Jennifer Roberson (6 page)

Glenlyon’s legs collapsed. His buttocks thumped into the chair. He had always been a man who answered another’s thunder; he claimed none of his own. And whisky, despite his longing, despite his dedication, offered little also.

 

It was farther to MacDonald lands than Cat had anticipated. She rode her shaggy garron—hers more pony than horse—in increasingly tense silence, giving away nothing of her presence to the brothers who rode some distance ahead, praying the pony would keep his footing on the narrow track and make no noise, nor greet his kin ahead. But the excitement had begun to pall some time ago, edging from sharp awareness to a wholly unexpected fatigue.

The moon was halved, but nonetheless shed enough illumination for her to see the countryside, to mark the distant upthrustings of hills and crags. The track she followed in the wake of her brothers skirted the bogs of Rannoch Moor, and would eventually wind through the gorse, heather, and stony outcroppings of the upper slopes. Spring-and rain-fed burns ran full with water, carving wet convolutions of veins through hummocky turf to the black soil beneath.

Cat tipped her head to stare up at the moon. The adventure had palled, the resolution now wavered; part of her wanted very badly to turn back—her brothers would never know she came, so her desertion could not be thrown in her face—but the other portion of her would not permit such cowardice. She had come to steal—“
recover!
”—a cow, and recover a cow she would.

It was summer, but Highland nights were cool. She tasted mist, felt its kiss on her cheeks and nose. She was thankful for the plaid, grateful for the bonnet.

The garron stumbled. Cat reined its head up; then, as it slowed, planted heels again firmly to urge it onward before she might seriously contemplate turning back.
“Chruachan,
” she murmured, relying on the magic contained in a single word to reconfirm her intent, reestablish confidence.
“Chrua
—”

She broke off, hissing a startled inhalation. Through the darkness, burning brighter than the moon, blazed a small, steady flame.

Cat shivered convulsively. Where were her brothers? Still ahead—? Or had they turned off the track?
—do they see the fire--?
Surely they had;
she
had. Which meant if they claimed any wits at all they would get off their mounts, snoove down through darkness, huddle up in rocks, and brush and peer downslope at the fire to discover who had laid it.

“Mac
Don
alds.” A frisson of fear and trepidation twisted her belly inside out. She knew, as her brothers did, that most of the Glencoe men had gone to fight Argyll, leaving behind but a smattering of male protection. But even a single MacDonald provided a threat to Campbell cows.

She licked dry lips, then rolled the bottom one between her teeth. She need not face MacDonalds, nor did her brothers. They had only to find the nearest herd, gather up what they could, and without excess commotion drive them back to Glen Lyon.

It could not be difficult. Men did it all the time. And if she and her brothers knew where MacDonalds were, keeping warm by the fire, they could avoid them easily.

Cat nodded vehemently to herself, finding renewed courage. There was no danger. Only stealth was necessary, and cleverness. She thought neither required a man.

From ahead a garron whinnied: one of her brothers’. Her own immediately answered it.

Panic seized her body. She bent down across the garron’s neck, hugging it rigidly. In broad Scots she pleaded for silence. “Och, houd your gab—”

But it was too late. The fire flared up as wood was added, and she saw man-shapes against it; heard hated MacDonald voices. Dirks and swords glinted.

Her whole body trembled violently; this was worse, far worse, than anything she had expected. Cat thought instantly of fleeing, of yanking her garron around and going back the way she had come, beating a tattoo against the ribs of her mount. But that was predictable, and instinct insisted that in predictability lay the truest danger.

—
they’ll likely circle around
—She heard the scrabble of hooves from up the track, between her mount and the fire. She wanted badly to wait for her brothers, or to ride up to join them, but something beyond fear drove her to serve herself.

Humming a pibroch in her head to drown out the upsurge of fear, Cat swung her garron from the deer track they had followed and sought shelter among the scree, behind tangled heather and the scrubby oaks huddled against mounded hilltops clustered with time-and rain-broken stone. There she climbed off her garron and flopped belly-down on the ground, scraping herself to the lip of the slope to peer down toward the fire—

—and scrambled back, flattened in panic, as bodies backlighted by flames tumbled over the slope. Her garron whinnied again.

