Jennifer Roberson Read Online Free PDF Page A

fair skin and reddish hair, now graying, not uncommon to Highlanders. He was no longer young, at fifty, but neither was he too old to comprehend or appreciate the politics of the situation.
    Breadalbane drank most of his whisky, savoring the pungent, peat-flavored taste. He envisioned the execution; the report said Argyll had coupled with the Maiden in a brief, deadly embrace.
    Argyll is dead.
    A tremor of unexpected emotion caused the tide of whisky to slop against costly glass. The earl stilled it instantly, squeezing the glass with thin, well-groomed fingers; he was not a man given to physical display, lest it hand claymore to the enemy.
    Argyll’s death was significant. The enemies of Clan Campbell would move to replace the traditional strength of Argyll’s clan—and Breadalbane’s —with another, possibly even the tumultuous, thieving MacDonalds, that most despised of all clans, though particularly by Campbells; specifically by Breadalbane. MacDonald holdings were wide-ranging, their numbers vast.
    Taut lips parted in a brief rictus of enmity. “Their women are rabbits,” Breadalbane murmured, “and their men rut upon them like boars. ’Tis why they steal the Campbell cows, to fill their gawping mouths!”
    Argyll is dead.
    Breadalbane stood transfixed a moment, staring blindly into darkness. Clan Campbell was in one fell slice of the guillotine blade rendered leaderless.
    Argyll is DEAD—
    Abruptly he barked a brief, satisfied laugh and raised a mute toast to the executed. He in his nephew’s place now commanded Clan Campbell. And he in his own place would find a way to destroy the MacDonalds.
     
    The Laird of Glenlyon let the reeds slip from his mouth. No more keening wail of pipe-song; he was left now with nothing but a clutch of raddled leather hugged against his ribs.
    Christ Jesus . . . He exhaled heavily, emptying his lungs as the bagpipes had emptied, wishing he might give way to a belly-deep moan as evocative as the instrument’s wail and wheeze. But there was no one to fill him again, to set lips to his reeds and breathe new life into his spirit, that he might once again fill the air with a rousing pibroch, a battle rant so stirring that he would go down against the enemy knowing himself invincible.
    He was not invincible. The battle he fought was personal, and the enemy himself.
    He looked around his room, marking sparse furnishings, an interior as naked as his own. Chesthill was not a huge, imposing manor such as the English had, or rich Lowlanders. It wasn’t even a castle, and certainly not a palace. It was, simply, a stone-built Highland house, large enough for Glenlyon, his daughter, his sons, and a handful of loyal Campbell servants. He was laird over all of Glen Lyon, but he wasn’t a rich one. He wasn’t a poor one. What he was, was bankrupt.
    It was dark, save for smoky light exuded from the oil lamp on the table next to his elbow, beside the decanter and brimming silver cup. It cast but piecemeal illumination; the lamp glass was caked black with the soot of oily smoke, so that only the smudged blots made by fingermarks let the light shine through cleanly.
    If there were another way . . . Glenlyon stirred sharply in the chair: an awkward, involuntary spasm of denial, of acceptance, of an abiding despair impinging on desperation. His movement brought forth a final brief wheeze from the bagpipes. He did not take up the reeds again or set aside the pipes; forgotten, he allowed the instrument to fall slackly between his ribs and the chair as he reached for the cup of whisky.
    As he drank, taking solace in the harsh seduction of the liquor, he heard the scratching at the door. No, no—not now —But wishing away solved nothing. If such things as that had power, he’d be a man of honor again, a man with dignity, with all his debts paid off and his heritage unencumbered.
    The scratch sounded again, more importunately. He was tempted to ignore it altogether; a servant, receiving no answer,