Highland Master (14 page)

“Did he mention our walk?” she asked as she opened the sack that the cook had given her and handed him one of the manchets.

“He repeated his low opinion of the Comyns,” he said, accepting the bread.

“I have beef, too,” she said, handing him some and watching as he rolled two slices together. “Was that all he said about our meeting them?” she asked a moment later when he took a seat on a flat-topped boulder and began to eat hungrily.

Pausing to swallow, he looked thoughtful. “He said more, but it meant much the same. We also talked some about trusting. He said he trusted me with you.”

“God-a-mercy, did someone see you kiss me?”

“Nay, lass. He said nowt to make me think any such thing.” As he said it, though, he looked as if he’d had a second thought.

“What?” she asked.

Added color in his cheeks made her even more curious, but he said, “ ’Tis just… He
may
have heard about it, but if he did, he doesn’t mind.”

“Even if someone did see us, I think we were too far away for him to be sure of what he saw,” she said firmly. Still, she wondered if her grandfather might be thinking that Fin would suit her. If the Mackintosh thought so, and if he said as much to James or Ivor, or even to her father, she would never hear the end of it.

Dismissing the thought, she said, “What else did he say about trusting?”

“It was just a subject that came up, but it does remind me of that impulsive kiss earlier. I don’t know why, since nowt more came of it, and he
can
trust—”

“Before you kissed me, you had been saying that men sometimes obey blindly… such as when they obey a superior officer giving an order or agree to something simply because they respect and trust the one asking them to agree.”

“Especially when they lack time enough to think the matter through, aye,” he said, remembering. “I… I do know a chap who got himself into just such a position amidst a battle. Sithee, he found his… his kinsman amongst the fallen, dying.”

“How dreadful!”

“Aye, so when the kinsmen demanded that my friend swear vengeance against his killers, my friend was sorely grieving, as you might imagine.”

“Aye, sure, and he was exhausted, too, I’d warrant.”

“He was, aye,” Fin said. Her sympathy made telling the tale harder than he had expected it to be. His intent had been to
relate just the barest details. Not only was he reluctant to admit yet that the battle had been the one at Perth between her clan and the “wretched Camerons,” but he also wanted her objective opinion rather than one colored by their growing friendship or their clans’ longstanding feud.

“What manner of vengeance did your kinsman demand?”

“The usual sort,” he said. “But everyone had sworn an oath at the outset to seek no vengeance afterward against any opponent. In his grief… aye, and in his exhaustion, as you suggest… my friend forgot about that first oath and swore to the second just before his kinsman died.”

“But he could not have kept either oath without breaking the other, could he?”

“Nay, so what do you think he should have done?”

“For a woman, that question is easy to answer, sir. However, from knowing my father, my grandfather, and my two brothers as I do, I am well aware that men do not think as women do. Their daft sense of honor too often gets in the way.”

“Honor is not daft,” he said, more sternly than he had intended. “Honor is everything, lass, because without it, men could never trust each another. If a man sacrifices his honor, he loses his self-respect and everything else worth having.”

“I know that men think that way,” she said, nodding. “But I still think that your friend’s dilemma is easily resolved. Life must always be more important than death, sir. And surely, a man of honor kills only in self-defense or defense of others, never out of spite or anger. An honorable man
cannot
kill just to protect his honor.”

“All Highlanders do hold any such bequeathed duty of vengeance sacred, Catriona. Surely, you know that.”

“I do, aye. But God-a-mercy, sir, in a civilized world, surely killing another human has naught of honor in it, whatever the reason.”

“Suppose that Rory Comyn had killed the two of us this morning,” he said. “What do you suppose the Mackintosh, your father, and your brothers would do?”

She shuddered. “They would kill him, of course, and likely kill off whatever is left of his clan as well. But that does not make it right.”

“Does it not? Would not his clan do the same if you or I had killed him? You know that they would. And, before you say that you would look down from heaven and condemn your men for avenging you, tell me how you’d feel if they did not.”

“Sakes, I’d be dead, would I not? How would I know what they did?”

“We don’t know what happens on the other side. I like to think that my father watches over me. At times, I vow, I have felt his hand on my sword hand in the pitch of battle, guiding it.”

“Have you?” Her eyes widened, and then she smiled and looked into his eyes. “How comforting that must be.”

He had not thought of it as comforting, just welcome. It had happened at least twice since Teàrlach MacGillony had died, each time at just the moment that Fin had feared he would collapse from exhaustion. Each time, the sense of his father’s hand aiding his had kept him fighting on to victory.

