The Warrior Trainer (15 page)

   Scotia waited while Griffin sank his teeth into a mouthful of kippers. "Nay," he said around the food in his mouth. "You and the goddess of warriors can handle things on your own."

   "Suit yourself," Ian said, his displeasure obvious in the clipped tone of his voice.

   Scotia was hurrying out of the hall when Ian unexpectedly took her hand. She tried to keep her mind fixed on whatever trouble awaited her at the gates and not on the comforting sensations of Ian's hand wrapped around her own. His nearness, his awareness of her should have made her feel weak, perhaps even vulnerable. Instead she felt strangely safe.

   It had been so long since she had felt at ease in the presence of another warrior that it was all she could do to let him lead her out of the hall and into the courtyard beyond. Outside, the evening torches had been lit, casting a pale yellow glow across the outer bailey as they approached the gate.

   Her guard's eyes widened when his gaze lit upon their joined hands. Flustered by the reaction, Scotia pulled out of Ian's grip.

   "Keddy, what did you wish me to see ... ?" Her words trailed off as the young man held his torch toward the gate.

Chapter Thirteen

   In the pale torchlight Scotia could just make out the image of a person—a small person—standing in front of the iron portcullis. A child. "Open the gate."

   The portcullis had never opened so slowly. Clenching her fists at her side, she waited. Finally the barrier lifted enough to reveal a forlorn looking girl with a half-burned yellow skirt, a dirty face, and hair streaked with blood. She stood deathly still as the sound of grinding chains and creaking wood filled the night air. Scotia turned to the young guard. "Where did she come from?"

   Keddy shrugged. "After the sun set, she was just there."

   Ian ducked beneath the half risen gate. Holding a torch aloft, he scanned the approach to the gate. "No one came near the castle this eve?"

   "Nay," Keddy replied, clearly baffled by the child's appearance. "We have men on each watch, and no one saw a thing."

   The grinding of the gate finally stopped, but the little girl remained where she was, saying nothing. A mournful look darkened her eyes, made old before their time.

   How could a child end up here? At her gate? Had her own men been so distracted that they had missed the young girl's approach? Or was she the one to blame? Had she shifted so much of her attention to Ian that she'd neglected the safety of her own household?

   Regardless of how the child had slipped past her guards, they needed information. Scotia took a hesitant step forward, approaching the little girl, stopping a sword's length from her. "Where did you come from?" Scotia asked, feeling more like she was interrogating a prisoner than speaking to a frightened child.

   The girl remained silent, and tears pooled in her eyes.

   "What is your name?"

   No answer.

   Frustrated by the lack of response, Scotia turned to Ian. "Why will she not talk?"

   He merely raised a brow as he brushed past Scotia to kneel before the child. "Much has happened to you lately." Ian reached up to brush a ringlet coated in dried blood from the side of the child's face, tucking it behind her ear.

   The child flinched from his touch. Ian continued despite her reaction, caressing the side of her face with a gentle touch until her tears stopped and the girl nodded. An odd tenderness filled Scotia's chest at Ian's treatment of the little girl.

   "What is your name, sweeting?" Ian offered her an encouraging smile, making Scotia cringe at how forcefully she had spoken. She had demanded where Ian coaxed.

   "Lizbet," the girl whispered, and tears once again filled her eyes.

   "Lizbet, I am pleased to meet you. I am Ian." He urged her forward, toward his chest with a gentle hand on her back.

   Icy fingers gripped Scotia's soul as her half formed suspicions coalesced. She lacked even the most basic of talents when it came to compassion and sympathy. She would never make a decent mother—especially since those traits did not come to her naturally. And there was nothing natural about her reaction to children.

   Ian continued to stroke the girl's hair and coo to her softly, until she all but melted in his arms in a puddle of tears and body-wracking sobs.

   Scotia flinched at the sound, not from fear but from the wrenching sadness the child now expressed. Many times she had felt like crying in her youth, only to be silenced by her mother. What would it be like to let go like that, to give oneself over to the turmoil inside? Scotia looked away from the girl's tear-stained cheeks, unsettled by her emotional release. With a trembling hand, Scotia tugged at the edge of her armor. She could never be so free with her pain. Her mother had hammered that sentiment into her head during her youth. "What has happened to her?" Scotia asked through a sudden thickness that invaded her throat.

   Ian did not answer. But as he gazed up, sympathy and understanding shone in his eyes. "Shh now, sweeting. Nothing can harm you while Ian is here."

   He continued to talk, his voice low and soothing. When her crying slowed, he lifted her in his arms. "Let us take her inside. She has been through enough tonight. She will tell us what has happened when she's ready. For now, she needs a meal and a warm bed near the fire."

   A grating sound filled the air once again as the gate came down. Scotia looked at Ian with the child in his arms, and a strange feeling fluttered in her stomach. Liz- bet looked so at ease curled against Ian's body. It was how Scotia had felt the morning he had kissed her on the parapets. Welcomed, cherished, comfortable. Oh, but to be that child.

