Authors: Highland Princess
As Meg drew the bed curtains, Elizabeth murmured sleepily, “You seem distracted tonight, Mairi. You are not ailing, are you?”
“Nay, dearest, not in the least,” Mairi said, hoping she spoke the truth but wondering all the same if madness counted as an ailment.
In the great hall, Lachlan toyed with the gold ring on his finger as he listened to apparently endless debate among the other councilors and cursed their verbosity. At least MacDonald had not insisted that they return to Council Isle to continue the day’s discussions. He had feared throughout supper that he might, because it was plain to the meanest intelligence that the others had disliked leaving the islet to eat and had wanted to continue their talks there.
MacDonald had insisted that they eat, and that they adjourn to the great hall so the servants would not have to carry hot food to Council Isle. However, he had agreed that they could continue their discussion, since anyone who wanted to hear them could do so, just as they had at Ian Burk’s trial. Lady Margaret clearly had not so chosen, and had kept her daughters with her, but that was just as well.
They had been over and over the same points since he had joined them after the midday meal, and according to Hector, those points were the same ones they had fought over all morning while Lachlan had enjoyed himself with Mairi. The most frustrating thing was that the answer to their dilemma was clear.
He would have liked simply to stand and explain it to them, but he had already suffered enough frustration to realize that they would reject any suggestion of his out of hand. Although their initial reception of him and Hector as their father’s ambassadors had been kind, even jovial, they now clearly deemed him too young and inexperienced to understand the complex matters they discussed.
Hector had taken umbrage at this doubtless unintentional disrespect, more so on Lachlan’s behalf than his own, as Lachlan knew. Even now, Hector sat beside him, tense and twitching, like a hawk eager to hunt.
Lachlan’s inner clock told him that the hour was fast approaching Compline. He did not care if the others wanted to sit up all night arguing, but he knew they would not look kindly on his departure before the matter before them was resolved or MacDonald sent them all to bed.
“They do not even ask us what we think,” Hector muttered.
“They already ken fine what you think,” Lachlan murmured back.
Hector shot him a look, but Lachlan met it with a half smile. “Don’t look so fierce,” he said. “You’ll terrify someone, and then where shall we be?”
“Mayhap I’ll terrify them into making a decision.”
“More likely, your fierce looks will lend credence to certain rumors that you sleep with Gillean’s infamous battle-axe instead of with any willing woman.”
As he had hoped, that drew a reluctant grin as Hector said, “Lady Axe makes a fine bedmate.” More soberly, he added, “I don’t doubt you’ve already decided what they should do. Why not just tell them and be done with it?”
“Because they won’t listen. Only recall how Mackinnon squashed everything I said yesterday, as if I were a brainless gowk. Now, hush; I want to hear this.”
“Forgive me, your grace,” brawny Murdoch Macleod of Glenelg said gruffly from the far end of the high table, around which they had gathered. “Although the hereditary keeper o’ the records reminds us that the King ought t’ be grateful t’ ye for arranging his ransom from the English, I’m thinking the silly wee man allies himself more nearly wi’ England than he does wi’ us.”
“Aye, that be fact,” agreed Andrew MacSporran. “Were Scotland’s Davy no married for a time to English Edward’s sister, and did the wicked lad no suggest, nobbut three years since, that his successor on the Scottish throne should be Edward’s eldest son, since Davy canna seem t’ make any o’ his own?”
As a number of the men muttered their disapproval, Macleod plowed back in, saying, “Another unfortunate fact, your grace, be that Davy kens fine that your marriage t’ the lady Margaret—blessed be her name—allies ye wi’ the Steward’s faction, which he believes wants to unseat him and put the Steward on his throne.”
“Aye,” MacDonald agreed. “’Twould be in keeping wi’ the King’s character.”
“If he had any,” another voice muttered.
“With respect, your grace,” Niall Mackinnon said, “the King has some reason for feeling so. He has made clear his disapproval of setting your first wife aside, without a proper annulment, to marry Lady Margaret. He has, in fact, at least twice suggested that you now stand possessed, illegally, of two wives.”
Lachlan had little use for the King of Scots or his opinions, but gasps from several at the table warned him that with comments like Mackinnon’s the debate would soon grow heated again if someone did not rein it in. He wondered if Mackinnon meant to stir trouble or had just grown bored. His reasons mattered little, however, since the primary difficulty lay in the fact that like most groups trying to make a decision, this one had raised many points, some of which pertained to the issue at hand but most of which were irrelevant, and to a man, they kept dancing around the main point without once touching upon it.
