Chapter 21
Malcolm MacPherson
Alistair remembered.
Years before, when MacLeods and MacPhersons still shared patrols, the narrow opening between the rocks had served to carry out wounded hunters and take messages without exposing the main track. Malcolm knew the way around because Alistair had led him through it.
That old trust had just put six enemy men inside the shelter.
"Graeme!" Alistair called.
His cousin was already moving. He gathered three MacLeods and ran for the hunter's passage before more attackers came through. Dugald stayed on the south defense, where attacks still came out of the wood.
Malcolm came on through the space between the smaller house and the slope. His men spread out, working to reach the buildings and open the defense from inside.
"Close the center!" Alistair ordered.
Two MacLeods turned a narrow cart over across the track. Others made a line in front of the chapel and the houses where the vulnerable were hidden.
Alistair saw Diana in the door of the smaller house. Her sleeve was marked with blood to the elbow. She had a binding in her hands and her eyes on him.
"Stay there," he said.
The distance kept the answer from reaching him, and the movement of her mouth suggested no agreement. Iain pulled her inside when a shot hit the wall.
Malcolm smiled.
"You still give orders no one obeys."
" Some people have judgment enough to choose which orders deserve to be obeyed."
"And you chose a Fraser to teach you that?"
One of Malcolm's men came at him from the right. Alistair turned the blade, twisted the hilt, and threw him against the wall. Another MacLeod took over before he had to finish it.
Malcolm kept coming.
He had come in to reach Alistair.
Around them the fight broke into small engagements.
Graeme was closing the passage with stones and men.
Dugald held the south barrier, keeping the attackers outside from coming in to reinforce Malcolm.
The breach had thrown the defense into disorder for a few minutes; now the clan was taking back each position.
"Look around you," Malcolm said. "This is what is left of the great Clan MacLeod."
Alistair kept the sword low, watching his left hand.
"I see living people."
"I see stables turned into sleeping quarters. Women boiling cloths in animal houses. Fighting men protected by broken carts."
"Even so, you had to bring armed men to face them."
Malcolm's mouth lost part of the smile.
"The clan ended when the castle burned."
"The castle was a building."
"It was your name in stone."
"The name is in the men you failed to kill."
Malcolm attacked.
The first blow came high. Alistair turned it and stepped back half a pace. The wounded side pulled under the binding. Malcolm caught it.
The second drove straight at the ribs.
Alistair turned aside, and the point of the sword cut the cloth. He used the movement to strike Malcolm's arm with the hilt of his own.
Malcolm gave ground.
"You are still bleeding from a ball that should have killed you."
"You sound disappointed."
"It took some effort to put that man on the road."
The confirmation removed the last doubt about the ambush.
"You paid the marksman?"
"I paid for the possibility of a future without you."
"You got a worse winter."
Malcolm came at him again.
Alistair blocked two blows. The third shook his right arm to the shoulder. He did not have the strength for a long fight, and Malcolm knew it. Every movement worked to turn him, to stretch the side, to take his breath.
Alistair let him believe it was working.
He gave ground toward the old animal buildings, where a burned wall had stood since the attack that laid waste to that part of the MacLeod land. Malcolm followed, moving away from his own men.
"Penelope has won," Malcolm said. "While you protect this hole, she carries the map out of Scotland."
Alistair turned another blow.
"She took a parchment."
"She took your clan's passages."
"Passages can be closed."
"She took symbols your father protected until he died."
"My father protected the people who drew them."
Malcolm came on harder. The blade scraped Alistair's and struck the stone, throwing a short spark.
"Your father died believing you would rebuild what you lost."
"I'll rebuild what can be rebuilt."
"With what? You have no gold. You have no allies. You have no roof for half these people."
"I have hands."
Malcolm laughed.
"Wounded hands."
"They still work."
Alistair pushed his sword out of line and took him on the shoulder. The cut opened the dark green coat. Malcolm gave ground to the burned wall.
Farther off, Graeme shouted that the passage was closed.
A volley came from the south. Dugald answered with the agreed signal. The defense held.
Malcolm heard it.
"You govern ruins, Alistair."
"I lead a clan."
"Without a castle?"
"Without having to ask a traitor what still belongs to me."
Malcolm attacked in anger for the first time.
The blow lost its precision. Alistair turned it, trapped the blade against the stone, and struck his wrist with the guard. Malcolm's sword fell.
The nearest men caught it. A MacLeod pinned the last attacker by the chapel. Another dropped to his knees and gave up his weapon. The breach inside was almost controlled.
Alistair kept the point of the sword at Malcolm's chest.
"It's finished."
Malcolm looked around him.
Graeme was coming from the hunter's passage with blood on his face and the sword in his hand. Behind him, the last men who had tried to come through were dead, wounded, or held.
