The Firebrand (38 page)

With the wild battle cry of their Celtic ancestors, the men of Mull swept across the divide and onto the galleon. Wyntoun had been correct. The Spaniards had no stomach for a fight, and the Danes were too few to offer much resistance. In moments the fiercest of the fighting was done, and the Blade of Barra stood on the stern deck of the captured ship, surveying the damage.

“Sir Wyntoun!” Gillie cried out from the deck of the carrack. “Master Coll is hurt!”

Firing orders at his warriors, Wyntoun grabbed a line and swung back across to the carrack. Alan and Gillie were crouching over the prostrate form of the old sailor.

“Coll!”

Alan looked up at him. “Appears the old seadog took a wee ding to the head.”

Coll groaned, tried to sit, only to fall back, unconscious again.

“Will he be well, m’lord?” Gillie asked anxiously.

“ ’Twill take more than that to keep auld Coll down, lad,” Wyntoun replied with a reassuring nod. As he turned to order two nearby sailors to see to Coll, a young lad ran up from below.

“Master Alan, the sea is coming in below!”

“What’s that?”

“Aye, Turk sent me up to tell you that the ship is going to sink. He says to tell you the whole bow hull is smashed in at the waterline!”

The two men hurried below, only to find the lower third of the ship filled with seawater. It took Wyntoun only a moment to give his order.

“Damn them!” He scowled fiercely. “Alan, move all you can to the galleon. When you’re ready, we’ll cut free.” He started up the ladder. “I’ve got the maps and a few other things in my cabin that I need to be getting.”

****

In less than an hour, all had been moved to the galleon’s deck, and the wreckage nearly cleared away. The Spanish-built ship had sustained little damage to its masts and rigging, and the surviving foes had been placed under guard below.

“You were right about the treasure, Wyn,” Alan said with a rare grin as the knight climbed aboard. “The hold is bursting with gold and silver and chests full of emeralds and rubies from New Spain.”

Wyntoun clapped his cousin on the shoulder with a satisfied nod, and then turned his attention to his new ship. “Well, do you think we can sail this wee gem?”

“Aye, Wyn…with our eyes closed, we can sail her.”

With a smile, he handed Alan the oiled leather packet containing the Percy maps. “Secure these. And take a count of the men and the lads. We need to be cutting the carrack loose as soon as possible.”

Wyntoun crossed the deck to where Gillie now sat beside Coll. The injured sailor’s head was now bandaged, and his coloring and breathing were much improved. The old man was moaning and trying hard to regain consciousness.

“He’ll be fine, Gillie.” He gave the boy a reassuring pat on the back before rising to his feet. “Leave it to this old rogue to find a way to get out of helping with the cleaning of this mess.”

Wyntoun moved to the railing where lines still held the carrack fast. He frowned at the damaged vessel. No matter how valuable this prize was, it saddened him to watch the carrack die. Many a storm had he ridden out on the smaller vessel. Many a battle had he fought from her decks.

Climbing over the side of the galleon and dropping onto the main deck of the heavily listing ship, the Highlander cast a despondent glance at the empty stern deck.

The carrack had served two generations of MacLeans. First Alexander and then Wyntoun. Walking toward the steps that led to his cabin, the Highlander’s mind was crowded with memories of the past. He stopped and looked up into the rigging.

There was no saving her—he knew that. At least, she would die as a warrior should, he thought.

As Wyntoun climbed back aboard the galleon, Alan’s face was the first one that he saw. “Everyone’s accounted for. We lost only Jock—poor devil—and young Jemmy is missing a couple of fingers. But other than a few cuts and burns and bruises…and Coll…we’re sound and hearty.”

“Coll still insensible?” the Highlander asked, putting one leg over the railing.

“Aye. Gillie is still watching over him like a mother hen. But the old dog keeps moaning about someone named Adam.”

“Aye. Adam, the smith’s lad.” Wyntoun said.

“Who?”

“Adam...the old blacksmith’s son...” The Highlander’s eyes narrowed as he surveyed the deck. “The lad that Coll brought aboard.”

“I don’t know of any Adam. The smith’s lad is named Robbie.” He, too, looked around. “Aye. There he is…by the windlass.”

Wyntoun’s face clouded over in an instant.

