5
As he looked around the kitchen, Finlay could see that the room must have been burned out and robbed many times. The stone walls were black from fire, and the furnishings were sparse and old. A faded rag hung across the window instead of shutters. It was a drab and depressing room, but the blacksmith and his bonny daughter seemed to be so used to their squalid surroundings that they no longer noticed it.
“It’s hard to imagine yer claims of gold are truthful, Master,” Finlay said as the blacksmith set a plate of bread and cheese in front of him. “If I were to judge by this cottage.”
When he saw the look of alarm cross the man’s face again, he reassured him, “Master, I am, in truth, yer laird an’ the rightful chieftain o’ the Dougal clan. I swear to ye that I am no’ tryin’ to find the location of yer daughter’s dowry.”
The blacksmith apologized. “Forgive me, Laird. Ye have made me so suspicious after tellin’ me the steward might be after me gold that I nay longer trust anyone.”
“Ye can trust me, Master,” Finlay said after taking another long swig of ale, “because it will suit me to ken ye are far away from here by the time I get to slaughtering all of those who thought they could take me lands and castle away from me. When ye do leave, are ye headed for Inverness?”
“Och aye, sir,” Master McDonnell told him, “but I think I’ll keep the day an’ time of me departure a secret for now in case the steward tries to stick a spoke in me wheel.”
Finlay finished eating and pushed his plate away from him. “The thing is, Master blacksmith, yer plans an’ my plans might be more closely allied than ye think.”
He saw Isla’s head turn quickly after he said these words.
“Are ye comin’ to Inverness too, sir?” she asked him, but he shook his head.
“Nay, lass, but I think we should all leave together, yerself and my troop o’ men. I believe that we can do nay good hangin’ about here and must regroup somewhere else. By all means, leave under yer own will if that is what ye want, but our chances of escaping are better if we do it together.”
The blacksmith shook his head, but it was because he was in denial of what he was facing.
“To think that I would see the day when Isla an’ I had to sneak away from the only home we have ever kent… I can hardly believe it.”
Finlay leaned back in his chair. “The Dougal Castle ye kent has been gone these past months. The moment me faither died, leaving no one to take his place, it left a gaping hole for someone who had long wished to wield power to step in an’ take his place. The circumstances were ripe for it: a never-ending war with no effort to heal the rift; the constant raids as proof that I had been sent away and had done naught to end the strife; no more sturdy Dougal soldiers left to guard the keep; an’ a life full o’ sufferin’. If it were me in the place of the steward, I would have seized me chance as well.”
“D’ye mean to say our gold is safe? That he will allow us to leave after he finds a replacement blacksmith?” The bonny young maiden asked him, shifting ever so closer to him as she waited expectantly for his answer.
As much as he was loath to do it, Finlay shook his head. “Nay, sweet lass. It is me belief that the steward simply sought to delay yer leaving so that he might think of the best way to lay his hands on the gold yer faither spoke about. Must be the only reason he didnae punish ye then and there for what ye said to him.”
He watched as father and daughter lost the sense of optimism they previously had. A rap on the front doorframe interrupted their silent contemplations. The blacksmith got up to see who the visitor was and returned with Alex.
“I thought I’d find ye here, Fin,” his friend said with a quick wink and a jerk of his head in Isla’s direction. “I am come to find out what ye have decided to do.”
“Och, I must do something about yer poor leg, sir!”
Isla got up from her chair and went to lean over the bandaged wound in Alexander’s thigh.
“It’s naught but an ax wound in the muscle, lass,” Alex said with a careful shrug. “Those pesky Norsemen are too ripe an’ ready with their axes. I swear they are born with an ax stuck in their hands because enough o’ them rushed out of the flamin’ huts carryin’ the bustert weapons with them!”
Everyone laughed, and the three men chatted amongst themselves about the attack on the mercenaries’ harbor while Isla went to get her healing chest from the castle. When she returned, she knelt down in front of Alex and began to unwrap the wound. Finlay felt a spasm of jealousy in his chest as he watched Isla clean the wound on his friend’s thigh. She brought her nose close to the skin and sniffed, checking for any putrefaction.
“It’s good, Miss Isla,” Alex reassured the maiden. “Fin always makes us keep our moldy auld bread to use under the bandages. He says it keeps the wound from turning bad.”
“Aye,” Isla said, “yer friend is correct.”
She looked across at where he was seated, and Finlay felt his heart jump and his stoMch twist when she smiled at him.
Is this me body’s way o’ tellin’ me I need to release me passion into a woman? Me desires have lain low for so long, I’ve forgotten how it feels to lie with a woman.
He cast his mind back to the last time he had been visited by a woman in his bed. As every good spy knew, Finlay understood that he must never be the first one to approach a woman because she was more likely to remember him that way. Especially if he crept from her bed in the middle of the night, causing her to bear a grudge against him. But a bored housewife or widow who came to his bed under her own inclination was far more likely to forget the encounter after having her lusts fulfilled and then never again mention the braw dark-haired man who had shown her a little piece of heaven for a short while.
It had been at the McTavish port. He was pretending to be a humble farmer from inland looking to attend a horse sale. The innkeeper’s wife had crawled into his bed when the kirk clock tower was striking midnight.
“Ye look like ye can show me a good time, sir,” she had whispered into his ear as she fondled him under his trews. “Let’s see if that muscle ye have hidden under yer trews is as lovely as those big muscles o’ yers on yer arms.”
She had not complained when his body responded to her caresses, and he made use of her services several times in the night, thus confirming her hopes of his strength and large muscles in every way. But that encounter had been many months ago, and Finlay could not stop his body from responding as he imagined Isla’s soft hand moving up his thigh instead of that of the innkeeper’s wife. He was even jealous when Isla brought out a needle and dried gut thread and began sewing up the thin gash, an action that made Alex wince and bite his tongue.