“You have not answered my question, lass. How would you feel? I’d wager that you’d expect someone to
want
to avenge you.”

“Good sakes, I’m as quick as any to defend my family. We all are, so in my first feelings of rage at the person
who killed me, I might well expect my father and brothers to avenge me. But if I had time to think on the matter, I hope I would be wiser. I do believe that life is preferable to death in
any
event.”

Deciding that she simply did not understand about a man’s honor, Fin was tempted to try to explain it more clearly. She did have a point about thinking first, though. Moreover, a chilly breeze had come up.

“Shall we walk to that point yonder and back again?” he asked her.

She agreed, and they strolled to the tip of the island. On the way, she showed him a log raft tilted on end against a tree and tied to it with a long rope.

“Ivor and James made that when they were young,” she said. “We paddled often from here to the west shore and back, especially in summer, when we even took it out on calm nights. Calm produces a fine echo here, so we’d hoot to wake it up.”

“Sakes, did that thing hold all three of you?”

She chuckled. “Usually, one or two of us would end up swimming one way or the other, because if anyone fell in, those on the raft would refuse to let him or her climb back on, lest all fall in. That is one reason we all learned to swim well.”

They talked and laughed together as they walked. When it was time to go in again, Fin tried to recall the last time he had spent most of a day just walking and talking with a lass in such a casual way. He was not sure that he ever had.

Catriona watched Fin as they walked back into the castle to change for supper. He seemed to be deep in thought,
and she was loath to disturb him. She had a notion that his friend was apocryphal. Ivor had often mentioned “friends” who had particular problems when the problem in question was his own.

She suspected that Fin had done the same thing, but she did not know him well enough yet to be sure. In any event, she did wonder what his “friend” had done in the end. Doubtless, she decided, he would tell her in his own good time.

Parting from him on the landing outside his door, she went up to find Ailvie ready to help her change her dress for supper.

“I were beginning to think that I ought to send someone to see if ye fell in,” the maidservant said.

“I was with Sir Finlagh,” Catriona said.

“Aye, sure, and who doesna ken that?” Ailvie said as she urged Catriona toward the stool so she could brush her hair. “I’ll plait it and twist it up under your veil, shall I? What did ye talk about for so long?”

“Everything,” Catriona said. “We seemed just to move from one topic to another as if we had known each other all our lives. He is an interesting man.”

“Hoots, ye ought to ken all there is about him by now,” Ailvie said.

“I’m sure I still know little at all. He likes to discuss things. That I do know, and he likes to debate things, even one’s thoughts. He often contradicts me.”

“Ay-de-mi, that sounds most discourteous, m’lady.”

“I suppose, but it did not seem so at the time. It is as if he cannot hear an idea without hearing contradictions in his head. If I say the grass is green, he will say, ‘Yonder, it seems yellow, but mayhap that is just new barley, turning early.’ ”

“He sounds a wee bit peculiar like,” Ailvie said with a frown.

Catriona laughed. “I suppose he does, at that. I don’t want that gray gown, Ailvie. Prithee, fetch out the pink one with the red braid on its sleeves instead.”

Fin enjoyed a peaceful sennight while he waited to hear from Rothesay. He swam nearly every morning, often with Tadhg, who had flung himself in on the third morning and demanded to know if Fin could teach him to swim as well as he did.

Fin also walked several times with Catriona, albeit only on the island. They talked of many things, and comfortably, because to his surprise, she forbore to quiz him when he felt reluctance to explore a particular subject. He knew that she was curious, but she seemed to sense his reluctance and to respect it.

Oddly, her ability to do so increased his feeling that he ought to tell her everything. Believing she would no longer respect him if he did kept him silent but also created a new dilemma. His need for her to think well of him increased daily.

Word arrived on the ninth day of his visit, a Tuesday, that a large force from Perth had reached the Cairngorms to the east. Some said that must be the Lord of the North because he preferred the higher route to the less demanding one through Glen Garry, knowing well that the formidable, icy passes discouraged pursuit from the south. Others suggested that the army might be that of the King of Scots.

Fin was sure that it was Rothesay, and that the Mackintosh was aware of the approaching army. But the old man
had not expressed the irritation, if not outright anger, that he would surely feel to learn that Rothesay had ignored his wishes.

In an area where most people traveled afoot or on small Highland ponies, it surprised him that news of the army had reached them so far ahead of the army itself until he recalled how fiercely all Highlanders thirsted for news. Mendicant friars were welcomed everywhere simply because they brought news from elsewhere.