“The devil take her!” he growled, leaping back over the railing and landing on the carrack’s deck.

“ADRIANNE!” he bellowed.

The Highlander ran to the forward castle where the crew quartered. As he moved down into the bowels of the ship, the sinking vessel groaned and lurched farther to port.

Perhaps it was the tightness that gripped his chest like a vise. Perhaps the sudden queasiness that churned in his belly. Whatever it was, Wyntoun knew that she was here—dressed as a lad named Adam—and about to go to the bottom of the sea on his own ship.

“ADRIANNE!”

The forecastle was empty, and he quickly returned to the main deck. The hatch cover was open and he dropped down into the gloomy hold. His boots splashed into a foul smelling mix of bilge and seawater.

“ADRIANNE!” he called out again.

Barrels were floating in the rising water, and Wyntoun pushed past them. In a moment he was waist deep in the icy water. The ship heeled over again, and the water rose higher.

“Wyn!” Alan’s shout came from the deck above. “We need to cut her loose now!”
“Adrianne, where are you?” the Highlander shouted, ignoring his cousin.

Wyntoun thought he heard a weak cry.

For the briefest of moments his entire body went still. His heart hammered in his chest. Where had the noise come from?

Time was running short. Taking a chance, Wyntoun charged through the chest deep water, pushing toward a large group of barrels that were bobbing and banging hard against a bulkhead.

“Adrianne!” he shouted her name again.

There was a small whimper and that was all he needed. Summoning all his strength, he shoved away the casks. Only murky water greeted him.

An icy hand touched him somewhere below the knee, and he dove beneath the waters.

She was there. Her legs and arms were moving sluggishly as she struggled to push her head up in between the crowded barrels.

Wyntoun’s arm wrapped around her waist and he dragged her back against his chest. She struggled for a moment in his arms, but in an instant they were both on the surface. Adrianne’s intake of breath was the most welcome sound Wyntoun MacLean had ever heard. He turned her quickly in his arms, touching her face, checking her breathing, making certain that she was not hurt or injured in any way. He knew his hands were clumsy, his actions rushed, but the almost paralyzing fear that he’d nearly lost her dominated all other thoughts.

“WYN!”

Alan’s call from the deck above penetrated Wyntoun’s brain. The water was sloshing back and forth in ever increasing waves. Adrianne was sagging like a dead woman against his chest. Lifting her high in his arms, Wyntoun pushed toward the ladder.

“What the devil…?” Alan asked, leaning into the opening as Wyntoun climbed the ladder and handed Adrianne up. “By the…”

“Meet Adam, the smith’s lad…or rather, my wife!”

“Not again!” Alan held Adrianne in a sitting position as Wyntoun climbed on deck after her. “Did anyone know she was here? By the saints, we could have left without her. She would have drowned, and we would never have known!”

“Save some of that until we have her on the galleon. It looks like this vessel is ready to go.”

Their departure from the carrack was speedy, and Wyntoun ignored the commotion around them as they boarded the new ship, carrying her to the cabin in the stern, with an openmouthed Gillie on his heels.

“Cut her free, Alan,” the knight called over his shoulder as he disappeared below with his wife.

Below, he ordered Gillie to turn around as he stripped off Adrianne’s wet clothing and wrapped her in warm blankets. She opened her eyes once and looked up at him and smiled. After that, she simply closed her eyes and dropped off to sleep. Peacefully, trustingly, she slept.

And, damn him, all he could do then was just sit beside her and hold her hand—feeling like a fool for not following his instincts when she’d come aboard—but thankful to have been given a second chance. He didn’t want to even imagine what life would be like if the carrack had gone to the bottom with her aboard.

Adrianne had become more important to him than life itself. And the devil take him if he wouldn’t work harder to make her understand the magnitude of his love. May he burn in hell, he told himself, if he didn’t grow to be a better husband.

Adrianne opened her eyes and stared vacantly at the dark oak beams of the ceiling. Scrolling vines of ivy leaves and roses had been painted in bright greens and reds and yellows along the exposed portions of the beams, and she smiled at the thought of some rough sailor devising such a lovely image.

