Free The Chieftain by Caroline Martin Page B

the window swinging wildly in the breeze.
    Isobel drew a plaid - still damp - about her and followed him, consumed with curiosity. An air of expectancy hung over the castle, as if something incredible, wonderful was about to happen. Clansmen came running from all directions towards the main door. Isobel was swept along by their eagerness into the open, on to a level grassy space below the castle. They crowded together in silence, eyes on the mountainside, and she followed their gaze to a point high up, just below the summit.
    There, a light glowed in the dusk against the black of the hillside. A moving light, coming steadily nearer, flickering and dancing like a fire. A strange light, formed of flames in the shape of a cross—
    The clansmen were silent, motionless, but she could sense the excitement, the tension that linked them. The light drew nearer, and they could make out dimly the shadowy figure of the runner who carried it, borne triumphantly above his head like a banner. And as he came within earshot he called to them in Gaelic.
    The tension snapped in a torrent of cheering. Hector turned, his face alight with joy, seized Isobel about the waist and swung her off her feet and into the air.
    ‘Isobel—Isobel—It is the fiery cross—The Prince has come!’

Chapter Six

    ‘The Prince has come!’
    So it had happened, the terrible thing they had all dreaded for so long. The flame of rebellion kindled again in the Highlands to sweep down on the peace and prosperity of the south, bringing pillage and havoc and rapine, leaving the scars to linger long after it had been quenched.
    And then Isobel recollected with a strange sensation that she was herself now linked in marriage to those terrible Highlanders, a part of them. The worst had already happened to her. She could have nothing more to fear. She could even hope, just a little, that the failure of the rebellion might bring her freedom. But at what cost?
    She thought of her parents and all those she loved, still unsuspecting as yet of what was to come. And then she glanced round at the faces about her, and they seemed disfigured with blood-lust and battle fever, the long hatred of the Lowlander brought to horrible life. A chill shudder went through her.
    Her coolness communicated itself even to Hector, elated though he was. Abruptly, he released her and said curtly: ‘Go to your room—I will come. This is men’s work,’ and then stepped forward, forgetting her, to greet the approaching runner.
    Isobel did not dare to disobey. Nor did she wish to linger any longer among these men made drunk on emotions as primitive and ancient as the mountains and shoreline of this wild land. She slipped away and ran quickly to the sanctuary of the bedroom, closing the door behind her, as if she could somehow shut out the scene she had witnessed.
    The room was quiet and orderly, reassuringly civilised. Again she was struck by the contrast between Hector the barbarian chieftain at whose hands she had suffered, and the man who had, supposedly, left something of himself imprinted in this room.
    It was almost dark now, and she crossed to the table to light the candles that stood beside the mirror. Her own face gazed eerily back at her, lit by the flickering flames, the eyes wide and dark with fear of the unknown.
    She had thought before that the future held unforeseeable terrors, but she saw now that they were nothing against what might now lie ahead. For at least until today she had been certain that somewhere her parents and friends were alive and well and prospering, that something safe and normal lived on to reassure her that the whole world had not turned to chaos. Now there was no longer any certainty or safety.
    She was still sitting before the mirror when Hector came in. He seemed almost feverish with excitement, moving restlessly about the room as he talked, the words tumbling out one over the other, his eyes bright, his hands gesturing eagerly.
    ‘We have dreamed of this