Lady Of The Glen Part 28

"And every man here-every man out there"-he gestured expansively-" understands it perfectly." He smiled; it was truth, it was power, it was Duncan's future-if he understood how to grasp it. "Though they will none of them admit it."

Duncan's jaw worked awkwardly. "This is a sham, a travesty-this is done for your own amus.e.m.e.nt!"

"No; there is naught here that amuses me. Certainly not my son."

The splotches grew redder. It was all Duncan could do to force the words from his mouth. "I'll see you have it, then. Amus.e.m.e.nt. " He flung himself flat on the turf, tugged his plaid over his shoulder, and turned his back on his father.

"Sleep well," Breadalbane offered.

Sometime before dawn Dair awoke. He was aware that the side of his face hurt and that his right arm was trapped beneath his body. Alarums rang faintly: he was hardly in a state to defend himself with his dirk-arm dead as stone.

He rolled over, grasping his right arm and carrying it across his abdomen. For several moments he lay quietly on his back, sorting out his senses; and then he remembered.

He stared blindly at the sky and d.a.m.ned Breadalbane.

He was still amidst Stewarts despite his MacDonald name; Robbie had not roused him from his stupor to send him back to his own fire. Around him lay clumps of plaid-wrapped Highlanders nestled in against the turf. One man snored dreadfully, while another murmured tender words not meant for others to hear.

Dair contemplated his state. He rarely drank overmuch, and usually when he did he went to sleep before causing much trouble. But whisky wore off; he always awoke too soon for sobriety, left dulled in wits and with a powerful desire to return immediately to the kind of leaden sleep that had won him his current afflictions: a pebble-pocked, turf-chilled face, and a wholly useless arm.

Dair worked the flesh of that arm, trying to rouse its responses without encouraging the discomfort that came with such a thing. But it came to spite him, and he gritted his teeth against the tingling; to take his mind from it he sat up slowly. His head remained attached, permitting him to view the encampment.

It was false dawn, illuminated by a raft of stars. With the fires died out to coals and the moon beginning to fade, there was little diffusion of starlight. He could see very clearly. Here and there gillies sat watch for their chiefs, but nearly everyone in camp was soundly asleep.

Dair glanced at the plaid-wrapped man closest to him. He saw little enough of the face, which was pressed into wool with a tartan edge fallen across one cheek, but he knew Robbie. He was boyish in slumber, stripped of the hardness that aged him.

He worked the arm again briefly, then gave up; he was now too awake, too restless to stay, and his mind too full of thoughts. He got up quietly and resettled a sagging plaid. He made his way carefully through scattered fires and clumps of men, lifting a hand in greeting and placation to watching gillies, and came at last to the Glencoe fire.

They were no different from Appin Stewarts or any number of other clans strewn throughout the encampment: men redolent of whisky, swaddled in tartan grave wrappings, snoring gently against the turf while the travesty of Achallader stared starkly down upon them.

Dair looked at the castle. What did MacIain think, riding up to the ruins? It was his father, as well as others, who had raided and razed Achallader, destroying all outbuildings and the braeside township. Dair supposed then there had been jubilation at depriving Campbells yet again of possessions they had, in the MacDonald view, unfairly gained; he supposed there was something of that again when MacIain came across Rannoch Moor to the wreckage he himself had caused. It would take more than Breadalbane's summons to peace to settle the Campbell-MacDonald feud.

Dair knew there were no regrets of the burning. There were never regrets when a MacDonald took back from Campbells what Campbells had won from others by their own insidious methods. And MacIain of Glencoe would be the last man on earth who might admit there could be.

I am not MacIain . . . will never be MacIain-Dair stumbled over an object, saw it was a corked, boiled-leather bottle, and retrieved it. He sat down with care, rearranged his plaid, then uncorked the bottle. There was little whisky left; he drained what there was, then set the bottle aside. In a matter of moments the new usquabae introduced itself to old, and he felt the slackness in his body that presaged welcome sleep.

He lay down against the turf and gave himself over to it, but it proved a contrary beast after all and remained at bay in the bleak darkness of his thoughts. He was aware within himself of the regret denied-or denied by-his father, if for a different reason; aware of desperation, that he might not get what he wanted; fully aware of fear that she would refuse it herself.

