Highlander’s Frozen Heart by Shona Thompson

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“What we should do, Baron, is separate Laird MacRestus from the rest of his clan,” Fin heard Laird MacForfin say, as the two men were having their dinner in the baron’s tent.

The MacForfin army, along with Caton and his men, were already on the move, and they had set up camp for the night, aiming to attack either the following day or the day after. Fin happened to be passing by the tent when he overheard the two men talking about strategy, and so he decided to loiter outside and try to listen in, so that he could inform Magnus of their plans.

“That is easier said than done, Laird MacForfin,” Caton pointed out, “But it is not my place to tell you what to do. As I said, neither I nor my men will be involved in this fight unless we must.”

“Weel, then me men will try to separate him with a ruse,” Laird MacForfin said, “I dinnae ken what that ruse will be yet, but we’ll find somethin’. The point is that if we draw him away from his men, there will be nay savin’ him, and if his men are left without a leader, then there is nay savin’ them. There must be somethin’ that he values more than anythin’ in the world. The lass, perhaps?”

“The entire point of this battle is to get to Adelleine,” Caton reminded him, “I don’t think that they’ll be foolish enough to not guard her when the time comes.”

“We dinnae need to have the lass,” Laird MacForfin pointed out, “We only need to make him think that we have her, and then he’ll come to us.”

“He won’t come to you alone,” Caton said, “He’ll bring his men with him . . . and as I said, they’re not that foolish. You’d better find a better plan, Laird MacForfin, if you wish to isolate him from the rest of them.”

Fin held his breath as the two men spoke. He glanced around him, fearing that someone would be there, that someone would catch him eavesdropping, but there was no one there. Hesitantly, he took a step closer to the tent, just as Laird MacForfin began to speak once more.

“Doeasnae he have a son?” he asked the baron, “I thought I heard once that he had a wife who died and left him with their son.”

“I don’t know,” Caton said, “What if he does?”

“We can use his son as bait,” Laird MacForfin said, “Perhaps we can even get our hands on him. Perhaps we willnae even have to lie to him about it. And then if we have his son, he’ll do anythin’ that we say. He willnae have any power.”

Fin’s blood ran cold in his veins. How could the laird even suggest such a thing? What kind of cruel men were they that they could speak about hurting a child with such ease?

Fin had to warn Magnus, he realised, and so he rushed to find a pen and something on which he could write. He scribbled a note to Magnus, and then crept around the camp once more, making sure that no one had followed him as he walked deeper into the woods, where he knew Magnus’ messengers and spies congregated.

It didn’t take him long to find the man that he needed, and once he did, he passed him the note without a word. The man nodded and left immediately, riding back to the castle, and Fin walked back to the camp, unnoticed by everyone.

The note was not enough, though. He would have to go and find Magnus himself, he decided, but it was easier said than done. Fin crept towards the edge of the camp, where they were keeping the horses, walking as quietly as he could. The road to the MacRestus clan’s castle would only take a day, he knew, less even if he hurried, and he would make it just in time to warn Magnus and assist him with coming up with a plan to defeat the laird and the baron. After all, he and Magnus had agreed that Fin would quietly leave the rest of the baron’s and the laird’s men, and that he would make his way to the castle faster than all of them, so he could fight by Magnus’ side.

The boy who was looking after the horses was fast asleep already, perhaps tired after a whole day’s trip or simply bored. Fin snuck up to his horse, constantly looking over his shoulder as he ensured that no one had seen him, and he untied the reins from the log where the boy had secured all the animals.

“Where do ye think yer goin’?”

The voice stopped Fin dead in his tracks. He knew that voice; he had just heard it when he had been eavesdropping by the tent, and now it was right there, behind him, Laird MacForfin having noticed him as he was trying to leave the camp.

“I . . . I couldn’t sleep, my Lord,” Fin said, an excuse that sounded fake even to his own ears, “Forgive me, I didn’t know that I was not to leave the camp. I . . . I’ll head back to the tent, I’ll try to get some sleep.”

“Do ye truly think that ye can fool me?” Laird MacForfin asked, “Cannae sleep . . . so ye decided to take yer horse and leave the camp? Where are ye goin’?”

