"She didn't forget me then? I thought, somehow—" Muriella could not go on.
"How could ye believe such a thing?" Alex asked gently. "A mother doesn't so easily forget her bairn."
The girl felt her heart contract with an ache that spread through her chest and slowly outward to her limbs. Forcing herself to stand, she said, "She sent me away, ye know. She knew the Campbells were coming and didn't even try to stop them." She was shocked at the ragged hurt in her own voice.
"Have a wee bit of faith," the Gypsy murmured. "She must have had her reasons."
Turning away to hide the tears that burned behind her eyes, Muriella pressed her hands against the wall of the tent, seeking support. Only then did she realize how much she missed Isabel.
She wanted to sit at her mother's side, to hear her soft voice, feel her gentle but firm hand. She wanted to look into Isabel's blue eyes and ask, "Why? Why did ye send me away? Why didn't ye tell me the truth, a lie, anything to help me understand? And why can't ye hold me and help me forget?" But her longings were hopeless, the answers to her questions silence. The knowledge brought her an intense loneliness. While she struggled to catch her breath, a flash of anger flared within. She whirled to face Alex again. "If she fears for me, why don't ye take me away from here, back to Kilravok?"
"Because ye belong here."
"Why?"
Alex rose to grasp her shoulders in both hands. "'Tis simply right that ye should be here. Ye don't understand that yet, and I can't make ye do so. But 'tis true just the same. Ye'll save yerself a great deal of pain by learnin' to accept it."
When Muriella shook her head, the Gypsy released her. "Ye're too stubborn by half, lass. Mayhap ye'll learn that in time.
But ye'd best go now. I'm weary, and no doubt the men at the keep have missed ye."
"But-"
"Go! I've nothin' more to say."
Muriella balked. She did not want to go, to leave this place where she felt a vague and tenuous bond with the mother she had lost.
The Gypsy stood, arms crossed, unrelenting. He gave her no choice. Muriella stifled a sigh, turned and ducked beneath the tent door. The flap fell closed behind her, shutting away the soft, kind shadows, the fleeting memories she had tried so hard to grasp. But her hands were empty now. She felt numb, as if she walked in a dream.
Slowly, the sun had begun to burn away the mist. The rising light destroyed even the dream, and Muriella stood alone and unprotected in the sun. She squinted at the line of horses along the rise overlooking the Gypsy camp. Some of the riders had seen her. She drew herself upright and waited for them to come. There was nothing else she could do.
As the horses approached, she saw John's face was distorted with anger and a kind of fear. Beside him, Duncan was smiling at her with relief. Bracing herself against the onslaught of John's fury, she held her hand up to him.
Lifting her onto his saddle with one hand, John waved over his shoulder with the other. The riders who had reached the bottom of the hill paused, then stopped to await him.
"Are ye some kind of lunatic?" John hissed in Muriella's ear. "Do ye wish to die, is that it?"
"No," she said, surprising herself. “I knew I was safe.
‘Twas no’ my intent to worry ye.”
He brought his horse to an abrupt halt, stunned by her apology.
At that moment, Colin rode up beside his brother to glower at Muriella. "So ye found her." He leaned forward. "I'd like to whip the skin off yer back for the trouble ye've caused us today." He reached over to grasp her chin in rough fingers. "Do ye hear, girl?"
"I'm no' afraid of ye," Muriella spat.
"Ye should be. Ye will be after today. There's been nothing but trouble since Johnnie brought ye to Kilchurn. Thirty men dead, the Earl on a hopeless errand among his enemies, and Andrew Calder threatening to attack us. All for yer sake."
Muriella twisted free of his grip. "All for the sake of Cawdor," she said quietly.
"Be quiet, Colin," John demanded in fury. "'Tis no’ the girl's doing. She can't stop this any more than ye can."
"'Tis for her sake nonetheless," his brother repeated obdurately. "And mayhap it's all been for naught. Mayhap she's no more than a—"
"Quiet! Ye fool!"
