“Vera well. Just please, please be careful.”
“I have a bonnie bride to marry tomorrow. I willna do aught to jeopardize that.” Rab helped Catherine to her feet before they righted their clothes and brushed hay from one another. They parted on Catherine’s floor with a last kiss.
* * *
Rab rubbed sleep from his eyes as he hurried along the passageway to the castle’s chapel. He was accustomed to early mornings, but the tension he’d felt since arriving, coupled with nearly no sleep each night he spent with Catherine, challenged him to get out of bed that morning. He eased his way into a pew as the prayer service began. Going through the motions, following the liturgy, helped Rab’s mind to clear. He kept his head bowed but peered out from under his brow until King Robert was nearly to his pew. Making the sign of the cross as he rose, but his head still bowed, he pretended not to notice the monarch before he stepped into the aisle.
“Yer Majesty, ma pardon. I wasna looking where I was stepping,” Rab stated as he bent in a low bow after nearly stepping on the man’s toes. He stood closer than he intended.
“MacLaren, you’ve got my attention and cornered me. I suppose you’re impatient to have your audience.” Irritation laced the Bruce’s voice as he crossed his arms.
“If ye have the time, Yer Majesty.”
“I haven’t, but I suppose I should make it. While I’m content to make you stew, your presence continues to rile many of my courtiers. Follow.” King Robert didn’t wait for Rab to fall in behind him and his guards, assuming Rab did as the king directed until they reached the Privy Council chamber. It was still so early that not even a scribe was present. Rab wasn’t certain if that was to his advantage. The guards posted at the doors while Rab waited until the king sat. “Your father was quite detailed in his missive, explaining your cousins’ fate. If I had a weaker stomach… For your sake, I pray God is as merciful as we’re taught. However, I am not. Your cousins purposely made Laird MacFarlane’s family—his women—a target.”
Rab sat in silence as King Robert spoke. When the monarch grew quiet, Rab waited. The king hadn’t posed a question, so Rab opted not to volunteer anything the Bruce didn’t ask him.
“Humph,” King Robert grunted. “You and the MacFarlanes have been at each other’s throats for three years, so it doesn’t surprise me that this exploded. But I can’t believe anyone in your family thought they could do what those men did. What say you?”
Rab inhaled a deep breath before he spoke. “I dinna have an explanation to what they were thinking because I canna imagine how any of them believed their decision was sound, how they thought to survive the MacFarlanes, ma father, or me.”
“I hear the rage in your voice even as you attempt to keep calm. I don’t think it comes from the shame they brought or the fear of my decisions.” King Robert watched Rab, but the younger Robert didn’t move. “Are you that great a protector of women that anger should so consume you that you doled out the execution you did?”
“Nay one at court who has been to the Highlands is unaware of how things were with Lady Catherine. She could have been there. For that, I canna forgive them. For that, they died as they did.”
“But she wasn’t there. They didn’t harm her.”
“They intended far worse if she had been. They took from her people she loved, who were her family. Her aunt and cousins can never come back, just as neither can her parents. I made certain at least ma cousins can never take aught from her again.”
“You still haven’t justified your rage. So you were once fond of the lass.” King Robert’s mouth turned down in a dismissive frown. Rab shifted his gaze to King Robert’s, defiance oozing from him, daring the king to make him speak aloud his feelings for Catherine. “Ah. You are still fond of my wife’s lady-in-waiting. That’s most inconvenient.”
King Robert studied Rab as he steepled his fingers beneath his nose and pressed them against his lips. He wasn’t certain what to make of the Highlander sitting before him. He understood the people of northern Scotland held themselves to a different code of honor and justice than those in the Lowlands, and he’d relied upon that and the brutality they often brought to battle. He couldn’t fault the young man for being so resolute with anyone who posed a threat to the woman he clearly still loved. Despite that, he couldn’t determine how a man who appeared so controlled while he sat across from the Bruce could be brought to such rage. It made him question the soundness of Rab MacLaren one day becoming laird when the clan was already in a precarious position with nearly all their neighbors.
