The Gathering Storm (The Jacobite Chronicles Book 3)(25)

"But he didn't understand, did he?" Beth said.

"No, he didna. He went wild with grief, said he was going to kill every MacDonald in Scotland, and … I've never seen him so, and hope I never will again. I ended up having to lock him up for two days until he calmed down. I thought that would be long enough. I didna understand then. I do now."

"Understand what?" Beth said.

"What love can do tae a man, how it can drive him beyond reason. MacDonald of Glencoe understood it, thank God. But I'd never been in love then, had no idea … Christ, Beth, if I even think about anyone hurting ye, it makes my blood boil. I'd kill any man who laid a violent hand on ye, ye ken that."

She did.

"Do I ken him?" he asked suddenly.

"Who?" she asked, thoroughly confused.

"The man who hurt ye? I'll no' force ye to tell me who he is, until ye want to, but if I ken the man, it's a whole different matter, ye understand."

She was paralysed by the sudden change of subject. What could she say? If she admitted that Alex did know her assailant, he would insist on her identifying him. She had no idea what Duncan had done to his wife's killers, but she could imagine all too clearly what Alex would do to Richard.

She had sworn not to lie to him. She could not tell him the truth. She sat there, stricken, speechless.

"I'm sorry," Alex said. "I didna mean to remind ye of him and what he did. I can see I've upset ye. But I couldna stand it if I'd spoken pleasantly to the man unawares, and him having hurt ye so."

She made her decision, and summoned up everything she had ever learned from Sir Anthony and everyone else she had had to dissemble with.

"No," she said. "You don't know him." She looked him straight in the eyes as she said it, because if she did not he would know she was lying. He had to believe her, but when she saw by his expression that he did, she felt sick with shame and self-loathing.

"Well, that's all right then. I'll speak no more of it. I'm sorry," he said.

She wanted to crawl away into a corner and die. He trusted her. He was sorry. For a moment she thought she was going to be sick, and she forced herself to concentrate on the continuing tale of Duncan until the feeling passed.

"Duncan waited for three days after Mairi had been buried, then he left. He said he wanted to be by himself for a while, to think things over, and I believed him. He'd never lied to me before," Alex said.

Beth closed her eyes. She felt genuinely ill. How could this have happened? Three hours ago they had been sitting on a tree deeply in love, and now she had betrayed his trust. She swallowed, thankful that the story he was telling her was distressing enough to account for her behaviour.

"What did he really do?" she asked.

"He killed five of the MacDonalds who'd raided the cattle. The last one wounded Duncan in the side before he died. He was away for a week, and when he came back he was in a bad way, for the wound was turning bad."

"But you said it was an accident," Beth said.

"Aye, so it was, but Duncan didna see it that way. Whoever had killed Mairi, he blamed the MacDonalds, because they'd taken her hostage and should have looked after her. Well, of course I had some sympathy for him, but I also kent that I had maybe fifty men at best and Glencoe has nearly four times that number. If he chose to make a blood debt of it, which I was pretty sure he would, we didna have a chance."

"What did you do?"

"I discussed it wi' the clan, and then decided that the only way to avoid annihilation was to go to Glencoe and ask him if he'd be happy to settle the matter by single combat. And then I made the mistake of telling Duncan what I intended to do. I thought he was too sick to say anything against it, but his fever had broken and he insisted that if anyone was going to die because of his actions, it would be him, no' me, and that he would go and challenge the MacDonald chief himself. I couldna let him do that. I was in full strength and in all honesty didna rate my chances of survival very highly. Glencoe was a formidable man. Duncan, weak as he was and only nineteen, wouldna have had a hope."                       
       
           



       

The candle guttered in the sudden draught, but Beth hardly noticed it.

"What happened?" she asked, thoroughly engrossed in the story again.

"He broke my wrist," Duncan said from the doorway. His voice, normally soft and well-modulated, was flat and hard.

Beth started violently and turned to the door.