The plaid-wrapped bundle beside him stirred. h.o.a.rfrosted hair, not much grayer now than his own, poked its way above a tartan shroud. Only the brow followed and let itself be seen; John MacDonald was not prepared to surrender sleep entirely, only a moment of it. " 'Tis settled, then?"

Dair sighed. Trust his brother to know what ailed him. "I dinna ken."

"There was some talk of it, aye? If you wanted to keep it secret from others, you and the la.s.s might have picked another place."

There had been no choice. Keeping it secret had not been in their minds, because in that moment they had lost them entirely.

Uneasiness threaded his spirit. "Did MacIain see?"

"He was with Glengarry; there was more in their mouths than Catriona Campbell and Alasdair Og." John shifted against the ground, pulling the wool away from his face. "Is this why you want to break with Jean?"

"Christ, no-I barely kent who Cat was. . . well, I kent who she was-"-had known for a long time-"-but there was naught in it then." Dair sighed; whisky lulled him into confession. "Am I a fool?"

John's laugh was a soft gust of air, and not unkind. "All men are fools when there is a woman in it."

"Do you think I'm a fool?" It mattered very much.

"I love my wife," John said. "I am no' the man to ask."

Dair stirred restlessly. "MacIain would skelp me."

"Not once Mother has clutched his lug-hole and set him down before her."

Dair smiled. "Och, aye. . ." He squinted into starlight. "I told her something of it."

"Mother?-aye, well. . . she would have something to say, would she no'?"

"Little enough," Dair replied. "I expected more. . . but she said I wasna ready to hear it."

"Likely because you didna ken-then-what you wanted." John tugged his plaid more closely around his shoulders, exiling drafts. "Do you ken now?"

Desperately. "Oh, aye," Dair answered without hesitation, with a hard edge in his tone and a perfect certainty. "I ken it verra well. But there is Breadalbane in my way."

John's tone was neutral. "Aye. And a Stewart."

Dair shut his eyes. "Two."

Three.

Governor John Hill, behind the new-built walls of Fort William, within his spare officer's quarters, received the caller with courtesy. He truly admired the Highlanders, no matter the tales told of their crudity, their barbarism, and it was always a pleasure to welcome one in to share a dram and pa.s.s an hour or two while they spoke of inconsequential things in place of reality.

But reality now had come; the man was a Cameron, a dusty, wind-ruffled Cameron of little style or consequence, and clearly reluctant to spend more time with the Sa.s.senach soldier than was required. Even whisky had small appeal.

Hill welcomed him into his tiny private sitting room as the Highlander stripped off his bonnet, signalled the door to be shut so they might be alone, and offered usquabae by its Gaelic name as he waved his visitor to a chair. But the man refused the seat as well as the liquor. Lamplight sparked dully off a mud-smeared plaid brooch, weighting draped wool at one shoulder.

"I'm no' to stay," he said diffidently, clearly ill at ease as he gripped the doffed bonnet. "I'm to tell you what my laird says I should, that you'll ken the truth of it."

Hill, in the act of pouring a dram, froze. He set down the flagon and turned, aware abruptly of apprehension: his own, as well as the Highlander's.

A lad. Fifteen? Sixteen? Tall; I took him for a man . . . But he managed a smile, and did not drink the whisky. Nor did he sit. "Are you from Ewan Cameron, then?"

The Cameron bobbed his ruddy head. His eyes were set deep in hollowed sockets, bright and wary as a fox's. The bones of his face had not yet settled into manhood, but the line of the jaw was there, stubbled rusty red as his hair. "Cameron of Lochiel, aye," the boy confirmed. "I'm to tell you the laird isna so willing to treat after all. I'm to say: look to Iain Glas."

Grey John, in Gaelic. Breadalbane. Hill's fears were coming to fruition. "Aye?" he asked cautiously.

The Cameron shifted awkwardly from bare foot to bare foot, plainly wanting to leave. "I'm to say: he no longer trusts the earl to deliver as he's promised. The silver. 'Tis yet in London, the earl says, but there is a tale told of most of it carried to Edinburgh, or Kilchurn."

"They are at Achallader," Hill said, chafing inwardly. "The lairds, and their tacksmen." As much as he detested Breadalbane for stealing his idea that the Highlands might be tamed with a treaty, he could not fault the earl's attempts to find a peaceful resolution. "Do you say they will not agree to any treaty?"

