Free Jennifer Roberson by Lady of the Glen

Loch Laich, offering but a few trees for character, and rose importunately from the waters of Loch Linnhe, where a man required a boat to cross from land to islet. Against the pewter blue of the loch and the viridescence of hills beyond, it loomed a rigid sentinel in defense of its inhabitants. A cocky rival chieftain who thought to throw out the present clan and replace it with his own would find cold welcome.
    He knew better. He was MacIain’s son, albeit second-born; nonetheless, Dair wanted little to do with the castle and nothing at all to do with lairdship.
    Stewart stood up in his stirrups. “The brawliest castle in Scotland!”
    Dair grinned as the Appin men shouted clamorous accord. He purposely did not glance at his MacDonalds for fear he would see in their faces what he felt in his soul: a deep love for the harsh grandeur of Glencoe’s mountain fastness, the hard-running waters of its river, the looming mountain called the Pap, the array of falls cutting vertical cliffs out of jagged granite.
    Appin’s Loch Laich was very like a hundred other islets scattered as pearls from a broken necklace. Castle Stalker had a hard, sharp beauty, like cut diamonds; Dair preferred the rounded cabochon that was Glencoe.
    He shifted in the saddle to ease weary buttocks. He was in no mood to visit here with Glencoe only miles away. But he and his MacDonalds had promised to aid the Stewarts in their quest to carry home vast amounts of plunder and their share of cattle. Once in Appin the ebullient young Stewart heir, oblivious to Dair’s weariness and edgy restlessness, insisted MacIain’s son come all the way home with him to Castle Stalker.
    “You willna deny the hospitality of my house,” he declared.
    Dair, who had been suckled like all clansmen on the sacred Highland duty, thought of his father, of his father’s insistence on proper manners, and most particularly of his father’s wholly predictable reaction if his son were so benighted as to decline an invitation to sup with the heir of a clan traditionally friendly to MacDonalds.
    And now the clouds had come down to mass across the land. Rain was imminent. “I’ll come,” Dair agreed.
    Robert Stewart, leading the tail of gillies and tacksmen who tended the myriad livestock acquired from their raiding forays, nodded matter-of-fact acknowledgment; he had expected no other answer. “We’ll butcher a stirk for meat, and I’ll have the bard in to sing you the songs of Stewarts, and Appin.” He grinned slyly. “Come get out of the rain and meet my sister, Jean, who will no doubt be much taken with all the Glencoe-men!”
    Dair slanted him a sidelong glance, then squinted at the castle in elaborate skepticism. “And is she bonnie, your sister?”
    Stewart’s laughter rang loud, echoing against the castle perched on its rocky islet. “Good Christ, MacDonald, of course she’s bonnie! She looks like me!”
    Laughing in spite of himself, Dair clapped a hand to his heart in mock pain. “A brawlie blow, Stewart!”
    Stewart nodded matter-of-fact agreement. “I’m verra good with dirk or sgian dhu —” He grinned. “And never cross me with a claymore in my hand!”
    Dair grinned back. They were in that instant in perfect accord. But if it should ever come to a battle —He broke off the thought, looked again at the almost-laird of Appin, who seemed as sharply cognizant of the moment as he himself. If it ever comes to a battle, I want Robert Stewart at my side.
    Of such men, of such ruthless, reckless, resolute men was a stronger Scotland born.
     
    Cat’s trews had come to be torn. She did not recall how, only that the threadbare seat had at some point surrendered its meager strength and abjured responsibility for guarding her dignity.
    She had no dignity. She had no mind to care. She had only a wild grief that drove her ruthlessly through the darkness, stumbling and staggering her way along the narrow track in an effort to go home. There is Robbie—Robbie to tend