Jennifer Roberson (9 page)

“Go inside,” Jamie commanded. “Colin—mount your garron. We’re away.” He looked back at his sister. The moon leached his face of expression, but she heard the disgust in his tone. “Christ, Cat, go inside—you’re no’ fit for a man to look at!”

Her belly knotted again. Cat clutched awkwardly at her straggling shawl before it fell entirely from her body; one corner of the wool was soaked through. She was
not
fit, she realized: Jamie’s horse had left a wide swath of turf slime across her nightclothes; her braid had come half-undone and tangled hair defied her attempts to push it from her face; the hem of her nightclothes had torn free of her ill-made stitches and dragged damp ground. Bare toes were muddy, peeping through the tatters.

But there was more, far more, to think of than her appearance; and they knew her anyway, the gillies who served her father. They none of them held illusions as to what the laird’s daughter was.

Cat put up her chin, disdaining futile attempts to bring order to dishabille. “Dinna go, Jamie. You’re the heir, now. Robbie’s dead, and you’re to be laird in his place.”

But none of them listened, none of them. They were men, and she a woman. And as the shadows swallowed them she realized it was for naught, all of it, every bit of it: her protests, her fears, her anger; she was at best their sister, and worth very little in their reckoning of the world.

Cat turned abruptly and walked back to the bench beside the door. She shut the abused door, then sat down upon the bench with her feet tucked under shawl. She had no intention of going back to bed; she would wait for as long as she must to see the men come home.

Futility was painful. It was a boulder in her belly that swelled to fill her throat. “Kill them all—” she choked, angry that she cried.
Except Alasdair Og—

Who once had been kind to her.

 

Dair had taken up residence on an outcropping of granite in the shadow of Craigh Eallaich. He perched there lost in thought with knees doubled up beneath his kilt; he would not wear breeks to battle. One hand absently and wholly ineffectively groomed dark hair now more thickly speckled with gray; the other dangled limp fingers from an arm hooked but lightly over a knee. He stared blindly into the distance, fixing his eyes on other clansmen who tended weapons and wit, laughing loudly at weak jests and friendly insults built up as a wall, brick by brick, to ward away apprehension, to spend a time quickly that would otherwise last forever.

His dusty blue bonnet lay across one thigh, silver clan badge garnished with a sprig of purple heather and the red feather of James Graham, Viscount Dundee. He wore
sgian dhu
strapped to one calf, a dirk in his belt; the round wooden targe, covered with brass-studded leather and boasting a central spike, was tilted against the pewter-green, knobbed granite beside his knee. Next to it, at his feet, lay steel claymore, the dreaded Scottish sword, supremely elegant in its unadorned, deadly simplicity.

In his mind he saw Jean’s face, Jean’s eyes, the avidity of her need; felt again the supple body as it writhed beneath his own—and the instant response of flesh that now prepared for war.

He grinned mirthlessly.
’Turill be a different sort of battle, aye?
But a battle nonetheless, waged warrior to warrior instead of warrior to woman; and the battlefield significantly less comfortable than Jean Stewart’s bed.

Dair squinted. It was but an hour or two before sunset. The summer day cooled into evening, raising a breath of a breeze carrying with it the scent of grass and heather, soil, stone, water, and the tang of whisky. Mountains surrounded them. At his back was Craigh Eallaich, its rumpled face lurching upward from high soft braes and lower, lesser slopes. It neared the end of July, and the cattle were on the braes in Glencoe, fattening for winter near the summer shielings; here Dundee fattened men on the Jacobite cause.

Dair heard a step behind him. He knew his brother’s shadow even without benefit of the voice. “Thinking of Jean Stewart?”

He smiled crookedly. “You are thinking of Eiblin, aye?”

With a sigh MacIain’s heir dropped down onto his haunches beside his younger brother. Targe and claymore clattered as he set both aside. “ ’Tis what most men do before battle: think of women, and bairns.” His glance was speculative as he plucked a stalk of grass from the ground and pruned it free of soil before placing it in his mouth. “Will you handfast with her? Formally?”

Dair squinted again into the lowering sun. “Dinna ken, John.”

John was grayer than ever, though the arching brows remained dark. “Dinna ken? After—how many years? Four?”

