Highland Protector Page 2

  “I will be careful. Ye, too. And do your best to see that the bastard pays for this.”

  “That I swear to ye, Humfrey.”

  Ilsabeth’s mind was full of Walter’s betrayal as she rode away. His betrayal and her own gullibility. She did not understand how she could have been so blinded to the evil in the man. Her mother had told her she had a gift for seeing into the heart of people. It had obviously failed miserably. The man she had thought to marry was a traitor, a killer, and saw her whole family as no more than lowborn thieves, vermin to be rid of. How could she not have seen that?

  She also bemoaned the lack of information she had. For all she had overheard there were still more questions than answers. Just how did Walter, David, and whatever allies they had think to kill the king? Why did they even want to? Power? Money? She could not think of anything the king might have done to make Walter want him dead.

  The more she thought on the matter the more she realized she did not know Walter at all. The worst she had ever thought of him was that he was a little vain, but she had shrugged aside any concern over that fault. He had a fine, strong body, a handsome face, beautiful hazel green eyes, and thick hair the color of honey. One glance into any looking glass would tell the man he was lovely so she had told herself that a little vanity was to be expected. But vanity could not be enough to drive a man to plot against his liege lord, could it? Did Walter have the mad idea that he should be king?

  As the evening darkened into night, she discovered one thing she did not think about was her own heartbreak. Her heart ached but it was for her family, her fear for them so great at times that she could barely catch her breath. It did not, however, ache for the loss of Walter, not even when she looked past the shock of his betrayal and the fury over what he had done to her family.

  “I didnae love him,” she said, and the pony twitched an ear as if to hear better. “All this, and I didnae even really love the bastard. Jesu, my family is running for their lives and for what? Because foolish Ilsabeth let herself be wooed into idiocy by a pair of beautiful eyes?”

  The pony snorted.

  “Aye, ‘tis pathetic. All I feel is a pinch of regret o’er the loss of a dream. Nay a dream of that lying bastard, but of having my own home and some bairns to hold. I am one and twenty and I was hungry for that. Too hungry. The greed to fulfill that dream was my weakness, aye?”

  With a flick of its tail, the pony slapped her leg.

  “Best ye get used to my complaints and my blathering.

  We will be together for at least three days. Ye need a name, I am thinking, since ‘tis clear that I will be babbling my troubles into your ears from time to time.”

  Ilsabeth considered the names from all the stories Sister Beatrice told so well. Although she preferred horses, good strong animals that could gallop over the moors and give her that heady sense of freedom, she had a lot of respect for the little Highland ponies. She wanted to give this one a good strong name.

  “Goliath,” she finally said, and was certain the pony lifted its head a little higher. “We will just make certain Walter’s snake of a cousin, David, doesnae get near ye with a sling and a stone.”

  She looked around at the moonlit landscape and tears stung her eyes. Her family was spending the night running, finding places to hide, and keeping watch for soldiers. If any of them got caught they would face pain and humiliation, perhaps even death, before she could save them. It was so unfair. Her father had done his best to return honor to his branch of the Armstrong family tree and it did him no good. One whisper from Walter, one dead body, and everyone believed the worst of them.

  Her father’s insistence that everyone knew how to run and hide, speedily and silently, now made sense to her. All those well-supplied hiding places, all the intricate plans for scattering his small clan so far and wide it would take months to find any of them now revealed a foresight she had never seen or understood. Sir Cormac Armstrong had always known that the stain his parents had smeared the clan’s name with and the many less than honest cousins he had could come back to haunt him no matter what he did.

  “Oh, I shall make Walter pay dearly for this, Goliath. Verra dearly indeed.”

  Elspeth turned from staring out into the dark when Cormac stepped up beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “She is out there all alone,” she whispered. “Alone and weighted with guilt for something that isnae her fault.”

  “She will be fine, love. Two is strong and stubborn,” he said, and kissed her cheek. “She is also good with a knife and clever.”

  “She hates that name, ye ken.”

  “What? Two?”

