Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
The heather tore at her legs, and the ground was uneven under her bare feet as she ran.
Behind her, she heard him crashing after her, loud and heavy, but she did not slow or look back.
She veered east where the ground dropped, and the heather grew thick.
She trusted the dark, the cold, and her lighter weight.
Isobel kept running until the sound of him behind her grew ragged, then distant, and finally stopped altogether.
She slowed. She stopped. She stood in the dark and listened.
Wind. Her own breath. Nothing else.
He is coming, she thought. Alasdair will find me.
She moved north, toward the dark line of pines she had seen from her window every morning for the last few weeks. Then, she slipped between the trunks and pressed her back against the nearest tree and breathed.
“Isobel.” Malcolm’s voice reached her ears. Not close but not far enough away either
She slid down the trunk until she was sitting at its base, knees pulled up and arms wrapped tightly around them. Her feet had gone numb below the ankles. She rubbed them against the cold ground and took a breath.
Alasdair will find me. He will save me from Malcolm’s wrath.
She said it to herself like a truth she had earned. Not a hope. A fact built on evidence. He had come through a library door at a dead run. He had come through smoke and flame. He had held her in a cold corridor with his hands shaking.
She was certain he was in these glens right now, and he was not going to stop hurrying toward her hiding spot.
“Isobel.” Malcolm’s voice from somewhere south, further than before.
She did not answer.
Let him look. Let him look in every wrong place. He knows these trees, but he does not know where I am. All I have to do is stay still.
She pressed her back harder against the trunk of the pine tree and listened to Malcolm moving through the heather, slower now, the direction uncertain.
Alasdair will find him first.
She was certain of that, too. He had the passage, the footprints, and the broken lantern. He would come from the castle side, and Malcolm was south of the trees between them. When Alasdair found him, he would have to stop searching for her.
Hold on, she told herself. Hold on and stay still. Let Alasdair come.
* * *
He found Malcolm a quarter mile south of the tree line, standing still in the open heather with one hand pressed to his cheekbone and the broken lantern at his feet.
“Where is she?” Alasdair said.
Malcolm turned. When he saw Alasdair, his face shifted into a guarded, composed expression. Alasdair had seen that face for thirty years and recognized every version of it.
“Thank God ye found me.” Malcolm took a step towards him. “She ran. I came to bring her somewhere safe after the fire, and she panicked. The Lady struck me, and she ran before I could explain. She is out here somewhere in the dark, and if we daenae find her…”
“Malcolm.”
“She is barefoot and barely dressed, and the cold is…”
“Malcolm.” Alasdair’s voice came out quiet and final. “Stop.”
Malcolm closed his mouth immediately.
Alasdair examined the cracked lantern. He looked at the blood on Malcolm’s cheekbone.
He thought about the girl who had outrun him through hills like these when he was twelve, skirts hitched and laughing. Even then, young Isobel had been completely unafraid of the two boys chasing her.
Alasdair crossed the space in three strides and had Malcolm by the collar before the man could speak.
“Where is she?”
“I… she is…”
“Where?” His voice was not loud.
Malcolm’s face had gone the color of old ash. “North,” he said. “The tree line.”
“Is she hurt?”
“Nay, I never intended…”
“Ye dragged me woman through a passage in the dark,” Alasdair said. “And ye planned every detail of it. Daenae call it a misunderstandin’.”
He released him.
“If there is one hair on her head out of place,” he said. “I will have yer head. Do ye understand me?”
It was not a real question.
Malcolm watched him for a long moment. Then the careful face broke apart all at once, revealing what lay beneath it—not grief or remorse, but something harsher and older. It was thirty years of a man who had made up his mind.
“Ye daenae understand,” Malcolm said. “Ye have never understood what it is to have nothin’.
To sit at a table that should have been yers and watch another man sit at the head of it year after year, takin’ it for granted, never once askin’ how he came to have it, never once lookin’ at the cost of it to other people—”
“I understand plenty,” Alasdair said.
“Ye understand nothin’.” Malcolm’s voice rose.
