by Fiona Faris
Siusan moved across the hall to find out what was ailing the girl and whether there was anything she could do to comfort her.
“Ailsa, isn’t it?”
The lass looked up through tear-filled eyes. She could be no more than fifteen years old, Siusan reflected. She was a bonnie lass, with long black hair falling in ringlets down her back. Her complexion was snowy white, and her eyes were two deep dark pools through which you would fall into her very soul.
“Aye, Mistress Siusan,” she answered, trying desperately to subdue her weeping. “That is my name.”
“And what ails you, lass? You look as if your heart were breaking. Has someone been unkind to you, dear?”
Ailsa sniffed and shook her head in firm denial.
“No, Mistress, it is nothing like that. It is just…”
She succumbed to a deluge of tears, which overwhelmed her, and she buried her face in her blackened hands.
“Oh, lassie, lassie!” Siusan pleaded, crouching quickly down in front of the girl and taking her in her arms. “Don’t take on so! Whatever it is, it surely cannot be as bad as all that. The world is not coming to an end.”
Ailsa buried her face in Siusan’s shoulder.
“It is my Donald,” she sobbed. “He is away with the men. It was to be his first battle.”
Siusan smoothed a hand down Ailsa’s ringlets.
“And is Donald your young man?”
“Aye,” she said. “We are to be married in the Spring of the year.”
Siusan pulled her closer in a reassuring hug.
“It is a difficult time, I know,” she murmured. “Every wife and sweetheart must go through it; every son’s mother too. It is part of the price of being a woman, to have the worry of her man’s safety when he is out on the clan’s business. But if it is his first foray, then the older men will look after him. I’m sure he will be returned safe and sound to you.”
Ailsa lifted her head from Siusan’s shoulders and drew her forearms, one after the other, across her face. The black-lead left a smear, which made her look as if she had painted her eyes like one of the old heathen women of the Picts used to do, back in ancient times. Siusan suppressed a giggle.
“Has there been no news yet?” Ailsa asked, her voice still small with anxiety.
“Not yet,” Siusan confessed.
She did not add that this was a worry to her too. Surely, they should have heard something by now. Her father would have sent a message to let them know how the battle had gone, unless…
She did not pursue the thought. Instead, she conjured Uilleam’s face before her mind.
“I am sure they will be home soon,” she said with a brightness she did not feel, rubbing the remains of Ailsa’s tears away from each cheek with her thumbs. “Which is why we must hurry and make the hall spick and span for their return. The place must be made fit for heroes and not the midden it has become.”
It was late afternoon when the Campbells arrived: Cailean and a dozen horsemen. It was the bairns, who had been posted on the walkway around the roof of the keep, to watch for Angus Mor’s return, who first spied them. They careened down the stairs and into the hall to inform Siusan.
“Men are approaching from the west,” a warrior’s son chattered out excitedly, “and they are not Gunns.”
Siusan’s heart leaped. Not Gunns? What did that mean? Was her father and her Uilleam dead? Had the battle been lost? Were the Gunns vanquished?
She rushed out into the courtyard and mounted the steps to the wall. Peering into the distance, she saw Cailean Campbell at the head of a small troop of mounted warriors, cantering over the cleared land beyond the outer ward.
“Peggy!” she cried down to one of the maidservants who was crossing the yard from the well, a bucket of water hanging from each arm of the yoke that she had slung over her shoulders. “Take some lassies and bar the gate. Hurry, now!”
The buckets clattered to the cobbles as Peggy hitched up her skirts and took to her heels towards the gatehouse, crying to the other women she passed upon the way.
“Ailsa!” she said to one of the bairns who had swarmed around her skirts, as if for protection. “Away and find Mistress Shona and tell her to come to me.”
The wee girl scampered off in the direction of the kitchens. Less than a minute later, she was back with Siusan’s mother in tow.
“What is it, Siusan?”
Shona’s eyes were round with alarm. She was wiping her hands anxiously on a cleaning rag. Her whole body was trembling.
“Cailean Campbell is at the gate,” Siusan told her. “This does not bode well,” she added, almost to herself.
Shona climbed the steps to join Siusan on the wall.
“The men…” she murmured. “What has become of the menfolk?”
Cailean and his men were almost at the gate. With a loud ‘thump’, Peggy and the other women dropped the thick heavy bar into the iron hasps of the doors.
Cailean and his troop pulled up at the wall, just below were Siusan and her mother stood. He half-rose in his saddle and gave a little nod.
“Good day to you, ladies,” he smiled. “I bid you let me enter.
“State your business first,” Siusan called down to him, her voice clear and steady.
He huffed a laugh and cast a look over each shoulder at his men, shaking his head, as if he were sharing a joke with them.
