Once a Warrior (35 page)

Shocked silence gripped the room.

Malcolm gazed at their appalled faces with rigid calm, betraying none of the pain tearing through him. He had to tell them, he told himself stonily, watching the admiration in their faces vanish. No one spoke, too aghast by his revelation to find words.

I deserve this,
he thought savagely, battling the despair shredding his soul.
I never deserved their admiration and respect. They gave it to me under false assumptions, thinking I was still the Black Wolf. They could not see me as I really was.

Only Ariella could.

It was agonizing, facing their shocked stares. Still, he endured it. Not only had he failed his own clan, he had also lied to the MacKendricks about who and what he was. They had every right to despise him. But regardless of their contempt, he was going after Ariella—with or without her clan’s approval, or even this absurd sword they spoke of. Nothing would stop him from bringing her, Catherine, and Agnes home.

Just as nothing would stop him from killing Roderic.

“You make it sound as if this terrible event were your fault,” remarked Angus suddenly, cracking the silence.

“It was my fault,” Malcolm assured him brusquely. “The welfare of my clan was my responsibility. Had I kept my warriors there, those women and children would be alive today.”

“But you acted based on what you knew,” argued Dugald. “You believed there were others who desperately needed your help.”

“I was drunk,” he said in disgust. “I never should have taken so many men with me.”

“Perhaps,” allowed Gordon. “But if there had been a terrible attack on another clan and you had arrived with too small a force, would you then be responsible for their deaths as well?”

Malcolm looked at him in surprise. Why were they defending him?

“It was a difficult decision, regardless of whether you were drunk or sober,” commented Duncan. “Just a moment ago I suggested all the men here go into the woods to find Roderic and his men. If you hadn’t been here, that is what we would have done.”

“But if we had, and the women and children here were killed, we would not have blamed Duncan,” said Ramsay. “The sole responsibility for that tragedy would still belong to Roderic and his men.”

Bewilderment rendered him silent. Why could they not see that the attack on his clan had been his fault?

“What is done is in the past,” pronounced Angus sagely. “All we can judge you on, MacFane, is your actions while you were with us. And you have never done anything except try to protect us, to the very best of your considerable ability.”

“Aye, that’s true,” said Bryce.

“If it hadn’t been for you, Roderic would have captured us the last time he was here,” pointed out Niall. “You taught us how to fight back.”

“You convinced us we could actually win,” added Hugh.

“You made us all feel like warriors,” finished Helen. “Even the women.”

“Ariella would never have brought you here if she hadn’t believed you could help us,” pointed out Graham. “Regardless of your past.”

He could not believe what they were telling him. They were accepting his failure to protect his clan. And the fact that he had lied to them.

“Getting back to this business with Roderic,” said Duncan, as if Malcolm’s crime was no longer relevant. “I say we let MacFane take the sword to Roderic immediately, secure Ariella, Catherine, and Agnes’s release, and then try to retrieve it. As long as Ariella doesn’t give the weapon to Roderic herself, he will not have its powers.”

“It’s a sound plan,” agreed Gordon. “We don’t know if Ariella’s attempt to stall Roderic will work. And we have no idea when Harold will arrive with his army.”

“He will arrive sometime tomorrow,” interjected Malcolm, troubled by the fact that he had delayed his cousin’s arrival. Harold was traveling with a small army of some fifty highly trained, seasoned warriors. Their presence at that moment would have been invaluable. “Possibly by midday.”

Dugald regarded him curiously. “How do you know?”

“Gavin and I encountered him on our journey. When I realized his purpose in coming here, I convinced him to make camp for the night, so I could arrive first.”

Gordon frowned. “Why did you do that?”

“So he could speak with Ariella, of course,” supplied Angus, smiling. “That’s it, isn’t it, lad?”

“Where will I find this sword?” demanded Malcolm, ignoring the question.

“You must speak with Alpin,” said Dugald. “Only he knows where it is kept.”

