Memories of a Highlander

by Susan Bella Ikin

  Lachlan seemed to think for a moment, or maybe he was only pretending, because he moved very quickly. He twisted my arm until I screamed in pain then kicked the back of my knee, disabling me. I fell to the ground. He then advanced on Ian, feinting left and right. I wondered what he thought he was doing, he only had a long knife, Ian had a sword. I remembered to watch his feet, thinking of what Donald had told me. I hoped Ian also knew. His tells, look for his tells, I screamed in my mind, trying to signal with my eyes but not wanting to distract Ian. I tried to get up, but each time I rose, my knee gave out and I fell to the ground again, unable to use both arms to stop my fall as one arm was now almost useless. Lachlan surged towards Ian, dancing back as Ian lunged with the sword, and then I realised what Lachlan was doing. The blade was short, but light. The sword was long, but very heavy, and Ian still didn’t have the muscle mass that a fully grown man would have. He would tire more quickly than Lachlan, and Lachlan was trying to wear Ian down. Ian, to his credit, didn’t flicker an eyelid as he locked eyes with Lachlan, and my confidence rose as I realised that he would not fall for obvious tricks. I looked around and found a rock, and crawled towards it on my belly, dragging myself with one arm and pushing my good knee into the ground to propel myself forwards. I picked up the rock and struggled to sit, then hefted it in my hand, judging the weight and working out how hard I would have to throw it to make the distance. I could see that Ian was tiring, and that he needed to finish this soon if we were to survive. Suddenly a few things happened at once. One of the horses behind Ian whinnied, causing him to be momentarily startled. Lachlan saw his opportunity and lunged forward, I could see his knife heading straight for Ian’s face. I threw my rock, which just made the distance to the fight, hitting Lachlan in the back, but not with enough force to do any damage. It did however throw his balance off a tiny bit, just enough for Ian to twist away from the knife and bring his sword up, ramming it into Lachan’s gut. Lachlan screamed, and then put his hands on the sword, slicing his hands as he tried to pull his body off the sword. It came free with a sickening, squelchy sound, and he fell to his knees, before falling to his face in the dirt. Ian stared at him in disbelief for a moment before approaching him gingerly, kicking him to turn him over and see if he was really dead. On seeing the injury, Ian’s face blanched, and he turned, bending over and vomiting into the long grass behind him. When he stood up, he saw me sitting there and raced over, falling to his knees beside me.

  “Eleanor, are ye hurt? Can ye get on yer horse?”

  “I can’t stand up, Ian, but I need yer healer. But how are ye? Is that the first time ye ever- ?” I couldn’t bring myself to say the words ‘killed someone’, because Ian looked pale enough and was sweating. He nodded his head, skittering his gaze over Lachlan’s body in the dirt before turning back to me.

  “Yes. The other men say the first one is the toughest, that ye always remember it, but I’m glad I did. He was a bad man and I almost failed ye. Donald and Liam left me in charge of yer and Mary’s safety, and I almost let him get ye”.

  I realised then that this was why the men had left us, they must have been hunting Lachlan. That was the reason for the guard on us, and the extra caution at the gate. I looked back at Ian, realising he was speaking.

  “Don’t tell anyone that I was sick, they will never stop teasing me. Now who is this? It’s not our people”.

  Ian stood up and moved in front of me, trying to guard me from the approaching horsemen. They were coming from the direction of the keep, and I realised they were probably the horsemen that had entered a short time before. Mary had ridden back to the keep and had probably raised the alarm. As these men were already mounted, they would have ridden out before any of our men could have. Now, we just had to hope that they were friends, not foe. I hunched down to peer between Ian’s spread legs as he stood between me and the new threat. For all of his youth and inexperience, he projected confidence and strength, if it wasn’t for the fact he was so hopelessly outnumbered, I would have felt safe enough. When the riders got closer, I knew that there was no cause to fear, and nudged at Ian with my good hand.

  “It will be alright, Ian. The rider at the lead, that is my brother, Duncan”.

  “I know that, Eleanor, I remember him”.

  Of course, I had forgotten that it had been Duncan who had injured Ian last year, setting a chain of events in motion which had led to me being here, near Lachlan’s dead body, instead of whatever horrible fate would have befallen me had I never met the McGarrow family.

