Flame

Chapter 4

4

“M’lord!”

The shout from the far side of the panel stunned Joanna with its nearness. What was worse, however, was the sight of the new laird’s profile through the narrow opening, only a breath away. His face was turned toward the study, as the shout came again, clearly but from below.

Gaping at his profile, Joanna quickly shut the panel as quietly as she could. Sliding the latch, she pressed her palms against the wood and let out a soft, strangled breath. For the first time in months, she’d almost given herself away; she’d come face to face with the man. Pressing her forehead on her knuckles, she closed her eyes. She had to gather her strength. She had to run away. That was far too close. Her body shivered, and she was shocked to feel her knees about to buckle as she tried to rise.

Gavin turned back to the panel—his fingers traveling across the rough, scorched wood, checking every seam. He could have sworn a moment ago he’d felt it move.

“M’lord!” This time Edmund’s breathless voice came from across the room. “The damn floor...By the Virg...what a mess...Gavin, are you hurt?”

There was something on the inside of this wall. Gavin could feel it. Could it be someone? he wondered. He knew of other castles that had secret passageways. And if there was one, it would allow someone to travel through this wing. Gavin pulled back a hand and smashed it hard against the wall. He felt it move—not as part of the whole wall—but only the section. Pushing at a seam by the edge piece, a c***k appeared. Beneath him the floor groaned ominously, and Gavin eased the pressure. There was a shuffling noise on the other side of the panel. Pressing an ear to it, he could clearly hear movement. The sound of hurried steps.

“M’lord?”

Gavin ignored Allan as he pressed his ear tighter against the wood.

“What’s behind here, Allan?”

The old man paused a moment before blurting, “The wall?”

“You think me daft?” Gavin growled, turning a menacing glare on the man. “You were here when this wing was built. Are you telling me...?”

“There were passageways built at the time,” the old steward broke in quickly. “But only the laird knew...the passageways lead down to the caverns that honeycomb these hills, and down to the loch. But no one has used those caverns since Duncan’s time, m’lord.”

“How do you open this?” Gavin asked shortly. “This panel is an entry, is it not?”

When Allan paused, Edmund spoke. “M’lord, if you’ll allow me at least to secure this rope, in case that floor...”

“How does this damn thing open?”

His angry roar got the old man talking. “In the cabinet...there at the corner by the outside wall...aye, that one...an iron ring...”

Gavin crouched carefully and reached inside. Running his fingers along the wood, he found the metal circle. Pulling it, he watched with satisfaction as the panel which he had been standing before only a moment earlier snapped opened a c***k.

“M’lord. You don’t plan to go in there alone,” Edmund said with alarm.

“Once you are beneath the castle, there’s no rhyme or reason to the paths,” Allan agreed. “In fact, one of the builder’s apprentices disappeared in those tunnels. It’s dangerous, even for those who know the passages. There are chasms that have no bottom. The lad was never found, m’lord, and he was not the only one.”

Gavin moved toward the panel and pushed it open wide.

“Pray, m’lord,” Edmund’s voice was the more persistent. “Allow me, at least, to come with you. I’ve never seen a...”

“Find a way to get your rump up to the hearth.” The Lowlander glanced over his shoulder at the red-headed warrior. With his eyes he motioned toward the portrait of Joanna MacInnes above the fireplace. “Take the painting to the Old Keep. Put it in my chamber.”

Without another word, Gavin squeezed through the panel and disappeared into the darkness of the passage.

The slender back of the old woman bowed under the weight of the heavy satchels she carried. Dragging her feet another few steps through the mud, she spotted more herbs by a protruding boulder. Leaning one gnarled hand on the rock, she grasped the top of the plant and pulled. The stubborn root wouldn’t let go.

Though the sun had broken through the heavy clouds, the air was thick with moisture from the rains. Tugging at the plant again, the woman wiped the dripping sweat from her eyes with the other hand, leaving a smudge of dirt on the fan of wrinkles by the exposed white hair at her temple. She gave a sigh of relief when the root let go at last. Wiping the dirt from the greens with one callused hand, she placed it carefully in one of the satchels before painfully straightening under their weight.

“Och, Mater,” the low voice scolded from behind. “Why must you carry both bags in this sun? Let me give you a hand.”

The old woman waved a hand dismissively in the air while continuing with her search. But she didn’t fight when, a moment later, the younger woman reached her and silently took one of the satchels, swinging it over her shoulder.

“The rest of us could do more of this. There’s no reason for you, at your age, to always do so much to take care of so many.”

“There is,” Mater said plainly as she bent down to tug at another root. “What news have you from the castle?”

