Lady Of The Glen Part 16

"No," Robbie said. "No, no, not yet, not empty-handed, to face the ridicule of MacIain." Thoughtfully he sucked again at the cuts Cat had inflicted. "We came for cows and we'll take them, even now." He grinned, eyes alight. " 'Twill sit in Glenlyon's throat like a clot of soured cream-d'ye think he'll choke of it? Christ, his body'll keep forever, soaked so much in usquabae from the inside out; if you dinna bury him, we'll no' forget his pawkie face!"

Dair stripped the knife from Cat's hand before she could so much as raise it. His grasp was tight on her wrist, squeezing the bones together. "You will not," he said mildly.

She twisted, testing, then stopped. She stood quite still and fixed him with bright, angry eyes. "You'd do the same," she told him, between set teeth. "In my place, Alasdair Og, you'd be doing the same!"

Dair had never believed the simple use of his name could incite him to anger. But she wielded it now as a weapon, when he had presented it ten years before as a gift to a young girl. "I would," he agreed tightly. "But there are two of you-here, this moment-to our twelve . . . I think the odds are in our favor."

Robbie snorted. "If she's as bad as her father at wagering, she'd not know what odds to play."

Dair saw the outraged tears and looked away from them so she need not count him again among those who ridiculed. "Four men," he said. "They'll see you safely down the glen, while we go about our business."

"I'll get them back," Cat promised. "Every Campbell cow."

The heir of Appin laughed. "I'd like it verra much to see you try!"

Dair named four of his men. He told them to take Cat and her woman and two of the Campbell men with them as far as Balloch, where they were to turn back; Balloch was Campbell-inhabited, and they'd be hard-pressed to win free if Cat's men raised an alarm.

And then he took Cat out of the s.h.i.+eling, into the damp dawn of the day, and escorted her to her garron. A MacDonald saddled it for her; Dair lifted her up. It required effort wholly unexpected to take his hands away. "They'll see you safe."

"I was safe," she said. " 'Tis you who means me harm."

"Cat-" But Dair dismissed protest, banis.h.i.+ng the desire to make her think kindly of him. He gave her truth instead and let her think what she would. "I mean you no harm. If I did, it would have happened."

Scorn was plain. "With you and Appin taking turns?"

The flesh of his face felt stretched over stone and very near to splitting on the sharpness of it. "Robbie is Robbie," he said with a mouth too stiff to shape the words easily. "I am Dair MacDonald. Never confuse us."

Cat laughed. The sound was ugly, comprised of something akin to shame, leavened by bitterness. "You bed with Stewart's sister, you ride with him lifting cows . . . how could I be confused? You're one and the same, I think; you've shown me no differences."

That stirred him at last to strike back if only to a.s.sauge his own guilt, the fears that he and Stewart were indeed too much alike. Before she could say more he jerked up her hem and jammed the knife back into the sheath strapped to her stockinged leg. "If you mean to carry one, learn when and where to use it. Otherwise you'll do naught but arm the enemy." He yanked the skirts back down.

"Which fact you've learned, I've no doubt, from all the brave battles you've fought. 'Tis a change, aye?-stealing cows instead of lives?"

He thought of Jean again, of the knife she made of her words to bleed him bit by bit. But her blade was honed of frustration, of an absence of comprehension; he could not explain the words that lay in his heart, and Jean in her ignorance could not speak them for him. Instead she cut at the canker, thinking to give him relief, and cut into his heart instead.

Jean would not understand. Cat Campbell would. "I was at Killiecrankie."

It was enough, he knew, for her-and then more, far more than enough. The words proved his manhood if not his potency, but he remembered too late even as she recoiled that Glenlyon's daughter knew very well by its aftermath who had been at Killiecrankie.

Her mouth warped briefly even as he tried to explain. " 'Twas a brave battle, that . . . and braver still when MacDonalds stripped Glen Lyon of everything-including our pride." Her hands gripped the reins, white-knuckled and trembling. "People died," she told him, "inside as well as out. Tell me again, MacDonald, how I should feel safe with you."

Governor Hill, when told of the royal commission given the Earl of Breadalbane to treat with the clans, was first astounded, secondly disbelieving, lastly infuriated. He himself worked to bring peace to the Highlands, going among the people with candor in his mouth as well as honest kindness, and had been justly treated by them in return. He held hopes that his efforts would be repayed by renewed willingness to swear oath to King William as opposed to supporting James, and while Breadalbane's proposal was much the same, Hill could not but complain that much of his own work was undone, or at least appropriated by a man who himself was a Highlander, and whose true interests in the outcome could be discerned by no one.