“Fine. The rest of you, return to your positions immediately,” he commanded. “Every inch of the surrounding area is to be watched for the slightest movement. Gavin will assume control while I am gone. Two thirds of you will be on guard, and the other third will sleep. You will alternate every two hours. It is possible Roderic and his men are waiting for us to exhaust ourselves during the night, so we will be tired and inattentive come morning. Don’t let that happen.”

They nodded. Now that he had assumed control, their expressions were grave but filled with purpose.

“Very well, then. Move.”

He watched as the clan quickly dispersed.

Then he headed toward Alpin’s chamber so he could retrieve this ridiculous old sword.

The enormous owl flapped its wings and hooted noisily as he threw the heavy door open, protesting his presence. Malcolm scowled at the ill-tempered creature and limped purposefully toward the back of the dimly lit chamber. He found Alpin hunched over a table, calmly chopping up a leathery stack of shriveled bat wings.

“So,” murmured Alpin, slowly gathering the debris into a gnarled white hand, “you have returned.”

“I have come for the sword, Alpin.”

Giving no sign that he had heard him, Alpin began to meticulously measure pinches of the desiccated wings into a bowl.

“Roderic has Ariella, Catherine, and Agnes,” Malcolm elaborated, deciding the old man didn’t realize his clan was in grave danger.

Alpin sprinkled one more pinch of wings into the bowl, then tossed the excess over his left shoulder.

“I know.”

Squinting at the bottles cluttering his table, he eventually selected one marked “Oil of Herring,” lifted it toward the candle flame to be sure he was reading the label correctly, then began to add it drop by infuriating drop into the bowl.

“I must have the sword to save them,” Malcolm persisted, growing agitated. “The clan says only you know where it is.”

“That is true,” he agreed.

He put the bottle down and picked out an earthen jar, lifted the lid, and cautiously sniffed it. Satisfied by what he either smelled or did not smell, he withdrew a silver spoon from a pocket deep within his cloak, skimmed it along the surface of the jar, and added a dollop of its brown contents to his mixture. “But it is up to you to find it,” he declared cryptically.

Malcolm felt the thin thread of his patience snap. “I don’t have time for this nonsense,” he growled, turning to leave.

“You must make time, MacFane,” Alpin warned.

Malcolm stopped, inhaled a deep breath, and then demanded in a remarkably level voice, “Can you give it to me, or can’t you?”

Alpin shook his head. “I’m afraid I cannot give it to anyone. I can only tell you where you might find it. Whether or not you do is entirely up to you. And Ariella,” he added, placing the lid back on the jar.

“Fine. Where
might
I find it?”

“The MacKendrick sword is sheltered in the woods, where it has remained, untouched, for some thirty years. Had Ariella’s father kept it by his side,” he reflected, shaking his head, “the suffering Roderic inflicted on the clan might never have happened.”

“Why didn’t he?”

“Neither MacKendrick, nor his father, nor his father before him ever used the sword, except during the ritual in which they were invested with the powers of laird. Because we are a clan of peace, the sword has come to be a solely ceremonial object. Its actual powers have not been tested for well over a hundred years.”

“Which means no one has ever witnessed its power,” pointed out Malcolm dryly. “I’m amazed no one has thought to question whether it actually has any.”

Alpin smiled, untroubled by his cynicism. “The sword is not an object that can easily be taken. You must go into the woods, alone and unarmed, and sleep there tonight. As you sleep, you will dream. Follow the directions of that dream, and you
may
be told where to find the sword. If you find it, you
may
be permitted to take it.”

“I haven’t time for this bloody nonsense,” Malcolm concluded. “Ariella’s and Catherine’s lives are in danger, and I’m not about to go wandering into the woods unarmed so Roderic can find me sleeping beneath a tree. I will go after them without the goddamn sword.” Irritated that he had already wasted so much time, he began to limp toward the door.

“Then they will die.”

