Page 3 of Awoken
“I wonder what it would be like to wed a man like Gavin MacNichol,” Leanna said before sighing. “He’s so handsome.”
Coira made a choking sound. “Ye are a nun … ye shouldn’t be thinking about men.” Her gaze narrowed then. “Most of them aren’t as chivalrous as the MacNichol clan-chief.”
Leanna rolled her eyes at Coira’s censure. Sometimes her friend talked to her as if she had no idea about the world outside the abbey’s walls.
The exchange had introduced tension between them—shattering their earlier camaraderie.
“Come.” Coira untied a coil of rope from her belt. “Let’s get this deer hitched up to my staff. We’ll need to spend the afternoon preparing the carcass. Hopefully, we can get it gutted and skinned by Vespers.”
The two nuns made their way through the sun-dappled forest, their feet sinking into the mossy ground. The woods stretched south of Kilbride, down a wide valley. It was the only forest in this corner of Skye, for most of the isle was barren and wind-swept.
Emerging from the trees into softly undulating, grassy hills, Leanna took in the outline of the great mountains to the east, their bulk etched against the blue sky. Beyond the hills to the west, the land sloped down to a rocky coastline. But Kilbride lay directly ahead, a few furlongs north of the forest.
It was slow going with the deer. Coira had hog-tied its fetlocks and hung it from the quarter-staff. They carried each end of the staff upon their shoulders, and the dead weight of the beast was starting to make Leanna’s shoulder and back ache. She had grown physically stronger during her time at Kilbride—it was no pampered lady’s life here—yet the doe was heavier than it looked.
By the time she spied the pitched roof of Kilbride kirk piercing the sky, Leanna was sweating heavily.
“Can we stop and rest for a moment,” she panted as they reached a hazel thicket that encircled the southern and eastern edges of the abbey. “My shoulder can’t take much more.”
Coira halted before turning to her with a smile. She then lowered the deer onto the ground. “We still need to toughen ye up, I see,” she teased.
Leanna huffed. “I’m tough enough.”
Running an eye over her friend, she saw that Coira had barely broken into a sweat. The nun was tall and broad-shouldered, and in addition to training the other sisters in archery and use of the quarter-staff, she was also Kilbride’s resident healer. Leanna looked up to her—Coira was a formidable woman indeed—yet there was something about her that always remained an enigma.
Coira never spoke of her past.
All Leanna knew was that the nun hailed from Dunan and her family had been farmers. She knew very little else about her.
“I’m not as strong as ye though,” Leanna admitted finally, with the playful grin she often used with Coira. “I think I need to haul a few more buckets of water from the well to build up strength in my arms and shoulders.”
Coira snorted before picking up the staff once more. “Maybe, I need to put ye on log splitting duty for a moon or two. That should give ye arms like a smithy.”
Leanna’s grin abruptly disappeared. The thought of having bulky, heavily muscled arms like a man revolted her. “Don’t ye dare!”
Coira’s laugh rang out, the sound echoing through the trees. It was a rare thing to hear the nun show mirth so openly. Sometimes Coira could seem so … severe. But not this afternoon. Like Leanna, her mood had lightened when she was away from the abbey.
Leanna was about to comment on this change, but Coira was already moving forward, and Leanna had to scramble to pick up her end of the staff. Gritting her teeth, she heaved it back onto her aching shoulder, and they resumed their journey.
“How are we supposed to get inside … there’s no way we can scale those walls?”
The rumble of Carr Broderick’s voice drew Ross’s attention from where he’d been observing Kilbride Abbey. His friend, whom he’d brought along on this mission, wore an inscrutable expression, although his gaze was wary.
Like Ross, he hadn’t been pleased to be involved in this abduction. But just like Ross, he too wasn’t about to cross MacKinnon.
The pair of them were crouched amongst the undergrowth in the hazel thicket to the east of the abbey. They’d been there for at least an hour, and so far neither of them had a plan.
“Aye … ye have a point,” Ross murmured. He shifted his attention back to the high walls before him. From the outside, the abbey looked as if it was built to withstand a siege. A deep ditch ringed the base of the outer walls, and heavy oaken and iron gates shielded the complex from the outside world.
If they wanted to enter Kilbride, they would have to do so through those gates—and that would mean announcing their arrival. Locating and then stealing Lady Leanna once they were inside would be close to impossible.
Ross had seen the young woman once before, at a clan gathering. He remembered her as being small, blonde, and delicate-featured. However, all the nuns looked the same shrouded in black, their heads covered by veils.
They’d never find her.
Frustration welled up within Ross, and he dragged his hands through his shaggy hair.
Damn MacKinnon. He’d given him an impossible task.
