The Chieftain (6 page)

Isobel had not often heard bagpipes played, and had the lowest opinion of their musical qualities; but she had to admit to herself that this was different. A solemn melody, full of grandeur, following a strange intricate informal pattern of its own, carried over the quiet water.
 

It was like some old tale, full of heroic phrases and magnificent language, weaving a fabric of brave deeds and noble sacrifice. It was not music as she knew it, but it had unexpected power, and somehow it was entirely suited to the wild landscape and the appearance of the listeners, grave-faced, barbaric, yet suddenly dignified.

She glanced at Hector, a motionless figure but for the quiver of the eagle’s feather in his blue bonnet and the fluttering of his plaid. His eyes were bright, with pride and some warmer emotion, and his expression had something of the solemnity appropriate to a man taking part in a religious ceremony.

Then, all at once, the pipes leapt into a lively martial rhythm, and the spell was broken. There was a splash, and Isobel saw that one of the men had already jumped into the water and was running towards the shore, heedless of the waves beating about his bare legs. Laughing, shouting, the rest followed, greeting their friends on the beach with handclasps and embraces. Two men stood knee-deep in the sea and reached up to lift Hector and carry him shoulder-high to dry land, cheered on by the others, and the piper strode through the water at their side to serenade his return.

Just as Isobel had begun to fear herself forgotten, the tall Highlander guided her to the side of the ship, swung himself into the water, and lifted her over into his arms. As easily - and carelessly - as if she were merely a sack of hay, he carried her to the shore and set her down on the beach. And then, his duty done, he rejoined his chieftain, now almost hidden in a clamouring throng of delighted clansmen.

Isobel’s legs felt strange, unsteady, as if they needed the rocking of the boat to give them strength. She stood alone where the small waves lapped the shingle and looked about her, shivering a little, with fear and loneliness rather than with cold.

Here, close to the clustering huts, any charm they might have had from a distance disappeared. They were roughly built, she could see that, of large rounded stones without mortar, the weather-beaten heather thatch giving them a ragged appearance. And over them all hung an unpleasant smell: the stink of dirt and damp and poverty, of animals and humans living too close for comfort or cleanliness.

Not, she reflected, that there were any animals to be seen, beyond a lean dog scavenging among the scraps on the midden nearby, and two scrawny hens. Nor even many humans, she realised, looking about her. Three men only were left on the shore, calling to a fourth still busy on the ship. The piper and most of the others had set out with Hector and the tall Highlander along a little path that curved its way up the slope from the bay, and then turned along the headland towards the castle. The huts had a look of desolate decay, as if they had been long deserted. Yet the men who had run to meet them had come from them.

Isobel shivered again, her dislike of the little settlement growing with every moment. She drew her cloak closer about her and turned to follow Hector and his companions.

The path twisted narrowly through thickly growing trees, rising sharply at first, and then levelling out at the summit of the headland to turn back on itself and follow the cliff edge, still sheltered by trees but offering dizzying glimpses of the deep wrinkled blue of the water hundreds of feet below. Then, all at once, the path left the wood and emerged into the sunlight, dazzlingly bright, striking a glittering shimmer from the surface of the sea, forcing her to shade her eyes momentarily against its glare.

Here, the headland narrowed sharply, its rocky surface spread with rough grasses, heather, bracken and bog myrtle, to the point where the castle stood, a single solid rectangle of red-grey stone, sharply outlined on its little hill against the cloudless sky.

She knew, in some part of her brain, that this was Hector’s home, now hers. But the knowledge was unreal, and meant nothing to her. From the moment of landing everything had been so strange, so alien, that she could not really believe she had any part in it. The very air was unfamiliar, warm and soft and languorous, heavy with the fragrance of bog myrtle and spiced with the tang of the sea.

