Lady Of The Glen Part 51

He could not recall now what it had been like to be whole, to stride across the glen, to nimbly avoid a camanachd stick looping down to trap his ankle. He could not recall the simple act of walking unhindered, of the ability to leap and run, or even to crouch.

The terrain was unkind. High above the tree line there was little ease of movement; the wild, rugged corries dug into shoulders of the peaks. Loose stone shifted as he tried to pick his way down from the cave, fouling the crutch, the splints, spilling from beneath his bare left foot so that he planted the splints abruptly to catch his balance.

Pain kindled throughout his thigh. Dair gave in to it, too weak to do otherwise; he saved himself as much as he could by twisting to the left, by taking his weight onto his left leg, and so it gave as well and spilled him there, so that his left hip was driven deep against the stone.

He lay there drenched in sweat, breathing noisily through parched throat. He dared not cry out lest there be someone to hear him, to carry tales of a hidden MacDonald, easy prey for soldiers. Instead he balled his right hand into a fist and beat it against a boulder, beat it and beat it and beat it until he felt the pain of it, the split flesh upon his knuckles. If pain lodged there, it lessened its fury elsewhere.

He pressed his hand against his mouth and bit into the heel, the flesh hard as horn from an honest man's honest work. And when at last the pain of his broken leg lessened to a point he could bear it, he swore very softly with great elaboration, recalling the crude vulgarity of the men at Killiecrankie who held fear at bay by harsh speech, who scorned the thought of falling beneath a Sa.s.senach ball or bayonet.

"Murdo," he murmured, exhausted.

Murdo will find me- Wind rustled trees. There was no peat-smoke upon the air, no smell of cooking meat, no odor of fish frying upon flat stones set in the fire. There was no odor at all save of trees, and sap, and turf. Nothing at all of people.

It was Glencoe. It was not. The glen remained, girdled by cliffs and peaks, cut through by the river, but no one lived in it despite fertility. The valley was empty of habitation, save for its natural game. Empty of MacDonalds.

Cat rode unerringly to the house she and Dair had shared, ignoring the ruins of others. And there she found identical destruction as well as similar methods: charred timber and broken stone shattered by the heat, collapsed roof slates. Wind had scoured the ruins free of ash, so that only the stark timbers remained poking impudently skyward, fallen into a tangle like a handful of dropped sticks.

Nothing remained to mark human habitation. No sc.r.a.p of cloth, no pewter plate, no perfume brought from France. Only the detritus of ma.s.sacre, of fire and plunder, and the flowers of late spring breaking up through blackened soil.

She climbed down from the garron and left it to forage. She walked across what had been the dooryard-she saw it still-and through what had been the door-she saw it still-and into the room where the soldier had shot her, believing her a MacDonald.

Because I said I was.

There was no room. There was no house. But she saw it all regardless as she stood in the midst of wreckage.

Cat closed her eyes and conjured recollection. The house was whole again, with a peat-fire on the hearth, and the wailing of the wind as it buffeted the fieldstone, teasing at slate roof tiles. She recalled her cooling bed, empty of Dair, and the cracking noise of what she knew now was distant musketry.

She let it come, piece by piece. Sound by sound. Fear by fear. Let it come, and build; let it engulf, and take; permitted herself in all the ways to relive it again: the emptiness, the fear, the growing apprehension; the shock of being shot. And going into the storm to find Dair lest he be harmed, and alone.

Remembered rage when she knew it was all her father's doing.

She was dry of tears. She was drained of grief. Nothing lived in her spirit save hatred of Glenlyon.

"Alasdair Og," she whispered. "Alasdair Og MacDonald."

"Cat."

She opened her eyes, astonished; saw her brother's face instead. "There is a dead man by the river. I wouldna take you to him, save he might be a man ye ken."

"Where?"

"By the river." He gestured direction.

Heedless of her footing, Cat ran as swiftly as possible. She was absently grateful for trews in place of skirts, for brogues in place of bare feet . . . but when she saw the body she forgot such things as clothing.