When John felt Muriella stiffen, he glared at Colin. She had behaved unwisely, even dangerously, in coming to this valley alone, but she did not deserve his brother's vicious attack. To stop himself from blackening at least one of Colin's eyes, he dug his heels into his horse so it shot ahead of the others. When he stopped at the gate, John saw Richard Campbell was waiting for him.
"M'lord—"
"Is something amiss?"
"Aye," Richard answered grimly. "Andrew Calder struck on the shore just beyond the outer gate while ye were away.
He'd near thirty men with 'im."
Colin came up beside them, jerking his horse to a standstill. "I heard," he said. "Did they try for the castle?"
"No, m'lord. But they took a great many of the cattle grazin' on the hill. Slaughtered the others. With most of the men yonder in the Gypsy valley, we couldn't stop 'em."
John did not need to hear more. He lifted Muriella from the saddle and set her on the ground. Turning to Duncan, he called, "We'll get him this time. They can't have been gone long. Watch the girl, and whatever ye do, make certain she doesn't leave the keep again, ye hear?"
Duncan nodded as Colin leaned from his horse's back to take the quiver of arrows a groom offered. When he sat up, he looked directly at Muriella. "For yer sake," he said.
She winced, watching the riders hurry away. By the time she and the squire turned toward the keep, she had forced the sound of Colin's voice into the back of her mind where it could not hurt her. But when she ducked beneath the gate, Muriella felt her head begin to spin. She stopped with her hand at her throat. For an instant she thought she was lost in the mist again, that the world was retreating behind the concealing drifts of moisture. An unnatural stillness settled around her and she felt she was falling.
Then, out of the mist, she saw a small, moving light. It faded, flared, and leapt as other flames appeared around it. Muriella gasped and found she could not move her feet. She wanted to close her eyes and blot the image from her sight, but knew it was stronger than she. In the darkness behind her lids the vision would only glow brighter, and with it, the knowledge that death was coming to this place—again. Not just one death, but many. Would it be Colin or John or the others, whose names she did not even know? From the number of flickering lights, she knew it might well be all of them.
"Miss Muriella?" Duncan cried, alarmed by the pallid color of her skin and the way she trembled, as if she had to fight to remain standing.
The mist retreated at last, burned away by the sound of a human voice. Muriella stared at the squire, trying to anchor herself to reality with the sight of his face. "Colin's right, 'tis my fault!" she cried.
"No," Duncan said, taking her arm. He was frightened by the blank look in her eyes and did not know how to help her. "He's only angry ye slipped away again. He said it to hurt ye, that's all."
Muriella shook his head. "Ye don't understand. I know they'll die, but I can't change it."
It came to Duncan then that what the men whispered about her power was true. Instinctively, he recoiled from her. "Ye don't mean—" He choked on his own words and could not go on.
Muriella gripped his doublet in stiff fingers, hardly aware of what she was doing. "There's nothing I can do, don't ye see?" Her voice came out a ragged whisper. "Why can't I stop it? Dear God, why?"
~ * ~
The moment John and Colin and the others rode into the woods south of the keep, they found evidence the outlaw had passed there before them. They plunged into pursuit without further thought. Believing Calder was running in fear, John and Colin were too intent on catching their foe to notice the trail was too clearly marked.
They rode up hills and made their way along paths choked with underbrush, following the sweep
of Loch Awe, poised always between the loch and the sea. Yet they never met a single enemy. Several times they were forced to stop to rest their horses, but each time the men were ready to move again, they found a fresh trail.
Finally, near noon, Colin reined in his animal and turned to his brother. "I think the outlaw's playing with us. The trail is always clear, but we never seem to get closer. I smell another Calder rat."
"And mayhap the rat wears Maclean's cloak." John's eyes blazed with a light that had burned out hours ago in the eyes of his comrades. Raking his fingers through his heavy beard, he considered the path before them.
He knew that, like Colin, the men had begun to be suspicious. They had not eaten yet that day, they were tired, and although none of them would have faltered had they met Calder with thrice their number in straightforward combat, they were uneasy about the sense of deception that had begun to gnaw at their nerves.