“Come on, now,” he called back to Siusan. “Where is your hospitality? Let us in. My men have had a long ride and beg refreshment. You would not turn us away, would you?”
“State your business,” Siusan repeated stonily, refusing to be either intimidated or swayed by his sinuous words.
Cailean paused and pursed his lips as if considering whether he should burden these women with a justification that was no business if theirs. This matter was between Angus Gunn, Uilleam MacGregor, and himself.
“I have some business to conclude with your father and the MacGregor cur,” he said finally. “You will accompany me to Kylquhurne, to encourage their attendance on me there.”
What a pompous ass, Siusan thought. Could he actually hear himself? Even his own men looked embarrassed by his manner.
Siusan dropped him a mocking curtsy.
“I think not, Master Campbell,” she smiled. “But thank you for the kind invitation.”
Anger flared momentarily in Cailean’s eyes, but he quickly checked his temper.
“No matter,” he shrugged. “Archie,” he called to one of his men. “Take a couple of men and hop over that wee wall and see to the gate.”
Archie signaled to the man on either side of him, and they walked their horses forward to the castle wall. Standing on their saddles, they hauled themselves up and over the parapet, from where they went down and unbarred the gates. Some of the women tried to impede them, but the men brushed them easily aside with their elbows. The three warriors quickly made their way down to the gatehouse, jostled all the way by a mob of Gunn clanswomen.
The gates were soon opened, and Cailean and the rest of his men ambled their horses into the courtyard. Cailean cast a proprietorial look around the inner ward as if he were surveying a new property he had just come into possession of.
“Thank you, Archie,” he said. “Now, away to the stable and saddle-up a mount for each of these charming ladies. It grows late, and we would wish to be back at Kylquhurne before dine.”
He scanned the women and children, the halt and the lame, who had by now all gathered in the courtyard. He wrinkled his nose in distaste.
“The rest of you have until noon tomorrow to quit the castle. A garrison will arrive then, and the life of any Gunn who remains shall be forfeit, man, woman, or child. Do you understand?”
No one replied, but from the way they hung their heads and snuck anxious looks at one another, Cailean could see that they had heard.
“Good!” he said. “Now,” he turned to look up at Siusan and Shona on the wall again, “go and fetch whatever you may need and make ready
to leave. You would not wish my men to miss their suppers.”
“No,” Siusan said defiantly, in a strong, clear voice, stepping in front of her mother and straightening herself up to her full height.
“No?” Cailean echoed, amused. He made a show of surveying the men around him. “I think you will find that you are in no position to refuse me?”
Siusan tilted her head back and fixed Cailean’s eye with her own.
“You can go to hell, Cailean Campbell!”
A horse snorted.
One of two of Cailean’s men suppressed smiles.
Cailean suddenly seemed disconcerted, but quickly regained his composure.
“You will come down here this instant,” he growled, “or I will come up there and fetch you down myself.”
“Come ahead then,” Siusan tossed her head with as much insolence as she could muster and looked down her nose at him with disdain. “For I will not go willingly. Or quietly,” she added.
Cailean’s resolution wavered. His eyes shot around his men, who were watching him with mounting curiosity and not a little amusement. How was he going to acquit himself? They had no doubt he could bring the feisty Gunn lass down off the gatehouse wall without too much difficulty, but could he manage it while keeping his dignity intact? Or would the Gunn lass make a fool of him?
Cailean slid from his saddle. Looking less than assured, he mounted the gatehouse steps and approached Siusan and her mother. The two women immediately retreated and scurried down the steps at the other end of the gatehouse parapet and onto the walkway that ran around the wall.
“Come, now,” Cailean coaxed them, almost beseechingly. “Let us not waste any more time. I warn you, do not make me angry.”
He sounded less than convincing. His men shifted in their saddles, settling themselves more comfortably as if in anticipation of an amusing diversion to come.
Siusan and Shona moved a few yards along the walkway, then stopped and turned back towards Cailean.
“Cailean Campbell,” Siusan declared mockingly. “Your anger is like the tinkling of bells. If you want your prize, then you must do more than just stamp your foot like the petulant boy that you are.”
Cailean started down the steps towards the women. The women retreated a few more paces along the wall.
“This is silly and tedious,” Cailean huffed. “Come here at once.”
Siusan snapped her fingers at him with contempt. A cheer went up from the women and children who had gathered in the courtyard. Cailean’s men smiled in enjoyment at their master’s discomfiture.
With a snarl of irritation, Cailean began to stride along the walkway after them, but the women hurried ahead of him. Soon they had reached the doorway to the corner tower. Siusan and Shona retreated into the dark aperture and slammed the heavy wooden door behind them. The spectators below heard the heavy iron bolt rattle onto its socket. Another cheer went up. This time, one of two of Cailean’s men surreptitiously joined in.
