Page 45 of Kilgannon #1

I N THE HALL PEOPLE WERE RELENTLESS, AND MORE ARRIVED every minute.

I stood at the side and watched as Alex, shadowed by Angus, paced in front of the fireplace.

When Liam arrived with Ian and Jamie, the three boys stood uncertainly in front of Alex while he talked to them with sharp gestures.

I was about to go to him and ask what was happening, when a commotion in the courtyard drew all of our attention.

I followed the others outside and stood with Ellen and the boys as the rumblings increased around us.

Dougall rode in first, his face flushed and angry.

Behind him, his wrists bound, was a young man with an anxious expression.

Alex and Angus ran down the steps and talked with Dougall as their cousin dismounted.

Dougall gestured to Allen angrily, and then Malcolm appeared at Alex’s side and Dougall apparently began explaining again.

All four men turned as Thomas erupted from the stables, catapulting himself at Allen with a rough cry.

I stared in shock as Thomas, usually the calmest of men, pulled Allen off the horse and half-dragged, half-carried him to the side of the courtyard, shouting harshly in Gaelic, words I could not understand.

No one interfered as he slammed Allen against the stone wall of the keep over and over.

Alex and Angus exchanged a glance, and Alex at last gestured to Malcolm and Dougall to stop it.

They peeled Thomas away with difficulty and he stood between them, still shouting, panting now, as Allen slumped to the ground.

Alex watched with a somber expression, then took the stairs two at a time to where I stood.

When he met my eyes I saw the rage in them.

He took the boys’ hands from mine and brought them with him into the hall.

The people followed, and Ellen and I were the only ones left who saw Angus yank Allen from the ground and snarl at him, dragging him past us into the hall.

Allen, his young face terrified and bloody, tried to stay standing.

Malcolm and Dougall followed without a glance at us, then Thomas, still breathing heavily, and at last Ellen and I went in as well.

We found a corner with Matthew, and I turned to him as the crowd settled, taking their positions as though they knew what to do. A hearing, I thought. “What did Allen do?” I asked.

Matthew gave me a sharp glance. “Stole cattle, Mary.”

“Why is Thomas so angry? Were they his cattle?” Matthew shook his head and moved abruptly away from me, leaving me staring after him.

Alex was seated at the table on the dais, the same one we’d climbed on the night I’d arrived at Kilgannon.

Ian and Jamie sat on each side of him, their eyes huge and their legs dangling in midair.

I pushed my way forward to stand before Alex, who met my look with a fierce one of his own.

“What is this, Alex?” I asked. “Are you having a hearing now?”

He met my eyes for the briefest of moments. “It’s a trial, Mary Rose,” he said coldly. “Go and sit in the back. Or” — he paused and looked out over the now-quiet clan—“or dinna watch at all. It’ll not be something ye need to see.”

“What about the boys? If I don’t need to see it, neither do they.” He turned to look at each of his sons, his expression not softening as it usually did when he looked at them. He turned back to me. “They need to be here,” he said curtly.

“Alex, if this is going to be ugly, let me take them away.”

“They’ll stay with me, Mary. Go and sit yerself now. ”

“Alex—”

“Mary, go now. I’ll talk with ye later. Go.”

I blinked and stared at him, unable to believe he’d treat me that way.

But he did not look at me again, only watched the hall over my head, and at last, gathering what dignity I had left, I went to the back of the hall and stood with Ellen, feeling very much a stranger.

The mood in the hall was dangerous, and I watched as Dougall led the way up the aisle with an expression I’d never seen.

Usually blunt and cheerful, Dougall looked murderous, and I looked from him to Alex with a sinking heart.

Whatever was happening was serious and causing a change in these people that was alarming.

I looked over the sea of faces and felt a thrill of fear, then turned to watch Allen’s slow progress as Angus led him toward Alex.

Allen, young enough to be called a boy, walked slowly, his expression now remote and somehow insolent, as though this amused him.

Looking from Allen to Alex, I felt another chill.

This Alex was not a man I recognized. Tall and imposing even at his most relaxed, he stood now, seeming huge and threatening.