“Cat!” The voice broke; it was Dougal throwing himself over the slope. “Cat—is that
you
?”With him was Colin, big-eyed in the darkness as they came scrabbling over the scree, dragging ponies at the end of taut reins.

Her heart surely would burst as it hammered within her chest. Cat lifted her face from the ground. “Where’s Jamie?” It was little more than a wheeze. She spat grit. “Where’s Robbie?” She wanted Robbie. They
needed
Robbie. He would know what to do. He was always telling them so.

Dougal stuffed his reins into Colin’s rigid hand and motioned for the youngest boy to get the garrons down behind the slope. He jerked his head over his shoulder, indicating the fire. “Back there. He sent us away when the garrons whinnied—Cat, they’re
MacDonalds
. ”

Fear made her blurt of laughter harsh. “They should be, aye? We’re on MacDonald land!”

“No.” It was Colin, smallest of them all, hunkering down rigidly against the slope with two garrons pulling at reins. “No, Robbie said we’re not—”

Dougal took it over. “—We’re no’ to Glencoe yet, or even near it—we’re still on Rannoch. They’ve come
here
—”

Cat was outraged as the full meaning sank in. “They’ve come for
our
cows!” Fear dissipated abruptly into insulted pride. “Where are Robbie and Jamie?”

From below they heard a triumphant shout. Silhouettes converged; a body held between two others was escorted toward the fire. Struggles were futile.

Appalled, Dougal murmured a prayer. Colin dragged the ponies closer; Cat’s garron had wandered off a pace or two to forage.

She dug her nails into the earth as she watched the captive avidly, trying to identify him.
—let it be Jamie . . . let Robbie be free . . . Robbie’ll ken what to do—
And felt guilty for it, and shamed, that she should wish upon Jamie that which terrified her.

Dougal shut a hand around Cat’s upper arm. “Why have you come? What are you doing here? Robbie said naught of
you
coming!”

It was easier to be angry. “Would he? Not Robbie! He thinks I’m worthless.” Cat glared downslope, hoping they would not see her tears; was it Robbie they had caught?

Another thought snooved in.
Is Alasdair Og with them?

It infuriated her that she should think of MacDonalds as anything but enemy, even for an instant. To dilute the guilt, Cat turned an accusing glare on Dougal. “You shouldna come away. You should have stayed wi’ Robbie and Jamie!”

Dougal scraped a forearm across his face. He was white with apprehension, eyes little more than black sockets in the shadows. After her, his hair was reddest, a yellowish, bloody tangle extruded beneath his bonnet. “Robbie sent us. When they heard the garrons.”

“You could have
stayed
—”

“He
sent
us—”

Moonlight and fear leached Colin’s face of angles, of hollows, of the spirit that made him human. “We’re to go home. He said so. He sent us back.”

“And leave Robbie and Jamie behind?” Cat doubled up a fist and smacked him on the shoulder. “You muckle-mouthed coward, we’re
Campbells
—” She looked beyond Dougal, beyond the scree, to the fire beyond, where she saw man-shaped shadows and the glint of a bared blade. “Campbells, ye ken—” She let loose the Campbell war cry in her deepest voice. “
Chruachan!
”

“Cat—Cat,
no
. . . dinna let them ken—” Dougal clutched her shoulder, pressing her toward her garron. “Go—”

“
Let
them ken!” she spat, twisting away. “Let them think we’ve more men than they . . .” Cat frowned. “How many? How many
are
they?”

Colin sucked a scraped thumb. “Ten,” he said flatly, around the battered thumb.

“Four,” Dougal declared.

“Ten, or four?” Scowling, Cat stared toward the fire again. Her scalp prickled annoyingly beneath the bonnet; a grue coursed down her spine. She marked several shapes, but none of them stood still long enough to make her count accurate.

“
Chruachan!
” came the hoarse cry from the MacDonald fire, stilling them all in shock.

She saw a man-shape fall, struck down by another, and then a taunting answer sang out in a deeper voice than she could manage, filling the moonlight and moor with the hated MacDonald slogan. “
Fraoch Eilean!
”

Cat was immobile. “Robbie—” she breathed. “ ’Tis
Robbie
they’ve caught—”

“Run!” Dougal’s undependable voice broke even as Colin scrambled to mount his garron.

