Chapter Three

“I’m sorry, Graeme.”

Graeme turned away from the lock he’d been trying to pick with the hairpin he’d used before, but the locks in the dungeon were different from the one on the cage, and the smoke-filled air was not helping matters. His eyes burned, and his vision was slightly blurry.

Eppie looked as miserable as she sounded. She sat on the dirt with her knees pulled to her chest, and her hair, which had long dried from being outside in the rain, was a frizzy halo around her face.

“There’s nae anything to apologize for.”

“I got us caught,” she immediately replied, coughed, and rested her head against the tops of her knees.

That was true enough. Eppie couldn’t swim fast, so once Bernard had spotted them in the water making their way to the birlinn, she’d been easily overcome, and Graeme had turned back for her. He would never leave Eppie behind, even if it meant his own death. “We’ll get out again, but this time we’ll take the trail.”

She shook her head. “I kinnae make that journey.”

“I’ll carry ye.”

“We’ll nae make it.”

“We’ll die for certain if we stay here,” he answered, and her silence told him she knew it to be true. “I’ll set the birlinn afloat, there’s nae any way that lass and her party are departing tonight. The waters are too rough.”

“But the hairpin is nae working.”

That was also true enough, but he opted to believe they’d escape somehow. To think otherwise left only defeat and death. He didn’t care what Bernard had promised the lass; Graeme knew very well the man would kill them. When Father Atholl and Bernard had been dragging them back to the Abbey, he’d overheard the monk say that he was glad this business of keeping them prisoners was over and that word had finally come from Laird Campbell to end it. Their captors wouldn’t be dragging Graeme and Eppie across the ground to flog them to death if ending it meant anything but murdering them.

He turned back toward the lock and set to work again because he sincerely doubted Bernard would waste any time coming to kill them once the chapel fire was dealt with. Graeme worked at the lock, his frustration mounting and the new lash on his face throbbing. “How’s yer back?” he asked Eppie to get his mind off his own pain.

“Terrible. Ye should go without me.”

“Ye ken I’ll nae. I told ye, I’ll carry ye.”

“Even if ye could carry me that far—”

“Woman, I’m offended,” he said, trying to instill some humor because the bleakness in him was increasing with each breath. Was Eppie right? Were they going to die here? “I can carry ye.”

“Fine, fine, say ye could carry me the entire length of the trail off Inverie, ye will nae be fast enough. They will find us because I will slow us down.”

“Ye would, and they would, if they looked for us right away on the trail, but they’ll nae because they’ll be busy securing the lass’s birlinn.”

“Hmm... mayhap,” Eppie conceded. “She does seem to come from good stock. Do ye think she’s a Campbell?”

Graeme stopped what he’d been doing for a moment and stood, as much to answer Eppie as to give the knotting muscles of his lower back time to loosen. He’d thought on the lass more than he’d cared to admit to himself or Eppie, and certainly more than was wise, given what he suspected. For one moment, he allowed the mental picture of her to enter his mind. Her long dark hair had hints of deep red running through it, and she had green eyes, like he did, but hers were much lighter and framed by heavy, long, dark lashes. Her eyes had tilted upwards, her mouth turned slightly down, and her skin was flawless. Were all women her age so very bonny or was the lass blessed by the gods? He allowed the image of her to linger one more breath before he shoved it away and finally answered Eppie’s question. “It seems likely with the respect she commanded, and Bernard did say the Campbells were arriving.”

“Aye,” Eppie agreed. “And she wears a fine cloak of a lady. And yet, she intervened to save us. If he means to kill us, then why—”

“Because she’s a woman and has been kept uninformed, as ye told me was most women’s lots,” Graeme supplied.

Eppie huffed behind him. “’Tis so unfair!”

He nodded, distracted by the lock and his mounting worry. He could not get the lock undone, and time was running out. The fire would be dealt with eventually, and then Bernard would come.

Footsteps suddenly fell from somewhere very near, and Eppie gasped. He swiveled to face her, as he scanned the floor for anything he could use to try to defend them from Bernard.

She’d scrambled up, eyes wide, and she started to speak, but he pressed a finger to his lips and shook his head as he spotted a rock by her foot. He motioned to it, and she bent down, grabbed it, and hid her right hand behind her back just as a woman spoke directly behind him.

“I came to see how the two of ye were faring and ensure there was nae too much smoke down here.”

