Now that she believed she was free to marry Galeren, it was all she could think about.
She bid him good eve with a heavy heart and missed him before he shut the door to the room. They would wait until his vows were fulfilled. But it would be difficult.
Chapter Eighteen
Morgann heard rustlingabove him—in the trees.They walked in the trees here.He looked up but he saw nothing in the moonlit branches. Was he losing his mind to the constant cold? It wasn’t freezing, but he hadn’t moved in hours. The slight chill in the air and his shivering were becoming unbearable.
He was thirsty. Thirst always came first.
He deserved this. Silene had almost died. He was so glad she was alive. He didn’t owe this kind of allegiance to anyone, even after what the steward had done for him.
John had found him on the road to Edinburgh. His feet were burned and blistered from the heat below and having no shoes. He hadn’t eaten in…in truth, he had no idea, save that it had been a long time. He wasn’t used to it. One never grew used to starvation. But he’d gone without eating before. He knew what to expect. He was weary. Bone weary of living.
He was twelve.
John had taken him in and given him back his life. He never went hungry again. He learned how to fight with a sword and shoot an arrow. He grew strong and fit and John put him in his army at fifteen.
He’d known of Captain MacPherson since he’d come to Dundonald. Everyone knew of him and his closest group of men. Morgann used to watch them ride through the inner gates, home from doing the king’s duty, champions of Scotland. He’d aspired to be friends with them, men like them. He looked up to the captain and worked hard honing his skills in the hopes of fighting next to him someday.
But it wasn’t fighting that brought them together.
It happened one cold winter’s day when John and some of his men, including Morgann, rode home from Kilmarnock. They stopped to rest their horses by the river Irvine. John was restless and went to the water’s edge. He lost his footing and fell into the freezing water. The current was pulling him farther away from shore. Some of the men jumped in to save him but they, too, were swept away. With no time to think, Morgann jumped in. He swam with the current, directly to the steward and managed to grab hold of him. He swam back with John in his arm, but his limbs were too numb to go back for the other two.
When the captain, who had just returned from hunting their lunch, saw what was happening, he dove into the water and saved the other two men.
John threw Morgann a celebration that night and asked the captain to personally train him.
At first, Morgann had been happy to train with the captain, until John came to him and demanded that he find out if the captain was truly loyal to him. How about his men? Morgann couldn’t refuse. So, while he was training under the captain’s tutelage, he was also keeping his eyes on the captain and his men.
He didn’t report everything to John. Mac and the others questioned many things the steward did, but Morgann never spoke of any of it.
When John ordered Sister Silene’s death, Morgann didn’t want them to do it. He went with MacKinny and D’Ato to stop them. But the captain would never believe him. He was a traitor. That was all that mattered.
No one came home to the cottage. It was empty, abandoned. He thought he saw a couple going toward a house on the hill. He thought of calling out to them but he’d have all the MacPhersons on him in ten breaths.
Something moved above him. He looked up again, afraid to see one of them aiming an arrow at his heart.
He saw nothing.
Wait!
Those were not branches. They were planks nailed into the boughs. It took ballocks for someone to run around so high up. One wrong move…
The captain had told them that he and the other children at the stronghold were taught to climb and run in the trees. The captain had taught some of his men. Morgann and Padrig had never done it.
He caught a movement in the canopy. “Who are ye?” he called up.
Silence. And then… a kitten’s meow? What the—? Someone or something stepped over a few more of the planks and branches drooping closer.
Finally, Mac fell from the low branches and strode to Morgann. His dark eyes flashed like fire while he looked Morgann over. “What are ye doin’ here?” he asked. “Bound to a tree?”
Morgann was too afraid to tell him.
No. What’s the worst Mac could do? Kill him? He’d prefer it to what his life would be like now.
“I betrayed the captain.”
Mac stepped closer. Close enough for Morgann to see the captain’s wee kitten tucked in Mac’s cloak. “How did ye betray him?”