“The chief was attacked on the road. It’s bad, Dair.”
“Where was his tail, his escort?” Dair demanded. “He took thirty men with him.”
“I know—I was one of them. He left twenty men in Edinburgh. There was unrest. The mob hoped to find some of the crewmen from the English ship, and they wanted revenge for Jeannie, and for you. Your father allowed it, encouraged it. He got your message and we left at once. He wrote to you he was coming home—did you not get the message?” Dair shook his head. “Nor did I send one.”
Angus frowned, but went on. “We rode back with ten men, the best warriors—six are dead, two injured. We didn’t see them coming. They were savage, Dair. It wasn’t a robbery or a reiving. It was murder—they meant to kill us. We barely managed to escape with the chief.” Fia noticed the blood on Angus’s face, and more was seeping through his shirt.
“Who did it?” Dair ground the words through gritted teeth. Fury vibrated through him like a living thing. Fia resisted the urge to touch him, to offer comfort. He wouldn’t want it. Not now.
“No one knows,” Logan said. “I questioned the men who came back with the chief, since I couldn’t find you. The assailants wore no plaids or badges, uttered no battle cry. They just came out of the dark, took the chief’s party by surprise.”
“My father—how bad?” Dair asked Angus, the words strangled.
Tears glittered in Angus’s eyes. “He was stabbed in the gut. We were on Sinclair lands but still a dozen miles from home. It was a rough ride.” Fia put a hand to her mouth, felt tears of her own falling. She looked up to see Logan watching her, his expression unreadable.
Dair stared straight ahead at the dark bulk of the castle as they approached it and said nothing. He climbed down before the cart had even stopped, ignoring his injured leg, hurrying toward the door.
Father Alphonse stepped out of the shadows and blocked Dair’s path. His eyes burned like lighted coals. “This is your fault, Alasdair Og. You have called God’s wrath down upon Carraig Brigh by allowing pagan rites. Sin! Blasphemy! Evil! You have cursed this clan.” The words rang off the stones of the keep.
The priest cried out when he saw Fia. He raised his crucifix. “Begone—I know what you are! You cannot enter here!”
Dair grabbed the front of the priest’s cassock in both fists and lifted him off the ground, his eyes wild with fury. “Get the hell out of my way.” Father Alphonse wailed as he was tossed aside.
Dair strode through the door without looking back.
Fia held out a hand to help the priest rise, but he shrank away from her touch. He wielded his crucifix like a weapon. The torchlight illuminated her reflection in the silver surface, distorted and ugly.
“Witch!” the priest hissed. “You have cursed Carraig Brigh, turned these good people from God’s holy ways.”
Fia took a step back, stunned. “I am no witch!” She looked around for someone to speak for her. Logan stood watching her silently, his expression closed and dark. By the gate, a guard overheard, crossed himself, and muttered a prayer. Other people had arrived, and they too heard. A whisper passed among them, the dreadful word said over and over. They regarded her silently, in mourning once again and looking for someone to blame. The priest was yelling still, invoking God and condemning the devil, his bony finger pointed at her, sharp as a dirk.
Hot blood filled Fia’s face, knotted her tongue. She turned and hurried inside, away from the terrible accusations.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Padraig Sinclair lay unconscious on his bed, his face deathly pale. His belly was bound with makeshift bandages, ragged strips torn from the shirts and plaids of his men. All were soaked with blood, as was the sheet under him. Dair’s heart shrank in his breast, and his mouth dried with fear.
Two clansmen stood by the bed, guarding their wounded leader, their hands on the hilts of their swords. Dair knew them both. They’d been part of Padraig’s tail. Their duty was to protect their chief, keep him safe, and they’d failed. They knew it—their faces were gray with fatigue, and their hard eyes and clenched jaws said they believed they should be lying there instead of the Sinclair. They had not removed their weapons, or bathed. They had carried the chief home and stayed by his side, exhausted, bloody, and dirty. If they had any hope the chief would survive, it didn’t show.
“Are you injured?” Dair asked them.
“Nothing serious. A wee scratch or two. ’Tis nothing,” Callum Sinclair said, though the sleeve of his leather jack was torn and soaked with blood, and his arm hung at an impossible angle.
Fia entered the room. Dair watched her gaze fall on Padraig, saw the blood drain from her cheeks. His own hope ran out. There were no miracles to be done here. She crossed the room, took in the bloody bandages binding Padraig’s chest, and made a small sound of dismay. She looked up at him with tears in her eyes. Dair swallowed.
“We’ll wait for Moire. See to Callum,” he said. Fia’s face was pale as snow, but she didn’t flinch at the sight of all the blood. She deftly slit Callum’s jack with a dirk. The sword slash was long and deep, and the clansman’s blood dripped onto a floor already covered with blood—his father’s blood, Sinclair blood,hisblood. Dair swallowed anger, grief, and shock. More clansmen crowded into the room, stood staring at him, afraid and silent, waiting for him to take charge, to make sense of this for them. Dread closed his throat as he looked from one to the next.
He met Fia’s eyes, read the quiet confidence there, in herself and in him. It gave him courage.
“Go and see what’s keeping Moire,” Dair commanded the man closest to the door.
“English John and three others went to fetch her, Alasdair Og,” the man said, pulling off his bonnet and twisting it in his hands. “Logan said ye’d want to see me, since I was with the chief—” His voice failed as he looked at the still figure on the bed.
“What happened?” Dair asked him.
“The chief got your message, and we left Edinburgh at once. We were almost home, on Sinclair lands, when they came at us out of the dark. We surrounded the chief, but they fought like devils. They took six of our men, murdered them in cold blood, and cut down the chief. Angus grabbed the reins of his horse, rode hard for home. Is he . . .”
There’d been no message—at least not from him.“Who did this?” Dair demanded.
