Page 40 of The Son of a Highland Witch
Finn was hiding in the shadows with his back against the wall. Before the two men could bend down and check that one of the two bodies was Finn’s, they joined their fellow soldiers on the floor: one stabbed in between the ribs while the other began howling and clutching his liver. Two more throat stabs, and they went silent. They had not even drawn their swords.
“Och lads, ye should have practiced using yer weapons with both hands,” Finn said to the pile of four men lying in the passage. “Nothing like having a dirk in each hand if ye want to take out a pair o’ enemies.” He wiped the knives on the men’s coats before returning them to his boots and sporran; he had not even had to use all three.
Anyone taking their orders from Jamie or Robert Buchanan had become Finn’s enemy now. He made no effort to hide the bodies and left them there as a warning to anyone who might be planning on siding with his father’s power-hungry relatives.
He wasted no time in making his way to the small parlor room that abutted Laird O’Donnell’s chambers. It must have once been a sunroom where the mistress of the castle went to weave and spin with a few of her maids because Finn had to duck his head right down so that he did not hit it on the door lintel.
He found Erica and her father, and Brigette and Alastair, inside. Erica was seated on a padded velvet ottoman next to his mother’s chair while the two elderly gentlemen stared out the window slats, screwing up their eyes because of the glare. The contrast between the dark of the room and the brightness outside was quite formidable. When Finn looked at the light streaming in through the window slats, he could see nothing but white bands when he turned his face away from it. He had to wait a beat for the illusion to disappear before he walked into the room, or else he would have fallen over the little stools dotted around the floor.
“How now?” Laird O’Donnell said when he turned from the window. “What’s going on? Why the necessity of holding a wee conclave in the dark?”
Finn waited for his father’s eyesight to adjust to the dark when the old man turned away from the window and came to sit down next to Brigette.
“They ken. Jamie an’ Robert. They are on the offensive.”
Alastair clucked his tongue. “The fools! I might have reached an agreement with them if they had acted like noble gentlemen. But this behavior just makes me realize how bad I have allowed things to become.”
“What did they do?” Erica wanted to know, but Brigette placed a calming hand on the girl’s shoulder, saying, “Never ye mind about what those two pests are up to, lass. They cannae harm ye now that Finn is here.”
Laird O’Donnell worked hard at keeping the fear out of his voice.
“So, what are we meant to do? Just wait here in the dark for them to come an’ catch us like rats in a hole? Where are those bampot guards I brought with me?”
Finn said shortly, “They will be bolted inside the barracks room alongside anyone loyal to the laird.” Then he said nothing more. He allowed the elders to discuss matters between themselves, but after several bell tolls of worried discussion and wild hypotheses, he said, “Hush. They are here.”
Warrior that he was, he knew that no one wanted to be the first to walk through the small door that connected to the sunroom. There would be no counselors or ladies outside. Nor would there be servants or staff relegated to running household and estate affairs. Opposite the door would be soldiers loyal to Jamie and Robert, men who had been paid well enough to look the other way when Laird Alastair’s relatives grabbed power. But he also knew that they had all seen the four men who had been ordered to capture or kill him lying dead in the passageway.
A voice was raised; it was Jamie’s. “We ken ye’re in there. The O’Donnells can leave. We swear not to harm them. The witch an’ the warrior must surrender. Uncle Alastair, let’s talk.”
Alastair replied, “Ye should ken I plan on wedding Brigette anon, Jamie. She is nay witch.”
“An’ her son is nay busterd, is he?” Robert shouted out on the other side of the door.
Unfazed by the accusation, Alastair replied in a nonchalant tone, “Och aye, Finn was conceived and was born outside o’ marriage, but I acknowledge him as me son, so I guess it’s a gray area.”
Despite their wretched circumstances, the sunroom occupants smiled.
Silence from the other side of the door, then, “So, am I still yer heir?” It was Jamie again.
Finn was straining to hear what was happening inside Laird O’Donnell’s chambers. From the way their voices echoed slightly, the room was not packed with soldiers. When Robert and Jamie shifted around one another to talk into the crack of the door, he could hear that there was plenty of room to do it. Could it be that they had come alone? He would guess they might have four or six soldiers behind them at the very most. The captain of the guards was still paid by Laird Alastair’s purser, after all.
Moving from one to another of the darkened room’s occupants, he whispered, “Erica must be the one to unlatch the door.” When he said it into Erica’s ear, he added these words: “When I open the shutters, drop to the floor like a stone.”
She turned to him with an unreadable expression on her face, but he knew she would do it. Brave lass. He brushed his lips against hers and then nodded toward the door.
Erica lifted the latch. The doorway was empty. No one wanted to be the first one to step over the threshold because of Finn.
“Bid them enter,” Finn whispered to his father.
“Come in, ye big bunch o’ poltroons!” Alastair yelled. “Me son will nae slay ye if ye behave.”
Jamie and Robert squeezed through the entrance side by side; two soldiers followed behind them.
“We only wanted to make sure ye do nothing rash,” Robert said, grinning widely. “It wasnae because we were afeared.”
Finn knew then that only two soldiers stood by the Buchanan usurpers. The others must have seen which way the wind was blowing and left fate to decide matters more thoroughly before they chose a side. The two soldiers had their swords drawn, but there was something in the way Robert was holding his hand…
Erica was standing closest to Robert; the old man grabbed her from behind, wrapping his arm around her neck, and lifted up his hand, where he had been concealing his dirk.
“Every one o’ ye have somethin’ precious to lose if I stick the wench with me knife, so here’s how things are going to play out,” Robert snarled. “Ye, O’ Donnell, are to go outside an’ stay in the courtyard until ye hear otherwise. Alastair an’ the witch are to head back to the sickroom. Ye found it so nice there for so many years, Alastair, that ye can stay there for another ten or twenty years or so. If ye behave and sign the documents saying ye’ll step aside for Jamie here to take over, we might even send a priest up to ye so the two o’ ye can get married.”
“What about our son?” Alastair inquired, completely ignoring Robert’s dirk pressed against the side of Erica’s pale throat.
“He attacked an’ killed four o’ me men. He will hang.”
“That does nae sound like a very tempting offer, Rob,” Finn murmured, leaning against the wall by the windows. “Why don’ the three o’ us sit round a table an’ talk this out?” Finn moved the window and seemed to stare down into the courtyard through a crack on the side of the shutter as if he were trying to block out the sight of Erica’s danger.
There was no chance for Robert to reply. When he finished speaking, Finn opened the shutter slats. Sunlight poured into the room, blinding everyone except Finn, who had accustomed his eyes to the glare before opening the slats. Thus, his eyesight recovered the fastest. He saw Erica drop to the floor. The movement put Robert off balance; the old man was blinded by the sun and confused as to why his captive had gone downward and not tried to struggle away from him as he had expected.
There was room for him to use his sword, so Robert went down after Finn stabbed him in the stomach. Jamie took one look at his uncle’s guts slipping out over the floor before whipping his hands into the air so fast his arms were a blur. The other two soldiers, the memory of what had happened to their comrades still clear in their minds, backed out of the narrow door and ran.
