Lady Of The Glen Part 50

The intensity of his grief appalled him. It was weakness, and yet confirmation that he yet lived. There were no pipers to make a song of it, to keen at the heavens the poignant lament of a man stripped of his kin, of the only home he knew. There was no bard to make a saga of it, to remind him with the discipline of words what had happened in his life. There was no structure at all, none to guide his thoughts to a place where he might find release, and the peace that came with such. And no one at all to mitigate the grief save Murdo MacDonald, who himself had lost his purpose in the murder of his laird.

The leg ached unremittingly. Dair knew little of broken bones save they were often fatal if the flesh were torn and corruption set in. In his case there was none because of John, who had burned him so badly with whisky. No corruption might live against such offense, and so he healed, but slowly. The splints and wrappings warded the leg, but made it difficult to move. He ached in every joint from inactivity, longing to leave the cave so he might see the day; so he could walk again and know the glen of his birth.

Murdo said he should not. Murdo considered his health, the welfare of his leg, but also the truth that would shatter the vestiges of memory as yet unbroken by fact.

He had seen Murdo's face the day the man came back from searching as many dwellings as he could. His hands and arms were befilthed by ash and charring, black lines rimmed his nails, a smudge stood high on his cheekbone where the beard did not touch. His eyes were unquiet and his spirit promised grief, but he said nothing of it.

Until night fell and darkness surrounded them, softening the hard truth of a brutal daylight that knew nothing at all of tact.

"Naught," Murdo said softly.

Dair leaned against the wall. "Naught?"

"Naught."

There was water from the burns and such food as Murdo might scavenge, or catch in crude snares, or spear in the water. But he dared spare little time at any of his endeavors, lest the soldiers come to find him. MacDonalds were yet broken men and targets to others.

"You have searched all the ruins."

"The last one today. There is naught, Alasdair Og-the Campbells have plundered it all. Only sc.r.a.ps remain, or bits all broken. There isna even a dog."

No. They would have been killed, or, following scent, gone on to Fort William in search of food.

But they would not, he and Murdo; they would do neither.

"We shall make do, aye?"

Murdo's smile was fleeting. "As we have, but with less than before."

"Och, a wee bit of hardship will no' harm us, and we'll be for Appin soon enough."

The smile ghosted again. Appin was not on Murdo's mind. "He should be buried on Eilean Munde."

So he should. So should they all. "When we are free to live in Glencoe without fear of murder, we shall see to it."

Murdo nodded. He squatted upon the stone floor. "I have marked where his bones lie, so we may know them."

No one could mistake the size of MacIain's bones. But they might vanish beneath the soil, buried by turf and snows, before Glencoe was free again to tend her murdered MacDonalds.

Dair thought of Cat. Where are her bones? How will I ken them?

Or had her father carried them, yet fleshed, home to Glen Lyon?

Murdo turned his back. Dair heard the m.u.f.fled sobs. It was easier, somehow, to know he, too, could weep in such privacy as they made.

Her shoulder ached ferociously, but Cat did not care. It was penance for her name; pain was required.

She had not saddled the garron but rode bareback instead, clad in trews, shirt, and plaid, with a bonnet on her head. The pain and effort made her flesh run with sweat, but she ignored it. She was not cold. Winter had broken at last.

She did not get far. Before she reached Rannoch two of her brothers found her. Dougal caught her rein and added it to his own while Jamie, the eldest, the cruelest, blocked her way.

"Let me go," she said tightly, willing the pain not to show.

If Jamie marked it, he did not forgive her for it. "You will come back with us to Chesthill."

" 'Tis not my home."

" 'Tis."

She thought of jerking the rein from Dougal's hand, but knew she would fail. This time. "Glencoe is my home," she declared.

Jamie smiled with quiet satisfaction. "Glencoe is no more."

Cat raised her chin. "The glen is there," she said steadily, "and houses may be rebuilt."

"By whose hands?" Jamie inquired. "No man lives who might do it."

Dougal's eyes were worried. "Come back with us, Cat. 'Tis best for us all."

"Best for you, "she countered bitterly. "You canna have Glenlyon's daughter in the ruins of our father's folly, aye? 'Twould no' look so bonnie."

