Return of the Highlander (Immortal Warriors) (3 page)
Read Return of the Highlander (Immortal Warriors) Online
Authors: Sara Mackenzie
Bella stopped her thoughts right there. “You’ve seen a wild pony, that’s all. Get a grip, girl.” She started humming to herself, and then singing softly. It was something she did when she was emotionally charged, to calm herself down. This time she chose an old America number about a horse with no name—it seemed to do the trick.
Back in the cottage she went through her daily ritual of starting up the diesel generator in the shed out back. At least now she would have electricity. The central heating and the hot water ran on a separate oil-fueled system that was supposed to switch on automatically when the temperature dipped, but it rarely did. The hot water was supplemented by the Aga. When she and Brian first arrived, Gregor had told them that the ser
vices were unreliable, but it had been early days then and “unreliable” was part of the charm of the place.
At least she could still access modern technology; even in this isolated corner of the Scottish Highlands she wasn’t entirely cut off. A telephone line gave her contact with the outside world, or she could search Google and check her e-mail. She opened her laptop and booted it up.
Bella’s books were scholarly, full of carefully researched historical detail, each character painstakingly assembled. She liked to think she came to know her subjects so well that she could accurately guess what they would have ordered for breakfast. She slipped like a shadow into their lives, infusing dried-up old documents with new flesh and blood. She didn’t just write about the past, she lived it.
Bella’s current work-in-progress was Morven Maclean, an eighteenth century Highland chief also known as the Black Maclean. At a time when men began to question the existence of God and turn to science instead, when machines were being invented to take the place of men, in a century known for its growing enlightenment, Maclean seemed positively medieval. And, according to the legend, he was also black-hearted, vicious, unprincipled, and in league with the devil.
Not the sort of man you wanted to come knocking at your door.
In his last years, the Black Maclean ran headlong into one of the worst periods in Scottish history. The 1745 Rebellion—which dragged on into 1746—and its aftermath made grim reading. Simply put, the ’45 was a
brawl between Bonnie Prince Charlie, fronting a number of Scottish clans, and the Duke of Cumberland, fronting most of England as well as some of the Scots. For the losing clans it was devastating enough.
For Loch Fasail it was catastrophic.
One hundred and fifty souls were murdered, a body count that exceeded Glen Coe. Because the Loch Fasail massacre occurred as part of a larger tragedy and subsequent social upheaval, it was not famous, and since it had taken place in such an isolated spot, no one knew it had happened until some time afterward, and by then it was too late to investigate it properly. Even if the authorities had wanted to.
It was shortly after the massacre that the legend began to circulate, insinuating itself into the minds of the populace until now it could be recited by any schoolchild within a hundred miles of Loch Fasail. The Black Maclean, so the story went, had been too cowardly to fight at Culloden despite a request from Lord George Murray, one of the Scottish leaders, so when he got there he made a deal with the English to save his own skin. When he returned home to Loch Fasail he must have been in a bloody-minded mood, because he set off northward to raid his neighbors’ lands. This was where the part about Maclean being in league with the devil came into it, because he had ridden upon a coal-black horse that breathed fire from its nostrils. His means of transport aside, Maclean had attacked his neighbors but had then been cut down in turn. That would have been the end of it, a bloody end to a bloody career, except the English dragoons, never good at keeping their promises, had arrived in Loch Fasail and massacred every
one as a warning to others not to take part in a rebellion against the Crown.
Extreme stuff even for those extreme times.
It could be true, of course. Some of it no doubt was, and there were similar stories in other parts of the country to back up the clan warfare and the English double-dealing. But the more Bella learned about Maclean, the more she wondered.
Black Maclean did rule his people with an iron fist, but that wasn’t unusual. Living here at Loch Fasail, in this isolated area, she knew the lives of the people had not changed in the hundreds of years before Maclean was born, and neither had the chief of the Macleans’ absolute control over them. The Highlands lagged behind the rest of Scotland, and this northwest corner was particularly out of step. The folk here were superstitious and suspicious, clinging to the old ways. Life was uncertain, with disease and famine the main cause of death. The chief fed them when they were hungry, gave them drink when they thirsted, and when the neighboring clans declared war the chief called his clan to him with the fiery cross, and led them into battle.
