Chapter 21
Chapter
Twenty-One
Auld Fergus stood guard at the crannóg door whilst the men all circled the pit, warming their frozen fingers.
The dancing flames cast a capricious light over each of the surrounding faces.
In the shadows, near the long table, Lìli quietly rocked her newborn babe, listening with trepidation to their discourse.
Along with the elder Lachlann, Aidan, Lìli, Sorcha, Cameron, Keane and Lael had all closeted themselves to discuss what was to come.
Sorcha and Lael stood arm in arm, grateful to see one another after so many years, but their attention remained riveted on their brothers.
For more than two hundred years the dún Scoti had not called attention to their vale—for a good cause—and now, the king and his men were on the way.
“How many ride with him?”
“Five hundred, now.” It was Cameron MacKinnon who provided that information. “He intends to meet another two once we leave the vale, and the rest will join us in Northumbria.”
Keane more than anyone understood the coming confrontation in Northumbria was not Aidan’s primary concern. “Five hundred of the king’s men will convene here?” his brother asked, his tone clearly displeased. His gaze narrowed on Keane, clearly holding him responsible.
“I encouraged him to forgo the journey,” Keane said. “He insisted. What would you have had me do?”
The two brothers locked gazes, Aidan furious and Keane unflinching. He well knew his brother’s fears, but after all was said and done, what difference would it make now?
“We all ken David mac Mhaoil Chaluim isna come to pay respects,” Aidan suggested.
“So, tell me, what does he want?” He was angrier now than Keane had ever heard him be—more so than he was on the day Lael rode out from the vale.
The fact that his voice was calm did not conceal his fury.
It was there in the glint of his steely eyes.
The only man Keane had ever knelt before was his own brother, but not today. Unaccustomed to Keane’s diffidence toward anyone, and sensing a row, Cameron moved to diffuse it. “I believe he means to ask you to join the campaign. If we are to succeed in Northumbria, we need all the men we can get.”
Aidan’s pupils dilated as they met the MacKinnon’s cousin, until his green eyes were overshadowed by the black. “We?” he asked carefully.
“Aye,” Cameron said.
His brother’s temper was barely contained. “Northumbria is not my concern, it is not my war,” he snapped.
For all the talk he’d heard from outsiders—that Aidan coddled their women too much—Keane had never met a man yet who wasn’t ready to piss himself when faced with his brother’s wrath, including King David himself.
But for the first time in all the years they’d known each other, Cameron MacKinnon stood his ground, straightening his spine, facing Aidan squarely.
“Neither is it the MacKinnon’s fight, and yet I am told he will join. ”
Aidan took a step toward Cameron. “Regardless, you have no business in my council, Cameron MacKinnon.”
“Aidan,” Lael interjected, moving between them, and splaying a hand upon Aidan’s chest to shove him back. “Come now,” she said. “He is our guest and we have lost too much already. Let us not fight,” she pleaded.
It took Aidan a long moment to compose himself, but when he looked again at Cameron, there was new respect in his gaze. “Chreagach Mhor lies in ruins,” he informed him, somewhat more calmly. “It will take months to rebuild what they have lost.”
“Even so, Aldridge Castle lies vulnerable now that FitzSimon is dead, and I dinna believe my cousin will allow his wife’s patrimony to be so easily remanded. He will come.”
“Aye, well, whatever Iain MacKinnon does is Iain MacKinnon’s concern. I will not lend good men to defend a crown we have not supported in more than two hundred years.”
“And we are in mourning,” Lìli interjected from her seat by the table, her tone fraught with worry. She rocked her babe, eying Keane pleadingly, as though he were the one now at fault. But there was more, and there was no sense in putting off what must be said.
“I mean to join him,” Keane announced.
Every pair of eyes snapped to meet Keane’s.
He felt them more acutely than he did the heat of the fire pit.
Brother stood glaring at brother, green eyes clashing over the dancing flames.
Only Lael had ever defied Aidan so, ten years past, and she alone could comprehend what Keane felt as he stared Aidan down, more than prepared to stand his ground.
He had given his word to David, and despite that he was a dún Scoti long before he was a king’s man, he had long suspected that auld slab of stone hidden in the belly of their ben would prove a curse to his kin—as much as it was a curse to men.
It was a slaughter waiting to happen—a fly in the web.
