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‘I will make you pay for this, Will O’Neill,’ she hissed, but the storm took her words. They were lost to the crash of thunder overhead.
By the time he reached the ground, driving rain had soaked Will to the bone. He turned his face up to it and spread his arms wide as lightning flashed across the sky, lighting up the bleak walls of Fitheach Castle and sending the cliffs into sharp relief against the dark water below him. The rain hit his face like icy needles, as cold as his dead heart. But in spite of it, God, it felt good to be a man, it felt good to be alive, and it felt good to have plucked Edana’s sweet claws out of his skin.
***
Five days later
The sea gods had smiled on them, and their bounty was plentiful. Laird Bain would be pleased with his cache of stolen silks and wheat, coin too. They had run down a heavily laden merchant vessel just south of Skye, Will’s light birlinn closing the distance between them easily in strong winds as the hapless prey lurched in heavy seas. It had been the work of a moment to ram the other ship into submission and take what they wanted. Intimidation had prevailed over violence, with the merchant crew handing over a portion of their cargo in exchange for their lives.
As he climbed the cliffs up to Fitheach Castle, Will was confident of a warm welcome. It had not always been so. Two years ago he had arrived a virtual beggar, a piece of driftwood, cut loose from family, friends and allegiance, a fugitive traitor from a fallen clan. How low he had become, the son of a Laird reduced to begging for favours of distant relations who were strangers to him. Back then he’d had nothing, just the clothes on his back and the dogged belligerence of those who have nothing more to lose.
But Will had always had his wits, no matter what, and so he had managed to bluff his way into an audience with Laird Fearchar Bain, uncle on his mother’s side and one of the most ruthless, hard-faced bastards in the Western Isles. He was a man who, if you displeased him, or he was the worse for drink, would cheerfully throw you from the cliffs just to see you fly. Aye, he’d had nothing to recommend him to his uncle then, but times had changed, now fortune smiled on him.
As he strode into the great hall, all heads turned. Will approached the Laird’s table with arms stretched wide and a broad grin on his face. Fearchar Bain regarded him stonily, and Will’s smile faded as he noticed Edana sitting at his right hand, face swollen and bruised, lip split, wide-eyed and terrified. Who the hell had done that to her? Fearchar?
His heart thumped in his ears as he soaked in the leaden atmosphere in the hall. He braced himself for whatever was to come at him as his hand went to his sword hilt.
‘So, you are back with plunder for me, I hear,’ boomed Fearchar.
‘Aye, Laird,’ he replied, keeping his voice steady as the slow hand of dread took him by the throat. ‘A merchant vessel, heavily laden, with rich pickings to be had.’ Will tried not to look at Edana.
‘Expect a reward, do you, for bringing me these riches?’
What trap was being laid here?
‘Aye, Laird,’ he replied, ‘it is my right, is it not?’
Fearchar stood up. At over six foot he was a daunting sight, wild-eyed, brawny, not an inch of fat on him. Though he was a good deal older than Will, Fearchar kept himself lean and strong by brawling and hunting and rutting in equal measure. He was a Bain, from a lineage famous for their insatiable appetites. As a half-Bain on his mother’s side, the same blood flowed in Will’s veins, and the same violent impulses drove him too. So, when Fearchar rushed from the table and came towards him, Will did not flinch.
Fearchar stood before him, toe to toe. ‘It seems to me, William, that you already rewarded yourself, when you had my wife, when you took her against her will, when you beat her into submission. See what your fists did to her as she pleaded with you to stop, you bastard,’ he snarled, pointing at Edana.
Edana stood up, and Will looked into her eyes. Excitement and triumph lived there as she yelled, ‘Kill him Fearchar, for what he did to me, take his head.’
So, it seemed the bitch had done for him. She was cleverer and more vengeful than he thought.
Fearchar came closer. ‘Any last words before I restore my wife’s honour by ending you in the most painful way I can imagine?’ snarled Fearchar, his spittle wetting Will’s face. ‘Shall we tie him to the rocks and let the crabs eat him?’ he shouted to his clansmen.
Muttering speared the tension in the hall, spreading like a pox. People shuffled their feet and looked away. Women covered their mouths with their hands. No one said anything in his defence for fear of the Laird’s retribution landing on them too. Goading this man was his only hope now. If he could beat their Laird in a fight, man to man, he had a chance of surviving the day.
‘Shall I spill his guts onto the floor and watch this wretch squirm in agony for days, drag it out, eh?’ Fearchar continued.
‘You may try, old man,’ hissed Will. ‘Or will you get your men to do it for you, Fearchar? It’s not as if you could ever best me in a fight.’
‘Get down on your knees, dog, and beg for the mercy of a quick death for shaming my wife.’
‘I did not do anything to your lying wife that she did not beg me to, as she has of others.’
‘Silence,’ bellowed Fearchar, straight into his face.
Will held his ground and kept his voice firm. ‘She’s opened her legs for more than me and every time that bitch was laughing at you.’
Fearchar came so close they bumped chests. ‘I took you in when you had nothing in this world. I made a man of you, and this is how you repay me, by violating my wife and lying about it.’
‘I violated your trust Fearchar, but not your wife, I swear to it. Not that I’ll beg forgiveness either way, for any of it. Aye, you made me a man, so that I could strike down your enemies and make you rich. Have I not earned my place here with every drop of my blood I have spilt for you?’
‘You have no place here save the one I give you.’
‘Aye, but I took one for myself - in your wife’s bed. A man who can’t satisfy a woman deserves to lose her and let me speak plain. I was not the first lover Edana’s had and, even if you kill me, I’ll not be the last, you can be assured of that.’
