Devil in Tartan (Highland Grooms #4)(55)

Not one of the men who peered through the spyglass—Beaty, Gilroy, Iain the Red and MacLean—could be certain that a ship was actually shadowing them, or was merely headed for the sea. But the steady path of that ship and the timing of its appearance made it suspect in Aulay’s mind. He didn’t want to lose sight of it.

The sooner they had the burial done, the sooner they could turn their attention to outmaneuvering that ship.

He understood from MacLean that Lottie and her healer had washed her father’s body. But with no winding sheets to wrap the body, and no mort cloth to cover him, they had used the coverlet and linens from Aulay’s bunk.

“No coins for his eyes,” MacLean lamented.

“At least we’ve got suitable weights,” Beaty muttered as MacLean moved away. He and Aulay had agreed there was no reason to distress the Livingstones any further by explaining the body had to be weighted so that it would not go trundling off across the waves, bobbing along behind them in their wake. It was better this way—with the cloak of darkness, they’d not know what happened to their father’s corpse, which seemed to be the kindest thing the Mackenzies could do for them.

The actor, Duff, and MacLean took on the task of fashioning a funeral bier from the spines of a whisky cask. The bier would hold the body as Aulay read the scriptures that would commend the old man’s soul to God.

When all the preparations had been made, Aulay hung a lantern at the starboard railing in the same spot the Livingstones had come on board a few days ago...or had it been weeks? It seemed a lifetime ago in many ways. He sent MacLean to assemble the family and begin the procession, and signaled to Iain the Red’s brother, Malcolm, to play the funeral dirge on his pipes.

The Livingstone clan—those who weren’t so far in their cups to impede their ability to walk—gathered solemnly, leaning against one another, staring morosely at their feet or the sky. Another set of them appeared carrying the bier between them, with the old man’s body laid carefully on top. The bier was followed by Lottie and her brothers, walking three abreast, hands held.

Lottie had washed her face and braided her hair, and had dressed in Aulay’s clothes once more. Her skin had an unearthly paleness to it that made her look wraith-like. Grief had a way of reducing a person to a shadow—Lottie seemed frail, nothing like the spirited young woman who had taken his ship.

When the men had placed the bier on the ship’s railing, Aulay signaled Malcolm to cease the pipes. He opened the Bible his mother had given him on the occasion of his first voyage as captain. He recited the passages from rote, really, not hearing or registering the words. It was never an easy thing to give a body to the sea, no matter the circumstance. His mind wandered as he read. Was this the sum of the old man’s life? To have squandered it in the chase of some ill-begotten scheme, only to be slipped into the dark waters of the sea?

He listened to the desperate sounds of the youngest Livingstone, trying so very hard not to weep. He listened to the keening of the giant. He glanced at all of the old man’s children once or twice and despaired for Lottie. She stared straight ahead over the top of her father’s body, her empty gaze fixed into the night’s middle distance, her expression grim.

Aulay ended with Isaiah, “‘So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.’”

Judging by the lack of comfort on any Livingstone’s face, Aulay wondered if any of them truly believed God had them in hand. All signs pointed to the opposite.

He turned to Lottie. “Is there anything more you’d like to add, then?”

She shook her head. Aulay nodded at his first mate. Malcolm began to play the pipes, and the Mackenzies lifted the bier and tilted it so that the body slid off and into the sea. The splash startled them all, and the giant began to sway, his moaning so loud that it arced over the small pipes. The Mackenzie men shifted uncomfortably, none of them understanding how to cope with a damaged giant.

Lottie linked her arm through the giant’s and rested her head against his shoulder, whispering to him. After a moment or two of gulping his sobs, he stopped wailing and turned to Duff, who put an arm around his shoulders and led him away.

MacLean, unsteady on his feet, held up a flagon. “To the chief,” he said. “Slàinte mhath.” He took a good long swig, then passed the flagon to the next man as he dragged his sleeve across his mouth. And so it went, the whisky passed around, every man offering up a toast before drinking deeply from the flagon. But when it came to Lottie, she refused it, turned away from all of them, and disappeared into the dark.

Aulay was the last to receive the flagon. He drank, then gave the order the Livingstones were to be corralled. “Put them in the hold with a guard and a cask of their whisky,” he instructed. The last thing he needed were drunkards careening around his deck. The more important question of what to do with the Livingstones in Scotland still loomed.

“What, why?” one of them complained as he swayed into his neighbor.

“You kept our captain tied like a roasted pig. If he says you’re to go down into the hold, then down you’ll go,” Beaty said gruffly.

There was some arguing about it, but the Livingstones were too drunk to fight and allowed themselves to be escorted, particularly with the promise of whisky.

With the Livingstone clan below deck, the Mackenzies began the arduous task of emptying and sinking whisky casks. They had made it halfway through those stacked on the deck when Beaty interrupted Aulay. “The ship, she’s gaining on us, she is.”