Highland Master

chapter 20



Fin knew that he was tired, because until he’d recognized Rory Comyn, he had scarcely noticed the moon beginning to peek over hills to the east. Stepping swiftly in front of Catriona and pulling his sword from its sling, he said brusquely, “Get well away from us, lass, and keep Boreas with you. Do not let him interfere.”

She did not respond, but he heard her moving off the path. And he knew enough about the dog to be sure that it would stay near her.

Eyeing Comyn, he said, “I expected you to be sound asleep.”

“I’m none so daft as that,” Comyn retorted. “I should be asking what mischief ye’ve been up to, should I no? I didna ken that ye’d returned.”

“Then you must have been elsewhere when we did,” Fin said. Testing the ground beneath his bare feet, he noted grimly that they would have scant room to maneuver. “We made no secret of it.”

He heard the dog growl low in its throat and hoped that Cat could control it. He did not want to see Boreas spitted on the other man’s sword. Nor did he want the dog to interfere with him. But the growling ceased, and Comyn leaped forward.

Parrying his first sweeping stroke, Fin focused on the next one, preferring to let Comyn tire himself while giving Catriona time to get well away.



Catriona watched the two men long enough to be sure that Fin was in no immediate danger. Unless she was much mistaken, though, he was letting Rory Comyn lead the swordfight, choosing only to defend himself.

She had watched her brothers practice their swordsmanship often and easily recognized James’s chief defense against Ivor.

But she had understood Boreas’s growl if Fin had not. That Rory would be walking alone had seemed odd to her at once. Hoping that whoever was in the woods where they dipped near the trail ahead was more interested in the swordsmen than in her, she eased her way up the hillside, taking care to keep her wet skirt from catching on every branch of shrubbery she passed.

As the moon rose, its light increased. It would not be full but the sort the Scots called an aval moon, because it was the shape of a pregnant woman’s belly. She was grateful for the light but hoped that Boreas’s silence meant that no one lay in wait ahead of her and not that he was still obeying her earlier command for quiet.

Confident that he would keep her from walking into danger, she moved with more speed. In the woods, enough moonlight pierced the canopy to let her find her way, but knowing that an ally of Comyn’s stood somewhere ahead, she took care to make no avoidable noise.

Passing a deadfall, she saw a stout branch that might serve as a club, picked it up, and then touched the hilt of her dirk to be sure that she could find it quickly if she needed it. Holding the club firmly, she listened to the clanging swords on the trail as she moved on, reassured by the even rhythm of their clashing.

Then she saw him, a lone shadowy figure standing by a tree with his back to her, watching the fight. Amazed that he seemed unaware of her presence, she saw the reason when he held a bow out near his right hip and nocked an arrow to its string. The shape of bow and arrow against the moonlit water made his intent unmistakable.

Signing to Boreas to stay behind her, she moved as swiftly as she dared.

When the archer straightened away from the tree, raised the bow, and drew the bowstring to his cheek, Catriona gripped the club tightly in both hands and struck his head as hard as she could.

He dropped at her feet with no more sound than a dull thud and a hushing of leaves. The moment that she’d struck, a voice deep in her mind had murmured that he might be one of theirs. A surge of relief engulfed her to see that he was not.

He was dead or unconscious, the bow and arrow lying half under him. Signing to Boreas to guard the villain, she turned to watch the swordsmen.

Fin looked tired, as he ought to be, she thought. She remembered his so recently tender feet and was sure that after being in the water so long, they must have been as numb as hers were. Hers were leather tough, though. His still were not.

On the other hand, the cold did not seem to bother him, and Ivor was the same. Ivor had only to see sunlight to bare his torso and bask in it.

Fin looked as if he were handling Rory as deftly as he had before. Then he stumbled, and Rory drove his sword at him. As Catriona gasped, Fin deflected the murderous blade and recovered his balance, but she had seen enough.

