One
They are hunting hounds, Cat decided, come up to prove themselves ... all a’bristle with Lochaber axes, bows, muskets, and claymores, and spike-orbed targes, poking about their persons like hackles across the shoulders.
They came from all over the Highlands, leaving behind familiar dens to mark new territory with elaborate care and precision, a wary new kennel overrun with multiple pedigrees, waiting in tense anticipation for the kennel-keeper to come.
—But he is here already. . .. And so he was, Grey John Campbell of Breadalbane, walking through the rubble of split and blackened stone lying in tumbled heaps now time-dusted and grass-corroded; of the fire-ravaged masonry corners, still erect as menhirs, the standing stones of the Celts, left to loom stark as a skeleton’s ribs on the grassy hilltop. He was smiling, always smiling, offering only serene blandishments and careful courtesy, speaking nothing of the wreckage and the insult done to Glenorchy, to Clan Campbell, to himself.
Within two days the kennel settled, having got through the first meeting, and now they gave themselves over to lesser responsibilities, recalling they were not hounds but Highlanders, and men. Pipes skirled ceol beag, the little music of strathspeys and reels; and ceol meadhonach, the jigs and airs; and more rarely the ceol mor, the big music, but not of marches or rants leading them into war. They had come instead for peace.
There was usquabae for drinking, dice and backgammon for wagering, chess for challenge, field games such as stone-hurling, and camanachd, or shinty, quick-footed sword dances, and much feasting on beef—though none asked from whose lands the cattle were driven for fear they had been lifted, and such topics as that, the earl made clear, was not what they had come for.
Cat did not know why she was there, save the earl desired his heir to know her better; and Duncan was disinclined to spend any time with her when there was Marjorie instead, who had come over from Lawers with a clutch of Campbell kin. Duncan gave Cat no warning, he was simply gone one day, lost among the forest of colorful tartan and glittering steel in place of needles and pine knots, and when she looked for him in the mass of bonneted, bare-legged men she saw those who resembled him, but none of them who were.
In the midst of an army of Highlanders, albeit they did not gather to fight a common enemy save their own suspicions of the kennel-keeper, Cat found herself oppressed. And so she turned away and made her way through the unkempt cornfield where horses had not grazed, or men had not trampled.
Up. Away. Apart. Where she might think in peace, and not shy from it despite the name it wore, despite the sett of its tartan, the motto in its mouth, the heather on its bonnet with the single eagle feather.
With silver in its hair, and white teeth a’gleaming.
The Earl of Breadalbane played genial host and arbiter in the midst of his gathering, turning aside the occasional hostile glance and wary stares with ease and courtesy. It was expected that the chiefs would hold him in some doubt, and by some of them in disrespect; he was, they all knew, the other half of Clan Campbell’s powerful dual houses, Glenorchy and Argyll. The Earl of Argyll was William’s man almost by default; Stuarts and Stuart supporters had seen to the execution of Archibald Campbell’s father and grandfather, and he would have no love of them. His loyalty to William then, even politically motivated, was inviolable, and no Jacobite could trust him.
Yet it was trust he needed, if not absolute respect, and trust he asked for, knowing precisely how to phrase it to win it. For now he let them be Highlanders, revelling in the raucous companionship and friendly rivalry of other clans, often enemies, now allies in the earl’s name; let them think of peace as they feasted on Campbell cattle and drank Campbell whisky; let them recall their ancestors in the words of the bards and the music of pipe and harp, ignoring the occasional lapse into ceol mor, the war marches, which the clan harpers would occasionally summon to stir the hearts once more.
Above all he let them be content in their names, in their blood, in the essence that made them Highlanders and subject to Highland laws: the sacred trust of hospitality that no sane man would break, under which sworn enemies might sup together despite blood drawn but moments before, and which all men understood and did not question.
It was that hospitality he offered now in the shadows of Achallader’s blackened brickwork, with MacDonalds sitting amidst the destruction they had caused. He was born of Highland blood, of Highland pride, and felt his own measure of the bone-bred affinity for the past and its traditions. But he was ambitious and brilliant and knew it, knew also how to use his brilliance to further his ambitions, so he might yet be more than of Clan Campbell, but its head in place of Argyll, who was a man of whom it was said Scotland owed much.
