Authors: Highland Princess
“Aye, I do. Like Shim and Gil, I ha’ never seen the lass since.”
“Fin MacHugh?”
“Aye.”
MacDonald gazed thoughtfully back at Shim, then at Mellis, and then at Ian.
But Mairi had heard enough. She took two steps forward, ignored the large hand that clamped hard onto her left arm, and said clearly above the hush, “If it please your grace, I would like to ask a question of Mellis MacCoun.”
MacDonald nodded.
Looking sternly at Mellis, she said, “Did you see Elma for yourself the morning of the day she disappeared, before you and the others rode to Kilchoman?”
“Aye, me lady, o’ course I did. She fixed me breakfast like always, or I’d ha’ sought her out t’ see that she did and given her a clout besides.”
“And that was here on Eilean Mòr?”
“Aye, sure, it was. We’ve our wee cot in the stable enclosure, as ye ken, and I’m thinking now ’twere Elma what brought out me bundle, too, wi’ a bit o’ meat and bread for me dinner, and me dirk t’ cut it with.”
Mairi nodded, turning to face her father. “I beg your indulgence, your grace, to ask one or two questions now of Ian Burk?”
MacDonald glanced around the hall as if he expected to hear an objection, but the hall remained silent.
“You may,” he said.
“Thank you, sir,” Mairi said. Turning to look as directly at Ian as she had at Mellis MacCoun, but speaking in a gentler tone, she said, “Ian, do you remember crossing the main causeway with Elma MacCoun?”
Even with the distance between them, she could see the lad swallow hard and hoped he retained sufficient courage to speak the truth. Everyone there would detect a lie, and if he lied, his fate would be set and sealed.
He looked frightened out of his wits, but he locked his gaze with hers and answered, “Aye, m’ lady, I do recall the walking, and I recall too that she spoke sharp t’ me, because she thought it were time and more I be thinking o’ marriage. But although I didna want t’ marry her sister, Jane, which Elma thought I should, I did the woman no harm then or ever. That I swear t’ ye by God Hisself!”
Ignoring snorts of laughter that rippled through the audience, Mairi said, “What day did you walk with her, Ian? Do you recall that, as well?”
“I do,” he admitted, his words barely audible. Apparently realizing as much, he straightened and said more clearly, albeit as reluctantly, “It were the day afore I left for Dunyvaig wi’ your lady mother’s messages for ye and for Lord Ranald. I remember, ’cause Elma were a great one for talking about Dunyvaig, having lived there as a child, ye ken, and I’d never gone there, so afore she mentioned marriage, she were telling me what I must look at and all.”
With a sigh of relief, although she had already deduced much of what he would say, Mairi said to her father, “Ian Burk cannot have killed Elma MacCoun, your grace. Mellis proved as much just now when he told us that he and the others saw her on Eilean Mòr shortly before they departed from Finlaggan. The galley that carried Ian to Dunyvaig departed at dawn from Askaig on that same day, and my lord Godfrey’s party would not have left for Kilchoman before dawn. Indeed, if I know Godfrey, they departed hours later.”
A few knowing chuckles greeted these words, but Mairi barely waited for them to fade before she added, “Elma was still alive then, sir, and Ian was miles away. He did not return until three days later, well after she had disappeared.”
Exclamations burst from the assembly until Niall roared for silence.
As the last few voices died away, Ian said as if he were speaking to himself, “Aye, that be true about me leaving the same day. I rode to Askaig gey early, too—afore dawn—’cause the captain said he’d leave me behind were I no there when he were ready t’ go. Lord Godfrey were shouting at men in the forecourt when I left, but I’m thinking he hadna yet broken his fast.”
“Why did you not tell us all this earlier?” MacDonald asked.
Ian spread his hands and said regretfully, “I didna ken that were the day. I did stay at Dunyvaig that night and the next and part o’ the day after that. We reached Askaig well after dark, too, so I stayed wi’ me cousin there. The first I did hear about Elma going missing were a day or two after when someone said he thought she’d run off. It were days more afore they found her body on the sand, and no till three days ago that anyone said I’d been the last one wi’ her and so I must ha’ done it. I knew I’d walked wi’ her, and I thought it must ha’ been the day she went missing. No one said otherwise, so I didna ken I’d been away when she vanished.”
