CHAPTER 41 #2
Alex and Duncan both made choking noises. Hugh glared in their direction, but they were safe from discovery here in the shadows.
“It is time now for all of us to set aside our sorrow, hard as it may be,” Hugh said, “and to swear fealty to your new chieftain.”
“Does he think he can avoid taking a vote altogether?” she whispered to Ian.
“Aye, but the men don’t like it.”
From the low grumbling around them, it was clear Ian was right.
“We’ll have our feast as soon as the oaths are taken,” Hugh said. “To the hall!”
“Move about among the men and be ready,” Ian said to Tait. Then he turned to Connor and the others. “Don’t let anyone see ye until I signal.”
“Grá mo chroí,” Ian said to Sìleas, and squeezed her hand before disappearing into the crowd. Love of my heart.
Sìleas waited with the three men until most of the crowd was inside. The rumble of voices was loud in the hall as they moved inside and found a place to stand against the back wall.
She leaned forward to look at the three of them. They appeared to be an odd but unremarkable, drunken threesome—two men in Samhain masks and an enormous woman in a large bonnet—leaning against the wall and holding on to each other for support.
Connor lifted his mask and leaned over to speak in her ear. “Ye shouldn’t be near us now, when things are coming to a head.”
His voice sounded stronger than before, and he was staying upright. That much was good. She squeezed his arm and went to join Ilysa and Beitris, who were standing with the other women.
She had a good view of Hugh, who sat in the chieftain’s chair on a raised platform at one end of the hall.
She didn’t know the rough-looking men who stood on either side of him, but assumed they were companions from his pirating days.
They glared at the crowd, looking as if they were eager to force the oath from any man who didn’t give it freely.
“Who wants the honor of being first?” Hugh called out.
The hall grew quiet as everyone waited to see who would be the first to come forward. There was an audible intake of breath from the crowd as Ian stepped into the space that had been left in front of Hugh and the guards flanking him.
“Well, ye have more sense than I gave ye credit for, Ian Aluinn,” Hugh said, using the nickname the women had given Ian years ago in an attempt to ridicule him. “I thought my men would have to ‘persuade’ ye to do what ye must.”
Instead of bending his knee to take his oath, Ian turned to face the crowd. There was fire in his eyes, and he stood with his legs apart as if he was ready to fight half a dozen men at once—which he probably was. Ach, her husband was breathtaking.
“It is our tradition to allow men to speak before the selection of a new chieftain,” Ian said in a voice that reached every corner of the hall. “I intend to speak.”
A loud murmur of agreement rose from the crowd.
Hugh drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair, as if he were itching to give the order to cut Ian down. But Hugh was no fool. It was clear from the reaction to Ian’s statement that the clan expected him to follow the traditions, even if they believed the outcome was certain.
“Speak if ye must,” Hugh said with an impatient wave of his hand. “But as I am the only man here of chieftain’s blood, I see little point in it.”
Ian turned to look over his shoulder at Hugh. “Can ye be so sure my uncle did not leave another son or two that ye don’t know about?”
There were barks of male laughter around the room, for everyone knew their chieftain, like his father before him, had bedded countless women over the years.
“But no, I’ve not disrupted the evening to tell ye about a new claimant to the chieftainship.” Ian raised his fist in the air. “I’ve here to tell ye I’ve taken Knock Castle back from the MacKinnons!”
The hall erupted as men waved their claymores, and the crowd roared their approval. Hugh stood and raised his hands for quiet, but it was some time before he could be heard.
After the cheering died down, Hugh said, “Just saying ye took the castle doesn’t make it so.”
Sìleas was startled to see Gòrdan emerge from the crowd to stand beside Ian at the front. His clothes were streaked with soot, and he looked as if he had ridden hard to get here.
“Most of ye know I’ve had my differences with Ian,” Gòrdan said. “So ye can trust my word when I say he did take Knock Castle yesterday.”
A few men shouted, but Gòrdan put his hand up to signal he wasn’t finished. “Shaggy Maclean is plying the waters nearby, so I hope some of ye will join me at Knock Castle in the morning. We don’t want to lose it to the Macleans after we’ve just taken it back from the MacKinnons.”
The hall again was filled with whoops and swords raised high. His speech done, Gòrdan gave a stiff nod and moved back into the crowd.
“This is a proud day, indeed, for the MacDonalds of Sleat.” Hugh spoke as if he were responsible for the victory, though everyone knew he had stood by while the MacKinnons held Knock Castle.
