Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Dun Ard appeared through the fading mist, as if it had been conjured from within her.
Donaldina was intimately familiar with every aspect of the castle's walls, having known them since she was a child. She knew the aging western tower, which became a nesting place for gulls in the spring. She also knew the damaged crenellation that Lachlan had promised to repair but never did, and the narrow windows that would capture the final rays of sunlight from the ocean. Yet, as she approached upon Roy MacIver’s arm, the castle no longer appeared familiar.
The gates were barred.
Men stood upon the walls with bows in hand. Spears rose behind the parapet. Along the gatehouse, faces Donaldina had known all her life watched her return as if she were an approaching army rather than the mistress of the home beneath their feet.
She stopped. The men behind her stopped as well.
For one stunned moment, the only sound was the sea hammering the rocks below and the hard, uneven breath of those who had climbed back from the cliff path.
Donaldina’s hand tightened upon Roy’s sleeve. He glanced down at it but said nothing.
“What is this?” she whispered.
No one answered. Then a figure stepped onto the walkway above the gates.
Cormac.
He fled from the cliff like a beaten traitor and returned to Dun Ard quickly enough to dress himself as its savior.
Donaldina released Roy and stepped forward. “Open the gates.”
Cormac rested one hand upon the stone parapet. “I cannae dae that.”
The answer was so calm that disbelief struck her before anger had time to form.
“Ye cannae?”
“Mistress—” one of the older councilors began behind her.
Donaldina lifted a hand, silencing him without looking away from the walls.
“Cormac Gunn,” she said, each word sharpened by the cold, “ye have barred me from me own home.”
“I have secured the stronghold.”
“Against whom?”
Cormac’s gaze moved deliberately to Roy. The men upon the wall followed it.
“Against the man who has come tae steal it.”
A murmur stirred beyond the gate. The courtyard was crowded. Donaldina could see MacNicol clansmen gathered below the battlements, some armed, others merely drawn there by alarm. Cormac had not merely closed the gates. He had assembled an audience.
Roy stepped forward until he stood beside her, something few men would do. Certainly not Cormac. It was a distinction she noticed despite herself.
Cormac raised his voice.
“Roy MacIver comes beneath the pretense of the King’s marriage agreement. He speaks of honor while bringing armed men tae our walls. He would take Lady Donaldina, take Dun Ard and place a MacIver upon the seat Lachlan MacNicol has scarcely left cold.”
Angry voices answered him from within. Donaldina felt the blood drain from her face. Lachlan’s body had not yet reached the cairn. Before her brother was even laid to rest, Cormac leveraged his death, transforming sorrow into a weapon, the only thing everyone within those walls shared equally.
“He speaks falsely,” she called.
Several faces turned toward her. “Does he? The King promises ye tae him. Yer brother dies beside his army. Now he arrives before the burial and expects the clan tae place its lands in his hands.”
“I arrived because the war ended,” Roy corrected. His voice possessed a rough steadiness that rendered Cormac’s performance all the more fervent. “The Crown released me from service. I returned tae fulfil the accord Lachlan himself signed.”
“Until the council has determined whether the agreement remains lawful, I claim temporary authority over Dun Ard and its defenses.”
A silence followed. Donaldina looked at him. He spoke as if authority could be gained simply by standing above others and being the first to declare it. “Ye claim authority,” she repeated.
Cormac nodded. “For the protection of the clan.”
“Ye held a blade against me throat less than an hour ago.”
Movement passed through the crowd inside the gates. Several men looked toward Cormac. One lowered his bow.
Cormac’s jaw tightened. “I removed ye from MacIver’s reach.”
“By dragging me toward a cliff?”
“I acted before he could seize control.”
“Ye acted because I refused ye.”
The words rang against the walls. This time, the murmur inside the courtyard carried no easy agreement. Cormac’s face hardened.
“Ye are overcome by grief and confusion,” he said. “The council will decide what must be done with ye.”
“What must be done with me?”
Cormac seemed to understand too late that he had chosen the wrong word. “What must be done for ye,” he corrected.
“How fortunate that ye are present tae explain the difference,” she scoffed.
The wind swept a strand of hair across her face. She pushed it away with her bandaged hand and felt the sting of the cut beneath the linen. “Open the gates,” she commanded again.
Cormac looked down at her without warmth. “Nae.”
It was the refusal of a man who had already imagined himself obeyed.
“The castle belongs,” he continued, “tae those willing tae defend it.”
