Plaid Nights Anthology

by Torquere Press LLC

  “Ye warned him.” Eoghann’s voice was soft, taut, vibrating with anger. “Ye planned to murder him on his wedding day. When he was only acting in the best interest of his clan.”

  “And we were only acting in the best interest of ours,” Conall said. He believed what he said. He met Eoghann’s snapping dark eyes.

  “Aye,” Eoghann spat. He was standing, holding his clenched fists firmly against his kilt, probably to keep himself from striking Conall. “Because acting in the best interest of your clan obviously called for an alliance with Colin Campbell.”

  Conall pushed himself up to his elbows. “What’s your meaning?” No one was supposed to know.

  “Ye know my meaning, tolla-thon. Only Colin Campbell has the power to raise the MacFarlane chief to arms.” Eoghann spit on the floor. “And I thought MacDougalls had more honor than that. Ye supported the Lamont claim against Robert the Bruce.”

  Conall felt a growl build in his throat. “Just like a Lamont. Ye speak as if ye were there—as if ye have any claim to that. As if ye have any claim over me. Ye don’t.”

  Eoghann spoke as if Conall hadn’t. “The Campbells and the King have been swindling the lands, killing the men, and raping the women from every clan in Argyll for generations. Our homes, our holy places. And at the first sign of difficulty, that was your answer? To ally with them—not just them, but the bloodiest chief they’ve yet had? To murder one of the only men in the Highlands who had the power to check them?”

  “Ye’re a Lamont,” Conall said. “What’s more, ye’re a healer. Ye have no notion of what it means to be a warrior for your clan. Ye’re blinded by memories older than ye are. Don’t speak of things ye don’t understand.” Conall turned onto his side, despite the pain it gave his rib wound, just so he could put Eoghann at his back.

  “Leam-leat,” Eoghann said. “’Tis ye who doesn’t understand.”

  Chapter 2

  The principal thing about Blair was this: he was as stubborn as the ox most folk compared him to. The principal thing about Eoghann was that he could be just as bad.

  “If ye do not sit when I say, ye’ll be sitting until they lay ye out for your own funeral, ye pig-headed pillock.”

  “Ith mo chac,” Blair growled. He’d only managed to turn onto his side from his back, and already he was panting hard. He looked across the room at Conall. “Will ye not fight for your brother’s honor, caochan?”

  Conall was propped up against the wall behind his pallet, his left arm slung across his middle in instinctive protection of his rib wound. He looked pointedly at the bindings on his right hip. “To the death,” he said. “I am profoundly shocked that ye did not swoon on the spot at such an insult.”

  Blair groaned and rested his head against the ground. He glared at Conall’s hip for a moment more before asking, “And what did ye do to yourself, then?”

  “A MacLaren pulled me off of Luasganach,” Conall said. He rubbed his thigh at the pain memory. “He pulled hard, and I landed a bit askew.”

  “He rammed his leg clean out of joint, is what he did,” Eoghann said. He had his familiar disapproving expression in place. “Lucky he’d nearly bled out from his gaping side wound by the time ye got to me, else ‘twould have taken three men to hold him down so I could ram it back in.”

  Eoghann looked at Conall at ram it back in. Conall flushed. His traitor heart hoped that Eoghann’s derision had care behind it at the same time that his coward stomach roiled. Eoghann most likely knew about him.

  “I told Alan MacCoul that neither of ye would be able to stand for two weeks at the least,” Eoghann said, “which ye won’t, not if ye want to keep standing—and he gave me a bag of gold to tend ye while ye heal. So there’s no point to try leaving.”

  Conall turned his eyes to Blair. He’d taken one arrow to the front of his shoulder, one clean through the same hand, and one to the vulnerable hinge on the back of his knee. Weeks without moving—without riding, hunting, or even walking—would be hard on him. Sure enough, Blair’s brown skin had gone a little green.

  Eoghann pushed air through his lips like a horse. “Och, aye, hundreds of angry clansmen cannot ruffle your plait, but the notion of two weeks abed turns ye greener than a loch serpent.”

  Blair rolled onto his back and muttered, “Duin do ghob.”

  Conall snorted. “He always swears too much when he’s ill.”

  Eoghann touched the back of his hand to Blair’s forehead. Blair—who was notorious throughout Dunstaffnage for resisting all healers and their treatments—barely tried to move. Conall sat up a little straighter.

