The Chieftain

by Martin, Caroline

  She went over to the table and examined the objects laid on its polished surface: an inlaid hairbrush, a matching comb, and a small carved box containing a silver brooch of intricate Celtic design. These were fine articles, such as a lady of wealth and fashion might be glad to own; not what she would have expected to find in the room of a barbaric tribal chieftain. If it was his room.

  A single picture hung on the wall near the table, a portrait of a woman, in a white gown crossed by a tartan scarf. Her dark eyes, the springing dark hair framing her oval face, were somehow disconcertingly familiar. Isobel did not like to linger long under the gaze of those painted eyes.

  She moved on to examine the bookshelves, and studied the leather covers, well-worn from use. A Latin grammar, a Bible, a number of works in Latin and French and English such as any reasonably well-educated man might be expected to have on his shelves; some poetry. All a little old-fashioned, yet very much like the selection James Carnegie kept in his library. Except that his books were rarely used. They were not, she thought, a lady’s books. But she was not sure what they told her about this room, or its owner.

  She took down the Latin grammar and opened it. Inside the cover the name ‘Hector MacLean’ was inscribed, in a careful schoolboyish writing. So they were his! But they did not fit at all with what she knew of the wild young man who had kidnapped her and brought her here and was even now drinking in the hall with his men and listening to the uncouth music reaching her faintly from below.

  A chest, carved like the bed, stood at its foot. She went to it and lifted the lid. Inside lay a plaid, neatly folded, a few well-laundered shirts, a tooled leather belt decorated with loops of silver, and, unaccountably, a coat of rich wine-coloured brocade. It was a little old-fashioned in cut, but would not have looked out of place in her parents’ best parlour. She found it impossible to imagine Hector dressed in anything so civilised. More in keeping was the sword that lay beside it, running the whole length of the chest. It was a massive weapon, broad-bladed and basket-hilted, and surely far too heavy for any but a giant to lift. She ran her finger over the entwined pattern decorating the blade, deep in thought, and then slowly replaced the garments she had disturbed and closed the lid.

  There was little else in the room to tell her anything about its unusual occupant, if such he were - only a high-backed armchair, and a door that opened to reveal a cupboard in the thickness of the wall, containing a pair of shiny buckled shoes, an odd heavy round object with a vicious central spike, which looked like some kind of primitive war shield, and not much else. A simple table at the bedside completed the furnishings. A tidy well-cared-for room, not luxurious, but clean and neat and almost comfortable. It did not fit at all.

  And then Isobel realised what was most strange about this place, about their arrival, and the decaying settlement, and the castle. What, above all, had made it seem so unreal. There were no women.

  There were men of all ages - bent and white-haired, middle aged, scarcely bearded. And they had homes, of sorts; and someone must care for this room, with its polished dust-free surfaces and spotless floor; and someone must have set the glasses ready downstairs at the fireside. But there were no women to be seen; no women and no children.

  Except for the woman in the portrait, and Isobel MacLean, wife to a man who grew stranger, more unknown with every second that passed.

  She went to one of the windows and sat on the wide sill, padded with a cushion of faded blue velvet, and looked out over the sea. Only it was not the sea on which her eyes first rested. She gave a little exclamation and pressed her face close to the small leaded panes of the window.

  Strange that she should not have noticed before, but on the ship her eyes had been turned to the shore where she must land, and, later, on her way along the path, she had been concerned only with the castle… Now she saw that the headland on which the castle stood reached out towards another shore. Two miles, perhaps, separated Ardshee from the more mountainous land across the sea, where dark purple-blue slopes rose from shore to sky. Another island, she supposed. She had not seen a map of her homeland, but she knew that the wild western Highlands were bordered with innumerable islands, of all shapes and sizes, like pieces roughly broken from the untamed mainland and scattered in the unpredictable sea. She had guessed, of course, that Ardshee lay on one of these, cut off more firmly than ever from the decencies of civilisation. She had not expected that another would lie quite so near.

