The Warrior

by Margaret Mallory

  Ragnall raised his arm to throw the stick again but stopped and stared up at the top of the bluff. “Father is here.”

  Moira flinched as she always did when she heard Ragnall call that foul man his father. When she turned and saw Sean’s bearlike shape above them, she fought back the wave of nausea that rose in her throat. Even from this distance, she sensed trouble. She did not want Ragnall here.

  “Ye know how he hates Sàr. Take him away,” she said. When Ragnall hesitated and gave her a worried look, she pushed him. “Quickly now!”

  “Come,” Ragnall called, and Sàr loped beside him down the beach.

  Moira forced her body to relax as Sean came down the cliff path toward her. Showing fear only emboldened him. Unfortunately, Sean could smell fear on you like the wild beast he was. When Sean reached her, he stood too close, towering over her with his hands on his hips and his legs apart in a wide stance. She smiled up at him.

  “My dear wife,” Sean said, his eyes as cold as the icy wind coming off the winter sea, “have ye something to tell me?”

  Fear closed her throat, so she brightened her smile until she could speak. “Just that I’m pleased ye could come out to take a stroll with me. I know what a busy man ye are.”

  The smell of whiskey wafted off him, heightening her alarm. It was early in the day for strong drink, even for Sean.

  “I saw the way my brother Colla was looking at ye in the hall at breakfast,” Sean said.

  Not this again. There was a time when Sean liked that men looked at her, and even provoked it by making lewd remarks about her. Now it only made him angry.

  Sean had always been difficult, but he had grown worse since the deaths of her father and brother Ragnall at the Battle of Flodden. As a result of their deaths, the fortunes of her clan fell, and with them, her own. Sean respected power, and she had lost hers.

  Moira had heard rumors that her clan was slowly recovering its strength under her brother Connor. Yet Connor had not visited her once to demonstrate to Sean that he placed a high value on her welfare. She would have begged her brother to come if Sean had allowed her to send a message.

  “I can’t help it if men look at me,” she said in what she hoped was a light voice.

  Sean grabbed her arm in an iron grip, sending apprehension thrumming through her.

  “Ye encourage them,” he said. “I see how ye flaunt yourself at them.”

  “I don’t.” She should have kept silent, but she could not seem to help herself. She was tired of the false accusations, weary of pretending he was always right, and sick to death of him.

  “Are ye calling your husband a liar now?”

  She squeezed her eyes shut and steeled herself for the slap.

  “Stop!” Ragnall shouted. “Let go of her!”

  Moira snapped her eyes open when she heard her son’s voice. Ragnall stood with his feet apart and with the stick he had been tossing to his dog clenched in his fist, a small boy mimicking the battle stance of the warrior he would one day be.

  Dread weighed down on Moira’s chest. “I’m all right,” she said, meeting Ragnall’s worried glance. “Put that down. Please.”

  Fear turned Moira’s insides to liquid as she watched Sean’s face fill with impending violence. Her world hung suspended by the thin thread of her husband’s control.

  When Sean threw his head back and barked out a laugh, Moira’s knees felt weak. For once, Sean’s unpredictability had worked in her favor.

  “Ye will be a fierce warrior like your father,” Sean said.

  Ragnall clenched his jaw as Sean roughed his hair.

  “One time, I’ll let ye get away with challenging your father,” Sean said, pointing his finger in Ragnall’s face. “But if ye ever raise your hand to me again, I’ll teach ye a lesson ye won’t soon forget.”

  Moira heard the low rumble of a growl and turned to find Sàr approaching with his teeth bared.

  “But as punishment, you’ll get rid of that dog,” Sean said.

  “Please don’t,” she said. Ragnall loved Sàr. It would break his heart to lose him.

  “Enough,” Sean said, glaring at her.

  “I won’t do it,” Ragnall said. “Ye can’t make me.”

  Oh, no. “Sean, he’s just a bairn,” she pleaded, “He doesn’t mean to challenge ye—”

  Sean jerked Moira’s head back by her hair so hard that tears sprang to her eyes. Despite the pain, her first thought was that she had succeeded in diverting him from taking his wrath out on Ragnall. But renewed panic flooded through her when Sean began dragging her across the rocky shore to the water.

