Chapter 3

3

K eira, slipping on the homespun breeches she wore when she wanted to disguise herself, sighed.

"Why can women not dress like this?" she asked. "It is so much more comfortable than all our petticoats and dresses."

"Ye wilnae be sayin' that in a while," Moira assured her as she began to bind Keira's breasts with a long strip of linen. She pulled it tight to make sure that the soft mounds of flesh were flattened so that they resembled a teenage boy's chest.

"Ow!" Keira moaned. "That is so sore!" She drew in a deep breath, then fisted her hands and screwed up her face in pain.

Moira shrugged as she tied the end of the bandage off under Keira's arm. "Well, nobody is forcin' ye tae do this foolish thing, Keira. If ye are sore, it is yer own fault."

She wrapped more linen around her waist to make it look thicker, then helped Keira pull the straps holding the trews up and tied the string at the waist, then stood back to look at her.

"Good thing ye have slim hips, hen," she remarked. "Now ye are almost shapeless!"

Keira donned a tattered jacket with specially padded shoulders, then sat down so that Moira could tie and pin her hair up and then bundle it into a cap. She might not pass muster with anyone sitting across a table from her, but from a distance, particularly if she was riding astride a horse and not sidesaddle, as a woman did, she looked like a young man.

"Maybe I can persuade some obliging man to cut his hair and make a beard for me," she suggested, laughing as she pulled the cap farther down over her head until it almost reached her eyebrows.

Moira raised her eyebrows and shook her head. "I think ye should stay at home, but I know ye are too softhearted tae let people go hungry. At least I know whatever it is ye are doin' when ye slip away at night, it is nothin' bad."

Keira looked at Moira and felt an upwelling of love. She wished she could run away with her and Adaira and find some decent, hardworking men with whom to raise families. She had been born and brought up in an environment where she had never wanted for anything, and for that she was grateful. However, when she saw the desperate state of some of her father's tenants, it had made her so angry that she knew she would have to do something to change their circumstances for the better.

She could not stand idly by while people starved around her. Appealing to her father's better nature did no good since he did not seem to have one. No, she had decided that something more radical would have to be done, and since she had access to her father at all times, she decided to do it.

Her horse, a big grey mare she had called Diamond, had become so used to the journey to the Rabbit's Foot tavern that she could do it in the dark. This was just as well because it was a distance of almost a mile, and it would have taken Keira almost two hours to walk.

The young man who stepped into the tavern immediately descended the stairs to where the barrels of beer were stored, then he made his way to the secret inner chamber concealed behind a large cupboard that stored whiskey. He took a single key from his pocket and unlocked the door, then stepped through the back of it into a sizable but dark and stuffy room.

The men sitting on top of empty crates there looked up and smiled at him as he came in. There were five of them in all, each one a farmer or a laborer, smiling and holding pints of ale in their hands.

"Evenin', boss," Gerry McKinlay said. "Have ye brought us anythin' tonight?"

Keira, the "young man," laughed. "Of course I have," she replied with mock indignation. "You know I never come empty-handed!"

She took off the backpack she had been carrying and spread out the contents onto the floor. There were apples, bread, cheese, chunks of dried meat, and five small oranges, which were an exotic treat. The men exclaimed over them since they were such a rarity.

"My father is having them brought in from Spain," she told them, "but I know where we can get our own supply." She winked at them. "I have heard that a shipment of spices and fruit is coming in from the continent next week, but the cargo will never fall into my father's hands." She looked around them, grinning. "It will fall into ours!"

Hugh McLean, one of the other men, looked at her admiringly. "It was a fine day ye came tae us, lass," he said, smiling at her fondly.

All the others joined in, and Keira blushed bright red. For a second, her mind flashed back to that night just after her sixteenth birthday, when she was so downhearted and miserable that she had thought of jumping from the castle turrets and ending her life.

Four years ago…

Her father's study was the one place in the whole of the castle that was forbidden to everyone except those who were invited or had a very good reason to request an audience with him. Keira had only been in it twice in her life, and both times the reason had been because he wanted to inflict a dire punishment for some minor infraction.

She remembered it as being a creepy place, with dark-paneled walls and deep brown curtains, but what made it the darkest of all was the scowl on her father's face. He had taken a riding crop to her backside, and she had left weeping both times, but it had stirred up in her a strong determination never to be bested by him again. The second time was when she became his enemy and would be for the rest of her life.

She had been only fourteen then, too young to be taken seriously by anyone, but she had spent much of her time watching and waiting until the time came when she could sneak into his study again.

One day she was descending the stairs just outside the room when she saw her father coming out looking rather preoccupied, so much so that he left the door unlocked behind him. Keira descended the stairs silently, then followed him at a distance for a little way. He had walked down the hallway heading for another staircase that led up to the battlements, and he looked as though he was deep in thought.

"I am going to the topmost tower," he told the guard. "And I am not to be disturbed unless the castle is burning down. Understand?"

"Aye, sir," the guard answered with a smart salute. He turned to his friend. "What the hell has got intae him?" he asked.

"I don't know," the other man answered. "He got a note a wee while ago wi' a crest on it, but I didnae see which clan it was."

"Maybe he'll fall down," the first man mused.

"Wishful thinkin'," his friend replied, before they both burst into a fit of laughter.

Keira stood still for a moment, thinking. Could this be her chance? What would happen if he caught her? She knew that the punishment would be dire, but the opportunity was too good to miss. She walked back toward the office and checked that no one was in the passage or on the stairs, then she quietly opened the door.

