The Chieftain

by Margaret Mallory

  “I regret giving up my bride, of course,” Connor lied, as there was an advantage to letting the Campbells believe they owed him a favor. “But Jane and I part on good terms.”

  That much was true. Jane, who was upstairs joyfully packing, was almost as relieved as he was to avoid a marriage destined to make them both miserable. But Connor could not help thinking that if she had never arrived, Ilysa would still be spending her nights in his bed.

  * * *

  Lachlan decided he was still captain since Connor had not said he wasn’t. While the chieftain drank whiskey with his guest, Lachlan made sure the men had their weapons and supplies ready. He marveled at Connor’s patience. With a battle to be fought, he had to sit inside the keep playing host to the Thane of Cawdor, who looked to be an arrogant son of bitch if there ever was one.

  “Lachlan!”

  He turned to find Robbie, one of the young men he and Connor had trained, running toward him with a bloody dirk in his hand.

  “What’s happened?” Lachlan asked.

  “I think I killed Sorely.”

  “Take me to him,” Lachlan said. “Ye can tell me why ye did it on the way.”

  His own calm seemed to settle Robbie, which was good. Lachlan didn’t want a garbled explanation.

  “I was guarding the gate, like ye told me,” Robbie said as they crossed the courtyard. “I let everyone in and no one out.”

  The gist of the story was that when it was most chaotic with all the newly arrived guests and warriors coming in, Sorely tried to leave. When Robbie stopped him, Sorely started to argue and then suggested they go inside the gatehouse to discuss it.

  “As soon as I went through the door, he tried to dirk me,” Robbie said, his eyes wide. “Without thinking, I did exactly as ye taught me. Next thing I know, Sorely’s on the floor bleeding. I think he’s dead.”

  “Sometimes a man isn’t as dead as he looks.” Lachlan walked faster and hoped Sorely was still there.

  When he entered the gatehouse, Sorely had dragged himself a few feet across the floor.

  “Ye don’t look as if you’re going to last,” Lachlan said, kneeling beside him. “That will save us the trouble of executing ye since I assume you’re the one who murdered the two guards.”

  “To hell with ye, Lachlan,” Sorely said and spit out blood.

  “Ye want to tell me why you’re a miserable traitor to your clan?” In Lachlan’s experience, men wanted to talk at the end, and he suspected Sorely would want to justify himself.

  “Ye think ye know so much,” Sorely said in a rasping voice. “But I’d wager ye don’t know your mother was murdered.”

  “Mind the door,” Lachlan said to Robbie, wanting him out of earshot.

  Lachlan was not going to give Sorely the satisfaction of asking. Sorely wanted to tell him, so he waited, hoping the man wouldn’t die before he got the words out.

  “Hugh pushed her! Aye, that’s right. Your da has been helping the man who killed her. Isn’t that a laugh?” Blood seeped through Sorely’s teeth in a grisly grin. “I told Hugh that your mother was carrying another child of the chieftain’s, so he got rid of her.”

  Lachlan was tempted to put his hand around Sorely’s throat and speed his journey to hell. Instead, he asked, “How would ye know she was with child?”

  “Jenny told me,” Sorely said, and tears suddenly filled his eyes. “No one knew, but we were sweethearts.”

  Who in the hell was Jenny? Then it struck him. “Jenny was the nursemaid. That’s why ye see her ghost.”

  “She was waving to me when she dropped the babe,” Sorely said. “The chieftain didn’t have to cast her adrift at sea. She never meant to harm the child.”

  He was blubbering so that Lachlan could almost feel sorry for him—until something else occurred to him. “Ye didn’t try to save Jenny, did ye? Ye didn’t speak to the chieftain on her behalf or go out in a boat to rescue her.”

  “I couldn’t!” Sorely choked out. “The chieftain would have banished me, and I would have lost my place in his guard.”

  “I guess that explains why she haunted ye.” Lachlan was disgusted with him. “I suppose ye held what the chieftain did to her against Connor.” That’s what his own father had done.

