“What is happening?” Ishbel asked, her breath coming out heavy and labored. She was still dazed by their encounter, but the sudden screams dampened any interest she had in chasing her completion once more.
She was more worried about whatever it was that had caused all the yelling.
“I dinnae ken,” Angus said, but his eyes were wide and fearful. After all, there were few reasons why his men would begin to shout so late at night when they should be either sleeping or drinking and being merry. “I must go and see.”
“I’ll come with you,” Ishbel said, and she began to follow him as Angus walked towards the courtyard.
“No,” he said. “Ye should go to yer chambers, Ishbel. I dinnae ken what is happening, and I dinnae wish to put ye in any danger.”
“I’ll be fine, Angus,” Ishbel insisted, but before she could say anything else, Angus interrupted her.
“Go to yer chambers, Ishbel. Please,” he said. “Please dinnae argue with me, not the noo. I dinnae have time to argue with ye the noo.”
Ishbel frowned at him, but she knew he had a point. She thought that he was treating her like a fragile doll and that it was unfair that he wouldn’t let her go with him, but he truly didn’t have time to argue.
So, she simply nodded and watched as Angus ran off before she went back to the castle and into her rooms.
Once she was in her chambers, she could still hear the commotion, but she had no idea what was happening. Naturally, she couldn’t sleep, either, as she was too frightened about the clan and its people.
Last time there had been such a commotion, Tayvallich had been in flames, and her uncle had died in the hands of the Keith clan. Now, Ishbel couldn’t help but think that some other disaster had befallen the clan, courtesy of the Keiths.
She paced around her room, her head filled with fear and different scenarios until she couldn’t take it anymore. She knew that she couldn’t go to the courtyard without invoking Angus’ wrath, but she could at least try and find out what had happened, she thought, and so she crept out of her chambers and made her way to the bottom floor of the castle.
The women in the kitchens always seemed to know what was going on around the castle grounds, and that was Ishbel’s first stop. If she couldn’t find anything there, then she would ask the guards, but the women were much more likely to tell her the truth.
As she had expected, the kitchens were full of women, all of them watching through the windows at the men that were gathered at the other side of the courtyard, near the gates. Only a few of them acknowledged her when she came into the room, seemingly all too busy to look at her.
“What is happening?” she asked. “Why is there such a commotion there?”
One of the older ladies, Mrs. Gillies, hurried to her and took her aside, much to Ishbel’s displeasure. She was not a child, and she refused to be treated like one.
“Och, lass . . . this isnae something that ye should see,” Mrs. Gillies said. “Go back to yer chambers, and I’ll bring ye some warm milk and—”
“Mrs. Gillies,” Ishbel said, crossing her arms over her chest as she stared the woman down. Mrs. Gillies was a sweet woman, plump and perpetually flushed, and Ishbel had a soft spot for her, but she refused to be swayed. “Tell me what is happening, please.”
Mrs. Gillies hesitated, glancing back and forth between Ishbel and the rest of the women, who were now nodding at the former, as though to say that Ishbel should know.
“Something terrible has happened, lass,” Mrs. Gillies said. “I dinnae ken how our poor Laird will handle this . . . truly terrible, ye see, nothing before like it.”
“What is it, Mrs. Gillies?” Ishbel said, quickly losing her patience. “Is it another village?”
“No.” Mrs. Gillies shook her head, and then she motioned at Ishbel to sit, before she, too, sat down on a chair. Ishbel joined her, thinking that perhaps sitting was a good idea if the news were just as terrible as Mrs. Gillies said. “It’s the Keith clan, lass. I canna believe that they have gone as far as to do what they did.”
Just as Mrs. Gillies spoke, another woman, one who was much younger and one that Ishbel had barely seen in the castle, burst in through the kitchen doors, her face red and wet with tears. The rest of the women rushed to her, Mrs. Gillies included, and Ishbel stood up tentatively, not knowing what to do.
“They killed him!” the young woman screamed. She sounded as though her heart had been ripped out of her chest, and her hands were shaking as she fell down onto the floor on her knees, fists banging onto the hardwood. “They killed my Jamie! They cut his head off his body! He’s dead! He's dead!”
The women were trying to calm her down, but nothing they did seemed to help. Ishbel then walked to the window; if they weren’t going to tell her what was happening, then she was going to find out herself.
There, at the other end of the courtyard, she could see several guards gathered near the gates and Angus among them.
And there, on the ground in front of them, the bodies of the men that he had sent to the Keith clan to negotiate peace.
Chapter Thirteen
They were dead. They were all dead, and Angus had sent them to their deaths without even knowing it.
Among them was Peadar, his throat sliced, and his body drained of blood, thrown at his gates along with the other men as though they were slaughtered animals.
They didn’t deserve such a fate; no one did. It was clear to Angus that the Keith clan had lost its collective mind, and there was nothing to negotiate anymore. There would be no peace. There would be no treaty.
Peadar had pushed for it, and now he was dead; Angus would not make the same mistake.