Och, I am of them, but wiser, aye? . . . And he would use them as he must to change the face of Scotland.
For now the land and its future yet lay in their trust, which he could not easily win. But he knew that the greatest strength of all lay in unity, and that if he permitted them to use that unity against him as they had used it against Hugh Mackay at Killiecrankie, he would lose.
Unity perforce must serve me in another way. And to make it so he would destroy it.
Robbie Stewart grovelled in dirt. Dair, much taken with the unlikely posture, grinned mutely, arms folded against his chest; it would be well if Robbie’s grovelling bespoke humility, but its genesis was a desire to brag, not to ask absolution.
He himself did not kneel or grovel but watched from above. He had been there; he knew the formations, recalled the words, remembered perfectly the outcome of the battle—even, more intimately, the pain of his wound.
But Robbie did not dwell on such things as wounds or on such men as Dair MacDonald, but on himself, his Appin Stewarts, on Dundee’s strategies.
There were men who had not been at Killiecrankie for this reason or that; none would ask why, in courtesy, and no explanation was offered. But there was interest, taut and sharp, in what they had not shared, and Robbie had never been a man for hiding pride in accomplishments. The young heir of Appin had been part of the victory, and he saw no sense in saying nothing of it.
Dair scratched an eyebrow, biding his time watching Appin’s heir cut lines in the turf with his dirk.
“Here,” Robbie said. “Here on the braes of Craigh Eallaich—and there the Pass of Killiecrankie, over which Mackay, the muckle-gabbed moudiwort, brought his Sassenachs and Lowlanders . . .”
And something else was added to it, vulgar and uncomplimentary; the men around him laughed and suggested punishments for Mackay.
“They came down so—”
The dirk tip carved a line . . .
“—and we came down so—”
Another line . . .
“—and the pipes were ranting, and Dundee speaking of what we are, and who we were, and how we were Gaeldom’s heirs . . .”
And more, lewdly eloquent as always, with Robbie, of no small effect if with little of absolute truth in it; Appin knew how to tell a tale in the way to hold a man.
From above, carved out neatly in dirt, Killiecrankie was much easier to bear. And convincing in the extreme of Dundee’s genius, his heroism, and the courage of the clans. The knot of young men gathered around Robbie were much impressed, as they would be, though they said little more than an occasional comment or question.
A young man next to Dair chewed at his bottom lip, rapt in Robbie’s tale. Dair smiled faintly; he shifted just enough that setting sun sparked off his brooch and caught the young clansman’s eye, who looked from Stewart’s war to a man who had been in it.
Dair’s expression was assessed and found wanting. Blue eyes narrowed. “Were ye there, that ye doubt him?”
It was challenge, but only slightly belligerent; he was much taken by Robbie’s tale and personal bravery, and did not think well of a man who stood beside another and smirked.
Dair was diffident. “Oh, I dinna doubt him; I was there. But he tells it from a Stewart eye.”
That got Robbie’s att
ention, who did not like having his listeners distracted. “Then what if from yours? Better than mine, d’ye say?”
“Depending on which is your clan,” Dair retorted dryly.
Robbie offered his dirk hilt first. “Here, then. Instruct me, aye?—and them.”
“ ’Tis your tale, Robbie.”
“Then I’ll thank ye no’ to interrupt it.” The sulfurous glare cleared as he bent again over his carvings. “We were here, d’ye see—”
The young clansman next to Dair did not look back immediately. “And where were you?”
“With MacIain,” Dair answered, “as any Glencoe-man should be.”
The other grinned. “Per mare per terras. ”
The MacDonald motto . . . “Ah?”
“Keppoch.”
Dair nodded. “Have you come down with Coll of the Cows?”
“I have. Though I dinna ken if ’tis worth the journey; no Campbell I ever kent offered hospitality.”
Robbie’s voice intruded. “Will you learn from this, young MacDonald of Keppoch, or will you listen to a man who owes me his life from Killiecrankie?”