“Molly has come to visit her sisters. She brought word. There was an accident this morning. The laird insisted that Allan show him the fire damage in the south wing.”

“I knew he wouldn’t be able to stay away from there. What happened?”

“One of the floors collapsed beneath him. But he was not hurt.”

Mater paused for a moment, nodded, and turned her steps down the valley toward the ruined abbey. “Anything else?”

The younger woman fell in step. “Just as his man told you yesterday, Molly says that the laird plans to pay the abbey a visit.” The woman stared at the aging leader. “Will you see him, Mater?”

Mater stopped and looked up at the sky. “I have no choice. I’ll see him...if he still lives.”

The chapel perched, squat and ancient, on the edge of the cliff in the southeastern corner of the castle, with the gray waters of the loch below. Except for a low archway that had been built to give access to the small kirkyard, the construction of the south wing had completely cut off the little church from the castle’s courtyard.

“It is a miserable place,” the pasty-faced little priest spat out, glaring at the building. “Hotter than hell in the summer, and windier than Luther’s arse in the winter. It’s no wonder the peasants of the holding want nothing to do with it.”

Aye, Gavin thought, glancing at the man’s sour expression. No wonder.

“They have little faith in these hills, you know. It is comfort they crave. Sir John MacInnes, the last laird, promised me that he’d rebuild the chapel, but he did no such thing.”

“Show me the inside, Father William,” Gavin ordered, striding toward the building.

“Aye, of course,” the scrawny cleric replied, running to keep up. “Though I’ll be hanged if you find anything to interest you there.”

Gavin let that comment pass, though the priest’s attitude was curious, to say the least. Father William pulled open the thick oak door.

“Not the way it once was. No faith. No sense of duty. Since the death of Sir John, I have watched as nearly all of his peasants...your peasants...packed up their wee ones and moved onto the Earl of Athol’s land to the north.”

But not all of them had left, Gavin thought. Not all. One of them, he was quite certain, was the ‘ghost’ who was haunting the south wing.

Earlier, when Gavin had stepped into the narrow passageway in the study wall, he had easily found the ladder leading up to the top floor. The chambers above had obviously been comfortably designed and furnished, but now they were in shambles. Working his way through the rooms, he had been quite careful to avoid any repeat of his near disaster in the study. Finally, he’d made his way up to the tower room where he had seen the shutter close.

There, the bed of straw, a scrap of burnt blanket, some rags, a wooden bowl told him that he had been correct. Someone had been taking shelter in the tower, and he had probably found his way into the castle and its passageways from the caverns below.

If what the priest had just said was true, then Gavin knew this stranger had to be a peasant. The Lowlander had investigated what passages he could in the burnt-out wing, but he had reluctantly put off exploring the tunnels leading below. He would need a torch, and preferably a guide, for that little expedition.

In fact, he thought, he could use a torch now. The chapel, dark and musty, offered little to refute the cleric’s words. The few long, thin windows provided hardly any light or air in the sanctuary. No ornaments of value adorned the altar. Only a cross of wood, studded with iron nails, hung on the wall above it. That was all.

Surveying the rest of the interior, Gavin nodded toward the steps leading down into a dark alcove. “The crypt?”

“Aye, m’lord.” The note of contempt in the man’s response was obvious, and, though Gavin was unsure what it was directed toward, he was tiring quickly of the little man.

“Get a candle.”

As the priest returned with a light, Gavin started down the steps into the crypt. It was a low, square chamber, with stone tombs lining the walls. Some were adorned with the effigies of knights, their carved stone swords beside them. As William kept up a running commentary on the relative superiority of past generations, Gavin discovered the low doorway into another area, and, taking the candle, led the way into the newer part of the musty chamber.

“Sir Duncan had this part built before my time here. That is his tomb, with the stone carving. His sons never had much opportunity to plan for their own burials.”

“Where are Sir John and his wife and daughter?”

William’s face looked yellow and quite unhealthy in the flickering light of the candle, and he seemed to hesitate before answering. He gestured with a toss of his head.

“In the kirkyard, m’lord.”

Gavin stared at the man a moment. “I want to see where you’ve put them.”

“Aye. This way.”

As he and the priest retraced their steps, Gavin considered what would be involved in reentering the previous lairds and their families in the crypt.

The sun that had broken through briefly in the early afternoon had once again been swallowed up by the clouds. As Gavin gazed out over the low wall that separated the kirkyard from the sheer cliffs above the loch, he could see the storm to the west sweeping in over Cairn Liath and Cairn Ellick, hiding their summits in a cloud. The wind had picked up considerably, and Loch Moray’s waters were now a churning mass of whitecaps.