All eyes, however, were on Ian, who had won the crowd’s goodwill. He walked the few feet to the high table, where the two places had been set for the dead.
“Before we choose a new chieftain,” Ian said, in a slow deliberate voice, “we must settle the matter of the death of our last chieftain—and of his son, Ragnall.”
A chill went through the room at his mention of the dead, for the veil was thin between the dead and the living on Samhain. Sìleas could almost see the chieftain and Ragnall—big, muscular, fair-haired men with grim faces—standing on either side of Ian.
“Those of us who were at Flodden know what happened,” Hugh said, his hard, gray eyes sweeping the crowd. “While Ian here was drinking fine wines and dallying with the ladies in France, we were being slaughtered by the English!”
Ian waited for the murmur that followed to grow quiet. Then, in a voice choked with rage, he said, “Our chieftain and his son were not slaughtered by the English.”
The blood drained from Hugh’s face, and he stared at Ian openmouthed, before he caught himself and snapped his mouth shut. The crowd was stunned into silence.
Ian stretched out his arm, pointing at Hugh, and shouted in a voice that reverberated through the hall. “I accuse you, Hugh Dubh MacDonald, of murdering our chieftain and his son at Flodden!”
The crowd was in an uproar.
Hugh tried to speak several times before he could be heard. “I fought at Flodden,” he said, clenching his fists and fixing murderous eyes on Ian. “How dare ye accuse me of the vilest crime, when I sank in Scots’ blood to my ankles, fighting, while you deserted the clan in our hour of need.”
Hugh turned and shouted to his guard, “Seize him!”
Sìleas gasped and started forward, but Beitris and Ilysa held her.
Then Tait’s voice came from the other side of the hall. “Let’s hear what Ian has to say!”
Several others followed, shouting, “Aye! Let him speak! Let him speak!”
Hugh put his hand up as if to stop his guards, though they had been slow to follow his order.
“ ’Tis easy to make accusations,” Hugh said to Ian, “with nothing to back them up.”
“But I do have proof.” Ian paused, giving everyone time to take in his words, before he said, “I ask my father, Payton MacDonald, to come forward.”
Sìleas squeezed Beitris’s and Ilysa’s hands as Payton made his way to the front of the room.
Despite his limp and his graying hair, he was still a formidable man with powerful shoulders and battle scars on his face and hands.
Her heart burst with pride to see father and son, fine and honorable men, standing together before their clan.
“Da,” Ian said, “can ye tell us which of our clansman fought near ye in the battle.”
“I fought on our chieftain’s left and Ragnall fought on his right, just as we always did,” his father said. “We were in the front—again, same as always.”
There was a rumble of agreement among the men, for they knew the three always fought like that.
“And who was behind ye?” Ian asked.
“This time, it was Hugh Dubh and a few of his men.”
Payton’s answer caused a murmuring in the crowd, though Hugh’s being behind the men who were killed proved nothing in itself.
“Can ye tell us how the chieftain and Ragnall were killed?”
Payton shook his head. “I didn’t see who struck the blows, but they came from behind us. I’ve puzzled on that ever since.”
The hall was so quiet that Sìleas could hear her own breathing.
“The English came at us hard, and we were fighting for our lives,” Payton said. “All the same, I don’t know how English soldiers could have gotten behind us without us knowing it.”
Ian shrugged his shoulders. “In the heat of battle, ye can’t always see.”
“But the three of us were used to fighting together. We watched each other’s backs. I can understand one of us not seeing an English soldier slip behind us—but none of us?” Payton shook his head. “No, that doesn’t seem possible.”
Several men grunted in agreement, for the three men had been known as remarkable fighters who had survived many a battle when others had not.
“The three of us were struck at almost the same moment,” Payton said. “I saw our chieftain fall forward at the same time that I heard Ragnall cry out. Before I could reach either of them, I took a blow to the back of my head.”
“In the back, from behind,” Ian repeated. “Do ye know who struck ye, da?”
Payton shook his head. “I woke up a fortnight later in bed with no leg.”
“This is proof?” Hugh interrupted, lifting his arms. “ ’Tis a shame that my brother and Ragnall were lost at Flodden, but you’re wasting our time dwelling on the past.”
Ian pointed to three older men in the front. “Would ye say ye have fought against the English and other Highlanders often enough to know the difference in their weapons?”
“Don’t be a damned fool,” one of them said. “Of course we can.”
“Then can ye tell us what weapon made the scar on the back of my da’s head?”