"I came to fetch my best plaid for the morrow," he said, taking two paces into the room and then stopping.

"Would ye rather I didna … ?" Alex began.

Duncan waved a hand in the air.

"No, I dinna mind if she kens about it," he interrupted, then turned to Beth. "Ye'll understand why I did it, I think," he said. "Alex does, now. I was wrong, but I couldna say that if it happened now I wouldna do the same thing again." He sat down heavily, his eyes guarded. "Go on," he said to his brother. Alex searched Duncan's face for a moment, then continued.

"As Duncan said, we argued and I broke his wrist. I couldna think of anything else to do. I couldna get him to see reason, and I wasna about to lose my brother as well as my sister-in-law."

"Couldn't you have just locked him up again?" Beth said. "You'd already done that once."

"Aye, I had, but things were different by then. For one thing, he'd just killed five of the MacDonalds. There were those in the clan who resented the fact that he was risking a blood feud for the sake of personal vengeance over an accident. Others thought he had the right to challenge Glencoe himself. And quite a few didna see why their chieftain should risk his own life to save his idiot of a brother." He smiled fondly at Duncan. "If I'd locked him up there was a good chance that the minute I left for Glencoe, someone would hae let him go."

"I'd have made sure they did," agreed Duncan.

"But you were the chieftain. Isn't your word law?" Beth said.

"Aye. It is, now. But ye've got the wrong idea about chieftainship, Beth. The chieftain isna God. Nor is he the king. When the king dies, his eldest son takes the throne, no matter what kind of dribbling idiot he is. When my da died, I had the right to take his place  –  but I had to prove myself worthy of it. If I hadna, the clan would have found someone else more suitable. It was made harder for me by the fact that I'd been away in France for two years. There were those that thought I might have gone soft while I was there, and I'd no' been the chieftain long enough to prove I hadna, when all this happened." Alex paused, searching for the right words to try to justify his action. "We're a violent clan, Beth," he said finally. "All the clans are violent when they have tae be, but the MacGregors are more so, being proscribed, because we have no recourse to law. Often, when I'm faced wi' a problem, the first solution I think of is the violent one. It's second nature. Then I think again and often I'll come up wi' another way. And sometimes I won't."

"Like with Henri," Beth said.

"Aye. I had to kill him. And I had to make sure that there was no point in Duncan following me. And the only way I could do that was to make sure he couldna fight the MacDonald, and wouldna be able to for quite a while."

"He was right, Beth," said Duncan. "I'd have done the same in his position."

"Go on then," said Beth. "What happened next?"

"I went to MacDonald," said Alex, "and I tellt him everything, including what I'd done to Duncan, so that he wouldna think Duncan didna have the courage to meet him. He agreed to the single combat, but said that if I didna take it amiss he'd no' fight me himself, lately having been ill, but get one of his clansmen to do it instead. I didna take it amiss, as I couldna think of any member of the clan I'd be afraid to fight, excepting the chief himself."

"But you would have fought him, if you'd had to," Beth said.

"Aye, of course I would. It isna cowardly to be afraid. It isna cowardly to run away either, if you're faced wi' impossible odds. It's common sense. Unless you're betraying others by doing so. Of course now I realise that Glencoe hadna been ill at all, but admired my courage and understood why Duncan had acted as he had. He didna want a blood feud either, which could have escalated tae include other branches of the MacGregors and MacDonalds in time. So he chose a man who was well-matched to me in size and strength, and we fought. He was a bonny fighter. Malcolm, his name was." Alex stopped and looked at Duncan. A look of such intensity passed between them that Beth had to turn away.                       
       
           



       

"Needless to say, Alex killed Malcolm, and there has been mutual respect between Glencoe and us ever since," Duncan took up the story. "And I'm alive, although for a long time I didna thank my brother for that blessing. And your clan and mine are no' embroiled in a bloody and pointless feud, but instead are going to enjoy a great celebration of the joining of a MacGregor and a MacDonald."