Chapter Nine #9
Kade’s low chuckle was not one of humor but of utter malice. He pulled a second sword free of its sheath with his left hand. In answer, Aleck and Hugh raised their own swords.
“I will not be stepping aside, laird,” Kade replied. “You will have to kill me to get past me, and I daresay I’ll take at least you and several of your men with me. And who will lead your struggling army then?”
“Alternative arrangements have been discussed,” Aleck commented, to which my father momentarily gave him a questioning glance. Aleck took no notice. “You are not the only officer who is fit to lead this army into the future, Mackenzie.”
“Nay,” agreed Kade. “Credentials, skill and discipline aside, I am, however, the only officer who links your clan definitively with the Mackenzie army, an alliance you sorely need. Think on it, Laird Morrison. If you kill me, you will very decisively break your alliance with not only the Mackenzie clan, but also those of the Munro and Stuart clans. Can you afford to be so cavalier about my death? Over a dusty turret that has been unused for eighteen years? ’Tis in the best interests of everyone if you leave me and my wife to our private chambers, and allow me to do as I’ve promised—assist in the revival of your army and your keep. ”
The murky hatred in Aleck’s eyes as he watched my husband unnerved me.
I knew him well enough to see that there was jaunty yet sinister confidence to him that had once been lacking, and something about this realization didn’t sit well.
I was afraid of the thoughts going on behind his black, shining eyes.
“Perhaps we can explore other alliances,” Aleck said darkly.
And there it was. Or was it? An admission?
Was Aleck the traitor, plotting with Campbell to reignite the rebellion from here within our own walls?
Had his ambition driven him to treachery of this magnitude?
Aye, I believed him capable of it. I wanted to point this possibility out to Kade, but I knew I had no need to do so: my husband’s weapons rose higher, his stance becoming more hostile.
He looked as though he might strike at any moment.
My father, however, appeared not to notice either way.
He was clearly exhausted by this entire confrontation, too absorbed in his own accumulating ailments to argue further.
Perhaps he realized Kade was right. It was also abundantly clear that Kade was not bluffing; if my father followed through on his threat, he and at least several men would very likely be killed, a possibility that seemed to undermine my father’s anger.
He coughed several times and when he wiped his mouth, bloodstains tinted the back of his hand.
“So be it. Do not expect me to bend so easily to all your requests, Mackenzie.” He turned and addressed Aleck and Hugh.
“Men, escort me to the barracks so I may take a drink.”
With that, and a final combative glare from Aleck, the men took their leave.
* * *
WEAK WITH RELIEF, I watched my husband. He sheathed his swords into their scabbards and turned to face me. He reached to finger a golden end strand of my hair. “See?” Kade said. “I swore to you the protection of my body and my sword. ’Tis my duty and my honor. You have nothing to fear now.”
Still stunned not only by the reverberating effects of our near conflict but also by the weight of my gratitude, I looked up at Kade’s face.
The glaze of aggression clung to him, but under it, from the very heart of his emotion, I could read there his sincerity.
“Thank you, husband,” I said, entwining his fingers with my own.
Just then, my stomach made a little growling sound. Kade grinned lightly. “When’s the last time you ate something, wife?”
“This morning. Some stale bread.”
“Let’s go down to the kitchens and find some supper. While we’re at it, we can have a chat with the kitchen staff.”
Still holding his hand, I followed him down the corridor to the staircase, along the back entrance and into the kitchen, where the staff were seated in a very similar position to the one I’d found them in earlier this morning.
Kade paused for a brief moment, taking in their position, their obvious leisure, the state of the kitchens.
The sight of them did nothing to cool the lingering volatility my father and his men had introduced.
I remembered, too, that my husband had other reasons perhaps to feel... unfulfilled.
“Ladies,” Kade said, approaching them and pulling up a tall stool to half sit on it. Despite the layered turmoil behind his expression, his manner was calm and engaging.
