Chapter Nineteen

T hey sailed for what seemed like several hours before docking. The rhythmic rocking of the boat had done nothing to soothe Raina's nerves; if anything, it heightened her anxiety. She tried to focus on the coastline, wishing she recognized more of it. Shortly after they'd thrown Samuel into the sea, they'd headed out to open water, the captors rowing hard and fast, and Raina had lost sight of the shoreline altogether.

Her fear for Samuel was desperate, for a long time greater than her own. She could only suppose they'd brought him along to delay word getting back to Torsten, but oh, how they'd discarded him! Upon his initial capture he was not abused so greatly as he was moments before he was tossed over the side. Without warning, without a word, one man had stood and kicked Samuel's leg, bringing his boot down hard against the side of his lower leg. Samuel had howled in pain, squeezing his eyes shut while the skin around his mouth turned white. Raina had screamed as well and rose in protest but was quickly subdued, someone's backhand connecting with her mouth. She was sent flying, bouncing over the wooden bench seat, her skirt and feet in the air. She righted herself just in time to see two men hoist Samuel up under his arms and legs, his leg dangling at an odd angle, and heave him overboard .

Any effort to maintain courage fled in that moment as she watched helplessly as Samuel's arms flailed as he tried to tread water.

Her captors had a good laugh at his efforts, watching for a while as he sank periodically or was submerged by slow-moving waves. Eventually, they resumed their rowing, leaving Samuel to his fate. Raina watched the brave young man until he became just a speck on the horizon, and then until she could no longer see him. She found little comfort in the fact that in the twenty minutes it took for the expanding distance to erase him from sight, he was still afloat. But for how long could he actually keep his head above water with only one good leg to support him?

But her supposition that they might have abducted Samuel simply to prevent him from alerting Torsten of her dire circumstance, only to abuse him, giving him little chance to survive, roused grave questions: how did these kidnappers know that the fisherfolk wouldn't lift a finger to prevent her abduction? How were they so sure that none of those people would have alerted her husband? It reeked of treachery from one of Lochlan's own.

Her captors didn't speak to her, but then they spoke very little at all, even amongst themselves, and all conversations were quiet, intentionally so, Raina thought, not meant for her ears.

Several hours into the trip, a man with a wiry build and what she thought were soulless brown eyes approached her.

"I dinna want to strike ye, but I'll nae lose any sleep over it if ye force me to," he said. He lifted his hand, revealing bits of fabric, what she guessed would gag her.

Knowing these men and what she endured now were but the transport—presumably to whoever was behind the vile plot—Raina understood there was little cause to argue now. They were minions, paid to follow orders. In all probability, they didn't care what shape she was in when she arrived at her final destination.

But not only was she gagged, but they bound her wrists and ankles, and to her horror, wrapped her tightly in several jute sacks. The rough material scratched against her skin, and the ropes they used to secure the sacks dug into her flesh, making her discomfort almost unbearable. Fear had truly taken hold now. Though the daylight was not completely obliterated—it poked through the tiny holes between the weave of the jute fabric—Raina was unable to see, and she felt utterly helpless.

About a quarter hour later, the rowing ceased, and the boat glided for a short distance before it came to a stop.

Her world became a series of sensations: the musty smell of the sacks, the constriction of the ropes, and the jarring motion as she was hoisted over someone's shoulder. She tried to remain calm, but panic clawed at her insides.

She was carried off the boat and across what seemed to be a dock, the sound of footsteps echoing on the wooden planks beneath her. The distinct scent of saltwater and fish hung in the air, confirming her suspicion that they had arrived at a larger harbor, not just a small coastal dock belonging to a clan or family. A regular and robust clamor of voices, the gentle lapping of water against wooden hulls, the creaking of mooring ropes straining against the tide, and the occasional clank of metal as boats jostled each other suggested a busy port. She would have thought they'd come to Montrose but imagined they had sailed too far, had been too long upon the water to have only arrived at Montrose, naught but forty miles south of Lochlan. Surely, they were much further away from home .

And how would Torsten ever be able to find her?