And then all eyes turned to the door again as a shriek of rage filled the room.

Murreal flew up the aisle to stand before Alex, Thomas in her wake.

Thomas, pale now rather than the crimson he’d been in the courtyard, stood behind his wife but didn’t touch her.

I had known Murreal in only the most surface manner.

I knew how lovely her voice was and how beautifully it blended with Thomas’s when they sang in the evenings and how natural it seemed to see her surrounded by her cheerful brood.

I had thought of Murreal as a sweet and tidy woman and could never have imagined her as she now appeared.

She seemed possessed, her garments disarrayed, her hair spiky about her head, her face twisted in her agony.

I could not understand what she was shrieking in Gaelic and I was grateful, for the words were filled with hate.

Ian and Jamie exchanged a frightened look, and I had to force myself to stay where I was and not go to them.

Murreal pointed at Allen and shouted, spit at him, and then crumpled to the floor as her sobs stopped her tirade.

Alex’s eyes flickered from Allen to Thomas to Murreal, then briefly to me with no change of expression, and I felt another chill.

I was invisible, it seemed, and Kilgannon was peopled by strangers.

Assorted clansmen came forward and pointed to Allen, then spoke heatedly to Alex. Alex spoke little, asking questions in a terse and cold manner. And then Alex asked Allen something, and the hall quieted to hear his answer. Allen glared at Alex.

“Swine,” Allen shouted in Gaelic. “Ye are a swine and a murderer. Ye killed my brothers and I would kill ye for it.”

The people surged forward, but Alex stopped them with a gesture, then raised his hands high, “Yer verdict,” he said.

The roar in return was deafening and unmistakable.

Allen was doomed. I lost sight of Alex then as the clan pressed forward, then toward the door, bearing Allen like a trophy.

I watched in horror as Alex, his hands firmly holding each of his sons, followed them outside.

At the top of the stairs I paused and took a deep shuddery breath, then turned as a man stopped at my side.

I looked up into Angus’s eyes and shook my head.

“I don’t understand what’s happening here,” I said.

Angus nodded. “Justice, Mary. Brutal, but justice.”

“He’s going to die for stealing cattle, Angus.”

He met my eyes without expression. “He’ll no’ be the first to die for stealing cattle, Mary. Cattle are currency here, lass.”

“Angus, this is insane.”

He shook his head, and we looked together at the crowd forcing its way through the gate. “No, Mary, this is justice,” he said, and left me to follow the others.

I joined them as well and regretted it always.

We went to the far end of the loch, where the forest met the trees, where the two bodies of Allen’s brothers still swayed in the wind.

I watched from the side of the crowd as Dougall and Thomas threw a rope over a tall branch.

Allen, pushed onto the back of a horse, whimpered as they put the noose over his head, but no one paid any attention to him.

Nor to me as I pushed my way to the front, to a spot next to Alex.

My husband, his back stiff and his eyes cold, still held his sons’ hands and watched silently as Dougall said something to Allen.

Allen, sobbing now, shook his head, and the priest stepped forward to give him the last rites.

I had been repelled before, but watching as the church gave its sanction to this was too much.

I turned to say something to protest to Alex but was met by a look from him that brooked no arguments.

The wind freshened over our heads and I looked from the leaves above to Ian and Jamie, who watched Allen, their fear visible.

And then we all looked as Murreal, dry-eyed and composed now, spoke briefly to Allen, then turned with stiff movements and met her husband’s eyes.

Thomas gave Alex a glance and at his nod moved to the rear of the horse.

And gave its rump a vicious slap. The horse bolted, riderless, through the crowd and to the meadow beyond.

I closed my eyes as Allen screamed, then opened them to see him dangling at the end of the rope.

I moved without conscious thought. Breaking Alex’s grip on them, I tore his sons from his side and dragged them with me through the people.

I held them to me, and they clung tome in a mass of tears.

Sobbing myself now, I made the mistake of looking back as we left and saw Allen, still alive, jerk in spastic movements and then grow still. And Alex nodded.