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irwinwe

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Donald MacMartin had once been a confidant to the lairds of Lochiel before he had disappeared many years ago, but he had returned, and his ominous gaze hinted at anything but camaraderie.

In the blackness of the hallway, Atalanta heard her father's breath alter.  His steady rasp became a snarl, and she felt the hair on her arms prick.  She began to believe she really was amongst a pride of lions.  

"Who is tha'?"  She asked her father gingerly.

"Tha'"  John said through clenched teeth, "is your mother's father." 

"My grandfather?  But I 'ave never seen 'im before."

"Aye, an 'tis a good thing."

Atalanta looked back towards the man, eyes wide.  "He would really kill us, then?"

"He 'as already killed me," John answered, hatred rising in his throat and making his voice thick, "years ago.  I 'ave no soul because of tha' man."

Atalanta thought she understood, "Ah, because of wha' he did to yu and mother.  He kept ya apart didna he?"

"Aye, and much more that yu doona know."  His voice was no longer capable of timbre.  He became so resolutely angry that he could only speak on a whisper.  "I shall kill him because of it.  God so help me, I shall kill him." 

Alexander eyed Donald in his periphery.  Of his three brothers Donald was closest to him, and the sight of the pistol pointed at Donald's heart was surely just like one simultaneously being held to his own. 

"Pity" MacMartin said in a voice like snake slithering over velvet, "I was hoping to find your father, Cameron".  He said this in reference to Laird John, whom everyone imagined was still lingering within the dark shadows of the corridor outside.   

"MacMartin!" Alexander started, now the one mystified, heart still tender and reeling from his moral failure.  But he was mystified for only a moment before he caught himself on an epiphany, "It was yu who let them in was it na'?  Yu let them in our gates...the intruders?" 

MacMartin sneered in response, not interested in explanation.

Then Donald spoke, "Why, MacMartin?  God man, why?  Why would ye turn yur back on granda' like this?  Sir, I...sir I thought yu were with us...I thought yu were...good."

But MacMartin stood fast, his pistol still pointed at Donald, "Tell your brothers to drop their weapons."

Donald hesitated, stammering.  

"Tell them!"  MacMartin screamed, cocking his gun for emphasis, the clicking noise seemingly amplified in the small room.

Damn the man, thought Alexander as he let his dagger slip to the floor with a cling and a rattle.  This man, a man that had once been a faithful servant to his grandfather and father, a man that had left them unexpectedly long ago, was alive, very well, and here to kill the lairds of the Lochiel Camerons, and he was in perfect position to do so.  He hoped that his father John was fast asleep and did not come to save them, for if he came, laird and future lairds could be lost all in one night.

Alex could not help but think, however, that perhaps he deserved what was about to happen.  He would pay now for his hypocrisy.  A life for a life.  He plotted to lunge for the gunman, a valiant but fatal attempt no doubt.  He would not watch his brothers fall before him.  If any man died tonight, it would be he and his adversary.  But he would die this time, he decided, redeeming his family, not himself.