Firebrand (21 page)

I squeeze my eyes hard shut and open them again. Damn the blurring of my eyes: I have to see straight. Maybe that’s why I change my mind. I’m sorry for the girl, but it has to be Conal first. I can’t risk my eyesight failing through sentiment and weakness. It has to be now, and it has to be Conal before the girl. I’m sorry, whatever your name is. Catriona. I’ll get to you later. It has to be my brother first. He’s dead already, after all. He’s dead already.

And my mind is as cold as my heart as I tighten my finger on the trigger.

* * *

‘WHAT IN THE NAME OF GOD IS GOING ON?’

So many years. There have been so many years between then and now, and still I’ll dream that my finger was a fraction of an instant faster on that crossbow, and I’ll wake shaking and screaming. Still.

So in the darkness I’ll reach for the woman beside me, for that other half of my soul and my self, and she’ll put her arms around me and soothe me back to sleep, thinking I’m dreaming of another time, of terrible things that were still in my future. Sometimes— often—that’s what it is. Sometimes it isn’t.

She knows, of course, that I almost killed a man she loved. There have been so many women we both loved, but she was different. She still is. I waited too long for her. Too long. Fate’s cruel.

No, it was kind that day. It was kind the day I didn’t kill my brother. It’s just that I so nearly did, and Fate likes to remind me. In the small hours.

But I don’t tell her when I dream his death. It doesn’t matter. I have plenty of night terrors to choose from now. She doesn’t always need to know which. She only needs to know she’s my firewall against them. That’s all. And she knows that fine.

* * *

Hooves clattered into the courtyard, horses neighed, swords rasped out of scabbards. The man on the grey
stallion looked familiar, but for a moment I couldn’t place him. He was well-dressed, tall and elegant, but he had the dirt of a long journey on him, and the hard ruthless fitness of a man just done with battle. The twenty-three men on horseback behind him had a similar look, and they all had naked swords in their hands.

Utter silence had fallen, broken only by the muffled aching sobs of the girl at the stake.

‘If you put those flames to that wood,’ said the newcomer in a voice rimmed with ice, ‘my men will cut every one of you down where you stand. Men, women and children.’

The men holding the firebrands exchanged glances and stepped very slightly back, but the priest barged forward, brandishing his bible. ‘You have no authority in this matter, lord!
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live!
’

‘And nor shalt thou kill,’ said the horseman calmly. ‘But I suspect you have as much respect for that as I do.’

The MacLeod. Back from his hobby-wars and alive. I forgave him every disdainful glance, every patronising smile. I forgave him my lowly otherworld life and I forgave him our hovel. Never in my life did I meet a man with better timing.

The clansmen had shrunk back, shifty and terrified, but not the priest’s professionals. Their fingers twitched by scabbards and on pistol hilts, waiting for a word.

For interminable silent ages the priest and the earl stared at one another. The skin was stretched even tauter across the priest’s cheekbones—cheated of his
prey, I thought he might launch himself at the earl’s throat—but I couldn’t speak or move. I could barely breathe.

Snatching the firebrand from the closer of the two clansmen, the priest raised it high, a smiling snarl on those thin yellow lips. Almost simultaneously the MacLeod raised his own hand and snapped his fingers.

A blade flew from the hand of one of the riders behind him, straight and true, impaling the priest. Someone in the crowd screamed once; there was a collective intake of breath. The mercenaries stared, swords and pistols half-drawn but far too late.

The priest sank to his knees, robes billowing around him like black smoke, the snarl—and the smile—still on his lips. He tried to utter some anathema, but only a horrible rattling sigh came out. He did not fall, but remained kneeling before the earl. It took me long heart-stopping moments to be sure that he was dead.

That
it
was dead.

‘Conal MacGregor is no witch, you fools, and even if he was he’d be better than any ten of you. Bring him down,’ said the MacLeod calmly. ‘The girl too. The rest of you go home, and be aware that I will hang each and every one of you, and evict your families to starve, if it even crosses your mind to behave in this manner again.’