  Or was it, perhaps, not an island at all? Could it be the mainland at which she gazed now? Wild, mountainous, full of dangers, but the same land mass on which her parents lived their ordered lives, and John Campbell walked in the sunlit garden.

  She felt a little shiver of excitement, which was not quite hope. And then, behind her, the door opened, closed again, and Hector came in.

  He stood there saying nothing for a moment. There was an air of good humour about him, which had, she knew, nothing to do with her; though he did not smile.

  ‘Did they bring you water to wash?’ he asked after a while.

  She shook her head. ‘No,’ she said, standing up.

  He went to the door, opened it and spoke to someone just outside. She heard steps hurrying away down the stairs before the door closed again.

  ‘They will bring food too,’ he said. And then he crossed to the chest and drew out the plaid she had seen. ‘When you have washed,’ he went on, ‘you will put this on.’

  He held it out to her, but she made no move to take it. She wrinkled her nose with distaste.

  ‘That?’ she exclaimed. ‘What do you take me for?’

  All trace of good humour left him at her words.

  ‘May I tell you, madam,’ he said harshly, ‘that I think you deeply unworthy ever to wear the plaid. You, a Lowlander - an enemy of my race—!’ The final pause was more eloquent than any words.

  Isobel gazed at him wide-eyed, shocked by the hate - worse, by the contempt - in his tone and in his eyes. He had said the word ‘Lowlander’ as her mother would have said ‘Highlander’, with loathing and detestation. It gave her an odd sensation, chilling and repelling her.

  ‘Why...?’ she began. She found that she could scarcely speak. ‘Why then...?’

  ‘Why do I ask you to wear the plaid?’ he finished for her. ‘Because you are, nevertheless, my wife - and have you seen how you look?’

  She went to the mirror then, and studied herself. She had to admit that the last two days had left their mark upon her. Not only was she dirty and dishevelled, but her gown was torn and muddy, her cloak stained with salt water. Even a plaid might be better than that - at least in Hector’s eyes.

  She turned to him again.

  ‘If I am so much beneath your contempt,’ she asked in a low voice, ‘why then did you marry me?’ But even as she spoke she knew it was a foolish question, for she knew the answer and it could only hurt her more to hear him confirm it.

  He laughed faintly, with derision. ‘For your money, of course,’ he said. ‘What did you think?’

  She turned away, sick at heart, and wandered to the window.

  ‘What possible use can my money be to you here?’ she asked wearily. ‘There’s nothing to buy, and nothing to spend it on.’

  ‘There speaks all the comfortable ignorance of the wealthy,’ he mocked her. ‘Did you not see how my people are living? Can you not guess that they want sound roofs and good clothes and a doctor? And a school perhaps, and help to grow better crops and to keep their animals from sickness.’

  She gazed at him in astonishment. ‘You want my money for that!’

  ‘Is that so strange?’ he returned.

  She could think of no reply, except that Hector was still an enigma to her. And then she remembered her thoughts of a few moments ago. ‘But why do you need schools? I have seen no children—And why are there no women?’

  He smiled then, briefly, almost with pity. ‘I forget you know nothing of our way of life. They are at the shieling, the women and children togeth
er, with the animals. They will stay there until the autumn, while the men repair the houses before the storms, and the cattle grow fat on good grass. When you have eaten we shall ride there, so the women and children may see my bride.’

  ‘Are you not ashamed to show them a Lowlander?’ she asked sharply.

  ‘Ah, but they know what you bring with you,’ he said.

  ‘But I haven’t brought it with me - and you may never lay your hands on it,’ she retorted, with a little gleam of triumph.

  ‘You are my wife,’ he said simply, as though no other reply was necessary. And then he turned away to admit the man who brought warm water in a silver bowl, and a tray set with food and drink. ‘Make yourself ready quickly,’ he said. ‘I will return for you shortly.’