Raina struggled to make sense of her surroundings, but the darkness and confinement were disorienting. Each step her captor took felt like a countdown, bringing her closer to an unknown fate. The only thing she could do was focus on her breathing, trying to keep her fear from overwhelming her completely. The heat was stifling, her hair curling against the perspiration dotting her forehead.

At length, the creak of a door was heard and the man lugging her as if she were naught but a sack of grain ducked to enter a structure. He mounted a set of stairs, circular, she realized, and brought her to a second floor chamber, where the door was kicked open. Raina was unceremoniously dumped onto a hard surface, the impact jarring her body. She lay still, listening intently to any noise around her, hoping to glean even a tiny bit of information about where she was and what was to come.

But nothing was said and nothing was heard, either before or after the door was closed, leaving her lying on the floor in the darkness, still bound and tightly wrapped in jute sacks and rope.

Though the wait seemed interminable, not more than twenty minutes had passed since she'd been left before the door opened again. It was barely a second after this that a voice grumbled some harsh dissatisfaction.

"Sodding halfwits."

Raina froze, something about the voice tickling her awareness, being...familiar— though it was hard to tell, being muffled by the bag covering her and crowded out by the sound of the pounding of her heart. The ropes were soon sliced away and in one swift motion she was brought to a sitting position, manhandled really, before one of the sacks was lifted off her head .

Her fear was enormous, suspecting whoever had come and stood behind her now was an authority of sorts, with the power to complain about the way she'd been left. and now doing something about it.

She shook her head, trying to throw the hair off her face, having an initial impression of a chamber of timber walls and floor, devoid of furnishings and illuminated by a lone taper in a small holder sitting on the floor. She swung her head around, her eyes landing first on a pair of legs dressed in wool breeches and shoddy leather boots as the man came into view.

Raina lifted her face, her eyes widening as they took in the familiar features of the man standing before her. Her breath caught in her throat as recognition set in.

Exhibiting a limp he'd not owned when last she knew him, the man stepped forward and bent toward her, lowering the gag.

Raina spit out the rag from her mouth.

"Donald?" she whispered, the word croaked as a whisper.

Her brother, whom she had believed dead for more than a year, was here.

Fear for her own circumstance was stymied by confusion.

"You're alive," she said.

Straightening, her brother grinned. "I heard that only recently," he said, his voice lacking any warmth or joy, "that I was presumed dead."

"But how...what is happening? Why are you here?"

He tilted his head at her, raising his brow, waiting for Raina to discern the answer.

"You are behind this?" She gasped, struggling mightily with her bewilderment. "This and the previous attempt?" His expression answered while he did not. Her brother, Donald, stood there—she was still trying valiantly to process the shock of it. He looked older, much older and more haggard, closer in image to their father, the lines on his face deeper. His once thick frame was now leaner, and his lush auburn hair, of which he had always been so proud, hung limply around his long face. And though his eyes were the same intense brown as she remembered, they now held a hardness she did not recall.

"Did you...are you attempting to rescue me from Torsten?" She ventured, unable to conceive any other reason for her own brother to have kidnapped her. She would be happy to disabuse him of his erroneous notion that there was any need for this.

Her heart sank when Donald snorted an unkind chortle.

Sadness engulfed her. She should have been overjoyed at this happy turn of events—her brother lived!—but she sensed immediately in him some dark and twisted delight in her fear and confusion. At the same time, she was imbued with a sense that this had always been in him but she, in her youth and hopefulness, had refused to see it.

He seemed quite pleased to tell her, "Less an effort to rescue you, sister, than Lochlan."

"I don't..." she paused when the truth did dawn on her. "Oh. You mean to take back Lochlan from the de Grahams." She blamed the shock of discovering that her brother actually lived for her inability to understand the cause behind her abduction. "But why abduct me?" The grim set of his mouth and the cold calculation in his eyes advised that he'd hadn't merely removed her from potential harm, if he planned to lay siege to Lochlan.

