MacKinnons' Hope: A Highland Christmas Carol Read Online Free PDF Page B

his own mind.”
    It was for this reason Iain kept out of politiks entirely. It gave him a bellyache. Thank God his own bloodline was much removed from his MacAlpin roots. He could no longer be seen as a threat to David’s reign—at least not directly.
    “Well, I thank you for the news,” Iain said. “Likewise, I shall leave Cameron to his own devices. But as for you and your men, you will sleep beneath my roof tonight, even if we must all pile in three deep.”
    Aidan grinned, his teeth a blinding white. “Better three men deep than all alone on nights like these, eh? Never fear, if I can sleep on rocks, keeping watch o’er my sheep, I can sleep anywhere, auld friend.”
    Iain chuckled. “I have spent a few of those nights myself. Damned sheep complain all night long, not unlike cauld men.”
    Aidan’s laughter escaped like a bark. “Aye, though ye’ll ne’er hear my men complain for whatever they can get. We are not come to bring you more grief.”
    Iain clapped Aidan on the back again. “Ye canna know how much that means to us. Come now,” he said. “Let me show ye where to settle your things.”
    He led the dún Scoti chieftain into the solar, where there were already more than a few pallets laid upon the floor. “This is where you can bunk your men.”
    And then he took Aidan to a tower room—the one he’d used for himself years ago. For a time, after the death of his first wife, he’d kept the chamber locked and the windows boarded up, but those burdensome memories were long gone. Mairi’s ghost lingered here no more—in fact, Iain did not believe in ghosts.
    “This is a greater kindness than I would have hoped for,” Aidan said, upon inspecting the scarcely furnished room, and it struck Iain, not for the first time, that the dún Scoti chief was as humble a man as he’d ever known.
    “If you would but send a messenger to the Brodies,” Aidan continued, but he barely got the words out of his mouth when Catrìona Brodie appeared in the doorway. Iain realized he was about to ask for a messenger to his sister, but Catrìona had been here now for days, helping alongside the Brodie men.
    “Aidan!”
    Aidan spun about, the smile on his face all the more genuine at the sound of his sister’s voice. His arms flew wide, beckoning her into an embrace and the lass fairly flew across the room, leaping like a wee girl into her brother’s arms.
    Behind her came Iain’s daughter Liana. At ten years old, she was the very image of her mother. “Papa!” she said, excitedly. “More wagons have come! Mama says to tell you that they bear Dunloppe’s standard!”
    A smile to match the dún Scoti’s erupted on the MacKinnon’s lips, for this now was his oldest and dearest friend, Broc Ceannfhionn.

Chapter 2
    I t was the eve before the winter solstice, the time of the longest night and the shortest day, when the days descended into darkness and the nights grew cold and long.
    Tonight’s bonfire, like the night before, was a tribute to Cailleach Bhuer, the blue-faced mother of winter, who was reborn every All Hallow’s Eve to herald in the winter snows. ’Twas said she was the one who froze the ground with every tap of her ash-wood staff, but she was also the one who guarded the realms of men, protecting them from the winter winds. They honored her in hopes that she would continue to stave away the winter snows until the reconstruction was complete. The huts now had foundations, but they still had a ways to go.
    Iain inspected the pit, making certain it was constructed to his specifications. It was a very good pit, he decided, rimmed by hefty boulders. The surrounding grass was already mostly charred. Even so, all debris within a stone’s throw had been removed, so as to lessen any further risk of fire. In spite of recent events, his kinsmen would take comfort in the night’s fire, for even in the darkest heart of winter, it was a keen reminder that, from the darkest womb of night, the light again would