Yet he no sooner approached the entrance to the great hall when a guard burst into the foyer from outside, his face flushed red from running.
“What is it, man?” Errol demanded, but the guard rushed past him, clearly seeking Gavin.
“Laird MacLachlan, there’s a lass outside the gates pleading tae enter! She says she escaped from marauding raiders—och, her tunic is bloody, her legs. She looks tae have been ravished?—”
“By God, then open the damned gates!” Gavin roared out as he stormed from the great hall with the guard on his heels, Errol lunging after them into a bailey resounding with commotion.
More guards shouted from the ramparts and warriors ran from the barracks with their swords drawn.
Gavin bellowed for someone to fetch the healer as he reached the entrance and helped to lift the heavy iron bar, Errol right alongside him to pull open the creaking gates.
His heart pounded at the sight of a young woman with tangled dark hair crouched on her knees and begging near incoherently for help…until she collapsed into a heap upon the ground.
CHAPTER 14
Errol was the first to reach the bloodied woman and lifted her into his arms as Gavin came up beside him, scowling, his gaze riveted upon the sea.
“Nothing…no sails, no ships—damn the bastards!Where are they?”
Errol had no answer for him, the woman moaning so piteously that he felt certain she was near death.
Her clothing and legs smeared with dried blood that sickened him to see it—his mind jumping to the torment Tira had suffered.
Yet to his surprise Gavin took the woman from him, none too gently, and strode with her back into the bailey, Errol following close behind.
His astonishment only increased when Gavin shouted for his men to shut and bar the gates, his commands ringing out around them.
“Guards on the ramparts, keep watch for any suspicious movement among the rocks and along the beach!”
“You two, fetch my bairns from the garden and return them tae the keep!”
“The rest of you dress in your armor and prepare for an imminent attack!”
No sooner had Gavin finished the last order than he dumped the woman unceremoniously upon the ground and unsheathed his sword to point the deadly weapon at her throat.
Her eyes wide and her face flushed, she stared up at him with as much surprise as Errol felt at Gavin’s harsh treatment—though the sudden tightening of her jaw made Errol realize that all was not as it had first appeared.
“Who are you?” Gavin demanded, his scowl all the darker. “What ruse are you playing?”
“I-I dinna know what you mean, Laird. I told your men I escaped from raiders—ah, God, look at me! If I hadna struck with a rock the brute having his way with me and then run into the woods, I would be dead by now from their ravishment?—”
“By God, you lie! From the amount of blood staining your tunic, your legs, you would have been dead already with no strength left tae climb the hill tae these gates! Do you think me a fool? Tell me why you’re here or I swear, you’ve only a moment more tae draw breath!”
She gasped at the harshly uttered threat, Gavin’s sword pressed now to the base of her throat as angry tears filled her eyes.
“My village far tae the north was attacked two weeks ago and many were killed, but I chose tae live by becoming Thorgren’s woman—aye, Thorgren Sigurdson, the famed Orkney raider! I was tae be his wife, his queen!Me, Roslin MacRae, a fisherman’s daughter—but now I will be nothing, so kill me, I dinna care?—”
“Not good enough, he sent you here for a reason,” Errol interjected, his fists clenched with fury as Gavin lowered his sword and reached down to haul her to her feet.
“Aye, for what reason?” he echoed as Roslin glanced from him to Errol and back again with her dark eyes narrowed and her chin lifted as if taunting them.
“He wants his son…and the wench dead who bore him, Tira Cheyne. I was tae cut her throat and threaten tae kill the babe, too, if you wouldna allow me through the gates so I could return tae him?—”
“Myson now, you fiend from hell,” Errol cut her off again, his hand moving to the hilt of his sword. “Mywifenow, Tira Sutherland, who you intended tae murder. Dinna dare tae utter her name again or I will?—”
“What? Cleave my head from my neck? I told you already tae kill me! Do you think I can return tae Thorgren now that I’ve failed him?”
“Silence!” Gavin’s face ruddy with fury, he shook the woman so roughly that Errol swore he heard her teeth rattling—and now for the first time she appeared truly afraid instead of defiant as she gaped at Gavin.