Fin glanced around them, noticing that the laird had attracted the attention of his men, who were slowly, but surely, surrounding them. He stammered, trying to find a good excuse, but none came to his mind.

“I was only going for a ride, my Lord,” he told the other man, “I wasn’t going too far, just around the camp, that is all.”

“Where were ye goin’?” the laird repeated, this time his words dripping with venom.

Fin wasn’t going to tell him. He wasn’t just about to betray Magnus and Adelleine, even as it was quite clear to him that he would be meeting his end soon. He couldn’t bring himself to give Laird MacForfin Magnus’ plans and put him and his entire clan in danger.

“I wasn’t going anywhere, my Lord,” Fin insisted.

There was a stretch of silence between them, when the laird stared at Fin with narrowed, suspicious eyes, as though he hoped that his look would be enough to break him. Fin didn’t speak a single word, though, even as the laird gestured at his men to take him.

Two of his burliest men approached Fin, and he considered his options for a moment. He could try to fight them off and escape, since his horse was right there, but he risked death. Those men, as well as the lLaird, wouldn’t hesitate to kill him on the spot.

Or he could simply allow them to take him wherever it was that the laird would be keeping him in that camp, and hope that he could somehow make it to the MacRestus clan castle one way or another. Even if he remained Laird MacForfin’s prisoner, Fin reasoned, they would still have to take him with them on their way there.

The two men grabbed him by the arms, and Fin didn’t resist. He found no point in it, and instead allowed the men to drag him away, Laird MacForfin following close behind.

The men took him deeper into the woods, though not too far from the camp. Soon, they had tied Fin up against a tree, his arms stretching painfully as they wrapped around the tree trunk, and Fin could do nothing but stare at the laird as the man came to stand in front of him.

“Where were ye goin’?” the man asked once more, and this time, Fin didn’t even bother to answer him.

The laird clearly didn’t believe his lie, and he refused to tell him the truth, so he had nothing else to say to the man.

He wasn’t surprised when the laird took his silence as insolence, his face turning red with rage and his hands balling up into fists by his sides. It wasn’t his fist that collided with Fin’s stomach, though, leaving him gasping for air and curling into himself, at least as much as his tied-up hands allowed him. It was the fist of one of his men, which Fin was certain hurt more than any damage the laird could do to him himself.

“Where were ye goin’?”

It was the same question over and over again, and Fin didn’t know what it was that the laird wanted from him. He refused to tell him in the first place, when he had had the chance to escape bodily damage, and yet he hadn’t replied to him. Now, he stayed silent not only to protect Magnus and his people, but also out of spite.

There was another blow to his stomach, and Fin coughed as he tried to catch his breath, which had been knocked out of him. The next blow came faster than he had anticipated, the man punching him in the face this time, knocking one of Fin’s teeth loose in the back of his mouth.

Fin looked at the man for a moment, and then he spat, blood landing on the other’s face, and the next punch was no surprise.

“Ye wee bastard,” the man hissed, as he grabbed a fistful of Fin’s hair, tilting his head back, “I’ll kill ye!”

There were two more punches, punches that left Fin reeling, his head fuzzy and heavy, his vision dark at the edges. He didn’t know what happened, but the man was pulled off him, and the next punch never came.

He supposed that the laird needed him alive for a while longer. He supposed that he needed to extend his torture, to see if he could get any information out of him.

There were footsteps, slow and heavy, and Fin lifted his head with all of his remaining strength to see the baron there, approaching them. He seemed curious, more than anything, but Fin knew that once Laird MacForfin told him what had happened, the punches would be nothing compared to the torture that the baron could devise just for him.

“Laird MacForfin . . . I see that you’ve been acquainted with one of my men,” Caton said, his arms crossing over his chest, “But did you have to greet him in such a way?”

“He’s one of yers, then,” the laird scoffed, shaking his head at the other man, “I found him tryin’ to leave the camp.”

“Is that so, Fin?” the baron asked, “You tried to leave?”

