by Tommie Lyn
Mùirne sat on the floor in the corner, the side of her face bruised and swollen, staring at nothing, cradling the still, stiff form of Coinneach-òg in her arms, rocking him gently back and forth. Lying near her feet was Ma, her throat cut and blood pooled and congealed under her head.
The money bag lay empty on the floor at Mùirne’s side.
A half-stifled sob made its way out of his aching chest. The sound penetrated Mùirne’s daze, and she raised her eyes. She looked at him for a few moments, as though she didn’t realize who was standing before her.
“I…I was afraid they were going to kill us, going to kill us all. I…I offered them the money, to…to leave us alone, to spare my son. They took it, then they laughed at me and…” She looked down at Coinneach-òg, caressed his blond curls. “Why?”
“Who did this?”
“It’s the Cambeuls…” The words issued from Mùirne’s lips in a strange, childlike tone Ailean had never heard before.
Murderous rage erupted through him, and he trembled from the force of it. Then despair welled up, filled him, pushing the rage aside. He knelt by Mùirne and gently pried her arms from around their dead son. He took Coinneach-òg into his own arms, placed a kiss on the cold little brow, and laid the lifeless body on the boy’s small bed.
Ailean returned to Mùirne. She still sat on the floor, rocking, her hands lying limp on her lap. Something was different about her; what was it? He leaned over to help her up off the floor, and it came to him. Her belly no longer protruded, wasn’t distended with the child she was carrying when he left.
“The baby. Where is the baby?” he asked.
She kept rocking.
“Mùirne. Look at me,” Ailean said, raising his voice. “Where is the baby?”
She blinked, tried to focus on his face. “The baby? The baby…the baby…”
Her eyes turned toward a small bundle of rags on the other side of the cold hearth.
Ailean went to it and hesitantly picked up the little parcel. He pulled back the cloth and revealed a perfectly-formed, dead baby boy.
“There was no one to help…and he couldn’t breathe…he never breathed…he never cried, and he never breathed…”
Ailean laid the baby down, came to Mùirne and took her hands in his. He pulled her to her feet, but she couldn’t stand. He swung her into his arms, carried her to the bed, and laid her on it. She rolled onto her side and curled into a ball. Ailean pulled a blanket over her shoulders and went to his mother’s side.
As he looked down at her weathered features, the wrinkled brow, the calloused hands, hatred and anger so filled him he could scarcely breathe.
I can’t endure this. I…I…
He tore his eyes from the sight, tilted his head back and stared at the rafters overhead.
What am I going to do?
He stumbled out the door, leaned back against the wall, eyes closed, hands clenching, unclenching. He regained control, cleared his throat and looked around.
All was quiet.
He went to Coinneach’s cottage. No one was there. A quick check of the other neighbors’ homes showed they were all empty.
Ailean got a spade from the barn and trudged up the knoll near the upper woods. He dug three shallow graves, attacking the ground with the spade as if the farming implement was a weapon and the earth was his enemy, his breath coming in rasping gasps. When he finished, he carried the bodies, one by one, and laid them in the ground.
Ailean buried his mother first.
He placed her body in the grave and said, softly, “Ma, I’m sorry. It’s my fault. If only I’d got here sooner—” His voice broke, and he paused. “Now, I’m the only one who’s left to mourn you, and I can’t even cry for you. I’m too angry to cry. Good-bye, Ma.”
He covered her with a blanket and filled the grave with the earth she had trod most of her life.
Coinneach-òg was next.
Ailean looked at his son one last time, stroked the soft blond curls that framed the little face, felt the dried blood that matted the curls on the back of the small, dear head.
“You were a brave little man,” he said, with a catch in his voice. “I was so proud of you.” Ailean hugged Coinneach-òg, wrapped him in a blanket and laid him in the small grave.
Then the baby.
Ailean pulled back the tattered cloth wrapping and stared at the baby’s tiny features. He trailed a finger across the delicate cheek in an unfelt caress. He covered it again and placed the bundle into the hole.