“We’ll give them a warrior’s burial, lads,” Angus said, as his gaze roamed over the bodies of the victims. “It’s a shame that they died like this . . . they were all good men. But there is only one thing that we can do the noo, and that is go to war. Trust me, it isnae something that I suggest lightly, but we dinnae have any other choice. The Keith clan has made themselves our enemy, and they killed our men when we wished to negotiate peace. Weel . . . there will be peace no more.”
The men around Angus voiced their agreement, and he was glad that he could at least count on them. The men that he had in his castle, the men closest to him, knew him better than any other clansman or woman, and Angus knew that he could count on them, even on Euan, who seemed to enjoy disagreeing with him. They all had his back, and for that, Angus was grateful.
What he feared, though, was that many of his people simply didn’t feel the same way. He had known for a long time about the rumors that circulated about him, and he had never found the need to address them, but now that they were going to war, he needed his people to be united.
And how could they be united when half of them believed that he was a murderer, a man who had taken the lives of his own wife and daughter, and the other half was only loyal to him because he was the rightful Laird? They couldn’t, and that was the simple truth.
Angus would need to unite them all if he wished to succeed, though he couldn’t see how he would do that when most of his people were against him.
He decided to deal with one thing at a time, though, and so he arranged for the burial of his men, to be executed with every honor and no expense spared. Then, he sent a messenger to the Cameron clan.
Donal was the one person that Angus knew would offer his help unconditionally. The two of them were like brothers, after all, ever since they trained together under Cormag. He had been the one to reveal Vika’s real self to Angus, as well, her cruel nature and the lengths to which she would go to get what she wanted.
Even in their toughest times, even when Angus had almost had Donal’s head just because Vika had requested it, Donal had never held a grudge; he had never forgotten the bond between them.
Then, he visited Ishbel. It felt wrong to say nothing regarding the brief night that they had spent together, after all, and he didn’t want a repeat of the days they spent avoiding
each other.
When he knocked on her door, Ishbel opened it almost immediately, as though she had been waiting right there for him to come, and when she did, she threw herself in his arms. Angus felt his muscles finally relax just a little, just enough for him to be able to breathe deeply again, and he wrapped his own arms around her, holding her close as he pushed the door shut behind him with his foot.
“Angus . . . I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw them,” Ishbel said, her voice barely a whisper. She seemed shaken, as shaken as he was, and he couldn’t blame her.
“Ye saw them?” he asked.
“Yes, I . . . I went to the kitchens,” she admitted. “Forgive me, I simply couldn’t stay in my chambers, not knowing what was happening. I feared that another village would be on fire, or that something else, equally terrible had happened . . . and it had. I’m so sorry, Angus. I know Peadar was a mentor to you, just like my uncle. I can’t imagine the pain you must be going through.”
Angus didn’t want to talk about it. He had had enough pain to last him several lifetimes, but if he acknowledged it, then he didn’t know if he could bear it at all. It was simply better to push it deep down, where it would never see the light of day.
With a sigh, he perched himself on the edge of Ishbel’s bed, and she followed him, sitting down next to him. He took her hand in his, holding it tightly, the fear of losing her suddenly looming over his head.
What if the Keith clan attacked the castle and Ishbel fell victim to their murderous appetites? Angus was certain that it would be the last straw; if Ishbel died, he would die with her.
“What will you do?” Ishbel asked, sounding concerned. Angus couldn’t blame her; he was concerned, too, after all.
“We will go to war,” he said. “It’s what we must do, Ishbel . . . what I must do as the Laird of the clan. The Keith clan has made it clear that they willnae stop at anything. They dinnae wish to have peace, and they dinnae wish to resolve matters with a treaty, so I am forced to go to war with them.”
Ishbel remained quiet, but she nodded in understanding. Her hand tightened around Angus’ own, though, and that told him everything he needed to know.
“I want ye to go somewhere safe,” he said, and then Ishbel snatched her hand back immediately, something that Angus had seen coming. He sighed and prepared himself for the argument before he looked up to see Ishbel glaring at him.
“Why is everyone treating me as though I am a child?” she asked. “I can take care of myself, Angus! I have been doing so for years! I traveled all the way here from France on my own, and I was just fine, was I not? Why are you sending me away now? Nothing will happen to me if I stay here and, well . . . if it does, then that’s my fate.”
“I willnae let anything happen to ye,” Angus insisted. “I canna let anything happen to ye. Please, Ishbel . . . please do this for me. I sent word to yer cousin, to Vanora . . . she is sending Donal here, and he will take ye back with him to clan Cameron land. Ye’ll be safe in their castle, and ye’ll have yer cousin for company. There will be nothing for ye to worry about.”
“There will be plenty for me to worry about,” Ishbel pointed out. “I will worry about you, Angus, first and foremost, and then I will be worried about the people of the clan. Do you think I do not care about them? I have spent so much time here, in this castle . . . all my friends are here. The children that listen to my stories every day are here. What will I do if all these people die, and I am safely tucked away in Vanora’s castle? What if you die?”