  “Aye. If ye werenae her beloved papa she would punch ye whene’er ye say it just as she does the others.” Elspeth smiled faintly when he chuckled. “Tell me she will be safe, Cormac.”

  “Aye, loving, she will be.”

  “I want to believe that but she is my child, my Ilsabeth.”

  “Ye have two Ilsabeths.”

  “Nay, I have a Sister Beatrice and an Ilsabeth. Oh, my firstborn still loves us all and she will hide and protect those now in her care, but she is God’s child now. Her heart and mind and soul belong to him. Ye could see it happen whilst she was still a child; the calling was so strong in her. But this Ilsabeth is all ours and carries a lot of both of us within her. Good and bad. She was still but a toddling bairn when I kenned I had given the name to the wrong lass. Ilsabeth was a name for a fighter, for a

  lass who grabbed life with both hands and lived it to the fullest.”

  “And all that is why our Ilsabeth who used to be Clara will succeed.”

  “Ye truly believe that, dinnae ye?”

  “Aye, and so do many others. Did ye nay see that none scoffed when told of how we have sent her for aid? They ken the strength in the lass and the stubbornness that will keep her fighting for all of us until she wins.”

  “And this mon Innes will listen to her and help her?”

  “Aye, I have no doubt of it. I have met the mon and he is one who cannae abide nay kenning the truth, cannae e’en think of letting a person suffer for a crime he, or she, didnae commit. Once she tells her tale, he will see at least the hint that there is something amiss and be on the trail like the best of hunting dogs. Believe me, from all I have heard, no guilty mon wants Simon Innes on his trail. And, aside from the fact that Innes is a mon who will be compelled to find the truth, how could he turn our lass away? Those big blue eyes of hers and all. I almost feel sorry for the mon.”

  “Why?”

  “Because our Ilsabeth will turn his life inside out.”

  “And that is a good thing?”

  “It was my salvation when ye did it to me, love. Mayhap it will be his.”

  Chapter 2

  “Sister?”

  Ilsabeth looked at the little boy who had just stepped out of the shadows cast by the thick trees at the edge of her small camp. She had known that he was there but had to admit it had been mostly luck that she had. He was obviously accustomed to, and skilled at, hiding from people. What he did not appear to be accustomed to was a full belly. He was all skin and bone covered in dirty rags. She suspected he had been orphaned or cast aside and sighed. She had stopped to prepare herself for the final steps of her journey, to decide just what she should say to Simon Innes when she rapped at his door, and not to have fate present her with yet another problem.

  It could be a harsh world for children, especially those no one wanted or who had been left orphaned and alone. If she could, she would take them all in, but the lack of time to find them all and an empty purse made that an impossible dream.

  Her family, both the Armstrong and the Murray sides, did their part to help such children and she had to be satisfied with that.

  “Aye, laddie, what can I do for ye?” she asked, and immediately felt a stab of guilt for lying to a child, for allowing the boy to think her a nun.

  “I was wondering if ye would share a wee bit of your food with me sister.”
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  “Your sister? Nay ye?”

  His fair skin blushed so red she could see it beneath the dirt smeared on his thin face. “Weel, I wouldnae say nay to a wee bite, if ye would be so kind. But, ‘tis the bairn what needs it most.”

  Judging by the boy’s height and the clarity with which he spoke, Ilsabeth wagered the lad was at least six, if not older. Lack of food could easily have halted his growth, however. That meant his sister probably was little more than a bairn.

  She nearly cursed aloud. It was a poor time for her to stumble across a pair of foundlings. There was danger dogging her heels. Yet, she could not leave them starving at the edge of town as they had so obviously been doing. Sir Simon Innes was just going to have to understand that.

  “Fetch the lass and come sit by the fire. I have enough for all of us,” she said.

  The boy ran back to the trees and tugged a tiny girl out from behind one. As the pair walked toward Ilsabeth’s small fire, she studied them closely. It was clear to see where most of what little food the boy had found went. The little girl wore ragged clothes but there was only the faintest hint of hunger’s sharpness in her angelic face. Thick redgold curls and big brown eyes were enough to melt the hardest heart. Ilsabeth hoped Sir Simon did not prove her wrong about that for, unless the boy told her they both had kinsmen somewhere, these children were now hers.

