MacKinnons' Hope: A Highland Christmas Carol (3 page)

“Do not forsake me, Eleanore!”

He had so much to do, and so little time to do it!

T
he fire drove
them from their beds in the wee hours of the morn. The landscape raged like an inferno, consuming crops and trees, setting fire to the night itself.

Thankfully, it spared the majority of the villagers’ homes, as well as the keep and some of the surrounding buildings. All but one of the storehouses had been reduced to ash. For nigh on a week, the clan had labored through a warm spell that would very soon end. Unseasonably temperate for the Ides of Winter, it afforded them a rare opportunity to work from sunrise beyond sunset.

At seventeen, Malcom MacKinnon was as braw as any man, able to work his share and then some. And so he did. Theirs were unforgiving lands, in troubled times and a Scotsman hadn’t the luxury of sitting about on his rear, ordering servants about. He’d witnessed such behavior only once in his life—years ago, while being held by Hugh FitzSimon. Thank the Gods his stepmother was naught like her odious Da.

Despite that Page wasn’t Malcom’s true mother, she was nonetheless the light of his life. His father worshipped her as well. She could do no wrong—not in Malcom’s eyes, nor in his father’s. She worked harder than any Highland lass, and harder yet than some of the men.

He eyed auld Angus, seated once more on his pimply auld rump, drinking liberally from his
uisge
flask. When it came to Seana’s
uisge
that man had a tolerance none could rival. Angus claimed it loosened his joints, but from what Malcom could tell, it simply loosened his tongue and then glued his arse to the bench, from whence he might never again rise.

He watched Angus now, trying to get up, and half hoped he wouldn’t make it. Judging by the way he wavered and then fell upon his rear at least three times before making it to his knees, he would be a far greater liability returning to work.

Shaking his head, Malcom returned his attention to repairing the roof.

So much damage was done, but the mood was hopeful and the help of their neighbors was much appreciated. He barely recalled a time when the clans were at war. Now it was more like than not that MacLean brats were running about, stealing tarts from their windowsills and Brodie brothers were lolling around, draining his father’s ale—and then their willies onto their bushes.

The only one thing that hadn’t changed much in all these years was that his grandfather—Dougal MacLean—kept mostly to himself. Despite that the old man had made peace with his only remaining daughter, he couldn’t seem to bring himself to extend that peace to Malcom’s Da—and by virtue of that fact, Malcom as well.

MacLean still blamed Malcom’s father for his eldest daughter’s unfortunate death, but rather than acknowledge that he had had some part in that, and that both Malcom and his father were bound to share his grief, he forsook them both and kept to himself. The last time he saw Old Man MacLean was at his daughter Alison’s wedding.

MacLean had no sons, and rather than see his legacy continued through his grandson, or even his daughter, he was prepared to let his lands go fallow. Already, his clansmen had abandoned him to serve the Brodies. He was but a grumpy old man, sitting alone in a dark house—or at least that’s how Malcom imagined him and he felt aggrieved by the fact.

But although the clans were not so antisocial as Dougal MacLean, perhaps the biggest surprise of all was that Malcom was taking orders from Gavin Mac Brodie’s wife—a dún Scoti maid that Gavin wed some years past. Catrìona Brodie, like Page, worked harder than most of the men, though in her case, her skill was rather surprising. Catrìona could weave a thatch roof as tight as you please. She could design a hut with greater skill than any draftsman, and she could lay bricks with a keener eye and tighter seams than any bricklayer. But, be damned if she wasn’t a bossy wench, taking over their crews from the instant she’d arrived on the scene.

“Here,” she said to Malcom. “Take this to your Da.”

Malcom eyed her with a lifted brow, though he took the rolled parchment she handed down to him from the rooftop, wherein she’d scribbled a few more changes for his father to see. He did not much appreciate being ordered about, and wondered what his Da would think when he handed him yet another new set of Catrìona’s blueprints.

Annoyed, he nevertheless started down the hill, mulling over what sort of clan raised a lassie to work like a man—and to act like one too.

Page’s bossiness could be excused, Malcom supposed, for she’d been left to fend for herself, much like Seana Brodie had been. But at least those women knew to give their men obeisance in front of others. Catrìona treated her husband with the same bossiness with which she treated Malcom.