  “Let me go! Please!” she cried as he pulled her into the frigid water.

  Ragnall was trying to follow, but the wolfhound blocked his path each time he got close to the water.

  “Make a choice, Ragnall,” Sean shouted. “Your mother or that dog?”

  The weight of the water dragged at Moira’s skirts as Sean hauled her into the surf. She stumbled over the rocks and fell to her knees, then gasped as an icy wave caught her full in the face. When Sean jerked her to her feet, her headdress fell off and was carried away with the next wave.

  She could hear Ragnall screaming over the crash of the surf as Sean dragged her out farther still. When he finally halted, they were waist-deep, and the waves crested over her head.

  “Shall I give her the witch’s test?” Sean called out to Ragnall. Then he grabbed Moira by the back of her neck and said, “We’ll see if ye are lying to me about Colla.”

  Witch’s test? Did he mean to drown her?

  Moira barely had time to take a deep breath before Sean plunged her head under the water. The shock of the cold nearly caused her to suck in seawater in a gasp. He held her under so long that her lungs were screaming for air. In sheer panic, she flailed her arms and scratched at him, but to no avail.

  When he finally pulled her head up, she coughed and wheezed. She could not get enough air. She felt as if the cold had frozen her lungs, allowing her to take in only short breaths. Her hair streamed over her face, blinding her, as she choked and shook uncontrollably.

  “Stop! Stop!” Ragnall’s wails came to her over the water. Through rivulets of seawater and strands of wet hair, she saw her son crying on the beach. He was still trying to come in after her, but the wolfhound barred his way.

  “I’ll give Sàr up!” he shrieked. “I will, I will!”

  “Are ye certain?” Sean’s voice boomed beside her. “I don’t want to find you’ve changed your mind later.”

  Ragnall darted past Sàr and into the water.

  “Ragnall, no!” Moira cried out just before Sean plunged her head underwater again.

  Chapter 2

  DUNSCAITH CASTLE, ISLE OF SKYE, SCOTLAND

  Clank! Clank! Clank!

  The rain pelted Duncan’s face as he fought back-to-back with Connor against the ten warriors encircling them. Not good odds, but their opponents’ number made them far too sure of themselves. As Duncan blocked one blade after another, he watched for the first man to make a fatal mistake.

  He did not have to wait long. The instant one of their attackers swiped at the rain running into his eyes, Duncan swung his claymore so hard against the man’s shield that he landed on his arse and bounced off the ground.

  “Have ye paid no mind to what I’ve been teaching ye?” Duncan leaned over and shouted at the man sprawled at his feet. “You’d let yourself get killed over a wee bit of rain in your eyes?”

  Duncan rammed his shoulder into another young warrior who was gawking at his friend on the ground when he should have been swinging his sword. Duncan’s mood was as foul as the weather.

  “Do ye think the MacLeods will wait for a dry day to attack us?” Duncan asked as he struck another man with the flat of his blade. Then he forced a pair of them back, shouting, “Or the MacKinnons? Or the Macleans? Or the—”

  “That’s enough for today, lads,” Connor called out and held up his hand. As the others moved away, he lowered
his voice and said to Duncan, “No need to take your temper out on them when it’s me you’re angry with.”

  Duncan dropped the point of his sword to rest on the ground. “Don’t ask me to go to Ireland.”

  He could not bear to see Moira living there with her husband. It had nearly killed him when he learned that she had married the Irish chieftain’s son only a fortnight after he left for France. Her heart had changed that quickly. Yet seven years later, her memory still walked beside him every day.

  “I wouldn’t ask,” Connor said, resting his hand on Duncan’s shoulder, “but ye are the only man I can send.”

  “I’m the captain of your guard,” Duncan said. “Ye need me here to train the men. As ye can see, they’ve a lot to learn.”

  Even as he said it, Duncan was aware that it was a lost cause. Connor was his best friend as well as his chieftain. They both knew he would do whatever Connor needed, no matter what it cost him.

  That didn’t mean Duncan had to like it.

