While his men kept watch, Jamie crouched, brushing away the cobwebs and ivy that covered the keyhole. Taking his sword in both hands, he drove it into the ground and then carefully removed a cap from the tip of the hilt. Inside lay a tiny key.
Sending up thanks to his father for ensuring he took such precautions, Jamie pried out the key and pushed it in the lock. For a moment, it refused to turn and Jamie wondered whether they’d have to break down the door after all, but finally, the lockopened with a tinysnickthat sounded unnaturally loud in the stillness.
Stealing through the postern gate in silence, Jamie and his men found themselves in the kitchen garden behind the storage barns. Pausing only long enough to check nobody was in sight, they stole across the garden and entered through a little-used door that gave access to the ancillary kitchens.
It felt strange entering his home like this, like some thief with no right to be there.
“Oi! They aren’t for ye!”
The voice froze Jamie and his men in their tracks. Creeping to the door, Jamie peered through a crack. Beyond lay a proving room for the main kitchens, where bread and pastry were left to rise. A rack of freshly baked loaves stood cooling on a rack and a man dressed in the king’s livery stood with his back to Jamie, chomping on one of the loaves.
Tabitha, Dun Arach’s formidable cook, was facing the man with a murderous scowl on her face. “Get yer filthy paws away from my loaves, ye damned rat!”
Jamie had been terrified of Tabitha when he was a boy and had felt the wrath of her rolling pin on more than one occasion when he’d been caught stealing from the kitchen.
Yet the cook’s wrath had no effect on the king’s guardsman. His hand went to the hilt of his sword. “I’ll take what I like, woman,” he snarled. “And ye will keep a civil tongue in yer head lest I cut it out for ye.”
Tabitha opened her mouth for an angry tirade, but her eyes widened as Jamie stepped through the door, pressed his finger to his lips, crept up behind the guardsman, and then whacked him over the head with the pommel of his sword. The man’s eyes rolled back in his head and he slid to the floor.
“Jamie!” Tabitha roared, throwing her arms around him and crushing him into a hug that almost cracked his ribs. “I canna believe it! Thank the Lord ye’ve returned!”
Jamie extricated himself from the cook’s stifling embrace and laid a hand on her shoulder. He was shocked to see tears of relief in her eyes.
“Listen to me,” he said. “I dinna have time to explain. I need ye to do exactly as I say. Gather as many of the kitchen and household staff as ye can without alerting anyone that I’m here. Barricade yerselves in the kitchens and dinna come out until it’s safe. There is likely to be fighting, and I canna guarantee yer safety otherwise.”
“I’ll fight with ye!” Tabitha cried. “Just give me a roasting spit and I’ll teach these scum to rue the day they thought to take our home from us!”
“I’ve no doubt ye would,” Jamie replied, squeezing her shoulder. “But I need ye to help keep our people safe.”
The stout woman took a deep breath and nodded, her eyes flicking to the men gathered behind Jamie. “Just ye be careful, lad. I dinna know what’s going on but something’s got this place riled up like ye wouldnae believe.”
“I will. Dinna worry.”
He led his men out through the doors and into the castle proper. They moved silently and swiftly, keeping to the smaller, quieter passages as much as possible. Three times they came across guardsmen patrolling, but each time they were able to surprise them and take them out before they were able to raise the alarm.
They reached the door that led down into the storerooms where Phillip was holding Albie and the rest of Jamie’s loyal men. As expected, it was heavily guarded, with at least seven men holding positions along the corridor, blocking access to the heavy door.
At his gesture, his men pressed themselves against the wall around the corner. Jamie pulled his cloak pin from his plaid and tossed it down the corridor. It made a tinkling noise as it landed on the hard flagstones and the guards’ heads turned towards the unexpected noise.
In the instant they were distracted, Jamie struck. With a roar, he and his men burst from their hiding, weapons raised.
If he’d hoped to take them by surprise, he was sorely disappointed. These were no mere mercenaries or untrained rabble, but king’s guards: highly trained and highly disciplined.
At a word from their commander, they formed into a fighting formation to meet Jamie’s onslaught. The corridor suddenly exploded into steel and violence.
With a roar of released emotion, Jamie stepped to meet the first man. He ducked under a vicious downward swing, kicked the man hard in the knee and then slammed the pommel of his sword into his nose. Bone crunched. The man collapsed to the floor, clutching his face.
Jamie stepped over him, already swinging at the next guard. These men were good—damnably good. They fought as a tightly controlled unit, covering each other, retreating in step, trying to lure Jamie and his men farther down the corridor and away from the door they were guarding. But Jamie wasn’t about to fall for that.
As a guard lunged for him, he twisted away, stepped inside the man’s reach, and grabbed his arm. Yanking him forward, he drove his knee into his stomach with all his strength, doubling the man over and breaking the guards’ formation.
“Now!” he bellowed.
His men pushed forward, driving into the guards with renewed frenzy. The guards struggled to reform their lines, but Jamie’s men were relentless as blades swung and fists connected with flesh. The king’s guards fell one by one.
Finally, there was only one man left standing before the door. To his credit, he didn’t try to run, didn’t throw down his weapon and surrender. His lips curled in a sneer and he began spitting curses. “Come on then, ye rabid dogs! What are ye waiting—”
Jamie’s thrown dagger plunged into the meat of the man’s upper arm and he screamed in pain. Jamie swept the man’s legs out from under him and snatched the sword from his hands. Disarmed and injured, it took his men only a second to subdue him.
