Lady Of The Glen Part 24

"Why? Do they think the lairds will forswear the oath to Jamie?

John sighed. Patiently he said, "I dinna ken what they think, Alasdair, other than what they've said. But if you want to ken for yourself, you might go and learn it." He glanced over a brooch-pinned shoulder, then smiled at his younger brother. "Before he comes here himself and clouts ye over the lug-hole for keeping him waiting, aye?"

Cat came down slowly, picking her way through the gloaming as light left the day. Below the brae fires bled one into another until the field was a lake of flame, moat to the castle ruins. She saw people before the fire: kilted men, tunic-skirted women, some wearing kerches, some wearing bonnets according to their gender, with light sparking off brooches and badges. One of them, somewhere in their midst, was Alasdair Og MacDonald.

Resolution wavered. With effort she steadied it. She had come to a decision on the Grave of a Stranger and would not shirk it no matter how difficult; he was deserving of it if for no other reason than he had survived to hear the words. But it would be hard, gey hard, to say those words to him.

She did not know his direction, but others would know where Glencoe and his sons were. She asked a man, and he told her; now there was no reason to turn from the task save cowardice, and she would not tolerate that.

Until she came near the fire and saw him there with MacIain.

Cat stopped short. She had but to raise her voice and call his name, and he would turn, would see her, would be made aware of her presence near a fire no Campbell was welcome to, especially Glenlyon's daughter.

There was too much between them, so much, a shared but separate horror of what had nearly happened on a hill on Rannoch Moor. She recalled his face, so stark and bloodless; recalled the sound of her father's blade against the horse's rump; recalled the lurch of the garron that stripped it of its rider.

And the nightmare of him hanged, legs beginning to kick.

Cat shut her eyes. When she opened them again he was there still beside the fire, poised in profile, blind to her, mute and very still, the good bones of his face shrouded on one side by darkness, the other bled white by light.

She had forgotten how very huge MacIain was, so much larger than anyone else, towering over others cl.u.s.tered near the fire. Riotous white hair flowed like snowmelt onto his shoulders, curling upswept moustaches shrouded his moving mouth. MacIain spoke steadily and with some vehemence; she could see the jaw working, shielded by beard, but heard no clarity in his speech, occluded by pipes and harps, that told her what he said.

Cat looked at the son. His posture was taut; his language, even in silence, spoke to her of regret, of deep concern, of a dutiful obedience to listen and hold his silence no matter what he might be thinking within the skull.

And then MacIain finished speaking. She saw the giant turn, hitching his plaid higher on a shoulder; he bent his head briefly as another spoke to him, and then they strode away on some purpose of their own. Dair was alone at the fire, and she had no more excuses.

She wished in that moment that it was a cattle raid, which would be easier to deal with. There were fewer risks attached. And then she thought of the raid that had claimed her brother, and the one that nearly claimed Dair, and no longer wished herself there when she could be here, with him.

He turned then and saw her. Firelight glinted off badge, off brooch, set a sheen across his flesh and limned the planes of his face, etching shadows into contours. He saw her and went still, even as still as she.

Around them, bagpipes mourned. She saw revealed by light, above the linen of Dair's shirt, a dark, shiny rash of rope burn as yet unhealed.

He took a single step toward her, and then another, and within three more strides he was there before her, close enough to touch. She had not fled after all.

"Cat," he said only, but a world was in the name.

More was in his eyes, she saw: a hill; a lone tree atop it bearing hemp-hung fruit. . . and her father using the claymore to drive the garron away.

He had been cut down alive after all, but in that moment he hanged. In that moment he died.

It filled her chest, her throat, and burst free of both all at once, on a rush, needing to be said, to be put between them like a dirk, a claymore, so they would understand the use of such things if not their intention. "I never believed it of him." It was a beginning, if badly begin; she had intended other words. "I never believed it, my oath on it-never believed my father such a man as that. And I am ashamed-ashamed-She looked again at the hemp-sc.r.a.ped flesh and put a hand to her mouth, stopping it with fingers; the words she longed to say could not make their way through the tears.