  “Can I wipe the rain from my eyes now,” Connor asked, “or are ye going to take a swing at me?”

  Duncan swung so hard and fast that he nearly caught Connor off guard. For the next several minutes, they crossed swords up and down the courtyard and showed the others how true fighting was done. By the time they stopped, the rain was coming down in icy sheets, and steam rose from the heat of their skin.

  “I enjoyed that.” Connor grinned at him as he swiped at his face with his sleeve. The responsibilities of the chieftainship weighed heavily on Connor, so it was good to see him looking carefree.

  “After wasting my day attempting to forge warriors from the likes of those,” Duncan said, casting his gaze at the men who had remained in the pouring rain to watch them, “’tis a relief to see that my chieftain still knows how to fight.”

  “They are fine warriors,” Connor said, slapping Duncan on the shoulder. “They’re just not as good as we are.”

  As they walked through the puddles to the keep, Duncan remembered splashing through them one day when they were young lads. Duncan had come to a dead halt when Moira skipped down the steps of the keep looking like a sparkle of sunshine in her bright yellow gown. Connor didn’t notice her and sprayed her head-to-toe with mud. Ach, that lass could shriek! Moira pounded on Connor until their older brother Ragnall lifted her off her feet and carried her inside.

  Yet most of his memories of Moira were not from their childhood, but from the summer she was a breathtaking seventeen. As he climbed the steps of the keep, Duncan glanced up at the window of the bedchamber that had been hers. Moira told him how she had looked out of it one day that summer, seen him practicing with the other men, and decided he was the one she wanted. From that moment on, she had turned his world upside down.

  It had been two years since they had returned from fighting in France and taken Dunscaith Castle back from Connor’s uncle. And still, every corner and every stone of the castle reminded him of her. And damned fool that he was, he nurtured the memories. He could not give them up because they were all he had of her—and all he ever would.

  And the lass had forgotten him in a fortnight. Moira’s father spoiled her shamelessly. If she had not been willing to wed the Irish chieftain’s son, he would not have forced her.

  As Duncan entered the keep behind Connor, he saw that his sister Ilysa was fussing at the men, handing them towels and advising them not to bring mud into the hall or she’d forget where she hid the whiskey. Duncan was not sure how it had happened that Ilysa had taken over the management of the chieftain’s household—and he suspected Connor didn’t, either. Regardless, his slight, eighteen-year-old sister performed the duty with a firm hand. When she pointed at their muddy boots, both the chieftain and the captain of the guard wiped them before entering the hall.

  “Can ye have someone bring us whiskey?” Connor asked her.

  “’Tis on the high table waiting for ye, if your two cousins haven’t drunk it all,” Ilysa said with a small smile.

  With their mother dead, Duncan should speak to Ilysa about her future, but he felt wholly inadequate to the task. It seemed odd that his baby sister had been married, albeit briefly, while he was in France. Though she had lost her husband more than two years ago in the Battle of Flodden, she showed no interest in remarrying. Still, she would have to find something to do with herself once Connor finally took a wife.

  Connor’s cousins, Ian and Alex, were lounging by the hearth with their long legs stretched out before them and cups of whiskey in their hands. Ian had the same black hair as Connor, while Alex had the fair hair of the Vikings who spawned children while terrorizing these coasts in the old days. Though they still looked like the sort of men a wise father kept away from his daughters, Ian and Alex were both devoted family men now.

  “Ye should have joined the practice,” Duncan said by way of greeting. “If all ye do is make babies, you’ll grow weak and be no use to us in a fight.”

  “Great warriors like us?” Alex unfolded himself from his chair and stretched. “Ach, we don’t need practice.”

  Alex tossed his cup in the air, whipped his sword through the air several times, spun in a circle, and then caught the cup by the handle with his teeth, barely spilling a drop. The hall erupted as the men shouted and pounded the hilts of their swords on the floor, but Duncan ignored the display. Despite Alex’s foolishness, he kept his skills razor-sharp.

