Sue-Ellen Welfonder - [MacLean 03] (42 page)

“The crown is greatly interested in this glen, my lady.” Sir Walter rested his hand lightly on the sword at his hip.
“Your King would see peace in these hills. He is weary of the endless provocations between your clan and the other two who
share this land. I am here to inform you that”—his gaze went to Alasdair—“he orders a trial of combat to ensure his will is
met.”

“Highland men keep their own peace,” someone called from near the hearth.

Other voices rose in agreement, and Catriona’s heart leapt. Surely the men of the clan would send Sir Walter on his way, King’s
courier or not. But Alasdair only strode to the high table and snatched up a rolled parchment, its red wax seals dangling
and broken. When he turned back to the hall, his face was darker than ever, the writ clenched in a tight, white-knuckled grip.

“There are many here, Sir Walter, who would say this”—he raised his hand, shaking the scroll—“has too much blood on it to
be worth any peace. We of this glen have our own ways of handling trouble. Even so, you’ll no’ see a single MacDonald refuse
the King’s challenge.” Slapping the scroll back onto the table, he dusted his hands, demonstrably. “No’ under the terms set
before us.”

The kinsman standing closest to Catriona, a young lad built like a steer and with hair as flame-bright as her own, spat onto
the floor rushes. “Threatening to banish us from the glen be no terms!”

“They are the King’s terms.” Sir Walter’s voice was impervious. “Be assured the Camerons and the Mackintoshes will receive
the same warning.”

Catriona heard the terrible words through a buzzing in her ears. Her head was beginning to pound, but she wouldn’t show weakness
by pressing her hands to her temples. She did flash a glance at her brother. Like every
other MacDonald in the hall, he looked ready to whip out his sword and run the King’s man through.

If she weren’t a woman, she’d pull her own steel.

As it was, she suppressed a shudder and chose her words with care. “I missed the reading of your tidings, Sir Walter.” His
name tasted like ash on her tongue. “Perhaps you will repeat them for me?

“And”—she tilted her chin—“his reasons for placing us under his vaunted regard?”

“With pleasure, my lady.” Sir Walter took her hand, lowering his head over her knuckles in an air kiss that jellied her knees
in an icy, unpleasant way. “The King’s will is that a trial of combat—a fight to the death—should be held in the glen. King
Robert proposes within a fortnight.”

He looked into her eyes. “Thirty champions from each of the three clans of the glen must face each other. They shall fight
stripped of all but their plaids and armed with swords, dirks, axes. A bow with three arrows per man shall be allowed, and
a shield. But no quarter may be given.

“Spectators will attend, and specially dispatched royal guards will assure that no man leaves the field.” His gaze narrowed
on her, his mien hardening. “At the trial’s end, the clan with the most champions standing will be the one who wins your glen.”

Catriona went hot and cold. “The Glen of Many Legends already is ours, the MacDonalds’. Robert Bruce granted it to my great-great-grandfather
in tribute to our support at Bannockburn. Our men should not have to spill blood for what they fought and won with such honor.”

“She speaks the truth, by God!” Alasdair banged his fist on a table. “Would your King see the good King Robert’s charter undone?”

“King Robert Stewart would see an end to the strife in his realm.” Sir Walter’s voice was clipped. “The unrest and lawlessness
in these parts—”

“Lawlessness?” Alasdair’s face darkened. “What do you, a Lowlander, know of—”

“Do you deny the murders of three Mackintoshes this past summer?” Sir Walter examined his fingernails, flicked a speck of
lint from his sleeve. “Innocent men killed in cold blood not far from these very walls?”

“They were stealing our cattle!” The redheaded youth next to Catriona stepped forward. “They chose to stand and face us when
we caught them. It was a fair fight, no’ murder.”

Sir Walter’s face remained cold. “Clan Mackintosh made a formal complaint to the court. Their chief informed us they were
taking cattle to replace revenue tolls they lost because you menaced and threatened wayfarers trying to use the mountain pass
above their stronghold.”

“Aye, and what if we did?” Catriona began to shake with fury. “Every time our drovers attempt to use that pass to drive our
beasts to the cattle trysts, the Mackintoshes block the way, barring passage to us. Even”—she drew a hot breath—“when we offered
them double their toll.”