Ceol mor filled the air, riding fir-smoke into night. Dark brows, indistinct in firelight, overshadowed his eyes, damping the whisky-warmth. His hair was more thickly than ever sprinkled with silver threads, shining pale and importunate in the near-black of the rest. Mute, he reached out and caught her wrist, took her hand from her mouth, then carried it to his throat and set the palm against it.

Her fingers spasmed. "Oh-no-"

But he did not permit a retreat. "D'ye feel it? There-beneath your hand?"

She felt much more than he meant, abruptly aware of his touch, his warmth, his maleness. Flesh vibrated faintly as he spoke. Her fingers were rigid. She had not expected this, though she supposed she should have; he would bear her no kindness for being Glenlyon's daughter, and would have devised punishments if he ever saw her again.

The skin was different beneath her hand, the hemp-torn scar pebbled with minute blemishes like a rash in healthy flesh, rubbed slick in other places. But the skin was warm, wholly alive as her own despite the rope's abuse.

In that moment it did not matter that he was MacDonald, only that he was a man she had, in her stubbornness, in p.r.i.c.kly Campbell pride, nearly gotten killed.

"I am sorry," she said. "My oath on it: I didna think of it. . . I was angry that you meant to lift our cows after all, but I only wanted you stopped. I never thought. . ." Her hand trembled against his throat. "First Robbie," she said tightly. "My Robbie-and I couldna bear it again."

It was said, it was done, she was free of the penance. But nothing induced her, in his eyes or in his posture, in the pressure of his fingers, to take her hand away.

His eyes did not waver. "No one kens what another man can do, till 'tis asked of him," he said. "Not even that man's daughter."

He would absolve her of it, when she expected bitterness. It was too much; it hurt. "I thought. . ." Cat drew in a breath and let it out abruptly, willing the pain to go with it as well as tight-coiled tension. "I thought you would hate me."

She waited. He could say so much now, making weapons of his words. But it was due him because of her father, and owed because of her name; she did not think she could sleep again if this moment were not endured.

His palm pressed hers against the pulse of his throat. " 'Tis still beating," he said quietly, "because of you."

Its rhythm matched her own, quickening at her touch as much as hers was quickened by awareness that he did not mean to punish her for what her father had done.

Even in innocence, she knew. Something in her kindled, answering his touch; something understood the small indications of the body, the lesser ones in speech. Words between words, the implications of tone. Their language, now, was not shaped of old enmities and feuds, drowning in pipes and war cries, but was silent instead, and private, and wholly, intensely intimate.

Behind him, the fire glowed. He lifted her hand from his throat and carried it to his mouth. It was warm against her palm.

Cat shivered. "Dair," she said helplessly. "Oh no-dinna do this-" And pulled her hand away, curling her fingers against the palm to shut out the memory of his mouth.

He smiled. "Ye ken it," he murmured. " 'Tis begun, aye?-and all against our wills."

"-begun-" she echoed. "No-"

"I am somewhat more practiced than you," he said. "And somewhat older, aye?" His smile now was rueful. "And perhaps not wishing so much it might be another way."

He was older, and male, and understood such things. But she refused to acknowledge it. " 'Tis finished. Not begun." How could it be begun? There was nothing between them, nothing at all but heritage that proscribed such feelings. "I've said what I meant to say-"

"Wait you," he said. "Dinna run just yet-or stalk with your head held high." The smile did not die. "I've something for you. I meant to look for you-to find you up on the brae-but my father. . . well, wait you. . ." He reached to his sporran and undid the thong doubled around the stag-horn peg. He took something from it. It flashed in firelight, until he turned its face toward the earth. Then he set the object into her hands.

Cat did not immediately look at it. She looked instead at him, seeing kindness in his eyes, the genesis of hope; hearing diffidence in the tone, and a certain shy hesitance unexpected and oddly appealing.

