The Presence

Others fought because it was their land. Chieftains and clansmen, men who would not be ruled by such a foreigner, men who seldom bowed down to any authority other than their own. Their land was hard and rugged. When the Romans had come, they had built walls to protect their own and to keep out the savages they barely recognized as human. In the many centuries since, the basic heart of the land had changed little. Now, they had another cause—the return of the young Stuart heir and their hatred for their enemy.

And just as they had centuries before, they would fight, using their land as one of their greatest weapons.

MacNiall granted Cromwell one thing—he was a military man. And he was no fool. He had called upon the Irish and the Welsh, who had learned so very well the art of archery. He had called upon men who knew about cannons and the devastating results of gunpowder, shot and ball, when put to the proper use. All these things he knew, and he felt a great superiority in his numbers, in his weapons.

But still, he did not know the Highlands, nor the soul of the Highland men he faced. And today he should have known the tactics the Highlander would use more so than ever. For MacNiall had heard that these troops were being led by a man who had been one of their own, a Scotsman from the base of the savage lands himself.

Grayson Davis—turncoat, one who had railed against Cromwell. Yet one who had been offered great rewards—the lands of those he could best and destroy.

Like Cromwell, Davis was convinced that he had the power, the numbers and the right. So MacNiall counted on the fact that he would underestimate his enemy—the savages from the north, ill equipped, unkempt, many today in woolen rags, painted as their ancestors, the Picts, fighting for their land and their freedom.

Rank and file, marching. Slow and steady, coming ever forward. They reached the stream.

“Now?” whispered MacLeod at his side.

“A minute more,” replied MacNiall calmly.

When the enemy was upon the bridge, MacNiall raised a hand. MacLeod passed on the signal.

Their marksman nodded, as quiet, calm and grim as his leaders, and took aim.

His shot was true.

The bridge burst apart in a mighty explosion, sending fire and sparks skyrocketing, pieces of plank and board and man spiraling toward the sky, only to land again in the midst of confusion and terror, bloodshed and death. For they had waited. They had learned patience, and the bridge had been filled.

Lord God, MacNiall thought, almost wearily. By now their enemies should have learned that the death and destruction of human beings, flesh and blood, was terrible.

“Now?” said MacLeod again, shouting this time to be heard over the roar from below.

“Now,” MacNiall said calmly.

Another signal was given, and a hail of arrows arched over hill and dale, falling with a fury upon the mass of regrouping humanity below.

“And now!” roared MacNiall, standing in his stirrups, commanding his men.

The men, flanking those few in view, rose from behind the rocks of their blessed Highlands. They let out their fierce battle cries—learned, perhaps, from the berserker Norsemen who had once come upon them—and moved down from rock and cliff, terrible in their insanity, men who had far too often fought with nothing but their bare hands and wits to keep what was theirs, to earn the freedom that was a way of life.

Clansmen. They were born with an ethic; they fought for one another as they fought for themselves. They were a breed apart.

MacNiall was a part of that breed. As such, he must always ride with his men, and face the blades of his enemy first. He must, like his fellows, cry out his rage at this intrusion, and risk life, blood and limb in the hand-to-hand fight.

Riding down the hillside, he charged the enemy from the seat of his mount, hacking at those who slashed into the backs of his foot soldiers, and fending off those who would come upon him en masse. He fought, all but blindly at times, years of bloodshed having given him instincts that warned him when a blade or an ax was at his back. And when he was pulled from his mount, he fought on foot until he regained his saddle and crushed forward again.

In the end, it was a rout. Many of Cromwell’s great troops simply ran to the Lowlands, where the people were as varied in their beliefs as they were in their backgrounds. Others did not lay down their arms quickly enough, and were swept beneath the storm of cries and rage of MacNiall’s Highlanders. The stream ran red. Dead men littered the beauty of the landscape.

When it was over, MacNiall received the hails of his men, and rode to the base of the hill where they had collected the remnants of the remaining army. There he was surprised to see that among the captured, his men had taken Grayson Davis—the man who had betrayed them,

one of Cromwell’s greatest leaders, sworn to break the back of the wild Highland resistance. Grayson Davis, who hailed from the village that bordered MacNiall’s own, had seen the fall of the monarchy and traded in his loyalty and ethics for the riches that might be acquired from the deaths of other men.

The man was wounded. Blood had all but completely darkened the glitter of the chest armor he wore. His face was streaked with grimy sweat.

“MacNiall! Call off your dogs!” Davis roared to him.

“He loses his head!” roared Angus, the head of the Moray clan fighting there that day.

“Aye, well, and he should be executed as a traitor, as the lot of us would be,” MacNiall said without rancor. They all knew their punishment if they were taken alive. “Still, for now he will be our captive, and we will try him in a court of his peers.”

“What court of jesters would that be? You should bargain with Lord Cromwell, use my life and perhaps save our own, for one day you will be slain or caught!” Davis told him furiously. And yet, no matter his brave words, there was fear in his eyes. There must be, for he stood in the midst of such hatred that the most courageous of men would falter.

