“Duncan spoke highly of Dunlaidir’s garrison,” Sir Lachlan, the youngest of the Highland warriors, commented. “It would seem they are no more.”
“Indeed.” Marmaduke nodded at the recently-dubbed knight, then cast another quick glance at the apparently deserted gatehouse. In the distance, Dunlaidir’s crenellated curtain walls rose proud against an iron-gray sky, yet not one guardsman could be seen patrolling the impressive ramparts.
“All appears abandoned, yet I vow unseen eyes have observed our every move since we crossed onto Keith land earlier this morning.” Marmaduke drew his great sword and rested the sharply honed blade almost casually across his thighs. “I do not believe those eyes belonged to the village folk who scuttled away, disappearing into their hovels, the moment they caught sight of us.”
As one, his companions nodded in agreement. Sir Alec, the oldest and most battle-proved of the Highland knights, spat on the rocky ground, then swiped the back of his hand over his mouth. “An ill wind blows here,” he said, unsheathing his own blade. “I dinnae like it.”
The grim set of the other men’s jaws assured Marmaduke they shared Alec’s sentiments.
And his own.
A dark wind lashed against the clifftop stronghold, a formidable force of destruction threatening to plunge Dunlaidir’s massive walls stone by stone into the cold waters of the sea. Leastways, if nothing was done to stave the air of decline so rife all around them.
Even the holding’s vast surrounds had seemed contaminated by an oppressive cloud of dereliction: the once far-reaching arable fields lay untilled and fallow, what few livestock they’d spotted had been small in number and ill-fed, the tumbledown peasants’ dwellings forlorn and cold-looking – as empty as the cluster of better-made stone cottages forming the village and now, the gatehouse and castle as well.
The handful of souls they’d come upon had skulked out of sight, their haggard faces averted as if they feared they’d be cast to stone did they but glance at Marmaduke and his small party of MacKenzies.
Saints, the taint swirled so thick Marmaduke could taste its foulness on his tongue.
Then the sharp yipping of a dog broke the silence. The sound came from afar, carried on the wind, but proved a welcome reprieve in a gray and chill world that presented itself more inhospitable than he had dared imagine.
Indeed, he’d expected to be welcomed.
Pushing that hope from his mind, he glanced at his men. “It would seem at least one inhabitant of Dunlaidir has stirred himself to greet us,” he said, prodding his horse toward the gatehouse and the narrow spit of land looming beyond.
The dog barked again, the sound lifting his spirits.
“Come, my friends, let us make the little fellow’s acquaintance and, if the saints are with us, that of Lady Linnet’s fair sister,” he called over his shoulder as his companions fell in behind him. “May God have mercy on the perpetrators if aught has befallen her.”
Within moments, he’d reached the first gatehouse and rode beneath the raised portcullis, its steel-ended spikes benign and useless hoisted as they were and without a watchful guard to drop them in place should an enemy dare attempt to breach this first crucial defense.
But the only eyes to witness their passing were those of roosting gulls and a few fleet-footed rodents.
As if aware of their approach, the dog’s barking issued anew, closer this time, and Marmaduke kneed his horse, impatient to close the remaining distance to Dunlaidir’s impressive but unmanned curtain walls.
There, too, at the main gatehouse, a second portcullis proved locked into a fully pointless position near the arched ceiling of yet another tunnel, this one carved into the very rock upon which the stronghold was built.
And here, too, no one barred the way.
Nor did vile-reeking refuse or boiling oil come sailing down from above to impede their passage.
Nothing stopped them at all until they clattered into Dunlaidir’s inner bailey and Marmaduke came face to face with the lady whose heart he meant to win.
The woman he hoped would banish his long years of loneliness and put an end to countless nights spent sleeping in a cold and empty bed.
She stood not far from the outer stairs, a tiny golden-brown dog clutched in her arms, a look Marmaduke could only call serene resignation clouding what would surely be an angel’s face if only she would smile.
His men rode up to flank him, reining in their steeds in well-researched formation, two to his right, two to his left. Marmaduke took scant notice of them, so intent was he on the vision before him.
The indrawn breaths of his companions left no doubt that they, too, were rendered speechless by the lady’s stunning beauty and grace.
In truth, two lovely damsels stood awaiting them, one tall and fair, the other pleasingly rounded and dark, but Marmaduke knew instinctively which one was his.
The fair one.
He knew it deep in his gut, and not simply because of the faint resemblance she bore to his sister.
No, it was the look of vulnerability in the depths of her dark blue eyes that skewered his heart and gave away her identity. The invisible burden of long-borne unhappiness, and an unseen but palpable air of resignation weighing on shoulders she held so proud and straight.