As the last rays of the sun streaked through the clouds from the blood-red western sky, he shoveled dirt into the small grave and buried the last of his dreams.
Ailean returned to his cottage, closed and barred the door. He climbed into bed fully clothed, lay on his side behind Mùirne and put his arms around her. He fell asleep, and during the night, he awoke once to find Mùirne had turned toward him, put her arm across his waist and her head on his shoulder, like she always did in her sleep on any other ordinary night.
But this was not any other night. And nothing was ordinary any more. Nothing was the same, would ever be the same again.
How could they survive? Ailean wasn’t sure that he wanted to survive. His dreams of a good, simple life with the woman he loved, surrounded by family and friends, were crushed, destroyed. Everything he had loved or wanted was gone.
All except Mùirne. But even she was not the same, was not his lovely Mùirne. There was only an empty shell in his arms where Mùirne had dwelt.
____________
Cannons were thundering. But no. It wasn’t cannons, couldn’t be cannons.
It took a few seconds for Ailean to fully awaken and realize where he was. He was at home, in his bed. Someone was pounding on his door. He sat bolt upright and jumped off the bed. He looked around desperately for something to use for a weapon and but found nothing. His walking stick, like his sword, lay somewhere on Drummossie Moor, and his dirk had been stolen.
“Mùirne MacPhàrlain! Open this door, Mùirne! Open it or we’ll break it down!”
He heard a piteous cry from Mùirne, “No, no, no…”
He turned to her. She sat in the middle of the bed, her hands wringing and twisting about each other, her eyes wide, staring at him in terror but not seeing him, whimpering “No, no, no…”
“It’s me, my love. It’s me,” he began as he heard the door splinter behind him.
He whirled around to see two men in Cambeul tartan invading his small home.
“This is my home,” he shouted. “You are trespassing on MacLachlainn land. Leave! Leave while you still can!”
“MacLachlainn! What are you doing here?” said Latharn Cambeul, as he entered the cottage behind his two men. “We heard that just about all of you MacLachlainns who fought at Culloden were dead.”
“Latharn!”
“And it’s not MacLachlainn land any more. All the land of you Jacobite rebels has been forfeited. You are the one who is trespassing on land that now belongs to the king. And, probably, will soon belong to me,” Latharn said with a sneer.
He glanced around the cottage with disdain. “To think Mùirne MacPhàrlain has lived in this hovel with a stupid oaf like you when she could have—” He broke off as he caught sight of Mùirne, with her bruised face, sitting on the bed. “MacLachlainn, what have you done to her!”
“Not I. You! I found her like this yesterday. She said it was you Cambeuls who did this to her. And killed our son.”
Ailean moved so he stood between the men and Mùirne. The only thing he had left to use for her protection was his physical body. He’d give his life before he would let one of the Cambeul men touch his beloved Mùirne again.
“No. It wasn’t me. I’ve never been here before. My men told me that this was Mùirne’s cottage.” He glared at each of his men, one of whom lowered his gaze to the floor. “Odhran! You were just supposed to come find out where she lived…and you did this?”
“It wasn’t me who hit her!” Odhran looke
d accusingly at Latharn’s other henchman, who was standing near Ailean.
“You did this, Dùghall?”
“I couldn’t help it!” Dùghall said. “The boy kept kicking me! Then he bit me, and when I slapped him off, his head hit the wall, and she and the old woman attacked me, and—”
Ailean yelled hoarsely and lunged at Dùghall. Ailean grabbed Dùghall by the throat, and they fell together to the floor. Latharn and Odhran kicked Ailean’s ribs and stomach, kicked his barely healed side, but couldn’t make him let go. One kick from Latharn’s booted foot caught Ailean under the chin, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed.
“Take off his féileadh-mòr. Hold his arms down and wrap it around him so he can’t move,” Latharn ordered. “And drag him outside.”
He turned to Mùirne, who was inching backward on the bed away from him, still whimpering.
“Come, come, my dear. No need to fear me,” he said in his most charming tones. He leaned over, grasped her arms and pulled her off the bed. “Come along. You’ll feel better later, when this is all over and I get you home.”
