“Aye, I’ll go mesel’ and find her straight away, m’laird,” Connor replied.
“Good. Then come tae me study as well.”
“Aye, will dae.”
“All right.” Gregory announced decisively. “This meetin’ is now closed.”
With a heavy sense of dread settling in her belly, Isla forced herself to stay put while her brother and the murmuring councilmen slowly vacated the chamber. When she was finally left alone, she crept out from her hiding place and made her way to the door. Opening it a crack, she peeped out into the hallway. The Council members were quickly dispersing, and she saw Gregory disappearing through the door to his study a little further down the hall. Kelvin and Domnhall, conversing in low voices, were hurrying away to carry out their orders.
When she was satisfied the coast was clear, she slipped out into the hallway and made her way to her chamber on the first floor. She was about to mount the stone staircase when she heard someone call her name.
Connor.
She stopped and turned to him as he came up to her. Tall and rangy, he towered over her, his usually mild expression grim as he met her eyes.
“Aye? What is it, Connor?” she asked, hiding her guilt behind a smile as she struggled not to betray her ill-gotten knowledge to this trustworthy friend of long-standing.
Connor caught up to her and looked around to make sure no one among the bustling servants and other castle folk passing by were listening. Apparently satisfied they were out of range, he spoke softly. “Isla, I hate tae be the one tae havetae tell ye this, but we’ve just heard that Ballentine is mustering his forces nae far from the castle.”
Isla let her smile fade and her genuine alarm show on her face. “Ye mean he’s gonnae attack the castle?” she asked.
Connor nodded, setting his long, reddish curls bobbing. “Well, we cannae be sure, but everythin’ points tae it, aye,” he replied.
“Lord! What will become of us?” she murmured, trying to maintain an air of calm, as befitted the lady of the castle, for anyone watching them.
“Gregory’s planning our defense right now. He says he’ll speak tae ye later, but in the meantime, he wants ye tae get everybody who cannae fight busy helpin’ with preparations fer what’s tae come. D’ye ken what tae dae?”
Isla nodded, her blood running cold again. “Aye, I ken. Me grandmaither left me instructions should something like this ever happen.”
“I’ll leave it in yer hands then. I have other things tae dae before I join Gregory and the others in his study. Perhaps I’ll see ye later.”
“Aye, perhaps,” she said after him as he hurried away.
Isla went upstairs to her chamber, and when she shut the door behind her, her false composure fled. Tears flowed from her eyes as she sank down onto her bed, the feeling of icy dread growing within her. It was accompanied by a myriad of frighteningthoughts and images that ran through her head in a maddening whirl.
In her mind’s eye, she went back sixteen years, to the night that was stamped indelibly on her memory. The night when assassins broke into the castle and murdered their parents in their beds. Five-year-old Isla had not known that when she was awoken by screaming and shouting in the night, but she had sensed great danger in the air.
Acting on a protective instinct, she had jumped out of bed and pulled a sleeping Gregory, aged only four, from his. Then, pressing a finger to his lips, she had dragged him across the room to hide in a wardrobe, staying there, crouched silently among the clothing, until somebody came to find them.
It was only some time afterwards, when their grandmother had told her what a brave and clever girl she was, that Isla finally understood her actions that night had saved both her own and Gregory’s lives. By rights, they should have both been dead too, for someone had sent men to kill her entire family and wipe the Galbraiths from the face of the earth. The question as to who was responsible for murdering their parents and for what reason haunted her and Gregory, though they seldom spoke of it.
The terrible loss formed an unbreakable bond between them, and it left Isla with a deep-seated fear of being left alone—specifically of losing Gregory. As they grew to adulthood, she and her brother remained close. She grew to rely on him, and when their grandmother passed away, she never forgot Gregory was all the family she had left. Even though he was a grown manand the laird of their clan, she still retained that big-sister urge to protect him from harm, for she could not bear the thought of losing him.
In the last several months, since this war had started and they had been fighting on behalf of Laird Allan against Ewan Ballentine, she had been forced to watch Gregory ride out to battle with his men on many occasions. Each time she had felt sick with terror at the thought that she might never see him alive again.
While he had been away, she had prayed almost constantly for him to stay safe and for an end to the bloody hostilities. Half her prayers had been answered. So far, Gregory had always come back in one piece. But since then the war had only intensified, and now the attack on the castle was imminent.
I cannae let him keep fightin’ this war,especially since ’tis nae truly ours. How much longer can his luck hold? I must find some way tae put an end tae the fightin’ and keep him safe. But how?
Feeling utterly powerless but knowing her duty as the laird’s sister and official lady of the castle, she pulled herself together, crossed to her dresser, and opened the bottom drawer. She paused for a moment, staring at the rolled parchment, which had lain there forgotten for so long, hesitating to touch it. For doing so would make the nightmarish threat at their gates all too real. It contained the instructions their grandmother had left for her to face just such an emergency as this.
Nevertheless, she forced herself to extract it from the drawer and unroll it. Her heart clenched painfully to see their grandmother’s flowing hand once more after so many years. With trembling hands and a lump in her throat, she began to read the long list of instructions for the lady of the castle to do her duty to prepare for an attack.
Wells within the walls must be secured. Water should also be stored in vats in the cellars of the keep in case the enemy infiltrates the outer walls.
As many candles and lamps as possible (and large quantities of lamp oil) should be speedily acquired, to be rationed and deployed only where strictly necessary.
Inventory food supplies. As much grain and produce as can be had in the time allowed must be brought inside the castle walls and properly stored within the keep cellars. Lay as much meat and fish down to salt as possible. In case of a siege, it will be necessary to ration food.