  Washing and eating presented no problem, though Isobel shivered in the chill of the room as she stripped off the soiled garments. There was no fire in the wide hearth, and the solid walls admitted little warmth from the summer day.

  Once she had eaten and washed, however, and replaced her petticoat, Isobel gazed at the plaid in perplexity. Where, she thought, does one begin with this vast expanse of cloth? She tried to wind it about her, first this way and then that, becoming only progressively more entangled and more dismayed. Hector had thought her unworthy even to wear this garment. What would he say if he knew she had no idea how to put it on?

  She was close to tears by the time he returned. He smiled derisively.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I can see you are very much the Lowlander. The plaid has defeated you.’

  But he came to her side, took the length of material and deftly draped it about her, securing it at the waist with the belt from the chest, and at the breast with the circular silver brooch from the little box.

  ‘There,’ he commented. ‘Now you are more fit to appear as my bride.’

  She fingered the brooch, trying to accustom herself to the strange feel of the plaid about her. She had to admit that Hector had constructed a most effective garment from it.

  ‘It was my mother’s,’ he added, and it took her a moment or two to realise that he referred to the brooch.

  ‘Oh—’ she said, and then she indicated the brush and comb. ‘Were those hers, then?’

  ‘Indeed they were—And there is her likeness.’ His hand swept towards the portrait. The dark eyes, so like his own, gazed shrewdly at the tall graceful figure of his wife, as if they recognised the fear and misery tightening into a knot behind the silver brooch.

  As Hector took her arm, and they turned to leave the room, Isobel caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, and for a moment was startled. She had grown so used to her image clothed in matronly grey, or mourning black. Now, with the plaid draped in soft folds about her shoulders and her head, she looked unlike herself, the bright yet subtle colours of the tartan drawing colour even from her weary face. And she looked, too, as primitive as the Highlanders around her: another person, no longer the Isobel Carnegie who had left the kirk two mornings ago. It was an uncomfortable sensation, as if she had glimpsed a stranger.

  As she followed Hector from the room she wondered whether the person inside the enveloping plaid still had anything in common with the young widow of so short a time before.

  Chapter Five

  They rode sturdy ponies to the shieling. The piper went with them, and the inevitable tall Highlander - Isobel was fast growing to hate his presence as Hector’s constant shadow. The other clansmen followed them on foot, and the deerhounds ran alongside, veering off at intervals in pursuit of elusive scents.

  They took a steep winding track to the mountainside above the cliffs, where the rocky landscape was spread with grass and bracken and wild flowers. Little knots of stunted birch and hazel and rowan grew in the sheltered hollows, and bog myrtle scented the air. A breeze blew off the sea, but gently, just enough to take any discomfort from the heat of the mid-morning sun.

  They had gone perhaps two miles when they saw a small black figure outlined against the sky, like a sentinel keeping watch from the rising ground. Either it was further away than it seemed, Isobel thought, or it was a child. Even as she narrowed her eyes to see better, he disappeared. A few moments later a crowd of dark figures appeared in his place, large and small, waving, calling out, their excitement visible even at this distance.

  The approaching riders were almost swallowed up in the eager group as they reached the hill top. Hands reached out, voices were raised in lilting greeting, tousle-haired children jumped up and down. The welcome was for Hector, and he returned it warmly, dismounting to continue the short journey to the shieling on foot, asking questions of this one and that. Isobel could not understand what he said, but she could guess at the enquiries about the health of one and the child of another from the expressions and gestures of the women as Hector addressed them.

  To Isobel they were cool, but respectful and courteous. And she sensed beneath the rather distant words and gestures an immense curiosity about her. Good manners kept it in check, but she glimpsed covert glances stolen in her direction, remarks exchanged in an undertone when they thought she was not looking. She could see that they thought her beautiful, and were surprised at it, but she knew they were judging her too. They were making guesses at the quality of this foreign bride of their chieftain, the woman who was to bring them riches and hope for a better future. She sat stiffly on the ambling pony, and tried to gaze ahead at nothing in particular so that she should not see the speculative eyes turned on her.

