by Fiona Faris
“Aye, Angus, and fare you well on your march back to Glen Orchy. We should be gone before the sentinels at Kylquhurne spy us from its walls. Fare you well too, Uilleam, lad. And do not be too impatient; you will one day have your revenge of the Campbells, that is for sure.”
Dawn was just breaking over the summits of the bens when a clansman, who had been marching at the rear of the column, hurried forward to speak to Angus Mor.
“The Campbells are leaving Kylquhurne, he gasped as he tried to catch his breath.”
Angus and Uilleam both turned their horses and stood up in their stirrups to peer back along the short distance they had traveled into the glen. In the distance, they saw the gray mass of the Campbell stronghold in the bright sunlight that streamed towards Loch Awe and the glitter of metal that danced above a long column of men that streamed from its gates and over the drawbridge.
“Now, where are they bound, I wonder?” Angus mused, though there was an edge of anxiety to his voice.
Angus’s men had all turned around now and were gazing anxiously back in the direction from which they had come.
“They seem to be heading north…” Uilleam remarked. “You do not think that they have spotted the MacGillemichaels and are pursuing them into Glen Mhoille, do you?” he said in sudden alarm.
Angus’s face grew ashen, his eyes round with apprehension.
“Christ save them! That might well be the way of it.”
“A patrol, sent out to scout the hills?”
“Whatever is the way of it,” Angus groaned, “we must go to their aid.”
“That is a mighty long column of Campbells,” Uilleam observed.
“Nevertheless, we cannot abandon our confederates.” Angus quickly scanned the foothills to the north-west of them. “That way,” he said. “If we scramble up yon corrie and over the braes, we should come down into Glen Mhoille.”
“We cannot take the horses that way,” Uilleam pointed out.
“It will still be quicker, going that way on foot, than riding all the way back down Glen Orchy,” Angus urged. “And, in any case, we cannot ride faster than our slowest man on foot. If we are to have any hope of reaching them in time, we have to go that way.”
The mounted clansmen slid from their horses, splashed across the Orchy, and followed Angus up the narrow defile that led to a steep rocky gash in the hillside opposite. They quickly clambered up the rocks, which were slippery from the wet of the burn that tumbled down the corrie. Many cast off their shoes and boots and continued barefooted for the sake of the surer grip it gave them. Before long, the first clansmen, with Angus and Uilleam among them, poured out of the gully and onto the hilltops and were jogging along the wild-goat trails that crisscrossed the heather towards the neighboring glen.
“What do we do once we get there?” Uilleam panted.
“We will see what we will see and decide then,” Angus replied grimly.
They ran for two miles. In a little over twenty minutes, they were standing at the top of the Mhoille braes and gazing anxiously down into the narrow glen.
A column of about three-hundred Campbells was advancing up the glen towards the seventy-odd men of the MacGillemichael clan. The MacGillemichaels had turned and were facing the Campbells down. There were only about four hundred yards between them.
The Campbells were marching steadily onward, beating the shafts of their pikes and axes on the ground and the flats of their swords on their targes, as if they were trying to flush grouse from the heather. It was a cruel, mocking gesture, signaling to the MacGillemichaels the slaughter that was about to befall them, a merciless goading.
Quite suddenly, however, just as the Gunns breasted the braes, Hugh MacGillemichael ordered a charge. His clansmen immediately set off at a sprint straight at the heart of the Campbells’ schiltron.
“Creag an sgairbh!” went up the war-cry.
The Gunns looked on in horror and admiration. The MacGillemichaels were hopelessly outnumbered. They were charging towards certain death, but it did not deter them.
Angus raised his sword above his head.
“Gleann Urchaidh!” he cried, and at the sound of the Gunn war-cry, his clansmen began to pour down the braes towards the Campbells’ right flank.
There was an almighty crash as both the Gunns and the MacGillemichaels threw themselves onto their enemy’s ranks. The Campbells struggled to keep their tight formation under the impact of the bodies that flung themselves, slashing and stabbing, against them. The fury of the attack unsettled them for a moment; then the Campbells regained their discipline and composure and began to fight back.
Wave after wave of frenzied Gunns and MacGillemichaels broke against the shields and bristling blades of the Campbells’ defenses. Quickly, the bodies began to pile up at the feet of the closely packed phalanx, both Campbell and foe, but mostly those of the MacGillemichaels and Gunns. As the attackers tired and lost their cohesion, the Campbells broke from their ranks and began to isolate and surround individual and small knots of Gunns and MacGillemichaels, stabbing and hacking them to pieces.
The confederate clansmen, seeing that the battle was lost, began to regroup and withdraw up the hillsides. There were fewer and fewer of them left. Hugh MacGillemichael went down under the blows of half-a-dozen Campbells, who surrounded him, cutting him off from his warriors. Angus and Uilleam fought desperately, guarding the rear of their men as they scrambled and slipped up the whin- and heather-clad braes. Reaching the top, they scattered across the fell, disappearing like mountain hares among the dips and hillocks of the undulating landscape.
