Lady Of The Glen Part 40

"Och, I recall it," MacIain said. " '. . . to the utmost extremity of the law.' " He poured more whisky. "I am neither deaf nor blind, John, to not ken what we face."

Soft but pointed reprimand. Cat, who had only experienced the bombast, felt this was infinitely more dangerous. The expression on John's face confirmed it.

From behind her, Dair spoke quietly. "You have the warning I carried from Governor Hill at Inverlochy."

"I do, aye." MacIain sipped slowly, savoring the liquor. "You did tell me, Alasdair."

"For all he is a Sa.s.senach, he strikes me as a fair man. A truthful man."

"So you said, aye. Twice over."

"Six days," John said.

In candlelight, the white mane glowed. "Neither deaf nor blind, aye?-nor unable to count."

"What will you do?" Cat asked, because no one else had. Because she thought no one else would.

MacIain's eyes burned into her own. "What would you do?"

It took her by surprise. "I? But-I am not a laird-"

"Does it make a difference?"

"Of course it does! If I am responsible for only myself, I might decide one thing . . . but if I had a clan to protect, I might decide another."

Teeth showed briefly in a feral smile, then hid themselves away in the nest of his beard and moustaches. "And yet you have the temerity to ask me what I will do, here and now, when there are many things to be considered, no' the least of them the people-my people, aye?-who depend upon me." He swept the room with a level glance. "All of you ask it. I see it in your faces."

Cat could not recall a single instance when her father had said so much as MacIain about tending his people. Glenlyon was also a laird, and yet he commanded nothing save dice, very badly, and whisky very well. What would I do, were I laird of Glencoe? She was only a laird's daughter. She had no responsibilities save those she created.

MacIain grunted. "This game is done." He broke up the hard-won positions and moved the chess pieces back into position for a fresh gambit. "A new one has begun."

Eiblin MacDonald looked at her husband, who looked in turn with studied consideration at his sleeping son. Lady Glencoe's hands were folded in her lap, her face composed, but Cat saw the line of tension in her shoulders. And Dair, still standing between the fire and Cat, released a quiet breath that was, by its lengthiness, a statement of itself.

Cat waited. She had said what she could, and knew no more now than she had before the Cameron had arrived. But the world had changed completely, and their lives with it. 'Twill be for him to decide what becomes of us all . . . And she knew in that moment she would have no other man save the aging, giant MacDonald make such a decision. He was a harsh man, a stubborn old fox, but he loved his people. She trusted his conviction more than she did her own.

He looked at them all one by one, then rose and strode to the door. He pulled it open and turned. To his sons he said, "Take your women home."

Abject dismissal. Cat stiffened, shocked.

MacIain saw it and looked directly at her. "Take your women home," he repeated, "and leave me to my own." Beyond the door, beyond MacIain, snow fell out of the darkness. The respite was over; winter had returned.

Cat, chilled, rose as Dair moved to stand beside her. But it could be no more bitter than the winter in his eyes.

John Hill started violently as the door to his quarters was flung open. A man stood upon the threshold. In guttering light before him, with snow-scoured darkness behind, he might have been a hero out of the tales of Celtic bards, a giant Norseman come up alive from the barrow-grave dripping of earth and damp. But John Hill saw immediately the damp was melting snow, and there was no earth at all upon him. Only a mask of implacable stone in place of a man's face.

He wore wool, leather, and steel. He glinted with it in candlelight, a hard, martial glitter born of pistols, dirk, and sword. And all wrapped up in tartan, head now bared of bonnet, so that melting droplets of snow formed diamonds in white hair and a shawl across his shoulders.

"MacIain," Hill said, because there was no doubt.

"Governor," MacIain returned in a quiet rumble.

Behind him, snow fell steadily. An unrelenting storm had piled banks against the buildings, formed a second if softer defense for the palisaded walls. That MacIain had made his way through from Glencoe was a remarkable feat-until one looked at the man and judged the spirit in him, the unwavering determination. He simply could not fail, in himself or for his people. His pride would not permit it.

MacIain filled the doorway. He would dwarf the governor's spartan room. But it was the only shelter Hill had to offer worthy of his guest. "Come in. Will you have whisky, or wine?"

The giant's eyes glittered. His jaw worked a moment; his beard dripped water that beaded on his plaid, rolled across the leather of his silver-buckled baldric. He was withal a warrior, a Gael from other times, as ma.s.sive in arrogance as in bone. "I have come to swear the oath," he said at last, and softly, more softly than Hill expected. "Will you administer it, that I may have King William's indemnity?"

In the moment before shock, in the instant prior to painful protest, John Hill marked the bitter conviction in aged eyes, the honed edge of rumbling voice, the knowledge that what Glencoe did ran counter to his wishes. And yet he had come.

