Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
“Bring the lady forward,” said one of the attendants, with a civility so smooth and practiced that it made the command beneath it more offensive than rudeness could have done.
Isobel had barely time to draw herself up before the guards on either side of her obeyed. Their hands remained at her arms with sufficient firmness to remind her that every step she took was permitted only because it was in the direction chosen for her.
She was brought from the shadowed side of the hall toward the raised platform at its far end, where three other women already stood beneath the steady blaze of torches. Each was masked as she was and each was marked upon the breast with a number pinned so carefully it was insulting.
The stage itself was not high. A few inches of polished wood were enough to separate those who were observed from those who observed.
One of the women beside her made a sound so slight it might have been mistaken for a caught breath.
Isobel turned her head. The woman nearest her was trembling.
Her mask concealed much, yet not enough, for fear had a language that no silk could fully silence.
Isobel felt an immediate compassion for her.
It was almost a relief to be useful to another, if only for the span of a whispered sentence.
“Dinnae look at them too long,” Isobel murmured, scarcely moving her lips. “Choose one place upon the wall and keep yer eyes there. Breathe slowly, if ye can.”
The woman turned a little toward her, and though no answer came, the trembling seemed to pause in surprise.
“It is only a room full of men,” Isobel continued, with more courage in her voice than she possessed in her heart. “They arenae improved by being numerous.”
The woman gave the smallest broken breath that might, in kinder circumstances, have become a laugh. The moment was not allowed to last.
“Ye,” said the attendant sharply.
Before Isobel could answer, his hand closed about her upper arm and drew her back into position. He did not use enough force to hurt her, which somehow made it worse.
“We dinnae encourage conversation during presentation,” he said, in a tone meant for the hall as much as for her. “Though this one appears tae have brought a ready tongue with her.”
A few men below responded with subdued amusement.
The attendant’s eyes moved over her mask and gown with an air of professional consideration. “Some gentlemen prefer spirit, I am told, but too much of it may prove troublesome in a household.”
There was another ripple of laughter. Isobel felt the blood rise warmly beneath her mask.
Her first impulse was to reply, yet she also knew the danger of granting these men the entertainment they expected.
A woman could be called spirited until she spoke, and then, with astonishing speed, the same quality would be named insolence.
“Forward,” a man ordered.
Isobel obeyed. The hall beneath her appeared at first as a pattern of dark cloth, pale linen, leather belts, weapons, and shadowed faces.
Some of the men wore masks, and others had come with their faces uncovered, either from arrogance or assurance that secrecy, in this place, was provided by rank rather than disguise.
A few seemed uneasy, though not uneasy enough to leave.
As her sight adjusted, fragments of recognition began to gather.
A man she had once seen at a kirk door, speaking to her father with a hand upon his sword.
Another whose name had been mentioned at Dunnyveg in connection with ships, debts, and disputed loyalties.
This was not a gathering of idle suitors.
It was a council of powers, and there was a careful absence of feeling.
Then her gaze found a man standing somewhat apart from the rest, and all other impressions receded.
Laird Ruaridh MacLean.
Even masked in part by distance and torch-shadow, he could not be mistaken. There was a stillness about him unlike the stillness of the others.
Broad, dark, and severe, he seemed made of the same hard elements as the western coasts over which his name was spoken with fear.
His image had been shaped in her mind long before this night: MacLean of Duart, the Wolf of the Western Isles, heir to old violence, keeper of blood-debts, lord of men who had taken her brothers from the world and left her father with nothing but bitterness to spend upon his remaining child.
Of all men, she thought, it had tae be him.
She looked away at once, then found that looking away did not free her from the knowledge of him. She knew where he stood as surely as if a thread had been drawn from him to the place where her heart beat too quickly beneath her bodice.
An official stepped forward with a parchment in hand. He waited until the last murmur in the hall faded.
“Me lairds,” he said, “the next presentation is entered under the authority granted for settlement of claim and pledge. The lady’s house and qualifications have been recorded.
Bidding shall proceed without disruption.