"Dair?" She hurled herself to his side. He was tattered, graying, bearded . . . facedown, she could not see him to know him. "Dair?" Colin had said "dead man." "Dinna be dead, Dair . . ." She caught great handfuls of his soiled plaid and shirt and tugged him over onto his back. "Dair-?" She stared blindly into his face, into the pale, bloodless face.

Colin came up beside her. "His neck is broken. Likely he fell here in the stones-see?" He paused as she made no answer. "Cat-d'ye ken him?"

She said nothing. She could not. She had no voice with which to speak.

"Cat-?"

At last the words came. "I ken him."

"Is it . . . is it him?"

Tentativeness. Apprehension. For his sister's sake, Colin wanted otherwise than what he feared.

That broke her. Now she could cry. Now she could grieve. " 'Tis Murdo. He was MacIain's man." She gazed blindly up at her brother. "I thought I would ken . . . I thought coming here-" All of it new again, the scab stripped ruthlessly off the wound so it might bleed afresh. "Oh Christ, I dinna ken-I dinna ken, Colin-"

In sudden consternation he knelt down beside her. "Och, Cat-"

She rocked back and forth, wanting to keen aloud. "I thought I would ken, if I came . . . but I dinna. I dinna. "

In painful comprehension, in careful compa.s.sion he reached out to her. She felt his hand touch her head, then gently cup her skull. He unweighted her, pulling her to him as he knelt there, as she did, until he pressed the side of her head against his shoulder.

Nothing now but grief, and very little breath. "I thought I would ken it-if he lived, or no'." And it was worse, she realized now, unspeakably worse knowing nothing after all.

"Bide a wee," he said gently, "and then I'll find a place for him and stones for his cairn."

When she could, Cat sat upright, withdrawing from Colin's shoulder. She patted his arm in grat.i.tude, gazing blindly at dead Murdo. "Aye," she said quietly, "find stones. I'll sit wi' him here as you do it, so he need not be alone."

The Earl of Breadalbane could not suppress his disdain as his unkempt cousin stood before him. "You are fou, "he accused.

Glenlyon's reddened eyes gleamed balefully. "What would you have me be? 'Tis bad enough hearing the whispers when I'm sober enough to understand them. Fou, they are no' so loud."

They faced one another across a writing table in the earl's Edinburgh town house near Holyrood Palace. The earl set down the br.i.m.m.i.n.g cup he had poured and watched as Glenlyon immediately put out a trembling hand to take it.

Coolly he said, "You did as you were ordered to do."

Glenlyon tossed back the liquor, licked his lips dry of it, blotted his mouth on the soiled sleeve of his greatcoat, then stared angrily at his kinsman. "Och, aye, so I did-but they must blame someone, aye? And I was there. My boots were soiled by MacDonald blood." He looked into the empty gla.s.s, then smacked it down upon the desk top. "Did you call me here to complain I drink overmuch? Well, dinna. It has been tried before."

"I would not trouble myself with an impossible task." With economical movement, Breadalbane sat down behind his writing desk. He did not bother to point out another chair to his kinsman; let Glenlyon stand if he would. "The only hope of success we had was if all were killed. But they were not. And now the world knows." He put his hand upon a folded paper. "This is a pamphlet written by Charles Leslie, an Irishman making coin off of Scotland's private troubles. And there are broadsheets throughout the city, carried south to London."

"What of it?" Glenlyon challenged, then pressed his hand against his pocket. "I've the order here. 'Tis plain what I was to do."

" 'Plain,' " Breadalbane echoed. "And plainer still your failure."

"Good Christ, I did what I could!" Glenlyon cried harshly. "I was promised aid from Hamilton, but no men arrived. I was promised aid from Duncanson, but no men arrived. Until it was too late!" His words slurred, but his anger burned away much of his drunkenness. "I was told five of the clock, and at such time did I give orders to fall upon the MacDonalds. And yet no aid came until half a day later!"

Softly Breadalbane said, "They were all of them to die."

