Highland Sacrifice (Highland Wars Book 2) (3 page)

Macrath leaned forward, taking point with this particular crofter. “What is your grievance?”

“Much the same as everyone else. But I’ve another.” Her gaze was steadily locked on theirs, her face expressionless. “The man you’ve nailed to the stocks outside, he… He has kept women in his croft. He offered food in exchange for…payment.”

“What type of payment?” Macrath asked.

Still she did not lower her eyes. “He ill-used us, my laird. Took away our honor. None of us deserve a place within your home—Mary included.”

Macrath let her words sink in—her disgust at her own abuse and how it had lessened her respect for herself. None of the women should have to feel bad about themselves for the vile actions of another. “Mary was held by the man?”

“Aye.”

This was what he’d been hiding. He was Mary’s captor. “How many others were there?”

“At least six of us. There were more, but he did not always come through on his promises of food. And there were beatings if we didn’t”—and now her voice and eye contact faltered—“if we didn’t do as he demanded.”

“Rest assured you will not have to suffer at his hands any longer,” Macrath said.

“Begging your pardon, your lordship, but if he is to free himself today, then we will all suffer, especially those of us who have come seeking your help and hoping you’re the type of rulers who will provide aid and not keep us for yourselves.”

Throughout her speech Macrath felt himself getting angrier and angrier. How could she think they would harm her? How could she speak to him in this way in front of so many others? But he couldn’t get upset about it. She’d been held for so long, and he should be proud of her for coming forward and for defending those who hadn’t. Then he paused. Those who hadn’t?

“Some of you did not come today?”

“Aye, my laird,” Rhona said. “Several were not well enough to make the walk.”

“How far is his croft?”

“Not far, my laird.”

“We will not make you wait,” Ceana broke in. “We will give them freedom and life now.”

She stood and descended the dais, her back straight and strong. Macrath hoped that being able to help Rhona and the other women would begin Ceana’s healing and help her to forgive herself for the lives she’d taken.

Macrath addressed the remaining clan members. “We will return shortly to listen to your grievances. Settle your taxes with our collectors and procure your provisions in the meantime.”

He ignored the outraged protest from one of the council members and took pleasure in Lady Beatrice’s silence.

The four other royal council members would do well to follow her lead. For, today, he and Ceana were forging a new path, a new rule.

One he prayed was not filled with only the brokenness of humanity.

Chapter Three

CURIOUS glances followed them across the courtyard, but nearly half of them were sadly knowing and accompanied by the beginnings of rare smiles.

Ceana walked with a stiff spine beside Rhona, fearful of what they’d find. She’d never come across a man as evil as the bastard being nailed to the beam and she took pleasure in his screams. He imprisoned the women for the power it made him feel. The royal council members were evil in the torture they inflicted on people, but in the same instance, theirs was a job passed down from generations. They’d been bred to be cruel. And no one had thought to make a change to a system that worked no matter how flawed. This man had chosen to do harm.

In all her nineteen years, she’d believed that people were inherently born good, that the cruelties of the world and human desire for power and possession made them evil, but now she was beginning to change her stance. Perhaps it was that some people were just born with the devil’s hand stroking their backs.

They exited through the gate and Rhona led them around the high castle wall to the right, past the list field and down a lane dotted with several crofters’ huts. They approached a section of woods the games had not been held in.

“We need to take a tour of our lands,” Macrath murmured to her.

She’d been thinking the very same thing. How were they to rule lands and people they knew very little of?

“As soon as we finish speaking with our people, hearing their grievances and making judgments”—a process she was beginning to think would take days and not hours—“then we shall arrange for a tour through the lands.”

Macrath nodded. “Before the first snow.”

“Aye.” They would need to hurry, for winter threatened to come early.

The darkness of the forest enfolded them and Ceana’s breath stopped. Her feet ceased their movement over the leaf-strewn path and memories assaulted her, blinding her. The trees seemed to pulse in and out of her line of vision. Apparitions of fire. Wolves. Battles. Her breath left her, rib cage tight. She clutched at her chest, clawed at her neck.

“I can’t breathe,” she choked out. “I can’t breathe!” Her voice sounded shrill, not her own, and as though it came from a mile away. Inside her head, water rushed like that of the loch where she nearly drowned.

Arms surrounded her and she found herself being crushed to a hard male chest. Macrath’s scent filled her nostrils and the warmth of his body seeped into her stiffened muscles.

“’Tis over, love,” he whispered against her ear. “You are safe now.”

