“The fortress is just ahead, Maggie. Dinna forget what I asked you this morn, if only tae protect you. Will you promise me?”
“Aye, Gabriel, I promise,” she whispered, the huskiness of his voice against her ear sending fresh shivers to her toes.
The road had widened and Cameron and Conall rode alongside them now, Magdalene catching a glance between the brothers that told her they sensed everything had changed between her and Gabriel.
Had he told them that she was no lunatic? If anyone knew at all, it would be his trusted captains. Yet what had Gabriel meant by suggesting that Magdalene continuing with her ruse might protect her?
A sudden sense of intuition gripped her that mayhap he didn’t trust her brother, which only made her long for time alone with Gabriel so they could talk at last! Surely once they reached the fortress—
“Och, Magdalene, dinna look.”
She felt Gabriel stiffen with tension as they passed by a thick stand of trees, but she had no chance to turn her head before she saw the bodies hanging from the lowest limbs.
Dear God, executions? Why, then, hadn’t Seoras ordered the rotting corpses cut down and buried rather than leave them there for all to see?
With a sickening feeling, Magdalene realized she had answered her own query—that her brother wanted it that way.
A warning. A promise. Death would come to any that opposed him. Had those poor wretches been Robert the Bruce’s men?
“Oh, Gabriel, what madness are we soon tae face?” she murmured before catching herself, Gabriel’s arm tightening around her.
“Take care what you say, wife—take care from this moment! Seoras’s spies are everywhere. I dinna fault your words, but I can see things are much worse than when I was here a month past tae ask him for gold tae help my kinsmen. That’s how we came tae be wed by proxy. Seoras wouldna give me a single coin unless I agreed tae take you for my bride—aye, tae try and control me, I’m certain of it. Och, enough! We’ll speak more of your brother’s treachery later.”
Your brother’s treachery! Stunned by his words, Magdalene glanced up at Gabriel, but he was looking ahead to the looming fortress three times the size of MacLachlan Castle.
She followed his gaze, her breath stilled to think that he might not be loyal to Seoras at all, Gabriel’s fealty mayhap shifted to another man. King Robert?
Magdalene clutched his arm and laced her fingers tightly with Gabriel’s, that he had uttered such a thing showing his trust in her.
He knew nothing of her feelings for Seoras and if she shared Gabriel’s disgust—och, when would they have some time alone so she could voice them? Mayhap that her brother had married her off against her will was enough for Gabriel to know that there was no love lost between them—
“So it’s not just enemy fighters, but villagers, too,” Gabriel’s grim voice broke into Magdalene’s thoughts as loud weeping made her look to the opposite side of the road.
A host of women and children kneeling beside fresh corpses made the blood drain from her face, she felt it. Lamenting and wailing unlike anything she’d heard before gave her chills, one little girl tugging at the bloodied hand of what must have been her father.
A pretty young woman heavy with child knelt beside another dead man, and rocked back and forth holding her swollen stomach while an older woman tried to comfort her—but to no avail. Her grief-stricken keening rent the air, making tears rush to Magdalene’s eyes.
“Gabriel, is there aught we can do?”
“Not here. Not now,” was all he said in a tone so harsh that she almost didn’t recognize it. “Seoras will show no mercy tae anyone he deems treasonous—anyone. He wants tae be king and he’ll allow no one tae stand in his way.”
King?Her brother? Magdalene clutched Gabriel’s hand all the tighter, her fingers turning white.
Yet why wouldn’t Seoras aspire to the throne? It made perfect sense. The Red Comyn had been slain last year by his main rival, Robert the Bruce. Who could say how many other powerful earls refused to acknowledge him as king of Scotland? Clearly her brother was wasting no time in asserting his claim by crushing those who might oppose him—including some of his own people…
Suddenly Magdalene felt icy cold, her heartbeat pounding in her ears.
“I fear for you, Gabriel,” she murmured, but her words were lost to the snorting of his horse as they drew closer to the massive fortress.
A village that had grown twice over since last she’d been there lay to the right of the road, but the place was eerily silent as they passed by.
No laughter. No children playing in front of the houses. Windows were shuttered, the market stalls empty.
Yet it was a time of war after all, everyone no doubt aware of that night raid upon another village not far from the fortress—aye, she’d heard Seoras’s messenger. Only armed warriors posted on both sides of the road acknowledged their passing, some of the men bowing their heads slightly at Gabriel when they appeared to recognize him.
MacDougall clansmen. Her brother’s minions. Were their swords dripping red from the villagers that had recently been slain? Villagers suspected to have been consorting somehow with King Robert’s forces hiding in the nearby mountains?
Magdalene glanced up at Gabriel to see if he was inclining his head to them as well, but his gaze was focused straight ahead upon the massive drawbridge being lowered for them.