The shock of the voice being a woman’s and not Bernard’s stilled him for one breath, but then he slowly turned toward the bars once more and locked gazes with the woman from the courtyard. She stood mostly in the shadows of the dark dungeon, but a torch on the wall to her right danced slashes of light across her face, enough so that Graham made out her high cheekbones and full lips. He didn’t know if she was beautiful or not compared to other women, but he did know that the lass caused a stirring in him that made him ache to touch her. He hardened himself and rubbed a hand across his burning eyes. Seeing hers widen at the action and her bottom lip slip between her teeth, he knew how he and Eppie would gain their freedom—this lass.

“We’ll be dead soon,” he said bluntly, because it was the ultimate truth, though he was about to twist it. “If we dunnae die from breathing in the smoke, Bernard will be here soon enough to kill us.”

Behind him, Eppie started coughing, and he didn’t know if it was to support his statement about the smoke or because she really had to cough, but either way, the lass bit down harder on her lip as her attention went to Eppie. “She should have something to drink to ease her cough,” the lass said.

“We dunnae have the benefit of anything to drink,” Graeme said over Eppie’s hacking. “Since Bernard plans to kill us, he did nae ensure our needs were met.”

“Nay,” the lass said, shaking her head vigorously. “Bernard vowed ye’d have a fair hearing.”

“Bah!” Eppie bellowed behind Graeme. He glanced over his shoulder, shooting her a warning look. They had to tread carefully. Eppie immediately silenced as he turned back to the lass.

“What’s yer name?” he asked the dark-haired woman.

“Maisie Campbell,” she replied, confirming that at the very least she belonged to the clan he would one day, somehow, destroy. He felt his nostrils flare in immediate distaste.

“Do ye ken Bernard well?” he asked, trying to keep the hate he felt for her clan out of his tone. At the shake of her head, Graeme set his hands to the bar and leaned very close to her. He got a whiff of sweet heather and imagined she’d walked through a field of it at some point. “Well, I do,” he said. “Do ye see this?” He pointed to the old scar running down his face. “Bernard gave me this, and I ken ye saw him give me a new one.”

She nodded. “What did ye do?”

“We did nae do anything,” Eppie spat. “’Tis Bernard and—”

“Eppie,” Graeme interrupted, “the lass dunnae care to hear about who we’ve grievances with. Lass,” he went on, curling his fingers around the cell door, “we are here because we ken secrets. Secrets that Bernard and others dunnae wish to be revealed. But that does nae matter. What matters is Bernard will kill us if ye dunnae release us.”

“Release ye?” the lass said, gasping. “Even if I wanted to, I could nae. I dunnae have the key.”

Graeme pointed behind her. “’Tis there on a hook.”

She turned, and her sharp intake of breath split the momentary silence. Without turning around, she said, “I kinnae. I—”

“Could ye at least give Eppie some of the wine that sits over there on the table?” he interrupted. Time was of the essence, and it was slipping away faster than sand through his fingers.

“Do ye mean pass a goblet through the bars?”

He didn’t mean that at all. The goblet would never fit between the bars. That was exactly the reason he’d asked. She would have to open the door, and then they’d escape. “Aye,” he lied.

“I could do that,” she said. And a moment later, she tried and failed to press the goblet between the bars. Eppie, to Graeme’s delight, understood what he was trying to do and commenced her coughing again.

“It will nae fit,” the woman said, worrying at her lip once more.

“Ye could just open the door and pass it to me.” He could see the indecision on her face, so he said, “Or dunnae do anything. Eppie will likely die from the smoke, but that’s nae yer concern.”

The lass looked to Eppie, who was doubled over, coughing. Her gaze met his once more after a brief pause. “Ye must step all the way back,” she said to him. “Against the far wall of the cell.”

Ah, Maisie Campbell was a clever lass.

“All right,” he agreed. He’d have to lunge at her when she opened the door and hope he reached her before she slammed it shut.

“I’ll set the goblet on the ground, and I will stay until I see that the two of ye get a fair hearing.”

He nearly chuckled at that. As if she could have any sway. “I thank ye,” he forced out instead, and then he moved to the back wall of the dungeon cell. Eppie was still doubled over coughing near the door, and he thought the lass might ask her to move back as well. But then she bit her lip again, turned to the key on the hook, grasped it, and unlocked the door to the dungeon cell.

His muscles tensed as she opened it slowly, and then she bent down to scoot the goblet in. The moment her wrist came through the opening, Eppie lunged forward, to Graeme’s shock. She grasped Maisie Campbell by the wrist, and as he bolted forward to aid Eppie, the lass started to scream. Eppie’s hand came up above the lass’s dark head and then down in a blur, and he realized when a thunk resounded and silence fell, that Eppie had clobbered the lass with the rock she’d picked up.

She fell like the dead, her hand hitting the goblet and tipping it over. Red wine spilled out and spread around the lass’s head. Eppie still stood over her, rock in hand, but her mouth was parted in obvious shock. “Why the devil did ye hit her?” he demanded, kneeling. “I hate the Campbells more than ye do, but I’d nae have killed the lass.”