Grasping the handle of his sword, John looked directly at his brother. "Ye may want to turn tail and run, but I won't do it."
"If he's waiting for us—" Colin began in a harsh whisper.
"Then so be it," John hissed back. "If Calder thinks he can beat us so easily, he has a thing or two to learn about the Campbells. He's laid down a challenge, and I intend to meet it, whatever the consequences." He paused when he realized his voice was shaking with the force of his anger. "Besides," he said more calmly, "don't ye see what will happen if we turn back now? Calder will have provided for just such a move, and they'll be waiting for us, that I guarantee."
Colin glanced back at the men, who were watching the brothers with close attention. The horses were clearly tired and the men almost equally so. But Johnnie was right; should they retreat, Calder was certain to jump them. "Well then, I suppose we must go forward for a bit. But I warn ye, be ready for anything."
In a few minutes, the Campbells reached a clearing in the trees. In the distance, they could hear the sea attacking the rocky shore. The air was moist and heavy with the smell of salt. On all sides of the tiny glen, the oaks and underbrush grew thick and impenetrable. For a long moment, there was complete silence; then Andrew Calder struck.
The men seemed to fall from the branches of the trees— men who wore the Fraser plaid, the Rose, the Calder, and the Maclean. While the Campbells scrambled from their horses, the enemy abandoned their bows to a man, drawing their broadswords instead. It was not long before the glen was in complete confusion.
John took a single deep breath, his eyes glowing with excitement. He saw at once his men were outnumbered, but that only made him more determined. An easy victory meant nothing to him. Facing an enemy who was stronger gave spice to the game.
Before he had slid from his horse's back, he struck a man down with one blow of his dagger. When his feet touched the ground, he grasped his heavy broadsword in the other hand and swung it from side to side, slashing indiscriminately at the red-and-green Maclean plaid. As he lunged and retreated and lunged again, his gaze swept the glen, seeking a man who might be Calder. He knew the others would fall into confusion once their leader was down, but the swords were closing in around him and he could not stop to find the outlaw in the blur of blood and plaid and sweat-soaked skin.
Glancing to his right, he leapt out of the way an instant before a heavy blade came slashing down in the spot where he had just been standing. He brought his weapon up, then down, and another Maclean fell beneath it. Somewhere to his left, he heard Colin cursing violently and his own eyes told him that the Campbells' situation was far from promising.
John's exhilaration turned to dismay when he realized he and his men had been forced into a knot at the center of the glen, with the Macleans pressing in on all sides. "Damn!" he swore. A challenge was one thing, but this could well be a slaughter. The ground at his feet was covered with blood; he did not know how much of it belonged to his companions. He and Colin exchanged a telling look as they were thrown together and paused to catch their breath. They were losing, that much was clear. More than half the men who had followed them into the glen now lay dead outside the circle of their enemies.
John clenched his hand around his blade until his fingers ached and a strange stillness seemed to enfold him. The ring of clashing blades, the harsh cries of triumph, even the groans of pain faded into the background and he felt, all at once, that he was completely alone with the smell of death. He raised his sword, swinging it wildly to ward off the silence threatening to choke him. He struck a man with the side of his blade, forcing him to his knees in the grass. Thus the two men remained, frozen in time, until the enemy's death cry tore from his throat, waking John from the trance that had gripped him.
It was then that a bellowed order to retreat sliced through the glen. Incredibly, the Macleans fell away and began to back toward the sea. The Campbells watched in silence, their stained swords poised in the air before them. For an instant, they were too stunned to move; then they raced after the men who had slipped beyond the trees and away.
As he followed the path they had taken, John left the woods
that opened onto a rocky beach. The Macleans had sheathed their weapons and were hurrying over the sand toward several boats waiting to take them to Mull.
"After them!" John shouted, slashing at a wild myrtle in his path.
“No,” Colin said. “We’ve lost too many mean already. We wouldn’t catch them anyway, and I wouldn't be surprised if they had more men waiting on Mull. Mayhap they want to lure us to the island, then claim we attacked them on their own land. I don't know for certain, but I do know I won't be a fool twice in one day."
