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irwinwe

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Abruptly the pounding came again at the castle door.  The man cursed and jerked to attention, jaw muscle doing a quiver-dance as he clenched his teeth in a sudden anger, eyes flashing with dangerous luminescence.  Athletic and quick, with a maneuver that promised a warrior's prowess, he leapt to grab his dirk and slid it craftily beneath his sleeve.  Then, turning to her, he said through clenched teeth, "You...hide...quickly."  

She obediently vanished into the dark corridor.   

No sooner did she disappear than did a hand clamp firmly down on her mouth, dragging her back against a broad man's chest.  She panicked and writhed, making a futile attempt to scream.  Until she heard John's voice, "Atalanta...sshh...quiet now...easy lass."  Her tension left her as quickly as it had come as she recognized her father's voice, although her blood still raced and her breath came in short blasts.  He released her and stood beside her in the dark passage, hand rested on his sword.  Something bad is going to happen, she thought, and I am going to be directly in the middle of it.  

She heard the door of the castle crash violently against the stone wall, the sound echoing and chilling her veins.  One thing had been confirmed: the men who had been knocking were not in a benevolent state of mind.  She heard the voices then, men's voices, many of them, and they were not friendly.  

"CAMERON!"  She heard a man say, "Alexander Cameron ye bluidy bahstard, come face yer fate.  Ye did well enough tae escape us once but ye canna hide anymore, and we've come for ye.  Come out!"

Laughter and sneers ensued.  

She felt John stiffen beside her, his tremor of anticipation so intense that it sifted into her own body.  Evidently, Atalanta surmised despite her current panic, Alexander Cameron is much more than a priest, and anything but a saint.  She listened to the men's footsteps scuff against the stone with a lusty vengeance.  She knew nothing of the situation that her brother Alexander was facing, and she knew nothing of these men, but she did suspect that they were too eager, too anxious, for some sort of a retribution that, with their seemingly murderous intent, was surely not due them.  She had just met this man she surmised was her own flesh and blood, and to her he could do no wrong; to her, he was the man due retribution.  

She could see their shadows vaguely upon the stone.  They walked with a swagger toward the same fire dance she had seen earlier, and then they entered the room.  The were big men, and they held swords and dirks, muskets and bayonets.  Tainted by the English, she thought in disgust as she took note of the more modern weaponry, weaponry that did not belong to the Scots.  These men had been sent by the King William's government.  They were Whigs, and Whigs in a Jacobite castle. Upon this realization, Atalanta's blood began to boil at a higher degree. 

Her brother, she surmised, was very much in trouble with the government.  However, the more she thought on it, the less offensive the notion became.  Her brother was a Jacobite, and a staunch one.  He had stood up for the exiled King James and for Catholicism, and that was precisely why he was being persecuted.  No, she concluded to herself, he may not be a saint, but he is honorable.

She clenched her fist and swallowed an upward surge of hatred for King William's men, the men who had marched into Achnaccary without permission.  Alexander was only one man, and they were many.  Granted, he was far taller than the average man, and far more powerful looking then King William's men, even as their stone-shadows magnified them, but even with these physical advancements, it was unlikely that he could slay them all when weapons like the bayonet were present.  

Any man's lunge was slower than the fire of a gun.  She suddenly found herself hoping that the man with the bayonet was a very bad shot.  Unlikely also in close proximities, she concluded, panic rising.

She felt John's hand on her arm.  She glanced at him in anxious skepticism, and when he pressed his fingers to his lips in a request for silence, pulling her back further into the darkened part of the corridor, she didn't miss the tiny smirk that was evident in the curl of his lips.  

She had been mistaken.  Alexander was not alone