The priest’s men simply melted away, silent. I watched them go. I knew their faces, every one, and I promised myself I’d see them again one day from a different angle. From the crowd, beginning to disperse, there was very little mutinous muttering. With the priest dead,
there was only one man to fear, and they knew who buttered their bread, and on which side. Some had already begun to look ashamed of themselves.

Two of the earl’s fighters were cutting Conal’s bonds, and his hands trembled as he rubbed life back into them. He swayed, but righted himself, teeth gritted, and he refused their help. And he had the nerve to complain about my insufferable pride?

The girl was incapable of standing, only sank down weeping onto the pile of firewood as they freed her. She cringed away from the fighters, but Conal crouched down and lifted her into his arms. I saw him stagger again, and almost drop her, but he recovered. I saw all that, though I was running down the steps from the parapet to the courtyard. I trusted to my mind to sense the steps and my feet to find them, because I couldn’t take my eyes off my brother.

He scrambled unsteadily down from the pyre, the girl’s face pressed fiercely into his neck, her arms almost choking him. A fighter tried to take her from him, only to help him, but he froze and jerked away, giving the man a wary look.

The man only smiled an intent smile. There was a silvery glow in his eyes. As I leaped impatiently from one flight of steps to the bottom of the next, I heard him quite clearly.

~
Get out of here, Cù Chaorach
.

Conal stared at him. Then, as he stumbled back, he turned and almost fell, but he was still upright when he stopped in front of the MacLeod’s horse.

His arms tightened round the girl. ‘Thank you,
Morair
.’

The MacLeod gave him a long searching look.

‘I suggest you leave here, MacGregor, you and your brother. I’ll be sorry to see the back of you but it would be safer for you both.’

‘You’ll have trouble over this, lord. I’m sorry for that too.’

‘Oh, not as much as I should.’ The earl shrugged and gave the dead priest a look of contempt. ‘That is the privilege of wealth and power. But things will get worse before they get better, and my protection will not be limitless. So go.’

‘Yes,
Morair
.’

‘Give up the obsequies, MacGregor. They don’t suit you.’

I reached them running, the crossbow still in my hands. Several fighters turned to me with weapons raised, and I’d happily have taken them on barehanded to get to Conal, but the MacLeod lifted a hand, and they lowered their swords.

‘Ah. A contingency plan, MacGregor.’ He smiled. ‘You are lucky to have such a brother.’

‘I know that, lo…I know that.’

He couldn’t put his arms round me because he was holding the girl, and I resented her bitterly for it, but he pressed his face against my head as I embraced him, tears soaking my cheeks.

‘What about her?’ The MacLeod nodded at the whimpering creature.

‘Her mother died five months ago. She has no other family. It was her stepfather who denounced her to the…to the minister,’ said Conal bitterly. ‘She can’t go
back to Balchattan. She’ll have to come with us.’

The MacLeod waved a hand dismissively. ‘Of course, of course.’ He clicked his gloved fingers again. ‘Give them horses,’ he told his men, ‘and escort them to the borders of my land. Beyond that their fate is their own. You should go far from here, MacGregor. You know
exactly
what I mean, don’t you?’

Looking dumbfounded, Conal bowed his head.

‘I wish you wouldn’t do that,’ sighed the MacLeod.

I caught the flash of Conal’s old grin as he straightened.

Horses were brought, we mounted, and it was over. I could barely believe it. I thought I would start to shake, but I made myself keep control: we were still surrounded by full-mortals and I still trusted none of them. As far as I knew this could be a sick joke to torment us with before they killed us.

Not all of them were full-mortals, of course. The silver-eyed fighter gave the girl up into Conal’s arms, and as he stepped back he winked. Something undoubtedly passed between his mind and my brother’s before Conal turned to the MacLeod.

‘Thank you.
Morair
. Your God go with you.’

‘Goodbye, MacGregor, and let’s hope against hope he’s with all of us. And in future?’ The earl sighed. ‘Do be more careful who sees that light in your mind’s eye.’

We detoured, of course, to retrieve Branndair and Liath, and we stopped once so that we could eat. We didn’t have anything, but the earl’s fighters were Highlanders enough to share what they had. They didn’t speak much, and I wondered where they were from, but I didn’t care quite enough to ask. I was desperately tired, and desperately worried.

