Chapter Six
Alex awoke the next morning to a cacophony of sounds—horses whinnying and men shouting. Wondering at the cause of the tumult, Alex leapt from his bed and strode to the window where he flung open the shutter. Three men were dismounting in the stable yard. Their horses were lathered and spent, and the riders didn’t look much better. They spoke to one another in a mixture of Gaelic and another tongue he couldn’t comprehend. Who were they?
Three young lads materialized to take charge of the horses, and a moment later, MacHeth himself strode out to greet them—arms open wide. But after a few words were exchanged, the smile vanished from his face. Whatever news they carried was obviously not as well received as the messengers themselves. Curious, Alex washed and donned his clean tunic, then headed for the kitchen to break his fast.
This time, unlike the last, the room was a hum of activity with cooking fires blazing at both ends and a dozen women chopping vegetables, kneading dough, plucking fowl, and roasting meats on the spit. He’d never seen so much food being prepared at one time. He was momentarily overcome by the mélange of mouth-watering scents of herbs and spices.
“There be bannocks and parritch yon,” one of the servants nodded curtly to a corner table. “Help yerself.”
Alex noted several younger lads who were eating and looking as mesmerized as he felt. He recognized Domnall’s sparring partner Kenneth among them. He joined them on the bench, took up an oat cake, and reached for the pitcher of heather ale.
“MacHeth surely killed the fatted calf for Somerled’s men,” Kenneth remarked. “Can’t recall the last time we had such a feast!”
“Somerled?” Alex asked, taking his first bite of oat cake, finding it dry and disappointing after all the tantalizing smells. He washed it down with a long and eminently more satisfying gulp of ale.
“Aye, the King of the Isles. His men brought word the king’s son is dead,” Kenneth said.
“Which son?” Alex asked.
“Prince Henry, the heir. They say he was murdered by his brother-in-law for his lands. The king has called for a meeting of the earls and thanes. It’s rumored that he will make them all pledge allegiance to his grandson, Malcolm.”
That explained why MacHeth looked so grim upon their arrival. His antipathy for the Canmores was no secret. What would he do if forced to bend the knee to the king’s grandson? Would he be tried for treason if he refused? And what of Domnall? Would he attempt to make his own right known?
He thought of the thousands of Highlanders who had died fighting for his father. If forced to choose, would he fight for Domnall?
Kenneth seemed to read his mind. He continued in a lower tone, “The opportunity has come if Domnall has a mind to put forth his claim for the throne. I’m ready to fight.” His eyes gleamed. “’Tis past time my sword got bloodied.”
“They talk of rebellion?” Alex asked.
“Better said, they talk around it,” Kenneth said with a wink. “They would know MacHeth’s position first.”
“And what is MacHeth’s position?” Alex asked. Alex was beginning to question where his own loyalties rested. Before coming to Castle Kilmuir, he’d accepted that for better or worse, God chose the kings of men. But now? He felt his own allegiances subtly shifting.
Kenneth shrugged. “MacHeth is a man who keeps his own counsel.”
“Ouch!” Sibylla cried out as her cousin yanked at a tangle of her hair. “Must ye be so rough?”
“I wouldn’t have to be if ye took more care,” Ailis chided. “Ye think to conduct yourself like a wild beast and win a husband?”
“Why do ye go on so about husbands?” Sibylla complained. “’Tis tedious.”
In truth, the idea wouldn’t be half so annoying if Sibylla had any hope at all of obtaining her heart’s desire. But Alexander had made it clear that he had no intention of wedding anyone. And he’d been avoiding her since.
“Tedious?” Ailis hissed. Sibylla shrieked as another hunk of hair snarled in the comb. Yanking the silver comb from her cousin’s hands, she began working at the ends of the knot. “Why are ye in such a temper?”
“I’m not in a temper,” Ailis sullenly denied.
“Nae?” She turned to face her cousin. “I’d have no hair on my head if I let ye finish.”
“A’right,” Ailis sighed. “Some men from the Isles rode in this morn.”
“And?” Sibylla prompted.
“I fear there will be another rising.”
“Another rising?” Sibylla snorted. “When is there ever talk of anything else?”
“But this time is different,” Ailis said.
“Different? How?” Sibylla asked.
“By sending his men here, Somerled makes the first step toward an alliance,” Ailis said.
“An alliance with Somerled would not be a bad thing for Domnall. He’s the only one who has ever kept King David in check.”
“Aye,” Ailis agreed, her blue gaze looking increasingly fretful. “But I still fear what is to come.”
Though she didn’t confess it, Sibylla’s fears mirrored those of her cousin. If Domnall and Somerled incited an uprising, suffering would follow in a wide and devastating wake.
“Would ye have Domnall ignore his birthright?” Sibylla asked.