He did not consider himself a petty or malicious man, but his patience was ended at last. Clearly a man with no more than the interests of Scotland at heart would not be heard without proofs of duplicity where other men worked, and so he set about interviewing friendly clanspeople who had been given warranties to attend the meeting at Achallader but weeks away. It was Breadalbane he examined through the earl's own promises to give silver to the clans, and it was Breadalbane whom Hill knew to be playing a dangerous game.

The governor had his information from such chiefs as Ewan Cameron of Lochiel, less disposed to hear from the Campbell earl, and was explicitly told that the preeminent MacDonald of Glengarry would spend his time raiding Ross instead of listening to Breadalbane's lies.

And yet the lies might be believed. Silver meant much to clans who in winter found living difficult. John Hill knew it entirely possible that even those who disparaged Breadalbane would nonetheless meet with him at Achallader; there was nothing to be lost in going, and perhaps much to be gained.

To the governor in Fort William there was little to be gained, and everything to be lost. He was caught between a Dutch king advised by a Lowland Scot who despised Highlanders, and a Highland-born Campbell earl who had a trunk full of coats from which he might choose a color, depending on circ.u.mstances.

Hill capped his inkhorn, set his quill aside. Someone will suffer. Someone must suffer. He put his papers into order, aligning tattered edges. There will be an example made of those who are innocent, or wholly inconsequential, to prove that Highland power is negligible when compared to that of a combined Parliamant, and a king who brooks no rebellion.

On the track toward Balloch, Cat pulled up her garron, waiting as the four mounted MacDonalds dispatched to escort her gathered close enough to hem in the Campbell gillies on foot, Angus and Ewan, and for Una to come up beside her. She lowered her eyes in embarra.s.sment not entirely unfeigned; given another course, she would prefer it to this one. But these were men; it was the only certainty.

"You'll wait," she said curtly. " 'Tis for a woman to tend."

They did not ask; they knew. She saw glances exchanged, the small language of the bodies: squinted eyes, a twitch of the mouth, hunched shoulders; one man looked across the turf to the stone-crowned rise with a twisted tree atop it breaking free of granite cleft. A small measure of modesty for a woman riding with men.

"There," one said, while the others kept wary eyes on Angus and Ewan, whose cheeks burned crimson for their laird's daughter.

It wasn't shame, Cat decided, but the natural needs of a body. They'd think nothing of it, being men and more capable of unenc.u.mbered relief; but she required more s.h.i.+elding, more forbearance. More time.

Una's expression was frozen into disbelief. Does she mean me to hold it all the way to Kilchurn? Cat smothered a laugh and busied herself with unhooking a foot from a stirrup. "Una-you'll come." It was necessary she come.

Una came, clambering down from her garron to a.s.sist Cat with her needs. Cat paid little mind to the broken ground and knurled turf, heading straight toward the tree-split, rocky outcrop. The terrain was as she'd prayed: behind the outcrop and tree was a hollow, and beyond it a rill that sloped into a slantwise depression running back the way they had come.

She glanced behind anxiously and was pleased to see the MacDonalds had all dismounted, tending their own needs. "Una-hurry!" The woman muttered of undecorous haste; Cat climbed over the outcrop and dropped to the earth, flattening belly down. "Listen then, Una-you'll go back in a moment and ask for linen."

"Linen!"

"Say I have none!" Cat hissed. "Say my courses have come on early, and I am desperate . . . say a s.h.i.+rt will do-"

"Catriona Campbell-"

"They will debate about it at some length; they will none of them want to give up a s.h.i.+rt for that-"

"D'ye think I'll ask such of them?" Una was mortified. "Catriona, we've our own linen-"

"But we need theirs. "Cat glared at her. "Have you wits, Una? If we're to stop our cattle from being stolen, we must act now."

Una clamped her mouth closed repressively. "I'll no' speak to men-MacDonalds!-of such things."

Cat transfixed her with a baleful stare. "You will," she said clearly. "You will do whatever I tell you to do, Una; d'ye hear me? You canna stop me. You can help me."

