Duncan (Immortal Highlander Clan MacMar #5)

Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

“ J amaran said none of the Selseus have spotted another hybrid anywhere near the bay,” Caroline said when she walked into the garrison hall common room. “Jules and I have been patrolling the caves and shallows every day, but we’ve had no luck, either. Unless that changes I doubt we’ll be able to try another healing.”

“’Tis been but a week.” Nyall set aside the map scroll he had been studying and went to embrace his wife, and nuzzled her damp hair. “Mmmmm. You smell of the hot spring.”

“I took a dip to rinse off the salt before I came to report, Captain. Volunteers get to do that.” She smiled up at him. “Did you lock up Nicole Fairburn for some reason? I haven’t seen her around lately.”

“She spends much of the day in her chamber.” He sighed. “Duncan’s leaving the stronghold every morn to attend the villagers, and doesnae return until long after dusk. According to Fletcher, since the healer shared his bed with the lady a week past they’ve no’ spoken.”

“But that means they’re lovers. You said it would be another month, and Jamaran picked next week. That means I won the Duncan and Nicole Get Busy pool.” Caroline grinned as she stepped back and held out her hand. “Hand it over, pal.”

Nyall sighed as he unbuckled the sheath with his favorite fighting dagger from his belt and offered it to her. “Our friend the commander never mentioned what item he wagered.”

“It’s not an item. He has to cater to a personal fantasy of mine.” Her eyes filled with mischief. “If you want to watch him pay up, come to our cottage after sunset.”

He walked with her to the great hall, where the laird and his wife stood with Shaw and Brochan, both of whom appeared drenched.

“You lot need settle for what you may scrounge from my cold pantry for the evening meal tonight, Captain,” the cook said as he wrung out the bottom of his dripping tunic. The puddle that splashed to the stone floor collected itself and crept up over his sodden boots, thanks to his mortal weakness, which made him a magnet for sea water any time he came near it. “Worth stocked the big hearth with pine instead of oak, and lighting the wood near set Jamma and her bairn on fire. Every damned dish I prepared, ’twas doused with sand while they put out the flames. Chieftain, that scullery’s a menace.”

“Only think what Worth might do if we pit the lad against the enchantress,” Shaw told him, patting his shoulder. “Come and change your garments.”

Nyall frowned after the two men as they walked away. “How does Brochan escape the sea water when ’tis soaking him?”

“He strips atop a high stool, and tosses the wet clothes in a bucket, which Shaw shall carry out before the water seeks him.” The laird rubbed his eyes. “They emptied every tide pool from here to the east end of the island, but found no hybrids in hiding.”

“Jules and I and the Selseus are having the same bad luck.” Caroline regarded Valerie. “Could it be because one of them died here? Maybe they know we captured it.”

“Connal has contacted the druids on the mainland, and they claim the Cait Sith may be capable of reading each other’s thoughts,” the other woman said. “It’s possible the hybrids share the same ability.”

Nyall hadn’t heard about the laird receiving word from the magic folk. “Why involve the druids in our quest against the hybrids?”

“Caroline, why don’t we go and help Janna and the kitchen maids put together a cold buffet for the evening meal?” Valerie asked, tucking her arm through the diver’s before she could reply, and guided her out of the hall.

As soon as they were out of earshot the laird moved toward the central hearth, a spot where no one could overhear what was said.

“You may trust my wife keep your counsel, my lord,” he reminded Connal.

“We didnae tell the druids anything about the hybrids. After reports reached them of Derdrui’s slaughter of mortals on Insii Orc—some of whom shared their bloodlines—they sent us all they ken of the Cait Sith. They’ve agreed Mistress Fairburn may use their time portal as well.” His expression darkened. “She must go on the morrow, as soon as MacLeir may set sail for the mainland.”

That surprised him. “You wish her gone when she possesses a healing boon, and we face a war with the enchantress?”

“’Tis been much gossip and fretting among our vassals about the lady. That I might ease their worries I asked the druids send a copy of an old portrait from their archives. I possessed only a vague memory of the drawing, as did Fletcher,” the laird told him, and drew a small scroll from his sleeve. “Take a look.”

Nyall unrolled the parchment, which had been etched and delicately hand-tinted to portray a woman with red-gold hair and large blue eyes. Her coloring was not only identical to Nicole Fairburn’s, she possessed the same pointed nose and chin.

“How can druids in our time ken Mistress Fairburn’s face when they’ve never met the lady?” he asked Connal.