“Not altogether.” Dair’s wave gestured dismissive elaboration. “A week here, a month there . . .” He sighed and scratched at stubble; they had none of them shaved with battle in the offing.

John grinned. “Enough time to ken a woman!”

Annoyed as much by himself as his brother’s persistence, Dair took up his bonnet and began to rearrange the fit of heather beneath the badge, and the scarlet feather. It consumed his concentration, as he intended it to. If he made no answer—

“Alasdair—”

Patience evaporated. “I dinna
ken
, John! Christ, I’m but twenty-six—there is time!”

Around the stalk John said mildly, “By twenty-six I had a wife and a bairn.”

“It doesna matter,” Dair declared. “I willna be chief,
you
will.”

“ ’Twould be a good match, Alasdair. The Appin Stewarts and Glencoe MacDonalds are near to blood kin . . . and according to the old ways, the Appin laird is our superior. Once we paid him life-rent.”

“Dinna remind Robbie of
that.
”

John laughed softly. “Is it because of that, then? That she’s Robbie’s sister?”

Dair sighed and sloughed the bonnet to the grass beside him, stretching legs to pop taut knees as he leaned back upon rigid elbows. “Before you married Eiblin, did you ever bed a woman who pleased you at night—Christ, pleased you better than
any!
—but made the day difficult?” He curled forward again and scraped splayed hands through cropped hair, standing it up in peaks and clumps against his skull. “Christ, I canna say it . . . she’s all a man dreams of, John—especially before a battle—but . . .” He ended in a growl of sheer frustration. “I canna
say
it! I dinna have the words!”

“Bonnie to sleep with—”

“—
Christ
—”

“—but no’ so bonnie to live with.” John pulled the grass from his mouth and frowned, waving the stalk. “They’ll come there, MacIain says.”

Another subject, praise God
—Dair twisted his head to follow the line John indicated. “There?”

“Through the pass, and down. Killiecrankie.” He reinserted the stalk. “ ’Tis almost upon us. Mackay’s coming up the other side even now.”

The flesh squeezed his bones. “Where is Dundee?”

“There.” John removed the stalk again and pointed with it. “And the pipers—”

Even as he spoke the low drone of a single bagpipe set the braes to humming. Another took it up, and another, and another, until every clan piper on Craigh Eallaich sounded the summoning.

“Holy Christ—” Dair bolted upright before his brother. “Dundee?”

“And MacIain, and Ewan Cameron of Lochiel, and Clanranald MacDonalds, MacDonalds of Sleat, Macleans, even the laird of Duart—and Robbie Stewart of Appin, in his father’s place.” John MacDonald grinned and stood up more slowly, gathering targe and claymore. “We’ll send them back to William with their tails between their legs, and bring King Jamie home again!”

Craigh Eallaich quintupled the sound of the pipes until the world was filled with it. From all around men came up, carrying, axes, targes, claymores, a few muskets; with dirks and
sgian dhus
, and bonnets bearing crimson beneath the glint of silver.

A tremor shook Dair. He felt his belly clench, his genitals tighten; felt the taut tickle of hairs rising up on his flesh. It was an almost sexual tension, an overwhelming emotional and physical response that took him whole, and shook him, until his breath ran shallow and tight and the tears stood in his eyes.

—
Dundee
—

—on his horse, in crimson coat; a hat festooned with leaves; a flash of silver in his hand: the cup of wine for the toast. Around him gathered the chiefs: MacIain, Appin, Lochiel—

—and the sound of pipes everywhere, swallowing the world, skirling into sunset the pibroch of all pibrochs, the wailing rant set to the task of swelling Highlander hearts; of firming their wills, their convictions—

—
Clanranald, Sleat, Maclean
—

Light sprang up as a pox: here—and there . . . and there . . . here and there again . . . torches set afire and lifted to beat back the sunset.

—
MacNeills, MacLeods, MacLachlans
—

Dair laughed softly, joyously; beside him, John prayed fiercely for victory, Dundee, MacDonalds.

—
Grants, Frasers, MacMillans
—

Dundee drank with the chiefs, and then looked out upon the mass of tartan and steel. The pipes died abruptly, cut off into an expectant silence nearly as noisy. Dair did not draw breath, lest it drown out Dundee.