All offers, once accepted, shall bind the claimant before the witnesses of the Crown. ”
The witnesses of the Crown.
Isobel nearly laughed, though there was no mirth in her. The Crown, then, had not dirtied its own hands, yet had sent clean gloves for others to wear while they did it.
The official glanced down. “Number seven.”
Her number.
She did not need to look to know it.
“Lady of Clan Donald,” the official continued. “Daughter tae Laird Malcolm MacDonald of Dunnyveg.”
The name of her father, spoken publicly, struck her with renewed force. She searched then, despite herself, but he was not there. He had not merely handed her over. He had deprived her of even the chance to accuse him with her eyes.
The official folded the parchment slightly. “Offers may be declared.”
There was a pause. Then, a voice rose from the hall.
“I make claim.”
The words were not shouted. They did not need to be. The speaker possessed the confidence of a man accustomed to being heard without exertion, and Isobel knew him before the official named him.
“Laird Ewen MacDonald of Sleat,” came the reply. “State pledge.”
Ewen.
A chill passed through her. Ewen MacDonald was of her broader kin by name and blood. It was one thing to have feared being given to a stranger. It was another to hear herself claimed by a man whose cruelty had been made familiar by rumor long before his voice entered the room.
His pledge was named: land, loyalty, silence, influence. The exact arrangement mattered little to her, though each term seemed another stone added to the wall closing around her. The official repeated it for the record. Another man marked it down.
Until then some remnant of hope, irrational though it had been, had survived in her, that perhaps her father meant only to frighten her into some agreement already chosen. But Ewen’s claim severed the last of such comforts. She was being sold.
“An initial claim is entered,” the official announced. “Daes any lord counter?”
The hall held its breath. Then, a voice answered.
“I counter.”
Men turned their heads without appearing to do so too quickly. The official lifted his eyes with the first sign of interest he had shown all evening.
“Laird Ruaridh MacLean of Duart.”
Only then did Isobel look. Ruaridh had not moved forward, yet the space around him seemed clearer than before. He spoke his pledge in a voice low enough to preserve the decorum of the hall and strong enough to command every ear within it.
He had countered Ewen… for her.
A strange and unwelcome sensation passed through her. It was not relief. It was rather a fresh horror, made sharper by confusion. Why would the Wolf of the Western Isles raise his hand for a MacDonald daughter unless he meant to make punishment of possession?
Ewen’s voice came again. “I increase.”
Ruaridh answered. “I increase.”
She had the peculiar sensation of being both entirely central to the event and wholly absent from it. Every word concerned her, and no word was required of her.
Ewen stepped forward. “Ye are generous, MacLean, fer a prize ye cannae want.”
The official’s gaze sharpened, but he did not interrupt.
Ruaridh’s answer came evenly. “Still, I shall yield naething tae ye.”
A sound moved through the room, not laughter now but recognition of insult elegantly kept within bounds.
Isobel’s pulse quickened despite herself.
Ewen’s face darkened, though he mastered it quickly. “Ye would take a MacDonald woman intae Duart?”
“I would take what I claim.”
The words struck her with immediate dislike.
What I claim.
Her anger, which fear had nearly displaced, returned with such force that it steadied her. She fixed her gaze upon Ruaridh then, and though she could not know whether he saw the full hatred in her eyes through the mask, she hoped he did.
The official intervened before the exchange could sharpen further. “All claims proceed by pledge. Personal challenge is forbidden within this hall.”
Ewen inclined his head. “Then record mine.”
He gave another offer, greater than the last.
Ruaridh countered. “And mine.”
The official repeated the pledge. The scribe wrote. The room seemed to lean toward the conclusion.
“Final counter is received,” the official announced.
The words rang with dreadful neatness.
“Laird Ewen MacDonald of Sleat,” he continued, “dae ye advance?”
The hall waited. Ewen’s eyes did not leave Ruaridh. For the first time, his composure showed a fracture small enough that only those who looked closely might see it.
“Nay advance is entered,” the official concluded after a silence. “The claim is awarded tae Laird Ruaridh MacLean of Duart by pledge witnessed and accepted.”