With his long hair dark and windblown yet somehow still glossy, his muscled bulk still stained by the blood of animals he’d killed, and his eyes like a pair of gleaming stolen coins, the women stared at him with a mixture of curiosity and awe.
“You know,” Kade began, “I asked my wife to give a few simple instructions this morning, just before I went out to the barracks to see if I could find a handful of men to accompany me on a day’s hunting trip.
If you can believe it, that’s all I was able to find, a handful.
Five men out of hundreds volunteered. Five men.
Have you any idea what the rest of the men were so busily engaged with?
” he asked them, pausing, awaiting their reaction.
They stared at him guardedly. “Nay?” he prodded. “No idea whatsoever?”
Isla obliged with a slow, wide-eyed shake of her head.
“Well,” Kade said, “let me tell you what they were doing. They were sleeping, well past sunrise, despite the fact that they’re living in relative squalor, the state of their weapons is disgraceful and there are scarcely enough swords to go around.
If we were to get invaded this very day—which is not beyond the realm of possibility—we’d be done for.
And if my information on the momentum of at least one of several Highlands rebellions currently brewing is correct—and I have every reason to believe it is—we’d have some serious trouble on our hands.
“So this is the situation I find myself in, if you can imagine,” Kade continued, with overexaggerated pleasantness.
“Attempting, unsuccessfully, to deploy several hunting parties. But the men are tired, they say. They were up late into the night with their revelries. And their swords are not sharpened, I’m told.
In fact, it appears to me—and I consider myself somewhat of an expert in this area—not a single sword’s been sharpened for possibly weeks, maybe even months. ”
He speared Isla with a glare of conspiratorial outrage, as though not satisfied by her level of disgust at his pronouncement.
“Months,” he repeated. “’Tis inexcusable, to be sure.
A soldier’s pride is his sword, you see.
His honor depends on it. His very life depends on it.
” He paused again, as though allowing his words to adequately sink in.
He focused on one of the women, a cook whose name I knew to be Jinty.
Her rounded cheeks had gone pink with the attention.
“Tell me, then,” he said. “When an army of ill-equipped, underskilled warriors such as these is challenged on the battlefield, what do you think the chances of actually winning that battle might be?”
Kade waited for their input, and when none came, he repeated his question. “Come on, give me an answer. What do you think? Do you think they would win?”
A smaller, more timid member of the kitchen staff replied with an earnest “Nay?”
He gave her an intense, congratulatory look.
“You’re exactly right, lass. They—we—would not win.
There’s not a chance in hell that those men out there would last five minutes on a battlefield against the likes of Campbell and his ruffians—ruffians, by the way, who are growing increasingly lethal, because they’re highly dedicated to their cause, as unwarranted as that cause may be.
And do you know what would happen to likes of such dedicated staff as yourselves if we were, say, to be overrun by Campbell’s very big, brutal men, with their lust for revenge and their lack of honor?
Have you any idea?” When no reply came from the women, Kade said, more softly, “Aye, it doesn’t bear thinking about.
’Tis too disturbing, to be sure, to contemplate. ”
It was clear that my husband had a long list of frustrations to deal with, and that the accumulation was getting to him.
I had never heard him speak so much, or with such careless abandon.
It was true, however, that he had the undivided attention of all in attendance.
And he seemed to be coming around to his point.
“So,” he continued, “what I couldn’t understand is why all these men were sleeping late on this fine morning when there’s clearly plenty of work to be done.
And when I explained to them—and why I should have to, I’ve no idea, they’re grown men, after all—do you know what their response to this was? ”
The women, riveted, gave him multiple encouraging shakes of their head in unison and made small, chorusing noises of empathy, wanting now to know where he was going with all this.
“Well, I’m afraid I can’t repeat their words in front of respectable ladies such as yourselves, but I can assure you that they weren’t jumping up to agree with me.
As you can imagine, since their refusal to comply with my requests makes our collective situation even more dire with each passing day, I was less than pleased by their response.
I can also tell you that it put me in a bit of a mood—as I’m sure you’ll understand. ”