Jennifer Roberson (43 page)

He spoke nothing aloud, knowing God heard him even within his heart. And he felt it meet, for he wanted God to know how painful this duty was, how excrutiating this service. He had written letters. He had made promises. He had believed those with greater power might also have the decency to understand the plight of an old Highland fox who found it difficult to reconcile his personal pride with the needs of his people.

I failed
. . . . He had believed so implicitly in fairness that he had given short shrift to the exigencies of the times, the politics of the moment: men such as Breadalbane, men such as Stair, did not desire MacIain to be forgiven so much as an hour. And he had been late by six days.

Had I been stronger in my persuasion
. . . He had tried so very hard in so many begging letters, relying on his superiors to give credence to a soldier who spent his time in the Highlands instead of in council chambers.

They want to have them killed in spite of oaths and honor
. . . . And so they would be killed to present an example, to pleasure men in London who served interests Hill suspected were other than the king’s.

But the king was not excluded from culpability. Hill had seen the order with its bold, scrawled signature at head and foot. He had protested the order despite the royal seal, but Stair had dismissed that final plea in his most recent letter, and now Hill knelt on the stony floor of a tiny room and knew it was ended. There would be no more appeals.

‘You cannot receive further directions
. . . ’Stair had written. And also the damning words: ‘
Be secret and sudden . . . be quick
. . .’

He had sworn his own oaths and kept them, had never broken one. He was a soldier. He was an officer. Let no man ever say he did not accept his duty and the responsibilities of his rank.

Other words rang in his head, those sworn by him when James had given up his throne to keep England whole. He spoke them aloud again for the first time since. “ ‘I will be a true, faithful, and obedient soldier, in every way performing my best endeavors for Their Majesties’ service, obeying such orders and submitting to all such rules and articles of war as are, or shall be established by Their Majesties. So help me God!’ ”

The room was cold but perspiration stippled his flesh. With effort Hill drew himself to his feet and sat down in his chair. He took up his quill, inked it, pulled a fresh sheet of parchment, and began to write the orders for his Deputy Governor, Lieutenant Colonel John Hamilton.

“
You are with four hundred of my regiment, and the four hundred of my Lord Argyll’s regiment, under the command of Major Duncanson, to march straight to Glencoe, and there put in due execution the orders you have received from the commander in chief
. ”

He sanded it. Folded it. Sealed it. Set it aside for his aide.

It was done. But he was not Pilate. He would not wash his hands.

 

The knobby, hooked
camanachd
stick wielded by a Campbell soldier swung out and snared Dair’s right ankle. Momentum caught and carried him through his rudely arrested motion, so that he had to twist awkwardly to avoid falling badly. Men had broken bones playing shinty; he refused to be one.

But landing hurt regardless. He ended up in a tangle of limbs and sticks, including his own, aware of pain blooming in his ankle. Around him he heard laughter, vulgar jests, the harsh teasing of MacDonalds who, under bonds of hospitality, did not take it amiss that a Campbell had hooked down one of their own, not even their laird’s son. It was an active, sometimes brutal game that brought each man to a single level determined solely by skill.

Dair levered himself up on elbows, cursing mildly. He untangled the sticks and tossed his opponent’s away to be recovered almost at once, then sat up to reconnoiter the stony, treacherous field as well as himself. The game had moved on, as expected, and he was left to look after his own bones . . . save for his brother, who, grinning broadly, came striding across to peer down at him.

John reached out with his stick and tapped Dair’s thigh as a prospective buyer might prod a suspect shoulder on a horse. “Aye, well—d’ye mean to sit there all day, or come back and prove yourself?”

Dair scowled. “You might offer me a hand up.”

“And are you a weakling, then, to need it?”

No, he was not—especially not with Campbells in the glen. Dair got himself up, gritting teeth against the pain, and tested his ankle. It was whole, but more than a little tender.

John made a dismissive sound with his tongue. “A wee sprat like you had best go sit wi’ the women, aye?—and leave the game to men.”

