“Well, then. I’ll no’ be offended. And it’ll no’ be brought up outside these walls,” Ealasaid said.
“Verra well, then. D’ye want to hear it?” he said to Beth.
“Not if you don’t want to tell me, no,” she replied, giving him the chance to back out.
He stood and went to the shelf in the corner, taking down a bottle of wine and three glasses. He shared them out, then sat down and stared into the fire for a short time.
“I suppose your grandmother’s right, Beth,” he said finally. “You should know, and it’ll give ye some idea of how things are up here when it isna all milk and honey, as it is now.
“Well then, as I said, Duncan was nineteen when he married Mairi, and she was seventeen. She was a bonny lassie, a Cameron. She had a fearful temper on her when roused, but Duncan could calm her, he’s always had that way wi’ people. Anyway, they’d been married for about six months, when the MacDonalds decided to raid our cattle.”
“I thought you said the MacDonalds and MacGregors were friends!” Beth said.
“We are, but that doesna stop ye raiding each other. Everyone does it, it’s no’ a matter for hatred, more a warning that ye should be taking better care of your animals. We’d hae done the same. There wasna any ill feeling over that. Well, no’ much, anyway. We didna live here then, ye ken, but a wee bit further north. Anyway, they made off wi’ thirty head of our cattle from the hills, and Mairi had been watching over them.”
Beth suddenly wished that she hadn’t asked how Mairi had died. A terrible dread filled her.
“Did the MacDonalds kill Mairi when they took the cattle?” she asked apprehensively.
“God, no. They took her along wi’ them. No, they didna harm her at all. Anyway, as I said, she had a fearful temper, and she was determined they were no’ going to have an easy time of it, so she hamstrung three of the calves wi’ her knife to slow them down. Of course the mothers wouldna carry on without their babies, and so the MacDonalds had to stop to try to sort it out. She was hoping to run away in the confusion and tell us so we could send a party out tae get them back.” He drained his wine and refilled the glass.
“She might have managed it, too. Certainly the MacDonalds were concentrating so much on the cattle that they didna hear the MacFarlanes until they were almost on them. There was somewhat of a stramash, and Mairi was caught in the crossfire and killed. Two of the MacDonalds were killed as well, and three of the MacFarlanes. The MacDonalds got the better of it, and brought the cattle and Mairi’s body back to us the next day.”
“That was awfu’ brave of them,” Ealasaid commented.
“Aye, it was,” Alex agreed. “All the more so because we MacGregors are no’ renowned for our reasonable natures, and they didna ken what manner of chief I was, being so new to the job, as it were. They even admitted that they didna ken if it was them or the MacFarlanes that had killed her, things being somewhat frantic at the time. I admired their courage and agreed to leave it to Glencoe to decide their punishment, although I tellt them I would be visiting him to make sure that justice had been done.”
“It was,” the old lady said. “Alexander had them flogged. He tellt me that himself.”
“So it was an accident,” Beth said. “God, poor Duncan. He must have been heartbroken.”
In spite of Beth’s earlier comment about the disappearance of the porcupine, Alex now scrubbed his hand viciously through his hair. She leaned over and captured his hand as he was about to repeat the gesture.
“You don’t have to tell me any more if you don’t want to,” she said, aware that there was clearly more to the story and that it was not pleasant.
“I’d as soon get it over with now I’ve started,” he said. “I’m all right.”
The old lady stood up suddenly, with surprising agility.
“Well, an ye’ll excuse an old lady’s rudeness,” she said. “It’s been a long day, and if ye’ve no objections, I’ll away to my bed.”
Alex and Beth stood to wish her goodnight and Alex gallantly escorted her up the steps. Beth heard a short whispered exchange between her grandmother and husband, and then he came back down alone, his eyes strangely moist. He pulled his chair closer to Beth’s and she took his hand again. He continued with the story, his eyes dark with remembered pain.
“I sent the raiders off home, and then I called Duncan in, and tellt him what had happened. He was always the reasonable one of us three, always the peacemaker. He still is. I kent he’d be verra upset, but I was sure he’d understand that it was a tragic accident, too.”