"Naught is left," Dougal said straightly.

She challenged at once. "How d'ye ken that? Have you been there?"

"Father has," Jamie said, "and he told us what was done." His garron shifted; he reined the restive mount in. "They deserved such treatment. They were Jacobites who refused to sign the oath."

Now she was cold, cold as a claymore in winter, letting them hear her hatred. "Och, it was signed," Cat said softly. "MacIain did sign it. But they came anyway. They killed him anyway. They killed as many as they could, for no reason but the king's."

She saw it in their faces: neither believed her. Perhaps they could not, if they might; they were Glenlyon's sons.

"You will let me go," she said. "I have no place here."

"Bring her," Jamie said curtly and rode his garron past her.

Dougal held the rein. Cat had no choice, short of leaping from the garron and walking to Glencoe. But I canna do that. Not yet. Not until she was healed.

They led her back to Chesthill despite her protestations that she could direct her mount with no a.s.sistance. Then Dougal took the garron away. Jamie took himself.

Cat stood in the dooryard, struck by memory: a boy-faced la.s.s warning away a MacDonald whose father was loud and harsh; overturning a cup with Campbell whisky in it, meant to succor a MacDonald coming home from Killiecrankie; standing in the doorway to welcome the same man in when he came to fetch his bonnet.

Ten years she had loved him.

"I will go," she said fiercely, and strode into the house.

Colin, waiting for her, said nothing as she came in. She saw the worry in his eyes, the taut lines etched into flesh, the tension in his posture.

It faded as he saw her. "Cat," he said only. Kindly.

Overwhelmed, she wavered. He caught her, held her, enclosed her in his arms. The tears were hot on her face. "I must go," she said. "There are too many tales told of that night . . . if I dinna go, I will never ken the truth."

Very quietly he said, "Even if he lives, he will not be there, Cat. Glencoe is denied to MacDonalds, lest they be killed for it."

"I must go," she repeated. "Only in Glencoe can I be certain."

"Och, Cat-"

"Glencoe will tell me," she insisted. "In Glencoe, I can be certain." If he is dead, or lives. But she could not speak it aloud. She dared not speak of it, lest she somehow affect the outcome.

After a long moment Colin sighed. Crushed against his chest, she felt and heard it. "Verra well," he said at last, "but only when you are well. I'll no' take a swooning woman all the way across Rannoch."

"I willna swoon!"

She heard his hollow chuckle. "You were in a swoon when you arrived."

"I was fou when I arrived! Christ, Colin, he poured so much whisky into my belly I feared I would drown!"

"Aye, well-our father kens no moderation. In himself or for his daughter. "

Cat went rigidly still. Against his shoulder she said, "Nor in killing MacDonalds."

Two.

The gloaming was past and true night settled in. Glenlyon, his belly full of whisky, stumbled through the damp darkness lit intermittently by smoking torches in iron brackets. Edinburgh was a noisome city, reeking of effluvia, smoke, dampness, the turbid stench of the poor overwhelming the finer scent of the wealthy. As for himself, he was poor in coin as always, but wealthier in notoriety than any man alive.

He heard a step behind him and clutched instinctively at the pocket of his greatcoat, then laughed harshly. There was naught in his purse to steal. And so he stopped and swung about unsteadily, willing the footpad to come closer to a soldier who carried a pistol at his belt.

The footpad halted some few paces away. "I am from the Earl of Breadalbane," he said quietly. "You are bidden to meet wi' your cousin."

"Cousin, is it? I thought he had claimed I was no more his kin!"

The man gestured in dimness. "I have given you his words."

"And does he wish to censure me as well?" But then Glenlyon shook his head. "Och, no-he would do that where all might hear, he would . . . serves him naught to keep it quiet, aye?" He peered blearily at the man. "Will he be serving usquabae?"

The messenger did not hesitate. "And brandywine from France."

Glenlyon, mollified, grunted. And followed Breadalbane's man.

With grimy hands and black-rimmed nails, Dair tore a frayed strip of soiled linen from the dead man's shirt that now clothed his body and tied back snarled hair into a tail. It wanted cutting badly but he dared not attempt it himself, and Murdo was gone, hoping to catch a fish or two in the river.