  “I was willing to forgive all…when I thought Connor…would make me captain,” Sorely said, his voice growing weaker with each breath. “But he kept delaying…and delaying…”

  His voice faded, and his head fell to the side.

  “What a sorry excuse for a MacDonald.” Lachlan got up and went to the door. “Ye did well, Robbie. It would have been a damned shame to lose a good man like you to his blade. I’ll report this to the chieftain.”

  Lachlan would tell Connor everything except what Sorely said about his mother and father. That was no one’s business but his own.

  * * *

  “The MacLeods are coming,” Connor called out, raising his arms. “’Tis time to raise the clan.”

  Every man, woman, and child in the castle was gathered around the blazing bonfire that had been built in the center of the castle yard for the ceremony of the crann tara.

  Duncan, Ian, and Alex, the three men Connor trusted above all others, stood to his right, each holding a wooden cross. He thought of their wives and children and prayed the men would survive the battle ahead. To his left stood three of the young Trotternish warriors he and Lachlan had trained.

  Duncan’s eyes were fierce as he gave Connor the first wooden cross. “We fight to the death!” he shouted, and all the men cheered.

  Connor held the cross in the bonfire until the dry wood caught flame, then he held it high for all to see it blaze against the afternoon sky. It hissed as he doused the flames in the waiting tub of sheep’s blood. He raised the charred cross over his head again and shouted the MacDonald battle cry, “Fraoch Eilean!”

  The castle yard reverberated with the deep voices of the men as they shouted it back. Finally, he motioned to Robbie, the first young warrior to his left, who had earned the honor by catching Hugh’s spy.

  “Let our men know the MacDonalds are gathering at the standing stone to fight!” Connor shouted, and Robbie took the charred cross from him and ran out the open gate.

  Connor repeated the ceremony two more times, taking the crosses from Alex and Ian, and sending each of the young warriors to raise the men in a different part of the peninsula.

  The crann tara was a call to every man, whether he be warrior, farmer, or shepherd, to gather at the designated rallying point, prepared to fight for the clan. Most of the clan’s trained warriors came from Sleat and North Uist and were already at the castle. The crann tara would be a test of the confidence Connor’s Trotternish clansmen had in him as chieftain, and he wondered how many of them would come.

  When the ceremony was complete, the men shouted and raised their claymores. Connor saw the battle lust in their eyes, and he was glad to see they were ready to fight. The responsibility for the lives of these brave men fell on his shoulders.

  He knew he would have found the burden easier to carry if Ilysa were here to send him off to war.

  CHAPTER 42

  In the glow of sunset, Connor and Ian lay flat on their bellies and watched the MacLeod warriors across the river. There were so many of them converging on the camp that they looked like a swarm of bees returning to the hive.

  “Doesn’t look good,” Ian whispered. “Damn MacIain for getting himself killed.”

  “I fear I am leading our warriors to a slaughter,” Connor said.

  “Ye have no choice,” Ian said. “If we let a force this size cross the river, we’ll have no hope of getting them out.”

  “’Tis good we arrived before Beltane,” Connor said. “I think Alastair will strike tomorrow, rather than wait another day.”

  When he and Ian returned to the standing stone, Connor’s heart lifted at the sight of so many of his clansmen gathered on the far side of the hill. And all through the night, more men joined them.

&nb
sp; When the day broke, bleak and damp, Connor stood in front of the assembled men. His gaze moved from the hardened warriors who had fought with his father, to the young men he and Lachlan had trained, to the farmers who carried scythes and axes as weapons. More men had come than he had hoped, and yet there were not nearly enough.

  “These lands were granted to my grandfather, the first chieftain of the MacDonalds of Sleat, by his father, the Lord of the Isles. It falls to us to secure them for our children’s children. Today, we will take our stand. The MacLeods will learn that they must pay in blood for each foot of our land they hope to claim.”

  The men raised their weapons in silent response so that the MacLeods would not hear the echo of their shouts in the river valley below.

  “We must hold them at the river,” Connor said, raising his claymore. “They shall not cross it!”