“’Tisnae her, lad,” he said softly as he took the scroll from him and rolled it up. “’Tis Princess Eilonwy, our sire’s first wife. He drew her once for the druids we sheltered from the Romans, as the magic folk wished see her beauty. They kept the original portrait sealed and preserved in their archives.”

When the laird tossed the portrait into the flames Nyall nearly snatched it out again, but then he understood.

“You believe Nicole’s the princess’s daughter?” He threw up his hands. “How? Eilonwy’s been gone these two thousand years at least. The lady came from the future.”

“She’s admitted lying about her name. What more does she conceal?” Connal’s jaw tightened, making a muscle along it tic. “Mar ever told us the princess died in Elphyne at the hands of the enchantress. Before she died mayhap she birthed our sire’s daughter, and hid her somewhere in the mortal realm. Or ’tis possible the lady’s a dark Fae like Derdrui, and one night whilst we sleep she shall slay us all in our beds. I cannae tell you because I dinnae ken the truth of Nicole Fairburn.”

Nyall bent down to pick up a split and tossed it into the flames, covering the curl of ash that was left of the scroll. He didn’t wish to believe their sire would have concealed a full-blood Fae daughter by Eilonwy from them, but Mar may have done so to protect the lass.

“Why dinnae you ask Mistress Fairburn if she’s Fae instead of sending her back? ’Tis said they cannae lie. Or bid the healer test her with one of the baubles from his cabinet,” he said.

“Duncan’s already bedded her,” the laird told him. “How think you he’d act upon learning all I’ve told you?”

Nyall realized if Nicole was Eilonwy and Mar’s daughter, that would mean the lady was their half-sister. “Fack. You cannae tell him ’tis a chance she’s our sibling.”

“Now you understand my haste in sending the lady away from Caladh.” Connal touched his shoulder. “Say naught of this, only post two men by the infirmary for the night. Whatever Duncan discovers, he cannae go unguarded until MacLeir sets sail for the mainland.”

“What reckon you he should do if you leave him unguarded?” he had to ask.

The laird’s expression turned mournful. “He shall seek out his lover, I reckon, just as you or I would. One night with her our brother may someday forget. Two?” He shook his head.

Duncan moved silently along the gallery above the great hall, taking care not to make any unnecessary sound. As a young lad Connal had never stood at the spot above the central hearth to listen in on their sire’s conversations—he had never been so devious—so he remained unaware that everything he said could be heard from above. He’d also caught a glimpse of the druid’s drawing before the laird had tossed it in the flames.

She looks just as Princess Eilonwy did. If she’s the get of her and Mar, we’re half-blood brother and sister.

For him, believing Nicole to be a sibling would require more than a sketch created by druids, Duncan thought. It mattered little if she were mortal or Fae; he could not sire a bairn with any woman, so there would be no consequences from the passionate night they’d shared. If she remained ignorant of her origins, then neither of them could be blamed for what they’d done. What wounded him was the fact that she may have known, or even suspected. How cold-blooded did a woman have to be to offer her affections and her body to a half-brother?

Mayhap she lied, and that night meant naught for her.

He took a seldom-used passage that led around the back of the stronghold to a dusty set of stairs the vassals disdained because they proved too narrow. Using them, he went directly to the hall next to the guest chamber, and then slipped inside Nicole’s room just as two guards came into the passage on the opposite side.

His deceitful lover lay on the bed, but she sat up as soon as he closed and barred the door. “Did you forget how to knock, Healer MacMar?”

“I’m your lover, my lady, or did you forget?” he countered, controlling his anger enough to keep his tone bland.

“We had sex a couple of times during one night. That doesn’t make you my lover.” She rolled over, presenting her back to him. “I’m tired. Please leave.”

Looking upon her made his whole body go rigid, for his need to see her had grown almost beyond his ability to contain himself. It had been a week since the night they’d come together and loved. In the morning Duncan had woken alone, and the lady had taken great pains to avoid him altogether since. Unable to fathom why, he’d retreated into his duties, using them to leave the stronghold at dawn and not return until long after the evening meal. Now in just a matter of hours she would be gone from the island, away from him, and when she returned to her time, forever beyond his reach.

Half-sister or not, she would not toss him aside like some maid she no longer wished attend her. She would face him and admit what she had done.

He strode over to the bed, and jerked back the coverlet to reveal her fully-dressed form. “Do you sleep with boots on, my lady?”