“They cost
us
revenue!” The shout came from the back of the hall. A clansman riled by such absurdity. “They’ve been blocking that pass
to us for years. We tired of it.”

“The Mackintoshes are troublemakers.” Catriona could scarce speak for anger. “Clan Cameron is worse.”

A shiver ripped through her on the name, her heart pumping furiously as the insolent face of the dread clan’s chief flashed
across her mind. Worse than the devil, James Cameron ridiculed her every time their paths crossed.
There were few men she reviled more. Though just now she’d almost prefer his bold gaze and taunts to Sir Walter’s superior
stare.

Eyes narrowed, she fixed him with her own frostiest air. “Camerons cannot breathe without spewing insults.” She tossed back
her hair, knew her face was coloring. “They are an ancient line of Satan-spawned—”

“Ahhh…” Sir Walter spread his hands. “With so many transgressors afoot, you surely see why the King’s intervention is necessary?”

“Necessary a pig’s eye!” someone yelled near the hearth fire.

Catriona agreed.

Though, with Sir Walter harping on the past summer’s squabble with the Mackintoshes, she could imagine that an overblown account
of the incident might have reached the King’s royal ear.

“Are the Mackintoshes behind this?” She could believe it. The cloven-footed trumpet-blasters wasted no opportunity to shout
their claim to the glen. “Did they send another complaint to court? Asking for the crown’s interference?”

Sir Walter’s mouth jerked, proving they had. “They did send a petition in recent days, yes.”

Catriona flushed. “I knew it!”

“They weren’t alone. Clan Cameron also sent an appeal, if you’d hear the whole of it.” Sir Walter’s tone was smooth. The glint
in his eye showed that he enjoyed her distress. “Indeed”—he actually smiled—“it surprised us that we did not hear from your
brother, considering.”

“Considering what?” Catriona’s belly clenched again.

Sir Walter’s smile vanished. “Perhaps you should ask your brother.”

Catriona turned to Alasdair, but when he fisted his hands and his mouth flattened into a hard, tight line, her heart dropped.

Whatever it was that she didn’t yet know was grim.

“Lady Edina has passed.” Alasdair spoke at last. “She did not leave a testament. Nor, according to the abbess at St. Bride’s”—he
drew a deep breath—“did she ever make her wishes known to anyone.”

Catriona swallowed. Guilt swept her.

She hadn’t thought of the old woman in years. She’d been little more than a babe in swaddling when Lady Edina went, by choice,
into a Hebridean nunnery. At the time—or so clan elders claimed—she’d desired a life of serenity and solitude behind cloistered
walls.

But Edina MacDonald
was
hereditary heiress to the Glen of Many Legends.

She was also twice widowed. Her first husband—Catriona’s heart seized with the horror of it—had been a Cameron and her second,
a Mackintosh.

And now Lady Edina was dead.

Catriona wheeled to face Sir Walter. “This is the true meaning of your visit. Now that Lady Edina is gone, and without a will,
the King means to take our lands.”

Again, shouts and curses rose in the hall as MacDonalds everywhere agreed. Men stamped feet and pounded the trestles with
their fists. The castle dogs joined in, their barks and howls deafening.

Even Geordie, a half-lamed beast so ancient he rarely barked at all, lent his protest from his tattered plaid bed beside the
hearth fire.

Sir Walter stood unmoved. “These lands are the King’s, by any right, as even you must know. Be glad he wishes
only to bring you peace,” he said, his weasel-smooth voice somehow cutting through the din. “When he received petitions from
both the Camerons and the Mackintoshes claiming their due as Lady Edina’s heirs, he knew strong measures would be needed to
settle this glen. He wishes to see these hills held by the clan most worthy.”

Alasdair made a sound that could only be called a growl. His face turned purple.

Catriona’s ambers blazed against her neck, the stones’ pulsing heat warning her of danger. She took a deep breath, drawing
herself up until the disturbing prickles receded and her necklace cooled.

“How did the Camerons and Mackintoshes know of Lady Edina’s death?” She looked at the Lowlander. “Why weren’t we informed,
as well?”

