On a Highland Shore (15 page)

“It has a dragon at the prow. And the same shape as a Viking ship. Norsemen built their ships to be adaptable to any sea condition and deadly in all.”

“My ship was built for speed on the open water and maneuverability in shallow. Ye’ll find ships of the same shape all over Scotland.”

“Not with dragonheads at the prow.”

His tone was cold now. “I’ll not apologize for my Norse blood, Margaret MacDonald, any more than I ask ye to apologize for yer Danish blood.”

“I do not have Danish blood. I am Scottish.”

“Whatever that means.” He lifted a lock of her hair. “Yer hair is black, yer eyes are blue, like the Danes, like some Normans. Yer brother’s name is Danish, yer sister’s Norman. Ye have Scottish blood, aye, but the Scots originally came from Ireland. And most likely ye have Pictish blood; the Picts were Celts as well as the Scots, ye know. Ye also have the blood of the men who invaded these lands hundreds of years ago. Ye look at my battle-axe with contempt, and at the inscriptions on my sword hilt, but look around ye. There are runes written on the stones on yer keep, and many of yer men’s weapons are the same as the Vikings’. We’re none of us pure, lassie. What ye choose to do with yer heritage is yer decision. I’ll decide how to live with mine.”

She pulled her head back; he let her hair slide from his fingers.

“My people are dead,” she said.

“Aye, and I’m sorry for it.” He stared across the water as though his mind was very far away, then suddenly turned his blue gaze to hers. “Ye want to lash out, to find someone to blame, to hate, for all the pain you’re feeling. And ye’ve half decided that I will be that person, not because of anything I’ve done, but because of the color of my hair and my eyes. Ye ken nothing of me, Margaret. I am not responsible for what happened here, and I will not accept yer anger. Place it where it belongs.”

She pressed her lips together in a vain attempt to stem the flow of tears that had sprung to her eyes. They streamed down her cheeks. She turned her face away so he would not see them. He was right, she knew. Her rage should not be directed at him, but at those who caused the horror around her. He watched her, raised a hand as though to touch her, then apparently thought better of it and looked out to sea until she calmed herself.

“I’m sorry,” she said at last, wiping her eyes. “Ye are right.”

He said nothing, but some of the stiffness left his stance. After a moment he turned to her again. “There’s no comfort in it, lass. I am sorry as well.”

She nodded. The wind was the only sound then, a soft keening for the dead. Her father had prided himself on his ability to keep this part of Scotland safe from harm. He’d been wrong, and he’d paid for his mistake with his life. As had his men and the people of Somerstrath, but, no, she would not think on them more. “How bad were the raids on my uncle’s lands?”

“In Ross? Bad, but nothing like this. They attacked two tiny hamlets. Killed everaone, but there were few to kill. It was almost like the attacks there and in Antrim were practices for this one.”

“How did they defeat us so easily?”

“They had a lot of men.” He pointed to the edge of the water. “When we arrived, ye could still see the grooves on the sand where their ships came ashore, at least five of their big ships; each can hold a hundred men. They probably overwhelmed the men here at the harbor easily. No one expected a raid like this. We’ve not seen the like in Ireland in…” He paused. “In years.”

“Have the old days come again, when the Vikings raided as they would?”

“If it is the Norse…King Haakon of Norway has treaties with us and with ye. I’ve not heard of them being broken. This would certainly be a breach.”

Margaret gestured to the dead men on the beach. “Perhaps this is our notice.”

He turned the knife in his hand.

The waves crashed, suddenly much larger, bringing to mind the stories she’d always considered absurd, of monsters coming from the water, of demons and ungodly creatures that tormented humans. Ungodly, she thought, looking up at the headland to the north, where the chapel door hung open, swinging aimlessly in the wind, mute testimony to the priest’s death. And God’s absence. She tried to pray, but she found no words, and she wasn’t sure anyone was listening. What kind of men did this? What kind of god allowed it?

The evening breeze blew off the sea, lifting the hair from her shoulders and tossing it over her face as though to shield her. She told herself that there was only one thing to think about. If Davey was not here among the dead, then he was among the living. Small comfort, but comfort it was.

“Sir! My lord Magnusson!”

The man was running down from the north, waving his arm. Nell and Rignor ran toward her. Gannon slipped the knife back into the bag.

“My lord Magnusson! We found a Norseman!”

Gannon whirled around. “Alive?”

“Aye! Barely, but alive. They’re bringing him to ye.” He pointed to the group of men behind him, their arms laced into a sling, carrying a large man between them.