It was impressive, as Robbie meant it to be. Every eye fixed on Dair, who sighed. “There is much to be learned from a man so brave as Stewart of Appin. You’d all do well to listen.”
“I thank you.” Robbie went back to drawing.
The young Keppoch MacDonald grinned privately at Dair. “Coll could teach him a thing or two.”
“I dinna doubt it. But I’d best hold my silence, lest he use that dirk on my tongue.”
And so he held his silence, losing interest in the recounting but disinclined to move away. His attention wandered; Robbie’s voice faded into the background as Dair cast a glance across the encampment. A piper had begun the ceol mor, if lament in place of war rant. Another took it up. The field below the ruined castle glowed like burning water, pocked throughout with cookfires. He smelled roasting beef, and whisky, and the underlying tang of tense, active men who had met summer’s warmth in linen and wool.
There were women as well, though not so many; and they stayed in clusters near the fire to tend the cooking. But his eye was caught by one who strode forthrightly out of the throng as if of a mind to escape it even as others gathered. She was very tall, long of limb, and moved more like man than woman with no compromise in her strides. Braided hair glowed brilliant as coals in the setting sun.
“Holy Christ—” Dair blurted, staring; he was cold, and hot, and rigid with memory, with shock revisited: the last time he had seen her was on a hilltop on Rannoch Moor, with a rope against his throat.
“Here, then.” It was Robbie. “MacDonald—’tis your turn. I wasna the only one there, ye ken . . . you’ll have your say.”
But Dair was no longer interested in Killiecrankie. “ ’Tis you who tells a better story, aye? . . . I’ll let you go on with it.”
“I canna take all the credit—”
“Why not? You usually do . . .” But the gibe was feeble; his mind was not on it. It was on the woman, the red-haired woman who strode so easily through the crowd and was lost; and on the flesh of his throat that burned with the memory of hemp, and a tree, and the Campbell laird with a claymore.
“I do no such thing,” Robbie declared. “Have I no’ said you killed your share of Mackay’s men?”
But Dair did not look again at Robbie or the dirk-drawings in the dirt. He turned from those who waited and walked away into the sunset, seeking Glenlyon’s daughter to thank her for his life.
If he could find her. If she will listen . . . If a Campbell could ever believe the words of a MacDonald, even in gratitude.
Here, perhaps she would. In the spirit of Breadalbane’s peace.
Breadalbane moved among the chiefs and found them one by one, isolating them from other chiefs, from gillies and tacksmen, from rivals, from comrades, until one by one he spoke to each alone, saying what he would of his pride in his Highland birth and blood, and his desire for triumph over the Williamite forces.
And when they questioned him and claimed him William’s man, as he anticipated, he denied it. He said he was a chief even as they were, and therefore responsible for his people in all the ways a chief must be. If it served his people now to keep them from battle that would only injure them, he would do so by claiming what was required . . . and if it meant misleading Stair and the Dutchman into believing him one of theirs, a Williamite at heart, when in truth he served James Stuart, well, let it be so; he was a Highlander, a Campbell, a man of their own flesh and spirit, and he would do no harm to Scotland albeit cost him his life.
To Coll MacDonald of Keppoch, who had long opposed him, the earl offered his truth from his perch atop a scarp of lichen-frosted granite. “I will ask of you no oath, as to do so would forswear the one of Dalcomera to King James, sealed in the blood of Killiecrankie, but instead a truce: peace until October. No more than that of you, Coll, and your people; is it so much?”
Coll of the Cows sat likewise, hunched upon a stump in the fir wood near to the ruins. His plaid in summer warmth was but loosely draped over arms folded tight against his chest as he considered carefully, staring hard at the ground. The sett of the tartan was black cross-hatching on a crimson field, with the faintest stripe of blue showing itself occasionally. He wore as did all of the MacDonalds, regardless of their lands, a sprig of heather in his bonnet; and also the three eagle feathers to which he, a chief, was entitled.
