Page 2 of Rebellion's Fire

Unfortunately, William’s prey was not.

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They called hima prophet, said he was “simple,” like his ancestor Lulach, King of Scots. That he spoke to the dead and saw his future in waking dreams. According to some, this gave him the advantage in battle, but right now, he didn’t fill Cailean mac Gilleon with confidence. He seemed, in fact, totally indifferent to the mounted soldiers who, bristling with arms, crossed the moorland below their hilly vantage point. He didn’t even look at them.

Adam mac Malcolm, sometimes surnamed MacAed—or MacHeth, since it was easier to say—for his grandfather, gazed everywhere else: up at the sky, then miles behind the column of soldiers to the rough marshland, or miles ahead into the higher hills. Sometimes he even seemed absorbed in the cold, damp grass on which he lay on his stomach. While the bulk of the men stayed well out of sight, Cailean and Findlaech mac Gillechrist sprawled on either side of Adam.

“We were right,” Findlaech said.

“About what?” Cailean demanded with impatience. His first battle was finally in sight, and these supposedly seasoned warriors were lying aroundtalking. “Whoarethey?”

“That,” said Findlaech, lifting one finger from the ground to point to the head of the column, “is Sir William de Lanson, landless Norman knight and mercenary adventurer. The King of Scots presented him with the lands of Tirebeck, over on the Cromarty Firth. Looks like he’s come to take possession. Come on, let’s tickle him, Adam. We’re all spoiling for a fight.”

At last!Cailean’s heart beat with a heady mixture of longing and fear. At all of eighteen years old, he was still untried in real battle. He’d brought his men all the way from Ross to Adam in Argyll for the purpose, only to meet Adam heading back through the Great Glen for Ross and home. Retracing his steps with some frustration, Cailean still yearned for battle, to prove himself to the oddly detached young man he’d sworn to die for, and yet…now that the fight was finally proposed, he took in the reality of what they were up against. Although the Norman force below didn’t outnumber Adam’s men, they wore full armor. It would be a hard fight…and victory all the sweeter.

Everyone looked expectantly at Adam, who still stared into the distance.

“Adam?” Findlaech urged. “Do we attack?”

Adam said, “Where is the lady?”

Simple?Cailean began to think that Adam was merely stupid. Or actually insane. No wonder he’d been sent away to Somerled of the Isles.

Findlaech groaned. “Adam, will you concentrate on the matter at hand?”

And then, with a jolt—and not a little relief—Cailean understood. “Heisconcentrating. There’s no baggage wain with Lanson, no women.”

It won him a glance from Adam’s strange, intense eyes, and a curt nod that warmed him as extravagant praise would not.

Findlaech grasped it at last. “This is only part of his force. The rest are with the baggage. And his lady, who’s meant to be his claim to Tirebeck. Which we all know isyourfamily’s.”

“By default. He had a daughter,” Adam said, slithering back from the brow of the hill.

“Who did?” Findlaech demanded as they crawled backward with their leader.

“The late Rhuadri mac Crinan,” Adam said, “of Tirebeck.”

“I won’t fight you over that,” Findlaech said wryly. Adam was famous for remembering everyone’s genealogy back to the mists of time. In fact, some said that he remembered everything he’d ever seen or heard or read.

“Of course, it may not be true.” Adam sprang up in one swift, efficient movement that Cailean, scrambling untidily upright, wished he could imitate.

Even covered in mud and riding rough for several days, there was something physically impressive about Adam MacHeth. Tall and strong, he was also handsome under the tangle of black hair and beard. Or at least if he wasn’t actually good-looking, the fact got lost in the sheer, arresting drama of his face—a thin, longish nose, broad, ridiculously defined cheekbones, an incongruous hint of dimples, and beneath straight, black brows, those dark, tempestuous eyes that never seemed to be still, even when he gazed without blinking.

He looked fierce, and the men who’d been with him in Argyll and the Isles never questioned his orders. Cailean, since meeting up with him, had wavered wildly between something akin to hero worship and a terrible fear that his hero had not just feet of clay, but brains of some similar substance. Some said it was why, lacking a father figure, he’d been sent to his uncle, Somerled of Argyll. And Cailean had harbored the suspicion that it was why he’d been sent home again.

Certainly, there was no doubting that Adam was odd. His boiling eyes would sometimes glaze over for several moments at a time, and sometimes he appeared to laugh or groan or mutter words no one else understood.

Now he said thoughtfully, “Lanson’s wife may be someone else entirely.”

Findlaech jumped to his feet. “He hasn’t come for Tirebeck,” he exclaimed with scorn. “The King of Scots made him ridiculous promises, and now he imagines he can defeat us and make himself Earl of Ross! Let’s squashthatpretension at the outset.”

Adam shrugged with impatience. “Lanson will never be Earl of Ross. Findlaech, ride with all speed to Donald, warn him Lanson’s looking for him. With luck, we can trap him between us.”

Donald, Adam’s elder brother, had been the one who’d sent Cailean to Adam in the first place. Their uncle, Somerled, Lord of Argyll and the Hebrides, was their chief ally in harrying the King of Scots, but the Isles were constant distractions to Somerled. Donald had wanted to give his uncle extra help to sort out his other problems as quickly as possible so they could all return to the main task of taking Scotland. Cailean, foolishly proud that he and his few men could make such a difference as Donald implied, had set out intent on glory.

Adam, however, had already left his uncle and was returning to the province of Ross when Cailean had found him. And now they were here, ready to face a force sent against them by the King of Scots.

Adam appeared to know his brother’s location fairly exactly. Perhaps he did. Messengers caught up with them all the time, in unlikely places and from improbable directions. Since everyone else appeared to take this in their stride, Cailean had never dared to ask what was going on. Their silent trust in Adam alternately appalled and comforted him.

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