Lady Of The Glen Part 53

Cat leaned in, wound arms into plaid, into hollows; felt the bones beneath his flesh, the knotting of wiry tendons made p.r.o.nounced by privation. But her Dair withal.

Alasdair Og MacDonald.

Whom her father had meant to murder.

She held him fiercely, setting her face into his neck. His warm, rope-scored neck.

So much done to this man.

She told him then, in words she forgot the moment she said them, of scouring guilt, of exquisite shame, of sorrow and anger and hatred. It was important that he know, important that she said it: how it was to house a heart burdened by so much shame, so much bitter pain. She was Glenlyon's daughter.

And that she could not blame MacDonalds if MacDonalds blamed her.

"Why?" he asked then, the only word of his set into the flow of her own.

And so she told him: had she not been present, had her father not used her name, there might have been no hosting, no hospitality of fered. And all would yet survive.

He was not so weak that he could not threaten her breath with the force of his embrace. "No man will say so! No man alive will say so, be he MacDonald or no."

"But-"

"No man, Cat. I swear on my father's soul."

The great, turbulent soul housed in so huge a body that it even turned back a river when he planted himself in its current.

And now the bones of it lie on Eilean Munde.

Tears sprang into her eyes. So many words to say, so many things to confess, but something took precedence. "Ten years," she told him.

It deepened lines between his brows that had not existed before. "Ten years?"

Easier now to admit what should have been said before. "Ten years I have known you. Ten years I have loved you."

He laughed very softly. Set his head against hers. Into her hair he said, "Come home with me."

Fingers trembled as she reached up to touch his hair. All white, so white, white as MacIain's, save for a glint of gray snooving there beside his temple.

He caught her hand and carried it to his mouth, where he kissed her palm as he had kissed it once before beside a MacDonald fire in the looming ruins of Achallader, below the Grave of a Stranger.

"Och, Christ-Dair-"

Against her hand he laughed. But there was more in his eyes, so much more than laughter: memory, and tears. "Come home with me," he said. "Come home with me. To Glencoe."

Through her own burden of tears, Cat laughed aloud. All it wanted was a piper and the keening of ceol mor.

In her head she made her own:-with white teeth a'gleaming- And silver in his hair.

Edinburgh Summer 1695 Summer, and warm, but it was not the temperature that set a sheen S of sweat over John Hill's face. Before the doors of Holyrood Palace he paused to account for his appearance in the moments before he would be called to account for his actions three years preceeding.

He was as yet a colonel, as yet a governor, as yet commissioned, and wore the scarlet-and-gold uniform of his duty. He shot the cuffs of his linen s.h.i.+rt beneath the crimson coat, resettled the polished gorget at his throat, and nodded to the man who swung open the door of the ma.s.sive palace.

Thus admitted, thus committed, Hill entered the hall. He knew what lay before him: Inquiry. King William had at long last, worn down by suspicion and questions, sanctioned an Inquiry to determine who bore the guilt for Glencoe.

I do. He accepted it. He would admit it now before the others, the Commissioners a.s.sembled to question, to weigh the answers. t.i.tled all, powerful men, men of politics. He was but a simple man, and Englishman-Sa.s.senach!-who loved his G.o.d and served his king . . . whoever that king might be, English or Dutch. John Hill had no power. No politics.

But John Hill had himself, as much as anyone, ruined Glencoe.

Holyrood Palace was as dark within and without, illuminated by lamplight. Beyond the antechamber lay the hall proper, where the Commissioners waited. Built against the walls, beneath ornate hammer beams, were the crowded benches.

So many gathered to hear the tragedy of Glencoe-A sound behind him, a sudden shaft of light. It fell across the antechamber, lanced through into the hall beyond.

Hill turned, blinded momentarily by the summer sunlight. He squinted, absently aware his eyesight worsened; but then he set aside such things. Others had come in, called as he was to bear witness to what had been done at five o'clock of the morning in the midst of a blinding blizzard.

