“And where ishere, exactly?”
A man in the hall grumbled, and Addison looked over his shoulder. He twisted and gave Sawny a sorrowful look that sent a chill down his spine, then exited out the door.
The men in the hall slammed the door shut, sealing Sawny inside.
Sawny did not move for several minutes as he stared at the locked door.
Abducted by the Camerons?
Nay, that could not be. They were MacDonald allies and Lachlan Cameron was close with his father. And the boy had said he was fostering. That meant he did not live with his family.
And other than the Campbells, the MacIntoshes were one of the clans nearest the Camerons. Was the boy a squire? Was he training with a MacIntosh or Campbell, like Adaira’s youngest brother was at court?
Or was he fostering for another reason? From the state of the lad’s clothing and skin, he did not appear to be with people who cared for him overmuch.
Perchance Sawny was not the first man taken captive here.
Another night passed and this time Sawny slept hard, escaping both his weariness and his pain. His belly ached from hunger – two bowls of watery parritch and a cup of mead was not enough to sustain a bairn, let alone a full-grown man, but it was something.
The next morning, he did not wake on his own but was shocked into awareness when his door screeched open again. He sat up gently, expecting the lad again with his morning meal.
His throat closed up when an older man entered, flanked by two Highlanders in grubby green MacIntosh plaid. The man resembled a rat, with nearly black, tiny eyes and a pointed nose. His chin was sloped to non-existent, and Sawny did not know who this man was.
The man’s dark eyes assessed him, then his graying eyebrows rose on his forehead.
“I expected more from a Keppoch MacDonald.”
Considering Sawny had an open, jagged wound, lost more than a pint of blood, and was starving, he begged to differ. Yet he kept his mouth shut.
It would be foolish to respond to the man, and Sawny’s father had not raised a fool.
But the man’s words told Sawny much, that his captor was a MacIntosh. If he was a Campbell, the man would have merely called himMacDonald. Only a MacIntosh would care that he was from Keppoch House.
So, was this imprisonment retribution for the Keppochs reclaiming their land from the MacIntosh interlopers? Or was this personal, revenge for a reiving or a fight that the MacIntoshes lost again? The lads Sawny had escaped with, as he presumed?
Or something more? MacIntoshes were aligned with the Campbells and the pretender king.
No matter which, this man’s presence with his boorish-looking guards did not bode well.
The MacIntosh man sniffed loudly.
“Take him,” he said to the other men.
The MacIntosh moved to the door as the other two scooped Sawny under his arms and dragged him from the cell. Despite his best efforts, Sawny felt the scab on his wound pull free.
More blood loss.
Feck.
They dragged him down a dim, stone-walled hall and past two more thick doors to a torch-lit cell at the far end. This room had no window slit, and Sawny immediately understood why. Between the chains and the lashes hanging from the walls, the last thing the MacIntoshes wanted was for their prisoner’s screams to be heard by others.
Or for their prisoner to escape.
Sawny worked to control the blind panic rising in his chest.
Keep your composure, no matter what they do, he commanded himself.Keep your mind on Adaira, no matter what they do to ye.
The men dropped him into a low-backed wooden chair, and Sawny hissed again, grabbing his side.