With a seemingly careless gesture, Lachlan knocked over his wine goblet, leaped to his feet as he did, and snatched a cloth from a passing gillie to stop the flow of wine before it spilled onto Mackintosh, chief of Clan Chattan, beside him.
“Forgive my clumsiness, sir,” he said, smiling at the older man. “I swear to you that I am not ape drunk, although I must surely appear so. I fear I was paying more heed to the discussion than to my goblet.”
“You are wise to attend to the debate, lad,” Mackintosh said.
“Aye, sure, but I’m not certain I’ve grasped all the details,” Lachlan said, shifting his gaze to MacDonald. “I wonder if I might ask a question, your grace.”
“Certainly, lad,” the Lord of the Isles said cordially. “Ask as many as you like. Sometimes our council discussions can confuse everyone present.”
“Well, I’m certain everyone else here understands the situation, so pray correct me if I have taken aught amiss. ’Tis my understanding that the dilemma before us arises because the Scottish Parliament declared against you, your grace, for refusing to pay the so-called contribution to the Crown that the King of Scots demands to pay his English ransom, and also for supposedly fomenting rebellion because other Islesmen have followed your lead in not paying.”
“Aye, ye’ve got that down, lad,” Agnew, the hereditary Sheriff of Galloway, said approvingly. “That’s it exactly!”
“Thank you, sir,” Lachlan said. “Mayhap you will likewise agree with my understanding that the King also demands that his grace appear before him and give surety for his conduct.”
“Aye, lad,” Macleod of Glenelg said. “Ye’ve got that right, too.”
“But surely I am also correct in believing that his grace is still King of the Hebrides and Lord of the Isles, am I not?”
“He is that!” many of them shouted as fists pounded the table.
Lachlan frowned, taking his time in order that they might grow quiet again but also that they might think about the three points he had made.
“What’s amiss, lad?” Agnew asked. “Be there summat else that puzzles ye?”
“I’m wondering when the King of Scots managed to assume sovereignty over the King of the Hebrides,” Lachlan said, looking bewildered.
“He
never
did, and won’t,” Mackintosh declared. “A king be a king and equal to all other kings. Indeed, his grace’s ancestor Somerled called himself King over the Isles
and
the Hebrides.”
“I begin to understand,” Lachlan said. “What you all managed to see before I did is that his grace is an independent prince and therefore free to make whatever decisions he chooses to make without help or hindrance from any other prince.”
“Aye, that’s it exactly!” Agnew and MacSporran announced together.
A silence fell as the others looked at each other.
Lachlan knew that he had made his point. Glancing at the Lord of the Isles, he met his quizzical look easily.
After a long moment, MacDonald’s gaze drifted to the other end of the table.
Lachlan waited, saying nothing.
Feeling tense movement beside him, he briefly touched Hector’s shoulder, felt him relax again, and knew he could trust him to stay silent, too.
Old Cameron of Lochaber, having remained silent throughout the evening’s long discussion, stirred at last in his place of honor beside MacDonald. Holding the sole distinction in that company of having, forty-six years before, signed the Declaration of Arbroath, a vigorous letter written to Pope John XXII and signed by eight Scottish earls and thirty-one barons, declaring that Scotland would in no way, ever, yield to England, Lochaber held the deep respect of every man there.
The bell for Compline began to ring, and Lachlan stifled a groan.
When every eye had turned his way, Lochaber cleared his throat and said ponderously, “Every man o’ ye kens that I be MacDonald’s man and that I believe in freedom as ye do, and as all good Islesmen do—aye, and ordinary Scotsmen, too. So I’d remind ye that when we fight ’tis no for glory, riches, or honor, but always for freedom, which no man surrenders but wi’ his life.”
“Aye, that’s so!” several shouted. Others nodded to show agreement.
“MacDonald, Lord of the Isles, be the prince o’ our realm,” Lochaber went on, “and like the King of Scots or England’s Edward, he answers t’ none save his own. That be the answer we send t’ Davy. We’ll tell him his grace willna contribute t’ England’s wealth by paying yon ransom and has nae need to offer or give surety for any o’ his own royal decisions t’ the King o’ Scots.”
