Thistle and Flame - Her Highland Hero (15 page)

“Oh you’re too nice of a girl, Kenna. You’ll find
what you seek. I know it.”

Laughing, Kenna pulled the mummy-like wrapping
around herself in such a way that even fully concealed she could look out and
see her surroundings. “How will I know the place?” She asked Olga.

“It’s a large apartment house, saddled on either
side by smaller buildings. The one you’re after is three stories tall, and
adorned with the Dorchester crest. Which I can’t quite recall the image, but
I’m certain that it’s gaudy. They all seem to be. It’s halfway down Queen’s as
you’ll be going. Got it?”

“I think so. Thank you for everything, Olga. I
mean it. This could have been the most horrific week in my life but you kept
that from happening.”

Another hug that turned tearful, and then Olga
pushed her backwards and re-wrapped the mummy. “There’s plenty that could still
go wrong. Be careful, Miss Kenna. Very careful.”

“I will, I promise.”

“Alright Henry, you can go deliver the laundry –
oh what was that? You can’t squeeze me there, you fresh young man!”

––––––––

“W
here is she?” John said. “I told her to be here
by dusk.”

“Did ye maybe consider that she had some trouble
sneaking out of a manor and then catching herself a carriage and riding into
town at the last moment? Did ye think that possibly the Laird to whom she’s
betrothed didn’t want his bride traipsin’ off after God-knows-what? Did you
think of that, John Two-Fingers?” Lynne chided him, then ran her hand down the
side, then around the knee and back up the inseam of John’s leather leggings.

“I thought about – ooh! – no, I suppose not.
She’ll be here though. I saw the way those two looked at each other. And she
thinks I’m he, so I have faith.”

“Aye, she’ll show,” Red Ben said, “I just hope it
isna too late for us to do what needs doin’.”

“She has time,” Lynne said. “After all, Gavin’s
not to be strung up until five days hence. Four? I canna remember. But it
doesn’t matter. This will all be done tonight. It has to be.”

“What? Why? I didn’t know we were on a time
table,” John said. “Except for the one where we have to keep Gavin from getting
slaughtered and keep Kenna from marrying a toad.”

“I, er, liberated this from the Sheriff last time
I went to visit.” Lynne handed a slip of paper to John who passed it to Red Ben
with the excuse that he saw better at night due to the lamplight reflecting off
his beard.

Red Ben sneered and then laughed. “Right, well,
I’ll be over here, under the lamp.”

John and Lynne stood close to one another,
watching Red stand in the torch light and puzzle out what he was reading.

“Do you think this is going to work?” John asked,
sliding his hand around Lynne’s waist.

“Truly? I think it has a chance. Alan is a cruel man.
The closest thing there is to a savage chief, waiting to strike. Macdonald
isn’t quite so cruel but he’s more evil than Alan could ever imagine. The
money, I think, makes it possible. And then these people,” she tilted her head
at the apartment behind them, “they can fund the rest of his awful enterprise.”

“You didn’t answer my question.” He pulled her
closer. “In fact, I don’t know
what
you answered.”

“John Two-Fingers, you are a crass man,” Lynne
said with a giggle. “Your best friend is in jail, his lover is...somewhere, and
we’re about to break into a heavily fortified prison. There you are, tugging on
my clothes. You’re an impossible sort of man.”

“I might be impossible, but you’re irresistible.
‘Tisn’t my fault.” He pressed his lips to the side of Lynne’s neck, brushing
them from behind her ear to her shoulder. His hand he slid around to the front
of her, fingers curling against her stomach.

“S – stop... oh my goodness, you rogue, what are
you doing to me?”

“Hopefully the same thing I did to you at that
party, though with you in trousers that should be a bit harder I’d think,
unless they’ve a trap door somewhere.”

His hand ran down her slender body and he nipped
her where he’d just kissed. John’s fingers moved down the front of Lynne’s
leggings, and underneath her underclothes. “What are
you
doing, milady?
I thought you were supposed to be getting ready for a jailbreak and here you
are, being naughty.”

She squealed, and then moaned as warmth seeped out
of her core and the fingers playing at her tickled softly. “You’re every ounce
as evil as Macdonald, you know.”

“Ach, am I?” He pushed harder.

Lynne’s legs began to wobble just a little; she
sucked a quick breath and hooked her arm backwards around John’s neck for
support.

