nae doots telling him that there must be a true victor, so that the feuding betwixt the Camerons and Clan Chattan will stop. But hear me, lad. Our people did count on me as their war leader today, and I failed them. Ye must not.”
“You accounted for several of these dead, sir,” Fin said.
“I did, aye, but your sword sped more to their Maker than mine did. And, if ye truly be the last man o’ ours standing, ye ha’ a duty that ye must see to.”
“What is it?”
“Vengeance,” his father said, gasping. “Swear that ye’ll seek it against their war leader and… and others. Ye ken fine… after such slaughter… the right o’ vengeance be sacred. ’Tis a holy bequest that ye… as sole survivor, must accept.” Gasping more harshly for each breath, he added, “Swear it… to me.”
“I do swear it, sir, aye,” Fin said hastily. To his father, clearly dying, he could give no other reply.
“Bless ye, my…”
Teàrlach MacGillony gasped no more.
Tears sprang to Fin’s eyes, but a cry from the audience startled him from his grief. Glancing toward the tiers, he saw Albany waving for combat to continue.
The pipes kept silent. The King sat with his head bowed, making no sign, but people would see naught amiss in that. The King was weak, and Albany, as Governor of the Realm in his grace’s stead, had long been the one who made such decisions.
Looking toward the men of Clan Chattan, Fin saw that three of them faced the tiers. The fourth, a tall and lanky chap, spoke to the others. Then, his sword at the ready, he turned toward Fin. The others followed but stopped well back of him.
As the man approached, he kept his head down and watched where he walked, doubtless to avoid treading on the fallen.
Fin hefted his sword, drew a deep breath, and set himself.
When the other man looked up at last, his gaze caught Fin’s and held it.
Fin stared, then found voice enough to say, “Hawk?”
The other stopped six feet away. With a movement of his head so slight that Fin wondered if he had imagined it, he indicated the river nearby to his right.
The men behind him were talking to each other, cheerful now, confident of the outcome. They were far enough away that they could not have heard Fin speak, nor would they hear him if he spoke again.
“What are you trying to say?” he asked.
“Go,” Hawk said, although his lips barely moved. “I cannot fight you. Someone from your side must live to tell your version of what happened here today.”
“They’ll flay you!”
“Nay, Lion. I’ll be a hero. But think on that later. Now go, and go quickly before Albany sends his own men to dispatch the lot of us.”
Hawk being one of the few men Fin trusted without question, he whirled, thrust his sword into the sling on his back, and dove in, wondering at himself and realizing only as the water swallowed him that he must look like a coward. By then, the river was bearing him swiftly past the town and onward, inexorably, to the sea.
The weight and cumbrous nature of the sword strapped to his back threatened to sink him, but he did not fight it. The farther the current took him before he surfaced, the safer he would be, and if he died on the way, so be it.
Then another, horrifying, thought struck. He’d sworn two oaths that day.
The first had been to accept the results of the combat and do no harm to any man on the opposing side. Every man there, as one voice, had sworn to that oath.
But then his war leader—his own dying father—had demanded a second oath, of vengeance, an oath that Fin could not keep without breaking his first one. Such a dilemma threatened his honor and that of his clan. But all oaths were sacred.
Might one oath be more sacred? Had his father known what he had asked?
He began kicking toward the surface, angling southward, knowing of only one place where he might find an answer. He could get there more easily from the shore opposite Perth… if he could get there at all.
Chapter 1
The Highlands, early June 1401
The odd gurgling punctuated with harsher sounds that composed the Scottish jay’s birdsong gave no hint of what lay far below its perch, on the forest floor.
The fair-haired young woman silently wending her way through the forest toward the jay’s tall pine tree sensed nothing amiss. Nor, apparently, did