"To bring your husband to heel," he answered. He narrowed his eyes at her. "It's the damnedest thing, Raina. It took me months to heel from Methven—one day I'll tell you all about the disgusting crone who dragged me to her putrid hovel and labored to save my leg; thought I fought for Robert Bruce, she did—and many more months to track down the MacQueen army, who'd been integrated with Acheson's forces while they, too, believed me dead. Left me for dead, those bastards, and the English king would not return them to me." He waved his hands dismissively, as if to suggest he'd gotten off track. "For more than a year I fought and struggled to get back to Lochlan—if only you knew of the harrowing peril I faced and overcame!—only to arrive exactly two days after Torsten de Graham and his army." He held up his forefinger and middle finger. "Two days, Raina. I was two days late."

Raina thought it wise not to point out that without a suitable army or one only composed of those bastards , there wouldn't have been anything he could have done to have prevented Torsten from seizing Lochlan.

"But lo, I hear my sister wed the dragon," he sneered. "Put up no fight, ?tis said—and if that alone was not cause for disgust, it seems she developed a taste for the enemy. She bows to his authority, smiles as she breaks bread with him, and warms his bed most willingly, I hear." He waved his hands again. "But I digress. And in truth, your affinity for the usurper works in my favor so I must applaud you for aiding my cause as you have. Or rather, I should say, his affinity for you works in my favor."

Torsten's affinity for her?

"Oh, Donald," she breathed, her tone filled with dread. "You have erred grievously."

He snickered, his face ugly at that moment. "I have not. What I have done is watch carefully. His preoccupation with you is obvious—amazing and incomprehensible, but obvious all the same. You, Raina, are his weakness."

A laugh broke from her, incredulous and untimely, but she could not prevent it. He may have watched, but he hadn't really seen. "Donald, I am thrilled that you are alive but if you do not release me, you will not be for long." She paused to consider if she were overthinking it, if Torsten would really respond so harshly—was his feeling for his wife large enough, did it exist outside the bedroom, that he would kill whoever dared to kidnap her? "Who are your spies?" She wanted to know.

"Lochlan belongs to the MacQueens, Raina. There are many inside who have not turned traitor." He stared down at her. "You don't believe he'll come for you."

"He will," she assured her brother. "He most certainly will." Not for her, but for justice, for having dared to take what belonged to him, for his pride. "He will not simply retrieve his wife. He will eradicate the threat entirely. He will kill you." She thought to appeal to him from a different angle. "Donald, come back to Lochlan with me," she suggested with some urgency. "As Torsten's ally. Lochlan is thriving under Torsten's stewardship." Under her own as well, she was proud to think, inside the keep anyway. "You could be a part of—"

"Only an idiot could nae turn a profit with Lochlan," was her brother's response. "Father had a relationship with Edward I, an understanding. They're gone now, old men turned to dust. Edward, the son, has returned my army to me, has promised me wealth beyond what father could have ever dreamed, and land inside England if I return Lochlan to a subject of his crown."

"Donald, if you think for one minute that Torsten will simply roll up his banners and march his army away from Lochlan, you are sadly mistaken. He'll come after me with an army numbering in the hundreds and how do you intend to fight against that?" The MacQueen army, from what she knew, had never known numbers even half so much.

"Do you have any idea where you are, sister?"

This gave Raina pause. "I don't," she answered after a moment.

Donald smirked. "But your husband will assume Montrose, will he not? A boat took you and looked to be sailing south. That makes Montrose the most likely place from where it came and where it would dock. But no, I am equipped with more sense than most. Of course, I am not simply expecting that your husband will hand over Lochlan, not immediately anyway. I expect it will take some time, which he will use stalling while he has his army searching high and low for me—for you. He won't find me, Raina," he said, enunciating those words. "So aye, eventually, he'll have to surrender Lochlan to me if he expects to recover his wife alive. Once I garrison my army in my house and"—he smirked again—"make use of the wee palisade recently constructed, he will not so easily retake Lochlan."

"And if he refuses to cede Lochlan?"

"I have no intention of harming you, sister, unless your husband forces me to do so." The expression on his face horrifically suggested he rather hoped Torsten would not come immediately.

"What—what do you mean?"