In such circumstances the chief was more important than any distant king. His power over his people was absolute and if he was the sort of person Maclean was, he ruled by terror. Except that when she began her research, Bella discovered there was nothing in the scant historical records to back up the tale of Black Maclean being a bad chief, or even a mediocre chief, up until the ’45 Rebellion. Quite the opposite. He gave his people prosperity, supported them in times of famine and disease, sought ways to increase their meager crops—no
concern of theirs ever seemed too small for him to take an interest in it. He actually stood head and shoulders above his contemporaries, many of whom were unbelievably callous and careless with the lives of their tenants and tacksmen. But just because Maclean saw that his clansmen had food in their bellies did not make him a New Age guy.
Still, Bella found herself admiring him in a way she had never expected to when she began this project. He was a dominant male, yes, and a brutal man from a brutal time, certainly, but there was so much more to him than what had happened after Culloden, in those dark days at the end of his life. And as for the legend…
Maclean seemed
better
than that.
Bella knew she wasn’t being objective. And it was the fault of the Edinburgh Portrait Gallery.
Eight months ago, when she’d gone on a visit to the gallery, Bella had never heard of the Black Maclean. She and Brian were staying in Edinburgh, and the gallery was somewhere quiet, away from Hamish and Georgiana and all their pretentious friends. She’d been dawdling through the rooms when suddenly there he was.
The Black Maclean.
She still shivered when she remembered. He was hidden away in a corner, yes, but he was so
powerful
. She hadn’t known who he was, but it hadn’t mattered then. Feeling strangely captivated and very alive, she had stood in front of his portrait for long minutes, her eyes caressing that face, that form. She’d been like a lovestruck teenager. Later she had begun searching for information on him in the major histories of the time,
reading all she could find—which wasn’t much. Who was he, what had he done? The more she delved, the more excited she became.
He might be a dark and tormented soul, but
here
was a man who deserved far more space than the official tellers of history had dealt him. Bella hoped to redress that with her new book, even though the records and accounts from those times were so very sketchy. Those from Loch Fasail had all been destroyed during the massacre, so she had to rely on mentions made by outside sources. She had been using the record repositories in Edinburgh, but on her last visit to Ardloch had discovered the little library there. Not expecting much, she had been astounded to discover it held a unique collection of histories from the local area.
Bella wanted to sit down there and then and read every piece of paper the Ardloch library held in its special history collection. Unfortunately, Brian had chosen that day to have one of his sulks.
“You’re obsessed with that bloody man.”
“I’m researching him for the book.”
“He’s a coward and a murderer, but you don’t want to believe that, do you?”
“It’s not a proven fact.”
“Not according to you. Not very professional of you, is it? I think you’re suffering from some repressed psychosis, something with a long name, that makes you more interested in a man who is dead than one who is living.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!”
“Come on, admit it. You sit and stare at his picture as
if he’s your long-lost lover. What are you thinking about? Fucking him? You certainly pay him a lot more attention than you do me.”
“Brian, please….”
But despite her protests, Bella had felt a stab of guilt. Maybe she
was
obsessed with Maclean. He might be arrogant and brutal and dangerous, and a murderer to boot, but she couldn’t get enough of him. Maybe Brian was right, and she would like to be made love to by him. Here she was, a well-educated, sensible woman living in the twenty-first century, and all she wanted was for the big bad Maclean to step out of his portrait and throw her over his shoulder and take her upstairs.
How sad was that?
Bella sighed and glanced down at her notes. She was wasting time again. Work, she needed to get to work. She had enough material to start writing the story of Maclean’s life.
She wrote down
Chapter One
and stared at the two words as if they would give her inspiration.
“Okay…I can lead into it gradually, begin with a brief retelling of Scottish history and Maclean’s place in it. Or…I can begin with a bang.”
Bella began typing.
Morven Maclean, born in 1716, was destined to be the last chief of the Macleans of Fasail. Dead at thirty, he must take responsibility for one of the worst civilian massacres in Scottish history.
With a sigh she backspaced and pressed the delete button.
Brian was right. Again. She didn’t really believe it; or maybe she just didn’t want to believe it. She didn’t want to spoil her fantasy.
Bella shivered. She always felt attuned to the subjects of her books, she couldn’t have written about them otherwise, but in the case of the Black Maclean the feeling was much stronger than normal. While she was appalled by the darker parts of the legend, his complexity as a man intrigued and fascinated her. She’d even hunted down a reasonable copy of the portrait of him that had first caught her attention, and now it glowered back at her from a spot above the bookshelf.
Bella’s eyes drifted to it more often than she was willing to admit; it still had that spellbinding effect on her.
She looked at it now.