The Campbells did not pursue them further. They were in no hurry. The Gunns and the MacGillemichaels were broken. They could enter their glens and hunt them at their leisure; it was only a matter of time until the fugitives were either caught or would starve in the hills, come winter.
Satisfied with their day’s work, the Campbells reformed and marched back to Kylquhurne to receive further orders.
Uilleam and Angus lay panting against a sandy bank beneath an overhang of turf. Their plaids and tunics were soaked with bloodstains, and they both bore the cuts and bruises of the recent fight. Angus’ cheeks were streaked with tears. He was weeping for the loss of his clan, his children.
“We could not simply turn out backs on our feres, the MacGillemichaels,” Uilleam asserted, though in a tone that suggested that he sought Angus’s reassurance that it had been so.
“No,” Angus confirmed. “I could ne’er hae lived with the dishonor o’ knowing I had abandoned them in their need.”
“But all is lost now,” Uilleam continued. “The Campbells will march into the three glens unopposed. And the MacColls and the MacLeays need not think that they will be spared for their treachery; the Campbells will clear them too.”
“Aye!” Angus let out a sigh laden with a weight of hopelessness, then struggled to his feet. “We must win back to Glen Orchy and collect my wife and daughter and whatever gear we can, before the Campbells fall on them.”
Uilleam’s blood ran cold.
“Aye,” he said. “The Campbells will want tae strike while the iron is hot an’ march on Clyth as soon as they muster a force. We must be o’er the hills an’ far away afore they think tae finish the job.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Kylquhurne Castle
The same day
“And ye are sure that neither Angus Gunn nor Uilleam MacGregor was among the dead?” Neil asked his lieutenant again.
“I am, sir,” the Englishman, William Smollet, replied. “I gave explicit orders to the men to report it immediately – were their bodies found while the wounded were being dispatched and the corpses stripped.
“Damn!” Neil snapped. “They have gotten away.” After a moment, he shrugged. “Ah, well! It is no great matter. The Gunns are no more; Glen Orchy is ours.”
Cailean screwed up his face as if he were pained.
“I would still have the guts of the swine, especially those of Uilleam M
acGregor, for all the insults I – we – have borne.”
Neil looked at him with undisguised contempt.
“Well, if you can catch the villains, you can have them. I don’t see how you can do any harm this time by chasing your wild geese. And,” he added, with a sneer, “it would give you something to do in your uselessness.”
Cailean colored. He was still brooding, following his father’s refusal to let him lead any more actions after his misjudgment at Meggernie.
“May I have twenty men – or a dozen, just – to help me flush the beggars out, then?”
Neil considered the request.
“Very well,” he said at length. “A dozen men. What do you have in mind?”
Cailean smiled.
“Angus Gunn dotes on his daughter,” he explained, “and I hear the MacGregor chiel is to marry the bitch. If I were to seize her and bring her here, I reckon the pair of them would show themselves.”
Neil smiled thinly.
“As I remember, your previous attempt to snatch the Gunn wench did not end well.”
Cailean flushed, and his nostrils flared at the unwelcome reminder.
“It will be different this time,” he assured his father. “This time, I will be ready for them.”
Neil shook his head in skeptical amusement.
“Well, good luck with that. I don’t see how you could cause me any harm by your fool’s errand. Just try not to burn Clyth Castle down. It will furnish us with a useful outpost.”
Cailean colored more deeply. His father was openly mocking him now.
“I will away back to Inveraray to plan our next campaign, against the MacColls and the MacLeays, who still hold Glen Mhoille. I am leaving Kylquhurne under the capable command of Captain Smollet. At least then I will know that both it and the garrison will be in safe hands.
Cailean stood up and stormed from the room. Anger seethed within his breast. His humiliation was complete; an Englishman was preferred to him in command of Kylquhurne…
This was all Uilleam MacGregor’s doing. He would pay for it dearly.
When Uilleam and Angus won back across the fell and back down into Glen Orchy, to where they had left the horses, a party of Campbells was in the process of lifting the animals. The two men watched them helplessly from behind the rocks high up in the corrie.
“Damnation!” Angus swore. “We shall have to return to Clyth on foot.”
“Aye,” Uilleam concurred. “And it would be safer to return by the hills rather than by the glen. No doubt the Campbells will soon be patrolling the glen in the hope of apprehending us.”
Angus ground his teeth and glowered at the hillsides that surrounded them.
“That will take an age,” he said. “We can only hope that the Campbells will not think to get there before us. The castle is undefended. All our warriors were with us.”
They watched the Campbells gather the horses and fasten them behind their own with trail-ropes. Which way would they go? Onward, up the glen, towards Clyth, or back down to Kylquhurne. A wave of relief flowed through both of them as Uilleam and Angus saw them turn and leave in the direction of Kylquhurne.
