“We have every right to fight for the return of our lands,” Connor said through his teeth. “But this sort of barbarism turns it into a blood feud. Our grandchildren will still be fighting because of what you’ve done.”
“I knew ye would be angry,” Lachlan said.
“Then why in the hell did ye not stop it?” Connor said, clenching his fists.
“I wasn’t the one in charge,” Lachlan spat out.
“Did the two of ye just stand by and let this happen?” Connor demanded, shifting his gaze from one to the other.
“I had my hands full keeping Sorely and the others from murdering a MacLeod farmer’s wife and daughter, after they raped them,” Lachlan said, his nostrils flaring. “I thought that was more important than saving the heads of those already dead.”
“You participated in this travesty?” Connor said, turning on Sorely. When he saw the smirk on Sorely’s face, he knew. “Christ, ye ordered it, didn’t ye?”
“Ye said to rattle their cages,” Sorely said with an insolent shrug. “That’s what I did.”
“Trotternish is not MacLeod homeland, so they would not have fought to the death for it as we will,” Connor said. “Now that you’ve made it a matter of honor for them, they’ll bring the full force of their fury upon us, and it will cost us many more lives.”
“I fought under your father and your brother Ragnall for years,” Sorely said. “This is exactly what they would have done.”
“Not my brother, not Ragnall.” Connor’s anger was cold and hard, like ice in his chest at the accusation, though he could not say for certain that his father would not do such a thing.
“Ragnall was a fearsome warrior,” Sorely hissed, “justlike your father.”
Sorely appeared to have no idea how close he was to being skewered with Connor’s sword.
“Well, I amnotlike my father,” Connor said, and for the first time he saw himself as a better leader than his father was. “I should have made my expectations clear. We do not rape women or defile the dead!”
“’Tis a mistake to show an enemy mercy,” Sorely said, his face going an angry red. “Your father and brother understood that.”
Connor picked Sorely up by the front of his shirt and slammed him against the wall. “Get out of my sight before I order ye cast adrift at sea as my father did to the nursemaid you’re so frightened of,” he said between his teeth. “Unlike that lass, you’d deserve it.”
“You’d best mind your back with Sorely after this,” Lachlan said in a low voice after Connor tossed Sorely out the door. “Better yet, lock him in the dungeon.”
He was tempted instead to hand Sorely over to Alastair MacLeod, who would give him a far worse death than casting him adrift at sea.
“Sorely is too loyal to my father’s memory to go to Hugh, who was the brother my father hated most,” Connor said. “I will deal with Sorely later. For now, I need every warrior.”
“What do ye think the MacLeod will do now?” Lachlan asked.
Connor went to the window and imagined a mass of MacLeod warriors charging across the field toward the castle.
“Taking the castle by force would cost him too many men,” Connor said. “He’ll want to consolidate his control of the countryside first so that he can keep food and our clansmen from reaching the castle.”
“Up until now, he’s held Trotternish with relatively few warriors,” Lachlan said. “His control is thin.”
Connor had come to the same conclusion from his night forays.
“After what Sorely and the others did, Alastair MacLeod will be angry, but not foolish,” Connor said. “My guess is he’ll sweep across the Snizort River with a large force, burning MacDonald homes in retribution and strengthening his hold on the countryside. We must stop him from crossing the river with all those men, and he knows it. He’ll hope for a sound defeat to show us the futility of our cause. After that, he’ll lay siege to the castle and bide his time while he starves us out.”
“Sounds about right to me,” Lachlan said. “How long will it take him to gather his forces?”
“Even if he moves quickly, it will take him a couple of days,” Connor said. “If we’re lucky, he’ll want to wait until after the purification of the fields and herds by the fires of Beltane, which gives us three days.”
He hoped to hell the other MacDonald warriors and MacIain’s arrived before the MacLeod attack began. It would be a disaster if the enemy crossed the river en masse.
“I’m making ye captain of my guard,” Connor said. “Come, I’ll speak to the men now. We must prepare for battle.”
***