He was seated, a handsome man, clothed in tartan trews and a romantic white shirt with a fall of lace over his strong hands. A plaid was fastened over his left shoulder and a broad strap over his right shoulder held the broadsword—the
claidheamh mor
—in its scabbard, which rested at his hip. Dark hair was loose to his shoulders, framing a face that was rectangular and long and clean-shaven. His brows were dark, drawn in a slight frown over intense pale blue eyes.
He leaned forward toward the artist, as though something had caught his attention, his hands clasped on the arms of the chair. There was a sense that he was about to rise to his feet and stride out of the painting. Impatient, she thought, eager to get on with what he had to do. Arrogant, not willing to listen to the opinions of others. And passionate, yes, that, too. All the character
traits that had worked against him and ensured his downfall, and that of his people.
The title of the portrait was: (
Reputed to be) The Black Maclean, Chief of the Macleans of Fasail, 1744. Artist unknown, in the style of Allan Ramsay.
Reputed to be
…well, maybe. But Bella knew it was him. Knew it beyond doubt.
Once again she found herself mesmerized, her gaze held by his. There was a savage beauty in his face, a dangerous wildness. If she had been a maiden living around Loch Fasail in the eighteenth century, she would have known instinctively that this man was a risk to her virtue and her peace of mind.
He’s coming….
Bella shivered again as the hag’s words replayed in her head. Yes, she knew she was obsessed by him, awake and dreaming. Despite the fact that two hundred and fifty years had passed and the Black Maclean was long dead and dust, he was beginning to seem more real to her than Brian.
And wasn’t that just a little dangerous?
Maclean reached a village. It was a mere
two dwellings and he did not recognize it; he was certain it had not stood here two hundred and fifty years ago. Glass windows were small and rare and precious, and the big bright squares of glass set in the walls of this dwelling were something he had never seen before. Warily, he noted that there were more of the monsters in front, smaller creatures these, of different colors. Several had passed him on his journey and he knew now that there were people inside them, making them work.
Maclean supposed he should have been shocked by these bizarre objects, but he wasn’t. He was already assimilating them, accepting them as part of this new world he had been set free to roam. That did not mean he liked what he saw. The call of home was becoming even louder and more urgent in his head. He wanted to slam Castle Drumaird’s thick doors and shut out all of this. He wanted the safety and security of home, his
home. It was still
his
and if whoever occupied it now didn’t like it, then too bad. He rested a big hand on the handle of his
claidheamh mor
.
Maclean would fight to reclaim what belonged to him.
He could see people behind the glass walls, seated at tables, eating and drinking. The smell of food was strong, but it was also unfamiliar. Strangely he felt no hunger. A man and woman strolled out of the door. They both wore trews, even the woman, and they were leading a dog. It wasn’t like the dogs Maclean knew, neither a beast bred to hunt nor a catcher of rats and mice. He thought with a sneer that it was like something a namby-pamby gentleman might pet upon his lap.
They weren’t looking at him, but he expected any moment that they would. He was a big man and he was standing by the red monster, and they were heading straight for it. The lapdog barked, showing its little fangs. The man turned and gave the animal a frown, while the woman cooed and spoke to it in a foolish voice. “Stop it, baby,” she mock-scolded, lifting it into her arms.
The man said something to her and they laughed. Wearing his fiercest expression, Maclean waited. They walked right past him and climbed into the red monster. It growled and then it moved away, out onto the black road, leaving behind the usual heat and stink. Maclean was frozen, staring in disbelief. They had walked right past him. Worse than that, the woman actually walked
through
him.
As if he weren’t there.
Behind him more voices. Two old men, their faces
worn and lined by time. Desperate now, Maclean stepped forward, telling himself it must be a mistake.
“Dinna be afeared,” he told them huskily.
The old men looked at him, looked through him, and walked to their monster, a yellow beast.
They canna see me.
A dreadful sense of loss, of sorrow, filled him. He was alive again, he had returned to the glens, but he was no more than a rattle in the reeds, a wisp of wind in the heather. A silent watching ghostie.
He lifted his head and howled out his grief and fury with a roar that echoed back to him from the hills.
And no one heard.
By afternoon Brian had still not returned. Bella wondered again if he had gone to Edinburgh and forgotten her. She had worked hard at putting him out of her mind, concentrating on her book instead. She’d mapped out a section on Culloden only to delete it again. Nothing pleased her. Nothing seemed
right
. She looked instead at Maclean’s return to Castle Drumaird and what followed, but there were still so many missing facts, lost parts of the jigsaw. And Bella wanted to find them. Maclean’s portrait stared back at her, daring her, urging her to discover the man behind the legend.
