Ewen felt a flicker of premonition.
All of a sudden men started pouring into thebarmkin, racing toward the keep. He could tell by their expressions that something was wrong. “What is it?” Sir James asked the first man to approach. “What has happened?”
Ewen recognized the man as one of Carrick’s. “The Lamont chief claimed that no one could climb the cliffs in the rain. Wild Fynlay bet him twenty pounds that he could. He made it to the top, but slipped on the way down and fell onto the rocks below.”
Ewen froze.
Sir James swore. His father had kept his word not to fight, but the challenge had served the same purpose. Tempers were bound to get hot as men would take sides. “Is he dead?” Sir James asked.
“Not yet,” the man answered.
A few seconds later, Fynlay’s guardsmen entered thebarmkin, carrying the body of their chieftain.
At first, Ewen refused to believe this was any different from the hundreds of other times his father had been hurt. But the moment his father’s men laid him on a table in the laird’s solar behind a wooden partition in the Great Hall, Ewen knew this was the end.
His father’s reckless wish for death had come to fruition.
Ewen stood off in the far corner of the room as first Fynlay’s men, and then Sir James said goodbye.
He could feel his eyes grow hot and hated himself for the weakness, rubbing the back of his hand across them angrily. Fynlay didn’t deserve his emotion or his loyalty.
But Fynlay was his father. No matter how wild, irresponsible, and brash, he was his father.
Guilt for his earlier words made Ewen’s chest burn. He hadn’t meant that he hated him. Not really. He just wanted him to be different.
He would have stayed in the corner, but Sir James called him forward. “Your father wishes to say something to you.”
Slowly, Ewen approached the table. The giant warrior whose face so resembled his own looked as if he’d been mashed between two rocks. His body was mangled, broken and crushed. Blood was everywhere. Ewen couldn’t believe he was still alive.
He felt his throat grow tighter, anger and frustration washing over him at the prodigious waste.
“You’ll make a good chieftain, lad,” his father said softly, the deep, booming voice now raspy and weak. “God knows, better than I ever was.”
Ewen didn’t say anything. What could he say? It was the truth, damn the man for it. He wiped the back of his hand across his eyes again, even angrier.
“Sir James sees great things for you. He will help you. Look to him for guidance and never forget what he has done for us.”
As if he could. He and his father didn’t agree on much, but on the subject of Sir James they were of one mind: they owed him everything.
Fynlay’s voice was growing weaker and weaker, and still Ewen could not speak. Even knowing time was running out, he couldn’t find the right words. He’d never known how to give voice to his feelings.
“The best thing I ever did was steal your mother.”
“Why do you say that?” Ewen lashed out, the emotion erupting all at once. “Why do you say you took her when you didn’t? She came with you willingly.”
Fynlay could only manage to lift one side of his mouth; the other side of his face had been bashed in by the rocks. “I don’t know what she saw in me.” Neither did Ewen. “I think the only irresponsible thing she ever did in her life was fall in love with a barbarian.” He coughed uncontrollably, emitting a sickly wet sound as his lungs filled with blood. “She would have been proud of you. You might look like a brute like me, but you are much like her. It tore her apart to disobey her father.”
Ewen knew so little of his mother. His father rarely mentioned her. Now, suddenly, when time had run out, he wanted to know everything.
But it was too late. His father was all but gone. The light flickered in Fynlay’s eyes. A wild look came over him, and in a final burst of life, he grabbed Ewen’s arm. “Promise me you’ll finish it for her, lad.” Ewen stiffened. He wanted to pretend he didn’t understand, but he could not hide the truth from death. “Promise me,” his father repeated.
Ewen should have refused. Every time he returned home and saw that half-finished pile of rocks, he wanted to die of shame. It was the reminder of everything his father had done wrong. It was a reminder of everything Ewen didn’t want to be.
But somehow he found himself nodding. Duty and loyalty meant something to him, even if they never had to his father.
A moment later, Wild Fynlay Lamont breathed his last breath.
With his father’s death, Ewen’s time in Sir James’s service came to an end. Instead of marching off to Irvine to join Wallace and fight the English, Ewen returned to Ardlamont to bury his father and take over his duties as chieftain.