He put his arm around her shoulders and half-supported her as he steered her through the cottage. When they emerged from the cottage, Mùirne saw Ailean lying helpless on the ground. She shrieked and broke free from Latharn’s grasp. She ran to Ailean and fell to her knees beside him, plucking at the fabric that bound him. Latharn grabbed her arm, yanked her up and held her.
“As long as this whelp lives, you only have thoughts for him, do you?” Latharn said. “Well, I’ll take care of that. I’ll remove him from your life forever.”
Mùirne moaned and wailed, her cries growing louder and louder.
“Stand him against the wall over there,” Latharn commanded.
Dùghall and Odhran pulled Ailean to his feet and propped him against the wall of the cottage. His consciousness was returning, but he was still groggy and stood swaying.
“Remember, MacLachlainn, I told you once that you would pay? Now’s the time for that payment.”
Latharn pulled a pistol from his belt and aimed it at Ailean’s chest. He released his grip on Mùirne’s arm for a moment and held the heavy pistol with both hands to steady it. Mùirne bolted toward Ailean as Latharn fired, her arms spread wide protectively. The piece of lead from Latharn’s pistol slammed into her back, and she took two faltering steps, fell against Ailean and slid to the ground.
Ailean dropped to his knees beside her, struggling to free his arms so he could touch her, hold her. “Mùirne! Mùirne!” he cried his voice rasping with sobs torn from the depths of his soul.
She looked into his eyes and whispered, “I…I’ll love you…forever.”
____________
Latharn stood staring, unbelieving. He glared at the pistol for a moment, then flung it from him as hard as he could. He saw the expression of selfless devotion in Mùirne’s eyes as, dying, she beheld Ailean for the last time. And Latharn knew he would never receive such a look from her.
He began pacing, fury and self-pity mingling with the boiling mass of hatred he felt for Ailean MacLachlainn. He wanted to kill MacLachlainn with his bare hands, wanted to rip him apart. No! He wanted to cut MacLachlainn into tiny pieces with his dirk, a little at a time. Latharn wanted to make MacLachlainn suffer. How could he make him suffer most?
TWENTY-SEVEN
A cannon fired, and the sound reverberated up and down Loch Fyne. The echoes had hardly faded when it fired again. Some of the men in the cell looked toward one another in the semi-darkness, wondering. But not Ailean MacLachlainn.
“Don’t you want to know what’s happening, MacLachlainn?” the guard said.
He peered through the small grate into the stone-walled chamber and laughed. He was one of Latharn Cambeul’s men, and he missed no opportunity to taunt or harass Ailean.
“That sound is the cannon on a Royal Navy ship. They’re going to batter your clan’s castle into rubble. By tonight, Castle Lachlainn will be a pile of worthless debris. Like you.” He laughed again.
Ailean sat on filthy straw strewn on the cold floor of the cell, unresponsive. Nothing mattered any more. Insults which would once have made him draw his sword to do battle produced no anger, no urge to fight.
He felt as though his body was dry chaff from which the grain of life had been threshed. All that had meaning in his life had been swept away. There was nothing left to love, nothing left to care about, nothing left that could make him angry. It was as if he himself had been pounded into dust and blown away by a breath.
The resounding boom of cannon fire continued throughout the day.
____________
A key rattled in the lock, and a soldier swung the heavy wooden door open. Another entered the cell with a lantern. The men inside blinked and squinted at the unaccustomed light. Some shifted their positions, chains clinking and scraping on the stone floor.
A man dressed in Lowland clothing, accompanied by two redcoats, strode through the open door. He pulled a handkerchief from his sleeve, put it to his nose and took a step backward. He said something in the unintelligible Sasunnach tongue to the soldiers, handed one of them a folded paper and hurried away, his footsteps echoing down the corridor.
The soldier read what was written on the paper and said something the Gaelic-speaking men in the cell could not understand. Most of them stared at him with blank expressions. He stepped farther into the cell, and, since Ailean sat closest to the door and was nearest his foot, kicked Ailean’s leg with the hard toe of his boot.
