Page 6 of The Warrior
“That’s enough for today, lads,” Connor called out and held up his hand. As the others moved away, he lowered his voice and said to Duncan, “No need to take your temper out on them when it’s me you’re angry with.”
Duncan dropped the point of his sword to rest on the ground. “Don’t ask me to go to Ireland.”
He could not bear to see Moira living there with her husband. It had nearly killed him when he learned that she had married the Irish chieftain’s son only a fortnight after he left for France. Her heart had changed that quickly. Yet seven years later, her memory still walked beside him every day.
“I wouldn’t ask,” Connor said, resting his hand on Duncan’s shoulder, “but ye are the only man I can send.”
“I’m the captain of your guard,” Duncan said. “Ye need me here to train the men. As ye can see, they’ve a lot to learn.”
Even as he said it, Duncan was aware that it was a lost cause. Connor was his best friend as well as his chieftain. They both knew he would do whatever Connor needed, no matter what it cost him.
That didn’t mean Duncan had to like it.
“Can I wipe the rain from my eyes now,” Connor asked, “or are ye going to take a swing at me?”
Duncan swung so hard and fast that he nearly caught Connor off guard. For the next several minutes, they crossed swords up and down the courtyard and showed the others how true fighting was done. By the time they stopped, the rain was coming down in icy sheets, and steam rose from the heat of their skin.
“I enjoyed that.” Connor grinned at him as he swiped at his face with his sleeve. The responsibilities of the chieftainship weighed heavily on Connor, so it was good to see him looking carefree.
“After wasting my day attempting to forge warriors from the likes of those,” Duncan said, casting his gaze at the men who had remained in the pouring rain to watch them, “’tis a relief to see that my chieftain still knows how to fight.”
“They are fine warriors,” Connor said, slapping Duncan on the shoulder. “They’re just not as good as we are.”
As they walked through the puddles to the keep, Duncan remembered splashing through them one day when they were young lads. Duncan had come to a dead halt when Moira skipped down the steps of the keep looking like a sparkle of sunshine in her bright yellow gown. Connor didn’t notice her and sprayed her head-to-toe with mud. Ach, that lass could shriek! Moira pounded on Connor until their older brother Ragnall lifted her off her feet and carried her inside.
Yet most of his memories of Moira were not from their childhood, but from the summer she was a breathtaking seventeen. As he climbed the steps of the keep, Duncan glanced up at the window of the bedchamber that had been hers. Moira told him how she had looked out of it one day that summer, seen him practicing with the other men, and decided he was the one she wanted. From that moment on, she had turned his world upside down.
It had been two years since they had returned from fighting in France and taken Dunscaith Castle back from Connor’s uncle. And still, every corner and every stone of the castle reminded him of her. And damned fool that he was, he nurtured the memories. He could not give them up because they were all he had of her—and all he ever would.
And the lass had forgotten him in a fortnight. Moira’s father spoiled her shamelessly. If she had not been willing to wed the Irish chieftain’s son, he would not have forced her.
As Duncan entered the keep behind Connor, he saw that his sister Ilysa was fussing at the men, handing them towels and advising them not to bring mud into the hall or she’d forget where she hid the whiskey. Duncan was not sure how it had happened that Ilysa had taken over the management of the chieftain’s household—and he suspected Connor didn’t, either. Regardless, his slight, eighteen-year-old sister performed the duty with a firm hand. When she pointed at their muddy boots, both the chieftain and the captain of the guard wiped them before entering the hall.
“Can ye have someone bring us whiskey?” Connor asked her.
“’Tis on the high table waiting for ye, if your two cousins haven’t drunk it all,” Ilysa said with a small smile.
With their mother dead, Duncan should speak to Ilysa about her future, but he felt wholly inadequate to the task. It seemed odd that his baby sister had been married, albeit briefly, while he was in France. Though she had lost her husband more than two years ago in the Battle of Flodden, she showed no interest in remarrying. Still, she would have to find something to do with herself once Connor finally took a wife.
Connor’s cousins, Ian and Alex, were lounging by the hearth with their long legs stretched out before them and cups of whiskey in their hands. Ian had the same black hair as Connor, while Alex had the fair hair of the Vikings who spawned children while terrorizing these coasts in the old days. Though they still looked like the sort of men a wise father kept away from his daughters, Ian and Alex were both devoted family men now.
“Ye should have joined the practice,” Duncan said by way of greeting. “If all ye do is make babies, you’ll grow weak and be no use to us in a fight.”
“Great warriors like us?” Alex unfolded himself from his chair and stretched. “Ach, we don’t need practice.”
Alex tossed his cup in the air, whipped his sword through the air several times, spun in a circle, and then caught the cup by the handle with his teeth, barely spilling a drop. The hall erupted as the men shouted and pounded the hilts of their swords on the floor, but Duncan ignored the display. Despite Alex’s foolishness, he kept his skills razor-sharp.
Connor stood by the head table, his wet hair as black as a seal’s, and filled the two empty cups waiting there with whiskey from the flask. When he signaled for his cousins and Duncan to join him, the others in the hall moved away a respectful distance. Everyone understood that they were the men the chieftain trusted to advise him on important matters.
The four of them had been closer than brothers since they were bairns. The bond forged in their boyhood had been strengthened by fighting side by side in countless battles. If they lived to be old men, they could bore young men with their tales for hours around this hearth on long winter nights. And Alex probably would.
“We have accomplished much since we returned from France to find my father and brother dead and our clan in peril,” Connor said after they had settled at the table. “Our lands here on the Sleat Peninsula of Skye are protected by Dunscaith Castle on the west and Knock Castle on the east.”
They raised their cups to Ian, who deserved most of the credit for their success in wresting Knock Castle from the thieving MacKinnons and Dunscaith Castle from Connor’s uncle Hugh. Unfortunately, after losing both Dunscaith and the chieftainship, Hugh had escaped and returned to pirating, which caused them a good deal of trouble.
“Our people on the isle of North Uist are safe now as well,” Connor continued.
This time they raised their cups to Alex, who was the new keeper of the clan’s castle on North Uist. While they had succeeded in driving off the pirates who had been raiding North Uist and the neighboring islands, Hugh had escaped that time as well.
