He waited for comment. Glenlyon offered none. It has rotted his brain! With precise diction, he clarified further. “Mary is Protestant. Her brother defies the Church of England . . . but Mary is of the proper faith, and she had the foresight and good sense to marry a Protestant, albeit a Calvinist: the Dutchman, William of Orange.” He waited again. “Do you understand?”
“What has this to do with Scotland?” Glenlyon asked peevishly.
It took immense patience not to shout. “All things have to do with Scotland. Mary is a Stuart, aye? Her husband is not. He is a Dutchman. His interests are different, his priorities otherwise.”
“Good Christ—d’ye think this matters to me?” Glenlyon was clearly out of his depth, and frustrated by ignorance. “James. Mary. What is the difference?”
“The difference is power, Robin. Until Argyll’s downfall, Clan Campbell was the most powerful in all Scotland. Our position is precarious, now . . . there are MacDonalds to contend with.”
He paused. He wondered briefly if his ignorant, bankrupt cousin comprehended any measure of what the Earl of Breadalbane hinted. One man might call it treason.
I call it survival. “Folly, aye?” Breadalbane sipped whisky; smiled across the liquor at his befuddled kinsman as he spoke of treason. “To put all our faith in a king who may be removed within a year?”
Glenlyon was silent. Rain rattled the latch on mullioned windows. Outside, the glow from lamps in Holyrood were wan blots against the darkness. The earl did not know if Glenlyon contemplated the magnitude of what he suggested, or cared little enough about any of the repercussions that would alter the shape of his country. But then Highlanders, for the most part, cared more for cattle than politics.
Breadalbane took up the folded paper and replaced it in the leather casket. He closed the lid, fastened the hasp, then looked once more at his kinsman. Commitment was his to make, his sacrifice. Or Glenlyon would commit nothing to Breadalbane when the earl most needed it. “I supported Charles during and after the Restoration,” he said. “I supported James against Argyll’s folly by keeping half of Clan Campbell home from the most recent hostilities. But I am convinced the days of our present monarch are numbered, Robin—and I am not a man who desires to see his clan fall on hardship because of policies determined by the Sassenachs in London.”
Two spots of color burned high in Glenlyon’s face. “You willna support James now?”
“True power lies in supporting the man most likely to keep the throne. James will lose it, I think . . . and a woman shall inherit it from him. But William of Orange is no fool; he will make his own decisions. England will answer first, and Scotland shall follow.” Breadalbane’s gaze was unwavering. “I prefer to lead.”
Glenlyon sat very still. Then he stirred, like a dog newly roused, and pulled himself upright. He looked at the casket on Breadalbane’s desk. “Comhairl’taigh.”
“Indeed.” The earl spread his right hand over the domed lid. “If I am to succeed in maintaining Clan Campbell’s preeminence, I will require the support of Breadalbane and Glenorchy, which are mine—and Glenlyon, which is yours.” He paused. “For the time being.”
Robert Campbell’s lips pulled back from his teeth. “You’ve no respect for me!”
“You were a soldier, once; I do not forget it.” Breadalbane smiled unctuously. “There is worth in you yet, Robin. One day, I shall require it—and you—in some other enterprise.”
Glenlyon’s waxen face congealed into something akin to a painted mask come to life. His voice, newly strengthened, boomed out harshly. “Until then?”
Breadalbane spread his hands. “Until then, go home to Glen Lyon. Keep your cattle close. Let no MacDonald set foot on Campbell land, lest there be tragedy of it.” He rose, pushing back his chair. “Will you drink whisky with me, Robin? To the destruction of MacDonalds?”
Glenlyon, exalted by renewal, laughed too loudly as he lunged from the chair. “Christ, John, I thought you meant to put me out wi’out it!”
Breadalbane recoiled. “What kind of a Scot—a Highlander!— would I be if I denied a man hospitality?” He briefly touched his cousin’s shoulder, then moved to the sideboard. He poured two glasses full, put one into trembling hands, and waited.
Glenlyon offered a too-hasty toast—“Chruachan!”—and gulped down the whisky.