Dair responded with a succinct and vulgar expletive. Laughing, John took himself off to rejoin the game, while his brother limped from the area serving as a field. He went to look for Cat and found her pouring whisky into cups for whoever came by to wet a throat hoarse from shouting.

He saw the glint in her eye as he limped up. “I see you’ve done no better at
camanachd
than you did at tossing the caber.”

Tossing the massive wooden log had resulted in splinters in his forearms, and a sore back. One misstep had overbalanced the caber, and the better part of courage had been to let it fall aslant rather than backward over his shoulder. MacIain, watching with Glenlyon and other officers, had not at all been impressed.

Dair scowled blackly. “Dinna ye ken a man’s woman is to tend his hurts, not wound him additionally?”

“Here.” Cat thrust a cup into his hands. “Whisky will do better than my tongue, aye?” She smiled widely. “And what is next? Will you heave the stone?” Bright eyes glinted. “Or is that likely to land upon your head and dash your brains out?”

He downed half the whisky in a single gulp, then pressed a sleeve against his mouth. “Christ, Cat, I should send you out there to try it. Then you wouldna be so free with your insults.”

She shrugged. “I learned them from my brothers.”

Likely she had. And equally likely they had given her no quarter. Mollified, he said, “I did win at archery.”

Cat’s brows arched suggestively. “You always have been good with a shaft.”

Dair, in mid-swallow, was taken with a coughing fit that nearly choked him. By the time he regained control his eyes were streaming with tears.

“More?” Grinning, Cat held out another cup when he could breathe again.

He glared at the proffered whisky. “Christ, woman—so you can choke me again? I dinna think so!”

A clansman came by and accepted the cup in his place. A hearty slap of meaty palm on Dair’s shoulder nearly staggered him; by the time he ground out a curse the grinning MacDonald was gone.

Cat came around the table and put a hand on his arm. “Come along, then . . . they can help themselves to whisky. We’ll go find us a wee spot of ground to sit upon while you recover your pride.”

He allowed her to lead him not far from the table, up a rise to a place beneath a small copse of fir. Behind it and other trees, down the knowe and in a rocky channel, ran the River Coe, swollen and singing with snowmelt; the weather, turning mild earlier in the week, mimicked a spring that was not due for a month or more.

Dair sat down and set his spine against a trunk. Cat settled beside him, pulling from bundled plaid a crust of bread and hunk of cheese. She split both as best she could and offered half to him.

He had shed his plaid in order to play
camanachd.
Now, in shirtsleeves, kilt, with bare feet bruised and muddy, Dair relaxed against the tree and chewed meditatively. The days in winter were short; within two hours the gloaming would settle in, and everyone would retire to dwellings to drink, and sing of heroes. In his father’s house Glenlyon would be guested for supper, eating beef and drinking whisky, and wagering on cards while Big Henderson played his pipes before the peat-fire, filling the laird’s house with sound.

There was pipe music now as well, winding up from the land below, and women singing waulking songs as they cooked more beef. Wind rippled his billowing sleeves and ruffled graying hair; it promised snow perhaps by dawn, turgid with moisture. Low clouds from over the loch crowded the mountains like chicks around a hen.

Dair gazed down upon the playing field, looking idly for John. For now most of the soldiers of Argyll’s regiments enjoyed the generous hospitality of the MacDonalds, though as always there was a watch. Duty would beckon them soon; for now they waited, eating the meat of their hosts. It was an oddly companionable time in which many old slights were forgotten.

But not all of them. “ ’Tis a hard thing,” Dair said idly, “to be civil to a man who hanged you.”

She glanced at him sharply, then away. “I dinna invite him, Dair. He arrives.”

“Every morning?”

She shrugged, picking her bread to pieces. “He might go elsewhere. He doesna.” She stared fiercely in the direction of the game below on the field. Shouting, laughter, and curses drifted up to them, breaking through the keening of pipes, and singing. “Would you have me go elsewhere so he will? I could stay with John and Eiblin.”

He reached out and caught a stiff hand. “I want you with me.”

She destroyed the bread. “I wish he
would
go. I wish all of them would go. I wish they would leave us alone.”