“Hell of a thing you’ve given me!” Red Ben said.
“What in the world is going on here? Plenty of time for that later, but right
now we’ve got something more important to do than playing at adults. Now
listen.”

He slapped John hard on the back, and when Lynne
pulled away from her whip-thin lover, she grasped his, stood close to him and
put it around her waist. Her excuse was that he kept her warm. In a way, that
was true.

“I had naught an idea that such a thing was to
happen.”

“Red, you’ve not told me what it is, yet. You
forgot that part.”

“I suppose I did, I might’ve been distracted by
you playing with your friend’s cunny.”

Lynne feigned embarrassment with a glance at the
ground, but couldn’t keep from laughing.

“Dinna worry, I remember being young and excited
about my wife.”

“We’re not married,” John said. “Yet.”

An elbow caught him in the stomach.

“Yet is probably right,” Ben said. “But, listen –
this thing she gave me, what I’m sure she’s read already, is a contract.”

Red Ben skimmed quickly back through to make sure
he hadn’t missed anything, then summarized it for John.

“Tomorrow morning, Macdonald, and the Lord
Dorchester are going in together. Throwing all their money into a pot and
stirring it up.”

“Are they to boil it? What are you saying?”

“It’s what we thought – they’re going in and
petitioning the King to sell them off a big swathe of Scotland. Slice us off
like we’re apples or pumpkins or...”

“How’s that possible? How can the land just be
sold?” John said.

“It’s...a tricky thing. When the Act of Union was
signed forty some years ago, the King of England were made the King of
Scotland, aye?”

“Aye, and the Bonnie Prince was to be the rightful
heir and was thrown out of his right, but what does this have to do with two
noblemen and a pretender to the throne selling off Scotland?”

“It’s the King’s land now,” Lynne said, chewing
her lip. “I don’t understand it exactly meself, but that’s how it works. Parts
of Edinburgh, and the lands outside are Crown territory. Though he’s never seen
fit to do anything with that right, that looks ready to change.”

“But hold a minute,” Red said. “If it’s only a
petition, it may still be turned down.”

“Nay, it won’t,” Lynne said. “I’ve been listening
to all this come through the Sheriff’s office for weeks. He’s acting as the
mediator between the two. It’s all but done. Of course, if one or more of them
loses heart and decides to not go through with the plan, the whole thing falls
through.”

“What are we to do, though?” John said. “This is a
game much bigger than either of us. We’re just three two-bit thieves wandering
around lost in the streets thinking that we’ve done something.”

“Five,” Lynne said. “Well, four and one. Do you
think she’ll make a good thief?”

John shook his head and rubbed his temples.

“I just...I canna bring myself to realize what
kind of play we’re to make. Do we go rescue Gavin and then...kill Macdonald?”

“Well...” Lynne said. “That would certainly keep
him from buying anything. But no, I think there’s a way we can manage without
having to resort to murder. Though the result may well be the same. Why do you
think the King’s considering – or has already made his mind? What’s his biggest
fear?”

“Jacobites, supposin’ there’s any still around
strong enough to threaten him. But enough riddles, just tell us, Lynne, time’s
short.”

“Aye, Jacobites, you had the right of it. And
there
are
those who still support the Bonnie Prince, or at least oppose
the crown. They’re up in the highlands. Down here you find ten royalists for
every Jacobite. But, and here’s where it gets interesting.”

The two men leaned closer. In the distance, a
carriage rumbled down the street, wheels creaking and pitching back and forth
on the pitted cobblestones of Queen’s Street.

“Macdonald wasn’t always so loyal to the Crown. We
all know this, everyone in Scotland knows. But I’m not so sure the King does. That’s
why he’s willing to work with him and all. Macdonald always was quite good at
picking winners and sticking with them until he got whatever he needed, then
jumping ship.”

“But how could we prove that?” John said, looking
up the road at the carriage. “And how do we tell the king?”

“We don’t need to. Macdonald just has to believe
that we can. And he’s got enough skeletons in his closet that we can probably
do that without much trouble.”

Realization dawned on John and Red at exactly the
same time.

“Be careful with this one, Two-Fingers,” Red Ben
said. “She’s smarter than you are.”

“Better looking, too,” Lynne said, “but he’s got
his good points.”

She looked up at him. Lynne searched the side of
John’s scarred face for some hint of his thinking.

“Aye,” he said. “It’s true on all counts. That it
is. But we’ve got to do something about Gavin, and I’m starting to get
concerned about Kenna.”

