“But no, I’ve not disrupted the evening to tell ye about a new claimant to the chieftainship.” Ian raised his fist in the air. “I’ve here to tell ye I’ve taken Knock Castle back from the MacKinnons!”
The hall erupted as men waved their claymores, and the crowd roared their approval. Hugh stood and raised his hands for quiet, but it was some time before he could be heard.
After the cheering died down, Hugh said, “Just saying ye took the castle doesn’t make it so.”
Sileas was startled to see Gordan emerge from the crowd to stand beside Ian at the front. His clothes were streaked with soot, and he looked as if he had ridden hard to get here.
“Most of ye know I’ve had my differences with Ian,” Gordan said. “So ye can trust my word when I say he did take Knock Castle yesterday.”
A few men shouted, but Gordan put his hand up to signal he wasn’t finished. “Shaggy Maclean is plying the waters nearby, so I hope some of ye will join me at Knock Castle in the morning. We don’t want to lose it to the Macleans after we’ve just taken it back from the MacKinnons.”
The hall again was filled with whoops and swords raised high. His speech done, Gordan gave a stiff nod and moved back into the crowd.
“This is a proud day, indeed, for the MacDonalds of Sleat.” Hugh spoke as if he were responsible for the victory, though everyone knew he had stood by while the MacKinnons held Knock Castle.
All eyes, however, were on Ian, who had won the crowd’s goodwill. He walked the few feet to the high table, where the two places had been set for the dead.
“Before we choose a new chieftain,” Ian said, in a slow deliberate voice, “we must settle the matter of the death of our last chieftain—and of his son, Ragnall.”
A chill went through the room at his mention of the dead, for the veil was thin between the dead and the living on Samhain. Sileas could almost see the chieftain and Ragnall—big, muscular, fair-haired men with grim faces— standing on either side of Ian.
“Those of us who were at Flodden know what happened,” Hugh said, his hard, gray eyes sweeping the crowd. “While Ian here was drinking fine wines and dallying with the ladies in France, we were being slaughtered by the English!”
Ian waited for the murmur that followed to grow quiet. Then, in a voice choked with rage, he said, “Our chieftain and his son were not slaughtered by the English.”
The blood drained from Hugh’s face, and he stared at Ian openmouthed, before he caught himself and snapped his mouth shut. The crowd was stunned into silence.
Ian stretched out his arm, pointing at Hugh, and shouted in a voice that reverberated through the hall. “I accuse you, Hugh Dubh MacDonald, of murdering our chieftain and his son at Flodden!”
The crowd was in an uproar.
Hugh tried to speak several times before he could be heard. “I fought at Flodden,” he said, clenching his fists and fixing murderous eyes on Ian. “How dare ye accuse me of the vilest crime, when I sank in Scots’ blood to my ankles, fighting, while you deserted the clan in our hour of need.”
Hugh turned and shouted to his guard, “Seize him!”
Sileas gasped and started forward, but Beitris and Ilysa held her.
Then Tait’s voice came from the other side of the hall. “Let’s hear what Ian has to say!”
Several others followed, shouting, “Aye! Let him speak! Let him speak!”
Hugh put his hand up as if to stop his guards, though they had been slow to follow his order.
“ ’Tis easy to make accusations,” Hugh said to Ian, “with nothing to back them up.”
“But I do have proof.” Ian paused, giving everyone time to take in his words, before he said, “I ask my father, Payton MacDonald, to come forward.”
Sileas squeezed Beitris’s and Ilysa’s hands as Payton made his way to the front of the room. Despite his limp and his graying hair, he was still a formidable man with powerful shoulders and battle scars on his face and hands. Her heart burst with pride to see father and son, fine and honorable men, standing together before their clan.
“Da,” Ian said, “can ye tell us which of our clansman fought near ye in the battle.”
“I fought on our chieftain’s left and Ragnall fought on his right, just as we always did,” his father said. “We were in the front—again, same as always.”
There was a rumble of agreement among the men, for they knew the three always fought like that.
“And who was behind ye?” Ian asked.
“This time, it was Hugh Dubh and a few of his men.”
Payton’s answer caused a murmuring in the crowd, though Hugh’s being behind the men who were killed proved nothing in itself.
“Can ye tell us how the chieftain and Ragnall were killed?”
Payton shook his head. “I didn’t see who struck the blows, but they came from behind us. I’ve puzzled on that ever since.”
The hall was so quiet that Sileas could hear her own breathing.
“The English came at us hard, and we were fighting for our lives,” Payton said. “All the same, I don’t know how English soldiers could have gotten behind us without us knowing it.”
Ian shrugged his shoulders. “In the heat of battle, ye can’t always see.”
