Sword of Albion: A Clan MacDougall AAR

[julius_caesar_the_first]

I'm starting to worry that this great AAR is dead. I hope not.

[Theodotos I]

No, I've just been very busy the last few weeks. I've updated over at TWC, but hadn't here, but I will get around to it. Perhaps tomorrow. Thanks for the comments.

[Theodotos I]

Chapter XVIII: Landing of the Norse

The world seemed to swirl, my mind floating upon an ever-rippling tide of sea. My eyes flickered open, a haze seeming to surround my body. I blinked, willing my eyes to pierce the fog. What had happened? Where was I? How had I arrived here? Where was here?
My rags were gone, bandages swathing my head and chest. My left arm was in a sling—I couldn’t move it. I tried once more, fiery pain shooting through the damaged limb. A moan escaped my lips as I leaned back against the blankets, struggling against my weakness. My head swam, the room circling around me. Where was I?
“Lie still,” a feminine voice commanded gently, a soft hand on my shoulder. I blinked, forcing my world into focus, staring at the dim, shadowy figure that hovered over my pallet. A young woman emerged from the mists of my mind, her hair long and flowing, raven locks dancing down her back.
“Marion?” I asked, my heart catching in my throat as I sat bolt upright upon the bed. It seemed impossible. It was. And yet. . .
Her face came into focus, revealing dark, liquid eyes set above high, elegant cheekbones. It was not Marion. Someone else. . .
“Who are you?” I asked, my voice failing to rise to its full strength. She ignored my question, turning from my pallet.
“Mother! He has awakened.”
Footsteps. The sound of a door opening and shutting as a tall, matronly woman entered the room from another part of the house. House. Yes, that was it. I was in a house.
She sat down upon the edge of my bed, pressing her hand against my brow. “Good,” she said, clucking her tongue like a mother hen. “The swelling has gone down.”
“Where am I? How did I get here?”
The woman smiled at my outpouring of words. “You fell at our door in the press. You were nearly trampled by the mob, knocked unconscious and stepped upon. My husband says your arm is broken and your right ankle is terribly swollen. You may have sprained it.”
“You saved my life,” I whispered, conscious of a sudden sense of gratitude. “What is your name?”
“Sarah MacLewis. This is my daughter, Jane.” The girl acknowledged the introduction with a slight curtsy, but her mother continued. “We did not save your life, however.”
“Oh?” I asked, pain shooting through my head and neck as I endeavored to rise from my pillow. I sank back, wearied by the exertion.
“One of the men brought you to our door and knocked until my goodman made haste to open unto him.”
“What did he look like?”
Sarah MacLewis shook her head. “He had turned away by the time we opened the latch. I never saw his face.”
“A small man?” I asked persistently.
She nodded slowly, dawn breaking across her face. “Yes! Much smaller than you. I remember wondering at the time how he had mustered up the strength to drag you to the door. You know him?”
I ignored her question, a smile creasing my lips. Father David. He had risked his life to save my own, to ensure that I would be cared for. Had I gone back to our cell in my battered condition, I must sure have died. As it was, the guards probably thought I had gone over the cliff. . .
“Does anyone know that I am here?” I whispered with sudden intensity, my eyes fixed on the face of the older woman.
She shook her head. “Only my husband. He is in the plain with Brian MacCreild, fighting the Norse.” I saw the shadow of fear flicker across her face, fear for the safety of her husband—and the town.
“They have landed?” I asked, hope in my voice, sickening guilt at the realization that hope for me brought only despair for this woman and her daughter. For me to secure my freedom would mean the loss of everything they held dear.
One must win. One must lose. Such was life. . .
Sarah MacLewis rose from the side of the bed, brushing her hands on the front of her apron. She looked over at her daughter and then down at me. “I am going to the market. Jane will remain here and make sure you are comfortable. If you need anything, call her.”
“Thank you, my lady.”
Silence fell over the room as the matron left, her skirts rustling in the corridor outside. The girl stood there awkwardly for a moment, then walked over and opened the door to what appeared to be a balcony.
I heard a small gasp escape her lips and I raised myself up on one elbow, straining against my wounds. “What is it?”
“The Northmen. . .” she whispered, her words barely audible. “They have landed.”
I heard sounds from below in the plain, wafted up the Cliffside by the morning breeze. “Help me,” I exclaimed, frustrated at my inability to get up on my own. I swung my legs to the side of the bed, determined to see the situation.
Jane rushed over to the bed at my movement, her hands planted firmly on my bare shoulders. I winced as she pressed against bruised muscle. “You musn’t move.”
I stared into her eyes. “I have to see the battle. I can make it to the balcony.”
“You’ll damage your foot,” she protested.
“I can lean on your shoulder.” She hesitated and I pushed the matter. “I’m going with or without your help.”
She nodded, taking my uninjured arm and draping it around her slender shoulders. I stood, clad in a baggy pair of her father’s breeches, my chest wrapped in dirty, rust-red bandages. Pain shot through my injured ankle as I put weight upon it, her frail form little enough to support me. Together we hobbled to the balcony and I looked out upon the plain below. I released her and gripped the rail with all of my remaining strength.
The Norwegian ships had been pulled up on the beach, men spilling over their sides and assembling on the sand.