“Nae,” Ailis violently shook her head. “He wouldna be worthy of his blood if he did. For better or for ill, he must fulfill his destiny, but ye know as well as I do, that such pacts are always sealed with a marriage.”
“Marriage? Whose marriage?” Sibylla asked, her mind already racing.
“Likely Domnall’s,” Ailis replied, her eyes now misting. “But ye and I are also of an age to wed. In truth, it could be any one of us. Why else do ye suppose they came here?”
“They could have come for many reasons,” Sibylla protested. “And surely, Uncle Malcom would not undertake such a thing as a betrothal without first discussing it with us.”
“Uncle is Thane of Kilmuir,” Ailis reminded her, “and has final authority in these matters. He has no need to discuss any of it with us. He will always do what’s he deems best for the clan. If that means arranging a betrothal, there’s naught we can say or do about it.”
Was it true what Ailis suggested? That a marriage was already in the making? “But that’s the great question, isn’t it?” Sibylla murmured. “What is best for the clan?”
Would MacHeth choose to go on as they have in peace with poverty? Or would he choose bloodshed in the name of pride and independence?
Sibylla threw down the comb. “I would know my uncle’s mind on this.”
“Please, Sibylla,” Ailis gripped her arm, “dinna speak of this. He will surely suspect we were skulking and spying where we dinna belong.”
“Aye,” Sibylla agreed, recalling the fire she’d suffered on her own backside many times for that offense. “But I still intend to find out.”
After breakfast, Alex sat down to resume copying some psalms for a Book of Hours. Taking up a new goose feather, he shaved the plumes from the shaft with his pen knife, and then carefully honed the nib to a useable point. It was a routine he’d perfected over the past five years since his promotion from vellum scraper to apprentice scribe. His first year as an apprentice had been dedicated exclusively to learning the skill of pen making. He’d made thousands of them before he was ever permitted to apply one to parchment.
Alex dipped his finished quill pen in his ink horn and began the painstaking task of copying the psalter. Although he willed himself to keep his focus on this letters, his mind kept wandering over the events that had come together to shatter his tranquil existence—the new knowledge of his past, the sword, the simmering uprising—and Sibylla’s kiss. If pressed, he knew he couldn’t even say which of these had unsettled him more.
Sibylla and their passionate kiss, wouldn’t stay long from his thoughts. He’d had the purest intentions when he’d offered to teach her to read, but now he knew no good could possibly come of it. One kiss had nearly been his undoing. And avoiding her seemed impossible. He’d already tried and failed.
Though he wished he could refute them, his feelings for her were undeniable. But marriage was out of the question. Even if he were not impoverished, her family surely had a better match in mind—a noble husband with lands, power, and influence. They would want someone who would not only provide her with security but who would be an advantageous ally.
He laid down his quill and scanned his work for errors, only to realize he’d copied the same verse twice. He raked his hair with a deep sigh of dismay. It was no good pretending. There was only one solution—he must leave Kilmuir.
Alex found both MacHeth and his nephew in the great hall with Somerled’s men and some of the clan elders, about a dozen men in all.
“But Henry’s dead!” Domnall exclaimed. “Now is our chance!”
“If ye think to petition the king for your birthright, think again!” MacHeth replied. “Do ye really believe he’s going to open his arms to a bastard nephew, when he has a grandson, the blood of his own blood as an heir?”
Struck by the tense words, Alex stalled in the doorway. Had he imposed where he wasn’t welcome? His fears were dispelled when MacHeth acknowledged his presence.
“Come Alexander.” He nodded to the table. “Ye should also know of what we speak.”
Alex took a place at the end of the bench beside Magnus, the one-eyed giant, wed to MacHeth’s sister. Wordlessly, Magnus poured a cup of mead and slid it in front of Alex.
“Malcom is a feeble stripling who’s never even set foot in Alba, Norman from his head to his bluidy toes!” Domnall argued. “How many of the Highlanders would support him if I pressed my claim?”
MacHeth’s gaze narrowed. “Know this nephew, the moment ye step forward in opposition to his grandson, David will kill ye.”
“But the king has never been weaker,” Domnall continued to press his point. “His heir is dead, and the English are too busy fighting their own civil war to bother themselves with our concerns. The time has come to fight!”
Somerled’s men echoed his sentiment with murmurs and nods, while Magnus and the other clan elders kept an uneasy silence. While their first allegiance was to MacHeth, Alex suspected a few of them would side with Domnall if he chose to act.
Alex also experienced conflicted feelings, but this was not his fight. He was leaving Kilmuir.
“We are too weak to go to war,” MacHeth continued outwardly, calm and controlled, but his eyes betrayed the intensity of his conviction. “The southern kingdom is full of Sassenachs who will not rise to a Highland standard. They have an army of Norman knights at their command. I would not lead us into another slaughter.”
