by Fiona Faris
Finally, he read: “‘But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.’”
“Blessed be the Word of the Lord and all those who hear His Word,” Middleton rumbled out as the elder closed the Bible with a thump and resumed his seat among the congregation.
The mhaighstir rose from his chair and trod slowly and pensively up the steps to take his place in the pulpit for the delivery of his sermon, the main part of the service. He placed his hands on the rail and worried at it until his knuckles were white.
“Iniquity!” he suddenly bellowed.
The word reverberated around the rafters.
“I call Catriona MacPherson and Sorcha MacPherson!”
Sorcha and Catriona looked at one another in fright. A whispering ran through the rest of the congregation, and one or two heads were turned in the sisters’ direction. Two elders rose from the front pews and moved down the aisle towards them.
“I also call Ruairi Murray and Eoin Muideart!”
There was a rumbling of voices among the pews.
“Silence!” Middleton shouted.
One of the elders turned towards the pulpit.
“Neither Ruairi Murray nor Lord Muideart is here,” he said.
“Ruairi is at home, fixing the roof,” his mother cried.
“Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain,” Middleton bellowed down on her. “Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. You are failing in your duty, woman, when you do not bring the fruit of your womb to the Lord. For, behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward for your righteousness.”
“Aye,” Floraidh raised her voice. “That is all very well and true, but the roof is leaking all the same.”
A snigger ran around the kirk.
The elders seized Catriona and Sorcha and half-dragged them to the front of the congregation. Four low ‘cutty’ stools had been placed before the communion table. The elders shoved the women down onto two of them.
Middleton scanned the congregation with a look of deep contempt.
“There is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among Christians, for a man lies with a woman outside of wedlock. Repent of your sin, Sorcha MacPherson!”
Sorcha hung her head in shame but remained silent.
Floraidh laughed.
“And you are arrogant, Floraidh MacPherson! Ought you not rather mourn? Let those who have done this be removed from among you. For though absent in body, the sinners are present in spirit; and, as if present, the Lord pronounces judgment on those who have done such a thing. When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord...”
The door to the kirk crashed open, and there stood Eoin of Muideart and his man, Tamhas, both with swords drawn.
“And so I am here in body as well as spirit, minister, that you can deliver me to Satan yourself.” He raised his sword for the entire congregation to see. “But you’d be a damned fool to try and lay your delivering hands on me, a child of the Clanranald.”
A disturbance ran through the congregation. A few of the men grumbled out the slogan of their clan: “Dh' aindeoin co theireadh e!” – ‘Gainsay me who dares!’
“You papish rogue,” Middleton roared out. “How dare you invade this house of God and profane it with your arms and your blasphemy. May you be damned to Hell!”
“And may you be damned to Hell for persecuting two innocent women and calling them like pigs to the slaughter to sate the bloodlust of your false god,” Eoin returned. “Christ wept for such injustices as this.”
He strode down the aisle and took Catriona by the hand. The two elders took a step forward to intervene but thought better of it when Eoin raised his blade to show them the sharpness of its edge.
High in his pulpit, Middleton raised his good right hand to Heaven and called down a malediction on Eoin’s head.
“Beware the righteous vengeance of the Lord,” he seethed out. “For the Lord takes vengeance on his foes and vents his wrath against his enemies. One day, Muideart, your foot shall slip. For the day of your calamity is near, and the impending things are hastening upon you… and the Clanranald.”
“Your arse!” Eoin cried as he led Catriona and her sister from the kirk.
Chapter Seventeen
With Catriona mounted behind Eoin on his fleet gray mare and Sorcha clinging to Tamhas on the back of his fiery roan stallion, the four rode away from the kirk and into Gleann Seille.
The rain had settled into a persistent downpour. But although the track beneath their drumming hooves was treacherous with the slickness of the fallen leaves, they pressed on quickly along the backs of the loch and were soon entering the clachan at Ath Tharracail.
The men who had stayed behind to repair the thatch of the croft-houses in preparation for winter stopped their work to stare in astonishment at the riders. Eoin and Tamhas were soaked, having borne the brunt of the deluge as they pushed their mounts into the driving rain; Catriona and Sorcha had been in the shelter of the men’s broad backs but were just as wetted. The skirts of their plaids were plastered to their thighs, and the braids of their hair dripped like rats’ tails.
Ruairi was holding a crude wooden ladder against the wall of Old Hector’s house, at the top of which Aonghas was weaving some fresh reeds into the thatch.
“What the…?” Ruairi asked.
Aonghas quickly scrambled down the ladder and joined Ruairi and the other men as they gathered around the steaming horses. Ruairi lifted Sorcha down from behind Tamhas with a single easy movement.
Eoin dismounted and helped Catriona down.
“Away and collect your gear, lassie,” he told her. “We press on to Castle Tioram.”
Catriona raced down the brae to Shielfoot, as Sorcha explained what had transpired at the kirk.
“The bastards!” Aonghas spat. “That they could do such a thing.”
Remembering himself, he doffed his bonnet to his laird.