  * * *

  Lachlan fought until sweat rolled into his eyes and the blood of his enemies drenched his sleeves. The odds were terrible, but he was accustomed to worse. After two and a half years of leading clandestine raids against the MacLeods, he was glad to finally let loose his rage in open battle against the occupiers of his homeland.

  So far, the MacDonalds had held the line and kept the huge MacLeod force from gaining a foothold on the Trotternish side of the river. But the MacLeods kept coming.

  Lachlan understood now why the four warriors who returned from France had become legend in such a short time. Connor, his cousins, and Duncan were at the center of the MacDonald line, and no matter how many MacLeod warriors converged on them, none got through. Though Lachlan could spare no more than a glance now and then, he saw how, in the midst of the chaos of battle, they coordinated their movements and fought as one deadly force.

  Some might say it was foolish of the chieftain to risk his life, but their situation was desperate, and his example inspired the others to fight harder.

  On a slight rise behind the MacLeod warriors, Lachlan saw a massive warrior with white hair, regal bearing, and the telltale hunched shoulder, watching the slaughter at the river. After a half day of bloodletting, he raised his arm, and his warriors withdrew to regroup.

  * * *

  Connor dunked his head in the river to wash off the sweat and blood. When he looked up, he met the hard gaze of the MacLeod chieftain who stood fifty yards away.

  Give up, old man. This land belongs to the MacDonalds.

  He found Ian, Alex, and Duncan with the other men a few yards back from the river.

  “How’s that leg?” he asked Ian, who was tying a strip of cloth around a wound to stanch the bleeding.

  “Good,” Ian said.

  Alex had also been wounded. Connor scanned the dead bodies along the riverbank. There were far more MacLeods than MacDonalds, but he had fewer to lose.

  “I fear they’ll break through next time,” Connor said in a low voice to the three, and none of them argued. His only hope was that the MacLeod was losing more men than the lands were worth to him. Connor looked again for some sign that the men across the river were dispersing, but he saw none.

  “What order will ye give if the line breaks?” Ian, always the pragmatist of the group, asked. “Everyone makes for the castle?”

  Connor did not have a chance to answer.

  “Grab your weapons!” Duncan shouted and was on his feet pointing behind them with his claymore.

  Two hundred warriors were streaming down the slope behind them.

  CHAPTER 43

  Is that my brother Niall?” Ian asked, looking up at the descending horde. “I thought he was with Ilysa.”

  “Put down your weapons!” Connor shouted, breaking into a grin. “These are friends.”

  Torquil MacLeod of Lewis had come, and they had Ilysa to thank for it. When she told him she did not trust Sorely, Connor had dismissed her concern at first. But Torquil’s lack of response to the message he had sent with Sorely troubled him. On the chance Ilysa was right, he had sent Niall with a second message.

  “A thousand welcomes to ye, brother. I’m glad to meet ye at last,” Connor greeted Torquil, a rough-looking warrior of about thirty years, who had the same jet-black hair as Connor and Ian. “These are your MacDonald cousins, Alex and Ian, and our friend Duncan.”

  “I accept your offer,” Torquil said. “My warriors will fight with yours today in exchange for you doing the same for me when the time comes.”

  Torquil was a chieftain without lands. After his father had supported the last rebellion, the Crown had punished him by taking away his clan’s traditional lands on the isle of Lewis.

  “I gladly give ye my pledge,” Connor said, grasping forearms with his brother.

  “Good,” Torquil said with a broad smile. “My men are ready for a fight.”

  * * *

  All day, Ilysa and Flora had kept busy while they waited for news. Malcom had left a couple of hours before dawn. The cottage was fairly close to the mouth of the Snizort River, so they had been among the last to receive the crann tara.

  After hours of sewing, Ilysa had worked her way through the pile of children’s clothing that needed mending. She stuck her needle in a scrap and carefully set it in her medicine basket. As she did, her fingers touched the rock she had found at the faery glen, which she had put in the basket along with her brooch for safekeeping. She took the rock out and turned it over in her palm, watching it sparkle in the firelight from the hearth.

  Flora came over with Brigid on her hip and looked over Ilysa’s shoulder. “I do believe that’s my rock,” she said.