  “Your names?” she asked as she handed each of them some bread and cheese.

  “I am Reid Burns and this is my sister Elen,” the boy said as he helped the little girl eat her food, breaking it into pieces small enough for her to handle.

  “And why is it that ye are wandering about here in the wood, and ye have near starved, Reid?”

  “Our mither died and the mon she lived with tossed us out of the wee cottage he had given us. He said that he only let us stay there because my mither was warming his bed, but now that she was gone, he needed the cottage for his new lady.”

  There was a man who sorely needed a beating, Ilsabeth thought. “So neither of ye are his bairns?”

  “Och, aye. Elen is his, but the mon has a wife and eight children so he didnae need Elen. I suspicion he didnae want his wife to learn that he was breeding with another woman.” He blushed and cast her a nervous look. “Pardon, Sister.”

  Ilsabeth waved away his apology. “Ne’er apologize for the truth, nay matter how blunt and ugly it is. Who is this heartless swine who would toss aside his own bairn?”

  “Donald Chisholm.”

  If she survived the trouble she was in, Ilsabeth swore that she would see to it that Donald Chisholm got a hard lesson in how a man should behave. She also decided the man was a complete fool to toss aside such children as she watched them both eat with a delicacy that belied their terrible hunger and revealed that their mother had not been some poor shepherd’s daughter. The way Reid cared for his young sister brought tears so close to falling that her eyes stung and her nose filled so that she was forced to sniff a little.

  “This was verra kind of ye, Sister,” said Reid, watching Ilsabeth warily, his dark eyes holding the panicked look that men always got when they thought a woman was close to tears.

  “Hold old are ye, Reid?” Ilsabeth bit back a smile at how relieved the boy looked when she spoke calmly, indicating that her urge to cry had vanished.

  “Seven. Weel, nearly seven. Elen marked two years but yestereve.”

  “Greetings, Reid and Elen. I am Ilsabeth Armstrong.” She waited patiently while he considered her words and was not surprised when he frowned.

  “ ‘Tis an odd name for a nun.” His eyes widened and he blushed. “But, ye ken, I havenae had much learning and all, so I wouldnae ken the way of it and all. I am certain ‘tis a good, holy name and all. I just havenae heard it before.”

  Ilsabeth took a deep breath and decided the truth was the only path to follow now. “I am nay surprised for I am nay truly a nun. This is but a guise I wear to keep me safe as I travel to ask the aid of a mon. ‘Tis also a disguise to keep me safe from my enemies. My dagger was found buried in the heart of a king’s mon. I didnae put it there and I ken weel who did, but I was snared tight in his trap ere I even kenned it was set.”

  “Ye have no kin to help ye?”

  “They are already being confronted by men demanding that they surrender me to them so that I can be brought before the king for punishment. One of my cousins caught me fleeing to my home ere I ran straight into the arms of those men. He gave me this nun’s clothing, supplies, and this pony and told me to hie to Sir Simon Innes and ask for his aid in proving who really killed that mon. That is where I go now. In all truth, I am at the end of my journey and but sit here gathering the courage to go and rap upon the mon’s door.”

  She could tell by the resigned look upon the boy’s face that he had cherished the hope that she could aid him and his sister. Her tale had clearly killed that hope. The voice of good sense reminded Ilsabeth yet again that she was running and hiding for her life, that it was a very poor time to take two foundlings under her wing. She ignored it. She let her heart lead her. Nothing could change her decision to care for these children.

  “I but tell ye this, Reid, so that ye ken weel what trouble ye will face if ye decide to stay with me,” she said.

  “Ye would take us with ye?”

  “I cannae leave ye here, alone and struggling to find enough food to hold back starvation, now can I?” Ilsabeth bit back a smile when his child’s face tightened with a very stern look and he straightened up, stung pride stiffening his backbone.

  “I can care for us,” he said in a surprisingly fierce voice.