Breadalbane, with less need, swallowed only a small amount. “And to the monarchy!”
Startled, Glenlyon lowered his glass. A sheen of liquor stood on his lip. “To—James?”
Breadalbane merely smiled and offered no answer.
To James. To Mary. To William. He would serve the strongest of them, in the name of his clan, his God, and himself.
Dair MacDonald, feasted within the walls of Castle Stalker, warded against the rain that now shrouded the loch, was not blind to Jean Stewart when she came into the hall. He, as the other Glencoe-men, marked her at once; no man could not. No man could not look at her and not want her. And he was no Papist priest or saint, sworn away from women.
Robbie Stewart, slouched in his chair, arched sandy brows. His was a mobile face with features made for movement, and he used it well. Just now he smiled benignly, blue eyes preternaturally bright.
His sister moved to stand just off Dair’s right shoulder. He smelled her perfume as, with elegant aplomb, she bent over his arm and reached for his horn cup, taking it from him so she might refill it with the whisky in her flagon. She performed properly as chatelaine, mindful of her duties; but no man there was unaware of other such duties as they would take up willingly, did she give them leave.
With murmured thanks, Dair accepted the filled cup. He did not look at her. He looked instead at her brother, who grinned broadly and buried his face in his own horn cup as if he had nothing else on his mind save the taste of the liquor.
After brief hesitation, Jean moved away. He felt her go, intensely aware of her obvious interest as well as her allure. He ignored her no more than any other man, MacDonald or Stewart, because no man could. And she knew it. And he knew she knew it. It was withal a cunning game, if left unspoken, yet played nonetheless.
Robbie set down his cup. Like a cat he stretched, then leaned forward in studied nonchalance. Lamplight glistened in wiry hair, deepening it to purest gold. “Och, aye,” he said quietly, “I see it. I ken it. And I willna interfere—she’ll do as she chooses, my Jean . . . but a wise man kens I am a protective brother.” He pushed his cup over to smack against Dair’s in unstudied toast. “You will do as you choose, aye?—but a wise man kens I will kill the man who hurts her.”
The rain infuriated Cat. But it also reinforced her determination; to give up the calf after bringing him so far, after falling so many times into burns both wide and narrow and the sticky edges of bog, was to admit defeat, and that she would not do.
Dampness was no burden; she was soaked already. And when the rain at last beat through thick hair to the pale scalp beneath, she turned her face to the heavens and laughed out loud. “Are you kin to MacDonalds, come up against me to steal my cow? Well, you willna. He’s mine, the brawlie lad—he’ll be home to Glen Lyon with me!”
Thunder answered lightning. The calf at the end of her twisted plaid skittered sideways.
Cat nearly lost her grip. “No, no—dinna fash yourself. Brawlie lad, sonsie lad—” She took a firmer grip on the sodden wool. “You’re a Campbell cow, now; likely before, as well. Come along wi’ me, then, brawlie lad, and forget the poor grass in Glencoe. We’ve better to offer in Glen Lyon!”
A burn cut through the track. Water ran hard in it, swollen by new rain; Cat slipped in, climbed out, and realized she had lost a battered brogue. Likely the shoe was gone before she got out; the water ran that fast.
She turned her face to the sky again. “A poor blow, that! Here—have the other one!” She stripped off the remaining brogue and tossed it into darkness. “I’m a Campbell; d’ye hear? Naught so pawkie as that can defeat a Campbell!”
The calf protested
again, twisting his head against her makeshift rope. Cat inspected and repositioned the plaid, testing its strength. It was good wool, or had been, once, loomed in Glen Lyon. “Naught so puny as a tug or two will tear it . . .” She scratched the calfs knobby poll, grooming wet hair with a deft twisting of big-knuckled fingers. “There now, you’ll see all is well—”
The skies lit up around them, illuminating the wasteland of Rannoch Moor with its treacherous bogs; blighted, twisted trees; the frenzied vegetation. In lightning’s wake thunder crashed so loudly Cat thought her skull might split.
She cupped one hand over an ear. Can thunder break my lug-holes?
It broke the calf’s courage. Panicked, it tore free of her grip and shed the tattered plaid.