“He said to stand up,” said Ruairidh, who could understand English.
The prisoners began to stand, but they were not moving fast enough to please the soldier, and he administered another kick, this time to Ailean’s hip.
“‘Get up’ is not all he said,” muttered another of the inmates of the cell. “I don’t understand much of their jabber, but I know part of what he said. He called us ‘filthy dogs.’”
When the men had struggled to their feet, the soldier read aloud from the paper.
“He says we have drawn lots and five of us have been selected,” Ruairidh told the men.
“Drawn lots? When did we draw lots?” one man asked.
“That’s what they’ve written on the paper, probably to fulfill some law. Who knows how they picked the five,” Ruairidh said.
The soldier stopped reading and spoke harshly to the men.
“He said to be silent,” Ruairidh said under his breath.
When the murmuring ceased, the soldier continued reading.
“He says those five men will be taken to Carlisle to be tried for treason and punished for all of us. They’ll be hung. The rest of us will be transported to the plantations,” Ruairidh told his cell mates. “He says we will never see Scotland again.”
“Plantations? Where is that?” asked another prisoner.
“Somewhere in the colonies, I think. I don’t know. I’m just telling you what he said,” Ruairidh answered. “And he says to step forward when he reads your name.”
“Thomas Cameron,” the soldier read.
The Camshron clansman moved forward and stood in front of the soldier.
“Rory McLachlan.”
Ruairidh took his place behind Tòmas Camshron.
“Alan McLachlan.”
Ailean shuffled forward to stand behind Ruairidh.
“James McLean.”
Seumas Mac’Ill’Eathainn moved into place next.
When the soldier finished reading the list, the men whose names had been read were led down the corridor and out of the building. Other soldiers waited outside to escort them to the shore of Loch Fyne.
“Look over there.” Ruairidh inclined his head, gesturing toward a small crowd of gawkers.
Ailean looked in the direction Ruairidh had indicated and saw Latharn Cambeul standing at a short distance, watching, arms crossed and feet planted wide. Ailean stopped and glared at Latharn, his hands clenching and unclenching.
He rais
ed an arm, pointed a finger at Latharn and screamed “Murderer!”
Before the soldiers could stop him, Ailean started to run toward Latharn, his arms outstretched, his fingers curved like talons. But the shackles on his ankles tripped him, and he fell to his knees. He crawled toward Latharn emitting a guttural, animal-like growl of outrage.
A soldier clubbed Ailean’s back with the butt of his musket, and Ailean fell on his face, gasping in pain. Two soldiers seized his arms and lifted him, shouting at him in the Sasunnach tongue. They dragged him back to the line of prisoners and set him on his feet.
Ailean struggled to keep his footing, wheezing and straining to get his breath, one soldier on each side of him, propelling him forward.
Small boats awaited them at the shore. The prisoners were conveyed, eight in each boat, to a ship anchored in the loch. Ailean and Ruairidh were assigned to the same boat.
As it moved across the water, Ruairidh took one long last look across the loch at Clan MacLachlainn lands. When he got a glimpse of the ruins of Castle Lachlainn, he sucked in an audible gasp and averted his eyes, stared at the shackles on his ankles. He set his jaw, raised his head and turned it away from the last view of his home.
Ailean scanned the glens and hills and mountains where he had lived and worked and played all his life. Niall’s words drifted from his memory.
“I have a feeling of dread that this is all going to pass away, and it makes me want to run. To run far away where nothing bad can touch me. Can touch us.”
His gaze came to rest on the heights where he’d sat and planned his future, where he’d daydreamed of an exciting life of adventure as a warrior, had fantasized about a peaceful life with a woman who loved him, surrounded by family and friends.
Niall had been right. Everything had passed away, everything Ailean held dear was gone. And he wished he had died beside Niall that day on the moor, wished that he’d not survived to see this day.
The Sasunnach sailors mocked the Highlanders as they rowed them to the ship. Ruairidh didn’t translate the insults. He sat in silence, his back rigid and his eyes straight ahead on the ship.