“Come
down
from there—” Cat lunged up and caught fistfuls of Colin’s carelessly pinned plaid. She jerked him away from his saddle. “If they’ve got Robbie and Jamie, ’tis for us to get them free!”

“Us?” Dougal shook his head as Colin, pulled awry by his sister, got up from the ground. Plaid torn free of its brooch fell in coils around his ankles. “We’re but three, and you’re not but a lass—”

Cat shut her hand over the handle of her father’s dirk. “Even a
lass
is better than a coward, aye? All we have to do is distract them, make them think there are
more
of us. Jamie is still out there—will ye come? ’Tis for Robbie!”

Their faces were taut and white. Dougal and Colin exchanged frightened glances, then looked back at her.

“Have you broken your lug-holes?” she demanded. “ ’Tis our brother they’ve got—
MacDonalds
have got!”

Dougal nodded reluctantly. His voice was a man’s, for once. “We’ll leave the garrons here. We’re quieter on foot.”

Cat grinned. She was impatient now. She rose to skyline herself against the deeper night; it was time to do the task.

“
Chruachan!
” she shouted again, loosing her garron, and turned sharply to pelt down the hill. “
Chru
—

She ran headlong into a plaid-swathed, bonneted man rising from the heather with a dirk a’glint in one fist. The other hand closed itself firmly around her upper arm and yanked her onto her toes. “
Fraoch Eilean
, ”he said lightly, “has a better sound to’t!”

Cat filled her lungs with air. “Run!”

Dougal with Colin deserted.

—
run—oh, run
—She grinned fiercely at the MacDonald whose face, against the flames, registered surprise; he had not realized how many Campbells were huddled behind the slope. She saw it in his eyes, in his mouth, in the tautening of the flesh over his cheekbones, bled dry of blood in the firelight.

The grin fell off her mouth. He was a MacDonald. She was a Campbell. “
Chruachan
, ” she said hoarsely, and spat in the dirt at his feet.

He shook her. He
shook
her, as if she were merely a puppy guilty of misbehavior. “No more,” he snapped, clutching her arm more fiercely.

Cat tested the MacDonald’s grip once, then went with him without further physical protest as he led her downslope toward the fire. She slipped and slid in scree and loose gravel, but his grasp never relaxed. By the time they reached the fire her arm felt more like a piece of wood than a human limb.

There were five of them, not ten. And none of them all the way grown. They were, Cat realized in stabbing dismay, not so much older than Robbie himself, if any older at all; one or two perhaps younger.

She looked at them one by one, marking youthful faces, thin and pale; dilated, darting eyes; rigid, expectant expressions.

She could not help herself. She looked, stared hard, examined . . .
No Alasdair Og . . .
The response was immediate: overwhelming relief. Her bonnie prince with the speckled hair was not among the thieves.

She sought Robbie then, feeling the heat of guilt in her face, the shame for her thought on behalf of a MacDonald when MacDonalds had captured them. He stood with a dirk at his spine and another threatening his side. His own dirk and
sgian dhu
had been tossed aside, out of reach; Cat’s borrowed dirk was yanked roughly from her belt and flung on top of Robbie’s with a dull metallic clank. Firelight flashed on steel.

Robbie’s expression was grim as he watched her brought close to the light. He was cut along a cheekbone, his mouth swollen and bloodied. His hands were free, but empty, and like to stay that way: two MacDonalds with naked dirks stood at either side reminding him what it felt like to have steel stuck into flesh.

She felt the prick of the same against a rib, digging through plaid and shirt; felt the numbness invading the fingers of her captive arm. She smelled whisky and ripe wool, the sharp pungency of stretched nerves.

“Naught but a lad,” one of the MacDonalds murmured, staring hard at Cat, then grinned sidelong at Robbie. “D’ye bring the bairns along when you go cattle-lifting?”

Robbie put up his bloody chin. “You’re no’ so old yourselves, aye? Is there a beard among ye?”

There was not. Cat saw a tightening of mouths, a narrowing of eyes. Firelight sparked on steel as a dirk point niggled at Robbie.