MacDonald nodded, then said in his placid way, “Does any man here have evidence he can produce to disprove the lady Mairi’s interpretation of this case?”
No one spoke.
“Very well. I therefore declare Ian Burk innocent of the charge of murder. You are free to go, lad.”
Swiftly, Ian knelt and said with deep sincerity, “Thank you, your grace. I am your loyal servant, as ever I was.”
Mellis MacCoun snapped, “But what about me wife? Who killed Elma if the lad did not?”
“That is not for this court to determine,” MacDonald told him. “It is clear that Ian Burk did not kill her, and so that concludes the morning’s business.”
“All rise and depart now right hastily, so that this hall may be prepared for the midday meal,” Mackinnon commanded.
As the men on the benches rose noisily to their feet, Mairi realized that although her self-appointed escort had released her arm, the moment her father granted her permission to speak, he still stood beside her—much too closely beside her.
MacDonald left the dais, and the company surged toward the door. There was but the one suitable exit, because the only other lay beyond the screens at the rear of the hall, through the pantry, buttery, and kitchen. As the crush of men swarmed around her, a hand cupped her elbow firmly, urging her toward the door at a more rapid pace than she might have set for herself.
“I’ll escort you to the laird’s hall, lass,” the now-familiar deep voice said.
She needed no escort at Finlaggan, but the men surging around them were all talking now, and she did not want to raise her voice above theirs to be heard, so she allowed him to guide her out of the hall. On the steps outside, however, she turned to him and said firmly, “I thank you, sir, but I require no escort here.”
His huge brother stood behind them, and others crowded behind him.
“We cannot stand here,” Lachlan said as he urged her down the stairs to the courtyard. “How could you be so certain that the lad did not do it?”
Seeing nothing to gain by arguing or refusing to explain, she said, “I have been at Dunyvaig for a month with my brother Ranald, attending to the household there whilst he supervised the careening of his grace’s ships that harbor there. A fortnight ago, Ian brought messages from Finlaggan and happened to mention that Godfrey had left that morning for Kilchoman to begin preparations for my mother and the children to spend their usual time there this summer. So when Mellis described the day he last saw Elma and said Ian had been seen walking with her on the causeway before she disappeared, I knew that it could not be so.”
“Then ’tis odd that the others did not note as much long before now.”
“Mellis and his witnesses seemed certain of their facts,” Mairi pointed out, “and the events they described clearly took place over a sennight or more. Elma and Mellis often bickered, and when they did, Elma would go off alone to pout. I suspect that no one thought of murder until they found her body, and doubtless by then all the days had run together in their minds.”
“Not in yours, however.”
“No, but I had the benefit of distance and my own certainty that Ian could not have committed such a foul crime. Moreover, I had spent the hours since learning of his trial trying to think how to save him. I meant to speak for him in any event, but when I saw that the truth would speak for itself, I own I was much relieved.”
“My lady,” Niall Mackinnon said, interrupting from behind, “you should not be out here like this without your woman. I will escort you to the laird’s residence.”
Feeling guilty, albeit uncertain why she should, Mairi hesitated.
“I have already said that I will escort her ladyship,” Lachlan said.
Mackinnon looked down his long nose at the younger man. “Unless I am mistaken, sir,” he said coldly, “you have not been properly presented.”
“That is true,” Lachlan admitted with an easy smile. “Perhaps you would present me now, and my brother as well.”
“I do not present upstarts to ladies of the blood royal,” Mackinnon snapped. “Come along, lassie,” he added, taking Mairi’s elbow with the familiarity of one who had known her all her life. “I warrant your lady mother has learned of your return by now and must be wondering where you are.”
“You know, Hector,” she heard Lachlan say as Niall hurried her across the yard toward the laird’s hall, “that slanderous scoundrel is beginning to irk me.”
Mairi hid a smile. Mackinnon frequently irked her, too.
“
N
iall, I beg you, slow down,” Mairi said midway between laughter and annoyance. “It is not necessary to propel me across the yard. Consider my dignity, if you please!”
“You should consider your own dignity,” he retorted. “To be seen in such company as that does you no honor.”
“Who is he? I know only that his brother called him Lachlan—if, indeed, the huge one is his brother.”
