“Nay, Da! What are ye doing? Ye canna leave.”
She thought he heard her. He took a breath, lifting her hand along with his. Only then did she notice how cold his had become.
He seized, arching onto the back of his head and his heels like a bowstring pulled back too hard, and collapsed.
The councilors all stood in an arc at the side of the desk in silence for a moment, then one began praying and in a moment, others joined in.
The healer arrived in a rush, knelt on her father’s other side, and made her assessment without hesitation. “Laird Mariota, I am so sorry. Yer father is dead.” She glanced up at the councilors. “The auld laird is dead.” She looked back to Mariota, sympathy in her gaze. “I will call for the priest, my Laird.”
Mariota had the presence of mind to realize the healer was calling her Laird in front of the council intentionally. She felt a swell of gratitude fill her chest, but the council members looked less than pleased. Two were still praying and she heard them calling for intervention for the MacKay clan, but James and others grimaced at the scene she, her father’s body, and the healer set.
“What happened to him?”
“He’s been ill for a long time. Worse lately, since the boar gored him. He kenned this could happen, but he didna want ye tofash.”
Heartbroken at the suddenness of her father’s passing, scared and, yes, angry that he’d left her to succeed him with little preparation, she met the healer’s gaze and nodded. “Thank ye, Healer. ’Tis time.” She looked to the councilors. “Send for the priest.”
The next day,after the council finished discussing preparations for her father’s burial and attendant ceremony appropriate for a laird of his stature, Mariota understood what it felt like to hold one’s temper in both hands. She clutched hers tightly in her fists on her lap to keep from lashing out at the men sitting across from her father’s, now her, desk. MacKay’s council. Her father’s, not hers. Of the five, she would choose to keep perhaps two of them, and fill the other places with Seamus and Cook andsomeone else she hadn’t decided on yet. It would be unexpected to make up a council with such a mix of ages, skills, and genders. But she saw no value in having all of her councilors with the same experience and the same viewpoint about everything of import to the clan. It was time for a change. She was the change, and she would do more. “We will lay my da to rest in the morning. He wouldna appreciate what ye propose, nor would he have approved it, as ye ken fine. I will send missives to our allies advising them of the bereavement MacKay has suffered and the change in leadership, and thank them for continuing to honor their alliance with us. ”
“But we dinna do aught like that,” one man continued to mutter.
“My point exactly,” Mariota repeated. “Thank ye for seeing the difference I intend to make for MacKay. More diplomacy. Fewer bloodied swords, no’ until all other venues have been attempted. We canna continue to lose our young men at the rate we did at Harlaw, just to name the latest example. Da kenned this, but he was wedded to the auld ways. I am no’.”
“That is whatfashesus, lass.”
“Laird MacKay, ye mean?” Mariota said, sweetening her tone to a level that even that daft man would hear the iron in it. She was no longer a lass. She was a laird. And she was discovering that she hated it as much as she’d expected she would. Or even more.
“’Tis past time for the Sutherlands to leave MacKay. How much have they learned about us that they can use against us in the future?”
“Dinna pick a fight with them,” she said with a smile, “and ’twillna be a problem.”
“Lass,” another said, his voice strident, “ye dinna take the danger seriously.”
She sighed and tried again. “LairdMacKay.” She was getting nowhere with these old wolves, and she blamed her da for leaving her out of his meetings with them. She should have followed her instincts and burst in every time he sat with them. Staked her claim in front of all of them. But she hadn’t, and now, they didn’t take her seriously. “If ye were to speak to members of the clan other than yer closest friends, ye would find that MacKays welcome the Sutherlands who have been here. Protecting me. What makes ye think those same men would go back to Sutherland and conspire against us when they have ensured that I am able to assume the position I was meant to take.”
“Rather than yer wee brother?”
She wasn’t sure who muttered it. The voice had been low enough that at first she wasn’t sure she’d heard the words correctly. When she played it back in her mind, her control snapped. She wanted to surge to her feet, but realized she would have more impact if she kept her seat and her voice level. “That is enough. All of ye, get out. I will select a new council. Dinna hold yer breath waiting to hear yer name called.”
They looked at each other for a moment, the shock of her pronouncement registering quickly in one or two, much more slowly in the rest. One by one, they stood and filed out. James left last, a small smile lifting the corner of his lips as he met her gaze. Did he approve of her decision or was he laughing at her? She was certain he knew about her father’s illness. It explained why he’d pushed for atanistor a strong husband for her. Well, if she had any say in the matter, he’d get his way on the latter. She narrowed her eyes at his back as he walked out the door, then shrugged. His opinion no longer mattered.
Only then did Mariota rise and go to the door. Rather than slam it shut, she beckoned to the Sutherland guard standingoutside. “Erik, can ye please have someone fetch Ste…Anders, and Seamus as well.”
“Of course, Laird MacKay,” he said and smiled before stepping toward the great hall and signaling to another Sutherland.
Well, that certainly proved that he had heard much of her first council meeting. But his smile and his tone of voice reassured her. She had detected no smirk, not even lighthearted teasing in his smile, his tone, or his words. Why did it take a Sutherland to give her her due as Laird MacKay?
The sense of approval he gave her was a lovely gift and seemed unconstrained. If she were the Laird of Sutherland, she’d be able to count on at least him.
The stray thought stopped her and distracted her from watching him relay her request to his clansman. Where had it come from? She was not the laird of Sutherland.
She could be married to Stellan, and be Lady of the clan. His partner, his helper, in a place where she would have much more freedom to be herself, to train hawks and falcons. To train the lasses in archery to guard the walls of Dunrobin in a way she’d never been allowed to do at MacKay.
And even as MacKay laird, she might not be able to break through the attitude that something had always been done a certain way. Some things she could affect, but lasses as warriors would be a huge change at MacKay. Seamus may have done her no favors in teaching her to shoot. Each thing he learned, he taught her as soon as they could arrange it, telling her that it helped him to learn and remember the lessons, the technique, the purpose.
Longing rose in her again, sharp and bittersweet. Could she have that kind of freedom in her future? Should she? Alber had disappeared and, she prayed, was no longer close by, though he could still be a threat in the future. Were there others? Otherswho were opposed to a lass as laird? To her specifically for her role in her brother’s death, the one they considered the rightful heir?
Was she giving up too easily? She’d barely assumed the title and responsibility. But she was not the only person at MacKay who could be laird. There were better choices. Men, aye, but good men. Men like Seamus, hungry to learn and to teach, to protect and to help others enjoy life. Men who could fight and kill when the need arose. As she had done. She was not so different from them, except in one major way. Not her gender, but her desire for the position, the title, the responsibility and the acclaim that went with it. She lacked that crucial factor. She could do the job, but she would never think of it as hers and hers alone.
