Page 96 of Bound By Honor
“I noticed,” said Angus.
Duncan laughed, a honey curl falling over his green eyes. “I see the defense of the frontier castle has begun. As long as you are at it, you might keep watch on both Malcolm Macleod and Gilchrist Macduffie. Those sons of chiefs cannot take their eyes off her.”
Angus frowned as he cast his gaze to where the two chiefs’ sons stood and saw it was true. Reclaiming Áine’s arm, he wished the wife of the Macleod chief a good eve and escorted Áine into dinner.
As he had expected, the evening meal was a celebration of Alex’s life. For Angus, it became a bittersweet retelling of his eldest brother’s acts of valor, his wisdom in matters of state, his kindnesses to the clans and his leadership in time of war. Juliana sobbed through most of it, comforted by the women. At the end, Angus felt drained, wrung out like a wet cloth. Juliana had to be led back to the nunnery by Áine and some of the other women.
Each day thereafter, he saved time from his conversations with the chiefs about matters concerning the lordship to pray with the monks in the chapel and to take walks with Áine. On the few days it rained, a rainbow always followed, the splendid sight causing Áine to remark, “So many rainbows!”
One afternoon as they sat on rocks on the beach, he spotted a pair of dolphins playing in the waters offshore. “Look!” he said. “They are jumping from the water.”
“I could watch them all day.”
On another day, Áine pointed out the isle’s birds, keeping—he thought deliberately—his mind off war and death. “See that one?” she said, pointing. “He is an oystercatcher, very well dressed with his red beak and black and white feathers. He and his friends are looking for mollusks. And that gray one over there,” again she pointed, “the one with the black head and long tail feathers. He is an Arctic tern. They like to eat sand eels.”
Seeing no one around them, he leaned toward her, placing a kiss on her soft lips. “How is it you are so newly arrived in the Isles yet you know all the birds better than I, even their preferred foods?”
Smiling, she said, “Some of them are known to me and others I have studied while you are busy with the chiefs, so I have learned their habits. I also asked Gilchrist Macduffie for their names and he was most accommodating.”
“Aye, I imagine he was.”
A SENNIGHT PASSED and, during that time, Áine came to know the senior women of the lordship, who were staunch supporters of the Macdonalds. None of their families had paid homage to King John Balliol. “’Twould not be the first time the Kingdom of the Isles has stood alone,” said Fiona Macleod, wife of the Macleod chief. “We have no love for King Edward but we like our enemies not at all.”
Out of Juliana’s hearing, the women spoke often to Áine of the despicable MacDougalls who had slain the Lord of the Isles. They liked Juliana but regretted her parentage. The chiefs’ wives were surprised to learn Áine was a widow with a young son as she wore no veil. “In Ireland,” she told them, “married women prefer to leave their long hair uncovered.” They were also curious as to how Áine was so young a widow. So, she told them. “The death of my first husband, who was the King of Tirowen, was not unlike that of Alexander Macdonald—murder at the hand of a kinsman.”
The women nodded, their expressions grave.
Finally, the day came for the burial. Áine waited in the crowded abbey church with Juliana for the body to be brought from the chapel for the Requiem Mass. Her gaze lifted to the paintings on the whitewashed plaster walls where the lives of saints were depicted. How could they ever forget the history when the images were all around them?
Angus, John, Duncan and Dermot had gone to the chapel to attend to the somber task of bringing the body to the church. Angus had told her the Mass that preceded the burial would be presided over by both Abbot Fionnlagh and Mark, the Bishop of the Isles.
As the bells in the church tower rang out, Angus and the men carried in the body on a bier and placed it on a decorated wooden framework set before the altar. The monks who followed chanted as they walked to where candles burned steadily on the altar. Behind the altar, shafts of golden light piercing the tall arched windows fell upon the silk ivory pall draped over the body. High above the gathered assembly, the arched wooden ceiling drew Áine’s gaze.
The music and the prayers were beautiful. Once Mass had finished, the body was carried on the bier back to the abbey. This time, the bishop, in his mitre and vestments of crimson and white, walked beside the black-robed abbot and ahead of the others. The sun on the yellow flowers on either side of the path lit the way. Angus with his tearful sister-in-law followed. Juliana needed his strong arm to lean on.
Duncan and John went next. Áine followed with her brother.
Behind the family, the chiefs and their wives walked in solemn procession.
The chapel was too small to allow all to enter. Those left outside hovered close to the arched doorway, watching.
The monks, who had been chanting their ethereal songs as the family entered, fell silent. Only the sound of Juliana weeping along with some of the other women could be heard.
Abbot Fionnlagh took his position before the altar beside the Bishop of the Isles, who held the crucifix as he spoke of Alexander Macdonald and led them in prayer.
Áine did not wish to think of the shortness of Alexander’s life or his untimely death. She did not want to think that Angus, too, risked his life more often than she knew. But she could not avoid these thoughts when the long grave slabs of the prior Lords of the Isles were before her, set into the paved floor. One, freshly carved, leaned against the side wall. The carving displayed a sword and a foliated cross decorated with leaves and interlocking circles.It must be the one for Alexander.
The bishop’s prayer ended and he called Angus forward. As Duncan explained to Áine in a whisper, as the heir, it was Angus’ duty to remove the bones of his father, Angus Mor, from the tomb that had been opened the day before by the monks. Angus Mor’s grave slab would be moved to a new place in the chapel, his final resting place.
A bard began to chant the long ancestry of the Lords of the Isles accompanied by a harpist she had not noticed before. The chant continued as, generation by generation, the history of the lordship was recalled, from Alexander back to the ancient Conn of a Hundred Battles, whose kingdom had been based at Dunseverick. Áine realized the Macdonald linage was, in part, her own, for Angus and she had that royal Irish ancestor in common.
When the bard finished, Angus lifted his brother’s body, draped only in the white winding sheet, and gently lowered it into the grave previously occupied by the bones of Angus Mor.
“It may seem an odd custom to you,” whispered Duncan, “but it signifies that at a lord’s burial there is a trinity: father, son and, sadly, a brother this time. The ritual transition emphasizes that the lordship is a continuous living entity in full communion with God and the Church.”
The new grave slab was rolled into place on what looked to Áine like oars. With that completed, the monks’ chants rose once more, their ethereal voices filling the chapel. Finally, the abbot said a last prayer for the soul of Alexander.
Angus returned to her side and took her hand. Though his eyes were dry, his expression spoke of his heartache and loss.