A single hitch of a plaid-draped shoulder: crimson field, crosshatched boldly by black, and a narrow white stripe. "I'm to say: Lochiel of Cameron doubts the earl, as does MacDonald of Glengarry."

"And Glencoe," Hill murmured. He drew breath. It burned in his chest till he nearly choked on it. "Will you carry word to Lochiel that I mean to hold him to his agreement? That he has given me his willingness to consider the treaty, and to withdraw that willingness now could endanger the safety of the clans?"

He realized that despite the words he sounded too conciliatory; he should tell, not ask. But no man achieved success by telling the Highlanders anything. One asked, one hoped. One prayed.

The young Cameron worked the worn bonnet in grimy hands. Then he stopped and looked straightly at Hill. The spark of the plaid brooch was extinguished by the light burning in his eyes. "Look to your own safety."

Another man might arrest him and clap him in irons for such insolence before the king's governor. But Hill knew better. It was not insolence. It was truth, as far as any Highlander could recognize, or speak it.

"I thank you," Hill said, "for your honesty. Will you have usquabae?"

The Cameron demurred. "I'm to go back at once, aye? To say what you have said."

"Aye." Hill managed a smile. "He is a man, your laird. Worth honoring."

The boy smiled. "Aye, I ken that!"

"And I." Knowing, as he opened the door so the young Highlander might leave, that he would have to find a way to impress upon such men as Ewan Cameron of Lochiel that the only safety he and anyone else, even this lad, might know lay in respecting the soldiers housed in the fort at Inverlochy.

The argument between the Earl of Breadalbane and the Laird of Glencoe brewed very briefly, then boiled over into steam-laden virulence. Cat, who had grown up amidst the verbal and physical battles of her brothers-had, in fact, been a frequent partic.i.p.ant-was not taken aback by the birth of the argument, its noise, or the ident.i.ty of the men involved, but by its bitterness. MacIain she knew all too well as a loud, argumentative man, but Breadalbane was not. She had never seen him angry, only icily disdainful when tested by Duncan's truculence. It astonished her to hear him cast back at the giant MacDonald such words as would infuriate even a temperate man.

She wondered ironically how many wagers were won or lost in that moment, and could almost hear the coins changing hands as other men became aware of the disagreement.

It was of brief duration, even as they stood in the looming ruins of MacDonald-razed Achallader. A tall, ma.s.sive Gael swathed in plaid and hostility, while the shorter, slighter man wore the suit of a Sa.s.senach as if shamed by his Highland birth despite his Highland t.i.tles.

And perhaps that is a part of it. . . . That, and the castle, and cows, and t.i.tles, and one hundred other slights they might manufacture between them, dredging up history to fling at one another: Campbell and MacDonald, enemies from the beginning. Born into an enmity they could only preserve, because to do otherwise was to defy their heritage.

Is that what we do? she wondered, thinking of Dair, of a fire, and the warmth springing up between them that had nothing to do with the coals, with the flames, or even with the music rousing the blood and the bones. Do we defy what we are, mock our heritage- "Well," said Duncan, coming up beside her. " 'Tis of some comfort to me to see him lose his temper. No matter the provocation, he always turned it aside."

She cast him a sidelong glance. "Which made you provoke all the more."

Duncan smiled slyly. "Which you do gey well yourself, aye?-with me."

"And you deserving of it." Content with the exchange, they grinned inanely at one another; united against his father, they were in perfect accord.

But the momentary pleasure faded. With a final exchange of insults-Breadalbane's hissed, MacIain's roared-the giant turned on his heel and strode down the hill into the gathered crowd, plaid swinging, shouting for his MacDonalds to ready themselves at once to leave the foul stink of Campbell lands and lairds.

Neither Cat nor Duncan smiled now. They watched the MacDonald, head and shoulders above others, as he made his way brusquely toward the fire she and Dair had shared, albeit briefly, while discoveries were made of such things as attraction against and in spite of all that was proper in their separate worlds.

"No treaty," Duncan said on a note of satisfaction. "He'll no' have Glencoe after all, agreeing to be bought."

"Bought?" Cat echoed incredulously. "Did he think he could?"

