Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
The battlements were quieter than the hall. Below, the sea moved in darkness, striking the cliffs with a steady violence softened by distance. Wind slipped between the stones and carried away the last traces of music from the feast.
Roy walked with Hamish beside him. They had crossed battlefields together since youth, slept beneath the same leaking tents and trusted one another with the sort of silence that required no explanation. Unfortunately, Hamish never considered silence binding.
“Ye have faced cavalry charges with less hesitation,” he remarked.
Roy kept his gaze upon the western hills. “Than what?”
“Speaking tae Lady Donaldina.”
“I spoke tae her throughout the feast.”
“Aye. As though each sentence might conceal a blade.”
“Given the events of the day, caution seemed reasonable.”
Hamish laughed beneath his breath. “Ye fought Cormac twice, reclaimed a castle through a tunnel and challenged half the MacNicol council without blinking. Then the woman smiled at ye, and ye looked ready tae retreat.”
Roy stopped near the parapet. “I didnae retreat.”
“Nae. Ye stared at yer bread.”
“The bread was there.”
“A formidable opponent.”
Roy rested his hands upon the cold stone. Dun Ard spread beneath them, its windows glowing faintly against the dark. Somewhere within those walls, Donaldina slept or,, more likely, argued with herself over whether sleeping might grant him an advantage.
He never wanted this marriage. The decree had been duty when it was signed and an inconvenience while war delayed it. He imagined returning, fulfilling the King’s command and placing order where politics required it.
He had not imagined her.
“I never wanted this,” he admitted.
Hamish’s humor faded. Roy looked toward the sea.
“Marriage?”
Roy nodded.
“Because she is a MacNicol?”
“Because she is anyone.”
The admission sounded harsher aloud than it had in his own mind. Hamish waited patiently, a trait Roy had always envied. The former could stay silent until someone mistook his endurance for safety and ended up revealing everything.
“I learned young,” Roy finally continued, “that loving someone merely gives fate another person tae take.”
The wind moved across the wall. He thought of a voice he had not heard in years, a hand grown cold within his own, and the long empty days afterward in which the world continued with an indecency he had never forgiven.
“Better tae possess naething ye cannae survive losing,” he added.
Hamish leaned against the parapet. “That sounds sensible.”
“It is.”
“It also sounds miserable.”
Roy gave him a flat look. Hamish ignored it.
“Ye crossed half of Scotland as soon as the Crown released us,” he reminded him. “Ye arrived tae find Lachlan dead, the clan hostile and Cormac holding a knife tae the woman’s throat.”
“I remember.”
“Then ye fought him on the cliff, followed her through a hole beneath the sea wall and fought him again inside the castle.”
“That was necessity.”
Hamish’s brows rose. “Was it?”
“She was in danger.”
“And ye hesitated nae at all.”
Roy looked away. That was the truth of it. He wavered on the idea of marriage, the accord, and every thought that considered Donaldina part of his future. Yet, when Cormac touched her, there was no doubt—only decisive action.
Hamish studied him. “Ye can call it duty, if ye like.”
“It was.”
“Duty doesnae usually make a man watch a woman from across a feast as though the rest of the hall has vanished.”
Roy’s jaw tightened. “I was watching Cormac’s supporters.”
“Of course.”
“And she remains vulnerable.”
“Aye.”
“And stubborn.”
“Certainly.”
“And inclined tae walk directly toward danger if someone advises her against it.”
Hamish smiled. “A terrible woman.”
Roy remained silent. The wind brought the smell of salt and peat smoke from the chimneys below. One of the upper windows stayed lit, which he knew, without needing to ask, was Donaldina’s chamber.
The knowledge troubled him. More troubling still was the thought of that window dark, the chamber empty and Donaldina gone from Dun Ard because the King granted her petition.
Roy believed he could honor such a choice. He still meant to. Yet, honor and ease had never been closely related.
“I expected tae return home after the accord was settled,” he said quietly.
Hamish waited. Roy’s fingers tightened upon the stone.
The accord had been simple enough when it was written. Lachlan would remain laird of Dun Ard, and Donaldina would leave her brother’s hall to join Roy at Black Craig. The marriage would bind the clans without altering the rule of either.
Lachlan’s death had broken that design as surely as war had delayed it.
Donaldina could not simply abandon Dun Ard now.