-And very nearly too late . . . "No," Hill blurted, forsaking diplomacy in the magnitude of his surprise. "Oh no, don't you see? I cannot accept your signature. I cannot extend the indemnity of the king. It is to Ardkinglas you must go, in Inveraray."

"I have come," MacIain declared, brooking no further protest.

It washed up from out of the darkness, filling his soul with sick dread. Stair shall have his scheme after al-- "Oh, no-MacIain, I beg you . . . I can do nothing for you." He went on swiftly despite the narrowing of distrustful eyes. "You must go to Inveraray, to the Sheriff of Argyll. Ardkinglas will accept your signature, not I."

The old face hardened until Hill believed it might shatter. "You refuse?"

"But I must!" Hill cried. "It is not my duty . . . it is for Ardkinglas to administer the oath. You know that, MacIain-it was stated in the proclamation. It is to the sheriffs the lairds must go."

The giant Highlander dripped snowmelt onto the floor. A gust of wind blew snow into the room, threatening even gla.s.s-warded lamps; and yet Hill could see no way to have the door shut, with Glencoe still in it. "I have read it," MacIain said at last. "But you are a soldier, aye?-and no' a bluidy Campbell."

It was rough flattery, and wholly comprehensible to Colonel John Hill, who had spent his life in the military serving England; he understood very well how a fellow warrior would view such meticulous service, enemy or no. It was honor of itself, despite the name of its king. He was no politician, no n.o.bleman, merely a soldier. And it was to that soldier MacIain now appealed, a Sa.s.senach who was, nonetheless, not a Campbell man.

Speechless, Hill looked upon the old man who was Scotland incarnate, bred of her bones and blood, of the stone and bogs and burnwater. His eyes had seen a mult.i.tude of sins, his hands had committed them, and yet he came to sign an oath that would forever mark him the Dutchman's man instead of Jacobite. Glencoe's capitulation was the death of rebellion.

And yet Hill could find no joy in it, nor relief. Only a great and growing fear. He does not know what Stair has planned for him-and I cannot confide it-"You must go," he said desperately. "You must go on to Inveraray. Tarry no longer here!"

The granite mask that was MacIain's face began, barely, to crack. "I canna," he said. " 'Twould take me longer than I have, before the year is done."

And so it would. The weather by itself would delay him beyond a day, and there was no more time than that.

One day, no more . . . He had come, had MacIain; Glencoe had come at last. It was the price of survival, the end of a brutal plan, and yet it might be too late.

"Wait-" Hill blurted. He turned at once to his writing table and took up dry quill. Quickly he inked it, pulled a rumpled parchment close, and began to scribble. "I will ask Ardkinglas to receive you as a lost sheep . . ."

It was done in haste, with swift explanation: a mistake, no more, and due forgiveness; surely Ardkinglas could administer the oath despite the tardiness . . . 'he has been with me, yet slipped some days out of ignorance, but it is good to bring in a lost sheep at any time, and will be an advantage to render the King's government easy. 'Hill sanded, folded, and sealed the letter. He held it out to MacIain. "Now I must hasten you away."

The old fox was not hastened. He took the sealed letter with deliberation, put it inside his battered buff-colored coat, and tugged on his bonnet once more. The tarnished silver of his clan crest glinted dully.

"G.o.d go with you," Hill said as MacIain turned and went out the door, bending his head beneath a lintel built for a common man.

The governor latched the door and turned away, back toward his bed. Relief warmed him in the snow-dusted room. Ardkinglas is a good man, albeit he is Campbell. Glencoe is safe after all.

Cat slid down toward sleep. She did not want to let go; the bed was empty of Dair, who had gone outside to speak with John after his brother came to wake him, but it was warm beneath the covers and she was lured by its seduction. Only when the door opened again and Dair came in did she turn her back on blandishments to rouse to full alertness.

He latched the door and came into the cubby, unwinding his plaid. Snow dusted his hair; he was, for the moment, his father, save his face was incongruously young.

It struck her afresh, the knowledge and the wonder: This man is mine . . . She marked anew the scar against his ribs that had come from a Sa.s.senach blade, and the hemp-track around his neck. The flesh that was not scarred pimpled from chill. "Come in with me." Cat peeled back the covers. "I'll lift the ice from your bones."

"You could lift more than ice, were I not so frozen." The wind had chafed his face. As he got in beside her, muttering of the storm, she gritted her teeth and wrapped his bare feet in her own.

"-warm," he murmured. His hair was damp as he tucked his head against her own. " 'Twas a message from MacIain. He has been sent on to Inveraray, to Ardkinglas."