She raised a hand to her forehead. It was a miracle. The headache that she had felt while she was just waking up was now gone. The floor no longer moved in great heaving swells beneath her. No longer could she taste the bile rising in her throat with each lurching slide of the vessel. She stretched her arms above her head and moved her feet. Her toes wiggled beneath linen bedclothes and she smiled.

And then the panic seized her.

By the Virgin, she’d intended to tell Wyntoun that she was aboard his ship. But it was too late! She sat up abruptly and looked around her. This chamber, though, was not the ship’s cabin, and it was certainly not the carrack’s dank hold!

The truth came back like a bolt of lightning. She’d been in the hold. Auld Coll had returned with a jar of water. She even remembered taking all Mara’s medicine and feeling the sleep that had crept up on her shortly after. Adrianne even remembered thinking, as she’d dozed off, that the sleep would be a blessing after the relentless heaves that had been tearing her insides to shreds.

She remembered dreams of sea battles and the firing of cannons. And then the water. The incredible rush of cold water pushing her down with its weight. Serpents had risen from the depths, tangling her arms and legs and dragging her down. Her lungs had burned for air, but she had struggled against them. And then, she had been just a soul without a body, floating above the dark sea and watching her own physical form drifting in the ocean currents.

But then…the sound of Wyntoun calling! Like an archangel sweeping up from some distant earthly paradise, his voice had called her back from the very gates of heaven.

There had been no hesitation in Adrianne. She had known that she had to go to him. She had to help him find her…save her. And she had reached out a hand, and her husband had taken hold of her!

Adrianne brought trembling hands to her face. Vaguely, she recollected his hands upon her, wrapping her in warm blankets. She could remember opening her eyes and seeing his anxious face—such care and concern etched in the lines around his green eyes. She had known then that she was safe. That he was nearby to protect her.

So she had let herself drift back to sleep.

She lowered her hands and looked about the unfamiliar room again. A large bed, a carved wood chair with an embroidered pillow upon it, a large chest sitting against an inside wall. The peat fire in a brazier looked as if it had been recently tended. She turned her head and looked at the single, shuttered window of the room. The whirring of a sea wind could be heard outside.

Adrianne pushed the covers back and stepped onto the braided rushes that covered the floor. She was barefoot. Instead of the boy’s clothing she had been dressed in when she’d left Duart Castle, she was now wearing a warm, long sleeved, wool nightgown.

She was grateful for the warmth of the garment as she moved to the window and opened the shutter. The blast of wintry air hit her full in the face. She pushed her long black mane over her shoulders and peered out at the steep slope of land that dropped away below her window. Just below a series of defensive walls, a broad and gray-green river stretched from left to right, and a rolling moor dotted with bracken and pine rose beyond it.

It seemed that she was on top of a rock. In a castle on top of a rock, she corrected, leaning out the window and looking from side to side at the impressive stone structure perched so high above the river. Looking up and down the river as far as she could see, Adrianne perceived no sign of Wyntoun’s ship.

“He has left me behind,” she whispered with dismay. He must have stopped at this place—wherever it was—and simply dropped her off before continuing on his journey.

Not that she had any right to complain about what he had done. She had been at fault again. Irresponsible—thoughtless—impulsively going where she shouldn’t have, with no thought of the consequences.

But the ship, she thought in panic. Muddled memories of the carrack taking water through gaping holes in its hull. Whatever happened to Wyntoun’s ship? Was it all a dream? And what of the rest—the other cabin where he had taken her?

She moved away from the window and frantically searched the room for something to wear. Running to the wooden chest, she was about to open it when the chamber door opened, and Adrianne whirled to face a well-dressed, silver-haired woman.

Adrianne gathered her unruly hair to one side and nodded hesitantly to the new arrival.

“Good morn,” she said cautiously.

“Good day, mistress. But I’m afraid I must tell you ‘tis afternoon already.” The woman’s gentle smile was warm and welcoming. She held a gray, woolen dress draped over her arm, and carried stockings and shoes in her hand.

“My name is Bridget. I run the household here.” Following Adrianne’s gaze to the dress, she smiled. “Hearing that your own clothing was lost in the voyage, I brought one of Lady Celia’s daughter’s dresses for you to wear. She wouldn’t hear of us bringing you any other. Just about the same size as you, too, I should say.”