“I—I did nae want anyone to hear her,” Eppie said in a whisper. “Is she dead?”

Graeme stared at the lass, trying to decipher just that. A line of blood ran down her neck. Eppie’s hit had cut the lass’s head open. He thought he saw her chest rising and falling, but he could not be certain. “I dunnae ken,” he finally said, putting a finger under the tip of the lass’s nose, but as he did, footsteps sounded from the top of the stairs that led to the dungeon. “Give me the rock,” he hissed.

Eppie tossed him the rock, and he motioned for her to follow him. They darted out of the cell and to either side of the stairs that led down to the dungeon. Luckily, whoever was coming did not have a torch with them. The footsteps were heavy and slow, and Graeme pressed himself back into the shadows of the right corner of the steps and saw Eppie do the same at the other before Bernard appeared at the foot of the steps.

“Time to die!” Bernard said in a singsong voice as he moved off the last step.

Graeme didn’t hesitate. He hit Bernard with all the force of the hatred he’d built up in all the years the man had kept them prisoner here, and he fell. He lay unmoving, just as Maisie Campbell was. Eppie stepped out of the shadows and glanced down at Bernard.

Her mouth turned down with a look of disgust. “Do ye think ye killed him?”

“I certainly hope so,” Graeme replied. “Come now. We need to get as far away as we can before someone else comes down here.”

“What of the lass?” Eppie asked, motioning to her because she was still unmoving. There was nothing they could do for her, and she was part of his enemy’s clan, but still, he knelt and placed his finger under her nose. Immediately, a faint warmth wafted over his finger. “She lives,” he announced and rose.

“Good,” Eppie said. “I ken she’s a Campbell, and they’re a treacherous lot, but—”

“Aye,” he agreed, feeling he knew what Eppie was going to say. “I want to destroy them, nae murder them, especially nae one wee little lass.” He moved toward the stairs.

“Boy, ye underestimate women. We can be deadly enemies. Dunnae forget that when we move back into the world.”

They made their way carefully up the stairs to the right side of the inner courtyard that was thick with smoke and shouts of monks still working to extinguish the fire. Graeme cast his gaze toward the water with a half-hope that maybe the birlinn was not guarded, but in the distance, the Campbell guards were easy to see in front of the birlinn. “It will most definitely have to be the trail,” he said to Eppie as he stooped down and motioned for her to climb onto this back. After much grunting and hissing of pain from Eppie, he stood back up, now carrying Eppie’s slight weight.

Across the courtyard, monks ran with water pails, and Atholl suddenly appeared. Graeme pressed back against the abbey wall, forgetting Eppie for one moment, but when she moaned with pain, he quickly took a step forward so her wounded back would not be pressed against it.

“Should we try to get some rations before we go?” Eppie asked.

“Too dangerous. We’ll simply have to forage.”

“What of a weapon?”

He could hear the hope in her tone. He shook his head. “Nay. I’d like one as well, but ’tis too much of a risk. Close yer eyes and put yer head against my back,” he commanded, heading thought the thick smoke toward the direction of the path that led to the woods and the trail to freedom. The smoke enveloped him, so that it burned his lungs and eyes and filled his mouth with the taste of ash. By the time he got to the path, his eyes watered so badly he could hardly see, and then he ran straight into something solid that grunted.

It took a breath to realize it was a monk. Without hesitation, Graeme sent his fist straight into the man’s mouth, once, twice, three times, and the monk fell to his knees. Eppie scrambled off him, and he swiped at his eyes, seeing a head of white hair as the monk started to rise. Graeme hesitated, and in that short time Eppie brushed past him, rock in hand, and whacked the monk on the back of his head. The man fell flat against the ground, unmoving.

She turned to Graeme and raised a finger in his face. “Dunnae ever hesitate. It will get ye killed.”

“Aye,” he agreed, as he kneeled, relieved the knocked-out monk of the dagger on his hip, and stood. He held the dagger between Eppie and himself. “Now, we’ve a better chance of surviving.”

Eppie snorted. “Oh, aye. Now, ’tis only verra likely we will perish on the trail and nae certain.”

“Eppie, I will get us to our home if it is the last thing I ever do.”

She patted him on the cheek then climbed on his back. “If ye get us back to yer home, it better nae be the last thing ye ever do. I want to see ye with a wife and children someday. Let that dream give ye the strength to get us home.”

“Revenge gives me all the strength I’ll need. This, I vow to ye,” he said, as he stepped onto the trail that would either set them free or kill them.