Chapter 13 #2
“Och, I thought this was going to be about the lass…” Declan muttered to himself.
He cleared his throat. “Well, I mostly ken what everyone kens,” he went on, recovering quickly.
“It was all the same night, when most of the clans were having their summer festivals. They were all struck with explosions, but differently. At Callahan, it was the glen where the womenfolk were gathering, close to the west wing of the castle.”
He trailed off briefly, the set of his mouth decidedly grim. Arran let the silence hang between them for a moment. Every one of the attacks had been terrible, but for Callahan’s to happen only to defenseless women… It was a different kind of cruel.
Declan drew in a slow breath. “My aunt was killed, as ye ken. And the fields took years to recover, but that was secondary, of course.” He tapped his fingers on his knee.
“I dinnae recall exactly what each clan suffered,” he went on.
“MacBrae’s attack was in their village; people died, but none of the Laird’s family.
MacDara lost a stableyard—valuable, aye, and a few of their workers were killed.
MacAllan… I ken that they lost plenty of lands and buildings, but if anyone died, I dinnae recall.
They lost much of their medicines that they’d stored, I ken that, so lives were lost for lack of treatment, but it wasnae as direct.
Besides, their loss was nae as big as the explosion at Lennox. ”
Arran tried very hard not to flinch, not to show any reaction as his friend looked at him, that frown gone even more wretched.
“Nobody suffered like Lennox,” he summarized finally.
Arran let out a slow breath, seeking steadiness.
“What I want to ken,” he said when he could trust his voice again, “was who might have done this? Who gained—and what did they gain—from attacking all the clans at once?”
Declan nodded. “At the time, we assumed it was an outsider,” he said. “At least, that’s what my uncle gathered. English, most likely.”
Arran rubbed the back of his neck. “Aye, that would make sense,” he agreed.
And it did, in a rather historical sense. It had been ingrained into every Scot in the country to consider the English first when it came to wondering who might want to do their country harm. It usually was the English. But in this case…
“But they havenae done anything in the decade since. If it was the English, would they nae have marched upon us while we were at our weakest?”
Declan looked unsettled by this point. “Aye,” he agreed slowly. “Why would they nae?”
“It makes me wonder…” Arran hesitated because this was not a small thing to admit. “What if it wasnae an outsider?”
Even though Declan had clearly seen Arran’s direction, he still paused to let this settle in.
“If the enemy wasnae an outsider,” Declan said with a bleak sort of finality, “then they are most likely still among us.”
That was the dreadful conclusion to which Arran had arrived, too.
“But who?” Declan went on. “Who would have done such a thing?”
“I think to answer that, we need to ask who lost the most,” Arran said. “And then ask what happened to those things that were lost.”
Declan often played the glib, happy-go-lucky numpty, but that was all in good fun—not because he was actually a fool. He took Arran’s meaning immediately.
He swore profusely, echoing how Arran felt.
“Ye cannae mean to suggest that MacBrae did this?” Declan asked, sounding more surprised than misbelieving.
Arran shrugged a single shoulder. “I dinnae ken,” he admitted. “A month ago, I had scarcely thought of the man twice in years. But now…”
When Declan just nodded, however, Arran surged ahead.
“Now, there isnae much that I would put past him.”
Declan nodded again, this time more slowly, more thoughtfully.
“And he made an alliance with the Englishman for the swords to make the Lennox lands his,” Declan surmised. “Christ. It isnae proof, but it isnae nothing, either. It is enough to encourage a man to look more closely, at least.”
“You speak of verra dangerous things.”
A voice from the doorway had both men jerking around, surprise and alarm mirrored on their faces. Arran hadn’t even heard the bloody door open.
And yet there stood Blake MacFarlane, cast half in shadow.
The parts of him that Arran could see were forbidding.
Even though the captain was simply dressed, in shirtsleeves for the evening, there was an ominous sense of barely restrained violence in his pose, as if he’d been playing the soldier for so long that he didn’t know how or when to stop.
“This is a private conversation,” Declan said, sounding every inch the kinsman to the Laird. MacFarlane did not even flinch, though he had no high birth to speak of. He did not even acknowledge that Declan had replied.
Instead, his gaze remained fixed on Arran.
“Speculating on an old conspiracy that affects all of Scotland?” he probed, his tone gently mocking. “That is dangerous talk, particularly for a… mere foot soldier like yourself.”
At this ominous pause, Arran’s dread intensified. MacFarlane was practically an omen of doom himself, thinly veiled comments only added to his threatening aspect.
As much as Arran did not want to get into a battle over secrets with a man who was a master of the shadows, he could not resist the urge to try to learn something from MacFarlane.
“I’m sure I dinnae ken what ye mean,” he replied lightly, borrowing some of that knife-sharp innocence and politeness that he had heard Kenna use.
He’d criticized her for it before, but now he could understand the need to walk that razor’s edge between openly challenging someone and holding your position without seeming afraid. It was a very delicate balance.
MacFarlane was no razor, though. The man was a cudgel.
He smiled, and it was terrible.
“I’m sure ye do know,” he said. “And if ye don’t, then I’m nae going to be the one to tell ye.
Besides, it’s clear that ye dinnae know everything.
” His smile was sharp, lined with rage. “Since ye failed to mention the losses faced by Kerr and MacFarlane. Kerr lost more than two dozen villagers, and MacFarlane…” He looked briefly grim, as if he was capable of actually feeling emotion, something that he otherwise did not give any indication of.
“Well. The clan that I call home faced losses, as well.”
He blinked, and then he was once again the weapon, as unfeeling as steel. “Go back to your beds. Neither of ye kens what ye are about. And as for ye, Arran… Burns” The pause was even more pointed this time, MacFarlane’s grin even more leonine. “I’m sure I will see ye again soon.”
“I doubt ye will remember a lowly foot soldier like myself,” Arran retorted.
There was more acid in his words than was perhaps strictly wise, but hopefully Declan would only mistake it for wounded pride, not whatever battle he’d found himself embroiled in with the captain.
“Oh, dinnae fash,” MacFarlane said. “I never forget a face. I willnae be forgetting yours, either.”
It took every ounce of Arran’s self-control not to swear aloud as MacFarlane drifted back into the shadows, silent as a bloody wraith. The captain had as good as told him that he knew Arran’s true identity, that he’d recognized him.
The clan’s shadow never acted without a reason, however. Now, all Arran could do was hope that MacFarlane found it wiser to hoard this information for himself than to ruin every plan that Arran had spent the past ten years carefully putting into place.