Chapter Thirty-One
“Love comforteth like sunshine after rain…”
Cyrus and Rory had been tethering their horses in the woods when they’d heard low-pitched voices ahead, followed by the crack of a gunshot.
Running forward, they came upon a clearing before a small cottage, where Cyrus saw Laria lying prone under one of Iain’s guards.
Even though the man’s nose gushed blood that caught in his beard, he held her face to the ground as if to smother her in the dirt.
Cyrus drew his sword and roared into the clearing, his warrior’s brain assessing the situation quickly: two brutes were holding Erskine, Iain had a blade to Reid’s throat, Errol lay unmoving on the ground with an arrow through him, and a two-hundred-pound man was standing on Laria’s spread body.
The guard didn’t have a blade against Laria that he could see, so Cyrus ran directly toward him.
The guard jumped upward, his heavy boot on Laria’s back, and pulled his sword free just before Cyrus reached him.
Their blades clanged together. At least she could raise her face out of the dirt.
“Get the fok off her!” Cyrus yelled, shoving against his sword.
Below, Laria’s hand rose and slammed down. The man yelped, but Cyrus focused on his face and sword. Whatever she did, it was enough to make him leap away from her.
Laria scrambled to her feet holding a fist-size, pointed rock she must have used like a knife on the man’s foot.
“Get inside the cottage,” Cyrus yelled as the man pushed away, then thrust the point of his sword toward Cyrus’s middle.
Cyrus leaped to the side, bringing his blade around to slice the man’s thick neck, but he got his sword up in time to parry.
Rory had slashed his sword at the two men holding Erskine. “Never mind it,” Erskine yelled.
“’Tis a bloody blade in yer shoulder,” Rory said. Cyrus was parrying another thrust and had no time to look.
Iain threw Reid to the ground and tried to grab Laria as she ran by him. She dodged his grasp when Reid grabbed his foot, stopping him from reaching her.
Cyrus ducked under a wild swing. The man used brute power without much thought in his attacks.
“Behind you!” Laria yelled from the porch.
Cyrus remained crouched and spun in time to see Iain’s sword slicing down toward him.
Better to avoid the blade than try to stop it in its gravity-powered strike.
He rolled and got his blade up before him in time to stop the guard’s swing at his neck.
Iain leaped up, hovering with his sword in the air, ready to strike.
Crack! “Bloody hell!” Iain roared, and the pointed rock landed at his feet.
A volley of rocks followed, surprising the guard enough that Cyrus was able to snap his knee up into the man’s ballocks.
He groaned and dropped like a sack of stones.
“That one’s for Laria,” Cyrus said and spun to face Iain.
The rocks ceased their barrage, and Iain drew back his sword, his left eye squinted shut. Laria must have scored a direct hit.
Cyrus caught the swing of Iain’s blade with his own, making the steel sing out in the clearing. He centered his thoughts as he stared into the snarling face of his brother-in-law.
“Lower yer sword, Brother,” Iain said, his lips pulled back, “and I will continue to treat yer sister well. Keep this insurrection going, and she will suffer.”
Grace would have suffered eventually whether he ignored Iain’s sins or punished him for them. And the man was dead for targeting his family, ordering the deaths of two of them.
“Ye’ve already lost her,” Cyrus said, his face serious with concentrated apathy.
Iain shoved but only pushed himself back. The man might be an excellent swordsman, but he hadn’t continued to keep up his strength through training. Laziness would be his end. Cyrus swung, and Iain met the blade but couldn’t hold it away from him.
“Bloody bastard!” The guard Cyrus had felled ran toward them.
Thwack! The sound of an arrow hitting a soft body brought on a deep scream. Laria stood on the porch with a slack bow in her hands and a look of satisfied determination across her face. The door behind her was open, two faces in the crack.
Clang! Cyrus blocked Iain’s swing. Time to end this.
He shoved Iain back, but before he could swing again, Laria ran toward them with a large soup bowl in her hands.
Steam puffed up from the surface. “Your assassin made this for you,” she yelled, throwing the contents into Iain’s face.
He screamed as the mushroom soup, which had been left untended in the flames, scalded his cheeks, nose, and chin.
Cyrus crouched, slicing the backs of Iain’s knees and severing the tendons so that he dropped to the ground, howling. Cyrus held his sword over the man’s neck and looked to Laria. “Does he live or die?” If the man lived, he’d probably have a few scars on his face and might never walk again.