The words did not fall loudly. They did not need to. They settled over her with all the permanence of a sentence pronounced.
There were more formalities after that. She knew because mouths moved and parchment changed hands. Yet the meaning had already been delivered in full.
She had been sold. And he had bought her.
For several seconds, Isobel could not move at all. She felt the weight of the mask against her face. She could barely breathe.
Then Ruaridh MacLean began to walk toward the stage.
The crowd parted. Men always stepped aside for power more readily than for virtue.
Nearer now, he seemed even larger than he had from below, his presence carrying the harshness of sea-wind and iron though he wore neither armor nor open blade. He stopped before her.
“Me lady,” he told her.
The address was correct. His tone was not unkind. Both facts enraged her.
“Dinnae call me that,” she hissed.
Something unreadable passed through his expression. “Would ye prefer yer number?”
The words were quiet enough not to carry far, and for that reason they shocked her more. There was no mockery in them, or if there was, it was directed at the proceeding rather than at her. She did not wish to notice the distinction.
“I would prefer nae tae be here.”
“Aye,” he nodded. “That I believe.”
It was the first human sentence she had heard from any man in that room, and she resented him for being the one to speak it.
He extended his hand toward her arm. She stepped back. The movement was small, but the reaction below was immediate. The attendant who had earlier scolded her took half a step forward, prepared, perhaps, to remind her how little dignity remained at her disposal.
Ruaridh did not turn. “Leave her.”
The attendant stopped. Isobel noticed it despite herself.
Ruaridh’s eyes remained on hers. “We are leaving.”
He offered no hand this time. He took her arm, not roughly, but with a steadiness that allowed no illusion of escape.
His grip was firm, warm through the fabric of her sleeve, and she felt the strength in it as one felt a locked door in the dark.
She tried to pull free once, sharply, and he held her without tightening his fingers.
“Dinnae make them touch ye again,” he urged quietly.
She looked toward the guards, then to the attendant, then to the room of watching men.
He was right again, and she despised that.
She allowed him to guide her toward the steps.
As they passed the place where Ewen stood, Isobel did not look at him, but she felt his attention like cold fingers at the back of her neck.
“MacLean,” Ewen spoke.
Ruaridh did not stop.
“Ye have purchased trouble,” Ewen added.
Ruaridh led her on. The doors opened ahead of them, and cooler air entered from the corridor beyond. Only then did Isobel understand how hot the hall had been. She drew in the fresher air as if she had been drowning.
But relief did not come. The door closed behind them with a deep, final sound. Ruaridh released her arm and Isobel stepped away at once, turning to face him.
“Ye willnae touch me again. And if ye think I shall thank ye fer outbidding Ewen MacDonald, ye are a greater fool than I was raised tae believe.”
“I dinnae expect gratitude.”
“Then ye possess one virtue.”
“Only one?”
The question was dry, almost careless, and for a moment she stared at him, unable to believe he had chosen wit in such a circumstance.
“Ye find this amusing?”
“Nay.”
It was then, with a clarity more terrible than panic, that she understood the true nature of her helplessness.
No chain had been placed upon her wrists.
No blade was at her throat. She could speak, she could stand, she could refuse in every manner that pride allowed, and still the world around her had already agreed upon the result.
The corridor opened toward the night as they continued walking. Cold air moved through the archway ahead, carrying the smell of rain, river, and stone. The ordinary sounds of departure awaited them, indifferent to the extraordinary ruin of her life.
Ruaridh stopped at the threshold and looked back at her.
“Ye may lead me from this place,” she said, “but dinnae mistake silence fer surrender.”
His gaze held hers. “I wouldnae make so poor a mistake with ye.”
The answer unsettled her almost as much as the rest, for it was neither mockery nor command, and she had been prepared for both.
Then he stepped into the night, and because the world had left her no kinder choice, Isobel followed the man she hated out of Inveraray, carrying with her the certainty that whatever had been taken from her that evening, her will would not be among it.