Dugald was still shouting orders at the south barrier.
Malcolm raised his hands.
"Then accept my surrender."
Alistair did not lower the sword.
"Order the men in the wood back."
"They will not hear me from here."
"Try."
Malcolm raised his voice.
"Fall back!"
For a few seconds nothing changed. Then a whistle went through the trees. The shooting fell off. Steps moved away on the slope.
Dugald answered that he would hold his position.
Graeme stopped a few steps off.
"Tie him," Alistair said.
A MacLeod came up with rope.
Malcolm let out a low laugh.
"Will you try me before a council gathered in a barn?"
"If it's necessary."
"And after that? Will you hang my body on a wall that has already fallen?"
Alistair held his gaze.
"You'll be remembered for what you did. That's enough."
The man with the rope reached Malcolm.
Malcolm lowered his head.
The shoulders gave. The right hand came out slowly, offering the wrist.
Alistair saw the movement of the left.
A short blade came out of the sleeve.
Malcolm turned and came at him.
The attack went for the wounded side.
Alistair did not give ground.
He turned Malcolm's arm aside with his left forearm and drove the sword in below his ribs.
The body stopped against his.
Malcolm let out his breath in surprise. The knife fell among the stones.
Alistair drew the sword back and held him by the coat until his knees reached the ground.
"You always trusted that I would choose what was lost," Alistair said. "That's why you never understood what was still here."
Malcolm tried to answer. No word came.
He fell on his side by the burned wall.
Alistair stayed still for a moment. Blood ran down the blade and disappeared into the dark earth. There was no satisfaction in it. There was the end of a threat that had begun long before the ball on the road.
Graeme picked up the fallen knife.
"Hidden in the sleeve."
"I saw it."
"Nearly too late."
Alistair looked at his cousin.
"But I saw it."
Graeme understood the answer and called two men to take the body away.
The tension that had been holding Alistair up let go. The pain below his ribs came back whole. He put a hand on the wall.
Diana crossed the space before anyone stopped her.
"Sit down."
"There are still men in the wood."
"Dugald is holding the defense."
"I need to check the passage."
"Graeme is doing that."
She came close and opened the coat. Blood had come through the binding again, less than at the lodge, and enough to harden her face.
"The smaller house."
"Diana."
"The traitor is dead, the passage is closed, and the clan is still standing. You can devote a few minutes to not undoing everything I have sewn."
Graeme came over.
"I'll check the lines."
Alistair looked at the south barrier. Dugald was still there. The men in the wood were falling back. The hunter's passage was covered with stones and watched by four MacLeods.
He did not have to be everywhere.
"Five minutes," he said.
"Time enough to wash the wound," Diana answered. "Then I will decide how many are necessary."
She put his arm across her shoulders and took him to the smaller house.
On the way, Alistair saw people of the clan coming out of the sheltered buildings. A woman embraced her wounded husband. Two boys carried water. Iain was ordering the beds. Eliza appeared by the chapel with the shovel resting on her shoulder.
Where Malcolm saw only ruin, MacLeod life would go on.
Inside the smaller house, Diana cut the binding away and examined the stitching.
"It has not opened entirely."
"Then we can go back."
"'Entirely' does not mean 'acceptably.'"
She cleaned the blood away. The spirits burned, and Alistair closed his hand on the edge of the table.
"Is Malcolm dead?" Iain asked from the door.
"Yes."
The healer nodded once.
There was no celebration.
Iain went back to the other wounded and left Diana to finish the dressing. She worked without speaking until the new binding was tied.
"It's over," Alistair said.
"Malcolm is finished."
"That's what I meant."
Diana looked up.
"Penelope still has the map."
"I know."
"And she knows part of the routes."
"I know that too."
She waited for him to say what he would do.
Alistair put the léine on slowly and tied the cords at the neck.
"I'm not pulling men off the shelter tonight. At dawn we'll see how many can ride without leaving the clan open."
Diana touched the knot of the binding to check that it held.
"That answer would have been different a week ago."
"A week ago I still believed that controlling every way out kept anyone from leaving."
Her hand stopped.
Before she answered, hooves came up the north track.
Graeme called from outside.
Alistair stood, this time with Diana beside him and without trying to move her away.
A rider came into the shelter covered in mud, on an animal that was breathing hard. Dugald brought him to the chapel.
" He came by the north road," he said.
The messenger got down.
"We followed Lady Hawthorne from Inverness. She changed coaches twice and left Boyd behind at an inn."
"Where is she now?" Alistair asked.
The man got his breath back.
"She reached the coast road before daybreak. She's traveling with two attendants and a box of documents."
Diana looked at Alistair.
The map had left Inverness.
Penelope was on her way to the sea.