Blinking rapidly in the aftermath of blinding glare, Cat saw the flick of the calf’s tail as the shaggy beast scrabbled clumsily away from her, heading back into renewed darkness.
She lurched after it. “Wait. . . wait—”She stumbled three steps, still clutching her plaid, still meaning to catch the calf “—you canna go! Wait—” to put the twisted wool around him again, to lead him once more out of Rannoch Moor to the gentler lands of Glen Lyon . . . where he can spend his days with good Campbell cattle—
All at once she began to cry in great heaving gulps. She did not shout again for the calf to wait; did not offend the skies again with a Campbell challenge for fear the storm would consume her “—MacDonald clouds—”and take again, this night, the life of a Glen Lyon Campbell.
Cat collapsed onto buttocks naked of breeks, clad only in threadbare smallclothes, and dug brogueless heels into mud. She scraped fingers into her hair until the nails abraded scalp. The tattered, ruined plaid echoed her dishevelment as it dangled from rigid fists. “Ochone,” she wailed, in traditional Gaelic lament. “Ochone, ochone—”
Robbie was dead. Robbie was dead.
And I have lost the calf—
The brawlie, sonsie calf.
Robbie was dead.
—oh God, oh God—
What would her father say—
—what will he SAY?—
—to know the dirk he had cast off that she had later lifted was the means to his heir’s death?
“O—O—”She buried her face in sodden wool and began to rock in the rain.—o-chone—Back and forth, back and forth, while the thunder crashed around her.
Ochone. Ochone.
Robbie. Dead.
She flinched away from it. Far easier to greet for the calf. In that, there was no guilt.
Thunder was muffled by the stone walls, forming only a dull, rumbling mutter inside Castle Stalker, like a hound displeased by his master. Jean Stewart stood near the doorway leading into the hall, counting up the men; counting on one man. Twin-born, Appin-born, bred of reckless Stewarts, Jean claimed her own tenfold measure of intransigence and volatile Highland pride. She was, as was her brother, overblessed of ambition, ruthless in implementation.
Alasdair Og MacDonald. Not blind to her—no man was blind to her—but seemingly indifferent, circumspect, careful. Or warned away by Robbie . . . Which irritated her intensely. Here was a man she wanted, who did not, apparently, want her badly enough to risk her brother; Jean took it as a personal affront as well as valid challenge. She would win his regard. She would win his worship. She would win his body, his soul.
She would take him prisoner as she had so many men, and turn him out of his dungeon on the day she wearied of him.
Thunder rumbled again. Jean Stewart smiled. He will do, aye?
For now. For the night, the day, the week. Until the next man with naught beneath his kilt but the all too transient bounty bestowed by God.
There is no shooting here, no shouts of fear and fury, no triumphant war cries. What has been done is done, and no one remains behind.
She runs until she trips over an obstacle just before the door. Pain steals her breath; until she finds it again she lies where she has fallen, unmindful of her sprawl.
It isn’t until her senses, less startled than her thoughts, identify the obstacle as a body does she makes any attempt to get up and then it is in a lurching scramble that flings her back from the corpse.
Her fall has disturbed the snow. She sees the trews around his ankles, the bloodied nightshirt, the hair dyed crimson. Nothing remains of his face save the dull white splinter of jawbone.
Part II
1689
One
At the edge of the gloaming, as the day faded to night, Dair saw the fire blossom. It was but a spark at first, a distant blot of flame dipping up and down the hilltops, but he knew what it was without seeing its shape. The wind had carried rumors, and a name as well: James Graham, Viscount Dundee.
His view was of water, and hills beyond, framed by a narrow window. He watched the fire blossom, then bloom, spilling over the hilltops. Up and down, up and down, across the weft of burn-broken braes, and at last to the lower slopes spilling down to the water’s edge. It was an eloquent dance, an ancient dance, the dance of a thousand men; of thousands and thousands before them, Norse and Pict and Scot, sleeping now in barrows still swelling under turf.