The fact that everyone ignored her only added to the oddness of the sensation, as if she were a disembodied observer from another world, a world that seemed thousands of miles - centuries even - away from here. Hector had been her one tenuous link with the familiar and the loved, for once he had stood beneath the orchard trees, but now even he was out of sight, beyond a rocky outcrop that edged the path. A dream would have seemed more real, for so often then the sleeper knew that wakefulness, and the familiar everyday world, were one short breath away, just beyond closed lids. From this, for Isobel, there could be no waking.

As she reached the rocks that had hidden Hector from view, Isobel saw him again, not quite so far ahead, where the path became a narrow track rising steeply to the heavy studded door within its primitive arch, which appeared to be the only entrance to the castle. As they approached, one of the party gave a shout and the door opened. Yet another Highlander stood there, the piper struck up another joyful yet martial tune, and two deerhounds, as lean and alert as Hector himself, leapt out to greet him in a frenzy of barking and waving tails. It was then, just as he reached out to fondle the hounds, that Hector seemed to recall that he had a wife - which was, presumably, the sole reason for his absence from home. He turned, looked at her, and said something to his companion. And with a sinking heart Isobel watched the tall man come towards her.

He did not relish the errand, she could see that. Very likely he would much rather have shared the homecoming of his master, joined in the laughter, walked in with them to the fire and refreshment made ready in the draughty hall inside the door. Instead, his expression was surly as he led Isobel indoors, to a door that opened from the hall to a winding stone stair.

Silently, obediently, she climbed the stair before him, round and round until they reached a small landing. Here, he opened another door, ushering her through. She heard the door close behind her and saw that she was alone.

It was a large room, not very much smaller than the hall below. And it surprised her. It was unmistakably the great bedchamber of an ancient castle, its narrow windows set deep in the thickness of the wall, the door heavily studded, the furnishings made with all the solid simplicity of another age. Yet it was not the primitive place she had expected.

The hangings on the carved oak bed were old and worn, the boards of the floor darkened with age, but an oriental carpet lay over them, much trodden though it was, and the walls were panelled. There were books arranged on a shelf in one corner, and a modern table set against one wall with a mirror standing on it, and a padded stool before it.

She went over to the table and examined the objects laid on its polished surface: an inlaid hairbrush, a matching comb, and a small carved box containing a silver brooch of intricate Celtic design. These were fine articles, such as a lady of wealth and fashion might be glad to own; not what she would have expected to find in the room of a barbaric tribal chieftain. If it was his room.

A single picture hung on the wall near the table, a portrait of a woman, in a white gown crossed by a tartan scarf. Her dark eyes, the springing dark hair framing her oval face, were somehow disconcertingly familiar. Isobel did not like to linger long under the gaze of those painted eyes.

She moved on to examine the bookshelves, and studied the leather covers, well-worn from use. A Latin grammar, a Bible, a number of works in Latin and French and English such as any reasonably well-educated man might be expected to have on his shelves; some poetry. All a little old-fashioned, yet very much like the selection James Carnegie kept in his library. Except that his books were rarely used. They were not, she thought, a lady’s books. But she was not sure what they told her about this room, or its owner.

She took down the Latin grammar and opened it. Inside the cover the name ‘Hector MacLean’ was inscribed, in a careful schoolboyish writing. So they were his! But they did not fit at all with what she knew of the wild young man who had kidnapped her and brought her here and was even now drinking in the hall with his men and listening to the uncouth music reaching her faintly from below.

A chest, carved like the bed, stood at its foot. She went to it and lifted the lid. Inside lay a plaid, neatly folded, a few well-laundered shirts, a tooled leather belt decorated with loops of silver, and, unaccountably, a coat of rich wine-coloured brocade. It was a little old-fashioned in cut, but would not have looked out of place in her parents’ best parlour. She found it impossible to imagine Hector dressed in anything so civilised. More in keeping was the sword that lay beside it, running the whole length of the chest. It was a massive weapon, broad-bladed and basket-hilted, and surely far too heavy for any but a giant to lift. She ran her finger over the entwined pattern decorating the blade, deep in thought, and then slowly replaced the garments she had disturbed and closed the lid.

