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CHAPTERTWO
“Why did ye let yer guard down, Cillian?” Murdina demanded as her opponent fell to the ground, and she pointed the tip of her sword to his neck.
“I… I am sorry, lass, ye are… ye are a match for any of yer clansmen,” the man replied.
Murdina had been sparring that morning with Cillian out in the castle courtyard. He was an excellent swordsman, and few could best him–but Murdina was one. Her father had despaired at having four daughters and no son to inherit his title. Even from an early age, Murdina had been treated not as a delicate woman but as a clansman and a warrior. She had learned to fight, ride, shoot, and do so better than any man.
“But ye were nae even tryin’ to beat me,” she replied, cursing under her breath, and sheathing her sword.
“A few moments then, and we shall fight again,” Cillian replied, catching his breath, but Murdina only dismissed him with a wave of her hand.
In her skill with the sword, Murdina found a way to forget her sorrows for a while. She took out her anger and frustration on her opponents, and there was not a man in the castle whom she had not challenged to fight. There had been only one man who could ever stand a chance against her, and that was Arran Athol, the sword master who had taught her everything she had ever needed to know. In his hands, a sword was as much a work of art as a tool, and he had fought many a campaign against the English during the long, troubled period of the years gone by.
“Forget it, I shall find another opponent,” she said, shaking her head as Cillian bowed.
A small crowd of her father’s men had gathered to watch, and Murdina looked around at them now, challenging each of them to fight. But all of them shook their heads, turning away, as Murdina scowled. They were cowards, she told herself, and it was no wonder that the Jacobite cause was all but lost with such men as this to represent it. Murdina had grown up with the stories of English oppression. She hated the house of Hanover and its claims to the throne of Scotland. But the Stuart cause seemed all but gone, the few pockets of resistance against English rule gradually weakening in the face of overwhelming odds. Her father still clung to the hope of restoration, but with the protestant strangulation on their beloved land, such hopes seemed ever further from being realized.
“Murdina, I want to speak to ye,” her father’s voice came from across the courtyard, and Murdina looked up to see the laird beckoning to her from the top of the castle steps.
Despite his advancing years, Andrew was still a formidable figure, his long white beard flowing down his front and his height and build raising him above other men by some considerable amount. He commanded respect, and those around her now dispersed, leaving Murdina and her father alone.
“What is it ye wish to speak to speak to me about, Father?” she asked, coming to join him on the steps which led into the castle keep.
“Have ye thought more about what I said to ye the other day?” he replied, and Murdina shook her head.
“I told ye then, I daenae wish to marry anyone, Father,” she said, and Andrew looked at her angrily.
He had come to her in a fit of some agitation a week or so previously, demanding that she consider marriage for the sake of the clan and its future.
“If we are to advance the Jacobite cause, then ye must marry and bear children,” he had told her.
They were words he had repeated to both her sisters, too, and while Murdina remained angry with Ella and Freya for their apparent lack of feeling in the face of Aoife’s death, they could at least find common ground in objecting to their father’s demands. Since losing her sister, Murdina had found herself more and more distrustful of men. She blamed the man whom Aoife had loved for her death, and the thought of allowing her own heart to be broken in such a way was too awful to comprehend.
Murdina had no qualms in standing up to her father, whether or not he was her laird, too, nor of disobeying him–it would certainly not be the first time. He had suggested several possible matches to her, all of which had made Murdina’s blood run cold–she would not marry merely to satisfy her father’s ill-thought-out plans for a future glorious revolution. The Jacobite cause was dying, and her marrying a man she did not love would not save it.
“And I told ye that there is little choice in the matter, Murdina. Had yer mother given us an heir, then there would be nay need, though surely tis’ any woman’s wish to marry well,” he said, but Murdina only laughed.
“Tis’ a fond thing, vainly conceived, Father. I shall nae marry just because ye tell me to,” she said, and her father caught her by the arm and brought his face in close to hers, an angry look coming over his countenance.
“Ye shall dae what is necessary to ensure this clan has a future, Murdina,” he said, but she snatched her arm away and turned from him, the anger rising inside her.
“And perhaps if ye had shown more concern for the daughter ye once had, then ye would have that future,” she cried.
Had Aoife not been promised to a man of such dubious reputation, then perhaps her life might have been saved. Andrew had grieved for his daughter, but it seemed he had now forgotten just what an arranged marriage had done to the one he had always described as his “bright, shining star.”
“And what dae ye mean by that?” her father demanded, as Murdina turned to him angrily, fixing him with a scowl.
“That it was an arranged marriage that caused her such misery, Father. She would still be with us now if it were nae for that man,” Murdina exclaimed as tears rolled down her cheeks.
“Enough–ye shall be married, ye and yer sisters, too. I want nay more of this talk, ye hear me? Aoife is gone, and we have mourned her. Nay amount of weepin’ will bring her back. Dae ye nae think I miss her every day? She haunts my dreams. I am her father, and I could dae nothin’ to prevent this tragedy. Nothin’ at all. But ye will marry, Murdina, even if I have to force it,” he said, and turning on his heels, he marched off back into the castle, barking out orders for the patrols to ride out along the mull.
Murdina watched him go, and she brushed the tears from her eyes just as her two sisters emerged from the gate leading into the castle gardens. Freya–her youngest sister–looked at her with concern.
“Are ye all right, Murdina?” she asked, and Murdina shook her head.
“Dae I look it, Freya? We are none of us, all right. Father wishes to marry us off. We are bargain’ tools, we three,” she replied, and her two sisters looked at one another fearfully.
“I am too young to marry,” Freya replied obstinately.