John cursed under his breath. "I didn't even see Calder. How do we know he was here?"
"He was here. And no doubt he'll be back. Come." Colin nodded toward the shadowed glen beyond the trees. "We must see to our dead and go home."
~ * ~
When Colin, John and the other survivors drew near the arm of land that reached toward Kilchurn castle, they met the Earl and his escort returning from Cawdor.
"What the devil!" Argyll exploded. Both his sons were streaked with blood and dirt, and they led a string of riderless horses. Behind them came a group of tattered, weary men who seemed barely able to stay on their animals. "Was it Calder?" "Aye," Colin answered. "And ye needn't be wondering whether or no' Maclean is protecting the outlaw. That glen was so crowded with red-and-green plaid ye could no’ tell the enemy from the bloody grass. And there's something that puzzles me still. Calder had us. We couldn't move at all, yet he retreated. I don't like it."
The Earl regarded his eldest son with a troubled frown. "Ye can bet he means to strike again. Now he'll have even more reason to try to get the girl."
John, who had been thinking back to the moment of stillness in the midst of the battle, looked up, suddenly alert.
"What do ye mean?"
With a grim attempt at a smile, Argyll pulled a piece of parchment out of his doublet. "This document declares Muriella Calder to be sole legal heir to the Thanedom of Cawdor. Ye'll note the witnesses against her mother have sworn they were paid by Calder to lie. Even William Calder himself has signed."
"I don't believe it!" Colin cried.
"Believe," Argyll said. "Don't ye see what it means?" Nodding toward the empty horses, he smiled bitterly and declared, "We have won."
Chapter 12
"Listen," Muriella said. "'Tis so lovely."
"What is, miss?" Brow furrowed, Megan leaned forward to concentrate more intently.
Spreading her arms to encompass the narrow strip of shore, the placid loch and the pines and larches that crowded in toward the water, Muriella whispered, "The stillness. 'Tis for that I came." She tilted her face toward the sun, the first they had seen in days. It shone wanly overhead, barely able to warm the cold air, but Muriella welcomed it like an unexpected blessing.
For five days she had not been out of the castle. The rain had beat ceaselessly against the walls and turned the river outside into a torrent. Nevertheless, the pre
parations for the wedding moved forward. Although Muriella was not allowed to go out, the seamstresses came in. With them came the first of the wedding guests, who had begun to arrive from all over Scotland. The castle had rung with the sound of unfamiliar voices for many days now.
This morning, when the lowering clouds had parted at last to reveal a pale blue sky, the waters of Loch Awe had seemed to call to her from her tiny window. It had not taken her long to convince Megan of her need to escape. "But without Duncan and Adam," Muriella had insisted. "We'll go no farther than the
loch, and just this once I’ll no’ have their watching eyes following me."
Megan had hesitated, remembering all too well the morning a month ago when her mistress had gone to the Gypsy camp.
She would have refused at once, except for the look of pleading on Muriella's face and the chill that had settled into her own bones in the past few days. She too wanted to breathe fresh air, free of the musty dampness that had invaded every part of the keep.
Besides, her mistress had changed since that last visit to the Gypsies. Though the bitterness and anger that had once simmered in her eyes was no longer visible, Megan suspected it lay deeper beneath the surface now. Sadness still clung about Muriella like an invisible veil, but she did not lash out at the Earl or John or Colin—not even when old lump-in-brow taunted her.
She had been kind to Megan from the beginning, but now she reached out to befriend the other servants, and those few men willing to speak to her. “Much as I wish I could claim otherwise,” she had confided in Megan, “’tis true the Campbells have kept me safe.” She looked away to hide her face, but her voice trembled, betraying her. “So many seek to see me dead. So many have died to protect me.”
She was no more eager to wed John Campbell than before, but she kept her regrets and sorrow to herself. The servant had been unable to talk her out of her guilt over the deaths of the men who had died in her cause, and she walked as if their ghosts stood on her shoulders.
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