Nicole shifted over to the other side and climbed off, glaring at him. “I thought…never mind. I don’t want to talk to you.”

“A pity, for I very much wish speak with you.” He came around the bed before she could escape, and backed her up into the corner by the window slit. He would not touch her, for he truly didn’t trust himself at the moment. He could not kiss her. He refused to beg for her affections. “Why do you resemble my sire’s dead wife?”

“Do I?” She ducked her head to avoid his gaze. “Which wife would that be? He married so many women. ”

“I saw a portrait of Eilonwy tonight. You’re her image.” He reached out to make her look at him, and then thought better of it. “I want the truth, Nicole. Why should a mortal who’s the twin of a Fae princess hide herself from us, unless she knew of the clan long before she came to our island? Did you wish deceive us about your kinship with her? Was she your màthair ?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Healer MacMar.” Now she looked at him almost defiantly. “I am Nicole Fairburn, and I was born in the twenty-first century. Your father’s wife has been dead for two thousand years. There’s no way I could be her daughter.”

She had finally made a mistake. “How do you ken when Eilonwy died?”

“You told me.” As he shook his head she took a step back and made a dismissive gesture. “Someone else must have—Lady Valerie, or one of the other women.”

“Our ladies dinnae ken such. We never speak of the time when Derdrui murdered Eilonwy. Indeed, we seldom speak of the princess, and never to outsiders. Only blood-kin ken ’tis been two thousand years since her murder.” He braced his hands on either side of her. “Tell me truly now.”

The next breath she took in sounded ragged. “ Yes, I knew what happened to her before I came here. My aunt told me.”

His blood seemed to freeze. “You’re no’ entirely mortal. One of your parents, they’re Fae.”

Nicole didn’t reply, but her mouth tightened and she looked away.

He now had only one question left, and asking it would gut him. Still, he had to know. “Do I call you sister, then?”

“Duncan.” She gave him a haughty look. “Do you really believe that I would sleep with you if I knew we were siblings?”

“Cousins, then.” He allowed her to push him aside and escape, and watched her go to the table, where she filled two mugs with cider from a jug. “I see. ’Tis that we share no blood at all.” She sighed and nodded. “’Tis why you lied when first you came here.”

“I didn’t know what to think. For a few days I thought you had abducted and drugged me so I wouldn’t know I’d been kidnapped.” She came to him, and put the other mug in his hands. “A long time ago I was told never to reveal to anyone who or what I am, because I might be killed.”

Duncan wondered why she was still so frightened. “Admit the truth for me. You’re half-Fae, like me and my clan.”

“Yes.” She glanced around them. “That’s also why I don’t understand why your magic ring brought me here. I’m not mortal like the other women.”

“Mayhap you’re the one the clan needs above all others.” Although he wasn’t thirsty he took a drink from the mug. “I’ll wager your powers, they shall prove necessary when Derdrui finds the island.”

“It won’t matter because I’m leaving Caladh first thing in the morning.” The words hung between them for a long moment before she added, “Lady Valerie spoke to me earlier. The laird is sending me to the druids so they can return me to my time.”

Duncan shook his head. “I shall advise my brother why you must remain with us.”

“Why? To heal the hybrids, which we still don’t know if I can do? Or to let Derdrui kill me, which she’ll want to do the moment she sees how much I resemble Eilonwy?” Her shoulders hunched. “Fine. Let’s say I go to the enchantress, and offer myself up to protect the MacMar. Do you really believe my sacrifice will be enough to make her leave the clan alone?”

“Never would we force you do thus,” he countered. “That I vow on my own life.”

“Then come with me, Duncan.” She took the mug from him, set it aside, and held his hands in hers. “Travel to my time with me, and share my life in the future. No one there will know what we are, and with my father’s wealth and resources it will be easy to hide. We’ll find a place where we can be alone together, and live the way we want to.”

She hadn’t yet admitted to him anything more than she was half-Fae, and she knew of Eilonwy. If he agreed, would she tell him all? It might have been wiser to lie to her, but Duncan had grown weary of secrets and deception.

“’Tis a lovely dream.” He kissed her brow. “I understand, for I dinnae wish sacrifice myself in battle. I’m a healer, no’ a warrior. Yet if we cannae stop the enchantress and the Cait Sith, the future, ’tis doomed. If we dinnae destroy the hybrids, ’tis likely they shall wipe out all of mortal and immortal kind long before your time arrived.”

A tear escaped Nicole’s lashes, and rolled down her cheek. “Then what do you want me to do? Die here with you?”

