“And now I have no plan. Save launching an attack at the man who calls himself the Laird of Greenock.” Bile rose in his throat.
“If ye kill him, he’ll only be replaced by another.” Siegfried shrugged expansively. He had seen more than fifty summers,but his shoulders were as broad and muscular as any younger warrior’s.
“What would you have me do then? Kill the King of England?” Hamish was only half joking. His back ached and the fur of his cloak had been damp for days.
Beside him, Brianne tossed back her hair and declared that, at last, things were getting interesting.
But Siegfried was less easily swayed by hyperbole. “Ye need something over him.” He put down his bowl and gazed into the orange flames. “What do ye know of the man? This Lord Gaunt?”
“Naught.” Hamish shrugged. “Save he is short and weak. He looks hardly able to lift his own broadsword.”
“He has nay need to. He commands an army,” Siegfried reminded him.
Hamish spat into the fire. His mother had raised him as a gentleman, but at that moment he cared little for the fine manners she had instilled in him. “A man who canna fight his own battles is not worthy to be called Laird of Greenock.”
“Nor is a man who canna think before he acts.”
Hamish bristled at the reprimand. Siegfried had taught him much, aye, but that didna give the man the right to speak to him as if he was a green youngling.
“He has taken Elena,” he growled, clenching the wooden spoon so tight he thought it might splinter.
“I have nay forgotten that.” Siegfried’s eyes were calm.
“I canna bide here whilst a weakling takes my castle and holds my sister hostage.” Hamish’s voice shook with the rage he had been holding inside since the fateful siege.
“She is of noble blood. He will treat her as such.”
“Are ye certain of that?” Hamish rose to his feet and loomed over his companion, straightening up when he saw a flicker of apprehension in his blue eyes. “Forgive me, Siegfried. None of this is yer fault. But heaven knows I must take my revenge.”
Siegfried lifted his chin so he could meet Hamish’s gaze. “Then ye risk losing another sister.”
His words carried a note of finality. For a while, the only sound was the crackling of logs in the fire and the incessant rushing of the rain. Hamish looked for Brianne, to see what she made of this, but she had gone.
She was never really here in the first place. Except in his memory and heart and very soul.
A wave of loss made his knees buckle. He fought for breath as if he was winded.
“Brianne’s death was not yer fault,” Siegfried said softly.
“Dinna speak of it.” Hamish held up a warning hand. He wanted to sit back down on the log but could not find his way for the tears that momentarily blinded him.
When his elderly father insisted on fighting beside him during the battle to retake Greenock from Donald, Hamish had no choice but to comply. The fighting was hard and bloody, with both sides suffering heavy losses. Compelled to keep one eye on his father, Hamish had lost sight of Brianne. He’d told himself that she would be okay; that she was a warrior as fierce as any other.
Aye, Brianne had fought like a warrior. In the end, she died like a warrior. But that knowledge brought him no comfort. His spirited sister haunted his every thought and Hamish knew that however long he lived, he would never forgive himself for leaving her side on that fateful day.
“Elena lives still. All this is but temporary.” Siegfried gestured behind him at the comfortless cave. “But ye must choose yer next move with care.”
Hamish stumbled back to the log, breathing deeply to dispel the despair rising within his breast. His hands gripped the rough bark, rooting him in the here and now.
He had prevailed once, against those who would take his family home away from him and spill the blood of the innocent.
Ye Gods, he would prevail again.
But how?
Siegfried quirked a bushy eyebrow. “Ye dinna fancy strumming a tune on yon lute?”
Hamish guffawed with unexpected laughter, not even glancing toward the rocky shelf in the back of the cave where he had stowed his beloved instrument. “Now is not the time, but I thank ye for lightening the mood.”