  Without looking up from Blair, Eoghann pointed across the room, right at Conall’s heart. “Not a twitch from ye, tolla-thon.” Eoghann stood and went to the surgery table, where he’d laid out his supplies since moving Conall. Conall watched him pick up and discard different pouches, and peer into others like he was counting. He frowned and rubbed his forehead with the top knuckle of his thumb.

  Conall could tell Eoghann was thinking hard about something, and that he was taking great pains not to look at him. Eoghann looked at the ceiling or the floor or the tabletop, even once briefly at the hearth and Blair, but never at Conall’s corner. Never, until he suddenly looked up, caught Conall’s gaze, and stalked over to the pallet.

  “We have to go,” Eoghann said lowly.

  “Go where?” Conall asked, just as low. He propped himself up as best he could, stomach buzzing like a summer insect in anticipation.

  “Home. My home. To Kilmun.”

  The buzzing in Conall’s stomach became a quaking. Kilmun. The center of Lamont lands.

  “I have a boat just outside Strachur, on the other side of Loch Fyne,” Eoghann said. He seemed to talk mostly to himself. “From there it’s only thirteen and half miles down River Cur, Loch Eck, and River Eachaig. Should take us a day. We’ll all fit if ye don’t move about.”

  Another thirteen and half miles between Conall and his family, his people. Another large loch, another set of hostile clansmen. Conall did the math in his head—sixty miles between him and Blair and Dunstaffnage.

  “We should leave as soon as ye can be moved.”

  “Why?”

  Eoghann’s hands exploded into the air, gesturing aggressively. “Because your Blair’s got himself an infection, with the head wound it could do grave damage to his mind, and I don’t trust ye on your own for two weeks. I need supplies. I need my tools. Ye can stay here if ye’d rather.”

  That was not a choice. “I’ll not leave him alone. Why not get the supplies ye need and come back?”

  “He might be dead by the time I get back—or too far gone for me to help.” Eoghann meant that. Conall knew him well enough to see it.

  Da was at Dunstaffnage. And Ma, Elspeth, Sorcha, and Cait. Conall felt their blood in his veins calling him home, tugging him by the heart. Luasganach was waiting for him in the castle stables, ready for a good long journey that ended in the fields he knew.

  Yet at the same time, Conall dreaded going back. The thought of going to chapel every day, of passing the spot where Da felled Sir John Stewart every day, made Conall feel ill with shame. He felt a double shame for doubting Da’s decision. He should support his father and his chief. He should pray for his clan’s prosperity and dominion.

  And Blair. Blair was meant to be with Sorcha. Sorcha would never forgive Conall if his cowardice and homesickness caused Blair’s death. Conall would never forgive himself if he let Blair out of his sight in such a state. And for all that he’d heard of Lamonts, Conall knew he had no reason to doubt Eoghann’s healing or intentions. Lamonts didn’t bring outsiders into their lands if they could help it.

  Conall’s greatest fear was that his family would be unable to find him. Once healed, he and Blair could find their way back to Dunstaffnage easily, but healing would take too much time. Too much could happen. Conall didn’t want to go home and find the castle charred and sacked, or worse, find some other chief living in it.

  “I’ll
leave word in town.” Eoghann’s voice, soothing now, broke through Conall’s thoughts. Conall found his eyes again, and Eoghann’s gaze held an unnerving gleam of understanding. “Folk know who I am, where I’m from. I’ll leave word for any friends who come looking for ye.”

  Conall clenched his jaw. He hated how Eoghann knew him. He hated how little distrust he could muster. He hated what he was about to do.

  Conall held out his arm. Eoghann clasped it. “We leave in the morning.”

  ***

  In the morning, Blair was worse. He was sweaty and restless, but wouldn’t wake for anything. Eoghann held Blair’s jaw open with one hand and slipped sips of tea in with the other, his grim expression at odds with his gentle movements. Conall could only watch while Eoghann changed Blair’s bandages and swaddled him in the large tartan like a babe.

  When he was done with that, Eoghann stood and looked at Conall. “A cart’s coming to take us to Loch Fyne, but most of the journey will be by boat. It’d be best to know now if water travel makes ye shaky. My herbs for it are slow, and I don’t wanna drug ye asleep any more than ye want to be drugged.”