Looking warily at her victim and seeing that he was as still as a man could be, and that Boreas was watching him closely, she pulled the bow out from under him and yanked the arrow from beneath his elbow. Then, moving prudently away, she watched the two swordsmen on the trail.

Neither man’s movements were as agile as they had been before, but although she hoped that Fin would soon pick up the pace and go on the offensive, he did not. He stumbled again, and Comyn leaped forward.

Again, Fin deflected the blow and recovered.

Catriona nocked the arrow to the bowstring and prepared to draw. She was no highly skilled archer, but Ivor had taught her, just as he had taught her to use her dirk. Taking her stance, she drew the bowstring back far enough to make sure that she could. Assured that, although it was not an easy pull, it was possible, she took aim at a point in the shrubbery some yards to the left of the two swordsmen, waited until they danced farther apart on the path, and let fly.

To her shock, just as she did, Comyn leaped to the hillside above Fin, turned to attack again, and the arrow struck right between them.

Both men started at the sight of it, but Fin recovered faster. With an upswing of his sword and a flick of his wrist, he sent Comyn’s sword spinning up and over his own head and back toward the loch, where it made a large and satisfactory splash.

Comyn roared toward the woods, “Ye daft bastard! Ye nearly killed me!”

That was all he said, though, before Fin’s fist connected with his chin and he collapsed much the same way that the man lying a few feet from Catriona had.

Tadhg’s quiet voice from behind startled her nearly out of her skin: “Sakes, m’lady,” he said, “ye missed the villain. He’d ha’ looked better wi’ your arrow through his lugs!”



Fin crouched low, waiting for the hidden archer to reveal himself. When four brawny figures stepped into the moonlight from the forest shadows, he felt the same sense of fatalism he had felt at Perth upon realizing that he was alone against four more Clan Chattan men. Rory Comyn still lay where he had fallen.

As Fin set himself he saw that the others did not. Then Tadhg and Catriona walked out of the woods behind them, and Boreas loped toward him.

Catriona ran ahead of the others, and Fin caught her in his arms. “Don’t tell me that you freed our men whilst I played out here with Comyn, lass.”

“Nay, I did that,” Tadhg said, dancing up behind her. “A score o’ them Comyns was a-waiting for the nine o’ us new lads when we come over in the boat, Sir Fin. But when they sprang out o’ the woods, they went for all our big lads without heeding me. So in the tirrivee, I went tae ground and hid in the bushes.”

“Good thing for us that he did,” one of the other men said.

“Tadhg was very brave,” Cat said. “He’ll make a fine knight one day.”

“Aye, I will,” Tadhg said. “That ’un there that ye clouted took another ’un and they went looking tae see had they got all o’ our watchers. So, I waited long, sithee, till I thought they were no coming back and them guards was all a-sleeping. Then I crept about and untied a couple o’ our men. But that ’un and his man came back then, so we had tae lay low. Then them two said they’d best be getting back to the dam. Next we knew, swords was a-clanging. Their guards looked to see what were happening, so our lads what I’d freed took care o’ them. Then we freed the others.”

“You said there were two men, Tadhg, but I’ve seen only Rory Comyn,” Fin said. “He challenged me alone, but he had a bowman hidden in the woods, because Comyn shouted at him. Sakes, but you must have seen the chap, lads,” he added. “He shot at me just before you came out of those woods.”

“Nay, then, she didna shoot at ye!” Tadhg said indignantly. “She—”

Fin had already felt Catriona stiffen. Holding her away from him, he snapped in amazement, “You shot that arrow?”



Catriona heard astonishment in his voice but wished that the moonlight were not behind him so that she might see his expression. His hands gripped her tight.

The other men and Tadhg had fallen silent. No one moved.

“I meant only to startle Rory, sir, because I could see that you were tired and that your feet hurt,” she said. “I aimed well to the uphill side of you both, but he jumped that way just as I let fly, so my arrow struck between you.”

“Where did you find the weapon?” he asked.

Although his voice was quiet, its tone increased her tension.

She tried to think how best to answer the question.