There was little else in the room to tell her anything about its unusual occupant, if such he were - only a high-backed armchair, and a door that opened to reveal a cupboard in the thickness of the wall, containing a pair of shiny buckled shoes, an odd heavy round object with a vicious central spike, which looked like some kind of primitive war shield, and not much else. A simple table at the bedside completed the furnishings. A tidy well-cared-for room, not luxurious, but clean and neat and almost comfortable. It did not fit at all.

And then Isobel realised what was most strange about this place, about their arrival, and the decaying settlement, and the castle. What, above all, had made it seem so unreal. There were no women.

There were men of all ages - bent and white-haired, middle aged, scarcely bearded. And they had homes, of sorts; and someone must care for this room, with its polished dust-free surfaces and spotless floor; and someone must have set the glasses ready downstairs at the fireside. But there were no women to be seen; no women and no children.
 

Except for the woman in the portrait, and Isobel MacLean, wife to a man who grew stranger, more unknown with every second that passed.

She went to one of the windows and sat on the wide sill, padded with a cushion of faded blue velvet, and looked out over the sea. Only it was not the sea on which her eyes first rested. She gave a little exclamation and pressed her face close to the small leaded panes of the window.

Strange that she should not have noticed before, but on the ship her eyes had been turned to the shore where she must land, and, later, on her way along the path, she had been concerned only with the castle… Now she saw that the headland on which the castle stood reached out towards another shore. Two miles, perhaps, separated Ardshee from the more mountainous land across the sea, where dark purple-blue slopes rose from shore to sky. Another island, she supposed. She had not seen a map of her homeland, but she knew that the wild western Highlands were bordered with innumerable islands, of all shapes and sizes, like pieces roughly broken from the untamed mainland and scattered in the unpredictable sea. She had guessed, of course, that Ardshee lay on one of these, cut off more firmly than ever from the decencies of civilisation. She had not expected that another would lie quite so near.

Or was it, perhaps, not an island at all? Could it be the mainland at which she gazed now? Wild, mountainous, full of dangers, but the same land mass on which her parents lived their ordered lives, and John Campbell walked in the sunlit garden.

She felt a little shiver of excitement, which was not quite hope. And then, behind her, the door opened, closed again, and Hector came in.

He stood there saying nothing for a moment. There was an air of good humour about him, which had, she knew, nothing to do with her; though he did not smile.

‘Did they bring you water to wash?’ he asked after a while.

She shook her head. ‘No,’ she said, standing up.

He went to the door, opened it and spoke to someone just outside. She heard steps hurrying away down the stairs before the door closed again.

‘They will bring food too,’ he said. And then he crossed to the chest and drew out the plaid she had seen. ‘When you have washed,’ he went on, ‘you will put this on.’
 

He held it out to her, but she made no move to take it. She wrinkled her nose with distaste.

‘That?’ she exclaimed. ‘What do you take me for?’

All trace of good humour left him at her words.

‘May I tell you, madam,’ he said harshly, ‘that I think you deeply unworthy ever to wear the plaid. You, a Lowlander - an enemy of my race—!’ The final pause was more eloquent than any words.

Isobel gazed at him wide-eyed, shocked by the hate - worse, by the contempt - in his tone and in his eyes. He had said the word ‘Lowlander’ as her mother would have said ‘Highlander’, with loathing and detestation. It gave her an odd sensation, chilling and repelling her.

‘Why...?’ she began. She found that she could scarcely speak. ‘Why then...?’

‘Why do I ask you to wear the plaid?’ he finished for her. ‘Because you are, nevertheless, my wife - and have you seen how you look?’

She went to the mirror then, and studied herself. She had to admit that the last two days had left their mark upon her. Not only was she dirty and dishevelled, but her gown was torn and muddy, her cloak stained with salt water. Even a plaid might be better than that - at least in Hector’s eyes.