The carriage bouncing along the road continued
toward the three of them, huddled against the growing chill that continued as
the night darkened around them.

“What do you suppose that cart is doing? It’s
driving awfully wobbly-like,” John said, squinting. “You don’t suppose we’re
about to be joined by a fourth?”

“No,” Lynne said, “looks to be a rather lumpy man
driving. And unless my memory is quite a bit worse than I thought it was,
Kenna’s not a lumpy man.”

After almost pitching itself over to its side, the
carriage righted, and a bundle of laundry fell out the back that the driver
didn’t seem to notice, or to care about. And then the wad of blankets and
tablecloths began to wiggle a bit.

“Suppose he’s lost a puppy?” John said.

“Well, if’n he did, that’s the reddest-haired
puppy that I’ve ever seen. Come on, boys,” Lynne said. “Let’s get busy saving a
thief and ruining a day or two.”

––––––––

“O
ne!”

The sheriff slapped Gavin hard across the mouth.

“What do you mean you don’t know where they are?”
The sheriff said. His words dripped out of his mouth just like the brown juice
ran down his chin and into his collar. “I thought you were supposed to have a
gaggle of friends coming to save you. You don’t suppose they forgot all about
pitiful Gavin and left you for dead, do you?”

Gavin glared at Alan through red, puffy eyes that
had been open for a day and a half, bloodshot from exhaustion and the
near-constant beatings that had been delivered since it occurred to the sheriff
that he could do whatever he wanted with his prisoner and no one would say very
much.

“Two!”

He whipped his hand around, bashed it against
Gavin’s already cracked lips and laughed as he pitched forward and spat blood.

“Answer me, or I’ll break your teeth.”

“I...” Gavin sucked air. “I don’t know where
they...are. I’m a bit indisposed.”

Alan raised his hand, but reconsidered. Not out of
mercy, but out of a desire to hit him somewhere else. He took the horsewhip
from the table and gave him a savage lick across the shoulders.

Gavin grunted, let his head drop low on his
shoulders, but didn’t cry out.

“I don’t...I don’t know what you want from me.”

“Not much of anything, really. You’re dead. After
tormenting me for two long, damnable years, you’re dead and I’m going to kill
you. A week from now, you’ll be two days in the ground, and the people you
wasted your life trying to help will have all happily forgotten you and moved
on to worshiping someone else, while they worry about where they’re going to
get their weekly turnips and gruel. Have you thought about that?”

“I’ve been more worried about bleeding as much as
possible since that seems to make you happy.”

“If we weren’t on opposite sides of this, I think
I’d like you. You’re funny. Three!”

“Thank you, Sheriff.” Gavin let out pained groan
when his back lit on fire from another lash.

“Tell me, prisoner, what is it like to know you’ll
be dead in five days?”

“I haven’t...really...thought on it.”

“Stand up.” Alan yanked Gavin to his feet and then
caught him under the arm when he almost immediately collapsed again. “You’re in
quite a bad way.”

With a dramatic chest-clearing sound, Alan spat a
foul, brown stream on Gavin, who just grunted.

“Do you have to do that? Isn’t the...the beating
enough?”

Another lash whistled through the air and met
flesh, but Gavin didn’t react he was so numb. Somewhere in the distance, there
was a faint sound that echoed through the prison’s hard, stone walls, but it
seemed to both men to be nothing out of the ordinary. Just a scream from a
prisoner, or a guard letting off some steam, whatever it was didn’t draw any
attention, especially from Gavin who was turned around and given another smart
blow across the mouth.

“Why are you doing this?” Gavin said in between
being slapped. “Does beating me give you some kind of joy?”

“It’s just a way to pass the time,” he said.
“Four!”

Outside the door, Rodrigo tapped his fingers in a
low rhythm on the thick, oaken door. Then, judging from the sound, on the iron
that wrapped it, and then on the wall. His boots scraped slowly along the floor
and then he turned. Someone spoke, but it couldn’t have been him.

As far as Alan knew, Rodrigo had no tongue.

The sheriff turned his attention back to his
prisoner, back to the intense, tight, thumping pleasure that swelled inside him
every time he struck Gavin, every time he made him bleed.

“Five!”

––––––––

“A
ch, is that him?” Kenna said as Red Ben, Lynne
and John all crept off down a hall to her left. “The one with the lump for a
nose?”

“Aye, that’s him,” Lynne said. “He’s called
Willem, and although he looks rather like an ogre, he’s a sweetheart. A lonely sweetheart.
Good luck.”

