Father Gordon came charging through the door, head thrust forward, furious blue eyes directed straight at Adam.Adam has no right to be looking so fresh and well, he thought,especially since he is wounded, and this made him angrier than ever.
“You!” he roared, pointing an accusing forefinger at Adam. “You are the cause of all this!”
Adam stared back at the priest impassively. “Blaming me or anyone else will not help now,” he replied calmly. “We need to think of the people and do what is best for them. Are these McElwee’s men?”
The priest, still scowling with fury, nodded. “I am sure of it. He came to see me, skirting and dancing around the subject, but I am sure it is he, although I am equally certain he will deny it. He hinted at it, although suggesting that ‘whoever had done it’ likely wanted the land and the gold.” He paused, his face working with emotion, then he begged, “Give him the land, Adam. Give him the village or the lives and souls of all these people will be on your conscience. He terrifies me as much as Satan does—maybe more, because I can see it and feel it and smell the evil emanating from him.”
“He has broken you,” Adam stated flatly.
Father Gordon glared at the handsome arrogant young Sassenach, feeling anger rising in him again. Everyone thought that Adam had changed, but he had merely shed a skin. He was still as much of a viper as ever.
“If you regard doing anything I think is for the good of my flock as being broken,” he growled, “then I am, and happy to be so if it saves one life!”
“But Father”—Emilia spread her hands—“he will make us suffer anyway. We were not fighting him before, and he still attacked us. There are over a hundred people hiding in that church, terrified to come out. Think how much worse it will be once the land is his and he can abuse it—and us—at will. You called McElwee Satan in a man’s form, the devil incarnate. Are you saying we should give our land to the devil?”
“I am saying that we should do what we have to do,” Father Gordon answered with obvious fear in his voice, “and put ourselves into God’s merciful hands. He will see us through all this. Everyone is tested at some time.”
“Yes Father,” Emilia said firmly. “But do we have to seek out the testing? We have to fight, Father, not lie down and die!”
Father Gordon opened his mouth to speak again, but Adam swung his legs over the edge of the bed and struggled to his feet to face him. The priest looked back at him, his eyes round with astonishment. He did not know exactly what Adam’s injury was, but he saw him put one hand on his back and one on his head as he stood up. When he was finally upright he raised himself to his full intimidating height and stepped up to the priest so that they were standing less than a foot away from each other. Father Gordon felt a frisson of fear tingling down his spine as he looked up at Adam’s hard blue eyes.
“Laird McElwee killed people just to intimidate us,” he pointed out, his voice calm but commanding. “He will not spare us even if we surrender, because he thinks mercy is a weakness.”
Adam was calm. “I am the Laird now, and I decide. We will fight him. Now I want to address the people. I have a plan.”
The determination of the man could not be questioned. Father Gordon left the room without saying anything and went to the church to announce that Adam wanted to talk to them.
18
Adam spoke to the community at the church, which was the only place that they felt safe. Many of their homes had been destroyed and they had nowhere else to go, but others were simply too scared to venture out.
As soon as he entered the church Adam felt again the same hostility that he had felt in his first few days in Inverinch. He held his head high, though, as he climbed onto the pulpit, then winced as a dart of pain shot down from between his shoulder blades to his hips. Emilia came up behind him and rubbed his back, then stayed to translate for him.
The first voice, a man’s, came from the back of the crowd. “Stupid Sassenach! This is a’ your fault!”
A chorus of other voices joined in, all shouting insults or making pig snorts. Emilia shouted back at them but her voice could not be heard.
Adam felt his heart break for them; all these plain, earthy people wanted were to be left in peace to lead their simple lives. Since he had come here they had suffered even more, and he knew that whether the blame lay with him or not, it was his duty to at least try to put things right.
Emilia spoke up, however, and she was absolutely furious. “Do any of you ignorant people know what this man did for you yesterday?” she demanded. Her face was a mask of rage. She turned Adam around and pulled up his shirt to show them the marks that had been left on his back. There was a long bruise that ran from his shoulder blades to his waist, with a deep cut running alongside it. “He almost gave his life for you. He stood against them so that you could all get into the church, and was attacked by one of them, but escaped with his life. And this is the thanks he gets? I am ashamed of all of you!”
Adam shot Emilia a grateful look.
Emilia was loved by everyone. The fact that she stood by his side and trusted him raised his status. The scars were real, no one could deny that that sword could have taken his life.
There was a murmur among them and they turned to Adam with more respect. None of them had known these facts.
“McElwee was making a bad show of pretending that these thugs were not working for him yesterday,” Adam said loudly. He spoke in a mix of Scottish and English. He had been there for very little time so he was not able to talk like them yet. “But we all know it was him. However, there is a way he can be beaten.”
Emilia repeated his words for those who did not understand everything.
Nobody was expecting to hear what he said next.
“We pretend to surrender.”
There was a muttering of discontent at this point. People talked to each other thinking they understood something else, or that Adam was confused.
“Yes, surrender, surrender,” Emilia confirmed again and again to the crowd.