“Yes,” Fin said, and he could feel the blood and spit dripping out of his mouth as he tried to speak, “I couldn’t sleep. I was going to take a walk.”

“What kind of walk were ye goin’ to take on yer horse?” Laird MacForfin asked, “That’s nae a walk, that’s a ride! What did ye need yer horse for if ye were goin’ on a walk?”

Fin didn’t really have an answer to that, so he simply stayed silent, refusing to say anything that could possibly give away his affiliation with Magnus, though it seemed to him that both the baron and the laird were already suspecting it.

“I see,” the baron hummed as he walked towards Fin, until their noses were almost touching, his gaze scrutinizing and strict. Fin couldn’t hold it for longer than a few moments, and instead averted his own gaze, gluing it onto the ground.

“Where were you going, Fin?” the baron asked, his tone gentler and more understanding than the laird’s had been, but Fin knew it was all a ruse. They could keep asking him the same question over and over, for as long as they liked, he decided. He wasn’t going to give them a different answer.

“I was going for a walk.”

The baron sighed as though Fin had disappointed him, and then he circled the tree, until he was at the other side. Fin felt a strange tugging at his index finger, and before he could understand what was happening, a searing pain shot up his arm; a searing pain that started with the wet crack of a bone breaking.

Fin couldn’t bite back the pained groan that escaped his lips, but he tried to make as little noise as possible. The last thing that he wanted was to give the baron the satisfaction of hearing him scream.

He knew just how much the baron liked to hear the screams of his victims. Everyone in his employment knew, everyone had heard the screams of those that he brought to his bed or those who had betrayed him. Everyone knew just how much he liked to hear his victims scream.

His middle finger was next. There was the same pop, the same, sickening sound that travelled to his ears before the pain could even register in his brain, and then the agony of the snap.

“When I’m done with you, you’ll be wishing that you were dead,” the baron said, as he grabbed the two fingers and bent them backwards, drawing yet another groan from Fin.

Once again, though, Fin bit it back, chewing on his bottom lip to keep himself quiet, even as the pain brought tears to his eyes.

“Were you going to Laird MacRestus? Is that where you were going, Fin? Were you going to inform him of our plans?”

Fin couldn’t help but laugh, then, a short, amused laugh. “I was going for a walk,” he insisted, and received a slap from the laird himself for it. Fin barely felt the pain; his fingers throbbed and hurt so much that no other pain in his body could compare to it.

“He’s a stubborn one,” he heard the laird tell the baron, “I say we kill him right noo. What use is he to us if he willnae say anythin’?”

“Have some patience, Laird MacForfin,” the baron said, “Have some faith . . . if you leave him to me, soon he’ll do and say anything to stop the torture.”

Fin didn’t doubt that for a moment, and that was precisely why he hoped that the laird would kill him before the baron could get a confession out of him, or that he would simply expire, his body giving out before his mind would.

“What does it matter, Baron?” the laird asked, “We are attackin’ the MacRestus clan the morrow. What difference does it make if ye get a confession out of him or nae? It willnae help us.”

“Perhaps not,” the baron said, “But perhaps I wish to punish him for it. He is one of my men, after all . . . don’t you think that I should show the rest of them what happens when they conspire against me?”

The laird was silent for a moment. Then he laughed and nodded, patting the baron on the shoulder in a way that had him grimacing at the intimacy.

“Verra weel,” the laird said, “He’s all yers, Baron. But remember that we have a long day ahead of us the morrow . . . dinnae spend all night here with him.”

“Oh, trust me, Laird MacForfin,” the Baron said, as he turned to look at Fin, turning his blood cold in his veins, “I don’t need all night. I don’t think I need more than a few hours.”

With that, the laird was gone, along with his men. Fin watched as the baron came to stand in front of him once more, cracking his knuckles as he prepared for the torture that was to come.

“Well, Fin . . . let’s see what we can get out of you.”

Fin could hear his heart; he could feel the rush of blood in his veins. He watched as the baron rolled up his sleeves methodically, ensuring that they were secure, before his hands curled into fists.

The last thing that Fin saw before the pain exploded in his body was the baron’s smile.