The Firebrand (7 page)

“Why would the sailors think Gillie was a servant of the devil?”

“His face, mistress. One look at him and they decided he’s one of...of
that
kind. The kind that brings bad luck.”

“But he’s only a lad with a birth scar of sorts.”

“He’s sure to bring bad luck, all the same, as far as sailors are concerned.”

She tightened her hold on the blanket as the sound of shouts and activity came from above. As the ship rolled again, she sat down on the single chair.

“This is the same nonsense I heard on Barra. Villagers not allowing him in their huts. Fishermen beating him if he got too close to their boat. Even the nuns from the chapel going wide around him if they were to meet him on the path.”

The shipmaster shrugged and leaned against the bulkhead by the door. “I told you before, everyone knows the lad brings bad luck.”

The ship heeled over sharply, and Adrianne knew the vessel was turning.

“But what proof has anyone of this foolishness? Has the lad been the cause of great fires, or storms, or plague? Has there been a great flood?” She continued to frown up at him. “Has there been one sickness or death in human or animal that the lad has been responsible for?”

Alan cocked an ear toward the open door for a moment as a loud commotion could be heard overhead. As he stepped out the threshold, Adrianne sprang to her feet, thinking to follow the Highlander on deck. An instant later, though, he was back in his place, shaking his head.

“Well, I’ve an hour’s work getting this ship back on course. The lad’s not bringing
me
any luck.”

“That’s no answer,” she persisted. “What is it that Gillie has done?”

“‘Tis not what
he
has or has not done, mistress,” Alan responded calmly. “I feel badly for the lad, as well. ‘Tis just that bad luck follows him about. Things...bad things happen to people when they let the lad tarry near them. A cow stops giving milk. A net full of fish breaks. ‘Tis nothing that he does. ‘Tis just that things happen.”

“Well, he’s been following me about for almost six months and nothing bad has happened to me.”

The man shrugged again as the first hint of a smile threatened to appear on his weathered face. “Well, mistress, I would not call hanging in a cage from the ramparts of Kisimul a
good
thing.”

“That was my own doing...and the doing of the abbess.”

“Maybe so. Anyway, some folk are not affected by bad luck. Wyntoun is like that. He was the one who found Gillie the Fairy-Borne in the first place and brought him to Barra. And just like you, nothing bad ever happens to him.”

There were more shouts coming from the deck above, and Adrianne bit at her lip as a wave of nausea struck her. She forced down the feeling.

“They might need help. Are you sure Sir Wyntoun will get him back aboard?”

“Aye, mistress. The water’s a wee bit cold, but the lad can swim.”

The matter-of-factness of his answer only eased her fears a little. She let another moment pass before rising and pacing the length of the cabin, occasionally stopping and gazing in the direction of the door.

“What will he do with the lad?”

Alan thought a moment. “We pass by a wee island called Muldoanich. The master may just cast him ashore there. The fishermen will be stopping there come spring, so the lad should survive. Someone will take him back to Barra.”

She shook her head in disagreement, eyeing the door of the cabin uneasily. “I know how the fishermen treat him. And that is even if he could survive out there alone through the winter.”

The Highlander stared at Adrianne, then spoke more softly. “You don’t have to worry, Mistress Percy. Wyn has even more of an interest in Gillie than you do yourself. He’ll do right by the lad.”

“And why is that?”

“I said before that he found him in bank of gillieflowers...all bundled up in a rag and left in the hills for the fairies...or the beasts to take. Now, the way that wee thing looked—with that devil’s...with that mark covering half of his tiny face—and weak enough that he didn’t have any voice left even to whimper.” He shook his head at the memory. “Most men would have walked away and let the poor creature take his last breath and thought no more on it. But not Wyntoun MacLean.”

Adrianne frowned deeply. She knew the realities of life in the Highlands...and in these wild windswept islands. Life was hard here for those trying to eke out an existence. And superstitions here were no stronger than in Yorkshire, where she grew up. Having a bairn here—just as having a child in her native country—was good only as long as you could count on him or her to help with the work. Woe to the child born ‘different,’ though. Ignorance had a dark and frightening power.