"You have lost more than I can repay," he told her. "A kettle is little enough, I ken, and so is this, but-" He shrugged, a hitch of taut-held shoulders silhouetted against the fire. " 'Tis all I can offer. . . and pray you will accept it."

Now she looked at what he had put into her hands. A mirror, a small silver-backed mirror. The handle was short, much-worn; a hole was pierced through its end for a cord to be strung, so a woman might wear the mirror around her waist, dangling from her girdle. Fashion had changed; this mirror was old, of another century, and made not of Scottish hands.

She could not help herself; she was yet Campbell, and he MacDonald. "Is this plunder?"

It was a slap, if noiseless. Color burned in his face. " 'Twas my mother's," he answered eventually, "given her by my father after a visit to Paris. It was purchased. Not lifted."

She ached with shame. " 'Twas undeserved, that."

"What Robbie Stewart did to you was undeserved."

The moment eased. This she could speak of; it was easier by far to admit the truth, to herself or to him. "They why d'ye makes amends for him, when 'tis his work to do?"

The line of his mouth was level. "Because Robbie wouldna think of it."

That was blatant truth. "He would do what he did, again."

It did not please him to know the truth of his friend, but he refused to shirk the admission. "I dinna doubt it."

"And will you go to his other victims and offer reparation?"

His mouth jerked briefly. "And will you speak for another MacDonald with a rope around his neck?"

It shook her, that he would understand so clearly without an explanation. "G.o.d in Heaven," she said, "you cut as well as a dirk!"

"I've had some practice, aye?-we've pa.s.sed words between us before." His tone gentled then. "I do it when I am afraid, you ken. Verra much as you do."

The bagpipe lament died. Leaping light from behind her painted his face in vivid chiaroscuro. His eyes were shielded in shadow except for the gleam of whites, and the reflection of flame in pupil. In that reflection she saw a man, and a tree, and a rope, and heard herself tell her father, for Dair MacDonald's life, that she and only she had been the cause of her brother's death.

In that admission she knew the truth, clean and sharp as a blade. She gave to him what she would give to no other man, because he deserved it. Because she wanted to.

But protest was not so easily overcome, nor the restive apprehension. "You are a man," she said. "What have you to fear?"

"That I am a man," he answered. " 'Tis always a woman's choice."

She thought of Robert Stewart. "Not always."

He thought of it too and reconsidered, offering no reb.u.t.tal; he knew it as well as she, once reminded of it. "In this there is. With me."

He wanted the truth of her. And Cat could not lie, not to him to whom she owed something, nor would she prevaricate; she understood very well-was shocked she knew it so well-what he was asking. "You want me to say it was because of you. Of you, and no one else. But if I do-if I do that. . ." If she did that, he would know. He would know it all.

Though he seemed to already, far better than she. He understood even her silence, her awkwardness, which frightened her badly. "We have paid the debts of our names," he declared. "What is left is something else, something new. . . and neither Campbell nor MacDonald. Only you and me."

It verged dangerously too close on honesty unfettered by misdirection. Obscurity was easier, dishonesty much safer. "We owe one another naught."

His laugher was quiet, but no less telling for its softness. "Dinna lie to me, Cat."

Intimacy, and impa.s.se. She stared at him even as he stared back, and found herself counting the silver threads in his hair-many more than there had been, when she was but a la.s.s; marking the creases beside his eyes-carved deeper than before; the oblique slant of cheekbones, the fit of his nose to the arch of his brow, the kindness in his mouth so perfectly balanced with maleness.

Cat backed away hastily. There was no grace in her movements, only jerky, awkward retreat. It was escape, nothing more, and he could not but see it.

He did. "Why?" he asked. "Why now?"

"Because-" She caught her breath, then laughed. Then caught her breath again. "You dinna understand."

"Then tell me. You shared a wee bit of your heart with me ten years ago. . . can ye no' trust me now?"

"I canna." It was definitive.

"Why not?"