I saw the banner of Brian MacCreild assembling from down the serpentine path and hatred mixed with the pain streaming through my veins. What of Duncan? I thought of him for the first time in days—of his enigmatic words just before we were parted.
Movement beside me and I looked down into the girl’s face. Fear was clearly etched into the lines of worry on her forehead, her cheeks white and drawn. I feared too, but for different reasons, reasons that had nothing to do with the Norse winning. Rather, I feared their defeat. . .

[Theodotos I]

Chapter XVIV: Calamity

I looked down into the fields below Dunscaith, my knuckles white as I clutched the railing in a deathgrip. The lines advanced toward each other, faint cheering wafting up to us on the breeze. Te moritori salutant. Latin, words Father David repeated mockingly to the wind each morning as we went down to work. I had asked its meaning one day and he had given it.
We who are about to die salute you.
Men, filling the empty, yawning void of their own fear with the sound of their own voice. Cheering, yelling taunts.
I seemed to see myself at their side, as I had fought at Lagg, at Tobermory, in the plains of Skye. A sword in my hand, marching in the ranks. Dying at their side.

The lines collided with a palpable shock, the clang of steel against steel ringing out across the hills.
I was there. I looked for the herculean form of Brian MacCreild, but could not find him amidst the press. I wanted to find him, press my sword-tip against his chest, see his blood upon the heather. I looked down, saw my hand. It was empty.
I had no sword.
The cheers turned to screams as both sides stuck into melee. I saw Jane’s face and it was white—wan with fear. Screams of rage and terror drifted up to us there on the balcony.

Dozens fell, death in the tall grass of the plain, but the MacLeods were gradually giving ground, leaving their wounded behind.
My heart leapt in my throat. Could it be? Was this the day of my freedom? The long months—we would be restored to our homes, to our families. I made the sign of the cross mechanically, whispering a prayer that it could be. That we could be set free.
Then I saw him—as though I was there, in the ranks. And I saw him. Brian MacCreild, a longsword in his hand. He seemed to seek out the Norse captain, fighting his way toward him, his mighty arm cutting a path through the fray. Their swords rang against one another, sparks flying from the blades. I saw another MacLeod by MacCreild’s side and he threw himself at the big Viking, his sword glancing harmlessly off the shirt of mail. The Norwegian turned, disemboweling him with a single blow. The man fell to the grass, dying.
It was enough. Brian’s longsword reached the end of its arc, striking the Norseman just below the left ear, nearly beheading him. The champion stood there for a moment, swaying obscenely—then crumpled to the grass, falling on top of his victim.
The Norse battled on, but the fight had left them with the death of their leader and they began to break—one by one, running toward the beach.

I heard a groan, a sound of agony—of disappointment, and realized it had come from my own lips.
The field was liberally strewn with the bodies of the slain, debris in the churning wake of battle.

I turned, watching the Norsemen flee to their beached galleys, my eyes bitter with disappointment. I took a halting step back toward my pallet. Jane reached forth a gentle hand to steady me, but I brushed her aside with a muttered oath. Reaching the side of the bed, I collapsed on the edge, leaning back against the blankets. I remember seeing her looking down upon me and then I closed my eyes, willing the pain to go away. Willing everything to go away. . .

It may have been hours later when I woke, but I was roused by a heavy knock on the cottage door. I heard the voice of Sarah MacLewis near my bed. Apparently, she had returned from the market in the midst of my slumber.
A moment’s pause and then I heard a man’s voice joining with hers. “Has anyone been troubling you, Lady MacLewis?”
“No, why?”
“A man just ran away as I came up. A small, knavish little fellow. Do you know him?”
Father David! I sat up in the bed, listening intently. I saw the man’s profile in the doorway, a young man perhaps a few years older than myself, his swarthy face scarred from the battle. Sword and buckler were slung over his back.
“My husband?” Sarah interrupted him, intensity in her tones. “Have you seen him since the battle?”
I saw the young man pale and I knew then the message he had come to bring. I was not a widow’s son for nothing.
“Lady MacLewis,” he stammered haltingly, his face turning several shades of red and white by turns. “Lady MacLewis, your husband—he. . .”
“Yes!” she demanded, clutching his arms. “Yes, what of him?”
“Your husband—he, well, he fell fighting by the side of Brian MacCreild.”
I heard a soft cry from beside me and the color drained from Jane’s cheeks. She collapsed on the side of my pallet, weeping uncontrollably.
The young man fled from the house and I heard loud sobs coming from the corridor where Sarah MacLewis had stood. I lay there, utterly unsure what to do with myself, listening to the sounds of sorrow coming from the two women. And within myself I bitterly cursed praying for the victory of the Norse. . .