“Tadhg,” Fin said. “Did you see where the weapon came from?”

“Nay, but it must ha’ come from the chappie laid out by her feet,” the boy said. “A couple o’ our lads be a-trying to wake him up now. I tellt her that she’d ha’ done better to put that arrow straight through that Comyn’s thick head, but then ye clouted him, so that be fine. Be he dead, Sir Fin?”

“I hope not, because I want to make a present of him to the Mackintosh. But first, madam wife,” he added, “I want to know how you got that bow.”

Knowing that he could see her face better than she could see his, and well aware of their audience, Catriona did not want to discuss the matter there. “We should be getting back,” she said.

“In a few minutes,” he said, the warning note now clear in his voice.

“Aye, very well then. But you won’t like it, because when I saw that man, I—” She stopped when her sharp ears caught a strange sound through the night.

Fin heard it, too, and looked toward the north end of the loch.

The water looked calm, gleaming silver in the moonlight, but she heard a scraping, creaking sound. Then came a chaotic mixture of louder sounds, followed by quieter ones. Moments later, she heard men shouting in the distance, a second explosion of sound, and the roar of rushing water.

“Look,” Fin said. “The surface of the loch is moving.”

“The dam broke!” she exclaimed, and turned to him, grinning. “We did it!”

He put an arm around her and held her close again. “Aye,” he said, “we did.”

“And not before time neither,” Tadhg said. “Look at them clouds. I’d say they be a-gathering up tae rain again afore morning, and I’m still that wet from before.”

Fin’s mood had lightened with the collapse of the dam, but Catriona knew he had not forgotten the bow and arrow. She was sure that he had deduced most of the truth, because he would not imagine that she had just stumbled across them.

But she wondered if he was grateful for what she had done. Men could be unpredictable in such matters.



“We’ll not be taking Rory Comyn back with us, sir,” a man who had knelt by Comyn told Fin. “His head’s bad split. Likely he cracked it on the rock here when he fell, although ye might ha’ split it yourself when ye clouted him.”

“Saved Himself the trouble o’ hanging him,” another man said. “And I’m guessing the old gentleman will be glad to hear it. Will we be going across now, sir?”

Despite the black gloom of lowering clouds above, moonlight still gleamed between them, and Fin recognized an oarsman among the erstwhile prisoners. “What do you think about that current?” he asked him. “And do we have a boat?”

“Aye, sure, sir,” the man said. “The boat be at the landing, because the villains thought they’d want it. And we’d be rowing wi’ the current, which be easy as breathing. Rowing back will be another matter until the water rests easy again.”

“I don’t want us all to go,” Fin said. “The eight who came to take the guard until dawn will stay, and any who got some sleep. Treat Comyn’s body and the two you’ll find near the landing with respect, for we’ll give them back to their kin. Other Comyns will be awake if the torrent didn’t get them, and there were a score of them, so keep your eyes open. The rest will come with us if we can all fit.”

The oarsman chuckled. “Sakes, if Lady Cat could row ye and that Boreas in the coble, I’m thinking we can row the three of ye in our boat with ourselves.”

“And me?” Tadhg said hastily.

“And you,” Fin said, clapping him on the shoulder.

As they turned toward the landing, Fin became aware again of rushing water to the north and decided that the burn was likely making a fine waterfall now.

They made the return trip to the castle as easily as the oarsmen had foreseen. The boat was crowded, but Fin knew that the added weight helped its rowers keep it on course. The current was strongest in the narrows, where the oarsmen used it to their own advantage to make the landing. Thanks to the lingering moonlight and watchers on the ramparts, Aodán and another man-at-arms were there to aid them and help pull the boat from the water.

Noting how quiet Catriona had become, Fin put an arm around her shoulders as they went with the others to the gateway. “Cold, sweetheart?”

“A little,” she admitted, “but not as cold as I probably should be.”

“I’m not going to murder you, Cat,” he murmured close to her ear.

“But you were vexed with me.”

“A little, aye,” he agreed. “But not as vexed as I might have been.”

