by Amanda Scott
Most were afoot, but some, like Fin, rode. They all traveled swiftly, following the track along the northeast side of Loch Duich toward Glen Shiel, looking exactly like the barbarians that Molly had once imagined them. She knew that even the men running barefoot would have no trouble keeping up with the horses, for it was their normal custom, and so famous had Highland running gillies become that Archbishop Beaton, the Lord Privy Seal, had once taken a group of them to Rome to show them off to the Pope.
Sir Patrick had already departed and was headed in the opposite direction. He commanded two galleys with forty men each, rowing westward toward Kyleakin. When the last boat and rider had passed from view, Molly turned away and found Mauri standing behind her.
“I think ye should come within, mistress,” the older woman said. “The laird did order the postern door shut and sealed afore he left, and the portcullis be safely down, but ye shouldna remain here in plain sight like this.”
“Any fighting will take place far from Eilean Donan,” Molly reminded her. “Do you fear that Kintail might fail to find Donald’s raiders and stop them?”
“I dinna ken what I fear, mistress, but our Patrick and the laird did both wonder at Donald’s actions. I wish the old master were still here,” she added wistfully. “He and Gilchrist MacRae knew that wicked Donald better than most.”
“Eilean Donan is safe, come what may,” Molly said, feeling a need to defend Fin but repressing a shudder at the thought of a possible attack on Eilean Donan with so few people left to defend it. The only ones left inside were Mauri, Doreen, Thomas MacMorran, Ian Dubh, and herself, unless one counted wee Morag. Tam Matheson and Malcolm MacRae had ridden with Fin.
“We’d best go down to Doreen,” Mauri said with a sigh. “She’s wi’ my wee lassie in the hall, and they’ll both likely be on the fret. The men be looking round, even now, to be certain the castle be secure, and when they’ve done wi’ the searching, Ian Dubh says they’ll keep watch from the bartizan walkway.”
“There are only the two entrances to the castle, are there not?”
“Aye, the main-gate portcullis and the postern door at the foot o’ the northwest tower. That door be thick and heavily barred, and the portcullis be solid oak five foot thick. Its wood were soaked in salt water to pack the grain, and it be bound wi’ iron rods as well. Likely, it’ll not even burn, they say, so we’ll be snug enough.” Mauri stood at the entrance to the stairway. “Do ye come in now, mistress.”
“From which direction would an attack most likely come if ever there were one?” Molly asked as she moved to follow her.
“Yonder to the west if ye’re thinking o’ Donald and his lot,” Mauri said, pointing. “We’d ha’ warning afore they could reach us from the land, so they’d come from the sea, and there be room for only a few boats to beach, any road.”
“Then mayhap I should stay here and keep watch until Thomas and Ian Dubh come upstairs,” Molly said, hesitating at the top of the stairs.
From below, Mauri said, “Nay, mistress, come ye down to Doreen. Whilst Patrick and his men be watching the Kyle, there be naught to worry us here.”
Reluctantly Molly followed her down to the great hall, where they found Doreen rocking wee Morag in her cradle. The hall was silent except for the rhythmic rocking of the cradle and intermittent sucking sounds the dozing baby made. She had tucked the middle fingers of her right hand into her mouth, and from time to time, she sucked rapidly then stopped again.
Looking at wee Morag sent a shiver of unexpected apprehension up Molly’s spine. If an attack did come, how could three women and two men protect the child? Donald the Grim doubtless would like nothing better than to wipe the Mackenzies and MacRaes from the earth, so he could include their land in his reclaimed lordship. His men would show no compassion for a baby who was kin to the MacRaes. Had Fin been mad to leave the castle without stronger defenses?
Although Mauri drew a stool near the cradle and sat down to converse with Doreen, Molly could not settle down and wait patiently for Thomas and Ian Dubh. She paced the floor, wishing that she could think of something useful to do.
“Do you think Thomas and Ian Dubh have manned the towers yet?” she asked a few moments later. “Where are they? Should they not report to us?”