She took her father's office key from the door and made an impression with it in a bar of soft soap before replacing the key in the lock. A few days later, she found a blacksmith who would do the unscrupulous work for her for quite a hefty chunk of her allowance. Now she would be able to go in and out of his office as she pleased.

The first thing she saw was a letter on the desk in her father's hand. She tiptoed around the desk to read it. It was unfinished, but there was enough there on the page to make the meaning quite clear. It was a letter of extortion from her father toward the laird of the Allen clan. Keira had always had a prodigious memory, and she put it to good use now. She read the document three times over until she remembered it almost word for word, then she rushed up to her bedroom and wrote down everything she could remember.

Armed with this, she was able to alert Laird Allen to her father's nefarious plan, which failed completely because of her actions. Since then, Laird Allen had become one of her most trusted allies, even though he hated her father.

Shortly afterward, she and Moira were attending a market in the nearby town of Sundra when they were approached by a small, grey-haired old lady. Despite her obvious age, she had a sweet smile.

"Mistress McTavish, is it no'?" she asked. "Laird McTavish's wee lassie?"

"That is my name," Keira answered, a little mystified. "What is yours?"

"Teresa Allen," the old lady answered. "I am pleased tae meet ye. Ye don't know me, but ye know my grandson. He was the one that took the message tae Laird Allen. Dinnae worry, this is between ye an' me. I wanted tae thank ye for what ye did for the Allens. It stopped a war between us an' the McTavishes, hen, an' naybody wants a war. You are a brave lass. Come an' meet my grandson Colm."

"Thank you," Keira replied, a little overwhelmed. "Where are we going?"

"Somewhere secret," the old lady whispered.

The "somewhere secret" turned out to be a small cave hidden behind some undergrowth on the outskirts of the village, and that was where she had met all the men who were sitting with her at that moment.

She was jerked back to reality when one of the men, a potter named James McFarlane, clapped his hands in front of her face.

"Ye were miles away, hen," he observed, laughing.

Keira laughed sheepishly. "I was just thinking about the first time we met," she confessed.

James laughed. "Aye, there has been much water under the bridge since then." He sighed sadly. "Old Granny Teresa is gone now, God rest her soul."

"Aye, she was such a good woman," all the men agreed, raising their glasses.

"Thank ye for the food, mistress," Ben Hamilton said, holding up his cup of ale in a toast.

Keira nodded and smiled in acknowledgment, then said, "Tuck in, lads." The men needed no second bidding and fell on the food as though they were starving, which a few of them were, she reasoned.

"What is the news, mistress?" James asked expectantly.

Every time they met, the rebels arrived hopeful and left somewhat less so. They had sent messages to all the lairds in the area asking for their help in alleviating the famine that was gripping their land, caused in part by the laird's greed. Unfortunately, all the other clans in the area had found themselves in the same unfortunate position, and none of them had been able to come to their aid. In fact, many had not even answered.

However, this time she had an announcement to make that she hoped would change everything.

"Lads," she began, "I have just heard a bit of news from the castle that might change everything for us."

She looked around at their expectant faces and drew out the suspense as long as she could, then gave them a grim smile.

"My father has told me that there is an Englishman coming to the castle to make an alliance with the McTavishes," she told them. "This alliance is, of course, a marriage to me. Needless to say, that marriage will never happen, although I have judged it best to cooperate with the old tyrant 'til our plan is carried out." She scowled as she referred to her father. "The man will be coming with a convoy of goods with which he hopes to trade when he arrives here, but my father will never get his greedy hands on them."

Keira stood up and began to pace around the small room. "My father says that this man, Lord Adrian Wentworth, Earl of Champling, is very wealthy." Her eyes moved around them once more. "But I do not think that his plan is to marry him to me, but to hold him for ransom. That way, not only does he have the goods the earl is bringing, but the earl himself, whom he can hold for ransom. You might think that this is a fanciful notion on my part, lads, and I have no actual proof, but trust me. I know how his mind works."

"That is a good plan for the laird," Ben observed thoughtfully, "but is his family no' likely tae send an army to rescue him?"

Keira shook her head. "It would have to be an army of thousands," she answered. "And their presence would stir up so much hostility that it would not be worth their while. My father is a bad man, but not a stupid one. He knows that it would be far simpler for the earl's family to pay up and be done with it. Of course, that would end any chance of a marriage to me, but I would not lose any sleep over that!"

"An' how is this our business?" Hugh McLean asked.

"Whatever is in those wagons is valuable to my father," Keira stated. "If it is valuable to him, it is valuable to us at least fivefold. We must find a way of laying our hands on it."

"Are ye talkin' about an ambush, mistress?" Colin McCrae asked. "That would be very risky since none o' us are trained horsemen."

"Yes," Keira agreed. "But we are not all here, are we? There are at least twenty more of us, and all of them can ride. Horses are not a problem since I can get many of them. As well as that, I have something—or, rather, someone else—who can work with us."

They looked at her expectantly.

"My father's wife," she said, grinning. "My stepmother. I have not spoken to her about our little band yet, but she now thoroughly hates my father, and I think she will be easy to recruit. She would be enormously helpful on the inside, and even if she does not decide to work with us, I don't think she will betray us. Should I ask her to join us?"

"Are ye sure of her?" Ben asked doubtfully. "She will no' carry tales tae yer father?"

Keira shook her head firmly. "You don't know her as well as I do. The poor woman is desperate to get away from him."

"Then I think ye should speak tae her, Keira," Colin said firmly.

There was a murmur of agreement, and Keira was happy for both the rebels and for Adaira. She was sure they could help each other.