“Thank God!” Angus breathed. “That gives us a chance of reaching Clyth before the Campbells do. If they were to seize out womenfolk, all would be lost.”
“All is lost in any case,” Uilleam replied miserably. “Even if we can win away, with Winter approaching it is not a time to for the women and children to be fugitives in the hills.”
A twist of anguish passed over his features as if he had been stabbed by a sharp pain.
“There are plenty of crofts further up the glen that will take the women and children in,” he observed. “It is we, and Shona and Siusan, of whom I was thinking. We will be marked men. And if they lay their hands upon Shona and Siusan, they could use them to reel us in like salmon. Could you stand by while Siusan suffered in their captivity?”
There was no need for Uilleam to reply. Angus knew the depth of feeling that Uilleam had recently discovered for his daughter. He would have wagered that it was as deep as that he himself felt for his Shona.
“We can worry about that once we get them safe away from Clyth,” Uilleam said. “That must be our priority. Are there no crofts nearby where we might find some horse of pony?”
Angus thought.
“There are a few, but it will take time…”
“It will take less time if we stop debating the matter here,” Uilleam snapped. “And it may well prove quicker to make a diversion to find a mount than to hoof it on shanks' mare.”
Angus straightened up from behind the rocks and began to clamber down the corrie towards the river.
“Let us go, then, and not be wasting any more of it.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Clyth Castle
The same day
Shona Gunn was growing increasingly concerned. The day was wearing on, and still, there had been no news from her husband, no messenger to tell her how the battle had gone. His silence did not bode well.
She had been trying to keep herself busy to stop herself from thinking the worst. She knew that the stakes were high, that the success of the attack on the Campbells was by no means certain. She understood that, even with their forces combined, the Gunns and their confederates would still be outnumbered and that they were pinning their hopes on the element of surprise. But she knew that it could all go wrong; it would only take a Campbell scouting party to spot one of the clans moving down the Mhoille or the Orchy for the scheme to end in disaster.
Siusan was equally on tenterhooks. It was not just her father’s life that was in jeopardy, but that of her lover too. Siusan had confessed to her, on the eve of the men’s departure, Uilleam’s intention of asking Angus for their daughter’s hand, and she had been pleased for her. Love had clearly blossomed between the two during Uilleam’s stay with them, and while Uilleam was hardly a good catch in terms of wealth and position, her daughter would at least get her heart’s desire, which was a husband who loved her for herself alone and not just for any advantage she would bring him and his clan. Her own heart warmed at the romance of it. But her own heart also ached with anxiety at the thought that her daughter’s beloved might also have perished along with her beloved Angus.
Clyth Castle seemed strangely quiet and empty. Every able-bodied man of the household had joined with those of the outlying crofts to follow their chief into battle. Only the maidservants, the bairns, and the old men remained, and they were all subdued with worry for their husbands, fathers, and sons. It was strange not to hear the clang of the hammer on the anvil, the rumble of deep voices, and the whistles and catcalls of the young bucks after the bobbing tails of the lassies as they crossed the courtyard. All the womenfolk were busying themselves as Shona was, and Shona was busy with keeping them occupied to distract their minds from the dangers their men were facing.
Siusan was occupied with the supervision of the work in the great hall. The tapestries and wall-hangings had all been taken down and carried to the outer ward, for the dust to be flapped from them, their fabric aired, and the stains dabbed with vinegar and water. Not only had the rushes been lifted, but the wooden floors were being scrubbed with sand and scoured with besoms. The tables and benches too were being scrubbed and polished with beeswax, and the iron grate had been removed from the fireplace and was being blacked with plumbago.
Siusan surveyed the hall like a chieftain surveying a field of battle. This was her command, and she thrived under the responsibility. This was what she had been born to, the management of a household. Her calling was to complement a husband; while he went forth to win his wealth, whether as a warrior or a merchant or a laborer, her place was to manage it, to keep his house and his table, and to bear and raise the children who would inherit his legacy and continue and hopefully further enrich his lineage.
Her mind shifted to Uilleam, whose proposal she had accepted. He would not be bringing her much of a household to manage. She wondered wha
t the future would hold for him, now that his clan had been ruined, his inheritance stolen. Would she be managing a croft in a foreign glen while he fought as a warrior in the service of another clan chief who had taken him in?
But with the outcome of the confederacy’s action against the Campbells still unknown, their future she could only guess and fear. But at least they would have each other, and that thought filled her with a warm satisfaction, a kind of contentment, and hope.
She spotted a young maiden, who was blacking the fender that contained the hearth. She had lifted the heavy ironwork and had it standing on its end between her knees, and she worked the greasy graphite between the curlicues and bosses that ornamented Shona’s pride and joy with a rag. Tears were streaming down her face, and the lass was in such distress that she could hardly work. Her shoulders shuddered, and she gulped down the sobs that were convulsing her.