He stopped.

“The Black Wolf can strike now, guided by his reckless fury, or he can listen to me. One choice will inevitably lead to their death. The other holds at least the possibility of their survival. The decision is yours,” Alpin finished mildly, as if it mattered not a whit to him what Malcolm decided.

Malcolm hesitated. He didn’t believe in seers or magic swords, he reminded himself angrily. But everyone else there seemed to, including Roderic. If the MacKendricks had some rusty old sword hidden in the woods, he probably should try to get it before facing Roderic. His position would be far stronger if he held something that Roderic desperately wanted.

As things were now, Roderic was in a far more powerful position than he.

“What happens after I dream?” he demanded.

“Your dream will lead you to the place of the sword. Once you are there, you will be required to successfully complete a trial.”

Malcolm barely refrained from rolling his eyes. This whole thing was growing more ludicrous by the minute. “What sort of trial?”

“I do not know,” admitted Alpin, shrugging. “It is different for each who seeks the powers of the sword.”

“I don’t seek its powers,” Malcolm assured him sardonically. “I want only the weapon itself.”

Alpin nodded. “
If
you complete the trial successfully, the sword
may
appear for you, but only if Ariella wills it. If she does, it means she has accepted you as laird of her clan.”

A helpless laugh erupted from his chest. “Then I needn’t waste my time with this,” he decided. “Last night she had me drugged, bound, and spirited away in the dead of night, precisely because she does not believe I am even close to being a fit laird for her clan. Even if I pass the trial, which is highly improbable, given the weaknesses of my body, Ariella will never will the sword to me. She wants to give it to Harold.

Alpin shuffled toward the fire and began to stir a thick, mossy mixture steaming in one of the pots. “Are you certain?” he asked quietly.

The next laird of the MacKendricks must be a great warrior, and a great leader. You are not the one.

“Yes,” Malcolm replied, enraged anew by the memory of her contemptuous dismissal of him. “I am.”

Alpin considered this a moment. Finally he sighed. “When first she believed she was to wed you, MacFane, Ariella created a childishly heroic image of you in her mind. This was woven in part with my visions, and the tales she had heard from the occasional traveler. You were the mighty Black Wolf, and your feats were legendary. Your failure to appear the moment she needed you most irrevocably shattered that image. Roderic murdered her father and her people, but, unfortunately, she blamed you. I sent her to find you anyway. When she did, she was appalled by what you had become. And in her fury and disappointment she judged you by what you once were, at least according to legend and her fantasies, rather than what you are.” His keen black eyes regarded him intently. “And you, Malcolm MacFane, have been guilty of the same distorted vision. Neither of you have learned that we are not condemned by the failures of our past, provided we have not intentionally inflicted suffering. With all the limitations that are sometimes so cruelly thrust upon us, it is what we do today, and tomorrow, that matters.”

“Ariella has seen what I am today,” Malcolm pointed out. “I’m not the same pathetic drunk she originally dragged here. And she still rejected me.”

“Of course she did,” Alpin agreed, waving his hand dismissively. “How can that surprise you? Ariella’s foremost duty is to her clan. The requirements of the next laird have been made clear to her since the day of her mother’s death. It is not a task to be taken lightly. But the longings of the heart and one’s actions are sometimes two very different things. You cannot judge Ariella’s true feelings by what she does out of duty to her people.”

“I believe Ariella’s actions reflect her feelings quite accurately,” Malcolm countered, chafing at the memory of the previous night.

“As your actions reflected your feelings when you so heartlessly denied Marrian your tenderness and warmth?”

He stared at him, startled. How could Alpin possibly know about that?

“She loved you,” Alpin continued, unperturbed by his confusion. “As much as any young girl loves a handsome, brave warrior who is destined to be laird of his clan and her husband. Naturally she was frightened when you returned so gravely injured. Frightened and confused. But she still loved you. And wanted you. Yet you deliberately pushed her away.”