“Yon Middleton is a devil,” he spoke through gritted teeth. “I will have his guts for this. He comes around here, like a sleekit fox, preaching against fornication and the old ways, while all the time slavering over the lassies in his lasciviousness…”
Eoin placed a firm hand on Aonghas’ shoulder.
“I hear he has made an enemy in you, MacPherson. He inveighs against your sedition and your blasphemy too.”
Aonghas sighed.
“Aye, well… I would not be surprised that he persecuted the lassies as much for my sake as theirs. He gives me the impression of being that kind of a man, a sleekit cunning bastard.”
Eoin looked up at the mist-covered mountains, and a steely gleam flashed in his eyes.
“The days of Middleton and his ilk are numbered, mark my words,” he murmured. “The King Over the Water will return one day soon, and we shall drive the sleekit cunning bastards from our lands.”
Aonghas smiled grimly.
“Well, let us hope and pray that it shall be so. I fear the powers wish to uproot us from the land. When the time comes, my Lord, you can count on the men of the clachans – the Clanranald.”
“And the women too!” Sorcha declared, clinging to the broad chest of her Ruairi. She looked up at her man’s rugged face with adoration. “We shall bear warriors for you to free our lands with.”
Ruairi grinned and crushed her shoulders with his massive muscled arm.
“And I will take pleasure in the making of them!”
Sorcha playfully punched his chest.
They all laughed, except Eoin. He gazed down Gleann Seille towards the sea with a look of grim determination.
“The day will surely com
e,” he promised. “Dh' aindeoin co theireadh e! – Gainsay me who dares!”
* * *
Once Catriona had retrieved her servant’s clothes from the croft-house, Eoin pulled her up behind him on his mare and, together with Tamhas, set off at a steady canter along the river valley towards Eilean Tioram.
Catriona shivered in the chill November wind. The rain had not let up, and she was drenched to the bone. Her brow was burning, and she hoped that she was not coming down with a fever. She suspected that she would have to have all her strength and wits about her over the next few days; her fate, she felt, would depend upon it.
When they arrived at the castle, they found Peigi waiting for then, wringing a clout in her hands and fretting with worry.
“Come away inside to the fire, the lot of ye,” she instructed, “and I’ll sort ye a toddy.”
They trooped into her kitchen and threw themselves onto stools in front of the fire, leaving trails and pools of water on the swept stone floor. Peigi filled silver quaichs with a generous measure of uisge beatha and poured boiling water over the spirits.
“Here,” she said, handing them around. “Hopefully, this will drive away the ague.”
They sipped the potent liquid in silence. Steam began to rise from their clothes in the heat from the fire.
“How did you know I was for the cutty stool?” Catriona suddenly wondered.
“I was ‘summoned’ to attend the kirk to bear witness to my sins,” Eoin replied, staring angrily into the flames. “It seems we were denounced as fornicators by Deirdre MacLauchlan. I would not have dignified the proceedings by attending, but I knew you would be at the kirk with your family and what lay in store for you.”
Peigi snorted.
“‘Fornicators!” she sneered out. “The wee whore!”
Catriona handed the quaich back to Peigi.
“I must away up and get out of these wet clothes, afore I catch my death…”
“… and find yourself in Middleton’s eternal flames.” Eoin laughed. “Aye, I must shift out of these clothes myself.”
He tossed back the remainder of his toddy, and the couple went up the stairs to their private apartments.
* * *
Eoin peeled off his sark and used it to wipe the worst of the wetness from his hair. He did not see Catriona standing naked in the doorway.
She watched as he toweled furiously at his head. She took in the swarthy hue of his skin, the firm muscles that worked beneath it, the slim waist and hips, the round hard buttocks, and the flaccid penis and testicles that danced between his legs as he worried his hair. She felt a stirring deep in her stomach and an ache of longing in her heart. Despite herself, she let out a little sigh.
His head emerged from the bundled cloth with a look of surprise. Catriona giggled at the boyish look on his face as if he were a child just arose from sleep with his astonishment at the world renewed, so lost he had been in his dreams. He froze with a sharp intake of breath.
“Catriona,” he breathed out, his eyes moving over her nakedness. “You are so beautiful.”
She watched in amazement as his penis swelled and rose to salute her, doubling then tripling its length. A spasm of fear and awe shivered her body. She stepped forward and dropped to her knees before him. She took his cock in her hand and pulled back the foreskin to reveal its head. She took it on her tongue, like a communion wafer, and carried it into her mouth.
He groaned and arched his head backward, closing his eyes. He let his fingers play gently over her temples and ears. She began to rock her head slowly, backward and forward, her lips sealed around his shaft.
He too began to move against her, his hips trembling. She ran her hands up the backs of his thighs and clasped his firm buttocks and squeezed them. His fingers thrust deep into her still damp hair. She ran her tongue around the head of his cock. He moaned, then withdrew himself from her mouth.
He drew her up and, holding her against him in a strong embrace, lowered his lips to her eager upturned face. He covered her mouth with his own and drank of her deeply. Their tongues met and twined like the frenzied mating of adders on a sunny bank among the heather. He picked her up and carried her across the room to his bed.