  Connor stood by the head table, his wet hair as black as a seal’s, and filled the two empty cups waiting there with whiskey from the flask. When he signaled for his cousins and Duncan to join him, the others in the hall moved away a respectful distance. Everyone understood that they were the men the chieftain trusted to advise him on important matters.

  The four of them had been closer than brothers since they were bairns. The bond forged in their boyhood had been strengthened by fighting side by side in countless battles. If they lived to be old men, they could bore young men with their tales for hours around this hearth on long winter nights. And Alex probably would.

  “We have accomplished much since we returned from France to find my father and brother dead and our clan in peril,” Connor said after they had settled at the table. “Our lands here on the Sleat Peninsula of Skye are protected by Dunscaith Castle on the west and Knock Castle on the east.”

  They raised their cups to Ian, who deserved most of the credit for their success in wresting Knock Castle from the thieving MacKinnons and Dunscaith Castle from Connor’s uncle Hugh. Unfortunately, after losing both Dunscaith and the chieftainship, Hugh had escaped and returned to pirating, which caused them a good deal of trouble.

  “Our people on the isle of North Uist are safe now as well,” Connor continued.

  This time they raised their cups to Alex, who was the new keeper of the clan’s castle on North Uist. While they had succeeded in driving off the pirates who had been raiding North Uist and the neighboring islands, Hugh had escaped that time as well.

  “But we cannot rest until we take back the lands the MacLeods stole from us,” Connor said. “’Tis time we did.”

  This was what they had all been waiting for. As one, they raised their cups and chanted, “A’ phlàigh oirbh, a Chlanna MhicLeòid!” A plague on the MacLeods!

  The MacLeods of Dunvegan were their chief rivals on the Isle of Skye, and there was a bloody history between them. Most recently, the wily MacLeod chieftain, Alastair Crotach, had taken advantage of the MacDonalds’ weakness after the Battle of Flodden to capture the MacDonald lands and castle on the Trotternish Peninsula of the island.

  “It won’t be easy,” Ian said, leaning his forearms on the table. “The MacLeods have more men and war galleys than we do. Also, Alastair MacLeod doesn’t have his miserable relatives trying to take the chieftainship from him like Connor does.”

  “Am fear nach eil làidir ’s fheudar dha ’bhith carach,” Alex said. He who is not strong must be cunning.

  “The MacLeods are too strong for us to take them a
lone,” Connor said.

  “We have a powerful alley in the Campbells, especially now that they have the Crown’s authority over the Western Isles,” Ian said. “Can they be persuaded to fight with us?”

  “Only if we are attacked,” Connor said, running his hands through his damp hair. “They won’t send warriors to help us recover our stolen lands.”

  “There’s a risk the other rebel clans will side with the MacLeods against us,” Duncan said, and immediately regretted speaking up when Connor fixed his gaze on him.

  “That is why I need ye to visit our ‘allies’ in Ireland,” Connor said. “We must know which side they will be on when the fighting starts.”

  “Send someone else,” Duncan said and took a drink.

  “Hugh has spies here at Dunscaith.” Connor leaned forward and spoke in a low voice. “Until I discover who they are, I cannot trust anyone but the three of ye. I need Ian here on Skye to defend Knock Castle and Alex on North Uist to protect our people there. That leaves you, Duncan.”

  “Maybe if ye see Moira, ye can finally forget her,” Alex said with his usual lack of tact. At least this time he did not add his personal nickname for her, Sea of Sorrow. “Isn’t it time both you and Connor took brides?”

  “Aye,” Ian said. “Connor, ye put the clan in jeopardy by not having an heir.”

  “I must make the best alliance possible with my marriage,” Connor said. “I can’t know which clan to choose until the dust settles after this damned rebellion is ended.”

  “I suppose that leaves Moira’s son as your heir for the time being,” Ian said.

  “That is another reason I’m sending Duncan to Ireland,” Connor said, turning back to him. “Hugh has shown he is willing to murder anyone who stands between him and the chieftainship. The lad’s father must be warned of the danger.”

  Damn. Damn. Damn.

  “So you’re going to Ireland.” Alex raised his cup to Duncan and winked. “Good luck telling Rhona. Ach, that woman of yours scares me.”