasn’t stepped foot in the country for a decade, and I imagine that things have changed since then. Besides, I thought this would be a perfect first test for you.”

Kirk nodded. “I’ll find this woman and return with her, sir. I willnae let ye down.”

“Oh, I hope not,” Roland said softly. “You show much promise, MacLeod. I am trusting in your success. The alternative would be so…unpleasant.”

With an almost imperceptible twitch of his fingers, Roland beckoned Kirk closer to his desk. Kirk hesitated, earning a shove in the back from one of the brutes at his side.

“You see, the last man I sent after the Fitzhugh woman failed.” Roland opened one of the lower drawers in the desk and lifted a ceramic jar out, setting it carefully on the desk. “And of course there must be consequences when one fails.”

He removed another jar, this one slightly larger than the first, and set it on the desktop as well. “We do try so hard to train you, but some men simply cannot handle the responsibility of being a member of the Order of the Shadow.”

Roland continued to place jars of varying sizes in a line across his desk until there were four in all.

“You see what happens when I must…rid myself of weakness from within the Order?” He gestured lazily at the first of the jars.

Tentatively, Kirk took the ceramic lid with his fingers and lifted it away.

Inside, two round, blue, lidless eyeballs stared up at him.

Kirk swallowed hard, carefully setting the lid back on the jar.

With a little smile, Roland motioned him toward the next jar .

Inside, Kirk found a bloody, severed tongue.

“Of course the man didn’t say much after I removed that , so I cannot give you more specifics about where to begin your search,” Roland said, glancing at the tongue. “But I believe in your abilities to track down this woman, wherever she has been tucked away in your homeland, and return with her.”

Kirk carefully covered the second jar. “I understand, sir.”

But it seemed Roland was enjoying himself too much to stop toying with Kirk quite yet. He motioned toward the third jar. As Kirk lifted the lid, he had to clamp his teeth closed to keep from grunting in disgust. This jar contained the man’s member and bollocks.

Kirk dropped the lid back in place and moved unbidden to the fourth jar. Aye, Roland was playing with him, but Kirk refused to give the man the satisfaction of seeing him buckle and lose the meager contents of his stomach.

“I took that last,” Roland said, peering over the edge of the fourth jar as Kirk lifted the lid to reveal the human heart within. “I hope you know what an honor I am bestowing on you, Kirk. You are being entrusted with a very important assignment. Just know that the punishment for failure matches the mission’s importance.”

Kirk nodded again, no longer trusting his voice. Roland gave him one of those small smiles, then twitched his fingers at one of the guards. Without warning, the canvas sack was shoved over Kirk’s head and he was roughly pulled from the chamber.

With the fear of imminent death now removed, Kirk tried to pay more attention to his surroundings as he was lifted onto a horse and they began their ride back to the Compound. Judging by the muted sound of a softly falling rain and a few bird calls, they were in a forest, though with the Compound entirely surrounded by woods, that didn’t narrow it down. He guessed they rode for about an hour before halting.

When the sack was removed once more, he found himself behind the mess hall again.

“You missed the evening meal,” Hervey said flatly as he strode toward the group of fierce guards surrounding Kirk. “Get to the barracks and gather your personal effects. You are to leave immediately.”

Kirk did as he was ordered, keeping his head down as he shuffled through the rain toward the barracks.

As he eased himself through the double doors, the men were just settling down for the night, exhausted as always.

Kirk crouched next to his pallet and shook out the cloak he used as a bedroll.

“First assignment?” The whisper came from Logan Mackenzie, whose pale gray eyes loomed out from the dimness in the barracks.

“Aye.”

Suddenly Logan’s hand wrapped hard around Kirk’s wrist, stilling him. “Are ye sure ye ken what ye’re doing, MacLeod?”

Logan’s voice was low with warning. It was the first time in the nine months Kirk had known him that fear edged his words.

“Aye,” Kirk said again.

“Because once ye are in this—truly in this—ye willnae be able to leave. Ye have been playing at being in the Order up until now. But if ye take a mission, they’ll never let ye go.”

Kirk had known it was strategically smart to build an ally in Logan. Besides being the only other Scot, Mackenzie had been in the Order for at least a few years—he’d never gotten a specific number from the man, but Kirk could tell from the way the others treated him that Logan was a respected veteran among the other bounty hunters.

Never had he anticipated hearing the clear warning in Logan’s voice. Was the man truly trying to help Kirk?

“Ye sound as though ye speak from experience,” Kirk said carefully into the darkness.

Logan snorted softly, his hand loosening on Kirk’s wrist. “Ye think I want to stay in this hellhole for the rest of my life?” Logan fell silent for a long moment, and Kirk wasn’t sure if he would speak again, but then his whisper reached his ears. “They have…ways of making ye stay.”

Aye, Kirk had seen a first-hand display of that inside Roland’s little collection of jars. But if a man wanted to leave badly enough, would even the threat of bodily harm be sufficient to keep him here? Mayhap the Order held something else over Logan’s head, something even greater than the fear of being tortured and dismembered.

Kirk shoved the thought aside. Logan was no longer his concern. When he returned from his mission, he could continue to develop the Highlander as an ally, but for now, he had more pressing matters.

“Dinnae fash,” he said, trying to make his voice light. “I chose to join the Order, remember? Keep these bloody English in line until I get back.”

Logan remained silent, but he quickly clasped Kirk’s forearm in a wordless goodbye.

With few personal belongings, it only took Kirk a moment longer to gather his things and make his way back to the mess hall.

Hervey waited for him, a horse by his side. The guards from earlier were nowhere to be seen.

Hervey shoved a pair of saddlebags into Kirk’s hands and stood aside while Kirk draped them over the waiting horse.

“You have some supplies there—knives, food, and a map with the Order’s safe houses marked,” Hervey said curtly. “Do not fail.”

With that blunt command, Hervey turned and disappeared into the drizzly night. Kirk mounted slowly, then nudged the horse into motion.

He was going back to the north, back to Scotland. This time, though, instead of stepping into his homeland as Robert the Bruce’s esteemed warrior, he was naught but a mercenary—a double agent whom no one would miss if he ended up in one of Roland’s jars.