Doreen gave her a gentle smile. “I wish ye’d sit down, mistress. ’Tis most unlikely that aught will occur whilst the laird be from home. Will not Sir Patrick see anyone who approaches from the sea? And will not the laird hunt down the Glen Shiel raiders and their wicked leader?”
“But the raiders did reach Glen Shiel!” Molly said, putting into words at last the nagging worry that had been dancing voiceless in her mind since the previous night. “Think, Doreen—Mauri! Kintail mentioned a track to the south, from Kylerhea.”
Frowning, Mauri said, “If the raiders be Donald’s, they could ha’ avoided Mackenzie and MacRae lands altogether, mistress. The track from Kylerhea crosses MacLeod land. If MacLeod agreed to it, they might ha’ come that way.”
“Donald was supposed to be heading north to meet up with his fleet,” Molly said, remembering. “He came to the wedding from Skye, though, so at least some of his ships may still be there, and if they—” Before she could finish voicing the thought, a shout echoed down the stairwell at the end of the hall.
“Galleys west!”
Mauri’s face blanched. “How could ships ha’ slipped past our Patrick and his lot?” she demanded. “Donald’s fleet lies north o’ the Kyle!”
“Perhaps not,” Molly said. “If those galleys are Donald’s, he sailed around Skye to approach us from the south, through the Sound of Sleat, or he left a few boats at Dunsgaith. It does not matter which it is if he’s here,” she added. “Take wee Morag to the kitchen, Mauri.”
“But they canna get into the castle,” Mauri protested.
“If they do manage to break in, you must tell them that you are a newcomer, that one of the wicked Mackenzie men abducted you and your bairn but a sennight ago,” Molly said. “They might believe you, and if they do—”
“But I canna do that! What about my Malcolm?”
“Malcolm would tell you to do it for the child’s sake,” Molly said, seeing nothing to gain by pointing out that, if the raiders succeeded in breaching Eilean Donan’s wall, what Malcolm might say would be the least of their worries.
“Get ye below, Mauri,” Doreen said quietly as she stood and thrust the baby into Mauri’s arms. “What of us, mistress?” she added when Mauri had turned away. “If we are not to go with her, what do we do?”
“I’ll go above to the bartizan, because Thomas and Ian Dubh are going to need help,” Molly said. “First, I am going to fetch my weapons, though. Would you know how to deal with anyone who approaches the portcullis entrance?”
“Aye, I ken that fine, mistress,” Doreen’s eyes gleamed. “Thomas showed me the wee chamber that contains rocks and other nuisances ready to rain down upon them, and he said the cauldrons and levers be so lightly counterbalanced that a bairn could tip them if need be.”
“Do what you can then,” Molly ordered. “Will Thomas and Ian Dubh have sufficient arms above?”
“Aye, they have their bows, mistress, and whilst neither is as fine a shot as Sir Patrick or the laird, they’ll no disgrace us.”
Nodding, Molly sent her on her way and hurried toward the bedchamber she shared with Fin. His ridiculous command that she not take her bow in hand again until he gave her leave meant nothing now. Doreen would be safe enough in the small chamber above the portcullis and was well able to manipulate the weapons there, but Ian Dubh, Thomas, Doreen, and Molly herself were all that stood between safety and disaster. And no matter what anyone had said to the contrary, the notion that two men and three women could defend the castle by themselves seemed absurd. Formidable though Eilean Donan’s walls might be, given sufficient time, a determined enemy would surely breach them.
Reaching the bedchamber, she snatched her longbow from its place on the wall with one h
and, and the quiver of arrows from their coffer with the other. Since she had not recovered all of her arrows before Fin caught her the one and only day she had taken her bow out, her store was sadly depleted. She knew that she had too few left to give much of an accounting and wondered if there might be more elsewhere in the castle. Perhaps Ian Dubh would know.
But when she reached the top of the northwest tower stairs, she forgot her question, for the sight that met her eyes appalled her. The wind blew from the west, where threatening black clouds gathered, and on Loch Alsh, four galleys with sails raised approached the castle at speed, sending up clouds of spray. Each boat looked larger than their own galleys, with banks of long oars on each side lashing the sea in disciplined frenzy. On boats of such size, she knew that each oar often had two men to pull it, which meant forty men or more in each boat.
