Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Cormac reached the watchtower after nightfall.
Rain had passed shortly before, leaving the heather dark and heavy beneath his boots.
Water gathered in the broken seams of the old stones and dropped steadily into the hollow chamber below.
The sea lay beyond the ridge, invisible beneath the darkness but loud enough to make the ground seem restless.
This tower once protected the southern entrance to Dun Ard.
Cormac’s grandfather was its commander before the Gunn lands were absorbed into MacNicol territory, shifting their role from rulers to servants.
The upper floor fell years ago, with ivy twisting through the cracks, and half of the eastern wall lies in ruins across the slope.
The MacNicols called it a ruin. Cormac called it evidence.
Two horses waited beside the fallen outer wall. Their riders stood beneath what remained of the tower roof, keeping close to a small fire concealed within an iron basin.
Alasdair MacSorley was the older of the two, a narrow-faced man with silver beginning at his temples. His family once held three glens north of the inlet before MacNicol expansion reduced them to tenant lands and an ornamental place at council feasts.
Beside him stood Tormod MacAulay, younger, broad through the shoulders and less practiced at hiding resentment. The MacAulays had lost their coastal grazing rights to Clan MacIver after a dispute settled by royal decree.
Both men possessed old names and little authority. Such men were useful.
Cormac entered the broken chamber and removed his wet gloves.
“Ye came alone?” Alasdair asked.
Cormac looked toward the two armed men waiting in the shadows beyond the firelight.
“As alone as either of ye.”
Tormod gave a humorless smile. “A man recently driven from Dun Ard ought tae value caution.”
“I wasnae driven from Dun Ard,” Cormac snarled.
“Ye fled through its gates.”
Cormac turned his gaze upon him. The younger chief’s smile faded.
“I withdrew,” Cormac spoke, “because MacIver filled the courtyard with armed men and MacNicol cowards had forgotten which blood they carried.”
He did not mention Roy’s sword beneath his jaw, but he still felt the cold tip in his mind whenever he closed his eyes. Even worse, he remembered Donaldina standing in the doorway, blood on her sleeve, watching Roy decide whether to kill him.
She called MacIver’s name… not his.
Cormac moved nearer the fire. Heat touched his wet clothing but did nothing to ease the chill lodged beneath his ribs.
Alasdair studied him. “Ye promised us proof that the King’s accord threatens more than yer place upon the MacNicol council.”
“Me place?” Cormac repeated. “Ye believe this concerns a council seat?”
“I believe men name ambition duty when they require help fulfilling it.”
Cormac smiled faintly. Alasdair was not a fool.
That made him harder to convince but more worth the effort once persuaded.
He reached beneath his cloak and unfurled a folded map.
The worn parchment showed the creases and outlined the western clans' territories.
Cormac then laid it out on a fallen stone slab.
“Look.”
Neither man moved at first. Then Tormod stepped nearer. Cormac placed one finger upon Dun Ard and another upon Black Craig.
“The MacNicols hold the western fisheries, the deep inlet and half the trade passing along this coast. The MacIvers control the northern roads and the strongest armed force between here and the inland passes.”
“We ken our neighbors,” Alasdair frowned.
“Then ye ken what their union means.”
“A marriage.”
“A Crown alliance,” Cormac corrected. “One written in Edinburgh and enforced by a king who would see every Highland chief reduced tae a keeper of royal land.”
Rainwater struck the stones outside with a soft, persistent tapping.
Cormac moved his finger along the coast.
“MacIver marries Donaldina, and these territories cease standing apart. Dun Ard’s ships feed Black Craig’s soldiers. MacIver steel guards MacNicol trade. Their councils become one voice before the Crown.”
Tormod frowned at the map.
“Two lairds cannae sit in one chair.”
“Lachlan is dead. Donaldina holds the blood of Dun Ard, but MacIver holds the royal decree. Once they are wed, he will claim authority through her.”
“She may resist him,” Alasdair said.
Cormac’s hand tightened upon the parchment.
“She doesnae understand what he intends.”
He sensed the bitterness in his voice and suppressed it.
Donaldina often confused defiance with wisdom.
Even as a girl, she challenged men trying to guide her, smiling when Lachlan encouraged her insolence.
She rejected Cormac’s advice and refused his protection, now sitting beside a stranger while MacIver’s clan insight into sensitive records was revealed to outsiders.
Cormac’s men had watched the solar. They reported that Roy and Donaldina remained there until evening, bent together over maps as though Dun Ard already belonged to them both. The thought made something vicious move within him.
“Whether she resists now is of little importance,” he said. “Marriage will bind her. A child will bind the clans. Within a generation, nae man will remember where MacNicol land ended, and MacIver land began.”
Alasdair looked toward the fire. “And the King gains a single loyal power along the coast.”
“Aye.”
Cormac tapped the smaller holdings marked between the two strongholds.
“Where does that leave the MacSorleys? The MacAulays? The Gunns? Old clans permitted tae retain their names so long as they bow, pay and remain grateful for whatever scraps the greater houses allow them?”
Tormod’s jaw hardened. His family’s losses remained the fresher wound. Cormac had chosen him for that exact reason.
“MacIver took the northern pasture from us,” Tormod growled. “Me father died petitioning tae have it returned.”
“And what answer came from Edinburgh?”
“None.”
“Because the Crown has nae interest in justice between Highland clans. It seeks only obedience.”
Alasdair’s eyes narrowed. “Yet, ye ask us tae place Donaldina MacNicol in yer hands. Why should yer rule prove kinder than hers?”