Smiling, she leaned into him. “Must you talk to Granddad straightaway?”

“Aye, and to anyone else who might be awake. We won’t wake Rothesay or Alex, because with a boat here, we can easily get them away early if we must. But you will go straight upstairs and get into bed even if the others are waiting for us.”

“One of them may order me to stay,” she said.

“I won’t allow it,” he said.



Catriona believed him, although she was not sure that Fin could countermand an order from Rothesay or Alex, or her grandfather.

However, her grandfather was the only one in the hall when they entered, and although he gave her a look that seemed to be half-relief and half-annoyance, he spoke only to Fin. So when Fin nodded toward the stairway, she silently handed him his mantle, which she had kept wrapped around herself.

“It will help you maintain your dignity, sir, because your tunic is still damp,” she said. “The mantle will keep you warmer, too.”

“I’ll warm soon enough. And if I don’t, you can see to it when I get to bed.”

Her body responded instantly to those words, and she hurried upstairs to find Ailvie asleep on a pallet by her bed. The maidservant awoke and jumped up, exclaiming at her mistress’s appearance.

“What are you doing in here?” Catriona asked. “It’s the middle of the night.”

“Aye, sure, and what d’ye think I thought when Aodán woke me to say that yon kitten were a-mewing so loud that he went up to slip it into your room only to find the door ajar and ye naewhere to be found?”

“Oh, Ailvie,” Catriona said, understanding her grandfather’s expression now. “I’m sorry if my absence frightened you, but I was with Sir Finlagh, and now I am back.”

“Ye are, aye, so I willna ask why ye be damp from tip to toe and nae doots shivering yourself nigh to fits. I’ll just get ye out of them clothes and into that bed.”

She soon left, and Catriona lay naked in bed with a purring kitten to warm her. Boreas had not followed her upstairs, doubtless preferring the hall fire’s warmth.

Although, listening to the soothing sound of gentle rain outside, she expected to fall quickly asleep, she soon found herself trying instead to imagine what was happening downstairs and what Fin might say to her when he did come to bed.

By the time he did, she was dozing, but the click of the latch brought her wide awake. When she recognized his figure against the cresset’s glow from the landing, she said, “What did Granddad say?”

“Since you’re awake, I’ll light a candle or two,” he said. Taking one from a nearby small table, he lit it from the cresset and then used it to light two more. When he had finished, he stripped off his mantle and tunic, tossed them aside, and got into bed beside her. The kitten fled.

“You feel warm,” she murmured, as he gathered her close. “But I don’t know why you lit candles only to come to bed.”

“Do you not?” He moved a hand to cup her left breast, brushing its nipple with his thumb.

“What did Granddad say?” she asked him again, trying to ignore the sensations he was stirring in her long enough to get an answer to her question.

“Not to worry,” he said.

“Fin, if making me wait to know is another of your ways of punishing—”

“It isn’t, sweetheart. I just want to make love to my wife.”

“And so you may, but what about—?”

“I told you, he said not to worry—not about Albany or Douglas. He said the weather and our men waiting in good number to meet them will drive them back.”

“The rivers will be roaring high,” she said, nodding. “Not just from the rain but also because the rain is warm and will melt what’s left of the snow. There must be few fords safe enough to use anywhere hereabouts, or in Glen Garry.”

“So he says, aye, but we’ll hear all about it tomorrow.”

“Did you tell Granddad that I was with you at the dam?”

“I did, aye. He asked for the details, Cat, so I told him everything.”

She sighed. “He’ll have much to say to me, and so will my father and Ivor.”

“I don’t think so, my love.”

“You don’t?” The new endearment warmed her.

“He may expect me to have things to say, or even things that I ought to do, but I am your husband now, so he won’t interfere. Neither, I think, will your father.” He chuckled then. “I won’t speak for Ivor.”

“Ah, but you can protect me from him. Even he says that you are much better with a sword than he is.”

“I am, but you did not think so tonight, did you?”