Dair shut his eyes. Behind his lids he could see the flame yet; see in its passage a tangled skein of smoke fading into darkness. He could hear the pipes, the pibroch; the keening of fresh-honed blades, the battle cry of the men, his men, Glencoe-men: MacDonalds. The distant fire kindled in his blood until he burned alive with it; until his genitals tightened and the fine hairs stood up on his flesh.
He opened his eyes. The fire still burned, still smoked, still came on. Not a loosed fire, but a carried one, a purposeful flame; its message, though lacking in detail, was well known to every man of Appin, of Glencoe, of Argyllshire and Breadalbane. To every man Highland-born.
Dundee wants us.
Dair did not hear her, but he knew the instant she entered the chamber. He had memorized her scent, her step, the fit of her neck to shoulders, the slant of hip curving into waist, the husky catch in her voice. He knew all parts of her, all manner of her habits.
She came to stand behind him, but did not put her hands on his flesh. “ ’Tis come, aye?”
He watched the flame carried nearer, lighting up the darkness. His voice belonged to another man, though it came from his throat, his mouth; he was more than Alasdair Og, MacIain’s son, the second son, but a Highlander who knew the task before him. “ ’Tis come.”
“Robbie said it would.”
Dair smiled faintly. “He’s no’ a liar, your brother. He merely—elaborates.”
Her laugh was quiet, then faded, shut up inside her mouth. “You’ll go.” It was not question, but declaration; she knew him that well, now. She had taken pains.
He did not turn to her; did not reach for her; did not so much as tilt his head. The burning cross transfixed him. Its message fired his blood. “I am a man, Jean.”
She moved beside him. He saw in her profile the clean purity of her nose, the arch of brow above it, the sweet sharpness of her chin, and the lushness of bottom lip. A strand of sandy hair fell down beside one eye, curving on her cheekbone. In the only eye he could see, blue as Robbie’s own, burned the reflection of the cross calling him to war.
I am a man, Jean. What else does a man do?
“For James,” she said; it bordered on contempt.
“He is king.”
“In France. ”
“But of Scotland, and England.”
Jean Stewart laughed bitterly. “He was a fool to leave. ‘Tis always harder to get back what one has lost, aye?” She turned to him then, and the blazing cross bloomed in her other eye. “I’ll no’ lose you, Dair. Come back to me from this. You’ll go, and so will Robbie—good Christ, I ken you’re men!—but I’ll have you both come back!”
Outside, the gillie stopped on the edge of the shore. He raised the cross high. “Robert Stewart, laird of Appin; Robert Stewart, his son; and all the gillies, clansmen, and tacksmen!” he cried “In the name of James, Kin
g of Scotland and England: loyal Scots are called to battle!”
Jean’s inhalation hissed. “Swear it! I will have you back!”
“In the name of James, King of Scotland and England—”
Her bared teeth glinted briefly in firelight. “Alasdair Og MacDonald—”
“—loyal Scots are called to battle!”
In the waters of Loch Laich, so shallow by the shore, flames reproduced on wavelets. From the threshold of the doorway below Dair’s window a voice answered at last: young Robert Stewart of Appin, bellowing at the gillie. “Will you bring your news inside? Will you drink whisky in the name of the king?”
The man bent and doused the flames. His voice carried clearly. “I’ll come. Will you?”
Robbie Stewart laughed. “Oh, aye, we’ll come to fight for Jamie . . . we’ve naught else to do the summer!” He strode out of the castle toward the water. “Bide a wee, will you?—I’ll have a boat to you.”
“Naught else to do?” Jean Stewart laughed. “He’s no’ got a woman, then . . .” And she turned fiercely to Dair, catching up great handfuls of his shirt. “If you willna swear it in words, I’ll have it another way . . . ’tis but pace or two to the bed—” She loosed a wad of cloth and grabbed in its place the hair on the back of his neck—“or will you have me here?”
Outside, the cross of war was extinguished in the waters of Loch Laich. In her bed they rekindled it in a battle of their own making.
“Dead?” Glenlyon cried. “Robbie is dead?”
Cat was aware of her clothing sticking to her. She was wet all over beneath, hot with fear and sickness and shame; she had lied to her father about the death of his son.
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