"I heard the craziest tale from some locals a while back—actually in Montrose, as a matter of fact. ?Bout some captor who demanded a ransom for a soldier. The lad's father argued against it, stalling, and asked if he was expected simply to believe they had his son. So the captor chopped off the lad's finger, the one wearing the family's ring, and sent that to the lad's father. Naturally, he paid up swiftly then."

"You mean to cut off my finger?"

Donald shrugged negligently, as if he'd not just suggested something so dishonorable, so horrid.

"You don't wear a ring, and I'm sure I don't need to prove that you are a captive. But then I imagine any harm done to you—and shown to him by way of a small body part delivered to him—should provoke him to turn over Lochlan to me. Of course, if he doesn't care for you or about you, that might only be a waste of body parts." He winked, a hideous and cruel action, displaying his lack of...everything: honor, shame, integrity. "Here's hoping you charmed de Graham, sister, better than you have any other person in your life."

Appalled by him, by this man who shared blood with her, who at one time had been under the gentle and agreeable influence of their sweet mother, Raina decided she didn't care what became of him. "He will kill you. And I will not stop him."

Donald's brows shot up into his forehead as he feigned a sinister delight. "Someone's found her backbone. Good for you, sister. That was a long time coming, eh?"

She didn't know for sure that he spoke of any particular moment in their history, or of her in general, but she wouldn't let him rebuke her without returning the same. Everything whispered and suggested years ago about him seemed now ridiculously plausible. "It was hard to project confidence," she said tersely, "when being accused of being a witch. More difficult yet to believe that my brother could be capable of heinous, wicked deeds. But Donald, I know what you've done. "

He faltered for a moment, almost unnerved by her accusation, but managed to maintain his composure. "Do you divine things, being a witch?"

"I divine things by the power of common sense. I'm ashamed to admit that I suspected, though in truth I scarcely allowed those thoughts to intrude, refused to entertain the very possibility. But I know—I've always known—that it was you. That what you did to Barbara and likely to countless others, you did fatally to Clara, I suspect."

"You know nothing."

"I know that when my husband kills you, you will face your judgment from God."

"If you're worried for my soul—"

Raina scoffed at him, her smirk as ugly as his. "I'm not concerned where you spend eternity. That should be what keeps you awake at night, huddling in fear. You will be brought to justice, and since it wasn't here on earth for the crimes you committed, I am confident that you will pay for your sins in your eternal life."

Coolly, he said, "And that will be my burden to bear but not quite yet. You, of course, have your own burden, here and now. We shall see, I imagine, how well you endure it."

With that, Donald turned and exited the chamber. A key was heard turning the lock, trapping her inside.

"WE'VE SCOURED EVERY dock along the coast," Gilled reminded Torsten, "from here to Dundee and as far north as Aberdeen. Nae one of the harbormasters recall seeing a boat matching the description, and the locals are equally tight-lipped. Shite. It's as if they vanished into thin air. "

Aonghas added, "We've checked the nearby keeps and burghs, every lord's holding within a day's ride. I had lads out searching the abandoned ruins near Kinneth and those north of Fordoun. Nothing, Torsten. Nae sign of Raina."

"The Kincaid at Stonehaven put out some men in his own birlinns," Gilles added, speaking of Gregor Kincaid, the laird of Stonehaven, a fellow patriot and ally. "He kens the east coast better than we, said he'd make some inquiries."

Unable to sit, Torsten paced in front of the high table while his officers watched. He was missing something, obviously. For two days and nights, they'd searched relentlessly. He'd scoured Montrose himself, had visited the inns and had spoken with the burgesses who operated the market and just about every merchant and tradesman he encountered.

He was desperate, and for the first time in his life, fearful, nearly broken by what felt like helplessness. But he wasn't about to quit. He only needed to discover what or where he'd missed, what had been overlooked.

Gilles sat in his usual chair behind the table, his countenance pale, while Aonghas sat three removed from him, wearing a frustrated, fierce expression. James leaned an elbow on the front of the table, his gaze following Torsten's footfalls. Uilleam stood, his stance wide, attentive, as confounded as any other by their inability to locate Lady Raina and her abductors.