“Do this. Do that,” she would say. And Gavin Mac Brodie would rush to do her bidding, all the while grinning like a
bampot
, as though he thought it would gain him some wonderful prize. What Malcom wouldn’t give to be away from this place—somewhere where he could begin to matter. Here, he was only the MacKinnon’s son, and all his counsels were scoffed at.

Down, deep in his soul, he felt a coming tide … a surge of something foul. Trust was simply not something Malcom gave so freely.

All his grumblings were forgotten the instant he spied the riders coming up the hill.

Hastening to his father’s side, Malcom handed him the parchment from Catrìona without a word.

His father turned the parchment in his hand. “What’s this?”

“From Cat,” Malcom said, rolling his eyes, and fixing his gaze upon the approaching riders. “She says the chimney is better positioned to the middle of the roof.”

“Does she?” his father said, and stuffed the parchment into his belt to deal with later, his gaze returning to the riders. “Where are your sisters?” he asked.

Malcom shared his concern for their safety. He did not suffer strangers easily. “Page took the women to the brook.” All save Catrìona Brodie, he didn’t bother to add. She, more than any of them, needed a bath, for she sweated like a man.

“Good.”

It wasn’t until the riders were halfway up the hill that Malcom realized who it was. A wolf’s-head banner snapped in the breeze, and he peered back at Catrìona.

A
bit farther
down the way, near a bend in the road, a small cavalcade stopped for a rest. Broc Ceannfhionn held the wagon reigns, considering a detour.

There were a number of
cairns
along the landscape here, but most of these were not built by the hands of seven-year old boy. He, more than anyone, understood what it was like to see a village burn… The scent of seared flesh and the haunting refrain of terrified screams tainted his childhood memories. And yet none of these were things he ever wanted his children to suffer. Although mayhap it would behoove them to know from whence they’d come?

Very near where he’d buried his beloved dog, Merry—bless her sweet four-legged soul—he had erected a cairn for his murdered kinsmen and carved each of their names upon the stones, earmarked with the year of their deaths. Their bones rested leagues away, but this was Broc’s private monument to a life he’d abandoned and a people whose legacy would perish along with his own death… lest he fathered a son—and now he had.

A sliver of sunlight stabbed him in the eye and he turned away, casting his gaze backward along the cavalcade, settling his sights on his flaxen-haired boy seated in one of the carts near the new wet nurse. There was barely enough room for the children amidst food supplies and heaping piles of cloth, but none of them had complained.

Griffin was nine. Maggie was ten. His eldest, Suisan, was already twelve. And Lara, at seven, was the image of her minny, with bright red hair and soul-stirring green eyes.

He’d never told any of them how their grandparents died… all his children knew was that Broc’s mother and father and all his kinsmen all perished under unfortunate circumstances and that was how Broc had come to live most of his life with the MacKinnon clan. They’d embraced him as a child of seven into their fold—something for which he would be indebted to them until the day he died. Whatever he had was theirs to share—which was why he’d dragged six hefty wagons along a mountainous countryside, and spent two entire days rebuilding a wheel to replace the one they’d lost after dragging the lot across a wide burn.

By all the accounts Broc had received,
Chreagach Mhor
lay in ruins. And so they’d come expecting to spend the entire winter, bringing as many of their household as they could spare, and leaving Broc’s most trusted men to garrison the keep.

Dunloppe’s defenses were entirely secure, and, for the moment, they were no longer at war.

Mulling over the complexities of a visit to his parents cairn, he considered asking his wife for counsel. Seated next to him, she was as lovely as the day he’d met her, her curls aflame beneath the afternoon sun.

As though by instinct, Elizabet peered down in the direction of the cairn—where Broc had first confessed his love for her. After a moment, she met his gaze, crooking her arm about his and squeezing gently, guessing at his thoughts. “Only think on it awhile, my love. If you still feel the need to share, we can stop by on our way home.”

Broc nodded, considering his children, who’d barely known a day of hardship. Even more than the MacKinnons, they were blessed.

Elizabet said, “Perhaps of greater import than the way they died is the legacy you will leave in their names?”