“They call him ‘fairy-borne,’” she murmured softly, recalling her first view of the lad’s face. Half of his face handsome, dark, and brooding. The other half misshapen—the flesh beneath his eye sagging, the skin red and raw, covered with scaly, encrusted patches. Whatever was wrong, the innocent boy had been plagued with the condition since infancy.

“Aye! Gillie the Fairy-Borne.” Alan leaned against the wall, eyeing her with his arms crossed over his chest. “Borne by the fairies into Wyntoun’s own hands.”

The ship heeled over again and shuddered as the wind caught in the sails. The wooden chest slid across the table. Adrianne reached for it and caught it before it fell to the floor. Placing it back where it was, she leaned gingerly against the cabin wall. The movement of the box had set the room spinning around her.

“I have...I was just hoping that your master would give me leave to see the lad before putting him off on the island.”

The Highlander cast a knowing look in her direction but said nothing.

“I’ve grown fond of Gillie these past months.” There was another dipping motion, and Adrianne’s stomach lurched uneasily. “I’m certain he stowed away on this ship to be close to me. He’s grown somewhat attached to me, I believe.”

“I can see how that could happen.”

Adrianne, surprised by his statement, glanced quickly at the man. His face had lost its guarded look for an instant, and tenderness was evident in the green eyes. She opened her mouth to speak, but a feeling of nausea—caused by the ship’s movement—swept over her, silencing her.

“Mistress Percy, are you weak-legged when it comes to the sea?”

She stared at the man blankly. “Of course not! I’ve sailed a number of--”

The ship rose and then dropped with a sideways rolling motion that was too much for her. Suddenly, she was running for the small windows and holding her hand to her mouth.

As she emptied the contents of her belly into open air, the gray-green ocean rose up in swells high enough to spray her with stinging brine.

In a moment, a pair of hands drew her back in and she found herself on knees and retching into a bucket.

On and on it went. A nightmare of sensations! A most horrible weakness! She willed herself to stop and tried to force open her eyes. But one glimpse of her own bile in the bottom of the bucket and she was heaving again. Her stomach was empty, and yet—as the ship rolled or lurched or dove into the bottomless well between two waves—she continued to retch.

Time passed. She wasn’t sure how much. Vaguely, she was aware of voices in the cabin. People around her. With her arms wrapped around the bucket and her head buried in it, however, she couldn’t find the strength to look up. With every movement of the ship, her body convulsed. The only conscious thought she had now was the desire to die.

“...Wrap the lad...dry blanket...Nay, I’m fine...set your course as you...”

The knight’s voice. Alan’s. Another, as well. A moaning sound that she realized was coming from her own body. With a will, she raised herself above her misery enough to sense the presence of young Gillie, as well, but immediately sank again without being able to open her eyes fully. She would live out her life with her two arms wrapped tightly around the bucket.

“...not much of a sailor...I do not know a woman who...”

Something in the tone of the new voice penetrated her stupor. Scorn.

This was everything that she hated. Helplessness—the inability to protect herself. Seasickness was the one weakness that she could not conquer, and her mother knew it very well. Adrianne knew it was the reason Lady Nichola had arranged to have her sent to an island. Her mother wanted her in a place where leaving...where escaping...would be next to impossible. Even for her.

Fighting the sickness, she realized that her body was shivering violently. The cramping of her belly was like a red hot poker jabbed into her entrails. She was obviously in her final death throes.

“Coll, go find a dry blanket...and fetch a clean bucket, as well.”

Adrianne felt someone sweep back her hair. Strong hands took hold of her shoulders, supporting her.

“I can take the lad back to galley and keep an eye on him there, master.”

“Nay! I’ll not go!” Gillie’s voice.

“Leave him here for now.”

The sound of the cabin door penetrated. One of the hands moved to her back. She could feel the warmth of it through her blouse. She lifted her head enough to rest her forehead on the back of her hand. She would not die with her head in the bucket.

“You’d best go on deck, Alan.”

“Are you sure you can deal with this yourself?” There was a note of teasing in the shipmaster’s voice. Somehow, she just didn’t see any humor in the fact that she was dying.