Laria dropped the empty bowl, her hands in fists at her sides. “I cannot condemn him without a trial. Let him live.”
Beside them, Rory had dispatched one of the guards and had the other one face down, his knee shoved into his back. “I’ll tie this one up.”
Erskine knelt before Errol. He turned to look at Laria and shook his head. Laria’s eyes shut for a moment, and her lips moved as if in prayer. Errol had trusted a madman.
Reid sat on the steps to the cottage with his face in his hands. Kate and Leah stood on the porch hugging each other. Cyrus took Laria into his arms. Her stiff body relaxed as she released a breath, long and slow, and sagged into him. “’Tis over,” he said against her head as he kissed it.
She pulled back, tears in her eyes, and he realized she was shaking. “I don’t even know where to start to untangle this mess.”
“We’ve cut the knot free,” Cyrus said, nodding to Iain. He pulled her hand up and wove their fingers together into a tight hold. “We’ll figure out the rest together.”
…
It was a fortnight since they’d ridden out of the woods from Erskine’s cottage, Laria on her precious Lancelot’s back.
Iain had been tied, had had his wounds bound, and had reentered Staffin Village laid out across another horse’s back, led by Rory.
Erskine held the tether of the bound guard, who was jogging to keep up with his walking horse.
The bloody parade had brought every villager from their cottages and fields to watch in silence, the clop of the horses’ hooves the only sound.
And now the villagers, along with many who traveled in from Macqueen farms, watched again.
Laria stood beside Erskine in the clearing before Tuath Tower under a gray fall sky, Sophie Macqueen on his other side.
Erskine’s shoulder was wrapped, sutures holding the skin together to heal.
Most of Cyrus’s men from the ship had come ashore and now stood around the circle with the Macqueen warriors and villagers.
“Iain Macqueen is no longer the chief of Clan Macqueen,” Laria said. “He is alive and will heal to stand trial before you all, to be judged for his crimes.” She looked behind her to where Cyrus’s sister stood, wearing a simple gray gown.
Grace stared straight ahead, her dark hair making her face look even paler than it was. “Lady Grace is innocent of all her husband’s crimes. He openly lied to her and denied his crimes to her,” she said, turning back to the hushed crowd.
Urged by Morag and her intuition, Sophie had returned shortly after Iain’s downfall, bringing Bonnie. A runner had been sent to Scorrybreac, and Maxwell and Bernice had journeyed back to Staffin Village with forty other Macdonald and MacNicol guards.
Sophie’s voice was clear and strong, although Laria saw a shine to her eyes. “Iain, my grandson, has a disease of the mind that began when…around the time that his brother, Tomas, was killed. He is responsible for the death of his mother—my daughter, Jane.”
Gasps and angry murmurs rose from the villagers, and Laria went around to take Sophie’s arm in support.
“Iain’s past mistress, Winnie Mar, killed Chief Hamish Mackinnon with poison under Iain’s orders.
She then, under her own counsel, killed her husband, Gilbert Macdonald of Dunscaith, before returning to Tuath to find the only other child of your past honorable chief, Sandris Macqueen. ”
Laria and Sophie turned together toward Erskine.
Cyrus came forward, looking every bit the warrior god with his broad shoulders and honed muscles visible through his white tunic. “Clan Mackinnon supports Erskine Macqueen as the new chief of Clan Macqueen of Skye,” he announced.
Rory stepped forward. “Clan MacLeod and Clan Macdonald support Erskine Macqueen as the new chief of Clan Macqueen of Skye.”
As if cued by some silent signal from Cyrus, the swords of all the visiting warriors rose to point at the sky. “Chief Erskine Macqueen,” they called together.
A stillness came over the group, and Laria gave her brother a little pinch that no one could see.
Erskine cleared his throat. “People of Staffin… Good people of Clan Macqueen. I was given away by my mother to one of ye when I was a bairn because my pale skin and different-colored eyes frightened her. Mistress Iona cared for me, loved me, and raised me to love my clan. My skin and eyes do not make me any less of a Macqueen and a warrior.”
No one said anything. Laria held up her hands, the red scars and misshapen finger exposed for all to see. “I’ve hidden my scars because I thought they made me less, but they don’t.”
Cyrus came to stand next to her and took her hand in his. “Scars merely show that ye’ve battled against something fierce and survived, that ye were stronger than the attack to yer body.”
Erskine’s deep voice rang out with conviction.