  The men rode around us, surrounding us in a circle after a few of them flicked a glance at the body in the dirt. I looked up and saw that I knew them all. As I sat on the ground they looked forbidding, and I struggled to stand. Ian turned to reach down an arm, hooking it around my waist and helping me up. My arm and leg screamed in pain and so did I. My brother leapt down from his horse and hurried towards us, stopping as Ian lifted his sword in warning. From around us came the sound of many swords scraping out of scabbards. I was afraid, in pain, and wanted them to stop.

  “Stop it, all of ye”.

  Heads swivelled towards me. Duncan spoke first, hostility oozing out of his voice as he turned back towards Ian.

  “What have ye done to my sister? Take yer hands off her now”.

  Ian lost his temper at that point. He probably just wanted to be alone, to think about what had happened, but he was still facing off against hostile men, one of whom he had a history with.

  “What do ye mean, what have I done to yer sister? If ye had done a better job of looking after her yerselves, we wouldn’t have to be cleaning up yer mess, would we?”

  “What mess? What do ye mean, and it doesn’t look like ye have been doing a good job of anything, look at her!”

  It all got too much for me. The pain and the anger took their toll. I fainted.

  Donald

  I thundered towards the group of warriors I saw clustered around some figures that were standing on the ground. Liam, our party and I had returned to the keep just a few minutes before, frustrated after not having been able to find Lachlan, only to be met by a near hysterical Mary.

  “He’s out there! You have to go and help Ian, he sent me back for help and chased them, but our horses were tiring and that man’s horse looked fresh”.

  I stayed to listen to no more, but turned my horse in the direction that Mary had been pointing and rode hard, leaving Liam to get more information from Mary. I was followed not only by the men who had ridden with me, but some of our villagers had managed to saddle up and rode out after us. My horse was tired too, but I pushed him, willing him to get me to Eleanor before something terrible happened. Ian was only a lad still, if I had seriously considered that Lachlan would come here, I would never have left Eleanor behind. I had spotted some other riders in the distance, which made me fear the worst. They could not have been our men, Mary gave the impression that she had not long returned to the keep, and our men could not have saddled their horses and been so far in front of me. As I watched, they surrounded a person, I could not see who it was from this distance and because of the group milling around. When I got closer, I saw Ian bend down to haul Eleanor to her feet, and looked around wildly for Lachlan. He did not appear to be among the riders, but I could see that one of them had dismounted, and Ian was shouting at him, holding out his sword. I screamed out a battle cry, hoping to distract some of the other warriors, as Ian could not possibly hold them all off, and drew my sword, intending to slash my way through the barrier of men and horses. Just as I saw Eleanor fall to the ground, the men in front of me turned and had the good sense to scatter, whether it was at the sight or sound of me, or the numbers of men behind me, I did not care, I just wanted to get to Eleanor and find out what was wrong. Ian was struggling, trying to stop her from falling, and yet not drop his sword. I raced towards him, putting myself and my horse in between him and the man in front of him and raising my sword to strike.

  “Hold!” shouted Ian. “It’s her b
rother, don’t kill him!”

  My head twisted from one side to another as I looked at all the men’s faces, trying to see if any of them were Lachlan. My horse, tired and frightened from the run, skittered about, and Ian swore as he dropped his sword and pulled Eleanor further back.

  “Where is he?” I yelled, needing to put an end to the danger, without wasting time as I was worried about Eleanor.

  “Over there”, said Ian, pointing a small way in the distance, and I saw a shape in the grass. I rode over, holding my sword down, ready to strike, but when I neared it was obvious that the man had not survived the wound he took in the gut. I turned back to Ian, still unable to calm myself, still unable to believe that the danger to Eleanor was over, then realised that Eleanor was still unconscious, and Ian was struggling to hold her up. Duncan had recovered from the shock of my entry and was starting to move over to them, but I raced my horse a few steps then launched myself from the saddle, landing at a run and taking Eleanor’s weight from Ian.

  “What is wrong with her? Why is she like this?” I asked, really feeling fear now, feeling for the beat of her heart at her neck, and closing my eyes in relief when I felt it. Ian put his hand on my arm as I went to lift Eleanor into my arms.