Cat, winding her limbs around his to warm him, s.h.i.+vered, then stilled. The words were simple enough, but the tone, for all his care, divulged concern. " 'Tis a bad storm," she said, "and a long way to Inveraray. Couldna he sign the oath at Fort William? "

"John says no, that Malcolm told him they had to go on. But the governor gave MacIain a letter to explain away his delay." He pulled a strand of her hair out of his face. " 'Twill take him a day or two to reach Inveraray, but John Hill has spoken for him."

He warmed but slowly. Cat pressed herself more tightly against him. Inveraray was a Campbell town, and in it once, many years before, MacIain had been imprisoned. Uneasily she asked, "What happens when he arrives?"

Dair shrugged: the barest twitch of one shoulder. "He swears himself and Glencoe in service to King William."

Such simple words, explaining equally simple actions. But two years before with the pipes wailing of war they had all of them sworn for James on the eve of Killiecrankie. It was not, Cat knew, as casual an undertaking as Dair suggested.

-not when one looks into their hearts.

She knew his now, better than she knew her own, as well as his courage. And what he would not admit, what he could not confess, were his own thoughts and feelings. If he feared for his father, he said nothing of it. But she had greater lat.i.tude than MacIain's son. She feared for a MacDonald gone deep into Campbell country, where he had no support at all save the strength of his own will.

But it was MacIain's will withal. She doubted even Ardkinglas, reputed a decent man, would attempt to break it. Breadalbane, a Campbell earl, and all of the other Williamites had their victory in Glencoe's capitulation. They would, she prayed for the sake of the man beside her, be gracious in that knowledge.

Quietly she asked, "What does the oath mean?" To us? she meant, but could not voice that selfishness.

He stirred, s.h.i.+fting closer. "No more nor less than it meant when Jamie's name was attached." His tone hardened. "But he isna a Scot, is William."

It mattered. It would always matter. England had usurped so much of what once was Scotland's. Even her kings, trans.m.u.ted later to Sa.s.senach ways. Rumor said neither James nor his daughter, William's wife, could speak a word of Gaelic.

Cat stroked a chilled MacDonald shoulder, coveting the flesh. "King's man," she murmured.

Dair, m.u.f.fled against her, made an odd sound. "Aye, well-that hasna changed. Only the name of the king."

Cat supposed so. And she also supposed that if it bought them peace, the oath was worth it. Others might disagree but MacIain, plainly, had not.

Nor had Dair, nor John. The women had not been asked. Unless he spoke of it to his wife after sending the rest of us home. That, she knew, was likely. Margaret MacDonald, styled Lady Glencoe, was not a stupid woman, nor MacIain a fool to ignore her canny counsel.

Cat stared into the darkness, wondering what her father had said of her upon receipt of Colin's letter with news that she had gone to Dair, to Glencoe, to live among MacDonalds; wondering too what he would say to know that at last Glencoe and Glenlyon, after so many years as enemies, served the same interests.

With the wind in his face, billowing kilt and plaid, and the smell of water in his nose-imminent snow, damp wool, the pungency of peat-Dair stood beside his brother near Gleann an Fiodh, the Valley of the Wood, hard by Invercoe. He was, as John was, wholly aware of men at their backs, but more aware yet of the men who stood before them, glinting of English steel in muskets, pikes, and swords.

Dair examined them closely, learning their weaponry so he might know how to stop it; but he was not certain he could. The flintlock muskets the soldiers bore were superior to the matchlocks used at Killiecrankie, as well as the new device that allowed the dagger-bladed bayonets to be attached beneath the musket barrel so the gun could still be discharged, unlike the barrel plugs used two years before. The men also carried spear-headed pikes, scabbarded short swords known as hangers, and cartridge boxes on their belts. Soldiers all they were, clad in scarlet, black, yellow, and gray, with buckles on their shoes and uneasy eyes in their heads.

Twenty MacDonalds, no more, ranged across the track behind Dair and John from the edge of the brae to the sh.o.r.e of the loch. They were badly outnumbered and none of them bore weapons; MacIain had seen to that. He had announced to one and all that, in the name of Governor Hill's guarantee and the cause of peace, they were to put away the weapons of war as required by the oath. And so they had, but cleverly, hiding them in peat-stacks or beneath cairns upon the braes; yet no man among them was not suspicious of the soldiers, nor wished he had targe and claymore, or even a Lochaber ax.

"Holy Christ," Dair muttered. "Are we to accept these as friends? I've seen enemies wearing fewer weapons."

"We are at peace with 'these,' " John rebuked without heat. "He signed the oath, did MacIain; we've naught to fear of these men."

Dair snorted derision. "Aye, well . . . I trust you dinna mind if I hold them in some doubt. For all we ken they fought us at Killiecrankie."

"Then they should fear us, aye?" John's smile did not last. "Come, Alasdair-they've sent a man forward. Let us see what he has to say."

