James nodded. “They took off in directions. I sent Sir John after one and I caught up with the other, your assailant, just as he sent his blade flying.”
Marmaduke jerked his head toward the discarded sword. “How did you lose your blade?”
“We struggled.” A scowl darkened the younger man’s face and he blew out an agitated breath. “He was larger than me, and heavier. He knocked the sword out of my hand. I…” Trailing off, he cast a rankled glance across the bailey to where Lachlan and Eoghann engaged the intruder.
With apparent ease, they were backing him into the curtain wall. Clearly, the offal-encrusted assailant posed no threat to Lachlan and the surprisingly well-skilled seneschal.
Equally clear was James’ shame at being bested.
Marmaduke returned his attention to the troubled-faced lordling. “Mind you, had your watchfulness not alerted the keep, who knows what damage yon blackguard may have wrought.”
“I did naught but prove my ineptness.” Jerking around, James limped away, his humiliation slinking after him, as plain to see as the exaggerated way he dragged one leg.
Marmaduke started after him but froze when a sharp, pain-filled cry rent the air. Dunlaidir’s luckless heir forgotten, he spun around, his anger cresting at the scene unfolding on the far side of the bailey.
Atop the seaward wall, Eoghann grappled with the intruder, the furious clang of clashing steel giving voice to the ferocity of their struggle. Lachlan lay sagged against the base of the wall, a dark stain spreading across the left side of his tunic, his sword still clutched in his hand.
With an enraged roar, Marmaduke raced across the bailey. Relief flooded him when Lachlan raised a hand, flashed a weak smile.
“’Tis no’ so bad,” he gasped, his gaze lifting to the wall-walk. “Help Eoghann. I will be fine…” he tailed off, clamped his hand again to his side.
Trusting Lachlan’s word, Marmaduke spun away and, in one fluid movement, vaulted up behind his would-be assassin, eager to give the varlet a fine taste of his metal. The man whirled on him, swinging his blade in a vicious arc meant to kill.
Marmaduke countered the blow with ease, deflecting his attacker’s sword with such force the man lurched wildly to the side. His eyes wide in stunned disbelief, he toppled through the unprotected notch between two of the wall’s merlons.
A keening scream, silenced almost before it’d begun, bore a blood-curdling testament to his fate.
Breathing hard, Marmaduke cast down his steel and peered over the wall. The man’s body sprawled spread-eagled across the jagged rocks far below, already slipping into the hungry sea.
His boat, a hide-covered coracle little bigger than a cockleshell, bobbed on the waves.
Marmaduke dragged his arm over his brow. “He must’ve scaled the cliff, then climbed up a latrine chute to gain entry.”
“Black-hearted craven!” Eoghann raged beside him, his breathing labored. “’Tis a well-deserved end he met, smeared with dung. I ne’er trusted that one, a queersome fellow he was.”
“What?” Marmaduke glanced at the seneschal. “You knew him?”
“Aye.” Eoghann spit over the walling. “Cadoc was his name and he hailed from Wales. A knight errant he called himself. A misbegotten churl, I say.”
“Of a certainty,” Marmaduke agreed, frowning down at the dark expanse of sea. “Did he offer his services here?”
“That was the way of it.” Eoghann dragged his sleeve across his mouth. “Swore homage to old Lord Keith, but no sooner did my master fall ill, did the scoundrel up and vanish. Like the rest of them, to a man.
“Sorry lot.” Eoghann’s eyes glittered with contempt, his fury pouring out in a passionate flood. “Forsworn bastards. Selling their souls for a scatter of coin and a promise of land. Keith land. Or so that devil Sir Hugh planned, thinking to wrest Dunlaidir into his own clutches.”
Marmaduke’s jaw hardened. “The man is a disgrace to his noble blood. I swear to you he will not lay claim to a single stone of this holding.”
“His villainy in these parts is beyond telling,” Eoghann said, sheathing his sword. “He is worse than a ravening wolf.”
“He will soon regret his misdeeds.” Hot anger coursing through him, Marmaduke leapt from the wall. He dropped to one knee beside Lachlan. “So, my friend, let us see what’s been done to you.”
“’Tis but a scratch, I told you.” Lachlan looked up at him, the paleness of his face saying otherwise.
“I pray God you are right,” Marmaduke returned, hoping he hadn’t judged wrongly in racing past the lad to join Eoghann on the wall.
As carefully as he could, he eased Lachlan’s blood-soaked jerkin away from the still-bleeding wound, relief washing over him, swift and sweet, upon glimpsing the cleanness of the cut.
“God’s mercy, you are right,” he said, forcing a twinkle to his good eye. “It is only a flesh wound. I’m afraid you will live to survive many more such skirmishes.”
