by Laurin Wittig - Guardians Of The Targe 02 - Highlander Avenged
“Malcolm?” Jock, a distant cousin and the eldest of the seven, saw him first. He was on his feet and striding toward Malcolm, gripping him in a bone-crushing bear hug before Malcolm could say anything. “You are alive!” Jock had him by the shoulders now, shaking him hard in his excitement. “Look, lads! ’Tis Malcolm himself!”
The others were on their feet, but there was something reserved about them. Perhaps it was just in comparison to Jock’s strong welcome, but Malcolm noticed looks passing between the men, and they did not look so happy to see him.
“Are you hungry, lad?” Jock asked, scooping some of the stew into a wooden bowl, handing it to Malcolm with a horn spoon, and motioning for him to sit on the small keg Jock had been using, without waiting for an answer.
“I am. My thanks.” He looked about and accounted for all the men who had been with him on the day he had been injured, except for one. “Where is Cameron?”
Another odd look passed from man to man and Malcolm could not help but assume the worst.
“He is dead?” he asked.
“Nay,” Jock said, but he was no longer excited and the smile that had split his face a moment ago was now replaced by a frown and the man did not look him in the eye. None of them did.
“Then where is he?” Malcolm prodded. “Is he maimed?”
“Nay,” Jock said again. “He was called back to Blackmuir just a few days ago.”
“Do not make me drag it out of you, Jock.” Malcolm set his still full bowl on the ground next to him and began rubbing his right hand again. The action reminded him of Jeanette, both when she massaged it for him and when she chided him for needing her to do what he could do himself. He almost smiled at the memory but kept his mind on the task at hand. He needed to convince his kin to return to Dunlairig with him, to take their part of the battle for Scotland’s independence away from here.
Jock was looking at his kin, as if hoping someone else would tell Malcolm what he wanted to know.
“I’ll not bite your head off for the truth, lads,” Malcolm said. “Is Cameron well?”
“He is well,” Jock said, as if that answer was easy enough to give. “He is gone back to Blackmuir because your da . . .” The man rubbed a big hand along the back of his neck and sighed. He looked Malcolm in the eye once more. “We looked for you as best we could after the battle at Dalrigh last summer, but the English and those damned MacDougalls crawled over that battlefield for days and we could not get close enough to even claim our dead. When your da heard the news that you were likely dead, he named Cameron his successor as chief.” He paused and sighed again. “Your da died a fortnight ago. Cameron went home because he is now chief of the MacKenzies of Blackmuir.”
Malcolm knew all of them were tense from the hard lines of their mouths, the bouncing foot of Turval, and Hector chewing his fingernails, as he always did before a battle. They were waiting for him to react, to explode, to deny the news, but in truth, he did not know what to feel.
His father was dead. As much as they had disagreed, he had never really believed his father would die. And yet, he had. An ache opened up in his chest, like someone had scooped out his innards and left him hollow, empty.
“How did he die?” he asked quietly.
“Fever,” Jock said.
“Fever,” Malcolm repeated, trying to understand this news. “Are my sisters well?”
“Aye. The message told us many had the fever but only a few died. Your sisters were amongst those that survived.”
“And Cameron has taken my place as the new chief.” The words had not sunk in until he said them himself. Cameron was chief. Not Malcolm. Cameron.
“We all thought you dead,” Aiden, Cameron’s younger brother, finally said. Jock took the opportunity to drain a cup of what was probably ale.
“Can I have some of that?” Malcolm asked Jock.
“Aye, but I think a wee dram of whiskey would be better for you, lad.”
Malcolm agreed, though he might need more than one wee dram this night. No one spoke until they all had whiskey in their hands.
“To my da,” Malcolm said, raising his drink in the air, then draining it. The others echoed his words and his actions.
