Chapter Seventeen #2
“Then we’ll be wrong together,” Alexandra said, “and I’ll nae say one word about it after. I’ve told ye that once already this mornin’. I’ll nae be tellin’ ye a third time.”
She got as far as the door before she stopped.
“I love ye,” she said, with her hand on it and her back to him. “I’m nae askin’ ye for a thing back on that. I only wanted it said out loud the once, before whatever this turns intae.”
Arran stood in the middle of that room in his wet cloak and could not get one word up out of his chest. By the time he had it, the door had shut on her.
In the valley the morning came late, because the walls took the sun until it was well up, and Ian Campbell had always liked that about the place; a man could get an hour’s work done here before the day admitted it had started.
He stood in the old war council building with the roof that had been patched and patched again, and he thought, not for the first time, that he would have it pulled down.
Outside, the green bowl of the valley had gone brown under the tents.
The lines ran the length of it. The horse pickets took the eastern slope where the grass still held, and the new road came in behind the falls wide enough now for two abreast. His uncle had wanted that road all his life and never once troubled to widen it.
His captains stood along the wall. He had let none of them sit.
The man who came in was not dressed as a Campbell. He wore a drover’s plaid and boots that had been wet a long time. He looked at no man in that room. That was what he was paid for. There was a tiredness on him that had gone past fear into something flatter.
“’Tis delivered, me Laird,” the man said. “The last one went intae the McKenzie hall four days back, me Laird. They took it at the gate the same as ever, and nae a soul looked twice at it, nae the gate men and nae the lass that carried it up.”
“And was it read out tae them? Aloud, at the table?”
“At their own table, me Laird, by the account I’ve got.”
“Good.” Ian did not raise his voice; he had never once needed to. “And the south?”
“Set, me Laird. The ground’s chosen and the men have been lyin’ in it since the night before last. Whoever comes up that road comes up it single file for the last mile, and they’ll nae see a soul, nae a one, till they’re past the turn and it’s over.”
“Then go and eat,” Ian said. “Ye’ve been walkin’ two days and I’ve nae use for a man that falls over in me own valley.”
Ian turned to the tall captain at the end of the wall, who had been waiting all this while with his cap in his hands and the sense to keep quiet. Behind him the spy went out.
“Take yer riders south the night,” Ian said. “Nae the road; the high ground above it. Ye’ll nae touch a soul till the ambush is spent, and when ‘tis spent ye’ll bring yer riders down and take what’s left of them.”
“Aye, me Laird. And prisoners?”
“Two, and they’re the whole reason ye’re goin’.
Me brother Murdoch and me sister Isla.” He gave each name its full weight as he said it.
They were his; no other living soul used them now.
“Alive. Nae hurt, nae handled rough, nae gagged, and nae a word out of yer men tae either of them. If either one comes intae this valley with a mark on them that ye put there, ye’ll answer for it in front of the whole camp, and ye’ll nae like how I ask. ”
“And the Kincaid, me Laird? The young one that leads them?”
“Arran Kincaid dies on the field,” Ian said. “I’ve nae interest in his hands, nor his knees, nor whatever it is he’ll want tae say tae ye at the end; I want him dead in front of me brother, and I want it quick, for the whole worth of it is that Murdoch watches and cannae reach him.”
The captain did not reach for anything to write with, because nothing in that valley had been written down since it fell. It was safer so.
“There’s a third,” Ian said.
He went to the table and put two fingers on the map and left them there, on a mark well to the west, above the Kincaid county and below nothing at all.
“There’s a lass at Kincaid Keep. Cassie, they call her.
Lachlan’s own girl, and she’s near enough grown tae be spoken for.
” Ian looked up. “She’s tae be brought tae me.
Nae harmed. Nae frightened, if ye can manage it, and ye can manage it with a lass that age if ye tell her plainly where she’s goin’ and why.
She rides, she doesnae travel in a cart, and she gets fed the same as ye do. ”
The captain’s face did not change. He swallowed once, and that was all.
“May I ask what for, me Laird?”
“Because she’ll grow,” Ian said. “The Kincaid name carries intae the Lowlands, further south than any man in this valley has troubled tae think on, and it carries with her, and a wee lass of that age is a claim that walks about and eats its dinner and says thank ye. Me uncle spent his life takin’ ground with a sword and died with less of it than he started with.
I’d sooner wait; I’ve waited nine years and it hasnae cost me a thing but patience, and ye’ll find I’m verra good at it. ”
He took his fingers off the map.
“Is there anythin’ else?”
One of the older men shifted. He was worried. He let it show, because no other man in that room was going to. “There’s still nae word from Caindach, me Laird. Nae a rider nor a runner, and ‘tis three days.”
“I ken how many days it is,” Ian said. “Do ye think I dinnae count? He’d have sent by now if it had gone badly, and ye ken that as well as I do.
Robert Caindach likes tae be first with news of any colour ye care tae name.
So either he’s dead, or he’s taken, or he’s sat in a burnt courtyard puttin’ together somethin’ that flatters him.
I allowed for the three of them before ever I gave him the men, and ye’d do well tae allow for them yerself. ”
He gave one last look at his men and went to the door.
Outside, the smoke of the camp went straight up the walls of the valley and hung there, because there was no wind in that bowl and there never had been.
At the head of the valley a door was being unbarred, and an old man was being asked whether he wanted to drink, and the answer, as it had been for weeks, was going to be no.
Ian Campbell stood in the midst of the Lost Valley, the place his uncle had taken his last breath, and let himself have a moment, which he permitted rarely and rationed strictly.
Both of them would be his by the turn of the season. The Murrays for the war, the McKenzies for the ground. It had taken longer than his father had promised him it would.
Ian let himself smile at that, where there was no one to see it.
He had never minded the waiting. He had only ever minded being made to wait by people who did not know they were doing it.