A fortress, indeed, he thought as he encouraged the mare across the deep, rocky ditch below. The hoof falls were amplified exponentially, the party announcing itself to the hold as Tavish and the English knight made themselves vulnerable in procession. There wasn’t even room to turn around, and he could feel his mount gathering anxiety beneath him.
He was very aware of the height of the bridge and its narrowness as he pulled the mare to a stop and slowly, carefully dismounted against the single rickety railing. Montague was doing the same. The beasts were nervous, and every shuffle of hooves sent echoing barks through the moat to ricochet off the thunderheads that were now dropping thin threads of light farther down the beach.
“Shh.” He reached up to draw the reins over the horse’s head and then led her to the door. A granite boulder of thunder rolled across the rocky sky, causing the horse to roll her eyes and pull up. “Shh. Just a bit of rain.” The beast reluctantly moved forward once more.
Tavish raised his gloved fist and pounded on the entry. He glanced at Montague and then looked more closely at the door, which appeared to be covered with fresh gouges and deep cuts to the wood. Tavish leaned his ear nearer but could hear no sounds above the wind and the pounding surf around Tower Roscraig.
Had the place been looted and abandoned?
“Hello?” he shouted, then pounded on the door again. Tavish stepped back to look up at the tapering walls of the keep, the arrow slits and higher, narrow windows, the battlements. All empty.
Tavish came into the slight shelter of the stone doorway once more and tried buffeting his shoulder into the wood near the iron handle. Although it appeared that someone had attempted quite recently to hack the thick plate from the door, the handle held firm. He braced himself more firmly and dealt the wood two more firm blows, the give in the frame indicating the door was most likely barred from within.
He leaned back once more and looked left and right—he could see no postern gate at either side of the keep to indicate an alternate entry past the moat. Unless whoever had barred the door had departed via boat on the Forth, someone must be inside.
“Hello!” he shouted again. “Master of the hold! Guard!” He sighed in exasperation as he struggled briefly with his horse once more. “Scullery!”
To his surprise, he heard a scraping of wood, a thud, and then the door creaked open a pair of inches, the telltale rattle of chain drawing taut filling the blackness within from where a woman’s voice also sounded.
“What do you want, then?”
Tavish cleared his throat. This woman was perhaps one of his own servants—he wanted to make a good, lairdly impression.
“Good day,” he said in a grave tone, although the howling wind took away much of the solemnity he sought to convey. “We have traveled from Edinburgh to seek the guardian of Tower Roscraig. Would that you admit us and announce us to him.”
“There is no guardian. Go away.” The door began to shut.
Tavish stepped forward and placed his foot into the opening. “No guardian?”
The blackness within the keep was silent for a pair of heartbeats. “Thelaird—if that’s who you mean—is not accepting visitors. We’re not buying anything, either. Didn’t you see the signs? There is sickness here. You should leave while you can.” The door squeezed Tavish’s boot for a moment before the woman half growled, “Move your foot.”
Tavish left his foot where it stood and braced his shoulder against the door again for good measure. “Laird, you say? Laird who?”
“The laird of Roscraig, imbecile. Move your foot.”
“Please,” he said, lowering his voice. “I understand our arrival is unannounced. But as you can see if you’ll only open the door”—here, Tavish turned slightly to point down the length of the bridge—“my elderly mother accompanies me, and it’s already started to rain. You must believe that we have come at the behest of the old laird himself—Annesley, he is called.”
“Och, for certain.” The woman’s eye roll was audible. “That’s why I’ve not heard the name Annesley in the whole of my life. Move your foot, or I’ll cut off your toes.”
Tavish dug into his doublet for the decree, even as the downpour increased. “It’s right here—with the royal clerk’s own sigil. Look.” He unrolled the parchment and held it up, not bothering with what part was revealed—it was likely the girl couldn’t read any matter. He only needed inside the keep. “It’s all right here.”
“I don’t care what it says—it’s mistaken. Iain Douglas is the laird of Roscraig, and always has been. I don’t know this Annesley.”
“Tavish?” Harriet Cameron called through the roar of the rain in a warbly voice. When he turned to look at his mother, she appeared to be nearly soaked through already.
He appealed to the blackness again. “Perhaps we are wrong. But, please…my mother. Wait, here…” His hand dived between shirt and doublet again for the loose coins he carried and fished them out, holding them toward her. “For the trouble of sheltering us. Please.”
After a long moment, a slender, pale hand emerged from the opening, and Tavish readily placed the coins into the palm, worried that such a pittance that he would give to beggars along the road would not be enough to satisfy even a simple servant in a country hold, but he daren’t withdraw from the door to attend to his purse.
The blackness was quiet again, this time for several moments. “Move your foot,” the unseen woman repeated.
“I can’t do that, maiden,” Tavish said in a low voice. “The sun will soon set and I—”
“If you don’t move your damned foot, I can’t loose the chain.”
Tavish hesitated. She could be tricking him—it was what he would try to do, after all. But he slid his boot free from the narrow opening with some difficulty and stepped back from the door as it slammed.
The obvious rattle of chain sounded through the thick wood, but Tavish was unsure in that moment if it was being loosed or doubled. A moment later, however, the door began creaking open again, and Tavish gave a silent breath of relief as he turned to hail Mam.
