The hot midday sun beat down on the links of DonnaldRamsey’s cowl, cooking his head like a roasted boar…all he needed was an apple in his mouth. He signaled for his men to stop. The thunder of horses’ hooves ceased pounding the ground and a cloud of dust swirled up around the troop, now speckled with pieces of sun-dried grass.
He tightened his grip on the reins as his horse danced along the wide, dry crest of high ground overlooking the valley to the west that cradled the Beauly River, its abbey, and in the distance, a sparse pattern of crofts. Off to the west stood the blue shadows of the western coast. They, however, were headed south, and east of Ben Nevis, which lay far in the distance like giant sleeping cattle.
Ramsey pushed his cowl back and took a drink from a skin of water before pouring some of it over his sweaty head. He swiped at his brow to keep his eyes clear and took another drink, then exchanged a look of misery with his men at arms. “I do not know if we should pray for rain and suffer battling the rust, or continue on only to swallow more dust than air.”
“‘Twill only become worse if we keep following this trail another twenty leagues,“ said his captain.
“There is a small stream and falls over that distant rise, my lord,” offered another. “We can rest and water the horses.”
The rise was in the wrong direction but Ramsey knew he could not ride his men and their mounts into the ground, no matter how desperate he was to catch Lyall before he destroyed his future and made himself into the traitor Ewan had been. The horses and men needed respite from the sun. His itching, sweaty skin and dust-burned eyes could use some shade and water.
“Aye. We’ll ride to the falls.” He pulled his cowl back over his damp head and waved his men forward.
The falls were wider than he had expected, with clear water rushing downward over granite rocks edged in lichen, trees cloaked with moss, lush patches of long grass and circles of cool treeshadow. Mist rose up from the spill of the falls and rinsed the dry, dirty taste from the midday air and cooled their hot,flushed skin. The horses drank for a long time, their tails flicking lazily at flies, and his men rested in the shade, many of them sitting in the grass, some in their linen and soaked from a quick swim in the cool waters, now chewing on dried meat and crusts of bread.
Ramsey wrapped closed his food cloth and tucked it inside his satchel. He winced when he felt the leagues he had travelled in his stiff muscles and rattled, creaking bones.
By God’s eyes he was getting old. Too old to rescue a young man from himself. They had been riding for a long stretch without stopping, compelled to stay on Lyall's trail from Inverness. Although he had joined his men late, after riding straight from Rossie, and they were still a merry distance from where he expected to find Lyall. He did not believe the lad could pass remotely close to Dunkeldon and not go there, so they were headed that way.
And there had been more news. Seemed that there was word the Gordon brothers were tracking and asking questions, too.
Ramsey’s instincts were high and strong. He would find Lyall. But he could not say if he could find him in time. His instincts seldom let him down, except perhaps in the glimmer of honor he’d thought he had seen in his stepson all those years back. Where did that lad go?
He glanced at his men and thought to give them more time, so they could ride even harder. He had men in eight different directions, like the one who discovered the Inverness trail, lone riders who could ask questions and find answers.
Another smaller contingent of men were with his captain, heading in a different direction, toward de Hay lands, but more as a precaution after what Mairi had revealed to him about Lyall's father by marriage. Isobel's father, Huchon De Hay, was a weasel of the worst kind, conniving in his practices and treasons. De Hay’s unfortunate ties by his own marriage to a powerful Norse earl as well as a blood bond as a distant cousin to the king of France had provided him protection for all too many years.
Would De Hay dare to conduct his treasons in his own nest? Did not seem likely. He was too sly to tempt getting caught. For all too long the man had managed to straddle both sides of the power struggle for the crown, waffling over and placating each side, while subversively aiding the other, hoping to make his own gains amidst the chaos.
In planning the king’s upcoming return, Sutherland had found enough evidence to suspect de Hay’s true loyalties lay among the Norse earls, or at least with their gold and promises. The wealth and power of those earls had been threatened by the true king’s marriage and the short peace that marriage brought before the young queen had died. That peace had put a stop to the earls’ constant, lucrative raids down into the southern isles and their drive to continually encroach upon northern borders. Rebellion and a king in exile kept their coffers filled and their lands expanding southward.
'Twas in the Norse earls best interests to feed a war over the Scots throne, allying and abetting Argyll, the most powerful lord in the west, and continuing to light the man's hungry desire for the power of the crown itself and using the well-known greed of England's Henry to aid in his schemes.
But William, the true king, was soon to be free. All the plans were set, the ransom grudgingly set and agreed.
Except that Lyall's stupidity and single-mindedness was about to ruin his own obligation and part in those plans, and jeopardize the safety of Glenna Canmore. All those years of hiding the king’s daughter were about to be made worthless because years back Ewan Robertson had been a traitor.
Lyall, where go you? Foolish, foolish lad to involve yourself in this. The noose is tightening about your neck, son.
Ramsey stared out at the misty dark outline of Ben Nevis in the distance, and felt as if the road he faced ahead was like climbing that great mountain on foot. His stepson had grown up determined, but lost, unable through his years of trying to in any way redeem his name, to extirpate his father’s treason. It seemedto him that Lyall had eventually given up and tied himself to de Hay with that disaster of a betrothal in a desperate attempt to regain his family’s lost lands. The meek Isobel De Hay had been raised in a nunnery and was unable to face wedding anyone other than her own God.
Since that disastrous day when Lyall had stood over her broken body, he had built a wall of solitude and isolation around himself, which led him on a dark path to destruction, all because of the pain and guilt the lad carried. That determined boy with the bow and quiver, and eye of an eagle, was slowly decaying and destroying the man he could be. Lyall was compelled by some demon of legacy to make the same mistakes Ewan had. And if Lyall was condemned to hang for treason, Beatris would shatter as easily as a clay pot dropped from the hall rafters.
Beatris.
The image of her as Ramsey had first seen her so long ago was always close to his mind. Back then, on that singular day so many years past, she had worn no hood or veil to hide her face. There was no need. She had been young and bright, with skin like the shine of the moon, her eyes the color of the firth in summer, and her hair--the darkest, deepest color of a ripe apple--long and waving down her back. She had been laughing, the sound like bells in the wind, and running into the arms of his closest friend.
The memory faded then, growing dry as the dust on the road they had travelled, leaving the same taste of failure in his mouth as those times when his wife hid her face from him. His Beatris could not survive much more suffering. Ewan’s betrayal wounded all of them in a deeply profound way.
There was only trouble ahead, for despite his compassion for his stepson and his great love for Beatris, his loyalty was first to his king. Above all, Ramsey knew he must keep his pledge to protect the king’s eldest daughter and if that meant Lyall would be sacrificed, then he little choice.
One of his men stood up abruptly. “My lord!”
Ramsey rose more swiftly than his muscles wanted.
“A rider!” More men shot to their feet, weapons ready as one of his outriders rode toward them with great speed.
Ramsey sheathed his weapon as the rider reined in. “Argyll is trapped and sent for aid from de Hay at Kinnesswood, my lord.”