Excited cheers broke out as MacDonald stood, and over them, he shouted, “Since you all agree, that is the reply I shall send!”
Turning to clasp Lochaber’s hand, he waited for quiet again before saying, “I thank you all for your counsel and declare this meeting adjourned for the day. We’ll meet again on Council Isle after we’ve broken our fast in the morning, to discuss all such matters of final business as may occur to you.”
Leaning hastily to speak in his brother’s ear, Lachlan said, “I need your aid.”
“What would you have me do?”
“Sing to his grace and his sons or plague them, I care not which, but keep everyone away from the laird’s hall forecourt for as long as you reasonably can.”
“Indeed, and dare I ask why?”
“You may ask, but I’ll not answer. I must go at once!”
“Good luck to you, my lad. I’m thinking you’ll need it.”
As Lachlan hurried away, the echo of those words followed him.
Torches burning near the entrance to the laird’s residence showed Mairi the deserted forecourt. She had heard the Compline bell only minutes after Elizabeth’s deep breathing had reassured her that her sister was asleep. Moving with cautious haste, she had slipped out of bed and dragged her cloak from underneath.
Meg had gone into the wardrobe and had not come out again. Listening at the curtain, Mairi heard snuffling snores.
Slipping her kirtle over her head, she pulled the laces in back as best she could alone and wrapped the cloak around her. Then, picking up her boots from outside the bedchamber door where she had left them earlier, knowing Meg would think she expected to ride again in the morning, she tiptoed downstairs past the great chamber before sitting on a step to pull them on.
Grateful that she had encountered no one else yet, and having no wish to stand exposed in torchlight, she moved to the side of the court overlooking the loch and stood in a deep shadow there. Masses of stars filled the sky, and the golden glow of a rising moon created a halo over the hills to the east.
Clutching her cloak about her and watching the open gateway, she had just begun to wonder if she should go back upstairs when she saw a tall figure striding confidently toward her. He was too far away for the torches near the front of the forecourt to light his face, and the ones from the great hall porch cast a glow behind him, so she could not be sure it was Lachlan.
Aware that it might not be, she slipped behind a pillar, trusting her dark cloak to conceal her. To her shock, the figure turned and headed toward her.
“Don’t hide; we’ve no time to dawdle,” he said in a quiet but carrying voice.
“How did you know it was I?” she demanded quietly as he drew nearer.
“I saw you, of course.”
“But I might have been anyone.”
“Nay, sweetheart,” he said, putting an arm around her, “you could never be just anyone. But come. The meeting has ended. Others may be on my heels.”
“But where? Won’t we walk right into them?”
His hand enfolded hers, warming it.
“You should have worn gloves,” he said. “It’s cold out here.”
“By heaven, sir, I’m glad to have clothing on. My woman sleeps in the wardrobe. I had to get this cloak earlier and hide it under the bed. Had she not hung my kirtle to air on a peg in our chamber, I’d not have a stitch on under this cloak.”
“I’d like that,” he said in a teasing voice as he ushered her to the low parapet that faced the length of the loch. “But if it is the kirtle you wore this morning, I’ll approve of that, too.”
“’Twas not just my maid or my clothes,” she said. “My sister sleeps with me. I don’t know what demon persuaded you that I could slip out so easily.”
“But you did, did you not? And you’ve left your hair unbound, too. We can, most of us, do what we set our minds to do.”
“Perhaps sometimes, but not always.”
“We can always do what is necessary. What’s hard is recognizing necessity.”
He swung a leg over the parapet and reached for her. As he clasped her waist, he said, “An unwelcome thought occurs to me. Will his grace lock that door for the night when he returns?”
“He never does,” she said. “Guards stand at the causeway to the main island and patrol elsewhere, but none stands inside the residence enclosure or beyond. ’Tis Isla that protects us, not Finlaggan’s guards.”
“I expected them to be everywhere,” he said. “One assumes that the Lord of the Isles will keep a great tail of men about him, as befits his princely rank.”
“When he travels, he does take such an entourage. But the Isles are safe now, and few men lock doors. At Ardtornish, the main door boasts a key so large that I cannot lift it by myself to put it in the lock. My father let me try when I turned thirteen, but we never use it, because the whole of loyal Morvern protects us there.”