“Sir Marmaduke isn’t Scottish,” Rhona reminded her.
“But he loves Scotland,” Caterine said, knowing he did. “That’s enough. And…” She drew a long breath, released it slowly. “Dunlaidir needs us.”
“So you’ll be doing thissomething?”
Caterine nodded. “I will try, anyway.”
“Does it include nakedness?”
“It might,” was all Caterine would admit. Truth was, it included nakedness and more.
If she could do it.
“Faith and mercy…” She pressed a hand to her breast, doubts rising.
Rhona’s frown became a look of concern. “Forgive me. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“You didn’t.” But Caterine wondered if she could ever be so bold, so abandoned, as Devorgilla’s land-blessing would require. “Nothing troubles me that will not pass,” she said, hoping to soothe her friend.
“Will you sleep this night?” Rhona circled back to the reason they were both awake at this late hour. “Are you as worried as I am?”
Catherine gulped back her own trepidation. Unlike her worries about following the advice of a half-mythic crone some claimed was older than Scotland’s rocks, this fear sat thickly in the back of her throat, hot and burning, its portent frightening.
Steeling herself against a dread she didn’t want to ponder, she turned again to the sea. Still blanketed with fog, nothing but its ceaseless crash against the cliffs hinted at its nearness.
That, and the cold, brine-laced air.
“We needn’t worry,” she said then, the words coming more from the swirling mist drifting past the window than from her. “They will soon return, and unscathed.”
A strange but welcome conviction she simply knew to be true.
As if an angel had whispered it into her heart.
Chapter 36
Late the next afternoon, strong winds drove sleety rain across Dunlaidir’s bailey, the gloaming dark just beginning to set in, as Sir Marmaduke and his bone-weary companions finally clattered into the stronghold’s deserted inner courtyard.
No trumpets sounded, no cheers rose to greet them. Not a single cry of joy for the fat bullock and equally plump milk cow they led behind them.
Far from it…
Nary a soul stirred, and a deep quiet – almost a death pall – hung heavy in the chill air. They found an eerie place and moment, shrouded in silence, with no wish to be disturbed.
As if the whole castle slept.
Or mourned.
From the corner of his good eye, Marmaduke caught Sir Alec crossing himself. Sir Gowan, the most rough-hewn of his men, appeared ill at ease as well, his gaze flitting about the empty bailey.
“They will not know we are back,” Marmaduke spoke at last, swinging down onto the rain-dark cobbles. Looking round, he shoved back his mailed coif, then ran a hand through his hair.
The others remained silent, their faces grim.
Then Sir Ross made the sign against evil and began mumbling prayers to the ancients, the old gods of their pagan ancestors.
“There’s no cause for concern,” Marmaduke said, secretly wishing he believed his own words. “This gloom is not for man or beast, that’s for sure.”
No one answered, and he understood.
