The man bent and dragged the cloaked figure to its feet, knocking aside the hood, revealing a mass of fiery tangles. It was obvious that her hands and feet were firmly bound.
“Now, wench, ye’ll tell us where ye’ve taken our sheep, or I’ll cut out y’er tongue so ye’ll never be able to speak again. But before I do, I’ll see that the lads and I find a good use for you.”
The others roared with laughter.
As he watched, Shaw felt as if all the breath had been knocked from his lungs. Once again Merntt had defied him. And was now being held captive by a brute who would take great pleasure in inflicting pain.
Chapter Thirteen
Shaw’s mind worked frantically.
If he were Sutton, he would simply charge ahead, using his exceptional skill with sword and dirk to rain blows on his enemy and rescue the lass. But he was not his brother. Though he had received the same training with weapons as Sutton, he’d had little chance to put it to practical use. While Dillon and Sutton had gone off to war, he had remained behind, to pray for their safe return. His skill with a sword had never been tested on the field of battle.
It was not fear for his own life that held him back. His life mattered not. But for Merritt’s sake, he could not afford to fail. If he blundered into their midst and became a prisoner, as well, he would only add to the lass’s misery.
He was reminded of his love of the game of chess. He had always been adept at planning strategy. Mayhap...
Nay, his mind seemed to have gone numb.
Oaf, Merritt called him. Aye, in times of peril, he was little better than an oaf. He would need more than prayers now, he thought glumly. Think, oaf. Think.
Suddenly, a plan began to take shape.
Quickly doffing his hood, he pressed his hands into the mud at his feet and smeared it over his face and into his hair, until it stood out around his head in stiff tufts. Tying his cloak haphazardly around his waist to conceal his sword, he streaked his shirt and tunic with more dirt. Then, pasting a silly smile on his lips and feigning an awkward, uneasy gait, he stepped into the circle of firelight.
“Hold,” a short, stocky man shouted, aiming the tip of his sword at Shaw’s chest.
“Ye would like me ta hold y’er sword, m’laird?” Like a simpleton he held out his muddy hands toward the weapon.
The men standing around the fire, their spirits lifted by the ale they’d consumed, burst into raucous laughter.
Merritt’s head came up sharply, and she peered at Shaw with utter disbelief.
“Begone, you addle-brained lout,” cried the leader.
“Please, m’Iaird,” Shaw cried in an odd, high-pitched whine. “I beg a bite to eat.”
“A beggar,” said a thin, wiry peasant whose front teeth were missing. “Let him stay, Lysander. We can have sport with him. ‘Twill pass the time.”
“I have a better way to pass the time.” The leader drew Merritt close and pressed the flagon to her lips. Most of it spilled down the front of her cloak, but enough passed her lips to cause her to choke and gag, bringing another round of laughter from the others.
To draw attention away from her Shaw called, “Please, m’laird. I’ll do anyt’ing for a drop of spirits.”
“Grovel on your hands and knees like a dog,” the stocky man ordered.
At once, Shaw fell to his knees in the mud while the others gathered around, chortling. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that the leader, though still holding Merritt firmly in his grasp, had turned his attention to the circle of men.
“If he is hungry,” one of the others called, “why does he not eat the dirt?”
They began calling and taunting. “Eat the dirt, simpleton.”
To the amusement of all, Shaw scooped up a handful of mud and shoved it into his mouth. While the others drew closer and continued their laughter, the stocky man took the flat of his broadsword and brought it down across Shaw’s back. The force of the blow flattened Shaw into the mud, and he sprawled there, facedown, while the others roared with laughter.
“Let him stay and be our court jester,” the toothless one jeered.
“Aye, Lysander,” called another. “You will be our king, and the fool will amuse you.”
The leader seemed to consider for a moment, enjoying his position of authority, then sat down on a rock and dragged Merritt to her knees in the dirt at his feet. “All right, buffoon. Amuse me. But take care. If you do not make me laugh, I will have my sport by allowing my cohorts here to carve you up in little pieces.”