“They are Sassenachs,” Dundee declared with eloquent derision. “They are Lowlanders, and Sassenachs, and they ken naught but what they are told by a Dutchman who calls himself king.” A rising wind whipped the torches. No man spoke a word, but Dundee. “We are
Highlanders!
” he thundered. “Let us fight as Highlanders!”

Dair shuddered again. A terrible sweet joy filled his breast.

Dundee waited for the cheering to die down, then continued more quietly. “Let them come over the pass . . . let them come down . . . let them come into our dwelling here at Killiecrankie—and at the cry of ‘
Claymore!
’ we shall fall upon them in the way of Gaeldom, so they may know what once Gaels were before they give up their souls!” He thrust his cup into the air. “Generals—raise your standards! In the name of God and King James, let us rout the enemy!”

As one, Dair and John MacDonald jerked dirks from their belts and thrust them into the air. “
Fraoch Eilean!
” burst from their throats even as from up the hill by Dundee himself came MacIain’s thunderous roar: “MacDonalds for King James!”

Dair thrust his left arm through the leather strap on the underside of his round targe. Properly positioned, the small single-spiked shield rested near his elbow, warding upper arm and forearm; he would use it also to guard his head during the charge downslope.

First the targe. Then, when ordered, the long-bladed dirk clutched in his left hand; in his right the claymore. Mackay’s troops, Dundee had told his chieftains, who passed it along to their men, were Lowland Scots mixed with recent conscripts who boasted little or no experience and training; while it was true Mackay’s men had musketry and the vast majority of Dundee’s Highlanders did not, they were also men unaccustomed to the old ways of Gaeldom. They would shoot a massive first volley and clansmen would die—but empty matchlocks required reloading, and it was
then
, in the first smoky, panicked moments immediately after, that the Highlanders would attack.

Dair grinned tautly as he tended the set of his targe. “Lowlanders dinna ken what true battle is.”

“MacDonald!” A hand came down on Dair’s shoulder, clutching familiarly. “By Christ, MacDonald, ’twill be a rout indeed!”

Dair arched one brow. “Have you deserted your Stewarts, Robbie?”

“Christ, no.” Robert Stewart of Appin grinned as he squatted. His spiked targe was in place at his left elbow, his dirk yet sheathed; he set his claymore on the ground beside him. “I’m no fool to think MacDonalds are cannier fighters than Stewarts, ye ken . . . ’twas only I thought I’d invite you to fight alongside
real men.”

Dair scoffed. “You’ve never fought wi’ MacIain, to disparage us so easily.” He jutted his chin upslope. “Look on him, Robbie, and think again what you’ve said.”

Stewart squinted up the hill toward Dundee, who was attended by a clutch of lairds. Above them all stood white-maned Alasdair MacDonald, the MacIain, plaid brooch glinting in the lowering sun.

Robbie hitched one shoulder. “He’s a
man
, aye? MacIain.”

“Then bring your Stewarts here to fight alongside us; you’re no’ but a pawkie lad, and not worth a whisker of that man’s beard!”

Robbie laughed, crinkling the flesh beside his eyes. “Aye, well . . . one day I will be. After this battle, perhaps.” He rummaged beneath his voluminous plaid. “I’ve a thing for you . . . she made me promise.” He brought it out. Across his palm spilled a chain of gold, and a locket. “From Jean, of course; she swore me to an oath to see you got it before we met the enemy.” His mouth jerked sideways. “She knew you’d no’ take it from her, lest you think her too womanish.”

Dair smiled. “She’s prouder than you, sometimes; God forgive the man foolish enough to think Jean Stewart weak!”

But Robbie’s expression was solemn. “Only one man matters.”

“
And
her brother.”

“And her brother, aye; but there’s a bit o’ difference between what she thinks of
me
and what she thinks of the man in her bed!” Robbie extended his hand. “Will you have it?”

Dair accepted the locket. He sprang the tiny latch and opened the oblong face; inside, against a scrap of blue velvet, was coiled a length of sandy hair.

“ ’Twas our mother’s locket,” Robbie said diffidently. “You’ll respect it, MacDonald.”

Dair smiled; Robbie was not one for softness. “I will cherish it. ’Twill be my luck.” He closed the face and tucked the locket into the leather binding on his
sgian dhu
.

Stewart nodded. “We had best both survive, or both die; if only one goes back to Castle Stalker, Jean will dirk him for it.”