You were ready to leap out the back of a moving
carriage to meet him, you can at least spend a couple of minutes keeping a
lonely old man company to keep Gavin from dying,
Kenna thought as she
strode softly down the hall.

“Who-”

“Shh!” Kenna said with a hushing finger to her
lips. “You’re Willem, aye?”

“Aye, and a pretty lass you be. What’re you doing
in a place like this?”

“Oh, one of your friends thinks you need a wee bit
of relief from how long and how hard you work. They said you never take breaks,
and...”

“Ooh!” Willem giggled as he felt a hand on his
thigh. “Aren’t you a wonder, then?”

The words and the things Lynne told Kenna to do
were all working just like she said, but still Kenna kept shifting her eyes
around to make sure no one was coming. There was no danger, Lynne told her, of
being caught, because for the whole night, from dusk until dawn, Willem walked
this section of the prison by himself while the sheriff stayed in his office
entertaining himself with any number of horrible recreations. Aside from that,
the whiskey on Willem’s breath wasn’t difficult to smell.

But still, she couldn’t shake the fancy that
something was lurking just around the corner to jump out and grab her.

“A pretty young lass like you wouldn’t just be
trying to fool old Willem, would she?”

“Oh, no, not at all, I-”

“Even if you was, would you tell me? Would I care?
Whassat?”

Kenna shrugged, looking past Willem into the
darkness behind him as three silhouettes dashed past.

“You din’t hear nothin?”

Kenna shook her head. “Nothing except my heart pounding
in my chest. Let’s get you out of that uniform, aye?”

“Oh ho ho, well I think we canna be doing any of
that. I might spend most of my time at work pissed, but only one of us that can
be with a lass instead of working is the sheriff. Maybe you mightn’t go see
him.”

“The sheriff? He sounds important. Are you sure I
should bother him?”

“Oh, lassie, I think he spends most of his nights
hoping for someone to come along and help him pass the time. He’d be happy to
see someone like you.”

––––––––

“I
thought you said you knew where we were going,
Lynne.”

“I do, just...give me a wee bit before you start
panicking. He’s been moved, I think, or at least been taken somewhere for a
while.”

The three of them crept, crouched low, only
standing to look into the cells they passed, each one that had no Gavin was
more disappointing than the last until finally they came to the end of the hall
and had to double back.

“I’m sure he was in this one. I remember this-”

“Hey, who’s out there? Gavin?”

Lynne’s eyes flicked back and forth. She looked at
John, pursed her lips, then at Red Ben, who shrugged.

“We’re here to get you out. Keep your voice down,”
Lynne said. “Gavin’s gone?”

“Aye, and I’m Liam.”

“Good to meet you Liam – where did they take him?”

“I dunno, but, um, he’s been gone a good while
now. Day, maybe more.”

“Liam? It’s me, John. I came to visit-”

“Aye, I know you, you bloody traitor, come up here
and I’ll throttle you!”

“Shh! We’re not here for that. We’re here to get Gavin
and the rest of you. You’re all political prisoners, aye?”

“Jacobites, the lot of us. All fought for the
Bonnie Prince, then got thrown in here when the King won. Bloody shame what’s
fallen on this place.”

“I agree Liam, but listen,” John said. “We’ve to
be careful. The guards are about, even if there’s not many, and we don’t need
any alarms raised. Do you know where the jailor is?”

“What, the one keeps the key?” Liam said, loud
enough that the three crouched figures all cringed. “Aye, he’s got a room down
t’end of the hall. He’s a fat fella, with little tiny legs. That’s the night
guard anyway, t’other one’s a little more limber.”

John, barely able to keep from laughing, said:
“got it, thanks friend. We’ll be back.”

“What is it about this place that makes me so
uneasy?” John said when he crept back to Red and Lynne.

“That it’s a prison you could easily be living in
by the time morning comes around?” Ben said. “At least, that’s what does it for
me. After you.”

A symphony of popping knees and groans issued
forth from Red Ben, but he soldiered along, following close behind the other
two with a hand on the wall beside him for support.

“You
do
know where we’re going, aye?” John
said as they passed what seemed to be the same intersection of hallways for the
third time. “We’re not just going in circles?”

“Shh! You’d talk to a dead horse if you thought
it’d answer. Keep to the right, and eventually you’ll end up by the main
entrance. It’s hard to say how long we’ve to go, but it’ll happen. Just keep
quiet.”

