But Tavish had no reply as he stood and stared at the portrait that appeared through the swirling cloud. He heard Lucan Montague step to his left side; Mam gasped again, this time not from the choking dust, and rose to flank him on his right.
It was a painting of a family; a man and woman, their pale profiles facing an open window and a view of what was possibly the firth beyond the very walls that sheltered them. Before and between the couple stood a little boy, perhaps four or five years, with curling blond hair beneath a rounded red cap. The child was facing the artist, his blue eyes bright on the canvas, his bowed lips unsmiling and yet somehow still merry and mischievous, as if he had plucked the peacock feather gracing his cap himself. His mother’s hands curled over the boy’s shoulders, while his father held a hooded falcon atop his left fist. They were all three dressed richly, their jewelry and slit sleeves speaking volumes about their status.
Mam’s voice was hushed. “’Tis as if I’m lookin’ at you as a bairn.” He turned to look down at his mother in surprise, and she continued. “It must be Tommy.”
Tavish turned his eyes back to the portrait as a strange feeling sank into his stomach. “My hair is dark,” he protested lamely.
“Aye, but you were fair as a wee lad,” she answered, a smile in her voice. “Fair with curls, and your mouth set just so—as if you’d again stuck your finger into the honey when you thought I wasna watching.”
Tavish swallowed, his gaze going first to the pale woman with the pointed chin, her dark hair smoothed beneath an ornate headdress, and then the man whose jowls and coiffed hair bespoke his wealth and security.
“Who are they?” he asked with a jut of his chin. “Could they be my…grandparents?”
“They must be,” Mam answered. “I doona know their names—Tommy never told me.”
Tavish had all but forgotten the English knight still stood at his side until Lucan Montague spoke.
“Lord Tenred Annesley and his wife, Lady Myra.”
Tavish turned his face toward Montague in surprise. “How do you know?”
“There are other paintings of the family hung at Darlyrede House. I’ve become well familiar with the hold…over the course of my investigation,” he added anecdotally as he continued to study the portrait. “Roscraig was a gift to Lady Myra from her family upon her marriage. Lord Annesley moved the family here for approximately a year at his wife’s behest, so that young Lord Thomas could know of the land of his mother’s kin. The spring of 1413, I believe.”
Tavish looked back at the painting of the three, and his voice was unintentionally gruff. “’Tis a bit awkward that you seem to know more about my family than do I, Montague.”
“I daresay I’d better,” the knight quipped and then clapped his shoulder good-naturedly. “I’ve been studying them all my adult life; you only found out about them last week.”
Tavish thought the comment strange, but let it go as it elbowed for room in his brain with the idea that he was currently looking upon his blood kin—his noble kin—in his own castle.Tenred and Myra—my grandparents; Thomas, my father.
“Och, I’ve burnt the pies!” Mam cried from near the fire again. Tavish hadn’t noticed she’d left his side, so transfixed had he been.
Indeed, Lucan Montague had also taken his leave to recline on a blanket he’d spread before the small fire. Mam was already portioning the meal. Not knowing what else to do with himself, he joined them.
The food was delicious, as all of Mam’s offerings tended to be, and did much to dispel the storm’s chill. While the silence of the meal was not exactly tense, the cold, damp chamber had acquired an atmosphere of melancholy propagated from the painted images watching over the repast, from which Tavish was eager to shake free. He rose from the blanket with a stretch and a sigh.
“Well, I’m off,” he said, crossing the floor toward the door.
“Where’s off?” Mam called out warily.
“Glenna Douglas was not keen for giving me a tour,” he explained as he reached the door. “I’d know the lay of the land before tomorrow’s battle, so to speak.”
“What if you should encounter her?” Montague queried, although his tone conveyed little true worry. “Or her father? Either is likely to run you through.”
Tavish opened the door then patted his doublet atop where the decree of his inheritance rested. “I am well prepared to defend myself.” Then he stepped into the dark corridor, closing the door on Mam’s shaking head and Lucan Montague’s salute.
Tavish wished briefly for a torch; the uppermost passageway was pitch, save for the weak flashes of now distant lightning, but even that small contrast of light and dark was enough to render him nearly blind as he sought to familiarize himself with his surroundings. The west tower was wide, but the chamber he’d just departed was the only one at this uppermost level. Tavish felt his way to the top of the stairs and then began a careful descent.
There were several more chambers between the top of the tower and the main floor, and a quick duck inside the still and echoing rooms convinced Tavish that none boasted even a single stick of wood. A faint yellow glow from the doorway to the entry hall gave him pause, and he stood motionless on the step for what felt like hours, but he discerned neither movement nor sound and so he hesitantly stepped into the wide corridor.
There was a single torch held in a sconce along the wall, its wrapping and pitch nearly spent. Tavish pulled it from its holder and held it high as he turned around, causing shadows to bulge and dance wildly over the damp stones. The entrance door was not only chained once more, but the long brace had been lowered across a trio of metal brackets; at the opposite end of the hall—toward the now hidden finger of land and the firth—the gate had been completely lowered. Tavish looked down as he walked toward the portcullis, noticing a set of small, damp footprints on the stones.
Had Glenna Douglas lowered the heavy barrier herself? Tavish must have only just missed her, considering the freshness of the prints, and he was thankful she’d left the torch behind.
He looked all around the dark seams where stone floor met stone walls and at last located the rods that locked the gate in its lowered position. He raised it slowly and with great caution, wincing in anticipation of a rusty squeal, but none came. When the portcullis was just high enough, he ducked beneath.
The air outside was bracing and salty fresh, with the faint shadow of a winter in fast retreat. He checked on the horses briefly and found all three sleeping contentedly, but he frowned as he realized theirs were the only mounts in the small barn.
Perhaps the Douglases kept their own animals in a separate shelter, so as not to be tainted by such common beasts.