“But he didn’t understand, did he?” Beth said.
“No, he didna. He went wild with grief, said he was going to kill every MacDonald in Scotland, and…I’ve never seen him so, and hope I never will again. I ended up having to lock him up for two days until he calmed down. I thought that would be long enough. I didna understand then. I do now.”
“Understand what?” Beth said.
“What love can do tae a man, how it can drive him beyond reason. MacDonald of Glencoe understood it, thank God. But I’d never been in love then, had no idea…Christ, Beth, if I even think about anyone hurting ye, it makes my blood boil. I’d kill any man who laid a violent hand on ye, ye ken that.”
She did.
“Do I ken him?” he asked suddenly.
“Who?” she asked, thoroughly confused.
“The man who hurt ye? I’ll no’ force ye to tell me who he is, until ye want to, but if I ken the man, it’s a whole different matter, ye understand.”
She was paralysed by the sudden change of subject. What could she say? If she admitted that Alex did know her assailant, he would insist on her identifying him. She had no idea what Duncan had done to his wife’s killers, but she could imagine all too clearly what Alex would do to Richard.
She had sworn not to lie to him. She could not tell him the truth. She sat there, stricken, speechless.
“I’m sorry,” Alex said. “I didna mean to remind ye of him and what he did. I can see I’ve upset ye. But I couldna stand it if I’d spoken pleasantly to the man unawares, and him having hurt ye so.”
She made her decision, and summoned up everything she had ever learned from Sir Anthony and everyone else she had had to dissemble with.
“No,” she said. “You don’t know him.” She looked him straight in the eyes as she said it, because if she did not he would know she was lying. He had to believe her, but when she saw by his expression that he did, she felt sick with shame and self-loathing.
“Well, that’s all right then. I’ll speak no more of it. I’m sorry,” he said.
She wanted to crawl away into a corner and die. He trusted her. He was sorry. For a moment she thought she was going to be sick, and she forced herself to concentrate on the continuing tale of Duncan until the feeling passed.
“Duncan waited for three days after Mairi had been buried, then he left. He said he wanted to be by himself for a while, to think things over, and I believed him. He’d never lied to me before,” Alex said.
Beth closed her eyes. She felt genuinely ill. How could this have happened? Three hours ago they had been sitting on a tree deeply in love, and now she had betrayed his trust. She swallowed, thankful that the story he was telling her was distressing enough to account for her behaviour.
“What did he really do?” she asked.
“He killed five of the MacDonalds who’d raided the cattle. The last one wounded Duncan in the side before he died. He was away for a week, and when he came back he was in a bad way, for the wound was turning bad.”
“But you said it was an accident,” Beth said.
“Aye, so it was, but Duncan didna see it that way. Whoever had killed Mairi, he blamed the MacDonalds, because they’d taken her hostage and should have looked after her. Well, of course I had some sympathy for him, but I also kent that I had maybe fifty men at best and Glencoe has nearly four times that number. If he chose to make a blood debt of it, which I was pretty sure
he would, we didna have a chance.”
“What did you do?”
“I discussed it wi’ the clan, and then decided that the only way to avoid annihilation was to go to Glencoe and ask him if he’d be happy to settle the matter by single combat. And then I made the mistake of telling Duncan what I intended to do. I thought he was too sick to say anything against it, but his fever had broken and he insisted that if anyone was going to die because of his actions, it would be him, no’ me, and that he would go and challenge the MacDonald chief himself. I couldna let him do that. I was in full strength and in all honesty didna rate my chances of survival very highly. Glencoe was a formidable man. Duncan, weak as he was and only nineteen, wouldna have had a hope.”
The candle guttered in the sudden draught, but Beth hardly noticed it.
“What happened?” she asked, thoroughly engrossed in the story again.
“He broke my wrist,” Duncan said from the doorway. His voice, normally soft and well-modulated, was flat and hard.
Beth started violently and turned to the door.
“I came to fetch my best plaid for the morrow,” he said, taking two paces into the room and then stopping.