“Yer father was a hero. Mine was a traitor. Yer family got to rebuild and be honored, and mine got nothin’.
I got nothin’. And I came to yer house, I served ye, I made meself useful, and I waited.
I watched, and every year it became more impossible and more necessary, and ye never even noticed because ye never had to notice anythin’.
Ye were the Laird; everythin’ just came to ye… ”
“Me faither died at Culloden when I was seventeen years old,” Alasdair retorted. “I buried him and took his ring. I had one day to grieve him, and then I had a clan to run. Daenae tell me what came to me and what didnae.”
“Ye had his name,” Malcolm said tersely. “Ye had his honor and his people’s loyalty and a seat that nobody questioned. I had a name that was a curse and a chair that was a charity, and I had to earn every breath I took in that castle. Yet ye never once asked why.”
“I am nae askin’,” Alasdair said. “Tell me all of it. The fire, the Lairdship, Hamish… all of it.”
Malcolm laughed. It was not a good sound.
“Hamish.” He shook his head. “I wondered when that would come out.” He looked at Alasdair, his eyes bright, his jaw set, and the patience entirely gone from him.
“Yer faither took me in out of pity. He took Hamish in out of ignorance. And between the two of us, it was always Hamish that got yer faither’s real warmth, wasnae it?
Because Hamish was easy and funny and didnae ask questions.
was yer faither’s charity case. He merely tolerated me presence and everyone could see it. ”
“Ye were nae his charity case.”
“I was!” Malcolm took a step forward, and his voice rose again.
“And yer father never kent, did he? What my father had done to get Hamish to his door. He never kent that the Lairdship he absorbed was Hamish’s by blood.
He took it all in ignorance and called himself merciful, and I had to watch that too.
” He was close now, and his voice was loud.
Malcolm’s hands were at his sides, and his eyes were wild in the starlight.
“I had to watch ye inherit it, and I had to smile. It was my privilege to advise ye, and I had to be useful to ye. But all the while I kent that if anyone ever looked at the records properly the whole thing would unravel, and I would still be left with nothin’. ”
“Tell me about Hamish,” Alasdair insisted.
“I have nothing more to say,” Malcolm sneered.
“Ye will speak,” Alasdair commanded. “Ye will explain yerself fully.” “Why should I? So ye can give Hamish what ought to be mine? So Hamish can walk away with a Lairdship, and I could go back to nothin’ with a different excuse for it?
” His voice rose again. “I owe Hamish nothin’.
His parents are dead, but the land is still there. I am the one who needs it and I—”
“Ye decided Hamish’s birthright was available because claimin’ it was convenient with the truth concealed,” Alasdair said.
“And ye decided Isobel was an obstacle.” He looked at Malcolm feeling a sick sense of loathing roil through his gut.
“And ye have been decidin’ all of this, quietly, for years, while sittin’ at me table and callin’ yerself me clansman. ”
“I was never yer man,” Malcolm said sharply and suddenly. “I sat in yer house because I had nowhere else to go. And I served ye because it was the only move available to me. I smiled at yer grandmother and doted on yer sister, but I was never, nae for one day, loyal to ye.”
“I ken that now,” Alasdair said quietly.
“Do ye? Because ye didnae ken it yesterday. Ye didnae ken it last week or last year or any of the ten years before that. Ye sat at that table and called me loyal, and ye never once looked closely enough to see what was underneath.” Malcolm’s voice was loud now, and his hands were up at his sides.
“Yer father was the same. So certain of his own goodness. So certain that takin’ me in made him merciful.
He never asked what me faither had done or why I came to him.
He just took me in and called himself a good man and never looked at the whole of anythin’. ”
“Me faither was a good man,” Alasdair said defensively.
“Yer faither was a man who never looked hard enough at what it cost other people to make him feel good about himself.” Malcolm stepped forward. “Same as ye.”
Alasdair did not move.
