Chapter 27 #2
After all, she had good reason to doubt him.
An undeniable obstacle that rode the far horizon, a place as cold and silent as Lileas’ grave.
The MacLean was staring at her, his eyes demanding an answer. At her growing silence, his face shuttered again. Even so, she’d caught a glimpse of the hurt in his eyes and it stung her as mightily as the red-hot needles jabbing into the backs of her own.
“I want to believe you,” she finally said. “I truly do.”
“Then why can’t you?”
She glanced at the small window. “That which I did not see, my lord.”
“What?” He lifted a brow higher than she’d have thought possible. “That makes no sense, lassie.”
“Let her be.” Sir Gavin stepped between them. “She will believe Iain’s innocence and the MacKinnons’ guilt when she is ready, not before.”
“She speaks in riddles.” The MacLean didn’t hide his annoyance. “She will no’ see because of what she did no’ see.” He pulled a hand down over his face. “What nonsense.”
“You err.” Isolde returned to the window. Night mist was rolling in, and far out to sea, thick curtains of it had now almost fully cloaked MacKinnons’ Isle. But her gaze still found it, as always.
“How do I err, lady?”
“I do not speak riddles or nonsense.” She clutched the rough edge of the window. “What I did not see were MacKinnon galleys passing through our waters. Were they guilty, as you’d have me believe, my lookouts would have seen them sail past on their way to your end of Doon.”
She released a sigh. “That, good sirs, is why I cannot believe Iain is innocent. My sister might have believed in faeries, trolls, and sea beasties, but I do not. That leaves your brother, Laird MacLean. No one else could have done the deed.”
They said nothing, but she could feel their stares on her back. No matter. She wouldn’t yet she turn to face them.
Doing so might mean capitulation.
She did she wish to believe the MacLean.
Then a rustling noise and the clank of a chain broke the silence, quickly followed by a curse.
Him.
He’d tried to come to her, and her heart turned over at the implication.
“So that is what you think?” he said then, sounding close.
“It is what I know.” She pressed her fingers harder against the cold stone of the window ledge, needing its solidity, hoping to tap its strength. “The MacKinnons have never been our friends, but they did not drown my sister on the Lady Rock.”
“Neither did my brother.”
“Then who did?”
Heavy, black silence answered her.
She didn’t like the sound of it.
Several mornings later, Iain MacLean and all the MacLean fighting men who’d been able to fit onboard the newly repaired galley stood upon the sandy beach of MacKinnons’ Isle.
Stood, and gaped.
Of the massed might of the renowned MacKinnon warriors, nary a hair was to be seen, much less a well-muscled sword arm swinging a finely honed blade.
Of the clan’s formidable sea-going fleet was much to be seen.
And all of it in ruin.
The once-proud vessels lay in wrack. From the most impressive war-galley to the lowliest hide-covered coracle, not one remained intact. They were all broken and sea-blistered, their smooth lines now twisted, jagged, and draped with dried seaweed.
Some of the wreckage had already been half buried by the shifting sands. Sad flotsam, tragic remnants of a foundered fleet, made all the more pathetic by the morning’s brilliant sunshine and cloudless sky.
A day of freezing winds and dense, black fog would have better suited the devastation littering the wide stretch of curved shoreline.
Iain stared at the damage, disbelief whirling inside him, chilling him to the bone.
“Begging your pardon, sir, but it appears something is amiss.” Gerbert, Baldoon Castle’s long-in-years steward, nudged a low mound of barnacle-encrusted oak clinker stakes. Ruined wood that had once formed the hull of a galley, or several galleys – it was hard to tell.
Iain said nothing. He feared his mind was boiling.
Gerbert scratched his bristly chin. “Aye, sorely amiss.”
“Gods’ wounds!” Iain whipped out his sword and thrust it into the sand. “Do you think I’m blind? All is amiss.” His face heating with rage, he glowered at Gerbert, the only man along whose purpose wasn’t the skill of his sword arm.
And at the moment, Iain didn’t know what Gerbert’s purpose was.
Save to needle him.
As he’d known the meddlesome old man would do even before he’d wheedled his way onboard. But as the only MacLean to have ever set foot on MacKinnons’ Isle, Iain had been hard-pressed to deny him.
Now…
Iain scooped up a handful of sand, then jabbed his clenched fist at the air over his head. “The MacKinnon scourges will no’ slip through our…”
He broke off, and lowered his arm. Opening his fingers, he frowned at the rusted nails lying on his palm. Some weren’t just rusted, but bore barnacles. With a curse, he hurled the nails into the surf.
Then he sank to his knees and buried his head in his hands. His men, and even old Gerbert, kept a respectful distance, standing where they could among the wreckage. After a long while, he pushed to his feet. He knew he’d look a fright, perhaps even worse than the shattered fleet all around them.
He didn’t care.
He did glance round at his men, saw the horror on their faces.
No one spoke.
Without exception, each man kept his gaze averted. He wasn’t surprised. Anywhere was safer to look than at him during one of his moods. He didn’t look overlong at them either, much to their relief, he was sure.
Instead, he stared at his galley.
A fine vessel, sleek of line with high stem and stern posts, mast straight and proud, a furled sail, and the row of oar ports staring blankly back at him.
Staring accusingly, and with reason.
The war-galley could ply the seaways with great speed at sail, and maneuvered well under the might of stout rowing arms if the wind died. She’d borne them to MacKinnons’ Isle with a swiftness he had not dared hope for, yet…
She merely rocked in the surf, moving in gentle time with the incoming tide. Their whole journey, the arduous days spent repairing the storm-damaged hull, might prove to have been in vain.
A foolhardy mission, as Amicia had repeatedly told him.
Iain stared heavenward. The glare of the sun hurt his eyes, but he welcomed the discomfort. Gulls circled and screamed above, and the sight sent another shard of pain into his heart. Would there ever again be a time when he’d feel so free of cares as the wheeling seabirds?
He doubted it.
Not without Lileas.
He started when one of his men appeared beside him. “Sir…” The man was hesitant. “What are we to do now?”
“What we came to do,” Iain said, his voice as cold as the day was warm.
He yanked his sword from the sand and held it up to the light, catching the rays of the sun in the blade’s steel.
The man before him frowned. “But-”
Iain silenced him with a look.
For good measure, he swept the circle of men with a fierce stare, his sword still held to sun. When no one challenged him, he sheathed his blade.
“One MacKinnon for each year of my lady wife’s life, and all the rest for the grief they’ve wrought,” he vowed, raising his voice above the wind. “We’ve tolerated their antics for years. This time they went too far. Now they shall pay.”
But rather than drawing their weapons and roaring support as they’d done in Baldoon’s great hall before they’d set sail, Iain’s men now shifted restlessly. Some shuffled their feet in the sand, while most looked everywhere but at him.
They seemed to have lost their tongues as well.
Iain snarled. A deep, roiling rumble wrested from the blackest corner of his soul. And then he hollered for the one man whose knowledge he needed.
Gerbert.
Unlike his younger kinsmen, Gerbert wasn’t afraid to meet Iain’s eye. Iain peered hard at him, too, hoping what he saw in the old man’s face was a trick of the light, and not what it appeared to be.
But it wasn’t the light.
Gerbert’s eyes swam with pity.
“Still think you can lead us to Coldstone Castle, the MacKinnon stronghold?” Iain asked him, his voice gruff, his heart choosing to ignore the look on Gerbert’s face.