“They canna stay much longer, or the blizzards will begin and they’ll be here through the season.” He squeezed her hand, released it. “Though Glengarry, they say, has come forward after all and agreed to swear the oath.”

She turned to him. “Then they need not punish him! They can go somewhere else and plague another clan.”

He smiled lazily. “There speaks a MacDonald.”

She colored. “There speaks a woman who wants naught to do with her father, or to feed so many soldiers.”

“Aye, well—they will move on soon. In a day or two, perhaps.” He waved at a cloud of midges buzzing close to an ear. “In a day or two we’ll be free.”

She shifted closer and leaned her head against his shoulder. “I would as soon he went away and never came back again.”

He grinned. “
There
speaks a dutiful, loving daughter!”

“ ’Tis the truth, for all it isna bonnie.” She sighed. “I have not much in me for duty.”

“But for loving, aye.” He slung an arm around her shoulder. “ ’Tis no’ so bad a thing, I’m thinking, to look down upon a clutch of MacDonalds and Campbells sharing whisky and beef and games, with no more violence of it than a curse or a sour glance. No dirkings, no fist-fights, no insults. Perhaps MacIain should have sworn to William and Mary a year ago.”

“You dinna mean
that
. ”

“Well, no . . .” He smiled. “Perhaps not.” A year ago MacIain would never have allowed the thought to be thought, let alone carried out, nor would his son have had it in his head.

She sat very still against him. “A year ago I could not have put credence to this—to
any
of this: Campbells and MacDonalds in Glencoe with no blood spilled . . . or MacIain’s son and Glenlyon’s daughter sharing a bed.”

A year ago the woman in his bed had been a Stewart, and he had not known such contentment.

Conviction blossomed instantly. “Cat.” He straightened abruptly and turned to her, unmindful of sore muscles and bruises. “Cat, will you handfast with me?”

It ambushed her utterly. “Handfast?”

“You and me. We’ll stand before witnesses and swear we wish to marry, and when we find a kirk—or a minister finds us—we’ll do it with Scripture, aye?” It caught fire within him. “Cat, say you will! What better time to do it than now, with Campbells and MacDonalds in accord?”

She stared at him. And then her eyes filled with tears.

It shook him. “Cat—?”

She laughed, then pressed both hands against her cheeks to wipe the tears away. “Oh, I never thought of it . . . I never
thought
. . .”

He waited tensely. He saw in her face and eyes all manner of thoughts, but none of them could he put name to. So quickly they came and went, leaving nothing behind but tears and tentative laughter.

She drew in a huge breath and let it out all at once. “I never thought anyone would want me.”

Such plain, simple words, and so eloquent a declaration. In that moment he shared all the pain, all the insecurities of an awkward lass made to believe she was worthless to any man but a feckless father who preferred whisky and wagers to pride in himself and his daughter.

He reached out and caught her hand, fingered it gently, then carried her hand to his mouth and kissed her palm. “
I
want you,” he said.

This time when she cried he knew it was for joy.

 

Replete with food, smoky whisky, and pleasant company, the Laird of Glenlyon leaned back in the best chair his host had to offer, stretching out his spine. MacDonald of Inverrigan, his wife, and seven children feasted him like a king. Weary of soldier’s diet, even of the better food served officers, Glenlyon felt at home again, and respected—for all he was a Campbell in the glen of his enemies.

A wind had come up in late afternoon after the field games, carrying with it snow-laden storm clouds from Ardgour across Loch Linnhe. Glenlyon knew an incipient blizzard when he smelled one, and realized by dawn a man in Inverrigan, looking down the glen, would be hard-pressed to see MacIain’s house at Carnoch, or even the smaller settlements of Achnacone and Achtriachtan.

Glencoe was not a single village but a valley-length scattering of dwelling clusters strewn from near the Devil’s Staircase to the ferry at Ballachulish. All were MacDonalds and all of Glencoe, but to distinguish among them the tacksmen took on various place names. And so his host was Inverrigan, though the laird was down a bit at Carnoch a shouted greeting away and his sons farther yet, with John and his wife and son at Achtriachtan.