Chapter 22
“I’m here for me wife,” Jameson Campbell shouted from the back of his pale gray horse. He’d halted the mount several feet away from the tall pair of gatehouse towers and imposing portcullis of blackened iron and wood. “I bid ye grant me entry. Now.”
“Rude bastard,” Graham observed from his post at Alexander’s left.
“At least he gets to the point,” Magnus said from his position at Alexander’s right.
Ignoring their commentary, Alexander took a step closer to the small open window of the gatehouse’s main guardroom on the second floor of the right tower. The portal was at the perfect angle for greeting unwanted guests with a volley of arrows or gunfire while still being shielded from any return fire.
Might as well gig the man and see how long it took him to reach a full-blown rage. It always paid to know your enemy. “And who might your wife be, sir?”
“Catriona Neal,” Campbell said with a surly glance up at the window. “Open your gates.”
“Misinformed, ye are.” Alexander watched Campbell, committing every nuance of the man to memory. “Catriona Elizabeth Rose is my wife and her last name is now MacCoinnich.”
“Ye lie!” Campbell’s face flared an angry red as he bared his teeth. “Where the hell is the Neal?”
“Gordon Neal is dead and so is his son, Calum.”
Even from the second floor of the guard tower, Alexander could tell this tidbit of news shocked Jameson Campbell and threw an unsuspected kink into his plans. The man’s eyes flared wide and his horse stomped and pawed from side to side as though ready to bolt.
“Who the hell are ye?” Campbell shouted. His hand lit on the gun clipped to his belt but he must’ve realized his vulnerable position because he jerked it away and fisted it back to the pommel of the saddle. “Your name, sir!” He bit out the words with such anger spittle showered down his dark beard.
“Alexander MacCoinnich, chieftain to Clan Neal.”
A mighty roar went up from the battlements atop the curtain wall, echoing out across the glen below. “Je ressuscite! Je ressuscite! Je ressuscite!”
Je ressuscite.I rise again. The MacCoinnich battle cry Alexander had no' heard since the morbid sore throat sickness had decimated his clan and left naught but a handful of MacCoinnichs to walk the earth. He turned to Graham and Magnus. “And who, might I ask, taught them that?”
Graham grinned. “I dinna ken but ye must admit, it has a fine ring to it.”
“I bid ye grant me entry, MacCoinnich!” Campbell shouted. “I dinna take kindly to being cuckolded nor cheated out of what is legally mine.”
“Legally yours?” Alexander rested an elbow on the window ledge. “How are my wife and my land legally yours?”
“Betrothed to me, she was. Given by her father, the chief, along with Neal horses and the land upon which they graze.”
“Show me the contract.” Catriona had assured him Calum signed nothing because her brother never left written proof of anything that might hinder him backtracking on his word.
Campbell’s mount stomped again and if Campbell’s face grew any ruddier, the top of the man’s head 'twould surely blow off. “I’ve no paper, ye bastard, as I’m sure ye already ken.”
“Aye,” Alexander replied. “And I’m no' in the habit of honoring the word of deceitful bastards—especially dead ones.”
“I will take what was promised me,” Campbell said with a brief glance behind him. “I’ve men enough to make this last as long as needed and force ye to open your gates without so much as a single skirmish. Ye ken that as well as I. Open your gates and give over. I’ll grant the women and children safe passage to Fort William.”
“Bastard,” Alexander said under his breath. The Campbell’s threat was not idle. With that many men securing the glen, he had the power to starve them out. Alexander had no’ had the chance to assessTor Ruadh’sstores of food, water, and ammunition but he would do so at first opportunity, or at least send Duncan or Sutherland to tend to such. “Send our little brothers to size up how long we can last without opening our gates,” he said to Graham.
Graham nodded and rushed from the room.
Magnus stepped up to the window, peering down as he folded his arms across his chest. “The elders might know if they ever brought any supplies in through the passages in the mountain.”
“I was thinking the same,” Alexander said.
“What say ye, MacCoinnich?” Campbell shouted.
Alexander cocked his pistol, took careful aim, and fired. The bullet hit where he intended. It splintered the wooden pole holstered in Jameson Campbell’s saddle, the one bearing the Campbell colors, neatly cleaving the rod in two. The tartan flag sagged downward in a slow spiral like a felled tree then fluttered into the mud.
The battlements nearly shook with laughter, jeers, and roars, “Je ressuscite!”