“I’ll call up for you if I need help.”

Footsteps. The door of the cabin closing. Adrianne desperately wished the knight would just go away, too, and let her suffer her last moments of agony alone. Suddenly, to her great disappointment, her wish was granted as the warm hands dropped away. She heard his boots scrape the rough floor as he stood and took a step back.

The ship shuddered before dropping about a mile straight down, and Adrianne heaved again, twisting in pain as the cramping seized her middle again. This was so much worse than her journey to Barra, and far, far worse than the trip to France that she’d taken with her father when she’d been a young child of only seven. Well, she’d never see twenty-seven, of that she was certain.

She couldn’t help it as tears sprang to her eyes. The ship lurched again and her stomach retched again in response. She thought she heard the sound of his boots moving away.

“Don’t...don’t go.” Her voice was little more than a moan. The violent shuddering again wracked her body. She was cold. Cold and wet to the bone.

“I’m not going anywhere, lass.”

Adrianne felt the weight of a blanket being wrapped around her. Then she was surrounded again with heat, with warm and steady hands, rubbing her shoulders, infusing heat into her shivering body.

“Take a sip of this. Wash your mouth out with it.”

The thought of taking anything revolted her, and she desperately shook her head.

“You can do it.” The bucket was wrenched away from her shaky hands and Adrianne found herself being pulled back until she was nestled against his body. “Just a sip.”

She pried open her eyes enough to see a cup as it was being pressed against her lips. She stared into the green eyes above the cup. Short hair the color of night. The lean, muscular face unmarked by scars. Adrianne knew she must be terribly weak, feverish, perhaps even delirious in her last moments, for Wyntoun MacLean looked like some warrior angel, waiting to guide her home. His magnificence took her very breath away...though it could have been the room that was spinning behind him.

“Come, Adrianne. A sip. A wee one. Enough to wet your mouth.”

Totally helpless to disagree, she allowed him to pour a mouthful of the liquid past her lips. Miraculously, the drink slipped down her raw throat. And she held it down. She closed her eyes and felt herself drawn tightly against his chest, and in a few moments the ship seemed to be rising and falling with less violence than it had been doing before.

Opening her eyes, she stared vaguely across the floor. The cabin had taken on a dreamlike quality. None of the edges of things were sharp, and she could not bring them into focus. Then she saw the anxious eyes of Gillie peering at her from a corner of the room.

As she watched him, the boy sneezed. Adrianne dove forward for the bucket as another retching sensation convulsed her body. The strong arms of the knight held her, and drew a clean bucket closer. There was nothing left in her belly, but that didn’t seem to matter much.

“She won’t die, will she, master?” She could hear the worry in the lad’s voice.

“Nay, Gillie. Not as long as we keep any food away from her for the rest of this journey.”

Callused fingers gently lifted the hair away from her face and drew her head back against his chest. The cup again appeared at her lips, and she had no fight left in her as the Highlander poured a small taste of it into her mouth.

A strange taste, this drink he was giving her. She had more of it this time. It was warm on her tongue, numbing the places that it touched.

“Are you poisoning me?”

“Nay. Taking care of you.”

His fingers were soothing as they caressed her hair, her brow. She felt knuckles brush against her cheek. A drug of some kind, she sighed. A potion.

Her eyes drooped, and Gillie’s image across the room wavered and then faded into the warm colors of a summer afternoon. She reached for the strong arm at her side, resting her cheek against his solid chest. Vaguely, she could hear the sound of a strong heart beating.

And then she slept.

****

The thin light of a gray dawn filtered through the single narrow window, an arrow slit high up on the wall of the stone tower room. The floor that had allowed access to that window had long ago been pulled away. Lying awake on the narrow cot, Lady Nichola Percy stared blankly upward at the window and the beams above and tried to make some sense out of the distant noises coming through the solid, iron-banded door of her prison chamber.

But there was nothing she could hear that triggered any memory. No distinct accents, no familiar smells, not even the normal sounds of castle life could be heard rising to the tiny window. Nothing that would give her a clue as to where she was...or as to the identity of her abductors.