"I'll no' speak of-"

"You will go and ask them for linen. 'Twill be Angus who offers his, to save me shame-think, Una!-and you will refuse him that, he being Campbell, and then it will be for one of the MacDonalds to do-"

"Better a Campbell s.h.i.+rt-"

"-and by the time you've got a s.h.i.+rt and come back to me with it, I'll be gone."

That shut Una's mouth again. "Gone?"

"On my way; 'tis what this mummery is for."

"You canna walk all the way to Chesthill!"

Lord Christ, but the woman's a fool; and what does it say of my mother, who kept Una by her? "I dinna need to walk all the way to Chesthill. They've left horses at the s.h.i.+eling, you ken, wi' the men yet being held. I'll no' trouble them over that-I've enough wit to ken I'm outmatched, there-I only want a horse. We're no' so far from the s.h.i.+elings, Una-and despite your wishes, I'm no soft woman, am I? D'ye think I canna do this?"

Una stared at her in such dismay and horror that Cat wanted to swear at her. But that would stir Una to further declamation, and she had no time.

"Then stay," Cat hissed. "They'll come to see no matter . . . I only meant to gain the time you'd win me, but I see 'tis more important to you not to speak of such to MacDonalds than save the laird's own cattle from Glencoe-men."

As expected, Una surrended to the reminder of whose cattle were at risk and whose daughter she served. She turned stiffly and began to pick her way slowly toward the cl.u.s.tered men.

Cat sighed. Praise G.o.d for the woman's loyalty, if not her wits . . . Taking care to keep her head down, she edged deeper into the hollow and turned toward the rill. -not so far . . . and not so much to risk to thwart MacDonalds!

Especially Dair MacDonald.

Four.

When Glenlyon, met on the road by a clutch of tacksmen and gillies mounted on heaving garrons, was told his cattle were threatened, he was slow to comprehend a message he might otherwise answer at once because of the messenger: his disheveled daughter, tunic skirt kilted up for ease of riding which perforce exposed a long stockinged leg on either side of the horse. Her smaller woman's plaid, the arisaid, was torn loose from its breast-brooch and hung down from her belt in folds and tangled coils; her braid was wrung free of its bindings by the forcefulness of her riding.

She had, she said, called at each bothy and cottage on the ride back to Chesthill, gathering such men as were willing to fight for Glen Lyon's cows; the implication, even from her, was that they would not be so willing to fight for Glen Lyon's laird.

It hurt very badly, that comment. Glenlyon glared at her and at those she brought with her.

Cat bestrode the garron with no thought to her appearance or to what others might think, shaking back tumbled, wind-wracked hair with an impatient toss of her head. "You'll go," she said, short-winded, before he could speak. "At once . . . they'll be after those closest to Rannoch Moor, I'm thinking-wanting to come no nearer . . ."

"Cat."

"-they will catch up what they can and sweep on, not wanting to waste time . . ."

"Cat-"

"-there are twelve altogether, but he divided them-two left at the s.h.i.+eling, though they may be gone by now; and four to escort us to Balloch-" She drew breath hastily. "-That leaves only six for the cows-"

"Catriona-good Christ . . . will you get down from that horse?"

Startled by his tone, she stared at him blankly. "Get down? Would you have me walk, then?"

"I'd have you down!" he shouted. "Where is Una? Why are you unattended?"

The wind of her ride had painted b.l.o.o.d.y roses in her cheeks. Now the flowers faded, leaving her corpse white and too bright in the eyes from something other than shock or sorrow. He knew that expression.

"The cows, "Cat said succinctly. "They'll have them if you tarry."

"Pull down your skirts," he commanded. "There isna a woman among us, and you come here like a-like a wh.o.r.e. "

Cat recoiled. He heard a stirring among the men as they s.h.i.+fted their eyes and attention elsewhere, resettling reins, plaids, stirrup leathers, avoiding any commitment to what was said between a father and his daughter; but he was aware of disapproval. It was palpable. They give his daughter more respect than he.

"I came here to warn you of cattle thieves," Cat declared tightly. "Will you go?"

-She's more a laird than I. . . And that hurt the worst of all, that men once sworn to him could believe a woman more fit than he, a mature man who had led into battle other men, when all Cat had ever led were her own personal rebellions for those small, insignificant issues as only she believed important. She had always been headstrong and impossible to train. He saw now what it earned him, his kindness, his affection, his laxity; time she was married, if only so another man had the training of her.