Gannon followed his gaze. “Are there others?”

“No, sir, he’s the only one. He was dragging himself along the beach.” At Gannon’s raised eyebrow he continued. “He’ll not last long.”

“We willna need him long,” Gannon said grimly.

T
he Viking, his hands bound before him, his face gray, was placed ungently on the ground. He watched the men gathered around him with wary eyes. The front of his tunic was stained with fresh blood. Gannon’s men backed away as Gannon and Tiernan approached, Margaret and Rignor and Nell a step behind. One of the raider’s legs was badly broken. His hair was dark blond, his beard long and trailing past his collar. He had no weapon save the small knife stuck in his belt. Around his neck was a torque like Gannon’s, with fanciful birds in place of the dragons.

Nell gasped. “He looks like the head!”

“Look what he’s wearing, sir,” one of the Irishmen said to Gannon.

Gannon leaned over the man, wrapped a finger around the torque, his expression savage. “Where did ye get this?” He repeated his question in Norse, then raised his voice. “Where did ye get this?” When there was no answer, he looked at Tiernan. “It’s from Haraldsholm.” He gestured to Nell and Margaret and spoke to one of his men. “Get them back to the keep. They’ll not need to see this.”

The man nodded and gestured for Margaret and Nell to follow him. Nell took a step, but Margaret stayed where she was, unable to stop staring at the Viking before her, and Nell stopped. The Norseman glared back at Margaret, then let his gaze fall to her breasts. He licked his lips.

Rignor lunged forward. “Ye murdering swine!” He kicked the Norseman’s broken leg.

The man moaned, glared up at Rignor, then spit at him, saying something low and guttural. Rignor leapt forward, drawing his sword. Tiernan grabbed Rignor’s arm, but Rignor twisted away. Gannon shouted, pushing Margaret back as he started forward. With a savage roar, Rignor thrust his sword through the man’s neck. Sickened, Margaret stepped quickly back. Gannon struck Rignor across the chest, knocking him to the ground, but it was too late. Rignor’s sword, still in the man’s throat, bounced in the air. With a shivering groan, the Viking slumped over it. Tiernan pulled his head up, staring into the man’s eyes before releasing him.

“He’s dead,” he told Gannon, and wiped his hand on his thigh.

Gannon yanked Rignor to his feet and shook him. “Ye stupid fool!”

“He deserved it!”

“He could have told us something!”

Rignor tore himself from Gannon’s grasp. “What? That he’s a Norseman? That he was here? That he’s a filthy murderer?”

Gannon loomed over him, and Margaret thought for a moment that he would strike Rignor again. But he didn’t, stepping back instead, his hands clenched at his sides. “He could have told us where he is from, where else they are going, why they’re raiding again, and who’s leading them! Is this one man’s work, or is all of Norway about to descend on us? Ye stupid fool, ye just killed the one man who could ha’ told us if these are isolated raids or the beginning of a war! Can ye not, for one bloody moment, hold yer temper long enough to think?” Gannon swore, then swore again. He glared at Rignor, made a disgusted sound, and whirled away, gesturing to the dead man. “Take the torque. I’ll be damned if he’ll rot in Haraldsholm gold.”

“Aye, sir. Shall we bury him here, sir?”

Gannon gestured to the dead Somerstrath men on the beach. “The Norsemen dinna bury them. Leave him for the birds to eat. Get the lasses back to the keep at once. And take their brother with them.” He spun on his heel and walked across the beach to his ship.

Some of O’Neill’s men guarded the perimeter of the village, others guarded the keep. They nodded but did not speak as Gannon’s men led Margaret, Nell, and Rignor into the courtyard. O’Neill had been busy in their absence. The courtyard had been cleared of her father’s men; there were neatly wrapped rows of the dead in the ground-floor room. The stairs had been cleared as well, and the hall, where they found O’Neill, overseeing his men scrubbing stains off the wooden floor.

He frowned fiercely when told of Rignor killing the Norseman, glaring at Rignor for a moment, before turning to Margaret, his expression still severe. “I take it ye dinna find yer brother.”

“No.”

“We’ll spend the night, lass. Tomorrow we’ll bury yer family; but then we’ll have to go. We’ve got to spread the alarm.”

“Aye,” she said, too weary to argue. The Irish were welcome to leave any time they wished. She knew O’Neill would try to get them to leave as well, which they would not, but that discussion could wait.

“My men brought yer family down. They’re ready for burial in the morning.”

She nodded.

“We found some food left in the kitchens, and I’ve got my men preparing it. Sit yerself down, lass, and take wee Nell with ye. Ye look done in.”