She swallowed hard, and an ache filled her throat. When he did not continue, she knew he was waiting for her to speak, to explain about the bow and tell him why she had shot the arrow.

“It was not what you thought,” she said.

“How do you know what I thought?”

“You just told me,” she said. “I was terrified for you, because I could see that your feet were sore. And that horrid man was about to shoot you from the woods.”

“Aye, but I’m curious about that. How is it that he failed?”

Opting for the truth, she said, “He was concentrating on what he was to do, so I crept up and hit him with a stout branch I’d found near a deadfall.”

“And then?” His voice had an odd, tight sound to it, so she decided that she would do better not to look at him until she had told him everything.

“I saw you stumble twice.”

“Comyn also stumbled, several times. That path is rocky. You know that.”

“Aye, but I never saw him stumble, and the bow was right there. I thought I could startle him if I shot an arrow near him. I never meant for it to go between you. I might… God-a-mercy, I might have shot you!”

At first, she thought he was trembling, even shivering. But then she realized that he was shaking more, and she looked at him. “You’re laughing!”

“I… I am,” he agreed, nearly chortling. “The thought of you just walking up and clouting that villain…”



Fin thought she looked ready to murder him, so he kissed her and said, “You most likely saved my life again, sweetheart, and I know that you would not have shot me. If you’d shot anyone, it would have been Comyn for being daft enough to jump in front of your arrow.”

“Are you suggesting that for me to hit anything it would have to jump in front of me?” she demanded.

“I am not. Recall that you told me you can shoot. I deduced from that that Ivor had taught you, and although I doubt that you are as fine a shot as he is, I would trust you not to hit me in error. Call it instinctive trust, if you like. I don’t think I’d be daft enough to think such a thing just because I love you.”

“Do you?”

“Can you doubt it? Would I have trusted a lass I don’t love or who does not love me to stand on me whilst I was underwater boring holes in that devilish dam?”

“You can trust your instincts, sir,” she said, putting a soft hand to his cheek. “I do love you, and I have seen that your instincts are sound.”

“I should have trusted them myself long before now,” he said soberly. “I came to realize that whilst I was boring those holes.”

“Mercy, how?”

“Since I did not think it helpful to ponder what might happen if the water’s weight alone should bring down that dam, or to fret about the icy water, I turned my thoughts to other things. Mayhap it will help if I explain that I once told Ian I believe in teaching men to learn by their own mistakes, because I think that teaches them to make better decisions. Then you asked me if a man’s training was not the very thing that develops the instincts he trusts in battle… and in life, come to that. You also reminded me that an honorable man cannot kill to protect his honor. In short, lass, I came to see that one can make a decision by not making it. I did that.”

“Your dilemma,” she said. “That is what you were thinking then? Does that mean that you are ready now to tell me about it?”

“I thought you must soon have deduced that the friend whose dilemma I told you about was myself. I can remember Ivor telling tales like that before he learned that he could tell me anything.”

“You’re right,” she said. “Who was the kinsman you found dying?”

“My father.”

“Oh, Fin.” She moved closer and put her arms around him. “And who…?” She stiffened but soon relaxed. “Your father was the war leader,” she said. “So he would have wanted vengeance against my father, at least. And you came here—”

“I came because Rothesay sent me. I did not know that Shaw was your father until you told me so, and I accepted your hospitality here because I had to see the Mackintosh. But, sweetheart, what I’m trying to tell you is that I had already made my choice between those two oaths. I just hadn’t known it. Cat, it is four and a half years since the battle at Perth. Had I believed that killing your father was right—”

“You’d have done it long since, aye. I do see that. So, I agree that you made the decision without realizing it, simply by not choosing. That was instinct, was it not? It would have been better, though, I think, if you had recognized long ago the plain fact that one should always choose life be over death.”

“Aye, perhaps, but I’m a warrior, sweetheart, and a good one. The likelihood is that I will kill again, and you know it.”