They crept past two guards, one of them asleep,
and then happened upon an open door, with a man very much like the one Liam had
described within. He, too, was sleeping, but lightly.

“John, go get the key,” Lynne said.

“Who? Me?”

“Unless we’ve acquired another John. Go!”

To the end of the hall he went, then poked his
head inside the room.

“Hey! What’s-”

A gloved hand with two big, heavy rings thumped
against the guard’s temple, and John slid back to the others along the wall
with only a slight jingle when he walked.

“Right, so, that was easy.”

“This won’t be. Come on.”

“Wait, where are we going? I thought you said
right at each turn?” Red Ben said.

“We’ve got to go free Liam. He’ll do most of our
work for us. Nothing like a diversion to keep burglars safe, aye?”

“I like the way you think, but what about the
sheriff? If that’s really where Gavin’s at, isn’t he probably in some danger?”

“He’s likely to be getting beat fairly hard if I
had to guess, but the sheriff won’t kill him. A big public execution is much
more Alan’s way, with trumpets and everyone wearing costumes.”

“Trumpets?”

“Shut up, let’s go.”

––––––––

“F
ourteen!”

Alan’s hand thudded on Gavin’s cheek in a blow
with considerably less vigor than when he started. Gavin hardly reacted, which
just made the sheriff angrier. He rubbed his knuckles.

“You’re a stubborn creature, aren’t you? Why won’t
you tell me anything?”

“Because there’s...nothing to tell you.” Gavin
said in between ragged breaths.

“Why don’t I believe you?”

“Because you’re a bad judge of truth?”

“You’re not going to stop with the wit, are you?”

“I’ve got nothing else left.”

Another brown stream shot out and fell across
Gavin’s back. He didn’t react.

“I suppose that’s true – what was that?”

“The only thing I can hear is my heart beating in
my ears. If you’re going to give me more punishment, just get on with it so I
can get some rest before you kill me.”

“Shh – listen to that. Are you sure you don’t hear
anything? Rodrigo! Come in here!”

For a moment there was no response from the silent
Spaniard, but eventually the boots began to scrape along the floor back in the
door’s direction, and it swung open with a creak.

“What is that noise?” The sheriff demanded as soon
as Rodrigo stepped inside. “It sounds like people moving around. The guards
haven’t got together and started with the dice and the drink again, have they?
These damnable Scots can’t keep themselves upright and sober for more than a
half a day it seems.”

Rodrigo shrugged.

“Well, go look!”

With a finger on the hilt of his very fancy rapier,
Rodrigo watched Alan for a moment with a look on his face halfway between
hatred and pity. He sighed a heavy sigh and turned around and walked out the
door. The slow, grinding, scraping steps went down the hall, away from the
office, and faded into nothing the further he got.

“You’d think I torture
him
for how badly he
behaves.”

“Have you considered being more civil to him?
After all, without him you’d be lost. You’d have to cut your own tobacco and
read your own mail.”

“I suppose that’s true,” the sheriff said, “but I
can’t have him getting used to kindness. His sort gets lazy when they aren’t
disciplined.”

“That sword of his looks like it might hurt.”

“What are you saying, worm?”

“Ach, nothing, Sheriff. Just seems to me you might
get him to do things for you quicker if you were a little nicer. That’s all.”

Alan tugged the cuff of his glove and snugged it
around his fingers.

“I’ll keep it in mind. Seventeen!”

––––––––

“W
hat am I to do with this?” Liam said as he took
the key ring from John.

“Well first you’re to count to a hundred, then
start letting people out.”

The man looked at him in stunned silence.

“But if I’m in here-”

John opened the door and then closed it again to
show him it was unlocked.

“Start at this end and just keep going until
everyone’s out. By that time there should be sufficient excitement to keep the
guards busy.”

“They’ve swords though, and axes and some of them
even have pistols. What’re we to-”

“Those pistols only shoot once.”

“Some have two barrels.”

“Twice, then. It’s awfully hard to shoot people
when you’ve got to reload. What I need from you is to keep everyone quiet until
the doors are open, and then all at once, rush out! The guards won’t be able to
stop you.”

“We just leave?”

“Aye, do you understand?”

“I canna imagine the guards will much be pleased,
nor the sheriff.”

“You’re escaping. Of course he’s not going to be
happy about it.”

“If you say so, but I’m still not sure I trust
you.”