Ceana gripped tight to his shirt, cool tears tracking over her cheeks. “It was so real,” she said. “Every wolf. Every flame. The water. I was reliving it. Had no control.”

“They’ll not harm you again. I swear it upon the gods, no one will ever harm you again.” His voice was low and filled with conviction. He was strong and exactly what she needed. He could calm her. He could bring her back to earth.

And she wished she could believe him. But neither she nor Macrath knew the extent of the darkness that covered Sìtheil. So much evil and cruelty permeated the bone-infested grounds. Even now they could be walking over the bodies of those who’d died in the games. Hundreds had expired every five years for the past one hundred. At least one thousand lives lost. And that didn’t even include the people who didn’t participate in the games but who had starved or been tortured.

Ceana looked up into her husband’s eyes. Saw the worry, the fear, the determination. She had to be strong. She nodded, not wanting Macrath to know her true thoughts. She believed he would do anything in his power to protect her. She knew he would fight for her, die for her. But even knowing those things, she couldn’t believe that no harm would ever come to her. Her eyes were now opened up to the world. To the violence it was capable of.

Swiping at her tears, she gave a bashful smile to those who surrounded them and felt no guilt when she lied. “Let us continue. I had something in my eye, a speck of dust I think.” Her voice came out much stronger than she expected it to, and for that her chest filled with pride.

They walked deeper into the forest. Ceana ignored the shaking of her legs, kept her hands tightly clenched and forced herself to smile at those around her so they’d not have an idea of how hard it was to walk through a place that resembled so much terror for her.

She tried to pretend that these woods weren’t what they were—a mass graveyard. Instead, she concentrated on the sounds around her. The gentle breeze ruffling branches, pine needles and what was left of the leaves. The scurry of squirrel feet on tree trunks and through the forest floor debris. The sound of grouses calling out and the occasional peck from a woodpecker.

The odors of the forest were real, earthy and just like any other forest she’d ever traveled through. The air was crisp, fresh and filled with the scents of late autumn and the promise of winter.

Even listening and breathing in the woodsy air, she still couldn’t get out of her mind the hints of death that weaved their way through all the normalness of it.

“Here we are,” Rhona said, breaking into Ceana’s thoughts.

They’d arrived at a croft that was set a ways off the road with no neighbors close by. The trees around the croft had been cleared and there were pens built perhaps for the crofter’s sheep or pigs. A chicken coop that sadly lacked any clucking. The remains of a harvested garden lined the frame of the house. A single small square window was positioned high up from the ground—high enough that Ceana wouldn’t be able to peer inside. But it didn’t matter as it was darkened, perhaps shuttered from the inside. The walls were made of stone and looked freshly built.

“Did he build this himself?” Macrath asked.

“We helped him. Afore this, he lived nearer to the castle in the village.”

“And no one noticed him bringing lasses out to the woods to build his home? And to work the land?”

She shook her head. “They were occupied.”

Ceana and Macrath exchanged a glance. How was that possible? Preoccupied with their own suffering, they must have turned a blind eye to what was happening. Knowing the clan had suffered greatly at the hands of their past leaders, Ceana suspected the chief and his mistress, and the council, too, had not cared for the wrongdoings of one man.

“The laird would have given him permission to plant his garden and farm his animals,” Macrath continued. “He’d have been more concerned with tax payment being met rather than how it was being met. Did no one complain?”

“Aye,” Rhona said but didn’t expand on her answer.

Ceana’s gaze fell on every neatly mortared stone. The thatched roof had no holes. It was a well-cared-for property.

Ceana could feel Macrath’s frustration and tried her own approach for answers. “Rhona, we’re trying to gather as much information as we can about what has happened over the last five years at least. We want to improve everyone’s situation. To make some changes.”

Rhona nodded, looking skeptical.

Ceana smiled warmly and stepped closer to the woman, hoping to make it appear they were having a private conversation, and that it would help Rhona to let her guard down, even just a little. “I get the feeling you’ve heard such before?”

She nodded. “Every five years. But this is the way of the land. And when our new leaders realize they cannot fix it, the wickedness of the land always seeps into their bones and they become one with it. People rarely change. History will not be altered. The future has already been set for us all. I’m not certain even you can change it.”

The hair on the back of Ceana’s neck rose. It felt as though a thousand eyes watched her, challenging her from beyond the grave. If so many had tried, what made her think she was any better? What made her think she’d be able to change it?

“I swear upon my honor and the blood of my future heirs,” Macrath broke in, his voice deep and resonating, “that we shall bring back the light and the blessing of the gods to this dark, forsaken land.”