“Mercy on us all,” Molly muttered.
“Aye,” Thomas said, glancing at her. He held his longbow at rest, but an arrow lay across it, already nocked. He said, “Ian Dubh stands yonder, mistress, in the southwest bartizan. I ken fine that the laird would say ye should go below, but I welcome your bow. I warrant ye could shoot the last needle off a pine bough.”
“I don’t think I could do that,” Molly said, “but I have been blessed with unusual skill.”
“That ye can even pull that bowstring shows ye ha’ skill beyond any other lass I’ve met. Sakes, but I’ve known grown men wi’ less strength than that.”
She had never thought much about the strength required to shoot a longbow. She had wanted to shoot one from the first instant of seeing a man do so, and Mackinnon had humored her, as he had been wont to do in most such cases, by providing her with a miniature longbow of her own. As she had grown, he had replaced that bow with longer, stouter ones. Had she chanced to wonder about the strength required for such sport, she would have assumed simply that constant practice had made it possible for her to shoot the heavier bows.
“We’ll no shoot till they’ve landed,” Thomas said. “We’ve few enough arrows as it is.”
Reminded, she said, “Are there any more arrows in the castle?”
“We collected all we could find,” he said. “The laird’s men and Sir Patrick’s took nearly all that were here. Thinking they’d be after Donald himself and would control the landscape from Kyle to Glen Shiel, they didna expect an attack on the castle whilst they were away.”
“It was another trap, though, was it not? Doubtless, Donald still wants me.”
“Aye, and the laird never suspected, because o’ the killings and because the call for aid came from a Murchison, and one living inland, at that. His lordship thought—and Sir Patrick did, too—that they’d be protecting us against any such trickery by having Sir Patrick and Mackinnon keep a lookout for trouble approaching from the north and west. But although everyone assured us that Donald’s fleet lies to the north, he must ha’ kept these few ships and men ready to attack from Loch Alsh. That be his banner on the lead galley, sure enough.”
Molly nodded, keeping her eyes fixed on the approaching longboats. They were less than fifty yards from the islet now, approaching in a line, their square sails billowing, their oarsmen maintaining a strong beat.
“Did not Sir Patrick say he knew the messenger from Glen Shiel, Thomas?”
“He knew the family,” Thomas said. “Mayhap we should ha’ asked the lad more questions, though. Easy, mistress,” he added as Molly nocked her first arrow. “Let them come to us. Then make each shot count if ye can.”
“I will,” she said grimly.
He gave her a sharp look. “That banner—ye ken ’ tis likely Donald himself who leads them. Wicked or no, the man were your lawful guardian.”
“Aye, he was,” she said, giving him look for look. “Do you fear that I might take his side, Thomas?”
His gaze locked with hers for a long moment. Then, with a slight smile, he said steadily, “Ye’ve shown nae great liking for Kintail, m’lady.”
“I have much less liking for Donald the Grim, and Eilean Donan is my home now,” Molly said, suppressing the urge to defend her relationship with Fin, to tell Thomas MacMorran that he was mistaken, that they got along much better than she had ever expected them to. Realizing then that the first galley had reached the west shore and was beaching, she said sharply, “Heed them, Thomas!”
He turned and let fly his arrow, all in one smooth and easy movement, and the sound of a man’s scream came in return.
“One dead,” Thomas said calmly as he nocked his second arrow.
Molly swallowed hard. Until that moment, she had thought only of defending Eilean Donan, not of what that meant in terms of human lives. The knowledge of what she would have to do struck hard, and Thomas had let fly his second arrow before she lifted her bow to take aim.
Men spilled from the first galley as its sail fell, and a second one beached beside it. Arrows flying from the southwest bartizan told her that Ian Dubh had entered the fray and without another thought, she aimed for a man’s right shoulder, hoping to wound him so that he could not fight, without killing him.