Malcolm looked about him and realized that, with the exception of Cameron, these were all of the men who had fought with him last summer, all that had been left alive of the twenty MacKenzies that had joined the king’s army that spring. After almost twelve months of Cameron’s leadership, these seven were still alive. Did he keep them at the rear of the battles, or was he simply better at keeping their men alive than Malcolm was?
“Tell me about Cameron,” he said. “Will he make a good chief?”
For the next several hours Malcolm’s kin regaled him with tales of battles, hard weather, meager rations, and their recent victory at Loudoun Hill. In every tale, Cameron had proved to be a good leader of his men. In every tale, Cameron had proved to be a better leader of his men than Malcolm had been. It was hard to hear, but slowly Malcolm came to understand that these men trusted Cameron as they had not trusted him. He came to understand that his headlong rush into battle in search of glory made him a good warrior, but not the kind of leader these men needed.
And then he realized he was no longer that foolish man. His last battle with them had been the end of that foolish man. They had followed Cameron’s instructions, not his, because Cameron knew it was a fool’s battle. He had argued with Malcolm that they should retreat and live to fight another day, a better day when they were not already exhausted by the rout at Methven and the rapid march westward. But Malcolm had been too focused on proving himself to be the best warrior for his clan, while missing the point that he needed to prove himself the best leader for his clan. It was a lesson his father had tried to teach him again and again but Malcolm, in his arrogance, thought his father daft, and thought Cameron weak-minded for agreeing with Malcolm’s father. But on that day at Dalrigh his men had followed the better leader, not the arrogant warrior, and it had likely cost him the use of his arm for most of a year. And yet he was not angry.
This surprised Malcolm. He was not angry with them anymore. He himself had followed Nicholas’s instructions in the recent battle, though he knew the man was not the warrior Malcolm was. But Nicholas was a good leader, soliciting opinions and advice when needed, while still making his own decisions, using each person’s strengths to the best advantage for the clan. It was easy to follow him because Malcolm trusted him, everyone trusted him, and so they all did their part in Nicholas’s plan. Just as these men had followed Cameron.
“You were right to follow Cameron that day,” he said when the tales tapered off into silence. “If you had followed me, some of you, maybe all, would have died on that battlefield. I almost did. Cameron, in his wisdom, has managed to keep you all alive while fighting the good fight for King Robert and Scotland.” He looked at each one of them carefully now, weighing the stories they had told against the evidence of new scars, and a quiet strength that had not been there before, etched on their faces, along with the clear surprise at his words. “Will you follow him as chief?”
They each nodded.
“We swore our allegiance to him before he left here,” Aiden spoke again.
Malcolm nodded. “It was the right thing to do.”
“But you always wanted to be chief,” Aiden said. “Do you accept so easily that you will not follow your da in that position?”
“Easily? Nay, not easily. In truth, I did not want it anymore, but I would not have admitted that to anyone if it were not already done.” Only now was it sinking in, what it meant for Cameron to be chief of the MacKenzies, and that hollow place inside him began to fill with warmth and hope.
“You must have taken a hard hit on the head, Malcolm,” Jock said as he poked at the fire and threw another piece of wood on it.
Malcolm smiled at the man. “Nay, it
was my arm that took the hit.” And his heart. He pulled his sleeve up and showed them the injury on his arm that had finally healed into a long pink scar. “It took me a long time to realize it was my own pride and arrogance that caused my injury. If I had listened to Cameron that day, I would have been with you all for this last year. But if I had been with you, then . . .” He wasn’t ready to talk about Jeanette just yet, not until he had things settled with these lads.
“Will you rejoin us now, Malcolm?” Dugald, the youngest of his cousins, asked.
“Nay. I have come, with the king’s blessing, to ask if you will come with me to fight on another front.” Before anyone could interrupt him, he put up a hand to stay their voices. “I understand you do not trust me to lead you.” Here there were denials, but he could tell their hearts were not in them. “Know that I am not the leader in this fight, but a simple warrior looking for reinforcements.”
“Who would we be fighting?”
