“Nay, Sir Duncan. As it happened, the king sent a mon the verra next day. Someone must have nigh killed a horse or two gettin’ word to him, but that Gair Balloch was sent to execute the woman. He said the king was wishin’ he could wring the woman’s neck himself, he was that angry.”
Exasperated, Duncan barked, “Are ye daft? I just told ye the king never got the message.”
The two men looked at each other, confused.
“Gair Balloch. Gair Balloch?” Something was not right. “Dinna move, lads,” Duncan yelled over his shoulder, ran up the stairs, and to his room. On the floor next to his bed he found the king’s letter to Tearloch. He did not read it again until he was back seated next to the MacCurrachs. “From Carlisle Keep, how long would it take a mon to reach Edinburgh?”
“By sea, around the peninsula, it takes a mon a day and one half. If he rides on a fast horse, it takes a bit less, but then he must take a boat across the firth, or ride around it.”
“Splendor of God, brother, we handed the woman over to a mon that couldnae have been sent by the king…”
“Did he kill her?” Duncan asked.
“Aye. He cut her head off right on her own hearth, then he left. We lingered to help some, since the place was in such chaos and only women in the household. Young Carlisle, the vile woman’s nephew, is laird now, come from the village at the other end of wee glen.”
The brother chimed in. “But just two days ago, this Balloch returns with a decree from the king givin’ him the dead woman’s land and property in payment for some great deed he had performed for His Majesty. He did no’ wish to tell us what it was. But the seal was genuine.”
The first man shook his head. “Not the kind of man ye’d expect our Malcolm to rub shoulders with.”
“It had somethin’ to do with one woman lookin’ like another. His friend marveled at the man’s luck for finding a woman who looked so much like the first. I dinnae ken what he meant…”
Duncan’s stomach churned just as furiously as his thoughts. “And where is this Balloch now?”
“At Carlisle Folly, just where we left him, the same day he rode in and took the place out from under Laird Carlisle’s nose...”
Duncan didn’t hear anything more as he was running for the stables. This woman, this Fia, who he suspected was the real Kenna, was headed straight for the devil’s lair. Before charging out the gate, he found Leland. “Leave Monroe in command and take the MacCurrachs to Edinburgh. Tearloch must marry no one until I get there. Do ye understand? Stop his weddin’ if ye must. Kidnap him, steal his bride. Whatever is needed. Do ye understand?”
As soon as Leland nodded, Duncan was off, praying every step of the way.
He was confident he could make up the distance and stop Kenna before she got as far as Gowry’s. Unfortunately, she rode as well as her brother, and Duncan never even saw her dust.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
While the three travelers stopped near a stream to rest their horses and eat their midday meal, they were comfortable forgoing conversation. Kincaid was thinking of his sister, who was at court, and whom he was pleased to be seeing again. He had advised her a little harshly, before he had left her the last time, and was anxious to make amends. The woman was twenty and one and married. He had little right to lecture her.
Jamie wiped away the sweat from his neck and face then lovingly washed out his white kerchief. He’d heard how well they worked and had harried the lass until she’d given him the one she had made for Tearloch, but had yet to give it to him. The smile on Jamie’s face was for the young thing whose eye he had caught with his first attempt at a gallant gesture.
Kincaid had warring feelings about leavin’ one particular MacPherson lass behind, but Lady Fia had assured him that it would give the woman a chance to miss him, which should intensify her feelings for him.
He had gone to say farewell to the imprisoned woman just before they departed for Edinburgh, and was pleased that she only wept and carried on when she believed Tearloch waslistening. She had greeted him cheerfully, listened to his concern over leavin’ his new lady love, then advised him and encouraged him without once mentioning the fact that she had been unfairly dealt with.
Jamie suspected Fia loved his leader and pitied her for it. To Kincaid’s thinking, there was not a man alive that deserved her. And now, from the corner of his eye, he watched as the man who had stolen Lady Fia’s heart paced up and down the bank.
Tearloch had lefthis problems behind him, safely under lock and key. He now forced himself to consider what awaited him in the city at which they would arrive in a few hours’ time.
The king had said she was as beautiful as Balloch had described. He remembered back to a fortnight before, when he stood before his king listening to the English peacock. Thanks to an intrigued and impatient king, Tearloch was soon headed to the Carlisle Clan with his heavily armed company in tow.
Tearloch now hoped that Agatha Carlisle yet lived so he could make her pay for every wrong she’d done to his lass. And make her pay dearly for lying to him. She had laughed when she confessed she’d sent the girl to be married to Gowry. Perhaps he should have made sure the woman had been telling the truth. But if he had never gone to Gowry’s…
He tried yet again to shake Kenna from his mind and consider his bride-to-be. If he and the king were both married and working toward heirs, the country would indeed become a quiet place. There were no realistic contenders left for the throne, and they could relax a bit.
Although a generation too late, Malcolm II’s intentions had been wise, if blood thirsty. The man had killed off all othermale descendants of Kenneth III, eliminating all distant cousins of his grandson, Duncan, and securing his ascension. Perhaps he should have taken a closer look at the female descendants as well, for that was the source of his grandson’s death. Lady Macbeth was a woman with two weapons; royal blood and an ambitious husband. Trusting Duncan never had a chance against them.
Malcolm III, with the help of his uncle Siward and his MacPherson friends, put an end to the reign of both Macbeth and his stepson, Lulach. Still young, he had taken his rightful place as Monarch of Scotland, just as his great grandfather had intended. An heir now would dissuade anyone with a drop of Kenneth MacAlpin’s blood, no matter how thin, from looking expectantly toward the throne. If, in fact, any still lived.
The kings of Scotland had been a violent bunch of cousins who lay in wait for their current king to be killed in battle, or simply hurry his demise along. Since the royal line followed the tradition of tanistry, the next king need not be a son of the last, but rather the next best choice in the family.
Cousins became heirs to the throne and there was little love and much blood lost between these relatives. More were murdered by their heirs than ever died of natural means or in battle. And it was this history of violent ends that had motivated Malcolm II to do what he had done for his grandson.
