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She put her head down. He’d hurt her feelings, or she was pretending he had?
‘I should not have come here,’ she said.
‘So why did you? If, as you say, you are the daughter of a Laird, why would you bother with one of his prisoners in a dungeon? Come to spy on me, have you, offer food and comfort, to tempt me with your pretty face to get information out of me about my father?’
She just looked at him, dumb, wide-eyed, like a cow, and her silence angered him.
‘If that is so, why don’t you unlock this cage, Kenna, for I am sure you have the keys, and come in here and offer me something more than blackberries to tell you my secrets?’
‘You are vile and nasty, and I am sorry I came.’
Conall saw tears in her eyes as she turned to go. This could well be a trap, for she looked like a servant in her worn clothes and with her unruly hair, or she could be genuine in her kindness. He had no way of knowing for certain. Either way, this girl was of use to him. He could get information out of her, and he wasn’t about to let her go, for she was the only person he’d seen in days.
‘Stop, please. Forgive me. I promise I won’t grab you again. Look, I don't know why I am here, what is to happen to me. How can I possibly trust you if you are part of the clan who brought me here?’ He tried to keep the panic out of his voice, for surely she already despised him as a weak fool, slurring and drooling his words out through a swollen jaw, like the village idiot.
‘You can’t trust me. You have no reason to,’ she replied. ‘But I am not like them, my brothers, and my father. I came down here to try and help you, and if you tell anyone of my visit, I will be whipped to within an inch of my life.’
‘Why the hell would you risk that for me?
‘Because I hate what they are doing to you.’
‘Stay then, please, Kenna, just tell me why I am here.’
‘Very well, but it will bring you no comfort. My father has probably been paid to dispose of you, get you out of the way, either that or ransom you. You could be here weeks, months or years depending on his plan. He is indebted to some very powerful men and does their bidding. Our clan is poor and desperate and, over the last few years, has sunk into ruin. My father drinks, gambles, whores his way through life. He is rotten inside and out and does not honour his clan or his family. We need coin, and he will do anything to get it, sell a friend to an enemy, sell his children in marriage, sell his land bit by bit until just this miserable castle remains and with it a few tenant farmers who have nowhere else to go, clinging on, scratching what they can.’
‘Perhaps it is ransom then? Do you know who I am?’
‘No, they don’t tell me such things.’
‘My name is Conall Campbell, and my father is Duncan Campbell of Dunslair and Cailleach, Laird of Clan Campbell and Clan MacLeod. He is a powerful man, a rich man, and he will stop at nothing to free me.’
‘Then you must hope it is a ransom they are after and not revenge.’
‘But now I know your name, the name of the Clan Moncur, if I am ransomed and freed, then I will come back here and wreak vengeance on you. So why did you tell me all that?’
‘Because, in a way, I am as much a prisoner as you are, Conall.’
The wind picked up, and the castle howled again, louder, more mournful. Something scuttled in the darkness from the dark mouth of the staircase.
Kenna’s eyes grew round and fearful, and she froze. ‘I must go. I will come again with more food else they will starve you, and you will weaken.’
‘Don’t go. I beg you.’
‘I have to. I will leave you a candle.’ She pulled one from her pocket and lit it with the torch. It guttered in the draught. ‘Don’t let it go out and hide what’s left of it, so they don’t see. It will help you hold on to your wits, for it is easy to lose your mind down here if you are not strong.’
In an instant, she was gone. Her soft footfall on the stairs faded away. Conall hated her leaving, even though she’d barely spoken to him. They had starved him of food for days but being starved of company was the most awful thing. It was wearing him down this solitude, this achingly slow passage of time with nothing to do but stare at the clammy walls of his cell. At least he had the candle, and perhaps it would keep the desperate thoughts at bay for a while. Kenna may be a trap, but if he was nice to her, if he encouraged her to come to him, if he worked on her, she could also be his way out.
Chapter Seven
Not a soul came near Conall’s prison for some days, and then several burly men appeared at dusk, thrust his hands into manacles and dragged him upwards. They took him along dark, chilly passageways, eventually emerging from the gloom into a noisy room. Conall squinted at the light and tried to adjust his eyes. He realised he was in a hall of sorts though it was not a good one, and it was full of Moncur clansmen, some of whom he recognised as the ones who had taken him captive.
Despite a great fire in the hearth, the place felt draughty and cold, the air tainted with mildew. There were no tapestries hung to soften the stone walls, which were streaked black where damp had seeped upwards. The smell of roast meat made his mouth water and his stomach clench.
Suddenly he was yanked forwards before a high table and thrown at the feet of a large, burly man, more finely dressed than the others and with an air of authority about him. He guessed he must be Laird Moncur, Kenna’s father.
Conall was struck by him at once. The man would have been impressive in his youth. He was tall with startling blue eyes. But his skin was jaundiced, nose veiny and red, muscles slack down one side of his face, with age and drink or some kind of palsy. Conall could see the ghost of a handsome face, but this man was rotting from the inside out, just like his castle. What had brought him to this ruined state? Whatever it was that was twisting him had clawed its way to the surface, turning his expression sour and his mouth to a brutish sneer.
The man turned flinty eyes to Conall. ‘I am Laird Gregor Moncur, and you are a great disappointment,’ he said, with gloating cruelty. ‘I was told I was playing host to the son of the great Duncan Campbell, the Black Wolf, a fearsome warrior. I was richly deceived, for what is this before me? You can’t be he, for all I see, is a shit-stained, cowering wretch, stinking of his own piss.’
