Page 92 of Highlander’s Burning Touch

“Who? Who’s ye? An’ them?” asked Niven, his heart sinking. He thought he already knew. “Where’s uncle? What’s happened to him?”

Niven’s heart palpated with fear. A sick feeling stabbed him in the heart. “Is he alright?”

Fingal sighed. “I dinnae ken. I havenae seen him. I wasnae with him.” Then, removing his eyes from Niven’s gaze, he shut up tightly.

A silence descended.

“I see,” said Niven, his heart crashing to the floor once again, “I had hoped I was wrong, but…”

Wistfully, Niven broke off to look around the corridor. He was still wary. For all he knew, many more might be on their way over. Or perhaps they had already got there.

This thought took Niven cold. The castle!

“Brother, where are they now, the clan MacLean?” asked Niven urgently.

For now, his dismay was running second to his panic. Fingal looked up, ashamed, failed to meet his eye, and merely pointed to somewhere down the corridor and beyond.

It was the direction of the Macaulay castle. Then, exhausted, Fingal sank back down into despair.

“I’m sorry,” he wept bitterly. Now Niven sat up once more. The sight of his brother, crying so piteously for a moment, touched him. Gingerly, he brought his hand in the air above him.

He was about to plant a hearty slap on him, but he hesitated. He wanted to find out exactly what Fingal had to be sorry about.

“Go on,” he said.

Now Fingal sat up and looked at him. “I didnae mean it, Niven,” he pleaded with him. “I nae meant to start all of this… I just thought…. I thought MacLean could help me bargain a wee bit better…” he began.

Niven nodded. He understood. “Ye mean about being Rory’s new and main heir?” he asked quizzically.

As he said it, Niven felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Their uneasy rivalry was always something that had gone unsaid.

At no point had Niven ever recalled a disagreement between himself and Fingal. In fact, there had been no proper discussion at all.

Maybe that had been the problem. Because now the wretched sight of Fingal, his wound seeping through the tourniquet, made the point for him.

They should have talked about things. That was to say, he should have. Looking into his eyes, Niven turned to his brother. “I see,” he said, thoughtfully.

There was a minute’s pause whilst Fingal turned away, guiltily, unable to meet his brother in the eye.

“Yer disgusted,” he said, his breathing sounding labored as he spoke, “I betrayed ye all, I ken, but it was nae meant to be like that. I didnae ken that MacLean would run with all the other lairds, to try and redraw the alliance… An’ I definitely didnae want to start a war!”

And with that, Fingal collapsed weeping, again, on top of Niven’s arm, and despite his own dismay, he did not have the heart to move it.

“I ken,” said Niven. He looked at his brother’s red blotchy eyes and went on a flashback to the day he had yanked him out of the river, years ago, as kids.

To begin with, Niven had thought he had simply fallen in. It was only years later he learned that Fingal had been sitting with some of the local children. They had begun teasing him about the fact he looked nothing like his brother – and not much like his father either.

“They called me a bastard,” Fingal had told him. “They pushed me in… an’ said if I was truly his son, I’d be able to swim… but I couldnae…”

It was the same look that Fingal had on now. Ashamed, embarrassed, and totally defeated.

Niven could not bear it any longer. “Nae, it’s alright,” he said, although it really wasn’t. He knew his brother’s ambition was wrong, but he did believe he never genuinely set out to hurt him. Or Rory.

Which was something which brought Niven up sharply.

Rory.

It wasn’t only Fingal who had sinned against his uncle. He had, too. And by quite a lot more. With a heavy heart, Niven looked into Fingal’s red, puffy eyes. “There wouldnae be anything to be sorry about if I hadnae have betrayed Rory…”