  “I don’t know,” Conall answered. “Most water travel I’ve ever done is riding Luasganach through the shallows.”

  Eoghann’s forehead creased. “I feared ye might say so.” He pulled an herb from his pocket, a leafy thing with tiny white flowers. “I leave it in your hands. If ye feel ill, this herb will ease ye. Chew, but do not swallow. Peace shall dull your mind, not will. I vow to bring ye where ye mean to go.”

  The plant trembled, though Eoghann’s hand didn’t shake. The speech sounded oddly formal falling from Eoghann’s tongue—then again, Conall reminded himself, he’d barely known the man two days. How was he to know how Eoghann spoke. Conall took the herb. “Thank ye.”

  ‘Twas a windy day on the loch. Not even halfway across, Conall leaned overboard and emptied his meager breakfast into the waves.

  “Hold off on that herb until Strachur, if ye can,” Eoghann said. He wiped Conall’s brow with his cloak. “There’s a lad.” He tied Conall’s hair into a horsetail, to keep the wind from whipping it against his face. Conall tried his best not to enjoy the care.

  Eoghann hired another cart that took them through the village of Strachur, to where the road crossed over River Cur. Conall could only lean against the wheel and breathe while Eoghann and the carter carefully hauled Blair into Eoghann’s boat. Eoghann produced a tall staff, sturdy for its thinness, and gave it to Conall to lean on as they hobbled down the bank and hauled him in, too. Conall tucked the staff between him and Blair. He pulled the white-flowered herb out of his sporran and was chewing it before Eoghann cast off.

  ***

  Conall was floating. He floated under a white sky, glowing and warm. A breeze played with the edge of his kilt, teasing like a lazy lover. Conall closed his eyes. His friends were near. He was safe.

  ***

  When Conall opened his eyes again, he wasn’t floating, but he was safe. He knew that, felt it deeper than his bones. He stood at the tree line near the bank of a loch, looking down at a familiar figure. At a man in a kilt the dark colors of the loch, standing in the water up to his knees. The man held a slim staff carved with rippling swirls. A wind that Conall couldn’t feel tossed the man’s kilt as if ‘twere a handkerchief. Conall was close enough to see that the man was completely bare except for the kilt, unarmed, unshielded against the elements that seemed hell-bent on tearing him apart.

  Tears grew in Conall’s eyes. He was safe, but the man was not. The man would walk out into the loch, and wrestle with the approaching storm, and likely be swallowed by it.

  The man took a step. A sound tore from Conall’s throat, a word, and the man stopped. Conall didn’t know what word he’d shouted—didn’t care, because he got the man to stop—but he knew what he said next.

  “Come home.”

  ***

  “Conall.”

  Conall gasped and sat upright—or as upright as his wound and the bindings around his waist would allow. He noticed immediately that he felt different—the rocking of Eoghann’s boat was gone. His vision still bobbed in and out of focus, making it difficult to get his bearings. He was in a cool, shadowed room with dirt floors and a stone ceiling, as if ‘twere built under a keep. Conall took a deep breath into his belly, and it smelled of herbs and loch water. He finally focused on Eoghann, who crouched at Conall’s shoulder and wore an expression that Conall had not yet seen. Eoghann looked downright scared.

  “Eoghann?”

  “I’m sorry,” Eoghann said. “The herb I gave ye—sometimes it gives people daymares—but it happens so rarely, and ye’re such a hearty bastard, I didn’t think—I’m sorry.”

  Conall had no idea what Eoghann had to be sorry for. He wasn’t thinking too hard about it either; he’d dreamed about the man in the loch, and he remembered the edges of the dream, and he was trying to remember the rest of it. It felt important that he remember the rest of it.

  “What happened?” Conall asked.

  Eoghann watched Conall as if waiting for him to weep. “For the most part, ye were fine. Blair, too. ‘Twas a bit lonely, steering the boat without any company, but I’m accustomed to it. We were near the end of River Eachaig when ye cried out.” Eoghann dropped his hands and eyes to his knees. His knees, which were bent around the corner of a proper hay-stuffed mattress. From there, Conall let himself see the simple bed frame, Blair on a similar bed to his left. A bigger, cleaner surgery table. A whole wall hanging with herbs and tools that Conall had never seen before. Noticing it all made Conall’s head feel clearer.

  “Ye cried out, Conall,” Eoghann said. “Ye cried out for home.”