Gavin followed the little priest to a large slab by the cliff.

“Here, m’lord,” Father William said brusquely. “We put them here. Close enough to Sir John’s brothers. They lie over there.” The man pointed at two other slabs not far away. Sir John meant to have his brothers moved inside the crypt. As you can see, the good Lord didn’t see fit to give him time for that.”

Gavin looked back to the large slab before his feet. “You say all three lie here?”

The awkward pause in the priest’s response was obvious, and the new laird turned his gaze on the man.

“Do they lie here?” he repeated.

“Aye, for all that we could tell.”

“The bodies were burned?” Gavin asked.

“Aye,” the priest replied with disgust. “Like hell’s own demons, they were. All burnt. All lost...” The man’s voice choked. “There were so many of them. The wing was filled with Sir John’s servants and the ladies’ maids...”

Father William faltered and came to a stop. Gavin crouched before the slab and placed a hand on the tomb. It felt strangely warm to his touch. In a moment the priest continued.

“We couldn’t tell one from the other. We found no one in the laird’s chambers nor in Mistress Joanna’s room. Most of the bodies lay in a heap at the stairwell. Some of the maids, we think, may have tried to leap into the loch.” The priest looked away at the turbulent waters. Drops of rain began to spatter the stones around them. “We found traces of blood and torn linen on the cliffs, but no bodies. It seems the rest all ran into the corridors. That’s where we found them. All charred and heaped together.”

“Where you able to recognize them?” Gavin came to his feet.

The man slowly shook his head. “Nay. The laird was a goodly sized man, though, so we could be fairly certain of him, and his body lay apart, with two women by him. So we wrapped those three and placed them here. The rest...the rest we buried there.”

Gavin looked in the direction that the priest pointed. A dozen or so graves with new grass sprouting on the dirt mounds could be seen in the corner of the kirkyard. The little man walked unsteadily toward the graves and stared down at one set slightly apart from the others. The rain was starting to fall harder now, but neither man took notice of it.

“Who is buried in that grave?” Gavin asked, following the other man’s gaze. “The one away from the others?”

“Who?” The priest’s head snapped around toward the other graves, his eyes avoiding the laird’s gaze. “Why, one of the servants.”

“Why is it separated? If they all died together, why bury this one apart?”

“Because she didn’t burn like the others,” William answered irritably. “She was one of Lady MacInnes’s serving lasses, and she broke her neck leaping from a window in the tower.”

“Perhaps a better way to die,” Gavin said quietly, looking intently at the carefully tended grave. “What was her name?”

“Her name?” The priest ran his hand over his eyes. “I cannot remember.”

A bolt of lightning lit the sky.

“Iris,” he blurted quickly. “That’s it. Iris, I believe it was.”

Thunder rumbled after the earlier flash. A movement by the chapel drew Gavin’s attention. A woman stood holding folded linens in her hands. Gavin recognized her as Margaret, the mute sister of the steward.

The little man mumbled something Gavin thought must have been an apology and hurried over to the woman.

The Lowlander turned his attention back to the graves at his feet. Death was something that he was no stranger to. As the laird gazed at the earthen mounds, it occurred to him that losing those he loved was something he’d been facing all his life. Strange, he thought, that some pain never ends.

He never knew his mother. She’d died bringing him into this life. His father and two older brothers had been rough tutors—they’d showed him a kind of love, one based on loyalty and strength and courage. But then, all three of them had been cut down in one day—fighting against the English at Flodden Field. He himself had been injured that day. He himself had faced death’s raw visage. And if it hadn’t been for Ambrose Macpherson saving his life—he would assuredly have had his throat cut by the battlefield scavengers.

Though that had not been his destiny that day, he wondered now—as he had wondered often since that day—if death held the only end to pain.

Gavin strode back to the slab, now nearly black with the falling rain. Small wisps of steam, like souls released, rose from the surface.

Staring at them, he thought of another grave. In his mind’s eye he saw Mary, her dark hair swirling around her pale skin in the summer wind. She had been the only woman he’d ever allowed to get close to him. Odd, he thought, he had spent almost all of his life in the service of his king. A man of action, a man of war. He had seen the world, and he had known the beds of many women. But with Mary, he had known something else. He had learned about the yearning of two souls, about the opening of hearts. But then she had died as well. Her life snuffed out before his eyes. Taken from him—like all the others he had ever loved.

The rain suddenly began to fall in earnest. Driven by the wind, it lashed at his face.

Again, looking down at the dark stone covering the grave, Gavin felt the dying fire in his heart and knew the cold misery of his life.

For death awaited anyone ill-fated enough to be loved by Gavin Kerr.