Whatever problem he had with Malric, though he would not put it into words, perhaps there was some legitimacy to it. Perhaps, if she rode out tonight to meet him, she would find out in due time just what it was that Tavish had been trying to keep her away from.
But she brushed that aside at once. She couldn’t imagine that Malric would have been capable of anything as cruel as whatTavish seemed to have hinted at. They had been friends when they were children, and there had to be something that remained there, some kind of affection or at least respect that she could use to her advantage.
After a while, she listened to Martha chat away to the guards on the other side of the door, her voice light and pliant, and the clink of bottles and glasses as she did her duty and topped up their cups with something stronger than they could cope with.
Ailsa pressed her ear to the door, listening until their voices turned from slurs to snores, and then cracked the door an inch. Sure enough, there they were, sprawled on the floor, drool falling from the corner of their mouths as they slumbered stupidly on.
She whispered an apology to them as she pulled her cloak around her shoulders but did not linger on her guilt for too long as she rushed down the stairs and towards the stables once more.
She was clumsy in getting the saddle on the horse, jumping at every small sound and sure she would be caught out at any instant. But, eventually, she managed to get her steed prepared, and she scrambled into the saddle, took the reins, and led it to the back entrance of the Keep. It was always left open for the comings and goings of deliverymen for the kitchen.
Her cloak pulled up over her face and her head low, she made for the road, Malric’s rudimentary map tucked into her pocket as she took off towards the hills.
Her heart was thumping along with every beat of the horse’s hooves on the ground below, certain she was going to be captured and dragged back to the Keep. She could only imagine how Tavish would rage at her, knowing that she had gone out without his permission, but she had to. This wasn’t about defying him for the sake of it. This was about trying to avert abattle that would lead to the loss of life that she knew she could divert if she did the right thing.
Whatever Malric had done, it was surely not beyond the point of no return, not yet, at least.
She doubled back on herself a few times as she made her way through the hills that surrounded the Keep until she finally spotted the ruins of the chapel of St. Iona shrouded by a few large oak trees.
As she drew her horse to a halt, something nagged at the back of her head. This place was quiet, and not just because she was out here alone. No, it was as though the wind was holding its breath, not even the sound of the rustling of the trees in the air.
Her heart leapt into her throat, and she cast her eyes downward, remembering what Tavish had taught her about tracking. And there, beneath her, was a collection of hoofprints. Not a chance that they could be from a single horse. No, there had to be at least a half-dozen here overlapping each other, and recent enough that they were still marked clearly in the mud.
Malric had not mentioned coming here with guards.
She pulled on the reins, drawing her horse backward and trying to turn him around. But before she could make a dash for it, a figure moved out from behind one of the oak trees, followed by another, two men wearing MacCairn tartan, neither of them Malric.
Her horse let out a whinny, rearing on his hind legs, trying to strike them down on the spot. She planted a shaky hand on the beast’s neck, doing her best to calm him, even if she could not hear anything over the panicked rush of blood inside her head in that instant.
She could have tried to make a run for it, but she wouldn’t have gotten far. All at once, she wished that she was back in the confines of her chambers. They might have been a prison, but atleast they were a prison contained by a man who seemed to care for her in his own twisted way.
As the men closed the distance between them, one took the reins and led her towards the chapel. She was too terrified to fight him.
How many more of them were there? She could not imagine, and it terrified her to think of just how badly outnumbered she might have been.
And then, out of the darkness of the chapel, a man emerged.
It took her a moment to recognize him; he seemed so different from the man that she had known as a boy. The smile on his face was dark and cruel and seemed not to reach his eyes at all; a dark air about him like that spoke more to a monster than a man.
“Malric,” she finally managed to force out, doing her best to keep her voice from giving away the truth of her discomfort. “I thought we would be meeting here alone.”
“I promised no such thing, lass,” he replied with a devilish smile. “Ye thought I would come to a meeting wi’ ye with nothing in the way of protection? Ye must think me a fool.”
His voice was cold, cold enough that it sent a shiver down her spine. She felt tears threaten at her eyes, and she blinked them back furiously, refusing to let him see her like this.
“We were friends, Malric,” she implored him, trying to reach whatever version of him still hid amongst the man she saw before her now. “Ye were my friend. Callum’s friend. Ye traded with our families for years, wool, livestock, timber?—”
“Aye, I did,” he agreed. “And my father worked hard to build the reputation that he had wi’ yer clan and all the families in this place. A reputation that yer dear husband and his family were only too quick to destroy when they got the chance.”
“I dinnae ken what ye’re talking about,” she pleaded with him, doing her best to make sense of something, anything, ofwhat he was saying to her. This was the man who had seemed as keen as she to bring an end to this animosity before it had a chance to take place.
“Aye, he wouldnae tell ye, I’d bet,” he muttered. “Wouldnae want ye to hear what he did to us.”
“What did he do to ye, Malric?” she insisted. “I cannae help ye unless I?—”
He let out a short, sharp laugh, more like the bark of a wolf than that of a man.
“Ye think that I brought ye here because I needed yer help, lass?” he retorted, making his way towards her, pulling her roughly from the saddle so that they were standing eye to eye.
