Erik couldn’t believe it. A lad of no more than seven or eight—probably in charge of keeping the rats away from the food—had not only gotten the jump on him, but had managed to inflict some damage as well. He didn’t want to think about how close that knife had come to gelding him.
Erik was sure as hell glad the other members of the Guard weren’t here to see this; he would never hear the end of it. Especially from Seton and MacGregor, who usually bore the brunt of his needling. It was their own fault for making it too easy on him. Seton for being a bloody Englishman, and MacGregor for that pretty face of his.
“What was that?” Erik heard someone say from outside the door. He went utterly still, disaster only the slightest sound away.
He kept his eyes on the boy’s and shook his head in silent warning not to make a sound.
The boy’s eyes grew even rounder. The wee lad was clearly too terrified to do anything other than stare at Erik as if he were seeing a ghost.
Walk by, Erik silently encouraged the soldiers in the tunnel.
To no avail.
A moment later he heard a commanding voice order, “See to it, William.”
Erik grabbed the boy and moved soundlessly behind the door. He hoped William wasn’t too thorough.
The door pushed open. He held his breath and locked the boy in a near chokehold to prevent him from making a sound. He could hear William’s breathing through the heavy wooden planks of the door. A moment later, the storeroom flooded with light as a torch was extended into the room.
Every muscle in his body tensed; he was ready at a second’s notice to toss the boy aside and fight. Part of him—the part of him that wasn’t used to considering ramifications—hoped for the excuse.
“There’s nothing here,” the soldier on the other side of the door said. “Must have been a rat.”
A moment later the door closed, but Erik waited until the last sound of footsteps faded before he set down the boy.
“No screaming, lad,” he whispered in Gaelic. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
Slowly, he released his hand from the boy’s mouth. The boy immediately scattered to the farthest corner of the small room to hide behind a big barrel. “Please, I’ll be good,” he whimpered in a trembling voice. “Don’t take me to hell with you. I promise to listen to my mum.”
Erik’s first instinct was to calm the terror-struck child. But then he recalled Seamus’s comments earlier and realized the boy’s fear would solve the problem of leaving a witness behind. If the boy told anyone what he’d seen, they’d just think it the child’s imagination. Perhaps some men wouldn’t hesitate to kill the lad, but Erik drew the line at murdering innocents. Like Ellie, the boy had merely been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
In the most eerie voice he could muster, he said, “Close your eyes, don’t move, and make no sound until morning or I will return. Do you understand?”
The boy didn’t say anything, but Erik was fairly sure he was nodding frantically.
He thought about trying to find something to bind his wound but knew it would only fall off in the water. After checking to make sure the tunnel was clear, Erik stepped outside. But knowing how the stories of a phantom army were already spreading across the countryside, he couldn’t resist one more warning to the boy. “Tell the English to leave Scotland or pay the price. We’re coming for them.”
He heard a gasp and knew the boy must have heard the rumors. Bruce knew that fear could be a very powerful weapon among their enemies and had encouraged the tales of his phantom army of marauders intent on hunting down every last Englishman in Scotland.
Fairly certain that the boy wouldn’t blink until morning, Erik didn’t want to take any chances and hurried down the tunnel toward the dock—this time uninterrupted. He held his hand over the wound across his stomach to staunch the blood as well as he could. Stopping to examine it in the torchlight, he was relieved to see that although it was bleeding heavily, it didn’t appear too deep. The salt water, however, was going to sting like hell. At least he’d be too numb after a few minutes in the cold water to feel it.
He sure as hell hoped there weren’t many sharks nearby. Wrestling sharks might have been something he enjoyed as a lad, but he’d lost the taste for it after one had nearly taken off his hand. Erik didn’t get scared, but facing a big shark at night came damn close.
Forty minutes and thankfully no shark sightings later, Erik dragged himself out of the water and was surrounded by his men before he’d hit the edge of the beach. The loss of blood coupled with the long swim had weakened him to the point of collapse. But he’d made it.
When Domnall saw the gash, he fussed like an old woman and wanted to send someone for Meg immediately, but Erik didn’t want to wake her--them. Ellie needed her sleep. She prickled up like an angry bear if someone tried to wake her too early. The wound could wait until morning.
But he was already looking forward to telling Ellie that his mission had been a success—mostly, though with his near discovery it would be too risky to attempt to return to Dunaverty anytime soon.
She needed to have a little fun, and he was going to be the one to show her how.
Ellie was finishing up the last bit of shortcake—leftover oat bread that Meg had sprinkled with sugar and put in the oven overnight to dry into a flaky, delectable treat—when someone knocked on the door.
Thinking it would be Hawk, she was surprised to see Duncan stride into the hall. He returned her morning greeting and then turned quickly to Meg, who had just finished taking a tray to Thomas.
“Meg, we need you down at camp to stitch a wound when you have a chance,” he smiled.
Meg smiled. “I’ll get my things.”
