watches. We’ll be changing the guard in an hour or so, and we’ll ken more when our lads report aught they may have seen.”
“The Mackintosh is in charge then, is he?” Fin murmured.
“Aye, sir,” Aodán replied. “He said to tell ye, though, if ye did make it back here tonight, that although Sir Ivor and Shaw should be able to keep the trouble well east and south o’ us for a time, all here will obey ye as they would Himself. And we will, sir. See you, he and the ladies be already thinking o’ their beds.”
By the time Fin, Catriona, and their attendants entered the great hall, it was plain that the ladies and the Mackintosh were ready to retire.
Fin talked briefly with Mackintosh, who assured him that their guards would give warning of any trouble in good time. Then, wondering if his usually reliable instinct for danger had simply misled him, Fin took his lady wife to her bed, lingered there most pleasantly with her, and slept until Aodán woke him.
“Them devilish Comyns ha’ captured our lads ashore,” he breathed in Fin’s ear. “Worse than that, sir, they’ve kept our last boat and mean to drown us all as we sleep, because they’ve dammed up the loch at the outflowing burn!”
When a wet paw stroked Catriona’s cheek, she awoke to find Boreas’s small shadow shivering on her pillow and Fin no longer lying beside her.
Rising and donning a robe, she gathered up the shivering kitten and, noting that its paws and belly were wet, cuddled it as she went to the window and opened the shutter. Instead of the rain she expected to see, she saw stars amid the clouds.
She could see only three lights on the ramparts, so the watchers had sighted Comyns, and Aodán had left a signal. She hoped it meant nothing worse than that.
Leaving the shutter open when she turned back, she could see that Boreas was not in the room and the door stood ajar. Through the crack, about the width of the kitten, dim golden light from a cresset on the landing peeked in.
Drying the kitten as well as she could and leaving it in her still-warm place on the bed, she grabbed her shift from the floor where Fin had flung it and took her old kirtle off its hook. Dressing hastily, she belted her dirk around her hips under her skirt, snatched a warm shawl from the same hook, and hurried downstairs.
Peeking into the great hall from the landing to be sure Fin was not there, she went on down to the scullery and the postern door. There, she set aside the bar, opened the door, and moved quickly to scan the yard. The lights above revealed that it was empty, and she saw only two men on the ramparts, both looking outward.
She hurried to the gate and found it a couple of inches open.
Wondering how far Fin might have gone, she eased the gate open more to let herself out and then pulled it nearly shut again.
When she saw no torch and heard naught to indicate where Fin might be, it dawned on her that he might just have gone to the garderobe. But Boreas would not have followed him there, and the kitten had got wet somewhere. Instinct and logic told her that the open gate meant all three had gone outside the wall.
As she turned toward the landing, she heard footsteps approaching. Although she hoped it was Fin, she stepped silently into the shadows until she could be sure.
Instead, she recognized Aodán’s shape against the watery flatness behind him as he strode to the gate, eased through the opening, and shut it with a click.
She realized then that if Fin was not outside the wall, she would have some uncomfortable explaining to do. A shiver shot up her spine, and she amended that thought. He would be furious and would say she ought to have spoken to Aodán and gone back inside with him. She could still rap on the gate, but she told herself that she did not dare make such noise. Besides, she was curious.
The woods were black. No moon shone yet, and clouds had moved in to hide the stars. Had it not been for the faint gleam of water to guide them through the thickly growing trees, he and Aodán would have blundered into things.
After Aodán had wakened him, he had dressed and come outside with him to see how far the water