Page 70 of Highland Spy

They finished securing the horses and once more had to plunge into the rain. The sky had darkened to a low purplish hue that cast the castle into shadow.

Despite the dreariness of the place, Ariana found herself wishing to be behind the solid walls, protected from the cold and the wet. Her jaw ached from clenching her teeth against the cold and every part of her was so stiff, she was sure she’d never be able to unfold her fingers from their balled fists.

She wanted dry clothes and a reprieve from the angry, lashing wind.

They passed several buildings without pause. Some doors remained closed. Others remained open in a manner that was becoming almost welcome. Connor led her to the massive towering structure she’d noticed to the left when they’d entered the courtyard.

Another drawbridge stood before them, open. They rushed across it and stopped at a door. Connor tried the latch, but it held against his attempt with a solid clunk.

Ariana’s hope, her roaring desperation to be inside, withered in her chest.

Connor pulled a key from his pocket, and it was then she noticed he wore a gold ring on his finger. One she had not seen before. He must have only recently put it on, but where had it come from?

He slipped the large iron key into the door and twisted. It gave way with a metallic click.

He pushed the door open, and Ariana followed him into a large room. Shadows darkened the corners, leaving the vast chamber gloomy. But it was dry.

Their footsteps, light though they were, echoed in an eerie reverberation which seemed to come from all sides.

“Connor.” Her voice repeated back at her from the high stone walls. “Where are we?”

He closed the door, but even though he’d done so quietly, the sound was almost explosive and afterward left the room drenched in the same reverent silence as a tomb. Their breath whooshing in and out was the only sound remaining.

“Whose castle is this?” She spoke more softly this time, disconcerted by the echo, by all the open emptiness.

“It belongs to King James.” There was something bitter in his voice.

He turned to look at her for the first time since their arrival. His features were drawn tight with the kind of lined concentration he exhibited before fighting.

“It belongs to King James,” he repeated. “But this castle is mine.”

• • •

Coming to Urquhart had been a mistake.

Connor hadn’t realized how much would be dredged up.

Ariana waited for him to say more, her stare level from beneath the makeshift hood of her plaid. He knew she waited and yet he could not bring himself to speak.

His throat had gone tight with a mix of emotions. There was anger, aye, blinding and hot, at all he’d lost. There was the burn of injustice that the king should hold Connor’s inheritance over his head to keep him biddable.

And there was sorrow.

Sorrow for the lives lost. Not only his father’s, but all of theirs.

“I don’t understand,” Ariana said softly. Her eyes searched his for answers he was not yet ready to give.

He swallowed. “I will explain more later.”

Perhaps.

For now, he led her up the narrow spiral stairs of Grant Tower, climbing up, up, up to the fifth floor where the rooms were smaller and would be more easily warmed.

The floors there were blessedly free of stains, as he had hoped. Perhaps he might have the courage to explore the rooms below later. As it was, he would not have been able to sleep in a room scarred with death.

Better still, several logs lay piled beside the hearth, dry from three long years of being closed off from the world.

A large cabinet stood to the opposite side of the wall as the hearth—too cumbersome to carry down the stairs, too large and thick to easily chop, too plain to be of any worth.