“If you’re found guilty, we’ll but take your head, Davis,” MacNiall said. “We find no pleasure in the torture your kind would inflict upon us.”

Davis let out a sound of disgust. It was true, on both sides, the things done by man to his fellow man were surely horrendous in the eyes of God—any god.

“There will be a trial. All men must answer to their choices,” MacNiall said, and his words were actually sorrowful. “Take him,” he told Angus quietly.

Davis wrenched free from the hold of his captors and turned on MacNiall. “The great Laird MacNiall, creating havoc and travesty in the name of a misbegotten king! All hail the man on the battlefield! Yet what man rules in the great MacNiall’s bedchamber? Did you think that you could leave your home to take to the hills, and that the woman you left behind would not consider the fact that one day you will fall? Aye, MacNiall, all men must deal with their choices! And yours has made you a cuckold!”

A sickness gripped him, hard, in the pit of his stomach. A blow, like none that could be delivered by a sword or bullet or battle-ax. He started to move his horse forward.

Grayson Davis began to laugh. “Ah, there, the great man! The terror of the Highlands. The Bloody MacNiall! She wasn’t a victim of rape, MacNiall. Just of my sword. A different sword.”

Grayson Davis’s laughter became silent as Angus brought the end of a poleax swinging hard against his head. The man fell flat, not dead—for he would stand trial—but certainly when he woke his head would be splitting.

Angus looked up at MacNiall.

“He’s a liar,” Angus said. “A bloody liar! Yer wife loves ye, man. No lass is more honored among us. None more lovely. Or loyal.”

MacNiall nodded, giving away none of the emotion that tore through him so savagely. For there were but two passions in his life—his love for king and country … and for his wife. Lithe, golden, beautiful, sensual, brave,

eyes like the sea, the sky, ever direct upon his own, filled with laughter, excitement, gravity and love. Annalise.

Annalise … who had begged him to set down his arms. To rectify his war with Cromwell. Who had warned him that … there could be but a very tragic ending to it all.

1

“Imagine, if you will, the great laird of the castle! The MacNiall himself, famed and infamous, a figure to draw both fear and awe. Ahead of his time, he stood nearly six foot three, hair as black as pitch, eyes the silver gray of steel, capable of glinting like the devil’s own. Some say those orbs burned with the very fires of hell. His arms were knotted with muscle from the wielding of his sword, his ax, whatever weapon fell his way in the midst of battle. It was said that he could take down a dozen men in the opening moments of a fray. Passionate for king and country, he would fight any man who spoke to wrong either. Passionate in love, his anger could rage just as deeply against a woman, if he felt himself betrayed.

“Imagine, then, being his beloved, his bride, his wife, burdened with the most treacherous of advisors, men determined to find a way to bring down a man so great in battle, to further their own aims. Imagine her knowing that she had been betrayed, maligned, and that her laird husband was returning from the blood of the battlefield … intent upon a greater revenge. There … there! He would come to the great doors that gave entry to the hall.”

Toni stood at the railing of the second-floor balcony, pointing to the massive double doors, high on sheer exhilaration. A crowd of awed tourists were gathered below her in the great hall entry, staring up at her.

This was really too good, far more than they had imagined they could accomplish when she and the others had set their wild dream about procuring a run-down castle and creating a very special entertainment complex out of it. So far, David and Kevin had rallied their crowd magnificently by playing a pair of hapless minstrels in the reign of James IV, when the current structure had been built upon the Norman bastion begun by thirteenth-century kings. Ryan and Gina had done a fantastic job playing the daughter of the laird and the stable boy with whom she had fallen tragically in love during the reign of Mary, Queen of Scots. Thayer—the wild card in their sextet—had proved himself more than capable of portraying a laird accused of witchcraft in the time of James VI. And they had all run around as kitchen wenches or servants for one another.

Beyond a doubt, the crowd was into the show. Below, they waited. So Toni continued.

“Alas, it was right here, as I stand now, where, tragically, Annalise met with her husband, that great man of inestimable prowess and, unfortunately, jealousy and rage. Believing the stories regarding his beautiful wife, he curled his fingers around her throat, squeezing the life from her before tossing her callously down the staircase in a fit of uncontrollable wrath. Since he was the great laird of the castle, his servants helped him dispose of the body, and Laird MacNiall went on to fight another day. He was, however, to receive his own just rewards. Though he had bested many, and countless troops had been slaughtered beneath his leadership, Cromwell was to seize the man at last. He received the ultimate punishment: being castrated, disemboweled, decapitated, dismembered and dispersed. His pieces were then gathered by his descendants, and he now lies buried deep within the crypt of these very stone walls! Ah, yes, his mortal remains are buried here. But it’s said that his soul wanders, not just around the castle itself, but through the surrounding hills and braes, and he is known to haunt the forest just beyond the ruins of the old town wall.”

Her words were met with a collective “Ooh!” that was most encouraging. Toni flashed a smile to Gina, hovering in a room off the second-floor landing, watching. Any minute now, Ryan would come riding into the main hall.