Her gaze slid to the window over the sink.
The sky was the pale porcelain blue color she loved. Of course, it might rain at any moment, but for now it was beautiful and she wanted to be outside to enjoy it.
Bella could never have one of those lean, prepubescent figures, she wasn’t built that way. And she accepted that, although she wasn’t always happy about it;
what woman was happy with her own size and shape? But lately Brian had been downright unpleasant. Bella was no petite and trim Georgiana, as he constantly reminded her, but she had plenty of traits to be proud of. It was just that Brian couldn’t seem to see past her voluptuous curves. Now, every time she ordered dessert when they were together, he had that look on his face. As if he were judging her and finding her wanting.
Still, whatever her size or shape, there was absolutely nothing wrong with trying to get her body fit and healthy. And more importantly, there was a tub of chocolate peppermint ice cream in the freezer, and she’d feel less guilty about enjoying a bowl of it if she went for another walk.
Bella slipped on her pink padded jacket. Outside, the wind was chill and she felt it sting her cheeks into color as she looked up at the steep hill behind the cottage. There against that pale blue sky was the stark, vertical ruin of Castle Drumaird, a stronghold that had once overlooked the loch and all the land around it, as well as the people who lived here. The Black Maclean’s people. The view from the ruins was well worth the climb.
Bella set herself upon the narrow twisting path to the top.
He
had once climbed this path, the Black Maclean. It was from here that he had set out with his men for the battlefield at Culloden, and so had begun the story that was now legend.
Two hundred and fifty years ago.
Hadn’t the hag said that in her dream?
He’s been away for two hundred and fifty years, and now he’s almost home.
Bella stumbled, only just saving herself
from falling. “Of course the hag said that,” she reminded herself crossly. “She was part of
your
dream and that makes her part of you.
You
made it…
her
up.” The hag said plenty of other things, too, none of which made much sense.
Halfway up the hillside the rain fell, a brief shower that made her dark hair curl and her trainers slosh. Bella continued up, determined now to reach the top. Her breathing was hard and painful—God, how out of shape
was
she?—but she told herself it was doing her good, and besides, the view was worth it.
She came over the crest of the hill. Broken and tumbled stone lay everywhere. Part of the keep still stood, the outer wall smooth and black and shiny from the rain. You could see how thick those walls had once been, how secure the inhabitants felt when their enemies came marching to make war upon them.
Maclean must have thought himself invincible as he gazed over his isolated kingdom. He must have truly believed he could live forever.
Bella took a breath, feeling her heartbeat begin to slow, as she, too, looked out over the glittering loch and moorland. It was empty now, deserted apart from a few of Gregor’s sheep, but despite its tragic and bloody history Fasail was still beautiful. Lonely, sometimes bleak, but always beautiful.
It was strange, and she had never told Brian this, knowing he would deride her, but from the moment she’d set foot here Bella had felt as if she’d come home. After thirty-two years of wandering the world and feeling like a stranger in her father’s houses, she’d finally found somewhere she belonged.
He was almost there. Home. The bewilderment and rage that pounded through him eased a little. The questions in his head ceased their endless demands. His lands were as empty as the glens he’d just walked through—where were his people?—but everything else was so extraordinary he did not want to consider the meaning of it now. He didn’t dare begin to think of that. He just wanted to reach the security of his home.
Heavy rain was coming down into his eyes, and although he could barely see a yard in front of him he strode on, the powerful muscles in his legs working, his faded kilt swinging, his long dark hair plastered to his head.
Maclean passed a cottage, dim light shining out into the gloaming, smoke trickling from the chimney. It was odd that it was here, where no cottage had ever been before, but he wasn’t going to waste thought on it when he was so close. So close to the place where he had been born and where he had lived and ruled. Men had feared and admired him, women had given him their bodies and their hearts. They had trusted him, followed him in the ancient unquestioning manner of a clan its chief.
And so they would again.
He reached the lip of the hill just as the rain stopped. There was a girl with a pale face and long dark hair, huddling beneath the doorway to the great hall. He wondered if she was real or a dream. And then he was looking up and up, and for a moment it was there, Castle Drumaird, soaring bleakly into the sky.
Then just as suddenly it was gone.
He blinked to clear his sight, thinking it was the rain. Only the rain. It could not be…his castle, his home. Broken, torn down, like some giant had swung his boot and kicked aside the pieces.
How could it be? That he had returned from the grave only to find everything he loved was gone.