If Keane had had his druthers years ago, they would have buried that rock so deep beneath the mountain that no man would ever lay eyes upon it again.
That the gods themselves had seen fit to do so was a blessing in disguise.
The silence endured.
“And… I have taken a wife.”
Silence.
Uncomfortable with the growing tension, Cameron MacKinnon crossed his arms, peering down at the floor, and his sisters and Lìli all remained quiet as well.
Aidan allowed him to continue without interrupting—or mayhap he was simply too angry to speak. “In return I swore David my fealty,” Keane said.
The separation between them had never been more palpable.
Keane measured his words carefully. “I have not come to fight, Aidan.”
The muscles in Aidan’s jaw twitched as he, too, crossed his arms as though to temper his reaction to the news.
“What did you come for?”
“Una. She was my kinswoman, too.”
And again there was silence, along with a tension so heavy one could slice it with a blade. His brother eyed Sorcha meaningfully, nodding subtly toward Cameron.
She caught his meaning at once and took Cameron by the arm, pulling him away from the pit.
“Come,” she said sweetly, “I have news to share…” And she drew him out of the room, speaking in gentler tones once they were out in the hall.
Keane heard them exchanging words as they walked away, but Aidan had yet to utter a sound.
“I would know what happened to Una,” Keane demanded, sending a pleading look toward Lìli. “I did not ride all this way to argue about David.”
Tears filled Lìli’s eyes. “It was Constance who found her,” she said, but quickly looked away, unable to continue.
“Constance?”
“Cameron’s sister.”
Keane lifted both brows, surprised to find that she was in Dubhtolargg. His brother must have brought her back from Chreagach Mhor. Why was a matter to be discussed another time, for Aidan sounded defeated when he spoke again. But his tone lacked the anger it bore but moments before.
“The girl has seen more than she should have.”
Keane waited with bated breath. Not even his brother would be so cruel as to kill a woman for the sake of that sacred stone.
But for the first time since his arrival, Keane felt a moment of dread, for he realized that he had yet to spy Cameron’s sister’s face, and then he realized Sorcha had pulled him away to tell him news. “Aidan? What did Constance see?”
No one dared speak.
A muscle ticked at Keane’s jaw. “If aught has befallen the lass, Cameron has a right to know.”
For a long, long moment, the crackle and pop of old wood was the only sound to breach the thickening silence.
His brother seemed momentarily unable to speak.
Suddenly, a trembling hand went to his face as though to conceal his grief.
Three days’ worth of whiskers darkened Aidan’s jaw, and suddenly Keane understood what Una’s death had cost him.
“She is with Kellen now,” Lìli explained, and it was she who rose to the occasion, explaining what happened.
As best as anyone could say, Constance came across Una in the Stone’s chamber, down below her grotto.
There, she saw the Stone of Destiny and read aloud the words on the ancient plaque.
According to Constance, Una struck at her like a viper.
There was an explosion of light, followed by a terrible thunder and she had no inkling how she came to find herself standing outside the caverns.
But there they found her, trembling in the cold…
and blinded. Una remained below. Now everything was gone.
The upper chamber where they’d happened to store their wares, Una’s grotto, as well as the Stone’s cavern were all now mounted with layer upon layer of debris.
It was as though the mountain collapsed upon itself.
No one could survive such a catastrophe.
Keane heard his brother’s breath catch, and he was yet unable to speak. “Ye dinna retrieve the body?”
Aidan shook his head, looking wearier than Keane had ever seen him.
“It was not possible,” Lìli said.
The funeral bier was merely for show. It held but an effigy made of straw.
Luckily, Fergus had ridden ahead to alert Aidan to the incoming horde.
They did not want the king to ask where Una was interred.
It was better that they did not know precisely what had occurred.
And so Aidan instructed Kellen to keep Constance preoccupied in their bower while the king remained in the vale.
If at all possible, Cameron must not be told about the stone.
The fewer people who knew, the better, even despite that the Stone from Scone was gone.
Neither man nor beast could disinter it, but no one would have liked to see them try.
Somehow, with Una gone, it seemed to be the will of the gods that the stone be forever lost.
“What is this I hear; you’ve taken a wife?” Aidan asked gruffly.
“A daughter of óengus.”
“The Mormaer?” Aidan leveled a disbelieving look at Keane.