  Conall watched Eoghann’s face, trying to match a name to the strange expression. Then he found it—shame. Conall slumped back against his elbows.

  “What, did ye not think I loved my home as much as ye do yours?”

  From the way Eoghann’s head snapped back to look at Conall, from the way fresh guilt showed in Eoghann’s eyes, ‘twas apparent that Eoghann had. Fury bloomed hot in Conall’s belly, but he held it back.

  “We’re in Kilmun, then, are we?” Eoghann nodded. “In your home?” Eoghann nodded again. Conall gave himself a moment to make sure his words were right. “I don’t want to be here, Eoghann, but ye have little to do with that. I don’t want to be here because here isn’t home. Simple.”

  Eoghann looked away again, cleared his throat. “I’ve never met a clansman like ye,” he said. “One who means what he says about duty and homelands. Most just use it as an excuse to hurt folk.”

  The fury settled into a low, manageable burn. Conall felt his shoulders unstiffen a little. “I’m guessing most of the clansmen ye’ve met have been Campbells. Not the best sticks to measure all others by.”

  “I know that,” Eoghann said, “but it’s hard to feel it. Ye all talk the same. We common folk have to wait until ye act to see who ye are, and often that means getting ourselves stabbed in the gut.”

  Tentatively, Conall raised his hand and clasped Eoghann’s shoulder, as he would Blair’s. “If it eases your conscience,” Conall said, “’twasn’t a daymare, just a fever-dream. I had one like it the first night after I woke.”

  Eoghann met his eyes again, frowning in thoughtfulness now. “What about?”

  A black loch shredded with wind. A man standing in it, unbent and proud. A storm rolling in. A sorrow that gripped his heart and squeezed it like a ripe berry.

  “Nothing worth telling,” Conall said. He nodded at the other bed. “How is he?”

  It did the trick—Eoghann’s sharp-edged face settled into his work. “Hard to tell,” Eoghann said. “We only just got here. I’ve had to reopen his wounds to get to the sickness in them.” Eoghann was cast in shadow from the hearth-fire, but Conall saw him set his jaw. “I’ll do all I can.” Eoghann looked over his shoulder at Conall and smiled—a poor attempt. “The best thing for ye is rest. I’ll send out for a crutch tomorro
w, and if ye’re very good, ye can try to use it in a few days.”

  The fire was low. The night was creeping in. Blair was quiet. Conall heard himself ask, “And if I’m very bad?”

  Eoghann turned, slowly, and looked down at Conall’s leg. Just as slowly, his fingertips whispered up the skin of Conall’s knee. They ducked shyly under the hem of Conall’s kilt, softly stroking Conall’s inner thigh. Conall kept absolutely still. Eoghann leaned in close, until Conall could feel Eoghann’s breath on his own lips. He could almost feel Eoghann’s lips against his. He wanted to move forward. He couldn’t move forward.

  “Get some sleep, tolla-thon,” Eoghann whispered. Then he stood, and was gone.

  ***

  Eoghann brought the crutch to the surgery, but he wouldn’t let Conall use it. He tested Conall’s readiness by pressing his fingers into Conall’s hip, making Conall hiss. Without the sleeping herb, Conall could feel the toll the travel took from his body—his joint felt swollen to the size of Luasganach’s cheek. Eoghann leaned the crutch against the wall with the thin staff he’d given Conall the day before.

  “The ribs, at least, are looking good,” Eoghann said. “Ye’re a quick healer.”

  “Not quick enough for this bloody thing,” said Conall, gesturing at his hip. His mind and body were more alert than they’d been since the Bridge of Orchy, and he could do bugger-all with them.

  Eoghann drummed his fingers against the mattress. “If ye like,” he said, “I can give ye a tonic to bring the swelling down.”

  His tone of voice made Conall frown. “Why in the name of the Lord haven’t ye given it me before now?”

  Eoghann rolled his eyes, and Conall’s gut settled. “Because the components can only be found on the banks of the Holy Loch, tolla-thon.”

  “Aye,” said Conall. “And just to be certain—”

  “I can see the loch from my front door. No more moving ye until ye can move yourself.” Eoghann bit his lower lip. The sight would’ve sent Conall’s blood flowing south if ‘tweren’t for Eoghann’s expression. “And ye’re steady with the thought of drinking a Holy Loch tonic, are ye?”