“You know better than me how swiftly—or erroneously—word travels in these parts.” Sir Walter shrugged. “Perhaps a missive
meant for you went astray? Either way—”

“You mean to see good men slaughtered.” Catriona felt bile rise in her throat. “Men who—”

“Men who fight, yes, until only one remains standing.” Sir Walter set his hand on his sword again, his fingers curling around
the hilt. “If they do not”—his voice chilled—“you must face the consequences. Banishment from this glen to parts even wilder.
Resettlement, if you will, in places where the crown can make use of men with ready sword arms and women adept at breeding.”

The words spoken, he folded his arms. “The choice is yours.”

Across the hall, Geordie barked hoarsely.

Out of the corner of her eye, Catriona thought she saw
the dog struggling to rise. She wasn’t sure, because the hall was spinning, going black and white before her eyes. Around
her, her kinsmen shouted and cursed, the noise hurting her ears. Even more alarming, something whirled and burned inside her.
It was a horrible, swelling heat that filled her chest until she couldn’t breathe.

Slowly, she felt down and along the folds of her skirts, seeking the lady dirk hidden there. But she caught herself in time,
clasping her hands tightly before her just before her fingers closed on the blade.

Ramming a dagger into the King’s man would bring even more grief to her clan.

But she
was
tempted.

Fighting the urge, she looked from the Lowlander to Alasdair and back again. “I believe, Sir Walter, that my brother has given
you our choice. MacDonalds won’t be driven from their land. These hills were our own before ever a Stewart called himself
a king. If our men must take up arms to avoid the Stewart wrongfully banishing us from a glen we’ve held for centuries, so
be it.”

A curt nod was Sir Walter’s reply.

Returning it, Catriona dipped another curtsy and then showed him her back. She needed all her dignity, but she kept her spine
straight as she strode to one of the hall’s tall, arch-topped windows. Once there, she stared out at the sea loch, not surprised
to see its smooth gray surface pitted with a light, drizzly rain. Dark clouds crouched low on the hills, and thin tendrils
of mist slid down the braes, sure portents that even more rain was coming.

The Glen of Many Legends was crying.

But she would not.

She wouldn’t break even if the Lowland King and his
minions ripped the heart right out of her. Highlanders were the proudest, most stoic of men. And MacDonalds were the best
of Highlanders.

So she stepped closer to the window, welcoming the cold, damp air on her cheeks. Countless MacDonald women before her had
stood at this same window embrasure. In a fortnight’s passing, her brother and cousins would ensure that they would continue
to do so in years to come. It was just unthinkable that they were being forced to do so with their lives.

Incomprehensible and—she knew deep inside—quite possibly more than she could bear.

When Geordie bumped her hand, leaning into her and whimpering, she knew she had to try. But even as she dug her fingers into
the old dog’s shaggy coat, the sea loch and the hills blurred before her. She blinked hard, unable to bring her world back
into focus. The stinging heat pricking her eyes only worsened, though she did keep her tears from falling.

On the day of the battle she’d do the same. She’d stand tall and look on with pride, doing her name honor.

Somehow she’d endure.

Whatever it cost her.

Nearly a fortnight later, James Cameron stood atop the battlements of Castle Haven and glared down at the worst folly to ever
darken the Glen of Many Legends. Wherever he looked, Lowlanders bustled about the fine vale beneath the castle’s proud walls.
A different sort than the lofty souls gorging themselves on good Cameron beef in his great hall, these scrambling intruders
were workmen. Minions brought along to do the nobles’ bidding, whose
busy hands erected viewing platforms while their hurrying feet flattened the sweetest grass in the glen.

Already, they’d caused scars.

Deep pits had been gouged into the fertile earth. Ugly black gashes surely meant to hold cook fires. Or—James’s throat filled
with bile—the bodies of the slain.

On the hills, naked swaths showed where tall Scots pines had been carelessly felled to provide wood. Jagged bits of the living,
weeping trees littered the ground.

“Christ God!” James blew out a hot breath, the destruction searing him with an anger so heated he wondered his fury didn’t
blister the air.

He went taut, his every muscle stiff with rage.

Beside him, his cousin Colin wrapped his hands around his sword belt. “They haven’t wasted a breath of time,” he vowed, eyeing
the stout barricades already marking the battling ground where so many men would die.

A circular enclosure better suited to contain cattle than proud and fearless men.

James narrowed his gaze on the pen, unable to think of it as aught else. “Only witless peacocks wouldn’t know that such barricading
isn’t necessary.”