“No, my lovely lady.” He pulled her against him. “We shall defeat Derdrui, and assure the future, ’twill yet exist when ’tis time for your birth. Once we’ve done thus, then we may decide the rest of our lives.”

She looked up at him for a long moment, uncertainty in her eyes. “You really believe we can defeat the enchantress. Not even your father could do that, and he was a Fae prince.”

“We’ve you and the other ladies from the future with us now. Combined with the clan’s strengths… ” A wave of dizziness came over him. “Forgive me, I dinnae…” He glanced at the jug of brew and then staggered toward the door.

“No, I’m the one who’s sorry, Healer,” he heard Nicole say before he blacked out.

Speal smelled fresh blood and old death as soon as she entered the tavern, but ignored the stench. Since arriving on Insii Orc she had encountered only a few Cait Sith; they had told her the enchantress had sent most of them out to dig up and bring to her dead mortals. From the stink of rot she had been playing with the corpses in place of the mortals she liked to torment, but even knowing that didn’t prepare Speal for the sight she beheld in the common room.

The enchantress had dressed several bodies like highborn females draped in silks and pearls, and placed them at a table with mugs and platters, as if they had come for a meal. On the platters she had piled small mounds of grain mixed with slices of badly-browned fruit. Flies buzzed over the food with busy delight. In front of the cold, dark hearth lay the remains of a man and woman, both missing their heads and dressed in the garments of a lowborn male and female, one atop the other as if they were in the midst of copulating. The decapitated heads of swine had been skewered to their severed necks. Across the mantel Derdrui had strung a garland of the blackened, moldy internal organs from all the corpses, studded with shriveled eyeballs.

“You took your time,” the enchantress muttered from the dark corner where she sat watching her. Fresh blood drenched her; likely from the pigs she’d beheaded. “What do you think of my tableau? I’m calling it Tossing Swine before Pearls.”

“’Tis aptly named, my sovereign.” Speal had never minded killing mortals so much, but seeing what the pigs had been made to suffer nauseated her. “I bring news from the mainland. Shall we walk a bit? The sun has set.”

Outside the tavern one of the shifters stood with a torch, which she tossed inside after they had emerged.

“I have decided to burn what is left of this miserable town, one building at a time,” the enchantress mentioned as she drew her blood-soaked wrap around her gore-streaked arms and shoulders. “When we leave here for Caladh I believe I will also cast a spell over the place. It will turn every mortal that comes here into dogs or swine, or perhaps rats. I cannot decide which would be the most amusing.”

“’Twould prove a formidable curse.” She knew Derdrui was not intoxicated, as she had been after slaughtering the Norse raiders. “Fiacail and the other hybrids, they’ve chased off Duxor. They intend rule themselves, and breed, and do as they wish.”

“And after she told you that, you stabbed her in the gut and chest, and tossed her in the sea.” The enchantress clapped her hands together. “A delightful memory. I will cherish it, always, although you know very well that you should have killed that monster. Then you might have taken her memories. I’m sure she knew where the MacMar are hiding.”

They stopped in front of the merchant trader, which the crew was stocking with food, water and weapons.

“I took all she ken from her, my sovereign,” Speal told her softly. “Before I pushed her in the water, Fiacail gave me her memories of pretending to be a castaway lad and serving for a time as a scullery to the clan on their island.” She ignored the furious look Derdrui gave her. “In the morning we shall set sail for Caladh.”

“Tell me where they are.” When she said nothing the enchantress seized her throat in a painful hold, and tried to take the memories from her, only to encounter the wall that Fiacail’s hybrid mind had created, which Speal now knew how to use. “You dare keep this from me? It’s all I’ve ever wanted from you worthless, useless sluts.”

“First vow on all you hold sacred that you shall keep the promises you’ve made us. That you shall provide the Cait Sith with the means so we may abide in comfort and peace.” As Derdrui’s grip tightened she grinned, and managed to wheeze out, “Do you reckon death frightens me? Without hope, life ’tis naught but eating ashes.”

The enchantress peered at her as if she didn’t recognize her anymore. “I hold nothing sacred but my own life, you hideous sow.”

Speal nodded, but said nothing more.

“Very well. I swear on my own life that I will keep the promises I have made to you. After I wipe out the MacMar, I will give the Cait Sith what they have always wanted.” She released her. “Now, where are my traitorous love’s bastard sons?”

“I shall take you to them,” she promised.