Cutting his uncle a contemptuous side glance, Robert realized just how much of a serpent the Earl of Argyll really was. For the past three days, they had done naught but kill until the sight of their own blood-soaked plaids churned Robert’s stomach. He had met the Devil, looked into those eyes filled with raw contempt. Aye, Callum MacGregor thought naught of killing Campbells, but Duncan was no better. Feuds, for whatever truth lie behind them, were one thing. Cutting the heads from the dead was another entirely. And Duncan Campbell had done the like to a score of men already.
When his uncle reached him, he looked out first amid the thick tangle of bushes that separated him and his men from the rocky cliffs of Elgol, then at Robert.
“Now do you see why I traded the horses? They would never make it over those crags. We will travel over the cliffs on foot,” he whispered. “If we meet up with anyone, we will tell them we are MacLeods. If they try to stop us, we kill them.”
Fearing his uncle had finally gone mad—or mayhap he only just now noticed it—Robert was tempted to laugh. But it would have been a joyless sound. He was sorry the poor drunkard they killed the day before had not only admitted that a clan of MacGregors lived on the isle of Skye but had directed them toward the right path. Only sixteen of them remained, and Robert knew it was not enough to take the MacGregor holding, should they truly find it.
“Uncle, hear me,” he tried to explain for the hundredth time that morn. “I do not think your plan will succeed. We cannot simply slip into their midst. Think you MacGregor does not know the faces of his people? I want my sister. If I must kill the laird to get her back, I will do so. But I do not intend to murder this Margaret MacGregor, be she the Devil’s weakness or not. There is no honor in that.”
“Honor?” Duncan sneered. “What do I care of honor? I suffered the greatest humiliation any son should have to endure because of that ill-bred bastard. Callum MacGregor is an outlaw. He defies every decree set forth by England.”
“Then arrest him and see him punished in accordance with the law. Why are you so eager to kill or injure everyone but the man you seek? And why did you not seek him before he took my sister?”
“Enough questions,” Duncan snapped at him. “Get up.” He rose and hauled his nephew up by the arm. The rest of his men followed.
“Do you fear him, then?” Robert demanded, seeing the evidence of it clearly now on Duncan’s face. “Am I to do that which you cannot?”
Chuckling, Duncan began climbing the first of many jagged cliffs. “When the time comes for such a task, I fear your heart will fail you, nephew. But after he cuts the withered organ from your chest, I will prove my worth when I kill his sister.”
Prove his worth? Robert wanted to ask him what he meant, but the path was a treacherous one. He needed his wits to make it up the cliff.
As if to confirm his decision to remain silent and concentrate was the right one, a stone came loose beneath Duncan’s boot and fell, though not far, since they only just began to climb. Nonetheless, it smashed against the serrated precipice and disappeared into the raging current below. Robert made no move to steady his uncle, shamefully imagining it was Duncan’s head instead of the rock that took such a beating on the way down. A short while later, and a bit higher up, Alasdair Drummond followed the rock and plunged to his death. Finally, Duncan stopped the troop and commanded Kevin Menzie to return to Sleat and procure a boat.
“We cannot return this way.” He peered over the edge to the water below. “Hire a captain and return here to meet us. Once we are done, we will return to the mainland upon Loch Scavaig. Go, make haste.”
Robert’s fingers were raw by the time they reached a narrow ledge more than one hundred feet above the thunderous whitecaps. He decided he did not care for this desolate place, and then decided it did not care for them, either, when the skies suddenly blackened and opened up like the mouth of some great beast spitting its torrential vengeance upon them. Duncan pressed onward, losing two more men before he conceded his defeat to the elements.
“Uncle,” Robert said while they sat with their backs pressed against the sheer sheet of rock and waited out the storm. “Graham told me that MacGregor and his sister were imprisoned as children. Is this true?”
“Aye.”
Robert’s stomach balled into a knot. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back. What else of what Graham had told him was true? “Why was this done to them?”
“There were many reasons,” Duncan said. “Mainly because they were MacGregors, enemies of the realm. The MacGregors have tried for centuries to convince anyone who would listen that our clan had wronged them. They pitifully sought excuses for their savagery against our kin. The Devil’s father was a known rebel who had taken up arms against the Campbells.”
“But they were children,” Robert said quietly, heartsick.
“It does not matter. Liam Campbell did what he wanted to do. I did not question him.”
“Did my father question him?”
Duncan’s expression darkened as he stared out over the landscape that was as harsh as the memory of his father’s face. “He was given his own holding at Glen Orchy and chose not to hunt the outlaws. When he found out about the children he sent word of his protest. He was naught like our father. But my father forgave him.” Duncan swiped the rain from his eyes. “Even when Colin later argued the Devil’s reasons for killing so many Campbells, my father forgave him.”
Chilled by the seething emotion beneath his uncle’s smooth veneer of indifference, Robert turned to look at him while he spoke.
“I think your grandfather was glad MacGregor had brought chaos to Kildun. For it forced his favored son to return.”
“So my father was not at Kildun when the Devil escaped,” Robert said softly, as facts he had never been told became clear to him now. “When did Callum MacGregor put the sword to him, then? You did say it was The Devil who killed my father, did you not? Why did he do it if, as you say, my father did not fault him entirely for his actions?”
Duncan slid his gaze to Robert’s. A trace of unease flittered across his features but lasted only an instant before his cool demeanor returned.
“Nephew, if you insist on knowing the shameful truth, then here it is. Your father was a sympathizer. A fool who received a fool’s recompense.”
“Nae,” Robert argued. “It is not foolish to show mercy to others. Amish and John taught me—”
Duncan’s voice dipped low so the others could not hear as he turned to stare at his nephew fully. “Pray they have not made you heir to such weak-minded sentiments. Pray more that your sister does not adhere to the same folly.”
“And if she does?”