“Would ye rather I didna…?” Alex began.
Duncan waved a hand in the air.
“No, I dinna mind if she kens about it,” he interrupted, then turned to Beth. “Ye’ll understand why I did it, I think,” he said. “Alex does, now. I was wrong, but I couldna say that if it happened now I wouldna do the same thing again.” He sat down heavily, his eyes guarded. “Go on,” he said to his brother. Alex searched Duncan’s face for a moment, then continued.
“As Duncan said, we argued and I broke his wrist. I couldna think of anything else to do. I couldna get him to see reason, and I wasna about to lose my brother as well as my sister-in-law.”
“Couldn’t you have just locked him up again?” Beth said. “You’d already done that once.”
“Aye, I had, but things were different by then. For one thing, he’d just killed five of the MacDonalds. There were those in the clan who resented the fact that he was risking a blood feud for the sake of personal vengeance over an accident. Others thought he had the right to challenge Glencoe himself. And quite a few didna see why their chieftain should risk his own life to save his idiot of a brother.” He smiled fondly at Duncan. “If I’d locked him up there was a good chance that the minute I left for Glencoe, someone would hae let him go.”
“I’d have made sure they did,” agreed Duncan.
“But you were the chieftain. Isn’t your word law?” Beth said.
“Aye. It is, now. But ye’ve got the wrong idea about chieftainship, Beth. The chieftain isna God. Nor is he the king. When the king dies, his eldest son takes the throne, no matter what kind of dribbling idiot he is. When my da died, I had the right to take his place – but I had to prove myself worthy of it. If I hadna, the clan would have found someone else more suitable. It was made harder for me by the fact that I’d been away in France for two years. There were those that thought I might have gone soft while I was there, and I’d no’ been the chieftain long enough to prove I hadna, when all this happened.” Alex paused, searching for the right words to try to justify his action. “We’re a violent clan, Beth,” he said finally. “All the clans are violent when they have tae be, but the MacGregors are more so, being proscribed, because we have no recourse to law. Often, when I’m faced wi’ a problem, the first solution I think of is the violent one. It’s second nature. Then I think again and often I’ll come up wi’ another way. And sometimes I won’t.”
“Like with Henri,” Beth said.
“Aye. I had to kill him. And I had to make sure that there was no point in Duncan following me. And the only way I could do that was to make sure he couldna fight the MacDonald, and wouldna be able to for quite a while.”
“He was right, Beth,” said Duncan. “I’d have done the same in his position.”
“Go on then,” said Beth. “What happened next?”
“I went to MacDonald,” said Alex, “and I tellt him everything, including what I’d done to Duncan, so that he wouldna think Duncan didna have the courage to meet him. He agreed to the single combat, but said that if I didna take it amiss he’d no’ fight me himself, lately having been ill, but get one of his clansmen to do it instead. I didna take it amiss, as I couldna think of any member of the clan I’d be afraid to fight, excepting the chief himself.”
“But you would have fought him, if you’d had to,” Beth said.
“Aye, of course I would. It isna cowardly to be afraid. It isna cowardly to run away either, if you’re faced wi’ impossible odds. It’s common sense. Unless you’re betraying others by doing so. Of course now I realise that Glencoe hadna been ill at all, but admired my courage and understood why Duncan had acted as he had. He didna want a blood feud either, which could have escalated tae include other branches of the MacGregors and MacDonalds in time. So he chose a man who was well-matched to me in size and strength, and we fought. He was a bonny fighter. Malcolm, his name was.” Alex stopped and looked at Duncan. A look of such intensity passed between them that Beth had to turn away.
“Needless to say, Alex killed Malcolm, and there has been mutual respect between Glencoe and us ever since,” Duncan took up the story. “And I’m alive, although for a long time I didna thank my brother for that blessing. And your clan and mine are no’ embroiled in a bloody and pointless feud, but instead are going to enjoy a great celebration of the joining of a MacGregor and a MacDonald.”
“I’m so sorry, Duncan,” Beth said helplessly.