“Then what would ye have us do?” Domnall demanded.
“I would ask for patience,” MacHeth said. “We need a sound strategy. We cannot win with our swords alone. We must fight with our wiles.”
“Somerled is no friend of David Canmore,” Ranald interjected. “He also commands many ships. He might easily be persuaded in Domnall’s favor.”
Domnall’s gaze lit with interest. “Ye speak of alliance?”
Ranald offered a cagey smile. “I have been given leave to speak of such things, but tomorrow we will return to the Isles.”
“Ye do not heed Canmore’s summons to wait on him at Inverrary?” MacHeth asked.
His smile broadened. “Somerled does not heed Canmore.”
The message was clear. Somerled would never kneel to either David or his heir.
Ranald emptied his tankard and cast a slow and assessing gaze over the men seated at the table. “No doubt ye have much to discuss amongst yourselves.” He rose with a nod to his men.
MacHeth acknowledged him with an inclination of his head. “We’ll speak again after the feast.”
MacHeth and Domnall stared at each other in strained silence until the others had left the chamber.
“It seems that Somerled sent his surrogate here to offer his support,” Domnall stated triumphantly.
“Think lad!” MacHeth rebuked his nephew. “No king ever acts against his own interests. Somerled only offers because he thinks he’ll be able to control ye. If ye accept his aid, ye will only be trading one master for another.”
“And who was your master, Uncle?” Domnall countered. “My father who came at the king’s behest to take possession of your lands? The man who burned and pillaged and destroyed and then further humiliated ye by claiming your sister, though she was already promised to another?” He looked to Magnus who clenched his fists with a black look. “He took her away with him until she bore him a son—a son he disinherited the moment he had a Norman-bred replacement.”
Domnall continued, his eyes flashing. “Would ye have us go on merrily while they continue to dishonor and demean us by taking our lands? Our pride? Our religion? Our very way of life? How does it feel, Uncle, to send Moray men to fight in English wars, and to pay homage to live on land that is yours by right?”
Every man at the table stiffened in anticipation of MacHeth’s reaction.
With a blood vessel visibly pulsing in his forehead, MacHeth shut his eyes in what appeared to be a supreme exercise in self-control. Had the taunt come from any other man, Alex had no doubt he’d already be shorter by his head.
MacHeth finally responded in a low, ominous tone. “Only a fool has no regard for the counsel of those with greater wisdom and experience.”
Alex understood Domnall’s need for action, but his uncle was right about needing a plan if he intended to oppose a king with thirty some years of experience subduing rebellions.
“Fool am I?” Domnall flushed at the affront. “Even a fool can see that it’s not Somerled, but ye, who wants to control me! I am my own man! If ye will not fight—to hell with ye! I will raise my own army.”
Sibylla jumped back as the door flung open. Domnall’s face was flushed and his expression fierce. He nodded to Sibylla and then brushed by her without a word.
“Domnall, wait!” Sibylla called out, but he still failed to acknowledge her.
Doggedly trailing him, she followed his steps from the castle, through the bailey, and to the stables where he shouted for his horse.
“Where are ye going?” she asked.
He spun to face her. “How much did ye hear? I know ye were listening.”
“Enough,” she replied.
“The opportunity has come but he refuses to fight!”
“Uncle has reason for caution,” Sibylla said. “He has been through this before. Ye should heed his judgement. Do ye remember what they did to Wimund when he tried to press his claim? Do ye believe ’twas the Cumbrians that put out his eyes and cut off his manhood?” Sibylla shuddered at the recollection.
She’d never met her bastard half-brother, but the gruesome story had spread like a wildfire through the Highlands. If Domnall was bent on taking up his own cause, she prayed he wouldn’t come to a similar end.
“Uncle Angus was a great warrior! What has MacHeth accomplished? Nothing!”
“Uncle Angus died,” Sibylla reminded him.
“At least he died honorably. He died fighting to free Alba from oppression. MacHeth says we are too weak, but I think he lacks faith. He doesn’t believe the clans will come out for me.”
“How can ye be so certain they will?” she asked.
“They came out for Malcom Mac Alexander,” he argued. “If he hadn’t been betrayed, he might well have prevailed. Where is Duncan Og with my damned horse?” He strode to the paddock where several horses munched on their hay. He led one out by the halter and tethered it to a post.
“Duncan and the others lads went to Cnoc Croit na Maoile to build a midsummer banefire.”
Mumbling another curse, he disappeared into the tackle shed. He re-emerged a moment later with a saddle and bridle slung over his shoulder which he proceeded to put on the horse.
“Ye didn’t answer my question,” Sibylla pressed. “Where are ye going?”
“Where do ye think?” He lifted a booted foot to the stirrup. “I go north to raise an army.”