She was the last of its ruling blood, and the MacNicols looked to her even when their pride prevented them from admitting it.
Yet, Roy could not remain indefinitely upon MacNicol land while Clan MacIver waited at Black Craig for the laird who had already been absent too many years.
Marriage would no longer mean bringing one woman into his clan. It would mean finding some way to govern two clans, two strongholds and generations of men taught to regard one another as enemies.
“The thought of leaving Dun Ard without her troubles me more than I expected,” Roy admitted. “But taking her from it wouldnae settle the matter either. Lachlan was meant tae rule here. She was meant tae come to Black Craig with me.”
“And now?” Hamish asked.
Ray looked toward the dark outline of the castle beneath them. “Now, neither clan can be asked tae surrender its chief. We would have tae find a way tae hold them both.”
The words disappeared into the wind almost as soon as he spoke them. Hamish did not laugh. That mercy was perhaps why Roy kept him beside him all these years.
After a moment, Hamish looked toward the glowing window. “It will be difficult tae untie two clans with a woman determined nae tae marry ye.”
Roy followed his gaze. “I already told her she would regret it.”
“Aye. Women are greatly persuaded by a man announcing he understands their minds better than they dae.”
Hamish tapped him once on the shoulder and kept walking along the wall.
Roy stayed by the parapet. Below, the sea relentlessly battered Dun Ard as it had for generations, trying to wear down the stone into surrender.
Roy had always admired stone for its resilience.
It holds its ground and withstands anything that hits it.
However, two strongholds cannot be conquered beneath the same roof, and two clans cannot be united just because a king has sealed a decree with wax.
That night, Roy found himself wondering how long even the hardest thing could resist being changed and whether change always had to mean surrender.
The storm struck before dawn with the ferocity of something long kept out. Wind battered Dun Ard so fiercely that it shook the shutters in their frames. Rain hammered against the western walls in sheets, finding every crack in the stone, roof, and timber.
Donaldina was out of bed before Mairi reached the door.
“What happened?”
“The outer palisade,” Mairi gasped. “Part of it has fallen. The lower cottages are flooding.”
Donaldina dragged a cloak over her night shift and hurried into the corridor.
The castle had already awakened into confusion.
Servants carried lanterns through the passageways, while men ran toward the courtyard fastening sword belts out of habit, though there was no enemy upon whom steel might be used.
A crash sounded somewhere beyond the western wall. The floor trembled beneath Donaldina’s bare feet. She did not pause to find shoes.
Outside, rain struck her face so hard that she paused beneath the arch, raising an arm for cover.
The courtyard was a wild scene of mud, scared horses, and shouting men.
Water poured from the gutters in shiny streams. Beyond the gate, the west palisade was broken and leaning against the dark, with several large timbers torn loose by the wind.
One part had fallen inward, trapping part of the watch platform.
Roy stood beneath the wreckage. He was without cloak or hat, his shirt soaked through and plastered to his back. He had one shoulder beneath a fallen beam while Hamish and three MacNicol men strained beside him.
“Lift!” Roy shouted.
The timber rose. Men dragged a trapped guard from beneath it, his leg bent at an angle that made Donaldina’s stomach turn. Roy did not release the beam until the injured man had been carried clear. Then he lowered it carefully rather than letting it fall.
He continued without pause, issuing commands in his rough voice as the storm raged on.
Ropes were fetched, and horses were led out of the stables.
Men were sent toward the cottages below the eastern slope, where floodwaters had begun to inundate the path.
Others were instructed to strengthen the grain stores to prevent water from reaching the lower doors.
Roy never reminded them he was a laird. He did not need to. Authority seemed to settle upon him naturally, not because he demanded it, but because in disorder, he became the one man who appeared to know what needed to be done next.
A cry rose beyond the gate. “The water is inside the cottages!”
Roy seized a rope and ran. Donaldina followed.
The lower path had become a stream. Water rushed around her ankles, brown with earth, broken thatch and branches torn from the hillside. Villagers struggled out of their homes, carrying blankets, baskets and whatever possessions panic allowed them to remember.
Roy waded into water above his knees. A woman stood in the doorway of the nearest cottage, screaming that her children were still inside. Before anyone could stop him, Roy forced his way through the flooded entrance.
Donaldina’s heart climbed into her throat. The roof sagged beneath the weight of rain. One wall had already begun to buckle, and each gust made the timbers groan.
“Roy!”