"We killed whom we could," Glenlyon retorted. "Christ, man, the glen ran red wi' their blood from the Devil's Staircase to Loch Linnhe, and all the dwellings burned . . ." Overbright eyes glittered with sudden tears in a corpse-pale face. "You were not there to see what was done, aye?-to see those who died, the men and the women, and the bairns-"

"All of them were to die."

"You were not there!" Glenlyon cried, smashing his fist down so hard on the desk top the empty gla.s.s bounced on wood. "How dare you rebuke me? How dare you question my competence-"

"Because I must. You failed."

Glenlyon s.n.a.t.c.hed up his drained gla.s.s and threw it against the panelled wall. It shattered and fell, leaving behind a sticky residue of redolent French brandy. "Pox on you!" he said harshly. "You asked the worst of me, and I gave you my best! "

The earl drew in a calming breath; it would do no good if they both lost their tempers. "And that was my folly, to expect success of you."

Glenlyon braced himself against the wood with both hands spread. His voice rasped in his throat. "You were not there, cousin. You canna declare it success or failure."

"But I can. And I do. I declare it abject failure." Breadalbane was not in the least intimidated by his kinsman's truculent stance. "And I fear it will undo us all."

"Undo. Undo?" Glenlyon was plainly baffled. "How d'ye mean, 'undo'?"

He kens naught of politics, this bluidy fool of a Campbell! "Only a man such as a king may survive such debacle," Breadalbane said. "There are questions already as to why this was undertaken." He tapped the crisp pamphlet beneath his hand. "Even the highest may fall, saving the king himself." Even Stair. Even himself. Especially himself, who was loved by no man.

Glenlyon grunted contempt. "Do I care?"

"You should." Breadalbane shook his head. "You are a fool, Robin. A blind, drukken fool. Your incompetence may yet touch us all."

"You would do better to ask Duncanson and Hamilton why they didna come to Glencoe until the killing was done," Glenlyon retorted thickly. "In such weather as that, we needed the aid . . . and the pa.s.ses were left open. Those who escaped did so because there were not enough soldiers to catch them."

But Breadalbane did not answer. He had his own suspicions why Duncanson and Hamilton had not arrived in time. Far better to let one drunken gambler be blamed for failure than to a.s.sume any blame themselves.

It was possible that, in the bad weather, additional troops would not have made a difference. MacDonalds might have escaped regardless. As it was, only Glenlyon's command was known to have failed its duty, and only Glenlyon's command could take the blame of the people who decried such tactics.

But Glenlyon had followed orders. Those who gave them, those who devised the plan, would be blamed in the final evaluation.

"There will be trouble of this," Breadalbane said. "I have been to London. I have heard the talk. There will be trouble of this."

Glenlyon's expression was one of surly contempt.

"Bide a wee," the earl said darkly. "Bide a wee, and see."

High above the timber Dair lay sprawled in scree, drifting hazily into darkness. Hunger was but a distant goad now, hounded away by detachment, by dispa.s.sion, as if his body's pain was too adamant a guard dog to permit anything else his attention. He had tried once to rise, tried once to lever himself upright, to plant the crutch and force himself to his feet, but he was too weak, too bruised, and the guard dog unrelenting.

-best wait for Murdo-Murdo would tame the hound.

Easier to sleep. Easier to let go. Easier to forget what had become of MacIain's youngest son . . .

No. Of MacIain's brother.

Three.

The deerhound b.i.t.c.h, sitting beside the earl, thrust her sleek muzzle between his hands so he was forced to acknowledge her. And so he did, if absently, stroking the wiry hair while she rested her chin upon his thigh, all the weight of her body now transferred inexplicably into her skull so that he must hold her up, for surely she would collapse if he did not give her aid.

He took solace in the touch, eased himself in her presence. Dogs were, he knew, well cognizant of the temperament of their masters, recognized joy and sorrow, and this b.i.t.c.h knew him as well as he knew her.

But paces away his fine horse grazed, idly uprooting turf. Breadalbane sat upon the mound, unmindful of disrespect; despite the legend it was yet his land, and if he chose to sit upon a grave, it was his right to do so.