Donaldina could scarcely breathe. Dun Ard belonged to stone, memory, duty, and the generations buried beneath the sea.
It belonged to Lachlan, though death had taken him.
It belonged to the children sleeping in its rooms and to the old women who knew each draft by name.
It did not belong to Cormac merely because he had placed frightened men on its walls.
Her hand curled at her side. “Ye mistake treachery for defense.”
“And ye mistake a royal stranger for salvation.”
Roy made to move, Donaldina turned sharply toward him. He had not drawn his sword, and she saw the cold intent in his eyes, knowing that if one arrow flew, men would die before it struck the ground. “Roy.”
His gaze came to her. She had not called him by his given name before. The knowledge seemed to pass between them, strange and immediate, though neither acknowledged it.
“Dinnae,” she whispered.
His jaw tightened, then he stepped back.
Cormac laughed from above. “Aye. Obey her while ye may.”
Roy looked up at him. “Ye should be grateful she spoke.”
Before anger overcame her, Donaldina turned away from the gate. She would not give Cormac the sight of her pleading outside her own home.
The councilors gathered several paces down the slope, where the curve of the land hid them partly from the archers above. Roy joined them, along with the MacIver men and the guards who had remained loyal.
Donaldina followed more slowly. The loss of Dun Ard had not yet become real.
It seemed impossible that a barred gate could separate her from Lachlan’s solar, her chamber, the great hall where his body had lain.
Her cloak was still inside. Her mother’s comb remained upon the table beside her bed.
In the chest by the hearth sat a poorly carved beeswax figure Lachlan made when he was ten.
“We could take the gatehouse,” Ewan MacNicol, one of the younger councilors, suggested. “There are fewer than twenty men upon the wall.”
“And twice that within,” another replied. “Men who may nae favor Cormac but will fight if they think MacIver means tae invade.”
“Me archers can clear the parapet,” one of Roy’s captains said.
“And kill MacNicol men while Lachlan waits for burial?” Father Maol asked.
The captain’s mouth closed. They argued in low, urgent voices.
The postern gate might be forced. The eastern wall could be scaled with rope.
Men could be sent around the ridge to draw Cormac’s attention while Roy struck from the south.
Each proposal ended with the same truth: MacNicol blood would be shed, either by a MacNicol or by MacIver men on Donaldina's behalf.
Roy listened until the voices began to rise. “Nae assault,” he said.
Ewan looked at him sharply. “Then ye mean tae leave the castle in Cormac’s hands?”
“I mean nae man will storm Dun Ard while the people within believe they are defending it.”
“He has stolen the gates.”
“Stone can be reclaimed. Dead clansmen cannae.”
Donaldina observed him closely. He had every reason to order an attack. Cormac publicly accused him of theft and murder, humiliated him before both clans, and claimed the bride that the Crown had promised him. Pride alone might have been enough to push another man against the walls.
Roy seemed concerned only with how many would die. It unsettled her more than ruthlessness would have. Men were simpler when their faults could be clearly named.
“The longer we wait,” Ewan argued, “the stronger his hold becomes.”
Roy looked toward Dun Ard. “Aye.”
“Then what would ye have us dae?”
“Find another way in.”
“There isnae one,” Councilor Beathan assured them. “The sea wall is sheer. The northern gate has been sealed since me grandfaither’s day. Every passage is watched.”
Donaldina looked past them toward the coast. The tide had begun to withdraw. Black rocks broke the white water below, slick with weed and rain. Farther west, the old sea wall descended toward a narrow strip of shore visible only when the tide was low.
Then, a memory stirred: Lachlan’s hand gripping hers, his voice quiet and secretive, with a lantern casting a flickering golden glow over wet stone. She was maybe eight years old, though she claimed she was ten because Lachlan said the passage was not fit for children.
The passage.
“There is another entrance,” she divulged.
The councilors fell silent. Donaldina stepped into their circle.
Beathan frowned. “Where?”
“Beneath the old sea wall.”
“That is solid rock.”
“Nae. It appears tae be.”
She turned toward the western shore. “There is a cleft beyond the black shelf. At low tide, the water withdraws enough tae reach it. The entrance is concealed behind fallen stone.”
Ewan stared at her. “How would ye know this?”
“Lachlan showed me.”
“When?”
“When I was a child.”
Several of the men exchanged uncertain glances. Donaldina's temper flared once more. “It led beneath the wall and opened intae the lower stores. Lachlan said it had been used during a siege generations ago.”
“Or it has collapsed since,” Beathan said.
“It may be flooded,” another added.