The Inscription (19 page)

Lachlan ran the sharpening stone over the edge of his blade in the smoky workroom of the castle blacksmith. He concentrated on the familiar grating sound and the patience needed to complete his task, but it did not block out that which he so wished to forget.

The image of Amber as she watched Marcail stitch the wound on her hand was still fresh in his mind. Amber would not show pain and had detached herself from what was happening. She had carried on a conversation with him the entire time. He recalled not the words, just the tone. He had behaved in such a manner when he was flogged on a ship bound for the Spice Islands. Knowing he would recover had not dulled the pain, so he had concentrated on reciting aloud the tale of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Marcail had told him to let Amber rest, but when his work here was finished, he meant to seek her out to see for himself how well she fared. Then he would investigate the report of stolen cattle.

He heard someone enter and knew without turning it was Angus. The man cleared his throat.

“The stitches may not have been necessary.”

Lachlan turned. “She asked for needle and thread. Would an immortal request such?”

Angus leaned against the rough wood door of the blacksmith’s quarters and picked at the splinters. “A wound of such size would heal before I found the needle.“

“Precisely.” Lachlan put the stone down and grabbed a rag from the rim of a bucket. He wiped the fragments of dust off the blade and listened to the drizzling rain.

“Are you of a mind to use that sword on my flesh?”

Lachlan glanced at his friend and discovered he was no longer angry. The man only searched for the truth. Amber had, in fact, possessed traits common to immortal women. He did not approve of his methods, but Marcail had admitted to her part in the plan. Lachlan had expected better from the healer.

He smiled, remembering the look on Amber’s face when he’d vowed to banish Angus and Marcail for their deed. Amber had shaken her finger at him, as though he were a naughty child, and told him to grow up. If she were part of the legend, then in truth, the gods surely had outdone themselves with this woman.

Lachlan raised his blade and tested the sharpness with his thumb. It sliced a layer of skin and drew a small droplet of blood. He wiped the cut on his plaid and turned to Angus. The man stood as quiet and as stoic as the marble statues in Greece. He knew Angus longed for some acknowledgment.

“I have need of your help.”

Angus straightened, clenched his fist, and crossed his arm over his chest. He bowed. “Name it, Lord.”

The formal title chilled Lachlan’s bones. Angus spoke out of respect, and from the need to be pardoned, but Lachlan was in greater need of friends than followers.

“A rider claimed the Campbells were responsible for the raid on our cattle. They are well aware of the sure retaliation I will pour down on their heads if these allegations are true. In the past, Clan Campbell’s judgment may have been in question, but not their intelligence.“

“It sounds as though you doubt the scout’s information.”

“Aye.” Lachlan clasped Angus on the shoulder. “Before I strike, I will find the truth. You and I shall ride out at first light.”

“It will be as you wish.”

The sky began to darken. Lachlan crossed to the window. Lightning split the gloom.

Angus pushed away from the door. “Did you not feel it, my friend?”

“Aye.” He glanced toward the castle wing that housed O’Donnell. “The time is at hand.” He sheathed his sword and motioned for Angus to follow him.

The door to Marcail’s chamber was ajar as Lachlan entered the quiet room. Amber was reading aloud, while Marcail sat and gazed at O’Donnell. He saw the uncertainty reflected in Marcail’s eyes. He wondered at the cause and why she allowed Amber to remain. O’Donnell lay on the bed as still as death, his hands were folded across his chest and his eyes moved under their lids. He was only moments away from returning to them.

The law was clear. “Lady Amber, you must leave. At once.”

She opened her mouth to protest.

He raised his hand to silence her words. No mortal had witnessed the Return to Life. His kind believed the knowledge was too dangerous. He trusted Amber, but his kind would not, and he had to honor their wishes and respect their fears. “Leave, Amber. Please.”

Amber pressed herself against the wall as the last of the people hurried through the door. She had bandaged O’Donnell’s wounds and read to him until her voice was hoarse, but was not allowed to see him wake up. She dusted imaginary lint off her clothes, and off her pride. There was probably some rule, or custom, about visitors to a man who’d just recovered from life-threatening wounds. Nothing to get worked up about.