Uaigh a' Choigrich. The Grave of a Stranger. The poor Sa.s.senach soldier who, having no Gaelic, was murdered by Highlanders for trespa.s.sing upon their cornfield.

The cornfield grew anew in the kinder days of summer, topknots rustling in the breeze. Before long its bounty would be harvested and carried away, to be eaten at his fancy or sold to other men. Even in Edinburgh. Even across the border between England and Scotland.

Below the brae, below the Grave of a Stranger, razed Achallader yet mocked him for its state, for MacIain's enmity. But that now was over; MacIain himself was razed even as the castle, and rumor claimed no one knew which grave was his on the isle of Eilean Munde, where MacDonald lairds were buried.

If he is buried . . . Even that was uncertain. That MacDonalds survived, and more than at first believed, was obvious now, and they had come down from their mountain fastness to give honor to their dead. No bodies now in Glencoe save those beneath new cairns, or carried away to the island.

So much accomplished. And so little won. Glencoe destroyed, the Gallows Herd scattered; they were broken men in hiding, living as beasts apart from civility, apart from those who knew them as something other than outlaw. The earl was fully aware the king at last offered them pardon, prevailed upon by others to give them leave to go home, but no one knew how many yet survived or where to carry word.

Breadalbane smiled grimly. "Let them rot in the caves and corries."

It tasted of wormwood in his mouth. So much accomplished, and so little won. -and so much now at risk . . . Glenlyon was in Flanders, serving his king in war. Stair was there as well. He was left behind to deal with the rumors, to turn aside the slights, to make what he could of such respect as few men offered now, contemptuous of his part in what was called travesty. Had everyone died, such things as rumor might have been controlled. But there were survivors, and those of weaker heart, hearing the tales, took the MacDonalds' part and spoke of murder under trust.

Achallader, destroyed. His career endangered. And even his kin divided; no one knew what had become of Duncan, gone away with his Marjorie.

So much lost. His second-born, John, was heir now. There was a son to inherit his work, his earldom, but what was there to bequeath save potential disaster?

Inquiry.

That was the word now in so many mouths. Inquiry was his future, and possibly his present. Political destruction; he was anathema, a leper without a blemish save in what he had designed in congress with his king, and would be publicly censured for his part in Glencoe.

Someone must pay, aye?

The old man, stroking his deerhound, gazed up at the summer sky arching over his head above the Grave of a Stranger and permitted his eyes to water. "Let me live," he said. "Give me leave to live long enough so I may repair myself."

He was Grey John Campbell, Earl of Breadalbane. He deserved that much of G.o.d.

The latch rattled. John Hill looked up, squinting, as his aide threw open the door.

A slight, gaunt figure filled but a part of the frame. Even as his aide began to announce the visitor, Hill beckoned him in. Eagerly he rose. "Have you news of John MacDonald?"

The boy slid into the room with the care of a wary cat, avoiding the uniformed aide. Hill waved dismissal and the soldier pulled shut the door; the boy relaxed only a little. From the cracked leather of his belt he took a soiled parchment.

It was, Hill discovered, his own letter to John MacDonald, but an answer was scrawled on the other side in a crabbed yet skilled hand, as if poor conditions were all that denied the flourish of trained letters.

The parchment tore. Inwardly Hill cursed, then took greater care as he flattened the paper. He held it close, scowling fiercely against the weakness of his eyes.

". . . I give you my most hearty thanks for your goodness in procuring the King his pardon and remission, the which I will most cordially embrace and will betake myself to live under His Majesty's royal protection in such a manner that the Government shall not repent or give you cause to blush for the favour you have done me and my people. "

Wholly without warning, tears filled stinging eyes.

"I am this day to take my voyage to find security to your honour's contentment, and thereafter I will do myself the favour to come to your garrison and be honoured with a kiss of your hand and end my affairs, with which cordial thanks for your courtesy never to be forgot by him who is Yours most a.s.sured to obey your commands, JOHN MACDONALD"

"Praise G.o.d," Hill croaked. "Praise G.o.d for a wise man." He lowered the paper and looked at the young MacDonald. "When will he come?"