Hamish boomed. “She’s as old as the Craigh Mur standing stones. Will, I didna know—”
“Not Edwina, ye fool!” Will’s voice cracked. “’Tis… ’tis Hetty,” he said, as if he’d just realized it himself.
“Ah…Hetty.” Hamish’s eyes lit up. He winked at Iain and continued his taunting. “She’s a bonny one.”
Will jerked his mount to a halt. “Aye, she is, but I dinna want ye noticing.”
Iain and Hamish dissolved into laughter. After a moment Will’s frown melted into a grin, and the three of them continued south through the larch wood forest.
“And what about you, Iain?” Hamish said. “What of all the lovely lassies your uncle Alistair’s paraded past ye?”
Iain had never told Hamish about the girl. About his promise. He’d never told anyone. “I’ve no time for such foolery.”
“Aye, perhaps not. But ye’ve been a bear of late. ’Tis time we made another trip to Inverness.”
Iain recalled their last visit, made some months ago. Drinking and wenching, and then more drinking. His most vivid memory of the trip was the two-day headache that plagued him afterward. ’Twas the last thing he needed. Nay, his restlessness was driven by something far deeper than the lack of a woman in his bed.
’Twas time.
His mother had passed, God rest her soul, and his younger brothers were old enough to make their own way should he fall in battle. Aye, ’twas time to reclaim what was his and to bring the cur responsible for his father’s murder, his clan’s ruin, to justice under his sword.
The memory of that night burned fresh in his mind. All evidence had pointed to his father’s guilt, but Iain would never believe it. Never.
He had to have that dagger! Strangely enough, ’twas not the jeweled weapon that haunted his dreams, but the vision of a dirty-faced sprite in leather breeches, a few stray leaves clinging to her wild tumble of hair.
The roan stallion jerked and Iain snapped to attention. Pushing the dark memories from his mind, he glanced quickly about him, instinctively checking the position of his weapons. All was well. He soothed the beast with a few gentle words, then looked back at his kinsmen.
“Hamish, what d’ye hear from Findhorn?” It had been years since Iain had looked upon his ancestral home. Few were left there now, living in the crofts outside the curtain wall. The keep, he’d heard, had fallen into disrepair, the lands overgrown and wild.
Hamish’s brows shot up. “No’ much is changed. Grant soldiers patrol the woods there still.”
“But the clansmen who remain have no’ been idle.” Will nudged his mount forward, even with the roan.
“Aye.” Hamish nodded. “They are loyal to The Mackintosh and stand ready to support ye.”
Iain shrugged. “They are brave men and true to my father’s memory.”
“You are laird now,” Hamish said. “They are loyal to ye.”
“Aye, I’m laird.” And ye all know why. His father was dead—murdered—and he’d done naught to stop it. Iain clenched his teeth, his mouth dry and bitter. He snatched the kidskin bladder hanging from his saddle, tilted his head back, and took a long draught.
“What will ye do?” Will asked.
“I’ll claim what’s mine, and strike down those who stole it from me. I should have done it long ago.”
He’d burned to do it, in fact. For years that’s all he’d thought about. But his mother’s clan was small, and Alistair Davidson a prudent man. He’d barely let Iain out of his sight whilst he was growing up. And once he’d grown, Iain realized he bore the weight of not only a man’s responsibilities, but a laird’s. Nay, he could not have risked so many lives on a fool’s mission.
“How do ye plan to take them?” Hamish asked. “Grant commands a sizable army.”
Iain had spent years considering that very point, obsessed with the strategies and tactics of war, honing his battle skills and those of his remaining clansmen to a sharp-edged perfection.
At any time John Grant could have hunted him down and murdered what remained of his people. But he hadn’t. That fact, coupled with Grant’s sheer numbers, had been enough to quell Iain’s bloodlust—for a time.
But things were different now. John Grant was dead, murdered some say, though no one knew who did it. His nephew, Reynold, was laird now. Iain spat. Aye, everything was different.
“We canna do it alone,” he said. “That much I know.”
“All the Mackintosh would follow ye into battle.” Will’s face shone with a loyalty that tore at Iain’s gut.
He smiled bitterly. “So they would. But I willna bring death and destruction to what’s left of my clan.” Few of his father’s warriors had escaped Reynold Grant’s retribution for his cousin Henry’s murder. The best of them had been slain, and their blood lay heavy on Iain’s own hands. “Nay,” he said, “we will come at him with ten score or none.”
Hamish looked hard at him, blue eyes fixed in question.
“Aye.” Iain nodded, holding his friend’s gaze. “I mean to raise the Chattan.”
“Clan Chattan—the alliance!” Will’s eyes widened.
“Davidson is for us.” Hamish absently twisted the hairs of his beard between thick fingers, weighing their options, Iain suspected. “Your uncle is laird. They will follow him.”
“Aye, if he agrees.”
“But what of Macgillivray and MacBain?” Will asked.
“Leave them to me.”
Iain grew weary of their conversation. The morning’s white sky dissolved into the pale blue of afternoon. He stretched and repositioned his longbow over his shoulder.
“’Tis a fine day for hunting.”
She was master now, and squeezed her thighs together gently across his back to make the point. The gelding responded at once, trotting forward, graceful and compliant. Alena Todd was pleased. Of the new Arabians, the chestnut had been the most headstrong. Now he was hers.
The Clan Grant stable produced the finest horses in Scotland, swift and powerful, with unparalleled endurance. Her father would be pleased with this one. Would that he could have broken the mount himself.
The accident seemed a lifetime ago. Alena was twelve when Robert Todd was thrown from a stallion, permanently injuring his spine. He could still walk, but would never again sit a horse without great pain. Afterward, she’d moved easily into the roles her father could no longer perform: breaking new mounts to saddle, transforming them from wild, headstrong creatures into warhorses fit to bear the clan’s warriors.
She urged the chestnut around the stable yard, leaning slightly forward to maintain
