Jennifer Roberson (19 page)

Jean would not understand. Cat Campbell would. “I was at Killiecrankie.”

It was enough, he knew, for her—and then more, far more than enough. The words proved his manhood if not his potency, but he remembered too late even as she recoiled that Glenlyon’s daughter knew very well by its aftermath who had been at Killiecrankie.

Her mouth warped briefly even as he tried to explain. “ ’Twas a brave battle, that . . . and braver still when MacDonalds stripped Glen Lyon of everything—including our pride.” Her hands gripped the reins, white-knuckled and trembling. “People died,” she told him, “inside as well as out. Tell me again,
MacDonald,
how I should feel safe with you.”

 

Governor Hill, when told of the royal commission given the Earl of Breadalbane to treat with the clans, was first astounded, secondly disbelieving, lastly infuriated. He himself worked to bring peace to the Highlands, going among the people with candor in his mouth as well as honest kindness, and had been justly treated by them in return. He held hopes that his efforts would be repayed by renewed willingness to swear oath to King William as opposed to supporting James, and while Breadalbane’s proposal was much the same, Hill could not but complain that much of his own work was undone, or at least appropriated by a man who himself was a Highlander, and whose true interests in the outcome could be discerned by no one.

He did not consider himself a petty or malicious man, but his patience was ended at last. Clearly a man with no more than the interests of Scotland at heart would not be heard without proofs of duplicity where other men worked, and so he set about interviewing friendly clanspeople who had been given warranties to attend the meeting at Achallader but weeks away. It was Breadalbane he examined through the earl’s own promises to give silver to the clans, and it was Breadalbane whom Hill knew to be playing a dangerous game.

The governor had his information from such chiefs as Ewan Cameron of Lochiel, less disposed to hear from the Campbell earl, and was explicitly told that the preeminent MacDonald of Glengarry would spend his time raiding Ross instead of listening to Breadalbane’s lies.

And yet the lies might be believed. Silver meant much to clans who in winter found living difficult. John Hill knew it entirely possible that even those who disparaged Breadalbane would nonetheless meet with him at Achallader; there was nothing to be lost in going, and perhaps much to be gained.

To the governor in Fort William there was little to be gained, and everything to be lost. He was caught between a Dutch king advised by a Lowland Scot who despised Highlanders, and a Highland-born Campbell earl who had a trunk full of coats from which he might choose a color, depending on circumstances.

Hill capped his inkhorn, set his quill aside.
Someone will suffer. Someone must suffer.
He put his papers into order, aligning tattered edges.
There will be an example made of those who are innocent, or wholly inconsequential, to prove that Highland power is negligible when compared to that of a combined Parliamant, and a king who brooks no rebellion.

 

On the track toward Balloch, Cat pulled up her garron, waiting as the four mounted MacDonalds dispatched to escort her gathered close enough to hem in the Campbell gillies on foot, Angus and Ewan, and for Una to come up beside her. She lowered her eyes in embarrassment not entirely unfeigned; given another course, she would prefer it to this one. But these were men; it was the only certainty.

“You’ll wait,” she said curtly. “ ’Tis for a woman to tend.”

They did not ask; they knew. She saw glances exchanged, the small language of the bodies: squinted eyes, a twitch of the mouth, hunched shoulders; one man looked across the turf to the stone-crowned rise with a twisted tree atop it breaking free of granite cleft. A small measure of modesty for a woman riding with men.

“There,” one said, while the others kept wary eyes on Angus and Ewan, whose cheeks burned crimson for their laird’s daughter.

It wasn’t shame, Cat decided, but the natural needs of a body. They’d think nothing of it, being men and more capable of unencumbered relief; but she required more shielding, more forbearance. More time.

Una’s expression was frozen into disbelief.
Does she mean me to hold it all the way to Kilchurn?
Cat smothered a laugh and busied herself with unhooking a foot from a stirrup. “Una—you’ll come.” It was necessary she come.

Una came, clambering down from her garron to assist Cat with her needs. Cat paid little mind to the broken ground and knurled turf, heading straight toward the tree-split, rocky outcrop. The terrain was as she’d prayed: behind the outcrop and tree was a hollow, and beyond it a rill that sloped into a slantwise depression running back the way they had come.

She glanced behind anxiously and was pleased to see the MacDonalds had all dismounted, tending their own needs. “Una—hurry!” The woman muttered of undecorous haste; Cat climbed over the outcrop and dropped to the earth, flattening belly down. “Listen then, Una—you’ll go back in a moment and ask for linen.”

“Linen!”