"Because I am no more a wee la.s.s, and you-and you-"

He waited. Smiling. Patient beyond bearing.

She said it all at once in a tumbling rush of confession. "Because I am trying verra hard not to kiss a MacDonald!"

His words, though the name was changed, and he knew it. He remembered.

His grin, in its birth, was dazzling. "Then dinna try so hard, aye?"

"Oh Christ, "she said in disgust.

Dair began to laugh. In its noise was nothing of ridicule, no suggestion of unkindness, but a wild and glorious sound of realization and elation.

And then the laughter died. He held out his hand and waited.

Fingertips at first, the merest brush of flesh on flesh. But it was enough, it was always enough; there was no room for denial, no more wish for escape. She put her hand into his.

"Come with me," he said. "Come home with me to Glencoe."

The knot of men around Robert Stewart of Appin were very young, which told Breadalbane something as he returned from his meeting with Keppoch: Stewart himself was not so much older and would undoubtedly appeal to others of a similar age, who were impressionable and quick to rouse, eagerly giving ear to one of their own who shared the councils of men greater than they.

He quietly joined the clutch surrounding Stewart, making deprecating motions when a few recognized him and fell away, giving him room to see the complex drawing in the dirt. "Who is who?" Breadalbane asked diffidently as Stewart took up his dirk as if to put it away. "I wasna there, you see. . . I am interested."

It was a blatant admission no one expected from him, and therefore proved most effective. They all knew Glenorchy Campbells had stayed out of the conflict at the earl's behest, and had undoubtedly spoken derisively of cowardice and weak spines, of blood thinned with water, and Williamite politics. But to his face they offered nothing now but unpracticed masks swept clean of all save wariness, and confusion, and the curiosity of the young. He was Breadalbane, after all, and Glenorchy, and Campbell.

Stewart indicated with dirk the positions of various clans, and Dundee himself, and succinctly explained how Hugh Mackay had brought his men down through the pa.s.s into defeat.

Breadalbane watched the dirk with half an eye; his true attention was almost entirely taken up in an a.s.sessment of Robert Stewart, though he did not divulge it.

Not a fool, Robbie Stewart . . . But neither a man who understood patience, nor politics, nor the need to accommodate himself in whatever fashion he might that served his personal interests. Pride will cost him, yet.

When the Appin heir finished his explanation, the earl nodded avuncular approval. "Dundee was a military genius, much as his ancestor Montrose was. I dinna doubt he could hae done as much for the Highlands as Montrose, had he lived."

Stewart's mouth hooked down. "And lost his head, too?"

Breadalbane met the challenge with a bland smile. " 'Tis better to die on the field, in honor, than under an executioner's ax."

"Aye, well. . ." Stewart glanced around at the clutch of young clansmen; he had lost their attention. He rose and sheathed his dirk as a few drifted away toward the other fires and other tales. "So, have ye come to tell me you are Jamie's man?"

No subtlety in this one. . . The stragglers instantly departed. Breadalbane smiled again. "Will you drink whisky wi' me?" He gestured elegantly. "I've a fire back there, near the ruins, and a gillie to serve us. Or we might walk through Black Duncan's trees."

The firelight gilded Stewart's hair. He was not tall but compact, and his neck was warded either side by p.r.o.nounced tendons. Linen-clad shoulders were wide beneath the diagonal swath of plaid. "I've a mind to stay here," he said, "and have you say what you will say without snooving amidst the trees." He jerked his head toward the scattered fires where lairds and clansmen gathered. "You've taken them all aside, one by one; d'ye think I'm blind to it, and why?"

"Not you. You proved your mettle there." The earl glanced pointedly down at the map drawn in dirt. "And I've a mind to ken you better."

"You ken me well enow. You ken what I am. But I dinna ken what you are-save a Williamite."

Breadalbane demurred, deflecting the barb easily. "I am a Scot. A Highland Scot. And I love my people."

A hint of a curl in the lip. "Enough to inflict a Dutchman upon them."