Conal sat hunched and silent, his body curled up, and though he was thin and hollow-eyed he could barely force down the oatcakes and dried meat they gave him. I made him drink a little water. Liath lay with her head against him, watchful. Branndair tried to curl in my lap, though he was too big to fit there now and his haunches sprawled on the ground. I’d been afraid the earl’s fighters might try to kill the pair of them, but when I coaxed Branndair and Liath out of the sett, the men had only raised their eyebrows and shared glances, and then took no more notice than if they had been hunting dogs.

The girl crouched a little apart, cramming down food like a ravenous animal but never taking her wary eyes off us all. She didn’t say a word. She hadn’t spoken since they dragged her to the stake, and she’d even stopped crying, thank the gods. When it was time to move on, and I’d given Conal a boost into his saddle, she went straight to his horse without asking, put her bare foot in its stirrup beside Conal’s, and mounted behind him,
hitching up her thin shift. She rested her hands on his waist but she didn’t grip him too tightly, I was glad to see—it would have been a pity to kill her now—and he didn’t seem to mind her being there. He seemed to find it comforting.

I knew things were bad with him because he rode with stirrups. If he hadn’t, I think he’d simply have slipped from the horse’s back. I’d crossed my own across my horse’s withers: a saddle felt strange enough. But Conal had his feet jammed into the stirrups, and he clutched the pommel like a drowning man clinging to life. Anxiety ate at my guts.

The men left us in a small clearing that lay on the edge of the MacLeod’s lands. All but one turned their horses and rode off without a word, but their captain waited beside us.

‘It isn’t far from here, is it?’

Conal’s head hung so low in exhaustion I knew he couldn’t even speak, so I answered for him. ‘No. Not far.’

‘Keep the horses. They are a gift from the MacLeod. Do you know the way?’

I glanced at Conal, saw his head nod slightly. The girl’s wide anxious eyes were locked on him.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We’ll be fine.’ At least I hoped we would. All of us.

‘Don’t come back here, any of you, if you know what’s good for you.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ I said bitterly.

‘But if you do, and you’re in trouble,’ he said, ‘ask for me. I am Iain Ruadh MacLeod. And if I am not
here,’ a smile twitched his mouth, ‘ask for my descendants.’

A muttered
thank you
was all I could manage as he put his heels to his horse and cantered after his men. When I looked again at Conal, he had already ridden on in silence. I rode after him, the wolves at our heels.

These were pretty lands, wooded and wild but lush, and sheltered by hills. The climate was damp and warm in the low lying forests; there were flowers and deep green grass and springs soaking through the earth. Midges hovered in a cloud around us, but none of us minded much. I recognised it all, though it had been almost two years, and my heart lightened the further we rode. If I could get him home, we’d be fine.

The little loch lay quiet among the trees, and we were silent as we halted and stared at it. My heart was in my throat and my eyes burned. Beyond the reedy edges its surface was absolutely still, sticky-glossed with the intense reflected colours of bank and tree and sky. If you dipped in your hand, you might think you’d draw it out dripping with raw pigment.

‘Girl,’ I said. ‘Get off the horse.’

The girl slid off the horse’s back and stood there, looking at me and then at Conal and then at the loch. Conal half-turned to give me a withering glare that was a ghost of what he used to inflict on me. I tried to smile.

Dismounting, Conal gripped his horse’s stirrup leather tightly, and leaned against the animal’s flank for a moment, and so kept his footing. Gathering himself,
he walked forward to the reedy bank. He turned to the girl.

‘
Catriona
,‘ he said pointedly, with a glance at me. ‘This is where we go.’

She shook her head, took a step back, and shook her head again.

‘Do you want to stay here and die,’ he asked her, ‘or will you trust me?’

Staring at the still water, she swallowed, her pale throat jerking. She took a step towards the loch, then another, but then she stopped and seemed unable to move.

‘You have to be with me,’ he said, and in front of my disbelieving eyes he went to her and picked her up in his arms again.

She was a wisp of a creature, but I wanted to drag her off him and fling her away. I jumped down off my own horse, but something held me back. She was shaking her head violently, touching Conal’s face, stroking his cheek.