“Say I have none!” Cat hissed. “Say my courses have come on early, and I am desperate . . . say a shirt will do—”

“They will debate about it at some length; they will none of them want to give up a shirt for
that—”

“D’ye think I’ll ask such of them?” Una was mortified. “Catriona, we’ve our own linen—”

“But we need
theirs.
”Cat glared at her. “Have you wits, Una? If we’re to stop our cattle from being stolen, we must act now.”

Una clamped her mouth closed repressively. “I’ll no’ speak to men—
MacDonalds!
—of such things.”

Cat transfixed her with a baleful stare. “You will,” she said clearly. “You will do whatever I tell you to do, Una; d’ye hear me? You canna stop me. You can help me.”

“I’ll no’
speak
of—”

“You will go and ask them for linen. ’Twill be Angus who offers his, to save me shame—
think
, Una!—and you will refuse him that, he being Campbell, and then it will be for one of the MacDonalds to do—”

“Better a
Campbell
shirt—”

“—and by the time you’ve got a shirt and come back to me with it, I’ll be gone.”

That shut Una’s mouth again. “Gone?”

“On my way; ’tis what this mummery is for.”

“You canna walk all the way to Chesthill!”

Lord Christ, but the woman’s a fool; and what does it say of my mother, who kept Una by her?
“I dinna
need
to walk all the way to Chesthill. They’ve left horses at the shieling, you ken, wi’ the men yet being held. I’ll no’ trouble them over that—I’ve enough wit to ken I’m outmatched, there—I only want a horse. We’re no’ so far from the shielings, Una—and despite your wishes, I’m no soft woman, am I? D’ye think I canna do this?”

Una stared at her in such dismay and horror that Cat wanted to swear at her. But that would stir Una to further declamation, and she had no time.

“Then stay,” Cat hissed. “They’ll come to see no matter . . . I only meant to gain the time you’d win me, but I see ’tis more important to you not to speak of such to MacDonalds than save
the laird’s own cattle
from Glencoe-men.”

As expected, Una surrended to the reminder of whose cattle were at risk and whose daughter she served. She turned stiffly and began to pick her way slowly toward the clustered men.

Cat sighed. Praise God for the woman’s loyalty, if not her wits . . . Taking care to keep her head down, she edged deeper into the hollow and turned toward the rill.
—not so far . . . and not so much to risk to thwart MacDonalds!

Especially Dair MacDonald.

W
hen Glenlyon, met on the road by a clutch of tacksmen and gillies mounted on heaving garrons, was told his cattle were threatened, he was slow to comprehend a message he might otherwise answer at once because of the messenger: his disheveled daughter, tunic skirt kilted up for ease of riding which perforce exposed a long stockinged leg on either side of the horse. Her smaller woman’s plaid, the arisaid, was torn loose from its breast-brooch and hung down from her belt in folds and tangled coils; her braid was wrung free of its bindings by the forcefulness of her riding.

She had, she said, called at each bothy and cottage on the ride back to Chesthill, gathering such men as were willing to fight for Glen Lyon’s cows; the implication, even from her, was that they would not be so willing to fight for Glen Lyon’s laird.

It hurt very badly, that comment. Glenlyon glared at her and at those she brought with her.

Cat bestrode the garron with no thought to her appearance or to what others might think, shaking back tumbled, wind-wracked hair with an impatient toss of her head. “You’ll go,” she said, short-winded, before he could speak.
“At once . . .
they’ll be after those closest to Rannoch Moor, I’m thinking—wanting to come no nearer . . .”

“Cat.”

“—they will catch up what they can and sweep on, not wanting to waste time . . .”

“Cat—”

“—there are twelve altogether, but he divided them—two left at the shieling, though they may be gone by now; and four to escort us to Balloch—” She drew breath hastily. “—That leaves only six for the cows—”

“Catriona—good
Christ . . .
will you get down from that horse?”

Startled by his tone, she stared at him blankly. “Get down? Would you have me walk, then?”

“I’d have you
down!”
he shouted. “Where is Una? Why are you unattended?”

The wind of her ride had painted bloody roses in her cheeks. Now the flowers faded, leaving her corpse white and too bright in the eyes from something other than shock or sorrow. He knew that expression.

“The
cows,
”Cat said succinctly. “They’ll have them if you tarry.”

“Pull down your skirts,” he commanded. “There isna a woman among us, and you come here like a—like a
whore.
”

Cat recoiled. He heard a stirring among the men as they shifted their eyes and attention elsewhere, resettling reins, plaids, stirrup leathers, avoiding any commitment to what was said between a father and his daughter; but he was aware of disapproval. It was palpable. They give his daughter more respect than he.

“I
came
here to warn you of cattle thieves,” Cat declared tightly. “Will you go?”

