the gentle lad he’d once been, harboring that profound reverence for life his father had warned him against revealing to those who might do him ill.
Trouville had encouraged him to travel the Continent with Henri, and thereby caused Rob’s absence when the boy king from England had thrust into Scotland two years ago. Now Rob wished he had been there. He sorely lacked experience in this.
Here was no mock battle with rules set by the marshal and a horn to sound the end. Men were dying, three by his own blade thus far! Mairi’s death had been a very near thing and his own barely avoided. While he did not fear death, neither did he welcome it just yet.
The time had come to steel himself, to banish again any empathy or sympathy that would mark him as weak. To be the warrior he had trained so diligently to be. To kill and kill again, or else be killed.
Rob pulled in a harsh breath and observed the fighting, searching for identifying characteristics in the combatants. The few men he did recognize from the evening before in Craigmuir’s hall looked a sight more refined than the great, hairy, half-naked brutes who fought them. A ragged, unwashed band, these raiders who had come to do battle.
And at the moment, they were prevailing.
Quickly he turned and pulled the wounded laird to his feet. “Go in!” he shouted to Mairi. After a quick glance to insure the armory was empty, he shoved her and her father inside. “Bar the door!”
Satisfied that they would be safer there than anywhere else in this godforsaken place, Rob drew another deep breath, dashed forward and fully engaged in the slaughter.
When the clangs and shouts of the fight finally diminished, Mairi heard a frantic knocking. Hurriedly she peered through a crack between the boards and threw open the door. Young Davy, her father’s foundling squire, rushed in.
“Did ye see him, m’laird?” the lad asked as he dropped to his knees on the dirt floor of the armory beside his master. “Afore ye fell, did ye see?”
“So it’s over then?” Mairi asked absently, shoving the gangly bairn out of the way.
“Aye!” young Davy answered, his voice full of awe. “The handful left standin’ turned and ran just now. Laird MacBain gives chase! God’s nails, he’s ruthless, that one!”
Then his gaze dropped and focused upon his master’s wound. “Ach, sire, ’tis verra bad, this here!”
Mairi motioned him back outside. “Get some of the men. We must move him into the keep. ’Tis too dark in here to treat his wound.” Mairi pressed both her hands over the gaping gash in her father’s side. “Make haste, Davy!”
Her sire might not live the night, she reckoned, but she would not give him up just yet. “Hold on, Da,” she whispered, struggling to imbue her voice with hope.
His wan smile worried her more than a gruff reprimand would have done. One of his huge paws wrapped around her bloody wrist. “Lass, get…get you from Craigmuir, lest Ranald find you here when he comes back.”
“Ranald?” Mairi’s disgust made her grimace. “Aye, I should have guessed this was his doing,” she growled. “Greedy wretch! Th’ cowardly bastard didna swing his own sword today, I’ll wager ye that!”
“Nay, he’ll be elsewhere so he can look innocent of it. But he’ll come once he hears I’m dead, daughter. He is my tanist, God rot his hide.”
Mairi tossed her head in disgust. “We can hold Craigmuir against the likes of him anyday.”
“Nay, he’ll have my place here, Mairi. The clan decided that years ago,” he argued, gasping. “But he’ll no’ have my lass. I told him so…our kin’s too close.”
“Greater reason than that not to have him!” Mairi exclaimed. “I’d die first!”
He clenched his eyes shut and grimaced. “Wed MacBain this night, Mairi…and begone afore it’s too late.”
“Hist!” she said to hush him. She would wed, but she’d not leave. “Ranald sent those men to do murder, Da. He should be punished for it, not rewarded with Craigmuir!”
“May be, but he…he will have it nonetheless,” he insisted. “Just marry and go, hinny. Please!” he gasped the word and groaned.
“As ye wish, Da.” She’d not leave, of course. She could never desert her father when he lay mortally wounded. Nor would she abandon her home as a boon for that dastardly cousin of hers. But she would wed MacBain as soon as someone could fetch the priest. Not only to fulfill her father’s wish. She wanted to.
Ranald MacInness would never claim her as his wife if she had to wed the devil himself to prevent it. Fortunately, it would not come to that. She had a perfectly good husband-to-be at hand, thanks to her father’s foresight.
When the men—grimy from battle and grieving for those lost to it—had moved the laird into the hall, Mairi made him as comfortable as she could. Someone had brought a pile of blankets and furs from his bed abovestairs and placed them upon one of the long oak trestles used for meals.
It looked to Mairi like a bier, which she realized it soon would be. She had stopped his bleeding at long last, but not quickly enough to save him.
His tunic, the blankets that covered him and her own sleeves were soaked with his blood. Her father was not long for this world, she knew.
“I am with ye, Da,” she whispered. “I’m here.”
The priest had come and administered rites. He now stood by, praying silently for his old friend and laird. There would be further duty for the Father Ephriam if only her betrothed would get himself within the hall.
Where was MacBain? Mairi wished with all her might that he would arrive in time. Her father would rest so much easier if he could witness the wedding and know that she had at least complied with one part of his behest.
Seeing the marriage accomplished would give him peace in his final hours. There was little more she could do for him, other than grieve for him when he was gone, and then avenge his death.
That, she vowed she would do. It was her duty as well as her heart’s wish. Ranald MacInness would die a gruesome death for this day’s work. She could envision his dark hair whipping in the wind, that smirk permanently frozen on his face when they mounted his head upon a pike outside the gates of Craigmuir.
A scant hour later, when she had almost given up, MacBain strode in, followed by several of her father’s men. No decently groomed lord now, he wore a savage look upon his face and carried himself like the victor he had proved to be. Her father had chosen wisely for her. And for Craigmuir.
When MacBain stopped several feet away and remained silent, Mairi beckoned him closer.
“We must wed now,” she announced clearly, fearing for some obscure reason that he would object to the haste. He merely looked at her, a question in his sharp gray eyes.
“My father is dying. He desires me safely wed to you without wait. I would have it so.”
The baron turned to the priest, who nodded in agreement with her words. From his sleeve, Father Ephriam drew the parchments prepared long before MacBain had arrived, and handed them over to