“And differences on the outside,” he indicated the silky white hair tied back at his nape, “don’t affect a person’s blood or heart.
The most perfect face,” he indicated Tuath Tower, where Iain was locked away, healing, “can hide a brittle heart and twisted mind.”
Kate came forward through the crowd, her gaze on Erskine as if seeking courage, and he nodded to her. She and Leah turned to the crowd, Leah standing with her face to them all. Laria felt tears swell from her eyes at the girl’s bravery.
Bernice, the hump in her back obvious, walked next to her brother, Maxwell, to stand with Kate. Bonnie followed, her head barely covered by what little hair she still had. Oscar used his crutch to make it up to the front.
“My sister makes beautiful woven baskets,” Maxwell said.
“And I can still make the best whisky on the Isle of Skye,” Oscar said. “I don’t need two legs for that.”
A few chuckles came from within the crowd.
Laria looked out at the hushed people. “My cousin was wrong to make us hide if we weren’t perfect.
God brought us into this world exactly as we are.
” She touched Erskine’s arm. “And the afflictions we’ve endured,” she held up her hand again, “show us to be stronger than the crimes against our bodies.”
A mother pushed forward, her face curious and hopeful. She pulled a little boy with her who had a bright-red oval on one cheek.
Sophie spoke out. “And as we age, our faces and minds change. Wrinkles and forgetfulness are part of the gift of living a long life.” She laughed. “May we all survive disease, war, and mishaps to grow old enough to lose our hearing and nimbleness.”
The wrinkled face of one ancient man rose up higher in the back, and a pair of aged sisters moved forward to stand with their arms linked.
“Perfection is a lie,” Cyrus said.
Erskine raised his own sword. “And Clan Macqueen is done with lies.”
The crowd shifted as Macqueens pulled their swords free, raising them tip-up to match the others.
Cyrus did the same. “Long life to Chief Erskine Macqueen!” he called.
“Long life to Chief Erskine Macqueen!” the people around them called, their voices melding into a thunderous oath that sent shivers up and down Laria’s body. ’Twas like waves of truth washing over everyone, washing them free of fear and their need to hide.
“And to Laria Macqueen,” Cyrus called, holding her hand high in his. “Who protected her people and fought for ye all.”
“To Laria!” the villagers yelled back.
Laria felt a flush climb up her neck into her cheeks, but she smiled out at her clan. Then Cyrus was before her, still holding her hand. He kissed her knuckles and stared at her. He had signed a new alliance contract with Erskine that morning, her brother’s first official act as chief.
When Cyrus continued to stare at her, Laria tilted her head in question.
“My new ally has something more to say,” Erskine said, and the cheers settled down to hushed whispers.
Laria noticed her beautiful Lancelot being led by a smiling stable lad through the parting crowd. The charger was draped with garlands, his mane braided to match his tail. She stared in confusion.
Cyrus turned to her. “Come.” He held his hand out, and she took it. He led her to Lancelot. She ran her hand down the horse’s long white nose, and his nostrils sniffed her before pressing into her palm.
“Milady,” Cyrus said, holding out a hand. “Climb atop,” he said.
“Why?” she whispered.
His mouth brushed against her ear. “Because lasses and ladies like big gestures.”
She tipped her head, her face full of questions.
He lifted her, and she threw her leg over, even though she wore a petticoat.
Her golden-yellow skirts draped like a flower over Lancelot’s white coat.
No one in the square made a sound as they watched Cyrus guide the horse to a table, where he leaped onto its surface.
Holding the horse’s reins, he bent down on one knee.
Laria heard a collective sigh from the females in the group. “Laria Macqueen, for no other reason than because I know ye, I believe ye, and I love ye, will ye wed me?”
His words pressed into her, embedding into her floundering heart. Cyrus loved her, all of her, and he wanted everyone to know.
The whole village of Staffin seemed to hold its breath as the villagers and guests waited for her answer. Cyrus’s smile wavered, and she spotted the worry when his hand lifted absently to the back of his neck.
She leaned forward, her hand outstretched. He took it, and her smile spread. “Yes, Cyrus Mackinnon, I love ye and will wed ye.”
A cheer rose up again like thunder, accompanied by whistles and laughter. “Kiss her!” was called several times. “Kiss him!” was echoed.
Cyrus stood and pulled Laria off the horse into his arms, arms that felt right. They anchored her and warmed her like nothing else in the world. This was love, and it was beautiful.