“Dinna be sorry, lassie. Just love each other, like Mairi and I did. Ye do, I can see that. And treasure every day as though it’ll be your last. If I’d have…” he stopped, and his face contorted for a moment, then he stood.
“I’ll be taking my plaid, then,” he said. “And I’ll wish ye a good night.” He moved across the room to the chest where all their clothes were kept and which doubled as a seat, and busied himself, his back turned to them. Beth opened her mouth to speak, her eyes brimming, but Alex folded his hand over hers and she remained silent. Duncan closed the lid of the chest and walked to the door, a bundle tucked under his arm. He nodded once and was gone.
Alex’s eyes remained on the door, dark with a multitude of emotions Beth could not even begin to identify.
“I’ll no’ speak of it again, if it’s all the same to you,” he said, “unless ye’ve any questions?”
She had no questions, and when they went to bed they did not make love, by mutual consent, being too emotionally distressed to do so, although the reasons for their distress were not entirely the same. Instead they curled up together wrapped in each others’ arms and silently waited for sleep to come.
It was a long time coming, particularly for Beth, whose head was reeling, not just with the news of Duncan’s tragic marriage and the knowledge that the wound it had inflicted on him had not even begun to heal after eight years, but also with the awareness that she had betrayed her husband’s trust in her, and broken her own vow not to lie to him. She felt justified in doing so; much as she hated Richard, she would not be directly responsible for his death, as she would be if she told Alex what he had done to her. That Alex would succeed in killing Richard if he wished to, she did not doubt for one moment. But she could not live with the death of her brother on her conscience. After all, he had come off worst in the encounter between them. They were even, in her view, although Alex, with the pride of the Highlander, would not see it that way, she knew.
No, she reasoned, she could not have done other than she did. The thought should have comforted her, but it did not.
Alex had been breathing softly and regularly for a long time before tiredness overwhelmed Beth’s conscience and allowed her to join him in sleep.
When Beth awoke in the morning Alex was kneeling down near the side of the bed, clad only in his shirt. She watched him for a while through half-open eyes as he prepared h
is feileadh mhor, laying the long piece of faded green and brown material on the ground over his belt, then deftly pleating the long length of it, leaving a small amount at each end unpleated. He was unaware that he was being observed, and moved quickly and gracefully, performing the habitual actions automatically and expertly. She felt a small thrill of pleasure, seeing the heavy muscles of his shoulders and arms perfectly defined through the thin material of his shirt as he bent over his task, the strong wrists and long capable fingers, remembering the heavy, comforting warmth of him in the bed during the night as he had held her close to him.
The material prepared, Alex lay down on top of it, folded the unpleated material over his stomach, and buckled his belt tightly round his waist. When he got to his feet the lower width of the material had become a kilt, reaching to his knees, the upper part trailing over the belt almost to the floor. He reached behind, gathering the surplus material in loose folds, drawing it over his left shoulder and pinning it in place with an ornate silver brooch. It was a remarkable garment, she realised. A simple length of woollen material could become a kilt, a cloak, a blanket, even a shelter. This clothing, coupled with an imperviousness to hunger and even the most extreme weather made the Highlander a formidable foe; armed with pistol, broadsword, dirk, targe and bag of oatmeal, he could travel all day across country, unimpeded by the cumbersome baggage wagons containing tents and other provisions considered so essential to the average soldier. He could sleep anywhere, wrapped in his plaid, perfectly camouflaged, and materialise from the heather as if by magic at a moment’s notice to hurl himself at his unsuspecting, terrified enemy.
She had once been terrified of him, she remembered, in a disused room in a Manchester alleyway. She continued to watch him as he sat down on a wooden stool near the bed to pull on his hose. She was not afraid of him any more, although she respected him; it was impossible not to. He radiated confidence, authority and a carefully leashed power that could erupt into violence when challenged. Not against her; she knew that he would never raise his hand to her. But against anyone who threatened him or those he loved. It was a powerful aphrodisiac, having such a formidable man on your side, protecting you, loving you.
The Gathering Storm (The Jacobite Chronicles Book 3) Page 13