Together, they peered back at their band of wee ones sitting in the carts.

His daughter Suisan was becoming such a little lady. She’d kept all her siblings preoccupied the entire journey, telling them stories and playing games all along the long, bumpy way. All four children were perfectly content at the instant, leaving Broc to worry less about his brood, and more about the state of affairs of
Chreagach Mhor.

It pained him immensely to think of his laird—he would always think of Iain this way—in such dire straights. Even now, ten years gone by, he could not quite fathom himself laird of his own demesne. And yet he was. He was proud of all he’d accomplished—risen literally from the dust of his own clan—and for this he had mostly Iain to thank.

Leaving the cairn for later, he clicked the reins, moving along down the road, eager to see his cousin Constance—willful little lass that she was—to know the woman she had become.

Beside him, Elizabet pulled her heavy cloak around her shoulders and pinched a loose fabric from her dress. “I’d forgotten how long this journey could be.”

Noting the weariness in her face, Broc nodded back toward the cart where the children rode. “Why do you not take a rest? You need not keep my company the entire way.”

“I am fine,” his wife persisted. She gave him a crooked smile. “If you can do it, I can do it,” she said saucily. “Anyway, when was the last time you spent so long in a saddle or in a wagon seat, my dearest husband? You’ve hardly left our home save to attend the King’s council. You must have sores on your bum the same as me.”

Broc chuckled low. “’Tis God’s truth,” he said, and gave his wife a bit of a grimace, offering on a more serious note, “You know I wadna ever leave ye, but for the agreement I have made with David. I like my bed very well, thank you, please. One damp winter in a cauld dungeon is quite enough discomfort to last a mon his entire life.”

They fell silent after that assertion, and Broc realized the memory of that particular winter must plague his wife even more than him. In fact, he wished he hadn’t brought it up at all, for that was the winter he’d come far too close to hanging on the gallows—both he and Lael dún Scoti.

In truth, he was greatly pleased Elizabet had insisted on coming along. Not only could the MacKinnons use all the help they could get, but he never relished leaving his family alone for very long. Dunloppe he could lose if it be God’s will, but Broc could never bear to lose the love of his life or the children they’d born together.

“We’ll arrive there soon,” he ventured to say.

Elizabet’s answering smile could scarce hide her fatigue. “Do not fash yourself, Broc Ceannfhionn.” He smiled, because she’d used the name he’d given her when they’d first met,
Broc the blond
. His wife kept him humble—as did the name itself, given to him by Iain MacKinnon on the day Broc arrived at
Chreagach Mhor
.

“’Twill be alright, Broc Ceannfhionn,”
Iain had said, giving Broc hope.

Now it was Broc’s turn to return the favor.

A
idan dún Scoti
arrived with more than two-dozen strong backs to join the reconstruction. Each man saw to his own mount as Iain greeted the dún Scoti laird.

It humbled him to know that a man like Aidan—who rarely left his vale in the Mounth—would come so far to help. Allies though they were, they were hardly neighbors. Now, more than ever Iain was coming to realize the value of the brotherhood they’d formed ten years before—a bond of seven noble clans that included all of the dún Scoti—the hill Scots—who bore no other name, the MacLeans, the Montgomeries, the Brodies, and the last of the McNaught and MacEanraig clans.

All except Jaime Steorling had come to offer aid, and Jaime, ’twas said, had been summoned to yet another of David’s councils. The rest of the clans had been spared the majority of these, for David only levied their men whenever it was unavoidable. He knew better than to abuse the fragile oath they’d all sworn.

“I believe the last time you were here was for your sister’s wedding,” Iain said.

In fact, Aidan had weathered that situation rather nobly, for his sister had been ripped from the bosom of her family by none other than David of Scotia, with the sole premise of bartering her politically to England—much the same as was done to his own son. But unlike Malcom, Catrìona had escaped her captors, and promptly found herself a Brodie husband.

Aidan arched a dark brow, the twinkle in his eyes unmistakable. “Aye, well, it took me all this long to get over the foul temper it left me in.” He removed his riding gloves, tucking them into his waist, and said, “South was never my favorite way to ride.”