Her aim was true, and the man grabbed his shoulder, clamping his hand to the arrow and struggling to yank it free. The injured arm hung limply useless at his side.
From the relative safety of the bartizan, as she nocked another arrow and let fly, she saw men slipping around the north side of the castle, heading for the portcullis. Below her, others attacked the postern door. But her arrows and Thomas’s were taking a toll. Dead and injured men littered the grassy slope.
“There,” Thomas said abruptly, pointing with his free hand. “D’ye see, lass? Donald himself stands below us. Curse him, he stands too close to the wall. I canna get a shot.” He moved onto the battlement walkway, careful to keep his head low until he reached the centermost crenel. Carefully, he put his head through the opening to peer down, then pulled back with a grimace. “Had I a few big stones, I could brain the villain,” he said, “but from this angle my arrows be useless.”
“Never mind him, then,” Molly said. “Shoot where you can.”
“I’ve only a few arrows left,” he said, turning toward her as he nocked one of them. “We’d best think of—”
Whatever else he might have said she would not know, for an arrow from below cut off his words, striking the side of his head. He fell senseless to the walkway. She saw that he was bleeding heavily, but although she hurried to his side and tried to stanch the flow with a wadded-up handful of her petticoat, he did not respond when she shouted his name, and she had no time to do more.
She rose, nocked an arrow, and with bowstring taut, moved to examine the view from the crenel. She could see more clearly than from the bartizan loops, and before long, she had used up her arrows and all but one that still lay near Thomas. Hoping that Ian Dubh might have more, she hurried to the southwest bartizan, keeping her head low, only to find his lifeless body slumped against the battlement wall beyond it. Bile rose in her throat, but she ruthlessly suppressed her fear. His quiver was empty, and there were no longer arrows flying up from below.
Looking through the nearest crenel, she saw that men on the ground were heading toward the two galleys beached on the shore, and briefly indulged a hope that the attackers were leaving to avoid the approaching storm. But she soon saw that they were doing no such thing. Instead, they began to remove the masts from the beached galleys.
Baffled, having no idea what they could be up to, she returned to where Thomas lay and picked up his last arrow, noting that it had a wickedly barbed head. Looking over the crenel again, she realized with shock that Donald’s men intended to use the two masts as battering rams.
Muttering, “Please, let it fly true,” she nocked the arrow carefully, knowing there would be little more she could do once she had sped it on its way. Her bowstring taut between her fingers, she waited patiently, surveying the scene and wondering at her own calm. For the moment, no one was shooting at her. Every man in sight was helping with the ma
sts.
She could no longer see the third galley, but the fourth drifted near the southwest corner of the keep, apparently having given up finding a suitable place to land. Its oarsmen had rested their sweeps and had taken up their bows, clearly intending to rain more arrows upon the castle. Searching the Dornie shore in the hope that she would spy help on the way, she saw no one. Looking back at the men preparing to ram, she looked directly into the fierce eyes of her erstwhile guardian.
She still owed him duty of sorts, she supposed. Mackinnon had told her often that she owed much to Donald the Grim, but she had never felt any particular obligation to him. Donald had not abducted her, but he had done nothing to put matters right. She had been as much his hostage as she had been the King’s, or Fin’s, but Eilean Donan was now her home.
Donald shot her a look that was half sardonic smile, half grimace, and signed to his men to lower the first battering ram into position.
Without a second thought, Molly raised her bow and let the arrow fly. Like the others, it flew straight, striking Donald high in his left thigh.
The look he flashed her then was one of pure rage, and even as men leaped to help him, Donald of Sleat angrily ripped the offending arrow from his leg.
To Molly’s horror—and doubtless to Donald’s as well— a pulsing fountain of bright red blood spurted forth; and, although his men did what they could to stanch the flow, it persisted until he collapsed, unconscious. One of the men standing at a distance from him shouted, “Ha’ they killed the chief?”
“Nay, he’s but sorely wounded,” shouted another, bending to help Donald. “Carry him to the galley, lads. We’ll away from here and tend him properly!”
