Chapter Seven
It stabbed Andrew in the heart to see the hall of his childhood in ashes, scorched into the earth as if it had never been. The only thing left standing was a single doorway that once led into his bedroom. It looked like a perverse monolith, like it had been spared by God when all around had been burned.
He had seen many buildings burnt and replaced in his lifetime but never one that meant so much to him. The corridors he had run down as a bairn, pretending he was laird of a kingdom full of dragons and princesses.
Or the later times, seeing his father planning the castle, that cough wracking him as he leaned over the parchment, calculating figures in his head, trying to work out how he was going to pay for all the work that needed doing. All that was left was in his memory. All because someone wanted to start a war.
Was it Duff MacLeish? He looked at him, a space of open ground between them. Following the age old ritual, he held his sword aloft for a moment and then tossed it onto the ground. Duff did the same and only then did the two lairds dismount.
Duff had fifteen years on Andrew, his beard turning gray, his hair thinning. He still carried himself as tall as ever. Or did he? Was there just a hint of a slight stoop as he walked into the middle of the clearing.
“You called me out to parley,” MacLeish said, his voice cold. “You bring me out from the warmth on a chill enough night to freeze a cat’s arse. You better have good reason.”
“Aye, that I have,” Andrew replied. “Let us break bread together.”
The ritual completed, they each collected their swords and waved to their men. Soon a circle of seated figures was in place on the grass. Andrew remembered watching many meetings take place this way.
He had asked his father why they were not held inside. “Would you want to sit in the hall of an enemy with no easy escape route?” was his answer. “The outdoors suit all highlanders for such purposes. It has always been this way.”
Andrew sat opposite Duff, meeting his eye, not looking away, wanting to see how he reacted when the accusation was made. “You see the remains of my father’s hall behind you.”
“Aye.” MacLeish’s face gave nothing away. Next to him, his men watched closely, their hands too near their swords for Andrew to let down his guard.
“The men who burned the hall and the village wore your tartan.”
“Did they now?” MacLeish said, sounding surprised. “And I suppose you think if I were responsible, I’d be foolish enough to send them out wearing it?”
“Are you saying you dinnae have any part in this?”
“Come on, Andrew. I like a straight fight like any man. I’m not a MacKenzie. I’m no coward who burns the homes of serfs to make a point. I’d rather take a castle with honor same as you.”
Andrew saw the subtext clear as day. “Is that a threat?”
“Your temper’ll be the death of you, laddie. I’m not the one accusing another of burning a village. You impugned my honor first, you dragged me out from my fireside because you had something vital to discuss according to your letter.
I come and I find I’m here to be accused of this? And then you accuse me of threatening you? If you want peace, this isnae the way to go about getting it.”
“You swear on the Lord that you had nothing to do with the blaze?”
“Aye though that’s not the question you should be asking.”
“What is the right question?”
“You might ask me who else might want to provoke a clan war between the MacLeishes and the MacIntyres. Who stands to gain most if we’re battling each other.”
It came to Andrew in a flash. “The English.”
“Aye, laddie. The Normans have been testing the border all along my land for months. What’s to stop them putting on my tartan to get us nice and distracted by our own feuds? Did you catch any of them?”
He thought of Beth before shaking his head. “No, not one.”
“Really? I heard you’d caught a lassie with a torch in her hand.”
He shook his head again. “Don’t believe everything you hear, Duff.”
“It could be the MacKenzies of course. They’ve sent plenty enough of their bairns to the Norman court this last year. I wouldnae put it past them to be working with the English.”
“But why? No highlander would ever…”