Before the chaos began she and Marcail were having a quiet chat about herbal remedies and increased life spans. Suddenly she was being unceremoniously ushered out the door. Immediately the parade had begun. Angus, followed by Gavin, the twins she’d seen the other night, and last, but not least, an assortment of people who looked as though they were representatives of the United Nations. Amber doubted all of them would fit into Marcail’s room. A sardine in a can would have more space to move around.

Amber walked aimlessly down a torch lit corridor in an attempt to fill the hours before Una served dinner. Three days had crept by since Lachlan left Urquhart in search of those who had stolen his cattle. She’d spent her free time thinking about each moment they had spent together. It only made her miss him more. Amber had not realized how dull the castle was without him stomping about.

She rubbed the palm of her hand. The stitches were beginning to itch. A sign of healing, her aunt always said. Marcail had done a great job. Amber would only have a small scar, but stitching up the cut had hurt like crazy. She’d turned down the wine Marcail had laced with some sort of painkiller, trying to act brave in front of Lachlan. Amber smiled remembering how much he had fussed over her. It was almost worth the injury. Almost.

Amber paused. She was lost. The hallway stretched into a dark void. Terrific. The torchlights wavered, casting dancing shadows along the walls. Oh, well, if she didn’t reach a familiar wing, she’d just look out the window. Her rooms faced Loch Ness, so it should be easy to find her way back. Anyway, she had time on her hands since everyone was busy with O’Donnell. The man had recovered in exactly forty-eight hours as Lachlan had predicted. Once more she felt uneasy.

The flames in the wall sconces flickered. This time she felt a cold breeze. Wandering around a dark castle at night was probably not such a good idea. More than likely all these corridors and vacant rooms were jammed full of ghosts.

The corridor turned. She followed it, then paused. Portraits, the size of the big screen televisions in the Seattle sports bars, lined the walls. The people in the paintings were clothed in a manner that spanned both centuries and countries. A man dressed as a Roman warrior rode in a chariot pulled by a team of four white horses. Beside him, in a separate portrait, a woman in a full suit of armor fought a Bengal tiger.

On this remote wall, in the Highlands of Scotland, was a history of the world. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to complete such a gallery. She noticed a portrait of a fierce looking Mongol warrior, and another of a Samurai. The corridor was so long she couldn’t see the end and paintings took up every available space.

As she examined the faces and costumes of each person a common thread emerged. These were all people in the prime of their lives and they were all warriors. Nearing the end of the hall she saw a man standing in the shadows in front of one of the portraits. It was Lachlan.

“You have ventured far from your chamber.” His voice sounded hollow and distant.

Her heart beat faster at the sight of him after so many days. As she walked toward him she fought the impulse to run into his arms, uncertain of his response. She rubbed the palm of her hand.

“You were gone quite a while.”

“Aye. My business took longer than expected.” He reached for her hand. “Are you still in pain from your injury?”

She shook her head. “No, but I’ll have a scar to remember Angus by.”

“He was wrong to injure you in such a way.”

“Lachlan, it was an accident.”

“ ‘Tis true enough.” His words trailed off.

Amber watched him search for something more to say. “How long do you think it will be before O’Donnell will be well again?”

Lachlan’s eyebrows scrunched together and then he smiled. “Oh, I understand your meaning. You wish to know if he still remains confined to bed?”

Amber nodded. She figured that if he knew in hours how long it would take for the man to recover from a life-threatening wound, Lachlan would certainly be able to make a calculated guess as to when O’Donnell could get out of bed.

“He has challenged Marcail to a game of chess, and plans to test his skill with my men on the practice field in the morning.”

She sucked in a breath of air so quickly she began to choke.

“Lass, be you ill?”

“Ill no, confused yes.”

“And what is it that confuses you?”

She rubbed her temples. “You can’t be serious. He had dire wounds. I know because I saw them myself. So how can O’Donnell even think about prancing about with a sword?”

“I doubt that he prances. And as for his recovery, the Irish are a hardy bunch.”