James MacGilchrist stepped forward, his anxiety evident. "We've sent scouts to the forests and hidden coves. Thomas and two units rode for two days with nae rest, questioning travelers and merchants."

"What of the fisherfolk?" Torsten asked Rory .

The lad shook his head sorrowfully. "Half of them gone since we chased ?em off the beach. Only Artair and Edane and their crews remain. Nae fishing, nae processing now."

Uilleam added, "We chased the trail of a group of them, following the river inland, but laird, they're as ghosts, gone in the wind."

Torsten clenched his fists, his frustration palpable. "They are nae ghosts," he ground out, "and obviously hiding to prevent what they ken from being beaten out of them!" Reining in what felt like an impotent rage, he commanded, "Keep those patrols, track them again. Find them."

Gilles cleared his throat, swinging Torsten's gaze round to him.

"We ah, have to consider, lad," he stated, a graveness softening his gruff voice, "that she—all of them—may have been lost at sea. Samuel said they struck out toward the deep—"

"That is nae an option," Torsten growled. "It is nae possible. She's alive and hidden well, but she's nae gone." He knew that, believed that, with every fiber of his being. If she... Jesu , if she were gone, he'd feel it. He would not burn with fury to find her, he'd know deep inside, in some manner or sensation, he'd know if she were gone. Torsten's certainty that Raina was not dead stemmed from an unshakable connection he felt deep within his soul, a newly discovered notion that their bond was so profound that he would intuitively know if she were truly gone forever.

"Raina is alive," he reiterated tersely. "We keep on, retrace all our steps if need be, again and again, until she's recovered."

"Aye laird," Aonghas agreed.

The others murmured their understanding as well .

Torsten took his leave of them but heard James's words ere he exited the hall.

"It needs just one person to give up what they ken or one guid piece of intelligence about these kidnappers."

As it turned out, intelligence would play a role but not before Raina's captors themselves sent word to Lochlan Hall.

The communication came by way of messenger the next morning, who carried no missive but relayed verbally what he'd been paid to say. Having been picked up by Torsten's soldiers patrolling near Catterline, halfway between Lochlan and Stonehaven, the man was delivered to the great hall where Torsten and his officers were huddled over a large map of the area, sent down from Stonehaven by Gregor Kincaid.

"I'm to let ye ken first," the man said, nearly quaking in his shoes in the face of Torsten's dangerous scowl, "that yer lady lives for now but nae for long." He uttered these words with a shrinking stance and voice, likely expecting to be harmed for having to utter so menacing a message. When he was not struck down, he continued. "Yer lady will be exchanged only for Lochlan Hall. If agreeable to the terms, you should raise a plain white flag on the sea side of the keep and await further instructions."

He was questioned extensively, and aye, with a wee bit of violence, before the de Grahams were satisfied that he was indeed only a messenger, was not part of the plot itself, and that possibly the instruction for ransom, such as it was, had been forwarded by at least three other messengers, its source unknown.

Knowing now for certain that Raina was only bait, and possession of Lochlan Hall the goal, they were left with hardly any choice but to imagine that a considerable force and not only a small faction were behind the abduction, leading to the conjecture that a MacQueen might be responsible.

"Raina told me once her brother was only presumed dead," Torsten recalled to his men. "She dinna ken where the MacQueen army was. She never mentioned and I have nae idea if there are other kin, cousins, uncles...."

In short, they knew little more now than they had a few days ago.

After another day of fruitless searching, there came a missive from Gregor Kincaid.

Torsten scanned the written message before reading it aloud. "Strange happenings in Peterugie, at Deer Abbey," the note read in part. "The community of monks has numbered fifteen for decades, but reports suggest others have come recently, making use of some structures on their grounds. Might be worth investigating, my friend." He lifted his gaze to his men. "He says he'd investigate himself if his wife was nae due to give birth at any moment. His army is at our disposal, he offers."

"We have enough men and arms, itching to find and fight whoever this bastard is, but aye, we should nae dismiss the Kincaid's offer," Gilles reminded him. "Twas only this we lacked, some seemingly insignificant report to say something was nae right somewhere."

Nodding, Torsten instructed, "Ready the army to depart in thirty minutes."