Loneliness overwhelmed him as the rain lashed his face. In his quiet despair he wanted to weep, but the Maclean did not cry. He wanted to rail and shout, but he was too sick at heart to make a sound. He wanted to fall to his knees and allow death to claim him. But he was already dead, he
must
be…and yet he lived. The
Fiosaiche
had brought him back from death. His hands closed into fists at his sides, the rainwater dripped down his face and soaked into his clothing, and he stood in silence and faced the dreadful sight before him.
He lived, but now he had nothing to live for.
The girl was picking her way through the tumbled stones of what had been mighty Castle Drumaird. He watched her numbly, not allowing himself to hope that this time someone might see him. And, of course, she didn’t. She reached a young rowan tree and grasped the slender trunk to steady herself as she jumped down into the sodden grass. It was overgrown and reached to her thighs, and she grimaced as she waded toward him.
A woman, he realized, not a girl.
Dark wet hair, a pale oval face and a lush body beneath loose, shapeless clothing. She turned her head and looked over her shoulder at the remains of the tower, and for a moment her profile was etched against the stormy sky. Despite his own grinding pain Maclean was struck by her beauty, and the cloak of tranquillity
that enveloped her. She owned a still calm that Maclean in his pain ached to embrace.
The woman fastened her jacket with a shiver and moved in his direction, intending to go down the path he had just climbed up. As she passed him he smelled her scent, flowery and warm. She barely came up to his shoulder, but he was a big man. A chill gust of wind blew a lock of her long dark hair toward him…and through him. And then she was gone.
Maclean looked upon what had once been his beloved home and slowly, stiffly walked toward it. He did not understand what had happened here. He could only assume that during the long centuries when he lay dead, all he loved had crumbled away, leaving this sad monument to the past.
His head began to pound. There had been a battle, but not here. Brief vivid scenes of savagery. Culloden Moor? That name was familiar. The smell of campfires and food cooking, the low murmur of men and a sense of impending doom. Aye, it must be. He had fought at Culloden Moor and died there.
But with remembrances came a warning. Somewhere in his mind there was a nasty beastie, lurking, waiting to creep up on him when he wasn’t looking and tear him to pieces. It was a pity he couldn’t remember its name.
Maclean stayed among the ruins well into the darkness. His lands were empty and his home was gone; where else was he to go? Now and again there were flashes of long-gone faces, the call of dead voices, moments of merriment and sorrow, of everyday life. Again his head pounded, the memories making it ache, but he persisted. The night before the march to join the
prince’s army he had sent out the fiery cross to call his clan together, and they had feasted and drunk. He had sat at the head of the table in his chair that was more like a throne and gazed upon all that was his.
Lord George Murray has called me to join him at Culloden Moor, but dinna fear. Nothing and no one can hurt you. I will not allow it to happen.
They had believed in him, their father, their master, their king. In his arrogance he had thought himself untouchable. Only his wife-to-be, Ishbel, had reminded him in her cold and precise voice that he was not.
You are a man, Maclean, and all men can bleed and die.
Ishbel…aye, there was something else to be remembered about his betrothed, but instead he heard his father’s voice.
Women are to be used and no’ to be trusted. Do no’ let them inside your heart, lad. They will destroy ye.
Maclean agreed. No woman had ever meant more to him than his broadsword and his dogs. And yet…Ishbel. Why did the name tease at him, as if there were something he was not seeing? Just as he had not seen it two hundred and fifty years ago.
Another rain shower came and he crouched and shivered. Why was it that although he was a ghost he could still feel? Still suffer? Still ache with sorrow?
A whiff of smoke came up from the cottage below and then the smell of cooking. Maclean lifted his head and sniffed. He was not hungry, but the homely smell brought with it a desperate need to find the company of others. To not be alone.
Slowly, stiffly, he rose to his feet and began the climb down the narrow path.
There was another monster sitting outside the cottage and despite his earlier distraction he did not think it had been there before. As Maclean stepped around it, felt the heat from beneath its hard outer shell, he heard voices from inside the cottage.
The light was still shining from the window, and he could see inside. The room was bright, and there were foodstuffs laid out upon a table. The woman he had seen earlier was preparing them by slicing them with a knife. Her dark hair had dried and lay about her back and shoulders in a mass of long, loose curls. She wore a blue robe, covering all but a V at her throat. He could see the shape of her breasts and the narrow curve of her waist where she had tied a belt of the same cloth as the robe. Her cheeks were flushed and as she leaned forward a lock of her hair fell into her eyes.