  “How can ye be so sure?” Ilysa said with a laugh. She was not about to tell Flora that she had found it in the faery glen.

  “I carried it in my pocket for years as a gift to appease the faeries should one cross my path,” Flora said. “I gave it to our chieftain the night he was here in case he needed it. Did he give it to ye?”

  “I believe he thought I was a faery,” Ilysa said in a soft voice as she rubbed her thumb over it.

  Flora’s laugh was cut short when Lachlan burst through the door. He was carrying Malcom, who was bleeding from the head. While Flora and Ewan rushed to help him, Ilysa fetched a blanket and spread it on the floor in front of the hearth where the light was best.

  “There were hundreds of MacLeod warriors,” Malcom said after they lay him down. “I thought they’d never stop coming.”

  “The wound is worse than it looks,” Ilysa said as she stanched the blood, then she looked to Lachlan. “What other news can ye give us?”

  “The MacLeod force is three times the size of ours, and it was looking grim at midday,” Lachlan said. “But then the MacLeod of Lewis arrived with his warriors.”

  “Flora, ye would have been proud of Lachlan,” Malcom said. “Ye should see him fight.”

  “Hush now,” Flora said. “Ye must save your strength.”

  “I just wanted to bring Malcom home,” Lachlan said. “I must get back. The battle will continue tomorrow.”

  Ilysa followed him to the door and asked in a low voice, “How bad does it look, truly?”

  “I fear there’s no end in sight,” Lachlan said. “That old goat MacLeod shows no sign of giving in.”

  * * *

  Celebrating Beltane made for a strange end to the toughest day of fighting Connor could remember, but the ritual, which brought purification and luck, was important to the clan. Connor was the first to pass between the two giant bonfires, followed by all the warriors and a few families who lived nearby. Finally, some cattle were driven between the fires.

  Now that the herds and crops were protected for the coming year, Connor hoped it would not be for the benefit of the MacLeods. He looked across the river to where the MacLeod bonfires blazed against the night sky while he listened to the soft voices of his own men talking. After their cries for blood earlier, they were subdued.

  He had lost too many men today. If this fight continued much longer, there would be no winner. Thanks to Torquil’s arrival, they had succeed
ed in holding the MacLeods at the river. But Torquil had only half the men Connor had expected from MacIain, and it was not enough for a decisive victory.

  He could not blame Alastair MacLeod for taking Trotternish when the MacDonalds were weak and it had been easy. That was the way of it in the Highlands—the strong survived. That was also why Connor had to take back Trotternish. Either you defended your lands or you risked being attacked on all sides.

  But if Sorely and that handful of fools had not defiled the MacLeod dead and raped their women, the MacLeod would likely have decided by now that losing so many warriors was not worth taking land that did not belong to him. Connor hoped Sorely was burning in hell.

  “I’m grateful to ye for coming,” Connor said to Torquil as they sat with their backs against a log watching the bonfires.

  “We have a blood tie,” Torquil said, as if that explained it.

  “Frankly, I’m more accustomed to that leading to murder,” Connor said with a dry laugh. After a long while, he said, “I am sorry for how our mother left ye.”

  “Ach, I had a pack of older half sisters who spoiled me,” Torquil said. “I don’t remember our mother, and I surely didn’t miss her.”

  “When I was a bairn, she was the moon and stars to me,” Connor admitted. “The older men still talk about her beauty.”

  “As our fathers learned, she was more trouble than she was worth,” Torquil said. “I count myself lucky to have the love of a kindhearted woman who has stayed with me through my present hard times.”

  “If I live through this, I’m going to marry a lass who is like that—if she’ll still have me,” Connor said.

  He stared into the dwindling bonfire thinking about Ilysa. Looking back now, he recalled the many ways, big and small, that Ilysa acted to protect the clan—and him. Since she left, he had received still more proof of her loyalty. Now he knew that she had saved his life when she locked him in the dungeon. And it was only because she had cautioned him about Sorely that Torquil was here today to help beat back the MacLeod attack. Connor was ashamed of his doubts, but trusting in a woman’s love and loyalty came hard to him.