“Yer Majesty, if I might speak freely.” Rab suspected he knew what the king contemplated, and he intended to make his position clear. “I will say with nay shame or hesitation that I love ma father, ma mother, and ma brother dearly. I am loyal to ma clan to ma last breath. But as much as I care for them, I admit there is only one person’s life who can make me so fiercely protective and so uncontrollably violent. I based ma decisions on how to execute ma cousins on emotion nae wisdom. I confess to that. Ma only regrets and remorse are the memories ma men will carry with them. I’d do the same over again if it meant retribution and protection for her. However, that is nae ma usual disposition. I’m nae a mon set on vengeance for slights and wrongs done to me. I’m nae a mon who will risk every mon, woman, and child in ma clan to continue feuds that have proven futile over and over. I am a mon who sees nay weakness in compromise, if in the end, ma clan benefits from giving a little to get much more. That mon in the meadow that day has only one reason ever to come back. If she isnae in danger, then he will remain tucked away.”
“And will you go charging across Scotland when she marries someone else if you learn she’s in danger?”
“I pray I never have to make that decision.”
“You came on the pretense of paying your taxes, but everyone knows why I summoned you. You have shown patience and savviness while you’ve been here. That is part of why I made you wait. I wanted to watch how you handled the scrutiny and aspersions. No one has seen you even flinch when you’re called uncouth and a savage. You do not seem to take out any hidden anger in the lists. Mayhap your mind is not as calm as you appear, but you are hardly rash.”
Rab nodded, once more remaining quiet. He’d explained himself and had nothing more to offer if the Bruce didn’t press him to answer a question. King Robert sat back, his elbows on the armrests, his hands folded across his still trim abdomen.
“I’ve known your father since we were young men. He and Andrew Mòr fought alongside me in many battles, bringing men from your clans to defend our lands and our people. This feud erupted with little warning, and I thought it was slowly burning itself out. Your cousins have likely ruined any chance that Mòr or Óg will forgive your clan. I cannot overlook the harm done to them.” Robert paused, and Rab nodded his agreement. “I also do not need a repeat of the Campbells and MacGregors if I strip you of land. The MacGregors already encroach upon you. If I take that land from you and give it to the MacFarlanes, the MacGregors will remain despite that. That will only fuel the Campbells to pursue the MacGregors further.”
Rab bit his tongue to keep from reminding the king that the only reason the MacGregors were landless was because King Robert gave their home to Clan Campbell in reward for their loyalty and commitment to fight for Scottish independence. If King Robert hadn’t meddled, the MacGregors would still be where they’d been for generations in Glencoe, which was not on MacLaren land. The MacLarens would also be on better terms with the Campbells if they weren’t the reason for the unwanted squatters in MacLaren territory.
“I ken,” King Robert flapped his hand. “Everyone lays the blame at my feet. What’s done is done, and I stand by my decision. Which brings me back to not being able to seize any of your land to give to the MacFarlanes. Neither can I insist you pay reparations with livestock. If I starve your people, you’ll just reive them back from the MacFarlanes or go after the sheep the Buchanans stole from you. That’ll merely ignite another feud, which is precisely what their idiot laird wants. Bluidy fool thinks I’ll side with him, which isn’t far off since I can’t side with you after this mess. The records show you owe one hundred and five pounds for your taxes. I assume you brought that amount.”
“Aye, Yer Majesty.”
“That money must go to the crown’s coffers. What was your harvest’s yield?”
“Enough to store ample grain for the winter and spring with leftovers to sell.” Rab and Caelan expected King Robert to order them to either give the grain outright to the MacFarlanes or any profits they made. They’d pinched pennies ever since the day his cousins murdered the MacFarlanes, anticipating losing the much-needed income.
“You will pay seventy-five percent of your profits to the MacFarlanes.” The amount was steep, but it was less than Rab and Caelan feared. Rab kept his face impassive. “You will surrender to them the number of sheep and cattle you’ve stolen from them over the past five years.”
“Aye, Yer Majesty. But that isnae a significant number. We pass our sheep back and forth, nae taking more, just the same ones.”