  Beyond the rise the land dipped into a wide hollow. Sheltered on the windward side by tall pines, watered by a little burn, it lay bathed in sunlight, a natural haven on the bleak mountainside. Here a rough circle of simple turf huts, like large beehives, had been constructed, grouped in pairs, and close by shaggy cattle grazed on the soft hill grass.

  In one place a cooking pot bubbled on a fire burning in a raised stone hearth, in another dishes of cream lay ready for making cheese or butter, with the wooden churns beside them. Washing was spread on the grass to dry. And as the welcoming women led Hector and the menfolk into the hollow, the sound of singing filled it, and the whole place seemed alight with happiness.

  Once again Isobel had that overwhelming sense of unreality. She understood nothing that was said, no words of the songs, little of this foreign way of life. She was left at the end of that day with no more than a confused impression of the simple but joyous feasting that welcomed the chieftain and his bride.

  When Hector had helped her from her pony, he led her to a quiet place beside one of the huts where an old woman sat on a stool mending a plaid. She looked up as they came near, her face glowing, her very blue eyes bright with tears. She laid down her sewing and reached out gnarled hands. And to Isobel’s amazement Hector fell on his knees beside her and bent his head and the old woman leaned over to kiss his dark hair, murmuring soft endearments as he grasped her hand in both of his.

  After a time he sat back on his heels and looked up at Isobel, while the old woman continued to run one hand caressingly over his hair.

  ‘Isobel, I must make you known to my foster mother, Mairi MacLean.’

  He turned to the old woman and said something in his own language, and then took Isobel’s hand and laid it in that of the other woman. Instinctively she knelt too, and she felt the hand laid on her head and the murmured words of blessing.

  When she looked up the old woman cupped her face in work-worn hands and gazed into it long and silently, as if reading what lay there. Isobel felt that her whole soul was laid bare. It frightened her, and she shivered a little; and yet she sensed kindness and understanding, as if she could find a friend there if she chose. But what use was a friend who could not even speak to her in her own language?

  The greetings and introductions over, Hector lingered to talk for a little longer and then led Isobel to where a rough seat had been prepared for her to one side of the hollow. The whole experience left her feeling an unaccustomed warmth towards her husband, now he had so
openly exposed his emotions to her, and asked her to share a little of them. For the first time she almost liked him.

  ‘Did your mother die when you were young?’ she asked, as they crossed the trodden turf between the huts.

  ‘Indeed no,’ he replied, a little surprised. ‘She died last year, soon after my father. I think they could not live long apart.’

  ‘I thought that must be why you had a foster mother,’ she explained.

  The warmth began to fade as she saw that derisive smile pass briefly across his face. Clearly she had only succeeded in reminding him once more that she was a Lowlander, ignorant of Highland ways.

  ‘It is the custom,’ he told her. ‘The son of the chieftain is always fostered until he reaches twelve years or so with a woman of the clan. Thus he grows at one with his people, and her children are his brothers.’ He glanced across at the tall Highlander, who stood talking to a pretty black-haired girl. ‘Hugh there is the son of Mairi MacLean and Seumas her man, now dead.’

  Isobel’s sense of isolation returned to her, and the last remnants of her incipient liking for Hector vanished without trace. In silence she allowed herself to be deposited on her solitary throne and abandoned to her painful reflections. A slow lilting song aching with grief and loss reached her, sung in a deep contralto voice, entirely in keeping with her thoughts.

  They returned to Ardshee late in the day, seen on their way by the same group who had gathered on the hilltop this morning, the evening sun now full in their faces.

  Isobel felt utterly weary now, and thought longingly of sleep. Even the recollection that Hector would lie beside her - she supposed - could not quell the longing.

  But she found as they entered the castle that the coming of night did not mean that activity was at an end. In the hall, watched by a solemn portrait of Hector’s father, as fair as his son was dark, a great fire was brought to life and the celebrations began in earnest.