“The English are mounting an attack against the MacAlpins of Dunlairig. They are a small clan who are said to protect the southern route into the Highlands along the Great Glen. Have you heard the tale of the Highland Targe?”
“Aye,” Gillean said. His hair was almost as pale as Jeanette’s and the lad had filled out in the year since Malcolm had seen him last. “My granny used to tell me that one. It was a shield big enough to block invaders, but I did not believe the tale, even when I was a wean.”
“King Edward believes it and seeks to take the Targe from them before he marches into the Highlands.”
“Why would he march into the Highlands?” Jock asked. “ ’Twould be daft to take an invasion force into that country if you did not ken the way through it.”
“I think he’s likely planning to make his way east, not north, in the hopes of circling the Scottish forces.”
“Did you tell Robert of this?”
“I did, and he agreed ’twas a likely plan. We believe there are twoscore English soldiers heading to Dunlairig. The MacAlpins have twenty fighting men—well, ten and nine without me—and their former chief has gone to rally their allies, but it is uncertain if he can do so. Even if he does, we cannot ken how many men will heed his call to arms. You seven could change the odds for the MacAlpins and for Scotland.
“Nicholas of Dunlairig is now the chief there and he is an able leader both in and out of battle. I trust him with my life, and I trust him with the lives of those I claim as mine,” he said, thinking not only of his cousins but how he had left Jeanette’s welfare in Nicholas’s hands. “I ken I ask much of you and that your loyalty lies elsewhere now. I ask only that you consider what I have said. With you, or without you, I return to Dunlairig at first light.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
“HAVE YOU SEEN Scotia this morning?” Jeanette asked Duncan as she came out of the large cave and blinked in the bright sunshine of midmorning.
He stopped sharpening his dirk and looked up at her. “Aye, she’s down in the glen. Uilliam is with her.”
“He had better keep a sharp eye on her. I do not trust her to stay where she is told.”
“He will. He does not trust her any more than the rest of us do.”
Jeanette sat next to him on the tree trunk that served as a bench near the fire, carefully not looking at the place where she had first slept in Malcolm’s arms. The ache that had taken residence in her heart since he left eleven days ago seemed to grow bigger every time she thought of him. It grew harder and harder to keep up the pretense that she didn’t care that he had left. She thought it would grow easier but she was so wrong.
“Has she yet told you why she left the camp?” Jeanette asked to get her mind away from difficult feelings. She had questioned her sister several times over the last ten days but the stubborn lass would not tell her.
“Nay. I think she is embarrassed,” Duncan said. “She will not look me in the eye, nor even rise to my teasing.”
“She saw much that day that haunts her dreams, too.”
“It was a bloody day for all of us.”
“I fear it will not be the last.” She sighed and looked about to see what task needed tending, but there were so many people living in the Glen of Caves now that most jobs were handily taken care of, leaving Jeanette with too much time on her hands. She had taken to poring over the chronicles for hours at a time, until her back ached and her eyes were gritty with fatigue, as she had been doing since well before dawn today.
“Do you think he will come back?” Duncan asked as he once more took up the sharpening of his blade.
Her heart leapt at the idea, but she ruthlessly killed the hope that Duncan’s words encouraged. “Nay. He will fight with King Robert and when his duty is fulfilled there he will return to his home in the north.” She took a deep breath and tried to swallow the pain that strangled her heart tighter and tighter each day. She rose and decided to find Rowan so they could practice using the Targe stone, as they had done every spare moment since the battle. “He will be chief of his clan,” she said. “It is as much his duty as being a Guardian is mine.”
She could feel Duncan’s eyes on her, could feel the pity he and everyone else seemed to feel for her. She needed to get away by herself, compose herself, a task that seemed almost impossible, but she was determined to go on as if her heart wasn’t broken, as if her life was exactly as she wished it to be, though there was little about her life that was as she wished it. She made herself walk toward the thicker trees that circled the main cave and she had just stepped onto a path when she heard a horn sound from up the ben in the direction of the pass. One blast—friend. Duncan’s last question leapt to her mind but she immediately chided herself for her wishful thinking. It was probably just the scouts who kept watch for the English soldiers, whom she dreamed about nightly, returning to the glen.