“Come on then,” Malcolm said, voice rising higher. “Come on. Say it. Say ye’ve been a good Laird. Say ye’ve been fair. Pretend that ye’ve given everyone what they were owed…”
“I never claimed to be without fault,” Alasdair interrupted. “But ye daenae get to burn me home and put yer hands on me Lady and call it an accountin’.”
“Then what do ye call it?” Malcolm was shouting now, fully shouting. The thirty years of careful management were gone entirely. “What do ye call what was done to me family? What do ye call what yer faither did to mine? Where is the accountin’ for that? Who answers for that?”
“Me faither answered for what he did,” Alasdair said. “By law. Rightly. And yer father answered for what he did, too. And now ye will answer for what ye did. By me.” He looked at Malcolm steadily. “That is the reckonin’.”
Malcolm panted heavily. His hands trembled. He looked at Alasdair with his eyes bright and his jaw clenched. Then some of the wildness left him, leaving behind what Alasdair recognized in men who had finally reached the end of something they had been chasing for a very long time.
“And so ye decided to take it,” Alasdair said.
“I had a right to take it.”
“Ye had nay right to any of it,” Alasdair said. “And somewhere underneath everythin’ ye have always ken that. And I think that is why ye are so tired.”
Malcolm stood very still. He breathed, once, and something in him settled in the way a man settles who has finally put something heavy down, even if the putting down is not on his own terms.
“Aye,” Malcolm said quietly. “I’m tired.”
Alasdair looked at him for a moment and said nothing more.
He put his hand on his sword.
Malcolm moved first. He came fast, faster than Alasdair had expected for a man who had been standing still.
He drove his shoulder into Alasdair’s chest before the sword was fully drawn.
They went sideways into the heather together.
Malcolm’s hands went to Alasdair’s throat, but Alasdair got his forearm up and broke the grip.
He drove his knee up and rolled to the side.
He hopped to his feet and drew his dirk.
Malcolm was already on his feet. He had his own dirk out, held low, the way he held it in sparring. His breathing was heavy, his eyes bright, and there was nothing left of the council adviser or the careful, measured friend on his face.
“Ye daenae have to do this,” Alasdair said.
“Aye, I do. We both know that ye will not let me leave this field without a fight.” Malcolm came again, fast and low, and Alasdair stepped aside.
He caught Malcolm’s wrist and twisted. The dirk came loose and fell into the heather.
Malcolm swung his free hand and caught Alasdair across the jaw. The two men went down.
The two individuals grappled in the darkness, with the damp heather beneath them. Malcolm demonstrated considerable strength and urgency, leveraging his familiarity with Alasdair's movements accrued over thirty years of observation. For a brief period, the outcome remained uncertain.
Then it was not.
Alasdair got his forearm across Malcolm’s chest and pinned him. Just as he had done in so many previous battles, Alasdair brought the sword to his opponent’s throat, and Malcolm went still.
They were both breathing hard. The stars winked overhead.
“Daenae,” Malcolm said. The fight had gone out of him entirely, all at once, like a fire dying. “Daenae.”
“Ye ken I have to.”
Malcolm lay still and looked up at Alasdair’s face. He said nothing for a moment. Then he whispered, “Aye. I ken it.”
It was clean. That was the only thing Alasdair could give his foe, and so he ended Malcolm’s life with one quick, clean stroke.
He got up. He stood in the heather and breathed. Alasdair tipped his head back and looked at the stars.
So many years. So many resentments. Too many secrets and lies.
He would make time to feel it later.
For now, Alasdair had to find Isobel.
When Malcolm had said Isobel was in a different direction, Alasdair had heard Hamish’s footsteps falter behind him. He knew then that his friend would track Isobel. He would do what he could to find her and that was why he had not hurried the matter with Malcolm.
But now, there was nothing to stop Alasdair from sprinting through the darkness and barreling toward his lady.
“Isobel!” he called her name as he ran, not loud, just enough to carry into the dark.
No answer.
He ran on.
The tree line was ahead of him, and he went in through the first gap in the trunks. The Scots Pines closed around him, cold and still.
Nothing.