Cormac met his gaze.
“Because I ken what it is tae have me people absorbed beneath another name.”
It was not entirely a lie. His father spent his final years seated below MacNicol men whose grandfathers once asked Gunn permission to cross the southern ridge.
Cormac remembered the humiliation of watching him bow to Lachlan’s father.
He remembered promises that loyal service would preserve their lands, followed by rents, restrictions and marriages arranged to dissolve what remained of them.
He had sworn never to bend so deeply.
“Support me,” Cormac continued, “and the MacSorley glens will be restored.”
Alasdair gave no reaction, but his stillness sharpened.
Cormac turned to Tormod. “The coastal grazing grounds north of the river will return tae Clan MacAulay. Nae MacIver collector will set foot upon them.”
“And the Gunns?” Alasdair asked.
Cormac looked around the broken tower. “We take back what was ours.”
The sea struck the distant cliffs with a sound like stone splitting. For several moments, neither chief spoke. Cormac allowed the silence to work.
Men rarely betrayed their ruling clans because they loved another leader. They betrayed them because someone finally gave shape to the grievance they had been carrying for too long.
Tormod leaned over the map. “Even with our men, MacIver’s force is stronger.”
“Then we dinnae meet him in open battle.”
“Ye tried force already,” Alasdair reminded him. “Twice, from what I hear.”
Heat moved through Cormac’s chest.
“The first attempt was spoiled by hesitation. The second by men who failed tae hold the inner hall.”
“And by MacIver,” Tormod added.
Cormac looked at him until the younger man shifted his weight.
“Roy MacIver can be killed,” Cormac assured him. “He bleeds as other men do.”
“But nae easily,” Alasdair observed.
“Nae. Which is why we willnae give him a battlefield.”
Cormac reached inside his cloak and withdrew a second parchment. This one held a rough drawing of Dun Ard and the surrounding paths.
“There are servants who still remember what the Gunns were before Lachlan’s family reduced us. Stable hands whose fathers lost land. Guards who resent taking commands from MacIvers.”
“Enough tae open the gates?” Tormod asked.
“Nae yet.”
Cormac pointed toward the village road, then to the gardens west of the stronghold.
“Donaldina leaves the walls. She visits the cottages, the chapel and those cursed hives near the cliff. MacIver cannae keep her locked within Dun Ard without proving every charge I made against him.”
Alasdair studied the drawing. “Ye mean tae seize her upon the road.”
“Quietly.”
“She called for help the last time.”
“There will be nae crowd tae hear her.”
The fire shifted, sending sparks upward through the broken roof.
Tormod’s face had grown wary. “What of her escort?”
Cormac looked at him. The answer required no words. Tormod glanced away first. Alasdair did not.
“Dead guards draw attention,” he concluded.
“Living witnesses draw soldiers.”
“And MacIver?”
“He must be separated from her, drawn toward some threat elsewhere, something serious enough that he rides with his strongest men.”
“A raid?” Tormod asked.
“Perhaps. A fire. Missing cattle. An attack upon one of the northern posts.”
Cormac had not decided on the lure yet, he only knew that Roy’s strongest skill could be used against him. MacIver confronted danger head-on, positioning himself between the threat and what he aimed to defend. By creating two points of danger, even Roy MacIver would have to make a difficult choice.
“When Donaldina is taken,” Alasdair inquired further, “what then?”
Cormac looked toward the dark opening where a doorway once stood.
“Without her, MacIver has nae claim tae Dun Ard.”
“The decree still exists.”
“A decree joining a laird tae a missing woman is only parchment.”
“And if she refuses tae support ye?”
The question stirred his anger again. Donaldina would refuse at first. She always did.
But refusal required alternatives. Once Roy was gone, once Dun Ard understood that the Crown could not protect it and the lesser clans stood behind Cormac, she would see what necessity demanded… or she would be made to see it.
“She will understand,” he nodded.
Alasdair watched him too closely. Cormac folded the map before the older man could find more than he had been offered.
Tormod held his hands toward the fire. “How many men?”
“Ten from each of ye. Men who can remain silent and whose loyalty isnae purchased by the first MacIver coin they see.”
“Twelve,” Tormod said. “I will bring twelve.”
Cormac looked to Alasdair.
The older chief remained silent for so long that rain began falling again beyond the tower, hissing against the dying fire where the broken roof admitted it.
At last, Alasdair placed one hand upon the folded map. “The western glen returns tae me clan.”
“When this is finished.”
“And me people answer tae nae MacNicol council.”
“They will answer only tae their own chief.”
Alasdair withdrew his hand. “Then I will bring eight.”
It was enough. Cormac felt satisfaction settle through him, cold and clean. The King believed old names could be bound together by wax and marriage. Roy believed strength and patience would win Donaldina’s trust. Donaldina believed her wishes could alter the designs of men and monarchs.
They were all mistaken.
Cormac extended his hand across the stone. Tormod clasped it first. Alasdair followed.
“Before the marriage,” Cormac said.
“Before the marriage,” Tormod agreed.
Alasdair’s grip remained firm. “And nae witnesses.”
Cormac looked past them toward the ruined wall and the darkness beyond. Once, his clan had watched the coast from that tower. Men carried the Gunn name with fear and respect. No MacNicol ordered them where to graze, whom to serve, or how deeply to bow.
Stone could fall. Power could be taken. And Donaldina, whatever she believed, remained the key to restoring both.
“Nae witnesses,” Cormac echoed.