[Theodotos I]

Chapter XX: Betrothed

The weeks passed and my broken body mended slowly. The MacLewis women nursed me faithfully back to health, keeping me out of the sight of suspicious eyes in Dunscaith.
“Why?” I had asked Sarah one day as she sat beside my bed. “Why do you shelter me?”
A sad light flickered across her worn countenance. “Sarah Conacher was I born—of Dunstaffnage.” She smiled at my surprise. “Yes, Ewan. I was born a MacDougall. I married my husband in the days before the troubles, when the clans were at peace. It is for remembrance of my childhood that I shelter you now. The townsfolk will be told that you are our cousin from the Hebrides. My husband was commander of the garrison—no one will dare question my word.”

I prayed that she was right—that she could ensure my escape from this place when the time came. In my heart, though, I knew I could not leave—not by myself. Not leave, and desert David—and Duncan. I had not seen my chieftain since our separation in the courtyard of the citadel. I knew not how he had fared in the months since.
Jane and I grew closer as the days passed—our bond as “cousins” drawing us together as I escorted her about the town. I had filled out with their cooking and bore scant resemblance to the skinny, ragged figure that had labored upon the breakwater.
Still, I feared recognition, averting my eyes at the passing of MacLeod warriors in the street. I knew not who might have been part of the guard upon the breakwater.
Mass once again became a part of my life, as the bells of Dunscaith tolled out their ominous knell with the dawn of each and every Sunday.
I avoided confession like the plague, fearful of what I might disclose under the questioning of the priest.
As I grew stronger, Jane and I took long walks out into the countryside surrounding Dunscaith. I had still not recovered my full strength and walked with the aid of a oaken cane.
Winter was nigh upon us, the trees bearing the last shades of fall, the sun straining to warm the afternoon sky.
One of our jaunts took us back to the field of battle, where Finbar had fallen and the MacDougalls had been sold into captivity by the treacherous hand of Fate. He will die, but you will be destroyed. It had been months since I had thought on her words and with Jane at my side, my memories of the past were slipping into the distance. Only my proximity to the scene of their fulfillment brought them back to mind.
Jane seemed to sense the sobriety of my mood. “I lost friends here,” I said finally, breaking a long silence.
She nodded, her silence a balm for the raw memories my return to the battlefield awakened. I reached out for her hand.
A thousand things I wanted to say to her, rushing unbidden to my lips. I knew not how to frame the words. I am no scholar—no man of letters. I am a warrior, a man of the sword. The eloquence of the courtier had never appealed to me—till now.
“I cannot tell you,” I began haltingly, “how much your friendship has meant to me through the past weeks.”
She seemed on the verge of speaking, but I rushed on, ever the young fool, awkwardly undoing my statement by adding, “And that of your mother. . .”
She fell silent, her eyes downcast—as though unsure what to make of my statement. I could not blame her—I knew not what to make of it myself.
And yet I blundered on. “I have enjoyed your company and would be honored to court you in the future.”
Jane turned, looking earnestly up into my face, and I was astonished to see sadness in her eyes. She touched my cheek tenderly, her hand like fire against my skin. “I am sorry, Ewan. . .”
“Sorry?” I demanded, astounded by her reaction. “Why?”
She turned from me, a far-away look entering her eyes as she gazed out over the rolling hills of Skye. When she glanced back, her eyes were bedewed with moisture, her words a soft whisper. “I am betrothed to another. . .”

