Chapter Twenty-Three
Kyle watched the fire in the hall dancing against the darkness of the night. He had been sullen the rest of the day and found himself sleepless, thinking and tormenting himself over and over again, considering everything he could have done differently or what lies he could have seen through. Time and time again, he reached the same conclusion. He would have done everything the same, and that in itself was unsettling.
Kyle tossed another twig in the fire and watched it wither as it caught, twisting up in the heat and slowly disappearing. He reached out and plucked up his cup, taking a deep drink of the stiff whiskey, letting it burn his throat and savoring the hurt. The wind battered against the windows in the hall, and Kyle let out a long sigh, thinking of going off to bed but then deciding against it. What was there to do there? His broken window was still covered by the flapping sheepskin rug, and in that space, the thought of Laila was overpowering.
“Still awake?” MacNear asked, walking into the hall. As the doors shut behind him, Kyle heard the whipping of the weather outside and smelled the torrent of fresh rain.
“What’s it look like?” Kyle grumbled, casting a sideways glance MacNear’s way.
“Looks like ye’re troubled,” MacNear laughed, walking up to the table behind him. He poured himself a dram from the bottle on the table and pulled a stool up beside the fire a few feet from Kyle.
“Troubled,” Kyle echoed, rolling his eyes. “Who isn’t?”
“Aye,” MacNear said. “But ye have women trouble. That’s a different kind.”
“Not anymore,” Kyle said. “What trouble I had, is gone. She’s gone. Never coming back.”
“And?” MacNear asked. “Wouldn’t be the first lass tae cut out on ye.”
“She was different,” Kyle said, glancing back at him. “I dinnae why, but she was.”
“Ah,” MacNear said. “Well. Some of them are. But there are other things in life.”
“Other things?”
“Our trap!” MacNear bellowed, knocking back his dram and getting up to refill his cup. “We have rebels tae kill. Battle will take yer mind off her.”
“I had nearly forgotten,” Kyle said, sitting up a bit. He had not thought of the MacLean’s in more than a day, and the sudden remembrance that there were men to kill was indeed a sudden start.
“We will trap them well,” MacNear said, knocking back yet another dram. “More?”
“Aye,” Kyle said, holding out his cup. MacNear filled them both and went back to sit by the fire.
“I have nay been in a real fight fer years,” MacNear said, looking ahead into the flames.
“D’ye ever think about the war?” Kyle asked, looking at the battle-hardened warrior. There was a deepness in MacNear’s eyes at the question, and Kyle felt he already knew the answer and felt foolish for having asked it.
“Aye,” MacNear let out eventually. “How can ye not?”
“It was long ago,” Kyle said. “I was a child.”
“I remember,” MacNear said with a grin. “I remember ye trying tae steal away on the wagons, and yer faither pulling ye off, sending ye haem.”
“I miss him dearly,” Kyle said, thinking of the wagon that had brought his father’s body back from Bannockburn.
“As do I, lad,” MacNear said. “As do I.”
“What was it like?” Kyle asked, trying to keep his mind as far away from Laila as he could, trying to focus on the task at hand. The task of killing and of winning. “The war.”
“Horror,” MacNear answered softly. “And glorious. It’s as if all the things wrong with the world can be found in one place, but ye as a person have never felt stronger, bolder, more righteous. Yet there was also terror. And rage. So much rage. When they killed Wallace, I thought we were finished. But then came the Bruce. The mighty Bruce. Now there is a Kind, laddie, I tell ye,” MacNear took a long breath, a short drink, and continued. “At Bannockburn, never had I seen such terror, but the Bruce was there, leading us through, tae victory. And we won. Against the heavy horse, nay less. That’s a King, laddie. That’s a King.”
“Tae the Bruce,” Kyle said, raising up his cup.
“The Bruce,” MacNear said quietly and drank deeply. “There is a moment on the field when ye think God has been dead all along, and ye feel that he has always been an illusion, that if he were here, he would have never allowed it tae happen. But then the battle ends, and ye stand there, victorious on the field, and the sun shines down, and ye realize, God is not just, God is not kind, he is vengeful and fearsome, and majestic. That’s what war is, laddie. God dies, and then he is reborn.”
The sentiment shook Kyle. He thought of the poor Roger MacLean laying in the grass, his blood seeping into the dirt.Mercy.
“D’ye think she left,” Kyle started again, unable not to think of Laila, “because she thought I would die?”