Two men. Two Highlanders. Two MacDonalds.

Two tall Glencoe-men: the man who was now MacIain and his younger brother.

Not the old fox. The old fox was buried three years on Eilean Munde.

Hill drew in a breath. Here is Scotland standing before me. . . .

-all swathed in creamy saffron-dyed linen s.h.i.+rts; brooch-pinned, looping, many hued plaids and kilts; fine-knit tartan stockings and silver-buckled brogues; sgian dhu, sporrans, dirks; with feather- and heather-sprigged bonnets worn slantwise on proud heads.

Both bared a moment later as, one by one, the MacDonalds removed the bonnets to clasp them in callused hands.

-such white, white heads for men yet so young- The door opened again. Sunlight sparked off the silver of brooches and buckles. A woman came in behind them even as they moved apart to make room for her; one put out his hand.

Hill had met Alasdair Og. By him he knew the woman.

Her eyes were very clear, piercing as a claymore. Lamplight burnished hair. She was taller than he; nearly as tall as her husband. She examined Hill, a.s.sessed him, measured him as a man. The dim light of Holyrood Palace was gentle on her face, but the strong bones stood out as if she were carved of stone.

He drew breath and moved a single pace. He bowed before her. "Colonel John Hill, he said quietly. "Governor of Fort William."

Her tone was cool. "Have they called you to give evidence against my father?"

He did not know how to answer. She was Glenlyon's daughter, but married to a MacDonald. Such personal complexities were beyond him, and so at last he spoke the truth. "If they should ask me so, I will. But I shall give equal evidence against myself."

She laughed briefly and without mirth. "Och, I dinna care about that, aye?-have come to hear them declare the truth of him: he is a murderer."

Sweat sprang out on his flesh again. Hill did what he could to mitigate the moment. "He did nothing of his own will but what he was ordered to do."

"Ordered," she echoed. "Ordered to murder MacDonalds. Oh, I ken what he was told to do. I ken how he did it. I ken what he did." She looked at her husband. Something pa.s.sed between them, something powerful if unspoken, and then she looked back at Hill. Softly she said, "I was there, aye?"

Lamplight glittered on plaid brooch and bonnet crest as John MacDonald s.h.i.+fted. "For what you have done, we thank you," he said quietly. "You more than any man have done what could be done."

Absolution was painful. He could not permit it. "No," Hill said harshly, "I have done nothing. Nothing but ruin Glencoe."

"Aye, well," MacIain exchanged a glance with his brother. "We are rebuilding the houses."

"And the families?" Hill demanded. "How do you rebuild human life that has been taken?"

"You canna." Alasdair Og's voice was uninflected. "You begin anew with what is left."

"We are home," MacIain said. "We are yet in Scotland, yet in the Highlands, yet in Glencoe. We have begun anew."

Hill heard a step behind him and a diffident voice. "Colonel Hill, sir. You are called before the Commissioners."

He nodded absently but did not turn away from the Highlanders. Not yet "-Begin anew," he said with clear self-contempt. "A man may hope so. Indeed, a man may. But neither does he forget."

"He doesna," MacIain agreed, forgiving nothing. "And so long as there are pipes, and bards, and poets, no man may ever forget what happened to Glencoe."

Glenlyon's daughter smiled, and this time it was unfettered. "Ne obliviscaris. "

From beside him, less diffidence now: "Colonel Hill. Sir. "

He turned then and left them. He cared little enough what became of himself, called to Inquiry. He cared very much what became of them.

" 'Forget not,' " Hill murmured.

He did not see how he could.

Author's Note.

Most of the historical events portrayed in Lady of the Glen, particularly the tragic ma.s.sacre itself, are doc.u.mented, as are the portions of letters quoted within the text. With the exception of Cat Campbell and Jean Stewart, all of the primary people in this novel actually lived. Dair, known to history as Alasdair Og (Alexander the Younger) MacDonald, did indeed marry a Campbell of Glen Lyon, though her name was Sarah, and she was Glenlyon's niece, not his daughter.