“May I have a sip o’ ale first, m’laird?” Shaw cackled. “To wash ta mud from ma mouth?”
“I’ll not waste fine ale on the likes of you. Now quickly, amuse me, lest I tire of this sport.”
“Aye, m’laird. Thank ye, m’laird.” Shaw bobbed up and down like a cowardly imbecile and picked up several rocks. After testing their weight for a moment, he proceeded to juggle them with a fair amount of expertise, all the while blessing the old monk, Father Zachariah, who had taught him this trick when he was but a mere lad.
Though the other men clapped and shouted for more, the leader seemed bored. “Enough. Any dolt can juggle a few stones. Beware, jester. You have yet to make me laugh.”
Shaw thought about aiming the stones at Lysander’s head, but Merritt’s situation was still too precarious.
Setting aside the stones, Shaw positioned himself in front of the fire and lifted his hands. Pointing to a huge boulder, he called, “If ye will watch, ye will see great winged birds and terrible beasties.”
At once he began moving his hands and fingers, creating shadow pictures that were amazingly like birds and animals. Soon these simple peasants were caught up in the moment and forgot everything as they tried to identify each image.
While he manipulated his fingers, Shaw glanced at the leader. Even Lysander had momentarily forgotten the woman.
Across the fire, Merritt’s eyes met Shaw’s. He darted a look at the forest, and she nodded her understanding.
Shaw relaxed a little as he said, “This one ye will all recognize.” Turning his fist, he created the image of a shapely maiden. Then, by using his fingers, he made her walk.
The peasants hooted and cheered, and Shaw did it again and again until he could sense their growing dissatisfaction.
“Enough,” Lysander called. “I would prefer... the real woman to mere pictures.”
While the others stared in surprise at his sudden shift of mood, he dragged Merritt up by the front of her cloak and pressed his mouth to hers. With her hands and feet bound, she was helpless to fight him.
“I intend to have this wench first,” Lysander announced. “When I’ve tired of her, the rest of you can fight over what’s left.” With that he tore her cloak from her.
Seeing that she was dressed in the garb of a stableboy, he arched a brow. “Wait. What is this?”
The others gasped in surprise at her strange manner of dress.
Despite her fears, Merritt tossed her head and faced him, eyes blazing.
“Now,” Lysander said, his look turning from surprise to understanding, “why would a female go about the countryside at night dressed in such as this?”
He glanced around. The others had fallen silent.
“I will tell you why. The female is up to no good. Could it be that she offers assistance to the hated Highland Avengers?”
While the others murmured agreement, he grasped her roughly by the arm and said, “Speak, wench. Why are you out on this dark night in such clothes?”
She held her silence.
Lysander’s hand swung out, landing across Merritt’s face with such force her head snapped to one side. “Tell me, woman, and quickly, before I lose my patience.”
As he watched her, Shaw’s heart fell. He’d seen that look too often to think she would bend to this man’s wishes. Even in the face of brutality and certain death, Shaw knew that the defiant Merritt Lamont would never answer the question.
“Very well. You have
sealed your fate.” Lysander took a knife from the waistband of his breeches and lifted it to the neck of her shirt. In one quick motion he slit the cloth. The remnants gaped open, revealing the swell of high, firm breasts, barely covered by a pale chemise.
“A comely wench,” one of the men shouted. “Hurry, Lysander, and take your pleasure. For when ye’ve finished with her, I’ll surely take a turn.”
With his hands digging into the soft flesh of her upper arms, the leader dragged her close and pressed his mouth over hers.
“Wait,” Shaw said boldly. He searched his mind for something, anything, that would serve as a distraction.
Lysander lifted his head and cast a hateful look at him.
“I have yet to make ye laugh, m’laird,” Shaw added in his shrill tone. “But I know this will do it, if ye will but spare the lass for a moment.”
“Nay, fool. I have had enough of your tricks.”
“Please, m’laird. I would do anyt’ing, anyt’ing,” he emphasized, “for a drop of spirits.”