She did not reply, but sank to a bench, leaning her head against the wall. What did it matter what she looked like? She watched the sunlight slowly fade from the walls, heard the low murmurs of the men and the sound of bristles on wood as O’Neill’s men worked. Her mother would be pleased; she liked the hall kept neat. Margaret closed her eyes. She would not cry. She would not think.

Their meal was sparse, but adequate. The Irish had ale and whisky, gifts to them from her uncle that they had been bringing home. Surprisingly, the attackers had not emptied all the food barrels; there was dried fish and venison left. Apples, tasting of their long months in the dark. Oatcakes and bread, prepared in the dawn hours by Somerstrath people, baked in the afternoon by the Irishmen. Margaret had not gone to the kitchens—O’Neill told her it was wiser. There would be enough for a morning meal, but after that Somerstrath’s larder would be bare. There were not enough platters to go around; all the silver had been taken, even some of the simple wooden platters were missing. She’d almost cried at that, as though it mattered, with all else the Norsemen had taken from her.

Margaret sat between Rignor and Nell and picked at her food while Rignor argued with almost everything that was said, a sure sign he had had too much to drink. She blamed her brother neither for seeking oblivion nor for his anger, though her own had faded, leaving her so weary that she could hardly keep from resting her head on the table. O’Neill sat at the end of the table, Gannon and Tiernan across from her. None of them had said much. O’Neill watched Rignor with open distaste. Tiernan kept his head down.

Gannon had watched her all through the meal, but she’d tried not to look at him, tried not to see the light glint off his hair, the line of his cheek when he turned, the strong bones of his face. And not the contempt in his eyes when he looked at Rignor. She thought of his barely repressed rage on the beach, of his earlier anger. He was a stranger, vouched for by Rory O’Neill, but still an unknown, and obviously a man of strong emotion. One of his men had brought him the torque the Norseman had worn, and Gannon held it now, turning the golden collar in his hands, stroking a thumb along its fanciful carvings of birds.

“Is it from Antrim?” Nell asked.

Tiernan looked up and into his brother’s eyes.

Gannon nodded. “Aye, from Haraldsholm, my uncle’s fortress there.”

“Did ye ken the man whose it was?”

Gannon’s gaze was glacial. “Aye.”

“He called ye Magnusson,” Margaret said to him. “Yer man, when he came to tell ye of the Viking they’d found. He called ye Magnusson.”

“Aye. What of it?”

She looked at O’Neill. “Ye said his name was MacMagnus. Son of Magnus.”

“Which is,” Gannon said harshly, drawing her attention back to him, “the same as Magnusson. When I am with the Irish I’m called MacMagnus.”

“And when ye’re with the Norse, Magnusson?” Margaret asked.

“Aye,” he said.

“Which means yer men are Norse.”

“Some of them.”

“How are we to trust them then?”

“Because I tell ye to.”

There was a long moment in which Margaret and Gannon stared at each other. His gaze was implacable and defiant. If she’d had a weapon, she would have struck him. And maybe he was feeling the same, for he stared at her with an intensity that was unnerving.

He spoke slowly. Coldly. “There is not a man among them who is not trustworthy. They are good men.”

She looked away, reminding herself that he’d been kind, that they’d helped look for Davey. And that she’d spoken far too harshly, that killing every blond man on Earth would not bring her family back. Her anger left her as quickly as it had come, and when she looked at Gannon again he was not the symbol of everything evil in the world, but just one man—who had done nothing to merit her contempt.

“I’m sure they are,” she said.

Gannon raised an eyebrow but did not answer.

“Tomorrow,” O’Neill said, his tone brooking no argument, “we’ll leave as soon as the burials are completed. We’ll take ye to yer uncle’s.”

Rignor slammed the cup down and glared at O’Neill. “I will say when we leave, or even if we leave! I am Somerstrath now! Tell them, Margaret!”

She blinked in surprise. “I guess ye are, Rignor; I’d not thought of that.”

“How could ye not? I thought of it as soon as I saw Father.”

Gannon’s tone was dry. “That was yer first thought, when ye found yer father dead, that ye’d inherited his title?”

Rignor reddened. “Eventually I thought of it. Eventually. And as Somerstrath, it’s I who will say if we leave, and I say we dinna leave. We dinna need yer help anymore. We’ll rebuild without ye. Ye can be on yer way in the morning. Or now. There’s naught for ye here; Norsemen took it all.”

Tiernan and Gannon exchanged a glance.