Keppoch was young, well-made, and strikingly handsome, but no less shrewd for his prettiness. His hand was as quick with dirk or claymore as any man’s, and his pride equally prickly; Breadalbane did not placate, plead, or prevaricate, but spoke plainly instead. Coll would take his time, but he would offer answer; it was a skillful man who understood the best method was not to push a stubborn man, but to let him come to his mind of himself.
Breadalbane waited. Keppoch eventually took his attention from the ground beneath his feet and looked at the earl. His smile was edged, with a dirk behind his lips. “And what of it? What does this truce gain you?”
“Time.”
“To do what?”
“To get terms of William which are favorable to such men as ourselves.”
Keppoch arched dark brows. “ ‘Men as ourselves’? What men are we, Breadalbane?—what men are those such as you?”
It was not unexpected; the earl had heard it from others. “I am a Highlander, as you are. I am the warden of my people—”
“Campbells.”
“Aye, Campbells; would you have me repudiate them?”
Coll laughed silently, baring strong teeth. “ ’Twould come as a shock to Argyll.”
Such small offenses the earl could withstand; he offered no weapon. “In my own way I have supported the Stuart cause—”
“By keeping your Campbells home from Killiecrankie?” Keppoch shrugged. “Such support as that offers little.”
“I offer it now,” Breadalbane said. “I have worked long and hard to gain the trust of Stair and William, and I have it. Now I intend to use it—but not in a way they might suppose.”
Keppoch raked him with a scalding glance, then smiled to dispell it. He knew how to use his looks, and his smile was very bonnie. “In what way will you use it?”
“To aid the clans.”
“Ah.”
“I have been given a commission by the king himself—” Breadalbane caught himself; to the clans, James was king. “—by the Dutchman to offer settlement to the clans. He is at war with France. The Jacobite rebellion robs him of strength; he would do better to have Highlanders in his regiments than destroying them.”
Keppoch grinned again. “Killiecrankie was sweet.”
“And Dunkeld, after?” The earl saw the flash of anger in MacDonald eyes; they had all lost men in the Cameronian fires. “He has put an army into the foothills under Livingstone’s command, and a garrison at Fort William at Inverlochy. There are naval cannon on the walls. There is a patrol boat with guns on Loch L
innhe. There are frigates likewise mounted tacking off the Isles. Killiecrankie, despite its glory, was an aberration, not the rule.” He waited a beat as color stained, then drained from Keppoch’s swarthy face. “I greet for my people. I greet for the Highlands. I have no wish to see our ways crushed under the heels of the Dutchman’s rule.”
“What would ye have?”
“A truce, as I said. No oath such as William might prefer. Time, so I may present our case to Stair, and to William, and make them understand that Highlanders as a force canna be overlooked, lest the war with France be lost.”
“Time.” MacDonald of Keppoch twisted his mobile mouth. He was a young man, much younger than Breadalbane, but Highland chiefs were bred to privation and conflict. He would not be intimidated by the king’s promised strength, but neither was he blind to its presence. “Such terms as are favorable to us?”
“As favorable as can be.”
“He canna have us for soldiers if we are sworn to James Stuart.”
“Of course not. He honors the oaths you swore at Dalcomera, and later at Blair after Dundee died; the Dutchman isna a Scot, but he’s no’ blind to a man’s pride.” Breadalbane smiled. “He would give you time to know James’s mind.”
“Jamie’s mind?” Coll took his arms out from under his plaid. “We’ve had nothing of the king for months; who is to ken what is in his mind?”
Breadalbane proceeded with care. “We might ask him.”
“Who would ask him?”
“We will send emissaries to his court at Saint-Germain and ask what is in the king’s mind, and what he would have his Scots do. If he released you from the oath to him, you would be free to swear another . . . And there would be an end to hostility in the Highlands.”
Keppoch laughed softly. “You make it sound gey easy, aye?”
“It is easy, when one kens the way.” Breadalbane did not trouble to hide his confidence; Keppoch would have turned him down by now if he intended to. MacDonalds were not known for patience or political wisdom, only hot tempers and intemperate wills. “Three months only, Coll. . . and if nothing comes of Saint-Germain, or William sends his soldiers against you, then you’ve no choice but to remain loyal to James. What harm in waiting?”
Jennifer Roberson Page 24