She walked a little farther into the wood, then stepped off the path and went to a large boulder that made a perfect seat. She had taken to coming here often when it all got too much for her. This was a place where no one looked on her with pity and no one asked questions she didn’t want to answer. This was a place where she didn’t have to think, didn’t have to feel. This was a place where she could just be. Maybe, if she tried very hard, she could find that calm center she had had before she met Malcolm, before her mother died, before she became a Guardian, before her entire life had turned upside down and left her heart in tatters.
It was not long before she heard a commotion. Whoever had entered the glen must have made it down to the caves fast. And then she heard her name called. Someone must be hurt. She took a deep breath and settled her face into what she hoped was a serene smile, before she rose from her stone seat and headed back the way she came.
“I am here,” she said as she stepped into the open in front of the cave. “Who is hurt?”
A group of seven men she did not know looked at her, then stepped aside.
Malcolm stood amongst them with the same grin he’d worn the day they met.
Jeanette couldn’t move. She couldn’t speak. Her mind kept telling her it wasn’t him, it wasn’t him. But her eyes proved otherwise.
“You . . .” She put her hand over her mouth and tears started to stream from her eyes. “You came back,” she managed to get out as her heart burst free of its chains. “You came back.”
Malcolm’s grin faded to a smile as he closed the distance between them. “Do not cry, angel mine.” He took her face in his hands and kissed her gently, as if she was fragile. He wiped her tears away with his thumbs, then pulled her into a fierce hug. “I came back to you. Are you still mine, Jeanette?” he whispered in her ear.
She smiled through her tears. “Always. Are you still mine?” she whispered in his ear, nuzzling it with her nose.
“Always and forever.”
TWO DAYS LATER Jeanette donned a beautiful blue gown the women of the clan had found for her wedding
day.
“It is the very color of your eyes,” Rowan said as she laced it closed for her cousin. “ ’Tis a good thing you shall have Malcolm’s help undressing, though, with the laces in the back!”
Jeanette felt her skin go hot, partly from embarrassment that Rowan should speak of such things, and partly from the memory of the things she and Malcolm had shared in the grotto before and would do again this very day.
“I think that was the idea when the women chose this for me.”
“Aye, I’m quite sure Peigi had a hand in the choosing. You ken she takes full credit for this marriage, do you not?”
“I doubt it not.” The two of them laughed quietly together.
Scotia sat nearby, solemnly watching. “I will arrange your hair for you, sister, if you will let me. It should have been Mum’s privilege but . . .”
Rowan patted Jeanette on the shoulder to let her know the lacing was finished.
“I would like that,” Jeanette said. Scotia rose, giving her seat on a small barrel to her sister. “I think Mum would be happy today, do you not?” Jeanette asked her.
“I think she would be sad to miss this day,” Scotia said quietly as she began to run a comb through Jeanette’s long flaxen hair, “but happy that you have found Malcolm.”
“ ’Tis a good thing Uncle Kenneth likes Malcolm,” Rowan said as she watched Scotia’s work. “I was not sure, when he first arrived yesterday, if that would be true.”
Jeanette smiled, remembering the sight of her blustering father as he burst into the cavesite yesterday afternoon with Uilliam and Duncan, who had found him already on his way back to Dunlairig, on his heels. Kenneth had been ready to run Malcolm through with his sword. Uilliam, bless him, had calmed Kenneth down enough to give Malcolm a chance to convince her father he was an honorable man who was in love with Jeanette. After several hours of the men conversing by themselves, she watched as Malcolm formally asked for her hand in marriage and her father agreed, giving his blessing to both of them.