On that thought his belly made known its temperament, growling impotently. They went hungry more often then not, depending on what small game Murdo might catch in crude snares, or the fish he managed to spear. Dair had accustomed himself to reduced rations, but no food for two days took its toll nonetheless. Murdo's luck ran bad.

He healed steadily, but the leg yet ached despite his ministrations. Each day he worked the muscles with both hands, trying to keep them supple, but he had lost weight since the ma.s.sacre and the strength in his tautly bound thigh had gone. The splints aided his bone but not the rest of him, and he feared to be a cripple if the muscle wasted away. That thought drove him more and more often to kneading his flesh, to wishing he might stand like a man again, unfettered by wood and wool.

Murdo had fashioned him a crude crutch out of a tree limb he stripped of bark so it would not bite into flesh. It was enough so that Dair might lever himself up and hobble to the mouth of the cave, or to a pocket in the back where he relieved himself. The cave now smelled of it, but he had no choice. Unlike Murdo, he could not go out and find a suitable place, but was limited by his leg to depend on the cave itself.

His mouth twisted in wry self-contempt. "I am made a beast, aye?-living in my own filth, bound to my den lest the soldiers find their prey."

And so proud Glencoe was humbled, shattered in spirit by Campbell soldiers, by a Campbell laird. MacIain killed, his wife dead, so many MacDonalds dead. Even a Campbell-born woman.

Dinna think of Cat-He shifted, then shifted again, cursing inwardly. Made awkward by the splints, it was difficult to find a comfortable position. His body ached of it, muscles trembling in spasms as if to remind him once he was a man who walked on two legs, instead of a beast bidden to slide himself across the ground when it took too much effort to stand, to balance, to hobble from the dimness of the rocky cave into the light of a spring day.

Murdo has never been gone so long. His body thrummed with tension. He could not sit still. He itched, he twitched, he bit into his lip to stave off the urge to move, the need to answer in some way his body's urgent demands.

Two days.

Murdo refused to be gone so long.

MacIain would not permit anything so puny as a broken leg to prevent him from doing whatever he wished to do.

No, not MacIain., John is now MacIain.

He could not be still, in mind or in body. Cursing, Dair reached out to the crutch and began the laborious process of rising from the floor.

Cat waited impatiently as Colin brought up two horses to the dooryard. She saw the expression on his face, the tension in his body, but gave in to neither unspoken plea. And when he stopped, she reached out swiftly and took the rein from his hand. "You need not come," she said. "I ken the way, aye?"

His jaw hardened. "I'll no' let you go without me."

"Will you not?" Cat set her teeth and placed a foot in the stirrup, then hoisted herself up. Her shoulder twinged, but save for a muttered curse she ignored it as she settled herself in the saddle, pulling folds of plaid out of the way. "Then if you mean to come, you'd best mount your horse. I willna stay here the longer so Jamie and Dougal may come out to fash me again."

Colin's expression was troubled. "What will this serve?"

Cat looked down on him. Had he believed she might reconsider, given time? Or merely hoped?

Grimly she said, "It serves me to see what has become of my home, and of the man I married."

Colin still frowned even as he mounted his garron, though he said nothing.

"You've a wife yourself," Cat told him, "and two bairns. Think of them as I do this. Think of not knowing if they lived, or if they died. For the rest of your life."

Colin grimaced. "Not knowing might be easier."

"It would not." Cat turned her garron toward the track that wound through Rannoch Moor. And you would ken that, in my place.

No one could understand who had not been there. And until she went back she would never know the truth.

Cat needed to know. Until she knew the truth there could be no future, only the past. In Glencoe, she would know. If he lived. Or not. "Eraoch Eilean, "Cat murmured, riding out of the dooryard.

Sweat poured from Dair's body. He had not expected it to be so difficult, to be so painful . . . it took effort now to breathe, to suck air into his lungs and cling to it a moment before it whooped out on a gasp of exertion, of taut, tremendous effort that drained him with every step.

Step. He did not step. Could not.