His body would not move. "I dinna like it, John."

"Nor I. But the oath is sworn; they havena come to harm us, when we serve their Sa.s.senach king." Straight-backed, high of head, John MacDonald strode forward.

Dair followed after a moment's hesitation. The storm at last had died away and the weather warmed again, but he trusted it no more than the many-hued soldiers drawn up in disciplined files, filling the muddy track that cut along the lochside.

A young uniformed man waited for them, standing stiffly before the others. Papers fluttered in his hand, worried by the wind. "I am Lieutenant John Lindsay," he said, "of the King's Foot, the Earl of Argyll's regiment. These are our orders."

Lindsay held them out but John forbore to accept them. Quietly he asked, "Have you come as friends, or as enemies?"

The young officer's face stiffened. "As friends, by G.o.d! Sir, on my honor, no harm is intended MacIain or his people. But we have orders, and by his oath he must abide by them. As you shall see if you read them."

This time John accepted the papers. He made short work of them even in the wind, his face expressionless. Dair, standing next to him, could make no judgment of his brother's thoughts.

"Two companies," John said finally, "to be quartered in Glencoe. For what purpose?"

Lindsay was clearly nervous, but acquitted himself well in declaration. "There are yet rebellious clans in defiance of the Oath of Allegiance. The indemnity is lifted. But Fort William is full; it is ordered that the folk of Glencoe quarter us here, only until such a time as the weather lifts and we may set about our business. A week, perhaps two . . . no more than that. We hope it is no hards.h.i.+p."

It would be. "And that business?" John inquired.

"Punishment of those Scots such as Glengarry who yet defy the oath," Lindsay answered promptly. He hesitated, glanced at Dair, then looked to John again. "There is no room at the fort."

A man came forward then, clearly an officer in crimson coat and steel gorget, and as clearly a Scot with plaid thrown back from his shoulders. He glanced sidelong at his young and earnest lieutenant, then spoke forcefully in Gaelic. "Will you have us in?" he asked. "I willna depend upon the orders-what are they save the words of a Sa.s.senach and written by English-speakers?-" With elegant disdain. "-but upon your goodwill and generosity according to the law of hospitality that binds us all, and that all of us do honor, who were born of the Highlands."

It was a crisp, calculated appeal that was also brutally honest, and clearly designed for their benefit-or perhaps for the benefit of the MacDonalds ranged behind, listening distrustfully like hackled hounds. Dair looked at the man indifferently at first, cynical in his thoughts, then stared fixedly in sharp astonishment. And found himself made mute, frozen to his marrow.

The man was much changed. Older, more haggard, very pink of face, with lank, yellowed gray hair and red-rimmed eyes, now an officer in the Earl of Argyll's regiment clad in martial finery, but his ident.i.ty-and his t.i.tle-was unmistakable.

Christ Jesus- And Dair abruptly no longer stood in MacDonald lands so near the loch and the braes but in lands held by a Campbell, on a windswept, rugged moor beside a time-wracked tree, mounted on a garron with noose around his neck, with rope upon his wrists, with prayers between clenched teeth- -and the sound in his ears of the flat of this man's sword brought down without hesitation upon a s.h.a.ggy rump to send the horse away.

This man, this Campbell: Glenlyon-who stood before them now in service to the king, asking hospitality of them. Knowing Highland honor and the bindings it bore, and how they must respond.

Dair swore feelingly with vulgar vehemence. He felt young Lieutenant Lindsay's shocked stare, was aware of John's sharp concern, sensed the rapt tension in the Glencoe-men behind him-but could not look away from the dissipated features of Robert Campbell.

Glenlyon smiled warmly, with no evident suggestion of rancor. "Alasdair Og," he chided, as if to a son, "would I mean you harm with my daughter in Glencoe?"

Wind rustles trees. There is no peat-smoke upon the air, no smell of cooking meat, no odor of frying fish. No odor at all save of trees, of sap, of turf. Nothing at all of people.

The glen remains, girdled by cliffs and peaks, cut through by the river, but no one lives in it despite fertility. The valley is empty of habitation, save for its natural game. Empty of MacDonalds.

She rides unerringly to the house, ignoring the ruins of others. And there she finds identical destruction as well as similar methods: charred timber and broken stone shattered by the heat, collapsed roof slates. Wind has scoured the ruins free of ash, so that only the stark timbers remain thrusting impudently skyward, fallen into a tangle like a handful of dropped kindling.

Nothing remains to mark human habitation. No sc.r.a.p of cloth, no pewter plate, no perfume brought from France. Only the detritus of ma.s.sacre, of fire and plunder, and the flowers of late spring breaking up through blackened soil.

Part VI.