wine or ale. How much of their stores was she expected to send?
If Hamish was anything like his Sassenach counterparts, he’d likely demand the whole of it, his clan’s welfare be damned. Bastard.
Toran moved to the next wagon. It was full of fabric items. Hose, shirts, breeches, plain wool blankets. Unsurprisingly, no plaids. Most of the Scots who’d sided with the English had foregone their kilts in favor of more traditional English attire. There were a couple dozen pairs of leather boots as well.
The resources already stockpiled in these wagons were enough to cause the clan to suffer, he was certain.
The third wagon was not yet as full, and this was the one he’d feared. Crates of arrows and crossbows, broadswords with the traditional Highland basket that goes around the hand but missing the rear wrist guard that he and his men had fashioned onto their own swords to keep their wrists protected. Interesting that she didn’t want to give her own brother that advantage. There were shields as well, but noticeably missing were any pistols or shot. So she was arming them, but not with the most sophisticated items.
Toran had to give her the respect she was due there.
He set down the flap, eyeing the men on the wall and those asleep to make certain he wasn’t being watched, and then he slipped into the barn, waving away the sleepy-headed stable lad who rose his head from the hay and making his way back toward his horse’s stall. Inside, using the light from the single torch nearby, he pulled out the coded message. Using the cipher he’d memorized in his dealings with Boyd, he decoded the message. And then decoded it again, shaking his head in disbelief.
The message wasn’t from Boyd at all—but from his uncle. Though he used a cryptic code name, Vulpes, which was only Fox in Latin, there was no mistaking it, for in the message he was offering up Toran, Camdyn, and Isla in exchange for the Fraser men in the garrison. The men who Toran knew were dead. So before he’d even gone to the garrison, his uncle had been dealing behind his back?
Good God… And now those men were dead, their lives on his conscience, and his uncle would seek more than to simply hand Toran and his siblings over. He’d want them to suffer—suffer a traitor’s death.
Given that the dragoons had still been in possession of the missive, Boyd wouldn’t yet know, but it was only a matter of time before his uncle reached out again. Was that the real reason why he’d insisted on Simon coming? Not because he needed him to spy but because he wanted to give them all over to the English?
Bile rose up his throat. How could the man who’d raised him so easily betray him? With the bitter taste of it still on his tongue, he burned the missive in the torch, igniting the gutting words in hopes of erasing them from his mind, but of course they were seared there forever.
He sneaked out of the stables and stared up at the sky, hands balled into fists at his sides, nostrils flaring. Every inch of him wanted to go back into those barracks and to beat Simon until he was as bashed and bruised as Toran’s mother had been. Betrayal lanced at his insides.
But he couldn’t do that, as much as he wanted to. He had to pretend he didn’t know in order to keep his siblings safe. He muttered a string of whispered curses and then headed around the back of the castle. He needed to find a way inside that was more discreet than simply walking in the front doors. As much as he wanted to murder Simon, he still needed to find out more about Mistress J and her traitorous clan. He wasn’t quite certain what he was looking for, other than to get a better lay of the land and as many details as possible about what Jenny was up to.
The kitchen door was open, and the scent of roasting meat came through. He wandered inside to find a spit-boy dozing by the fire, a large pig on the spit that he was supposed to be turning. Several other kitchen servants slept nearby, but none stirred as he passed them by. He slipped into the darkened alcove, winding up the circular stair, feeling his way along the cold stone wall until his hand came to air, and then sliding along a stone