   It looked as though little Lizbet had been in some sort of battle. Or was her presence here a ploy orchestrated by a challenger to catch her off guard? A worse thought occurred to Scotia: Did the man she feared most have a hand in the girl's sudden appearance?

   "Keddy," Scotia called to the guard. "Gather a scouting patrol of at least ten men. I want information. Where did the girl come from? Are her parents nearby?"

   Keddy straightened and a solemn yet proud expression crossed his youthful features. "We shall find the answers ye seek, mistress." He offered her a terse bow, then raced toward the guard tower, no doubt eager to perform his first adult duty within her charge.

   Scotia turned back to Ian and the child. "Bring her in, and then we will press her for answers. We must know if the Four ..."

   She broke off, not wanting to speak out loud the worst of her fears. Ian nodded, his eyes reflecting the dread she could not utter as they headed inside. Only one other group could render this type of trauma to the Scots besides the armies led by Edward II.

   With trembling fingers, Scotia grabbed a straw pallet from a stack near the wall, then arranged it before the hearth. The warmth of the flames cast out a gentle greeting. Ian laid the child down with her feet closest to the flames, then wrapped a blanket about her small, beaten body. He cradled her head in his lap. He looked so natural, like he had done this same sort of thing a hundred times before.

   As if reading her thoughts, Ian looked up and offered her a half smile. "My foster mother was the medicine woman in the clan. I used to visit the sick with her. It was always my job to comfort the patient while she mixed her remedies. The clan did not judge me at those times." His smile slipped, and he averted his gaze, but not before Scotia saw shadows enter his eyes.

   She wanted to say something, anything to wipe the shadows away, but Maisie appeared, clutching a wooden bowl that usually held one of her curatives. She offered the bowl to Scotia. "You will need this to treat her."

   "Nay." Scotia waved the bowl away. "I shall not let you drug her. We need answers before she can sleep."

   A gentle smile came to Maisie's lips. "This is merely water for cleanin' the child, Scotia."

   "Oh." Scotia sat back on her heels, chagrined by her reaction to something any mother would want to provide a child, especially one in distress. It was a blatant reminder of what a poor mother she would make.

   Maisie offered Scotia the bowl and linen again.

   Scotia shook her head, keeping her hands well away from the objects. "You had best cleanse her. I do not wish to harm her further."

   "Children are far more durable than you think," Maisie chided as she set about gently removing the blood and dirt from the child's face. Maisie wiped the deep cut, and the girl winced.

   "There now, sweeting. You are safe with us," Ian soothed while Maisie worked.

   Lizbet's gaze moved from Maisie and Ian to Scotia. "Make the bad men go away," she said in a voice thick with fear. "Mama tried, but she was not strong like you."

   Ian and Scotia shared a wary glance across the child's makeshift bed. "What kind of bad men?
”
Ian asked.

   Lizbet closed her eyes and started to tremble. "A big man on a white horse."

   The king and his armies Scotia did not fear. The current English king had yet to prove himself as powerful a leader as his father before him. Nay, there was another force of destruction she feared above all others: the Four Horsemen. Her blood ran cold at the thought.

   "Was he alone?" Scotia prompted as she stroked the rounded pink cheek closest to her. When tears spilled from Lizbet's eyes, Scotia snatched her hand back, fearing she had hurt the child.

   "I only saw... the big man and the fire," she whispered. "He killed Mama ... with an arrow."

   A cry of sorrow echoed deep within Scotia as she remembered that image from her own past. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears, mimicking the sound of horses approaching the castle.

  
She had been older than Lizbet during her own encounter with the Four Horsemen, but the fear had been the same. A gust of wind had swirled through the great hall as the door slammed against the wall, one more sound in a monotonous litany heard since the siege on the castle began that morning. The cry of war tore through the open space, raising the gooseflesh on Scotia's arms. A formless shape emerged through the doorway, a crossbow raised to strike. It was then that she realized this sound had stood apart from the rest. So near, so threatening.

   Her body began to quake as the shape took the form of a man, his white cape billowing around his shoulders. He flashed her an eerie smile, one that made him look almost familiar. He moved closer.

   Scotia knew she should run, yet her feet would not obey. He moved closer, then closer still. Recognition flared in her memory. She had not seen him before, but she knew who he was, a specter of death who had come to kill.

   The air in the room seemed to press in around her, warning her to flee. With his free hand, the man reached out to grab her. Her feet shuffled backward and, thankfully, he grabbed only air. She continued backward, out of his grasp.

   His smile dissolved as his face twisted in rage. A roar that seemed to come from the depths of hell itself filled the chamber. The sound went on and on, sending the other occupants in the hall fleeing for their lives.

   He lifted his bow again and took aim at her. Only in the face of death did her feet find flight. She spun around just in time to feel the bite of an arrow in her back as she ran toward Maisie and Burke. They stood at the edge of the shadows, but she could see them clearly. As her heartbeat drowned out all else, they coaxed her to them, anxiety and fear written on their usually serene faces. Scotia thrust herself into the protection of Maisie's bosom before she drew a rasping breath around the pain exploding in her back and dared to look behind her.