Despite Ceana’s thoughts, it was Macrath’s carefully chosen words that struck her the most. For she, too, believed in them, believed in a great future for not just Sìtheil but all of Scotland.

Ceana faced Rhona, though she looked everyone in the eye who’d traveled to this croft with them. “You have our word.”

Rhona’s scrutinizing gaze locked on hers. They were all watching, perhaps waiting to see the change in Ceana and Macrath as they’d seen in others. But they wouldn’t. They would never go back on their word, for they truly meant what they said, and it was their desire to make a change that had pushed them through the deadly games.

A cry called out from within the small stone house, breaking the silence.

“Come,” Macrath shouted to his men, charging the entrance.

Macrath lifted his strong leg and broke down the door in one swift kick. Ceana waited outside with Rhona, who’d started to shake and murmur things that only she understood.

“He didn’t know I left. Didn’t see me hiding in line behind him. Didn’t even notice Mary since she wore that cowl upon her head.” Rhona shook her head. “Gowp was so confident that none of us would leave. He boasted about going to lay his grievances before you, and that none of us would be able to escape. That the only thing that would part him from us was death.”

“We’ll not let him harm you again. We shall see that you are all properly cared for.” Ceana tried to comfort her. Rhona’s words sank in, too. Death. Perhaps that was the only way they’d be parted from him, because even now, he could come back and torment them. Steal them into a darkened corner or drag them back into the woods.

“We are not good enough,” Rhona whispered back, a haunted look coming into her eyes. “We are not worthy of your help.”

Ceana took her by the shoulders. “Listen to me. Just because this man has abused you, used you, taken advantage of you, does not mean you aren’t good enough. You are worth something. Everyone has value. Do not let him take away your humanity just as the demons have taken his.”

Though Rhona nodded, Ceana was certain she didn’t believe her.

Macrath exited the building with a frail woman in his arms, followed by the guards carrying three additional bodies.

“She lives,” Macrath said of the one in his arms. She clutched his shirt, crying. Her entire body shook with pain.

Ceana nodded toward the others. “Are they…?” Ceana couldn’t bring herself to say it. To ask if they lived.

“One has passed on,” said the guard carrying an emaciated lass who could be no more than fourteen summers.

Tears burned Ceana’s eyes. “An ear nailed to the stocks is not enough.”

Macrath nodded. “He shall be put to death for this.”

And death would be the only thing that could part them. The man had struck his own destiny.

They’d saved these women’s lives. And they would punish the man who’d done this to them. But she couldn’t help but recall Rhona’s words about the wickedness of the land seeping into her predecessors’ bones. Was it a bad omen that they would start their rule with an execution?

“He does not deserve to breathe, my lady,” Rhona said. “We will all be forever in your debt, and even poor Alice from beyond the grave.”

Throat closed tight with emotion, all Ceana could do was nod. “Let us bury your Alice, and then we shall return to the castle to see that you are all fed and bathed.”

The men found a shovel within the croft and dug a grave for Alice. They said a prayer as they buried her, but Ceana barely heard any of it. She was wondering how in the world she’d be able to make it back to the castle without breaking down. How would she be able to continue with court? They still had at least a hundred more clan members to listen to.

Macrath stepped up beside her, his fingers lacing with hers. The woman he’d carried out had been wrapped in a blanket and a guard held her.

“This is worse than I thought,” she said.

“Aye.” Macrath cleared his throat. “But together we are strong. We faced down our enemies before and we will face this just the same.”

“I fear I’m not strong enough.” Ceana hated the way her voice broke. She’d felt the same way when she discovered her brother’s body and then again when she’d first come to the games. Being victor had yet to sink in, and all the doubts she held within herself still clambered for attention.

“Because you fear it, because you think about it, you will be strong, if only to prove anyone who doubts you wrong. I know you will.”

She shook her head. “Nay, Macrath. I can’t.”

He gently squeezed her hand and then brought it to his lips, kissing the backs of her knuckles. “I will be with you every step of the way. You won’t have to face this alone. I need you, Ceana. I need you to be strong, for if we are not in this together, I fear I shall falter.”

She slowly nodded, lips pressed firmly together, teeth clenched tight to keep them from chattering. “I will be strong for you.”

“And I will be strong for you.”

Just knowing that she would have Macrath by her side was a huge relief. She was afraid she’d not be able to survive on her own. Three days was not enough to recover from the violence they’d endured, that they’d inflicted. She feared it would take a lifetime.