“Aye, they be brothers—twins if you can believe it—and devil’s spawn, the pair o’ them. The bonnie one is Lachlan of Bellachuan on Seil. His father, Ian Dubh, is chief of Clan Gillean and one of his grace’s official councilors. Nonetheless, the sons of Gillean are upstarts, for all that they claim cousinship with your family.”
“Surely you must know if they are cousins,” Mairi said, frowning.
“Ian Dubh did marry a descendant of your great-grandfather’s younger brother,” Niall said. “I do not question her ancestry, certainly, but Clan Gillean knows little about its own. You should have naught to do with any of its sons.”
“But if their father is a chief who sits on the Council of the Isles—”
“Och, aye, he is that, and yon Lachlan, in his puffed up arrogance, expects to follow after him in both positions, although I believe he is the younger twin.”
Mairi stiffened but said evenly, “But did his grace not decide that when he dies my wee brother Donald will inherit the Lordship instead of John or Ranald or Godfrey or, indeed, some other, older kinsman of ours? Does the law of tanistry not allow the chief to suggest his successor to the clan?”
Niall did not answer at once, which did not surprise her, for although the law did allow suggestions, the clan usually made the final decision, and the successor could be any member of the chief’s family. That meant it could as easily be his brother or nephew, or even a female, as any of his sons. Indeed, the chief’s brother, being closer to the clan’s progenitor than anyone in a subsequent generation, was often selected. But MacDonald had flatly decreed that the first son of his second marriage would succeed him, rather than any of his older sons, and that declaration was a sore point for many, not least because Donald was still a very young child.
However, Amy Macruari, MacDonald’s first wife—and mother of John Og, Ranald, and Godfrey—although a great heiress, was not of royal blood. Mairi’s mother, Margaret, on the other hand, not only was the granddaughter of Marjory, sister to Robert the Bruce, the great king who had united and freed Scotland, but also the daughter of Robert the Steward, present heir to the Scottish throne.
Thus, MacDonald had named wee Donald because of his royal connections. And that was not the only area in which he had gone against the law of tanistry, for it also required equal division of a man’s wealth among his heirs. Believing dynasties were more apt to retain control of what they held, MacDonald had declared that all his Clan Donald holdings would go to Donald. However, he had generously decided to divide the vast Macruari lands he had inherited through Amy among her sons.
As for his remaining unmarried daughters, MacDonald expected to dower them all handsomely and marry them into powerful families whose connections would further extend the increasingly vast power of Clan Donald.
Realizing that Niall still had not answered her question, she said, “Well, sir? Do you disapprove of his grace’s naming Donald to be second Lord of the Isles?”
“It is not my place to approve or disapprove of his grace’s decisions.”
His calm austerity made her wonder if she had imagined emotion earlier when he had spoken of the brothers Maclean. Now he seemed intent only upon crossing the yard to the laird’s hall gateway without allowing interruption from any member of the palace staff bold enough to speak to them.
Still curious about the two men and determined to probe further into Niall’s reaction to them, she said, “Pray, tell me more about those brothers, sir? You say their acquaintance can do me no honor, yet surely if their father is one of his grace’s chiefs, they are honorable men.”
“If you want to know more, my lady,” he said stiffly, “I shall ask his grace to explain the matter to you.”
Mairi grinned. “I suppose you expect me to drop the subject rather than risk my father’s wrath, sir, but experience should tell you that such a ploy will only fire my curiosity. Are they truly so dreadful?” When he grimaced, she added provocatively, “I thought them both rather handsome and charming.”
“You should not even be having this conversation with me,” he said sternly, “but if you must know what I think, they are not suited to tread the same ground you do. The one they call Lachlan Lubanach, or ‘Lachlan the Wily,’ has set himself to become the most knowledgeable man in the west of Scotland, and pursues aspirations that far exceed his appropriate station in life.”
“How so?”
“Many do say, and I believe that he has created a vast network of spies to bring him news of happenings throughout the Lordship and beyond.”
“Spies!”
“Aye, and ’tis a most unsavory business that. Surely, you must agree.”
Knowing he would not appreciate it if she admitted that the only emotion his words stirred was envy of a man who could gather so much information, she said, “Is his giant brother the same sort of person?”