O’Neill sighed tiredly. “Ye’re right that there’s nothing here,” he said. “No men to work the fields, no fishermen to bring food home to ye, no defenses. Ye’ll be vulnerable to the human ravens who will descend on ye and take the very land. Ye’ll need a lot of men and assistance to rebuild.”

Ravens, thought Margaret.

Rignor waved a hand at the door. “I dinna need help from ye. My uncle William will help. Lachlan will help. Ye can go now.” He struggled to his feet. “No one tells Somerstrath what to do.” He staggered out of the hall while they all watched.

Margaret sighed, her weariness returning tenfold. “I am sorry that Rignor has insulted ye. We’ve had much to deal with this day. He’s obviously not himself. I’m hoping he’ll remember none of this in the morning. I ask ye to do the same.”

“Tomorrow,” O’Neill said, “we’ll do the burials, then we leave.”

“I thank ye for yer help, sir. Please give my uncle the news.”

“Ye can do it yerself. Ye’ll be coming with us, lass.”

“My lord, we canna leave until we find Davey.”

“Margaret,” O’Neill said, “listen to me. Yer brother’s gone.”

“He could still be hiding. He could have gone for help. And he’s not the only one missing. There are at least a score or so. Women and children. They must have escaped.”

“It’s possible.” O’Neill’s tone belied his words. “It’s more likely that they’ve been taken.”

“Taken?” She heard the horror in her voice, heard Nell’s gasp. “For ransom?”

“It’s one possibility.”

“Are there others?”

O’Neill answered reluctantly. “The raiders might be taking slaves, like in the old days.”

“Who would buy slaves in Scotland?”

“It wouldna have to be in Scotland.”

She sat back against the wall. “But why? Why?”

“Money. Power. Revenge,” O’Neill said. “Someone wanted to annihilate Somerstrath, Margaret. This was not a siege, nor an invasion; they did not come to take yer father’s land, but to destroy it. Ye need to tell us everything ye can think of that might lead us to who did this. Everything, even things that mightna seem significant. Did yer father have a falling out with anyone?”

She shook her head. “Not that I ken. It’s possible, of course, but I’m sure he would ha’ talked of it, if not to me, then at least to the other men. Rignor would have kent, and he would have told me. My father wouldna have let us go to the court if he were worried about an attack, or he would have sent word with us to Uncle William or the king.”

“There was the head on the beach,” Nell said. “We found a head.”

“What head?” O’Neill asked sharply.

Margaret explained what they’d found. “My father heard of no unrest elsewhere…”

“If we’d been able to question the Norseman we found today,” Gannon said, gesturing to the torque, “we’d have learned much more.”

Margaret rose to her feet before she could scream at him. Nell rose as well. Margaret kept her tone quiet. “Forgive me, gentlemen. I’m too weary to talk more on it now. I thank ye all; we’re grateful for yer help. I’m sure Rignor will tell ye the same tomorrow.”

The men stood, but she looked at none of them.

“We’ll talk in the morning,” O’Neill said. “Get some rest.”

She nodded to him in reply and left with Nell, knowing they watched her. They were barely through the door when she heard O’Neill’s words.

“Now that Somerstrath is gone the western coast will be vulnerable,” he said. “Which means that we need to get to Ross as soon as we can.”

“Surely Ross kens how weak Rignor is,” Gannon answered. “Rignor canna hold this place. Even if he had men to lead, he wouldna ken how to do it.”

“Aye,” O’Neill said. “Ross might replace him with someone stronger.”

“Rignor’s his nephew,” Tiernan said. “Perhaps he doesna see it.”

“Then I’ll explain it to him,” O’Neill said. “It will take a strong leader to rebuild Somerstrath and keep this stretch of coast secure, decades to bring this clan back to where it was. Rignor has neither the coin or wits to do it correctly.”

“And the lasses,” Gannon asked. “What of them?”

“Margaret’s betrothed to a cousin of the king, Lachlan Ross; the marriage was but a fortnight away. Perhaps he could hold Somerstrath in Rignor’s stead.”

Margaret, fighting the urge to return to the hall and argue with them, gestured for Nell to follow her up the stairs, her anger growing with every step. Who were these men to discuss Somerstrath’s fate, to discuss her betrothal, to talk about Rignor like that? He was not the weak man they thought him. He had the blood of Scotland’s most eminent families in his veins. Tomorrow Rignor would apologize. She’d see to it. Surely Uncle William would help them rebuild; surely he would not replace Rignor. Her brother just needed time, then he would grow into the man Somerstrath needed to lead them.