This was crazy. A critically injured man not only survived and recovered in forty-eight hours, but planned to have a vigorous workout in a matter of days. And Lachlan didn’t think it was strange? Well she did.

She shook her head. “Never mind, let’s talk about something else. The portraits for instance. These people are all about the same age. Was that on purpose?”

“You are the first to remark on it.”

Somehow she doubted that.

“It is a tradition of my clan to have a portrait commissioned in the year of their thirty-fifth birthday.”

“None after?”

Lachlan shook his head.

She took another look around the hall. “Do you have any idea why this kind of tradition was started?”

“Aye.” He hesitated. “It was the belief of my ancestors that it was not until they reached the age of thirty-five that the true nature of their character showed in their faces.“

Amber was curious. Her own time was only beginning to see value and beauty in men and women as they grew older. This seemed like an advanced concept and she agreed. “Do you have a portrait somewhere, or aren’t you thirty-five as yet?”

His laugher echoed down the corridor and took her by surprise. “Aye, lass, my portrait hangs in the next hall.” He tapped her on the tip of her nose. “And what is your age, my beauty?”

The way he was smiling at her took her breath away. “I turned twenty-eight on June nineteenth.” She needed to switch to more neutral territory. “Can you tell me about these people?”

“Aye. You may ask any question that pleases you.”

Amber indicated the portrait Lachlan had been looking at earlier. It showed a warrior in a suit of gleaming armor.

He tensed visibly. “That is my father. My mother is on the opposite wall a short distance farther down. I am told he would travel from one battlefield to the next, sometimes for years, before returning to the home of his birth. He would enter a town or village he had heard was embroiled in conflict, investigate the problem, and then fight on the side he felt had the just cause.”

The words he spoke sounded hollow to her, as though they held little meaning to him.

“I think I would have liked him.” Lachlan’s expression turned so dark she backed away. “What’s wrong?”

He shook his head. “ ‘Tis nothing. Come, I shall show you the picture of my mother.”

He put his arm around her waist and guided her across the hall to another portrait.

The contact of his hand on her waist made her lose focus. Amber looked up at him. That was a mistake. The harsh expression he’d worn was gone. She felt herself go soft inside. At any second her brain would turn to mush.

“How did your parents meet?”

“ ‘Twas a story made into a minstrel’s tale. My father wounded my mother in a battle.”

“You mean they fought each other? I thought you said your father did battle only to protect the innocent?”

He nodded in the direction of his father’s portrait. “Nay, what I said was that he fought on the side he felt just. My mother often did the same. On the day they met, they were opposing each other, dad in chain mail, her head covered by a helmet and wielding a sword, my father did not recognize her as a woman until he wounded her and her helmet was knocked off as she fell. ‘Twas said the moment he looked on her, his heart was lost.”

A gentle rain misted through an open window at the end of the hallway and drizzled onto the wood planks of the floor. He crossed the corridor to close the shutters, latching them together with a metal bar. “The hour is late. Una will not allow the rest of the castle to eat until I arrive.”

“Another MacAlpin custom?”

“Nay, fair maiden, ‘tis a rule Una has decreed. And as long as she is in charge of the cookroom, no one dares defy her command. A few have tried and were denied food until she thought them sufficiently repentant.”

“And what did you do to get in her good graces?”

A shadow passed over his face. “I was hunting in the Highlands and came across a village which had been burned and looted. Alongside the men who had fought to defend their families lay the dead. Babies in their mothers’ arms, children, the old and the crippled. The dwellings were still smoking. A woman staggered toward me holding the limp, dead body of her boy child. It was Una.“ The muscles in Lachlan’s jaw tensed as he turned toward the window. ”She has been with my family ever since.“

Amber closed her eyes to shut out the mental image he’d painted. “Did you ever find out who was responsible?”

“Aye.”

“And?” She opened her eyes and saw he was still turned away.

“They are all dead.”

Amber crossed over to him. An expression of raw pain covered his face. It startled her. The revenge he’d brought down on those who’d massacred the village might have shocked someone living in the twentieth century, but in the sixteenth, it was expected. She put her hand on his arm.