He laid her down and slid onto the sheets beside her. He smoothed the nut-brown tresses from her cheeks and brow and gazed upon the beauty of her face. Her hazel eyes glinted with desire and permission. She wanted him with all her body and soul; her eyes told him this. He ran the backs of his fingers down her milk-white throat and across the small apples of her breasts. She gasped and clutched his hand and moved it down to her groin. He massaged her mound with the heel of his palm, while his fingers probed among the petals of her vagina.
She threw her head back, and a moan purred in her throat. He stroked the hardening bud of her clitoris and felt her grow wet beneath his touch. She reached out and grabbed his throbbing cock.
“Please!” she whispered breathlessly, as she slipped beneath him and positioned his cock over her entrance.
He slid in, the full length of him, and she luxuriated in the feeling of fullness it brought to her. She pushed against him, then wrapped her slim legs around his hips and drew him still deeper into herself. He began to thrust, gentle at first, then more forceful as he lost his mind to the joy of it.
“Come on!” Catriona hissed into his ear. “Fuck me, my Lord. Fuck me hard!”
He thrust faster and faster, driving into her as deeply as he could. Their breathing quickened. Waves of pleasure began to break upon her, like the gentle lapping on a beach. He plunged and bucked; the tide grew stronger within her, its powerful undertow dragging her further into the depths. A choke caught in his throat and he made to withdraw, but she clamped her legs tighter around his hips, holding him fast within her.
“No,” she crooned in his ear. “It does not matter. I want to feel you come inside me. I want to make you warriors.”
With a roar, he loosed himself. Her eyes widened as his cock engorged still further before filling her with its warm seed. In the same moment, the surf broke and flooded through her flesh, carrying her swirling like flotsam high up onto a beach.
As they slowly descended from the heights of their ecstasy, Eoin swore.
“Jesu!” he gasped out, trying to catch his breath.
“Eoin MacDonald,” Catriona chided him, reaching around from under his spent body and smacking him firmly on the bottom. “Fornicating and blaspheming at the same time! What would the Good Reverend Middleton say?”
Chapter Eighteen
The next morning, the Clanranald descended upon Castle Tioram with a retinue of six men-at-arms. Tamhas saw to their horses and, while the men took ale in Peigi’s kitchen, the clan chieftain held conference with his son in the hall above.
Eoin had dressed for the occasion. He had donned tartan trews and a moleskin doublet, with a short ornamental plaid looping over his left shoulder from the waistband of his trews and pinned to the chest of his doublet by a large silver brooch set with an amber cairngorm. A rapier hung from the sword loop on his belt.
The Clanranald and Muideart sat opposite one another across the large table in the center of the hall. They each occupied an ornately carved high-backed chair. Clanranald’s chair creaked ominously as he shifted his considerable frame in a futile effort to make himself comfortable. He was more a man of action than of sitting. A flask of uisge beatha and a small jug of water sat on the table between them.
“So, lad,” Clanranald said, “what is this I have been hearing, about ye storming the kirk in Gleann Fhionnain with force of arms?” He chuckled. “I hear tell that the minister there shat himself.”
Eoin snorted and shifted his quaich on the table in front of him.
“The wee bauchle had the temerity to summons me – ‘summons’ me, mind – to sit on the stool of repentance in his wee byre of a kirk.”
“And ye took offense at that?”
“I did,” Eoin confirmed. “Moreover, he was unjustly persecutin
g the clan’s folk at Ath Tharracail, and I was upholding their rights.”
Clanranald grunted. He could not fault his son for that; it was his duty, after all.
“But did ye have to go in there wi’ your blade bared an’ your man barring the door?” He chuckled again. “It is supposed to be a house of God, after all, a sanctuary. Ye might as well hae charged up the aisle on a warhorse. Some folk might think it a queer way o’ righting an offense by givin’ greater offense to the Almighty.”
Eoin glowered at his father.
“Ye ken fine that the Almighty is not to be found in the houses of heretics.”
Clanranald pursed his fleshy lips and nodded.
“Aye, I suppose… But still,” he said, prodding the table with a blunt sinewy finger. “these people are dangerous, and we must not go off half-cocked. The wee German lairdie is in the ascendancy for the moment, and his redcoats could come marching into Muideart on any pretext to crush the Clanranald. In fact, I would not be surprised if this was why his sniveling wee lackies, the Middletons of this world, are going around their parishes stirring up resentment. They may be trying to provoke trouble to give the Government an excuse to move against us. Remember what befell our cousins in Gleann Comhann in ’92. We must tread canny and bide our time until the King Over the Water musters French support for a rising. Otherwise, we might wake up one morning to find that our throats have been cut.”
Eoin sighed.
“I was never one for the diplomacy,” he admitted. “I am not the wily old fox that my father is.”
Clanranald smiled at the compliment and raised his quaich in acknowledgment.
“Which brings me to the matter that most vexes me,” he said with a pained expression.
Eoin looked at the ceiling as if invoking divine help. He knew what was coming.
“I hear that you have taken a wee doxy to your bed.”
Clanranald paused to give his son an opportunity to deny it. The moment passed, and he chuckled with indulgence.