‘Search every room and have anyone you find brought to the courtyard. Be on your guard. This may be a trap and they may yet have some fight in them. No violence against innocents I warn you and womenfolk are not to be molested. Anyone found guilty of doing so, I will hang them myself from the castle walls. Now go!’
Glaring at the servants and men at arms he shouted, ‘All of you, leave us”.
They rushed off and the room fell silent, save for the wind howling against the walls. Duncan was suddenly aware he had a gulf to cross with this girl. Though she still seemed very young she had, as he had predicted, matured into an undeniable beauty. Ailsa’s lovely face was drawn and pale and she had lost weight. He wanted to comfort her but he feared if he touched her she might break into a thousand tiny pieces. Memories from a year ago had not done her justice. Once again he was disconcerted by her beauty and then he came to his senses and forced himself to see her as she was - a defeated member of an enemy clan.
Duncan looked down at the slender hand clenched in strain before her, clutching the hilt of the dagger for all she was worth. Doubtless, she would use it if she had too. Her courage was admirable but her opinion of him caused him dismay. Did she really expect him to slay her here in the great hall? Did she think he had that kind of evil in him? Meeting her gaze Duncan saw only fear and hate there and a terrible exhaustion threatened to overwhelm him.
‘Where are all your people,’ he said coldly.
‘Gone, taken refuge in the hills. They fled because you were coming.’
‘Youdid not flee.’
‘I had nowhere to go.’
‘Why not seek sanctuary with your allies - the Sinclairs.’ He failed to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.
‘They are my brother’s allies, not mine.’
She’d answered him firmly but did her voice catch when she mentioned her brother?
‘Aye, your brother, your glorious brother! That fool dragged your family into a useless war against mine and as a result, I lost good men yesterday’.
To his surprise, she stood up to him. ‘You alone are to blame for this. Your clansmen have been burning farms and raping and stealing all through the winter on MacLeod lands,’ she declared angrily. ‘I have heard tales of their cruelty and the people hereabouts have had to take refuge within the castle walls to escape you. Many will starve this year as they’ve been unable to make the harvest because of men like you.’
‘Is that so!’ he exclaimed contemptuously. ‘Ailsa do you have no more sense than your drunken sot of a brother? It was the Sinclairs who committed those atrocities, not the Campbells. They did so to make us appear the aggressors, to drive a wedge between our clans and Robert being the halfwit that he is fell straight into their trap. I would never order my men to do such things, to stoop so low.
‘How can I believe that from a filthy Campbell brute like you?’
Her words, dripping with disdain, and the revulsion on her face as she spat them at him, cut him like a knife. ‘Believe it or not, Ailsa, as you will, but it is the honest truth. Your brother gave his allegiance carelessly and Clan MacLeod followed him and has only itself to blame for its misery. He widened a rift by allying himself to our enemy and now there is a dreadful loss on both sides.’ He was shouting at her now, anger stirring. ‘I watched half my men butchered yesterday and many of the survivors may yet die a slow, agonising death from their wounds. Many more innocents would have suffered too had we not been victorious.’
‘If you expect sympathy you will be sorely disappointed. I hear you massacred my clansmen, cutting them down as they fled the battle and showing no mercy.’ She took a deep breath and in a shaking voice said, ‘I should have let Alex Sinclair cut you in two that day.’
He moved towards her, his fists clenched and she tried to back away. He grabbed her by the arms and shook her in an effort to contain the hurt her words had inflicted. ‘If Sinclair had killed me, girl, you would be in far more peril from him than you are from me, no matter how hard you try to stir me to anger. Do you think there is room for mercy in a fight to the death lass? Open your eyes. Your brother and his allies have been butchering innocent farmers up and down the glens for weeks in Sinclair’s name. They forced us into this war and my clansmen died for Robert’s foolish ambitions, for his weakness, for his greed’.
‘So you killed him.’
‘Enough of Robert, that fool is rueing the day he crossed us and he has plenty of time for regret as he rots in my uncle’s dungeons.’ He saw her shoulders sag in relief. He had given her a gift with this news. Robert was a weak fool but despite this his sister loved him and Duncan admired her loyalty even if it was misplaced. It made him soften towards her.
‘There was no massacre Ailsa,’ he said releasing his grip on her. ‘Their cavalry got mired in the boggy ground of the glen so that their superiority in numbers was useless. We outflanked them and picked them off one by one until they were too weakened to put up much resistance. It was a long and filthy fight and many men either drowned in the mud or in the river or got trampled by their own panicked horses. In the end, it was a rout but we let the vanquished run away unscathed. We were too tired, broken and bloodied to pursue them and we had our wounded to care for.’
Why was he justifying himself to her? She was in no position to demand an explanation. Battle sore and with precious little sleep Duncan was surviving on determination alone and he was grieving the loss of his friends. Indeed he had entrusted their burial to Rory or had been forced to leave them where they lay, a bounty for the crows, as he hastened to Cailleach, his mind consumed with thoughts of her. Now, relieved at seeing Ailsa safe and in his care, instead of meek submission from a conquered clan he was being painted the villain by this young woman. Having meant to be kind, to protect her, he was suddenly painfully aware that the dried blood of his enemies was all over him. How she must despise him for it. Duncan tried to master his anger and disappointment.
‘Many of your traitorous clansmen will be limping home soon, no doubt. But they will get a cold welcome and harsh punishment if they raise their hand against Clan Campbell again or refuse to pledge loyalty to the new chief.
‘The new chief?’
‘Aye, that would be me.’
‘You!’ Her disbelief and shock were evident.
‘Aye lass, for my uncle has given me that honour.’
‘It’s not his to give. The clan chooses its own leader and Robert was named heir by my father.’
‘Well that may be, but as I see it there’s precious few fighting men left to make that decision. MacLeod lands are presently undefended.’
‘So you can just come along and steal them’.