  “Be careful, Donald. She fought him and he hurt her. He had her arm twisted behind her back and kicked her. Her arm looks wrong and she cannot stand without help”.

  I turned to my horse, with Eleanor in my arms, then realised I needed help. My horse was spent, and I could not mount without putting Eleanor down. As my fevered brain tried to work out how I was going to get Eleanor to the keep for some help, Liam and our other men caught up. Liam leapt from his horse and moved to my side, looking down at Eleanor’s pale face, gently touching her shoulder.

  “This doesn’t look good, brother. Look, the bone is raised up through the skin. Her shoulder must not be in the right place, I know how to fix this, but it will hurt”.

  I nodded, knowing what was wrong and what had to be done.

  Liam spied Ian’s sword in the grass and bent to pick it up, whistling at something, and drawing my attention. The blade was bloody.

  “What happened here, Ian? This isn’t yer blood, that’s only a scratch ye have there”.

  I looked at Ian quickly, his cheek was oozing blood that I hadn’t noticed before in my panic. One of our men approached, he had gathered Eleanor and Ian’s horses, and another that I did not recognise. The strange horse looked fresh.

  “Help me Liam, I cannot get her up on the horse like this. It worries me that she will not wake”.

  I passed Eleanor to Liam and mounted the horse before leaning down to take Eleanor from my brother.

  “Easy, man”, Liam said as he tried to pass Eleanor up without jogging her arm. As I got her settled, her kirtle rose up a little and Liam grabbed her leg.

  “This is not good either, what happened here?”

  I looked down, seeing Eleanor’s knee already purpling. It was bent wrongly, and must have been terribly painful.

  “Ian said that the devil kicked her. I need to get her back to Bridget and Mary. I will have to ride slowly so as not to jog her any more than I have to, someone will have to go ahead and get Bridget to my chamber”.

  Just as Liam was mounting his own horse, one of the men turned to me and asked what we should do with Lachlan’s body.

  “Burn it”, I said, an impotent anger rising in me. I could do nothing to the live man, but would ensure that he did not benefit from any sense of Christian piety. “Or throw it off a cliff, it does not matter. His soul has only one place to go anyway, it does not matter if he does not get a proper burial. He will not be buried on McGarrow lands, so either burn the corpse or leave it for the animals”. I turned and rode, not caring what anyone thought. I would not have that corpse buried anywhere where it might remind Eleanor of the man who had once inhabited it.

  As we rode back, most of the assembled men rode ahead, but Liam, Ian and Duncan stayed with me. Eleanor roused shortly after we started, and gasped in pain at the movement of the horse, before blacking out again. While we rode, Duncan told us why he was there.

  “It was wrong, what our father did to Eleanor. He never should have believed that villain. Ye know it was he who suggested stealing the cattle last year. He said that he knew of people who were starving, yet ye had plenty, and he managed to stir the young and stupid like myself to take what wasn’t ours to take. The ones he took as his share, I never saw again. Those are the ones that ye never got back. He managed to disappear before the trouble started, before ye showed up. I realised later that was his way. He liked to make trouble for others, then sit back and watch. I don’t know how he convinced Da that he was worthy of Eleanor, but Da would not talk to me after the shame I brought on our family”. Duncan turned to Ian. “I really am sorry ye know. I was regretting my actions, but afraid to back down in case someone thought I was a coward, and so I acted stupidly. I deserve everything ye think of me, but never think ill of Eleanor. She was blameless of everything.”

  I nodded, indicating that he should continue talking when he stopped for a while, obviously struggling to collect himself.