A few moments later Siusan’s head popped over the castellations at the top of the tower.
“What now, Cailean Campbell?” she taunted. “Will you burn me out, like you sought to do with Iain MacGregor?” She placed her palm over her heart in a gesture of apology. “Oh, forgive me!” she said. “I forgot. You did not seek to burn him out. You sought rather to murder him, like the craven coward that you are, sooner than face him like a real man.”
A low ominous rumble ran through the crowd in the courtyard. Even his own men cast dark looks up at Cailean, his conduct at the siege of Meggernie still sitting ill with them.
A look of alarm crossed Cailean’s face. He did not like his men to be reminded of the act that had disgraced him in his father’s eyes. The Gunn bitch would pay for her insolence.
“Archie!” he called down to his lieutenant. “Enter the tower from the courtyard and bring the sow and her cheeky runt down.”
Archie hesitated, a glower of resentment burning in his eyes.
“Now!” Cailean barked.
“Aye, come on, now, Archie,” Siusan echoed. “Do not keep your master waiting. He has dirty work that needs done. It would not do for him to be soiling his own hands when he has lackeys to do his bidding.”
With a silent, angry gesture, Archie summoned two men, and together they entered the tower. Meanwhile, Siusan began scraping moss from the stone of the battlements and pelting Cailean with it. Cailean retreated along the walkway until he was beyond the range of her throw.
After what seemed to Cailean like an age, Archie and his two assistants trudged reluctantly out onto the tower and, without a word, began to subdue the two women. Both fought like wildcats, kicking and hissing, and scratching and tearing at the men with their clawed hands.
The men quickly overpowered them, throwing their arms around them and smothering their arms to their sides. Gently but firmly, they manhandled the women back down the spiral stairway and out into the yard, their shins marked by the bruises of their prisoners’ stamping heels.
As they emerged from the tower door, the crowd of women and children surged forward to their mistresses’ aid, but they were held back by the flats of the Campbells’ swords. Cailean, with as much dignity as he could still muster, came quickly down from the walls to confront Siusan and Shona.
“There,” he sneered at the two women, whose arms were still pinioned at their sides. “That was not so difficult.”
Siusan stared him down, with a look that gave the lie to what he had just said. He may be able to fool himself, that look told him, but he was not fooling anyone else.
As if to emphasize the point, she spat in his face.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Clyth Castle
Later the same day
It was evening and the last swell of the gloaming when Angus, Uilleam, and the small remnant of the Gunns who had escaped the slaughter, came in sight of Clyth Castle. The castle looked peaceful in the fading light, nestled on a rise above the riverbank beneath the louring mass of the mountains to the south. The Orchy itself wound through the glen like a silver cord.
“’Tis a sight that would break the heart,” Angus murmured, his eyes glittering.
Uilleam grunted.
“There is no time for beauty,” he said roughly. “We must not tarry. We must collect Siusan and your Shona and be off before the Campbells get here.”
Angus sighed.
“Aye, ‘tis the end of an old, old song…”
“…and the beginning of a new one,” Uilleam added fiercely, defiantly. “The Gunns and the MacGregors will rise again. Maybe not here, but somewhere where we will be far beyond the reach of the Campbells. And, who knows? My children, your grandchildren, may one day return to reclaim Glen Orchy and Glen Strae.”
Angus sighed again.
“You are young, Uilleam, lad, and may still have hope. But I am an old man now and will not live to see such a day. I must live only with the loss.”
Uilleam clapped a hand across the older man’s shoulders.
“Then I swear that your grandchildren will see Glen Orchy again. As long as I have breath in my body, I will avenge the MacGregors and the Gunns.”
Angus chuckled and nodded his head.
“I believe you will, Uilleam Mor, I believe you will. You are your father’s son.”
They found the gate open.
They did not find a joyful welcome.
The women and children rushed from the keep and flocked around Angus and his few remaining men. Tears of joy and relief turned to a bitter keening, as the women learned of their menfolk who had fallen and bairns discovered themselves to be orphans. To her great relief and delight, Ailsa found her Donald again, and she laved his face with kisses.
Angus’s roar, on hearing that his wife and daughter had been taken by the Campbells, shook the stars.
“They left word that, if you returned before we quit the place tomorrow, you were to be told that you must surrender yourselves at Kylquhurne if you are to put an end to the
suffering of Mistress Shona and your Siusan,” Ailsa told him.
Angus looked around the faces of the clansfolk who had gathered in the growing darkness. Torches had been lit, and their flickering yellow light illuminated faces that were wide-eyed with fear at what he might do to them for letting the Campbells take his wife and daughter.
An old man, his body trembling with palsy, came and knelt before him. It was Ranald Bain, an old warrior from Angus’s father’s day. The man was distraught.