He slanted her a look of scathing disdain. "What d'ye think he came for? To buy off all the clans so they turn their backs on Jamie, and Willie can have his war."

She eyed MacIain's retreat uneasily; would the son echo the father's fury? "I've heard they've built that fort at Inverlochy . . . and put guns there, and soldiers. And boats on the loch."

Duncan's mouth twisted. "He'll tell them all 'tis naught. He'll tell them all 'tis only MacIain, a pawkie cattle-lifter, and jolly them back into seeing things his way."

"Not MacIain." She was certain.

"No," Duncan agreed without argument. "Nor likely Glengarry, I've heard. They'll no' put their names on any treaty. But the others will. Or they'd be leaving, too." He looked beyond her, beyond his father. Something bloomed in his eyes, setting color to his face. "Aye," he whispered. "Aye-in the confusion, who would ken?"

Cat frowned. "What?"

He was tense as a hunting hound, nearly trembling with it. "Now," he said. " 'Tis the best time, aye? While the MacDonalds gather their garrons. . ."

"Duncan-"

But he was away at once, running gracelessly across the rocky ground on some errand of his own.

A ma.s.sive foot well planted kicked Dair into wakefulness. "Up!" a voice roared. "Ye shame me, aye?-asleep like a drukken man here in Campbell lands!"

Dair roused at once, if catching his breath at the shock of it, and answered the tone and the thunder as well as the foot.

"Up!" MacIain repeated, moustaches bristling as he loomed like a demon from out of folktales, eyes glittering beneath the white shelf of brows.

Behind him lurked his gillies, faces blanked by a diplomacy Dair might have appreciated had he the time to think. The giant scowled fiercely at all the MacDonalds gathering now, some waking blearily, gathering puddles of plaid, while others, alarmed, put their hands to weaponry.

"I'll no' have my MacDonalds drink another dram of his whisky, nor set tooth to his cattle, aye?-we are quit of this place! Faugh! No more of Campbell courtesy; best ye look to yon castle to ken what they're owed!"

Dair caught his breath, stung by shame at such dishevelment and unreadiness before MacIain. They were all of them gathered now, all the Glencoe-men. Bonnets were pulled on hastily over tousled locks spiky from sleep, weapons sorted out about various persons, garrons brought up in answer to the laird's gillies, who saw efficiently to the ordering of his tail and of his things.

Beside Dair, John resettled and pinned his plaid. "Breadalbane," he said simply, in eloquent explanation.

"The pawkie b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" MacIain spat. "No more of him, d'ye hear? I'll none o' his lies, none o' his promises, none o' his Sa.s.senach ways." He jerked his ma.s.sive head. "We're home to Glencoe, and none of this liar's oath. . . . I dinna trust the man, and I dinna trust his treaty." Fierce blue eyes fixed avidly on his youngest son. A hand cuffed smartly. "Alasdair Og! You spoke to the b.a.s.t.a.r.d and said none o' it to me!"

No, he had not. He had thought only of Cat and later of Robbie, not of MacIain at all.

The abused ear stung as he staggered under the blow, catching his balance gracelessly against rocky soil and the impediments of straggling plaid, but he made no protest, not to the one man who had a right to beat him b.l.o.o.d.y if he chose.

"Get on your garron," MacIain said. "We're home to Glencoe."

There was Cat-was Cat-"Wait-" In desperation, but the giant had turned away; was bellowing at his gillies.

John caught his arm. "Alasdair-no. Not now, aye? He's had words wi' the earl this morning, and no good come of them. Let him bide a wee. . . and if you didna say aught to him of speech with the earl, 'tis no wonder he is angry."

Dair had bitten his tongue. He tasted blood in his mouth. Anger, kindled by humiliation, flared abruptly. "Christ, but I'm no' a fool nor a bairn to be treated this way-"

"Why not?" John asked as he scooped up bonnet and bottle. "Even a drukken man kens 'tis better to go to his laird with such news as speech with Breadalbane." Then his expression softened. "Think, man. She's a Campbell. . . and the earl's kin, aye?-you'd do better to let MacIain settle before you think on her again."

"I canna ride off with no word to her!"

John's glance went beyond Dair. "You'd better," he answered succinctly, slapping the boiled-leather bottle against his brother's chest. "Or risk worse than a cuff of the man."