  “Anyway. As I said, Da was very angry with me, and would not listen to me when I tried to warn him that there was something amiss with Lachlan. I think he even thought to marry Lachlan to Eleanor, and name him to succeed him as Laird in place of me. That made me angry, but that was not why I did not like Lachlan, I feared that he would beat Eleanor, he seemed like the type of man who would enjoy being cruel. I tried talking to Ma, but she made the mistake of telling Da that she had talked to me about Lachlan, so he would not listen to her either. It was only after ye took Eleanor away, after she left and so many people believed what Lachlan had said of her, that I found out what he was really like. I chanced across one of the household maids, crying in a corner, and trying to hide a black eye and a swollen lip. She didn’t want to tell me at first, trying to convince me that she had walked into something in the dark, but I know what a fist does to a face, so I would not leave her alone until she told me who did it to her, and what else he did besides. I took her to Da, and made her tell her story to him. I could see the fear in Da’s eyes, and the knowledge of the mistake he had made. The maid told us that Lachlan had been angry, that the whole time he had used her, he had called her Eleanor, and had said that no-one ever turns him down and lives. It was late at night by the time I could coax the maid to tell her story to Da, the poor girl feels ashamed. I left her in Ma’s care and readied some men to ride over here today to warn ye, and to offer our help if ye needed it. I know that Eleanor is now yer wife, but she is still my sister, and we set the trouble onto ye, so we intended to help ye deal with it. We had just arrived and were trying to find who to speak to, when the other woman rode in, screaming for help. As we were already mounted, we rode out straight away, but yer brother had already dealt with the villain before we got to him”.

  Liam looked at Ian, who was suspiciously quiet, and looked at me. We both knew what Ian was going through. No matter how justified, the first kill always affects a man. I knew that Liam would draw Ian aside, and talk to him later, I would be too busy with Eleanor.

  We arrived at the keep, to a flurry of activity as horses were being stabled, and quarters were being found for men, but I slid from the horse as gently as I could, not letting go of my precious burden, and strode to my chamber. The door was open and the fire was lit, a pot of water heating over it. Mary and Bridget were readying potions and bandages, and the covers had been drawn back on the bed. I crossed to it and gently laid Eleanor down, untying the laces of her tunic enough to see her shoulder, and brushing her kirtle up past her knee. Ma tried to usher Liam out of the room but I stopped her.

  “Ma, no. This is not the time for modesty. What we have to do to Eleanor is going to hurt her a lot, and I will need Liam here to hold her”.

  Liam approached the bed, tsking as we inspected Eleanor’s shoulder. Da showed up then, passed Lia
m a bottle of whiskey, then took Ian and Duncan out of the room with him, closing the door. Liam poured a good measure into a cup. Looking at him, I moved to the bed, and gently eased Eleanor into a sitting position, lightly slapping her face to wake her up. It seemed silly waking her up when I just wanted to deaden her pain again, but I could not risk trying the procedure, and having her wake up in the middle of it without anything to help her with what would be terrible, but hopefully brief, pain.

  I was never happier that Eleanor stirred, I had begun to think that she must have hit her head or something. I sat on the bed and supported her against me, and held the cup to her lips, tilting it up while I tilted her head back.

  “Eleanor, love. Ye must drink. Ye have some injuries that if we don’t tend to soon, are only going to get worse. But it is going to hurt, and so ye must drink this to deaden the pain”.

  Eleanor spluttered, but as I was pouring the whiskey into her throat, she either had to spit it out, drink it, or choke. Thankfully my brave Eleanor drank as much as she could, although some dribbled down her chin. Liam poured another cup when the first was empty, and I tried to get some more into her. When I thought she had enough, I nodded at Liam and he moved slowly to the bed, not wanting to startle Eleanor, and also trying to give the alcohol time to work. Liam crawled behind Eleanor and supported her back against his front gently, placing his legs either side of hers to hold her in place. Once Liam had taken Eleanor’s weight against him, I moved to the front of Eleanor, kneeling on the bed in front of her injured arm. She was barely conscious, between the pain, the shock and the alcohol, her eyes were fluttering closed and she was clearly having to make an effort to keep them open.

  “Sssh, Eleanor, this will be over soon. Ye trust me don’t ye?” She nodded. “I know I told ye I would never hurt ye, and I wish I didn’t have to do this, but yer shoulder is not in line properly, and I have to push it back in to place. It is going to hurt, but I will be as gentle as I can. From the corner of my eye, I saw Mary approach with a wadded cloth, which she pushed in between Eleanor’s teeth. As she had walked past me, I had got a strong odour of whiskey. The cloth was clearly damp, and Mary must have soaked it in whiskey, hoping to get some more into Eleanor.