He scowled. "Where is Una? What have you done with her?"

"I've done naught with Una, and I doubt they have, either; with her grim face and sour mouth, there's not much for a man to go soft about-"

"Cat! "

"-so likely they've left Una and Angus and Ewan there in the road whilst they ride back to their thieving compatriots, who are meanwhile lifting our cattle-"

"Attend your clothing," he said curtly. "We will see about the cows-"

"Then go-"

"-while you return to Chesthill-"

"Will you go?"

"-for I willna have my daughter seen so by men." He straightened his spine, thrust up his chin, and glanced at the men who accompanied him to Stirling, and those men Cat had brought. "We've enough; they willna take our cows."

"G.o.d in Heaven, man, they'll be back in Glencoe before you so much as turn your horse!" she cried. "Does it matter more that my legs are covered than to retrieve what few cows we've managed to buy with pitiful little silver?"

It was a weapon, her tongue, and well honed; he scowled at her, knowing with each word she ate away his authority, divested him of whatever dignity he yet retained; knowing too she meant none of that: she only wanted the cows.

He swung his horse toward Rannoch. "We'll bring back our cows, if they've lifted them already; mayhap a MacDonald as well."

"And a Stewart," she muttered blackly.

"Go home, Cat."

"D'ye see?-I'm going. I'm going!"

And she was, at last, trying without much success to unhook kilted tunic skirts and pull folds of linen and wool down over her knees. It was preposterous behavior; but then he never expected anything of Cat save such. I've ruined her. Una warned me after Helen died . . . but now 'tis too late.

Yet as he watched her straight spine recede Glenlyon could not suppress a spurt of pride, for all it was somewhat tarnished by guilt. Once, he would not have cared what they saw of Cat, save to despair of what their thoughts might be; she was too tall, too thin, too boyish. They would have seen naught but k.n.o.bbed knees and pale flesh splotched here and there with variegated bruises. And while he supposed beneath the knitted stockings she might still boast a collection of bruises, there was not a man among them who would not catch his breath at the sight of Cat Campbell but half-clad and wind-wracked, fiercely proud as a warrior woman out of ancient sagas.

Once, he would have hidden her for fear of ridicule. Now he desired her hidden for what she might inspire in a man less than circ.u.mspect where the laird's daughter was concerned.

Worth something after all, aye? And would undoubtedly prove her mettle as Breadalbane's daughter-in-law.

"Catriona, Countess Breadalbane," he murmured, and at last gave the order for his tail and Cat's clutch to set about retrieving what MacDonalds desired to steal.

Cat watched them go, her father and his men. She had long ago learned there was a line between truth and falsehood, and how to walk it without falling off so as to land on either side. Her father had ordered her back to Chesthill because he would not have her 'seen so by men.' To her father, clearly, it was enough to keep her there; to Cat, equally clearly, it was not. It was enough only to suggest that she go, not stay, and that in order not to stay she need only change her clothing so she would not quite so closely resemble what her father called a wh.o.r.e, an observation which suggested to her that he knew what one looked like even if she did not. It was, Cat decided, fair indication he had kept company with such women, which left her all the more determined that she better than he was fit to circ.u.mscribe her behavior.

So Cat rode back to Chesthill, where she took off her belted tunic with its crimson, silver-plated sleeves, shed the arisaid, put on instead breeks borrowed from her father, and a s.h.i.+rt she had hemmed for him-badly!-but kept for herself; pinned a more voluminous plaid slantwise across chest and shoulder; belted on a dirk; and went back out of the house to mount the garron again. Winded, it could not offer much, but there was no other to ride. And she might have time to catch her father again, before he caught MacDonalds.

Rannoch Moor was a rumpled swath of land between Glen Lyon and Glencoe, made treacherous by bogs. Stunted trees dotted the moor, which yet boasted only winter finery, thick clumps of heather still dull from a duller season, plus overgrowth of bracken knit together by sienna gold carpets of gra.s.s. Come summer the blooming heather would set the moor afire, but for now it was a stony wasteland of bogs, of spindle-limbed, twisted trees, and the dead vegetation that would in spring come vigorously back to life. There were signs of it already in acid greens and olives, and the first promise of flowers, but Dair found it grimly predictable as he and the others drove the cattle from Campbell lands closer to MacDonald.