“Then you can stay and help us kill the woman when we’ve finished with her.” Lysander’s yellow eyes glittered with hatred. “For the wench must learn that no one defies me. And then, fool, when it is your turn to die, we will grant your wish and give you a drop of spirits before we slit your ugly throat.”
“One trick, then, m’laird, before I must die,” Shaw cackled.
With his awkward gait Shaw made his way to Merritt. Keeping his silly grin in place, he bowed grandly, saying, “Ta lasses of my village ofttimes ride me like a proud steed.”
With that he lifted her onto his shoulders and began to stumble around the fire.
“A proud steed indeed,” the toothless man called. “More like a hobbled goat, if you ask me.”
Everyone, including the leader, burst into laughter. But his smile faded when Shaw began limping in circles, faster and faster.
“Put her down, you oaf, before you fall and break both your necks. Not that I mind her death, mind you. But I want her alive until I’ve had my pleasure with her.”
“Aye, m’laird.”
With that, Shaw dropped to his knees, depositing Merritt gently in the grass, some distance from Lysander. As they disentangled, Shaw managed to slip into her hand a small knife that he’d kept hidden at his waist.
“Run, lass,” he whispered, “and never look back.”
Merritt stared mutely up at him. Before she could utter a word, Lysander shouted, “Enough! Fetch the woman back to me, fool. I have already grown tired of your tricks.”
“Aye, m’laird.”
Keeping his back to the others, Shaw waited until he was certain that Merritt had cut her bonds and could make good her escape.
Up until this very moment, he’d hoped and prayed that he would find some other means of settling this. But now, there was no other choice. He must resort to the sword, even though it meant taking a life.
Clutching the jeweled hilt, he felt the heat that surely must have warmed his father’s hand in this same manner. Unsheathing his sword, he tossed his cloak aside and turned to the stunned peasants.
“Now, lads.” His voice returned to its own deep timbre. “’Tis your turn to amuse me.”
Merritt lay in the grass a moment, struggling to rub some feeling back into her numb ankles and wrists. But with the return of feeling came a surge of pain, for the vines used to bind her hands and feet had been tied so tightly they had actually cut to the bone.
At first she could only crawl through the grass. When she could manage to stand, she made her way haltingly to a line of trees a short distance from the clearing. Her head swam from a blow to the skull administered by Lysander when he’d caught her in the forest. And the earlier arrow wound to her arm was bleeding afresh.
Leaning wearily against the trunk of a tree, she sank slowly to the ground and closed her eyes against the sickness that rose up inside. Impossible. She was never ill.
She thought about the Campbell’s fierce command to run and never look back. Though every ounce of her being shouted for her to obey, her perverse nature forced her to remain and stand her ground.
Was he not, this moment, fighting for his life? Aye, his life and hers. How could she turn her back on such nobility? Especially from a Campbell?
She forced herself to stand and bite down on the pain. Let no man ever say that a Lamont walked away from a fight. Especially one involving a cowardly Campbell.
Her fingers curled tightly around the hilt of the knife Shaw had given her. The brute named Lysander would pay. With that thought firmly in mind, she staggered into the fray.
Riding on a crest of fury, Shaw disposed of the first swordsman with ease. Surely he was a peasant lad who had seen little battle in his young life, for he was slow and clumsy.
Within a few strokes the toothless man had been beaten, as well. As he fell, mortally wounded, he called to his comrades for help, thus signaling to Shaw that they were coming up behind him. He quickly turned and faced two more opponents. who, though they struggled mightily, could not best him. He returned lunge for lunge, thrust for thrust, until he’d managed to disarm both men. But as they begged for their lives, their voices were suddenly stilled. Shaw saw that each man had taken a knife to the chest.
He whirled. And found himself face-to-face with Lysander and the stocky man who had beaten him with his broadsword.
“You would kill your own men?” Shaw asked incredulously.
“Aye,” Lysander replied. “Any man who would beg for his measly life has no right to it.”
“And who are you to decide that?”