[Theodotos I]

Chapter XXI: Black Billy

Her words smote me like the blow of a clenched fist. I felt my mouth open, a hundred questions dancing unspoken upon my lips.
It was full a minute before I could master myself sufficiently to speak. “Who?”
“Do not be angry, Ewan,” she whispered softly. “It was the wish of my father. It has been arranged since I was thirteen.”
Small consolation that. “Who?” I repeated, struggling to modulate my tones. I reached out for her hand, desiring to hold her close, to comfort her against the harshness of my questions.
Jane pulled her hand away, her eyes downcast. “William MacCreild,” she replied, her voice soft and low.
“Black Billy?” I demanded, feeling stabbed to the heart. I knew the man. Firstborn son of Brian MacCreild, he had commanded the MacLeod horse in the plain of Dunscaith, running down and butchering many of our fleeing clansmen.
But we had not given him his infamous nickname. Nay, his own people whispered that in the shadows, watching as he passed. Tall, handsome, and cruel, he was a powerful figure, the spirit and image of his father. In his mid-twenties, he had a reputation for brutality that not even his father could match, brutality evinced in both his public and private affairs.
My gaze fell upon Jane, standing there upon the hill, her form one of frail, innocent beauty. Could it be? The words seemed to wedge in my throat, afraid of an answer too horrible to contemplate.
“Do you love him?”
A long pause—naught but the sound of the birds in the trees, the chill fall wind blowing through their soon leafless branches.
“No,” she said finally. “He is at once two men, the one the people of the town know, and the one I know. And yet even when he is with me, Black Billy lurks ‘neath his charm, a demon in the darkness.” She looked at me and I saw her eyes nigh brimming with tears. “And yet I promised my father. . .”
“Your father no longer lives,” I whispered desperately, rash words springing to my lips.
“Promises made to the dead are doubly sacred,” she replied, fury shining through her tears at the audacity of my remark. “You must know that, Ewan.”
She turned without speaking further and stormed off across the hills, toward her mother’s home, ignoring my call to halt. I remained, feeling foolish. I had overstepped myself in my haste.
I stood there, making my way homeward only well after the sun had gone down on the hills of Skye. And as I walked, an image rose continually before my eyes, menacing, malevolent, dark as the night sky. Black Billy. . .

He returned the week afterward, from an expedition to the north, striking against a Norse supply camp in the Hebrides. William MacCreild returned a conquering hero and spent his coin freely among the garrison of Dunscaith.
He killed a man in one of the taverns outside town, cut him down in a duel. A fair fight, or so they said. If a fight could be counted fair against Black Billy, his reputation as one of the finest swordsmen in Scotland reaching us even in my boyhood days near Dunstaffnage.
The fourth night, he came to dine at the MacLewis household, by invitation of Lady MacLewis. I made myself scarce that night, for reasons as varied as the colors of a rainbow.
I had met Black Billy upon the eve of the Battle of Dunscaith, he had known me later in my guise as Ewan, son of Duncan. He would remember me.
And I could not stand to see him in the presence of my beloved, knowing that her hand was promised to him in marriage. It was more than I could take.
So, when he came, I was gone.
I wandered out into the hills, no destination in sight, no aim to my steps. I cared not whither I went.
I sat down, to watch the beauties of a sunset, purples swirling against red and fiery gold, the canvas of a painter unrolled against the sky.
“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth His handiwork,” a voice announced from above and behind me.
I jumped in surprise and heard a chuckle. “Father David!”
He laughed, taking his seat easily upon the rotting log at my side. “You are surprised to see me?” he asked ironically.
“Rather,” I retorted, gazing earnestly into his face. “I fancied you locked behind the walls of Dunscaith.”
He laughed once more, genuine mirth in his tones. “Nihil tam munitum quod non expugnari pecunia posit. ‘Nothing is so well fortified that money cannot capture it.’ Cicero said that. It is equally true that no lock is so secure that a man cannot buy himself liberty.” His voice sobered. “I must return before the dawning of day, to take my place in the rolls of morning.”
“Why are you here?”
“I have not forgotten you, Ewan. I never forget a friend—or an enemy. You saved my life upon the breakwater. We are brothers.”
He lowered his voice, gazing out into the darkness. “I know a man, a fisherman I befriended. He has agreed to sell me his shallop. With it, we can make our way off this island, back to Dunstaffnage and home.”
“What of Duncan?”
“He is coming. I can spring him from the fortress—but I will need your help.” He gestured to my arm. “Is it healed? Can you wield a sword?”
I stretched it out before me, making a fist. “I think so. There is an armory beneath the house of Lady MacLewis—her husband’s weapons. I can obtain what we need there.”
A sudden thought, Jane’s face rising before me like a vision. To leave her here, in the arms of Black Billy, it was more than I could bring myself to do.
` “I—I cannot,” I stammered, shaking my head.
The priest’s face darkened. “Why?”
“There—there is a girl,” I began. In a few short words, I explained to him my situation, my love for Jane MacLewis, the entrance of Black Billy, my present predicament.
He was silent when I finished. Then he placed a hand a hand on my knee, pointing up at the moon. “Three weeks from this night. We will strike with no moon to disclose our movements to the guards. If you are with me, brother, be ready on that night. As for your woman, what thou doest, do thou quickly. . .”

[Theodotos I]

Okay, you're all up to date.