The Ma.s.sacre of Glencoe itself is an obscure if b.l.o.o.d.y footnote in British history, but it did succeed in forcing the Glencoe MacDonalds -those who survived-into obedience to William and Mary, as well as persuading such holdouts as Ewan Cameron of Lochiel, Coll MacDonald of Keppoch, and young Robert Stewart of Appin to swear the oath.

In August of 1692, six months after the slaughter, John MacDonald -now the MacIain-brought the survivors down out of the mountains to take an oath of allegiance to the joint sovereigns. His stubborn younger brother, Alasdair Og, held out until October.

The growing public outcry against the slaughter, though noisy, was not enough initially to force an official Inquiry into the ma.s.sacre until considerable time had pa.s.sed. It wasn't until June of 1695, three and one-half years after the ma.s.sacre, that the Inquiry was held in Edinburgh and a full report sent to King William who, in the tradition of politicians and monarchs throughout the centuries, conveniently chose to overlook his own part in the proceedings and blamed the now-unpopular ma.s.sacre on others, though he exonerated Sir John Dalrymple, Master of Stair and Secretary of Scotland; and Grey John Campbell, Earl of Breadalbane.

For some time the MacDonalds honored their oath to William and Mary. But Highlanders are Highlanders, most of them dedicated to the Jacobite cause. In the Rebellion of 1715, Alasdair Og MacDonald took a hundred swordsmen with him into battle. Thirty years later, at Culloden, John MacDonald's son led the clan into battle in the name of Prince Charles Edward Stuart.

And so in 1746 the days of the clans, the pipes, the Gaelic-as well as kilts and plaids-ended. The MacDonalds, like thousands of other Highlanders, eventually were chased out of their glen by the Clearances and enclosure system, and the livestock that replaced their beloved cattle: sheep.

Twenty years ago, in a British History cla.s.s taught at Northern Arizona University, my professor lectured about Scottish history prior to Culloden, speaking briefly of an "insignificant" little incident between Campbells and MacDonalds in 1692, a killing ordered by King William himself. It had become known as the Ma.s.sacre of Glencoe, he said, and laid the foundation for a Highland hostility that exists to this day.

I believed then it would make a terrific tale, so much remarkable history commingled with the fascination of the Highlands as well as the romance of two individuals, but until I began researching the facts of the Ma.s.sacre ten years ago I had no idea how much story there was to tell, nor how dramatic.

I am greatly indebted to reference works too numerous to list, but most particularly to the Penguin edition of John Prebble's outstanding and invaluable reference work Glencoe, a detailed, incisive, yet highly readable and evocative recounting of the events leading to the ma.s.sacre, the slaughter itself, and the aftermath. If readers are interested in learning more about this debacle, I strongly urge them to seek out this fascinating book.

As both reader and writer of historical fiction, I'm very much interested in maintaining accuracy whenever possible; however, I occasionally relied on personal suppositions and interpretations, and, where necessary, significantly compressed the time frame and chronology of events to improve the story's pacing.

In March of 1985 I visited Glencoe. The valley itself is as I've described : surrounded on three sides by rugged, fall-broken mountains nearly always capped in clouds, skirted on the fourth by cold, deep Loch Linnhe, divided by the River Coe. Signal Rock, from which legend says a beacon fire was lighted to begin the ma.s.sacre, stands in mid-glen. Sheep and cattle run free on the braes and tourists hike the mountains. But there is memory present as well, and a knowledge of tragedy.

In Glencoe today there stands a stone Celtic cross monument to the fallen MacDonalds. It is inscribed as follows: This cross

is reverently erected

in memory of

McIan, chief of the MacDonalds

of Glencoe

Who fell with his people

in the Ma.s.sacre of Glencoe

of 13 February 1692

by his direct descendant