—She’s more a laird than I. . .
And that hurt the worst of all, that men once sworn to him could believe a woman more fit than he, a mature man who had led into battle other men, when all Cat had ever led were her own personal rebellions for those small, insignificant issues as only she believed important. She had always been headstrong and impossible to train. He saw now what it earned him, his kindness, his affection, his laxity; time she
was
married, if only so another man had the training of her.

He scowled. “Where is Una? What have you done with her?”

“I’ve
done naught with Una, and I doubt they have, either; with her grim face and sour mouth, there’s not much for a man to go soft about—”

“Cat! ”

“—so likely they’ve left Una and Angus and Ewan there in the road whilst they ride back to their thieving compatriots,
who are meanwhile lifting our cattle—”

“Attend your clothing,” he said curtly. “We will see about the cows—”

“Then go—”

“—while you return to Chesthill—”

“Will you
go?”

“—for I willna have my daughter seen so by men.” He straightened his spine, thrust up his chin, and glanced at the men who accompanied him to Stirling, and those men Cat had brought. “We’ve enough; they willna take our cows.”

“God in Heaven, man, they’ll be back in
Glencoe
before you so much as turn your horse!” she cried. “Does it matter more that my legs are covered than to retrieve what few cows we’ve managed to buy with pitiful little silver?”

It was a weapon, her tongue, and well honed; he scowled at her, knowing with each word she ate away his authority, divested him of whatever dignity he yet retained; knowing too she meant none of
that:
she only wanted the cows.

He swung his horse toward Rannoch. “We’ll bring back our cows, if they’ve lifted them already; mayhap a MacDonald as well.”

“And a Stewart,” she muttered blackly.

“Go home, Cat.”

“D’ye see?—I’m going. I’m
going!”

And she was, at last, trying without much success to unhook kilted tunic skirts and pull folds of linen and wool down over her knees. It was preposterous behavior; but then he never expected anything of Cat save such.
I’ve ruined her. Una warned me after Helen died . . . but now ’tis too late.

Yet as he watched her straight spine recede Glenlyon could not suppress a spurt of pride, for all it was somewhat tarnished by guilt. Once, he would not have cared what they saw of Cat, save to despair of what their thoughts might be; she was too tall, too thin, too boyish. They would have seen naught but knobbed knees and pale flesh splotched here and there with variegated bruises. And while he supposed beneath the knitted stockings she might
still
boast a collection of bruises, there was not a man among them who would not catch his breath at the sight of Cat Campbell but half-clad and wind-wracked, fiercely proud as a warrior woman out of ancient sagas.

Once, he would have hidden her for fear of ridicule. Now he desired her hidden for what she might inspire in a man less than circumspect where the laird’s daughter was concerned.

Worth something after all, aye?
And would undoubtedly prove her mettle as Breadalbane’s daughter-in-law.

“Catriona, Countess Breadalbane,” he murmured, and at last gave the order for his tail and Cat’s clutch to set about retrieving what MacDonalds desired to steal.

 

Cat watched them go, her father and his men. She had long ago learned there was a line between truth and falsehood, and how to walk it without falling off so as to land on either side. Her father had ordered her back to Chesthill because he would not have her
‘seen so by men.’
To her father, clearly, it was enough to keep her there; to Cat, equally clearly, it was not. It was enough only to suggest that she go, not stay, and that in order
not
to stay she need only change her clothing so she would not quite so closely resemble what her father called a whore, an observation which suggested to her that he knew what one looked like even if she did not. It was, Cat decided, fair indication he had kept company with such women, which left her all the more determined that she better than he was fit to circumscribe her behavior.

So Cat rode back to Chesthill, where she took off her belted tunic with its crimson, silver-plated sleeves, shed the arisaid, put on instead breeks borrowed from her father, and a shirt she had hemmed for him—
badly!
—but kept for herself; pinned a more voluminous plaid slantwise across chest and shoulder; belted on a dirk; and went back out of the house to mount the garron again. Winded, it could not offer much, but there was no other to ride. And she might have time to catch her father again, before he caught MacDonalds.

 

Rannoch Moor was a rumpled swath of land between Glen Lyon and Glencoe, made treacherous by bogs. Stunted trees dotted the moor, which yet boasted only winter finery, thick clumps of heather still dull from a duller season, plus overgrowth of bracken knit together by sienna gold carpets of grass. Come summer the blooming heather would set the moor afire, but for now it was a stony wasteland of bogs, of spindle-limbed, twisted trees, and the dead vegetation that would in spring come vigorously back to life. There were signs of it already in acid greens and olives, and the first promise of flowers, but Dair found it grimly predictable as he and the others drove the cattle from Campbell lands closer to MacDonald.

