Page 99 of Steel & Surrender

He’d proven that he could defend his home just as well as any other man.

“This was a dark day for our clan,” his father said after a pause, “but we have ensured it was an even blacker day for the MacDonalds.”

Brìghde walked into the heart of the village, a load of wattle in her arms.

A cluster of women worked by the well, hands moving fast despite their exhaustion, as they made new doors for the bothies that had been burned a few days earlier. It was just one of the many tasks needed. Everyone in the village was pitching in.

Brìghde and Eòghan had downed tools in the forge and joined them.

Today, her shoulders ached from hauling wattle since dawn.

One of the women flashed her a tired smile. “Thank ye, lass … keep them coming.”

“I’ll be back with more later,” Brìghde assured her, dumping the wattle and brushing off her hands.

And she would.

However, first she had a visit to make—one she didn’t want to put off any longer.

Returning to her family’s bothy, she found her mother was sitting on the doorstep, tying wattle together to make a fresh door for one of her neighbors. Moving past her, she set about picking two small posies—marigolds and daisies—from the garden.

They’d brighten up the grey day.

In the aftermath of the attack, the weather had turned cold and sunless, almost as if it mourned what had happened. They all did, though. For years, everyone here had believed Duart was untouchable, but the MacDonalds’ attack had proven that it wasn’t.

If one enemy could strike here, others might get the same idea.

No doubt, the clan-chief was already hard at work shoring up the defenses.

But even so, tension remained.

“Where are ye off to, lass?” her mother asked, glancing up from her work.

“The graveyard,” Brìghde replied with a half-smile. “Just paying my respects to Ian … he saved our lives, after all.”

Ada’s lips curved, her gaze shadowing. “He did.”

Brìghde left then, taking the well-worn path through the village toward the graveyard, where the yew trees rose darkly against the pale sky.

On the way, she passed the blackened, charred remains of the pyre where they’d burned the MacDonalds.

There had been no prayers for them. No ceremony. They didn’t deserve one.

Her pulse stuttered then. How close they’d come to being slaughtered. Everyone in the village, including her, had been on edge ever since. More than once, she caught herself glancing east, as if expecting to see a horde of MacDonalds spill over the cliffs and come racing toward the village.

It would be a while before anyone here would relax again.

The day after the attack, Father Malcolm had buried the Macleans who had fallen. Ten of them: three village men and seven of the men-at-arms.

All of them deeply mourned.

A woman was there by one of the fresh graves, kneeling and weeping for her lost love.

Brìghde’s chest constricted. She recognized the lass. In a place of this size, that wasn’t unusual. She was Gàraidh, wife of one of the Guard, and tragically, she’d recently given birth to a bairn. The infant was swaddled against her heart in a sling.

Gàraidh knelt there, lost in her grief, oblivious to the rest of the world.

Brìghde knew better than to intrude. Instead, she walked to the end of the row of fresh graves. Her skin prickled. The graveyard was a somber place at the best of times, but today, it unnerved her.