Lysander’s lips curled in a feral snarl. “I am their leader. I am the one who answers to the Black Campbell. And I am the one who will see you floating facedown in the mud, fool.”
He lunged and Shaw deftly sidestepped. When Lysander lunged a second time, the stocky man came at Shaw from the opposite side. Though Shaw managed to fend off their thrusts, they could see that he was tiring, and they increased the frenzy of their attack, thrusting, parrying, inflicting dozens of minor wounds until Shaw’s tunic and shirt were smeared with his own blood.
Shaw, too, managed to inflict wounds upon them. But when the stocky man made a move to run, Lysander’s voice stopped him.
“No man runs from a fight and lives to tell about it. You will stay and see this through.”
“I am wounded,” the man cried.
“Aye. But you are not dead yet.”
The man reluctantly returned to the battle, only to have his arm slashed viciously by Shaw’s sword tip.
“Kill him,” the man shrieked in pain, “before he renders us helpless.”
“See,” Lysander shouted. “Already he tires. He cannot continue fighting both of us.”
Without a word Shaw drove the other man back against the trunk of a tree and pressed his sword to his throat.
“Spare me,” the man begged.
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than he slumped forward, a knife in his heart.
Shaw whirled to find Lysander facing him.
“Now, fool,” the leader of the pack of thieves cried, “I will show you how you may join those others.”
The two danced around the fire, blades flashing, each managing to inflict wounds upon the other, but neither able to disarm the other.
“You are losing blood,” Lysander taunted. “Soon enough you will be too weak to hold your sword.”
“Do not worry yourself about me,” Shaw replied. “When you are flattened beneath the heel of my boot, I will still be standing.”
“You wield your sword like a gentleman,” Lysander said. “But I know how to fight like a viper.”
“Aye. An apt description.” Shaw’s blade slashed through flesh, drawing a river of blood. “Soon you will be crawling on your belly like a viper.”
Lysander gave a cry of pain and lunged, determined to bring this duel to a conclusion.
As Shaw stepped back, his foot caught in the twisted vines of a
gnarled old tree and he went sprawling backward. At once Lysander’s face was lit with a cruel smile of triumph.
“Prepare to die,” he cried as he lifted his sword.
As he lunged, he suddenly seemed to stiffen, and the smile was wiped from his lips. A look of surprise was followed by a grimace of pain as he reached a hand to the hilt of a knife buried in his shoulder. With one quick motion he pulled the blade free. At once blood spilled from the wound.
When he looked up, Shaw had retrieved his sword and was struggling to his feet.
With a shriek of pain Lysander bolted and fled into the forest, taking for himself the refuge he had refused his men.
Shaw turned to see who had saved his life. At the edge of the clearing, Merritt stood perfectly still.
“I thought I told you to flee,” he shouted.
Her mouth opened, as if to issue a sharp retort. But though her lips moved, no words came out. Instead, while Shaw watched in shock and horror, she sank to her knees in the grass.
Chapter Fourteen
“God in heaven, lass.” In quick strides Shaw was kneeling beside Merritt.
She was deathly pale, propped up on one elbow in the grass, determined not to give in to the need to lie down. Blood streamed from the wound in her arm, to mingle with the blood that oozed from the torn flesh of her wrists.
He felt a sudden wave of fury at the sight of her looking so shattered. Instead of the tenderness he’d shown his wounded brother, he flew into an unreasonable rage.
“I ordered you to flee!”
“Aye. But you know how I dislike being ordered about.”
‘You defied me!” He felt his anger deepen. “I did not risk life and limb to have you remain here and be killed.”
‘No one asked you to. Lest you forget, Campbell, this is not your battle. I am quite capable of taking care of myself.”
“Aye. And look at you. Your flesh bloody and broken. Your clothes torn from you. And your head...” He touched his hand to the swollen lump at the base of her skull and heard her catch her breath at the pain.
“Your poor, battered head...” At once he gathered her into his arms. It was not, he reasoned, because he had an overwhelming desire to hold her and assure himself that she was truly alive. He merely wanted to keep her from falling.