“Then I die,” Angus said. “But ye canna have such an end. Ye dinnae deserve it, and I willnae allow it. Ishbel . . . I am going to war. I canna have ye to worry about, too, do ye understand? When the war is over, if God allows me to live, then ye are more than welcome to return. Otherwise, ye can go back to France, like ye wished.”
“I don’t wish to go to France anymore,” Ishbel confessed. “I wish to stay here with you. I wish to stay by your side, Angus.”
Angus let out a sigh, as though the life drained out of him. He wanted that, too. He wanted Ishbel to stay with him by his side forever, to be there when he woke up and when he went to sleep, to stand next to him every day. He wanted it more than anything, but he couldn’t risk her life simply because he was selfish like that.
Angus took Ishbel’s face in his hands, holding it gently, and then he pressed a soft, chaste kiss on her lips. “I ken . . . but I canna have ye here,” he insisted. “I am sorry, Ishbel, but these are times of war, and even if ye traveled alone, even if ye’ve been taking care of yerself, this is different. Ye havenae lived through war before, and ye dinnae ken what it’s like.”
“Do you?”
“Aye.”
Angus had been a young child when war had last ravaged his clan, but he remembered it as though it were yesterday. He remembered how many good men had died in that war between his clan and one that was no more; he remembered his father and his mother, the way they spoke in hushed voices to each other and stopped when he came into the room, their concerned gazes and the pain that losing their people brought them.
He remembered them losing some men and women who were close to them, and how that had broken them.
Now that Angus was the same age as his parents had been back then, he understood that they had little idea regarding what they were doing. They must have been as scared as he was, he thought, the reality of war and the pain of their losses, turning them into different people.
They had never been the same after that war, and Angus hadn’t understood it then, but now he could hardly blame them.
It wasn’t something that he wanted Ishbel to live through. He was no fool; he knew that she could handle herself just fine, and she had proven it before, but Angus didn’t want her to suffer needlessly. It was better for her to be as far away from the clan as possible during their time of war, and besides, it would be better for Angus, too, that way.
He couldn’t afford any distractions.
There was a stretch of silence between them. Angus could see the gears turning in Ishbel’s head as she tried to find a way to convince him to allow her to stay, but he wouldn’t do such a thing. He was determined to send her away to Vanora, no matter what she said or how much she would protest.
It didn’t even matter if she ended up hating him for it. It was for her own good.
“I wish you’d see reason,” Ishbel said then, and she sounded defeated. “I am not asking you to let me fight on the battlefield. I’m only asking you to allow me to stay with the clan . . . with my people.”
Angus couldn’t help but smile a little at that. He knew that Ishbel had a soft spot in her heart for the people of the clan ever since she had moved to the castle, but hearing her call them her people was something that warmed him up from the inside, a moment of brightness in his otherwise darkest hour.
“Ye’ll see them again if ye so wish,” Angus assured her. “As I said, yer more than welcome to come back here when the war is over, Ishbel. It doesnae matter if I’ll be here or no. Ye said these are yer people . . . ye’ll always be welcome in this castle.”
“Don’t say it like that,” Ishbel said, her voice low and choked off. Angus could see the tears in her eyes. “I don’t know what I’ll do if you die, Angus. Promise me you won’t die! Promise me you won’t be at the front of the battle, I beg you.”
Angus stayed silent for several moments, and in the end, he decided that he couldn’t lie to Ishbel, not even to put her mind at ease, so he shook his head slowly.
“I canna promise ye that,” he said. “If I do, it’ll be a lie. I’ll be the first in battle because that’s what a good Laird should do. I should be with my men when they need me the most. I canna abandon them, even if it means that I’ll meet my end.”
The tears were now falling down Ishbel’s cheeks uncontrollably, like a pair of rivers, and Angus reached for her, wiping them gently off her face. He wished that he could do or say something, anything, to console her, but he couldn’t find the
words or the actions.
He could only hope that he would see Ishbel once again when the war would be over. He could only hope that God would allow him to survive that long.
“Will ye go, Ishbel?” he asked. “Will ye please go to yer cousin?”
Ishbel hesitated, but in the end, she nodded. “Yes . . . I’ll go if that’s what you wish. I’ll go to Vanora, and I’ll stay with her until the end of the war, but . . . but what if it doesn’t end soon? What then, Angus?”
With a sigh, Angus wrapped an arm around Ishbel’s shoulders, pulling her closer to him. “Then, ye’ll go back to France. That is what ye wanted, isnae it? Ye’ll go back to France, and ye’ll go back to yer old life. But dinnae fret about things ye dinnae ken, lass. None of us kens what will happen in this war. It could be over in days, weeks, or years . . . whatever happens, ken that clan MacMillan will always be yer home.”
Highlander’s Veiled Bride: Scottish Medieval Highlander Romance (Highland Seductresses Book 2) Page 10