“I do, but I don’t want to talk about war or killing now. I want you to hold me. And in troth, sir, if you want to take me, you’d best do it soon, because much as I love you, I am so tired that I can scarcely keep my eyes open.”

“You don’t know how glad I am to hear that,” he murmured, kissing her. “I’m going to put out those candles.”

“There is something I should tell you, too,” she said. “Sithee, for those four and a half years, I thought all Camerons were sons of the devil. Then I met you and came to think of you as a good friend. So, later, your being a Cameron didn’t seem so dreadful. But I assumed that your family would feel about Mackintoshes the way I’d felt about Camerons. Then I met Ewan, and he was just your brother and I your wife. I doubt that I thought of him as a wicked Cameron even when you told me who he was. I like him, and I want to see Tor Castle with you.”

“I think we’ll still spend most of our time at Castle Raitt,” he said. “But we’ll see Ewan often, too. And we’ll all spend Christmas together at Tor Castle.”



Cat watched him put the candles out and felt him climb back into bed but knew nothing more until the kitten demanded release the next morning. Even then, she barely noticed Fin getting up to let it out and was asleep before he returned.

When he woke her, midday sunlight was streaming through the open window and he was already dressed.

“It is nearly time to eat,” he said. “And Ivor is back.”

“Already?”

“Aye, and grievously annoyed.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Why? If he is back, then Albany must have turned back at the Cairngorms. So whatever nuisance he intended to create—”

“Need no longer concern us for now,” he said. “But although the army that tried to get through there did fly a royal banner, it was Sir Martin Redmyre, one of Albany’s captains, who led it. There was no sign of Albany, or so Ivor heard from watchers who met him and told him that the weather in the high pass had defeated them. He would have been back sooner if the rain had not come down so hard, but they took shelter and made camp. So he is annoyed that he missed all that happened here, as well. And your father sent a messenger.”

“Then he must have routed Douglas’s men in Glen Garry.”

“Aye, and likewise without a battle,” Fin said. “He sent two lads ahead to meet Douglas, pretending to be Comyns. They told him that Rothesay and Alex had fled and assured him that the wicked weather would prevent the other army from making it through the high passes. They also mentioned that your father’s army was waiting at the top of the glen. Douglas turned back at once.”

“But Rothesay still has no alliance,” she said.

“Alex will do what he can, but Donald will do nowt,” Fin said, stripping off his tunic. “Shaw’s messenger brought more bad news, too. Douglas told his men that the Queen is ailing. They say it is not grave, but Rothesay is upset.”

“So would anyone be,” she said. “She is his mother, after all.”

“She is more than that, lass. She is his strongest ally. Annabella Drummond has powerful allies of her own. But without her to stir them to his defense, they may not be so eager to support him. If Davy loses her…”

“He will have even fewer friends than he has now,” she said. “Why are you taking off all your clothes if we are about to dine, sir?”

“Because we can have food anytime, my love, and I believe we began something last night that we were both too exhausted to finish. Move over, so I can teach you more ways to please me.”

After that, their activities took on a sense of urgency. As soon as he lay beside her, she felt his cock throbbing eagerly against her, seeking her nest. Her own body responded at once, but Fin eased lower, stroking her, teasing her with his caresses, and kissing her, lingering to savor her breasts while one hand sought to see if she was ready for him.

She could tell that she was, but he took time to trail kisses down her body, teasing it more until she was pleading for release. At last, grabbing a handful of his hair, chuckling, she twisted up and tried to get out from under him. But he caught her and pressed her to her back, leaning over her as he had at Moigh, grinning.

“Would you conquer me, lass?”

“I thought I might try,” she said, twinkling at him.

“Sakes, I’ll show you how myself.”

She had already learned ways to excite him, but he showed her a few more, and she responded eagerly to his instruction. He also taught her new ways that he could excite her, especially with his agile tongue.

At last, though, he took her swiftly and hard, demanding more and more of her until their passion sent them soaring at last to ecstasy.

Lying in her husband’s arms afterward, sated, Cat purred.