  “Aye, ye can, and ye have proven that, but wouldnae ye like a roof o’er your head, clean warm clothing, a wee bed, and food when ye need it?”

  “Ye think Sir Innes will allow us all into his home? ‘Tis said that he is a mon with a cold heart, a mon who believes only in justice.”

  “Is that what is said of him? Ye came from this village then, did ye?”

  “Aye. I wasnae sure where else to go once we were shut out, so I stayed close to the village.”

  Ilsabeth hoped part of the reason the boy lingered in the area was because there were some people kindhearted enough to give the children what scraps of food they could spare. “We shall go to Sir Simon’s home. If he is too cold of heart to help me and take us all in, then we shall go and find another who will. My Armstrong kin may have had to flee and hide, but I have other kin. The Murrays havenae all taken to the hills. I didnae want to bring my trouble to their doors, but I will bring ye to them. They willnae turn ye away.”

  The boy stared at her for a moment and then smiled. Ilsabeth could see the beauty of the boy beneath the dirt and ravages of hunger. It was a smile she had to return and she vowed to herself that she would find these children a haven. If Simon Innes was too hard and callous to aid her, if only in helping the children, she would see them safely into the hands of her Murray kin.

  A little voice warned her that she could be walking into danger if she tried to do that, but she silenced it. If Sir Simon refused to help her or even just the children, then she would have no other choice. Ilsabeth did not wish to face the danger seeking her out at home, however, so she silently prayed that Sir Simon Innes was not simply the cold seeker of justice that rumor named him. Unless, she thought with a faint smile, that included seeking a little justice on a certain swine named Donald Chisholm.

  “Why are ye smiling?” asked Reid.

  Noticing the way the boy eyed the bread and cheese she had left, Ilsabeth gave him some more to share with his sister. “I was just thinking what a surprise we shall all be for Sir Simon Innes.”

  “Och, aye. I dinnae think it will be a good one.”

  “We shall see.”

  “Why do your kin think he will help ye?”

  “Because he has already helped two of my kinsmen who were accused of murders they had not committed.”

  Reid frowned. “Why do your kin keep getting into such troubl
e?”

  Ilsabeth laughed and shook her head. “I dinnae ken, laddie. It does seem as if we are cursed sometimes.”

  “Aye, a wee bit. Or ‘tis envy. My mither said envy can make people do mean things.”

  “Your mother was a verra wise woman.”

  “I miss her,” he said softly, blushing faintly as he made the admission.

  “Of course ye do. There is no shame in that. Now, I am thinking I have sat here long enough trying to gather up the courage to go to Sir Simon’s house. If I dinnae have it now, I ne’er will. Best we clean up and finish the journey.”

  “Are ye afraid?” Reid immediately began to help Ilsabeth pack up her supplies.

  “A wee bit,” Ilsabeth answered as she dampened a cloth and gently wiped Elen’s face and hands. “I want to put my faith in the mon my family has sent

  me to, but I have ne’er met him. ‘Tis difficult to trust a stranger, especially when ye are dealing with matters of murder and treason. Aye, and he doesnae ken me, either, so why should he be believing a word I say?”

  “But ye said he has helped your family before, aye?”

  “Aye, he has helped the Murrays, cousins of mine. Dinnae ken them all that weel either so I cannae say I learned much of this Sir Simon from them. And, I am but half a Murray. The rest of me is Armstrong.”

  “Is that bad?”

  “ ‘Tis nay a good thing in many eyes, laddie. My wee clan and my father the laird are all good, honest people, but the ones that came before them werenae. They put a verra dark stain upon the name and some of his kinsmen still arenae too honest.” She winked. “There are a lot of reivers in the family, ye ken.” She grinned when he giggled and then helped the children up onto Goliath. “I will try to nay be too insulted if he favors my Murray blood, at least in the beginning.”

  “If he doesnae help ye, then I will,” said Reid.

  “Ye are a good, brave lad.” Ilsabeth grasped the reins and started to lead the pony into town. “Ye have your sister to watch o’er, however, so we must hope Sir Simon truly is the stalwart seeker of the truth all claim him to be.”