Robbie had complained there were not enough, and that Dair was too conservative by limiting them to a small herd closest to Rannoch rather than going deeper to the heart of Glen Lyon, but Dair knew better; by venturing so close to Chesthill and other townships such as those inhabited by the laird’s sons, they risked too much. It was enough, he felt, to gather what cows they could on the edge of Glenlyon’s lands, and drive them back to safety without alarming the Campbell inhabitants. If they got far enough into Rannoch without being discovered, they stood a fair chance even in the daylight of getting completely clear.

“We are but
six,
” Dair said when Robbie came up beside him to complain of it again.

Stewart scowled. “Doesna take much more than one or two to drive so few as this—they’re
cows,
not men!—but I came to say the others will be here soon, and we’ll be more than six.”

“We can come back, Robbie. Another time.”

“But we’re here
now
—seems easier to me to gather the cattle now, than ride all the way back again.”

“Seems easier to
me
to get home wi’ what we’ve got—” A flash of steel in sunlight caught Dair’s eye and broke him off mid-sentence.
“—Christ—ROBBIE—
”

It was sudden, so sudden, and proof of his concerns, but that no longer mattered. What mattered was survival as the heather clumps and hip-high bracken erupted with men clad in the deep green and black colors the Campbells favored, a’glint now with steel as they drew dirks. It was a fact all Highlanders knew that the duller tartans, despite their distinct patterns, hid a man better than solid colors.

“
‘Creag ab Sgairbh!’
” Robbie cried, wheeling his mount.

Dair did not waste breath on war cries. They were six, only six, with the others yet distant from them, and perhaps killed already. His concern was not to rouse, but to escape the trap. MacDonalds and Stewarts were scattered among the cattle, tending recalcitrant stirks, and of no use as a combined force. It was the Campbells who were to be reckoned with as a united threat.

“Chruachan!”
someone shouted, and Dair realized grimly Campbells had more leisure to shout war cries meant to fire the blood; likely it was MacDonald and Stewart blood that would be spilled cold on the ground.

He reined his garron viciously, jerking it away from a man who came up from the ground with steel in his hand. But the man did not strike at human flesh, only at equine: a swipe of the dirk down low hamstrung the garron and made it into a three-legged beast.

Dair had no time for thinking, only for reacting; and yet he could not but wonder who had given alarm, who had known, who had been able to gather so many men as to offer such opposition. Raids were rapid sweeps, not pitched battles; yet there were men enough here to inhabit several townships.

His horse staggered, fighting to maintain balance. Campbells swarmed and clung to the reins, cut at a second hamstring, then pulled the butchered garron down even as Dair attempted to kick free of stirrups.

—too many—
And so there were. Within minutes he was down with the quivering horse atop one leg. He cursed, twisted, snatched at his dirk; was grabbed by multiple hands. They stripped him of the dirk and dragged him free of the struggling garron even as it rolled, saving him a shattered leg; now he lay sprawled with rocks jammed into his spine, skull smacking turf-clad soil, legs and arms pinned. A dirk point teased his throat as a squatting Campbell slowly set his knee into heaving, vulnerable belly. “Dinna move,” the man suggested.

There were shouts around him and the restless milling of unsettled cattle. Dust drifted, churned up by hooves. He heard the murmuring of men, the whuffing of winded garrons, and then a muffled outcry.

—Robbie—
Dair tensed; the dirk bit into flesh, drawing blood, even as the knee insinuated itself more closely against his belly.

“Dinna kill them,” someone said. “The laird will want to say what to do wi’ them.”

“Then he has three in place o’ four; Malcolm’s is dead already.”

“Where is the laird—?”

“Coming,” another said.

Dair stared up at the man who held the dirk against his throat. Neither young nor old, nondescript of feature, with lank brown hair and browner eyes. When he grinned down at his captive he bared a broken eyetooth. “MacDonald? Or Stewart? We heard the Stewart war cry. Which are ye?”

Dair held his silence, tasting grit and blood in his mouth and the bitterness of comprehension: he would die unwed with no sons to his name, and MacIain and his wife left with only John.

“Aye, well, it doesna matter,” the Campbell said off-handedly. “You’ll die easy enough be you Stewart or MacDonald . . . and here is the laird now, come to pass judgment.”

The knee eased. A man came close, peering down at Dair. “We’ve three?—aye, well, no’ so many as I’d hoped.”

“Four,” someone said diffidently. “But one is dead of a dirk.”

“Well, let it be . . . we’ve three necks for the rope.” He had aged poorly since Dair had seen him a decade before, but was incontestably Robert Campbell. His eyes were set in a perpetual squint; the loose skin beneath his eyes sagged into sallow bags; and the once-firm jaw bore jowls. “They are the Gallows Herd; a tree will serve well enough for a Campbell gallows.”

—He doesna remember me
. . . It seemed inconceivable that a man might hang another without knowing whom he hanged.
This is Cat’s father. . .