Lord of the Isles (Coronet Books) Read Free

Donegal Bay they had voyaged to the little-inhabited Isle of Rhum in the Inner Hebrides, where Somerled had left his father, unenthusiastic, with half the force, to make an attempt on the islands of Tiree, Islay and Jura, whilst the son essayed this hardly hopeful assault on mainland Morvern with his handful of doubtful Ulstermen, bonny fighters no doubt but here lacking involvement and conviction. He was going to require all his powers of leadership and control.
    In due course the hunters straggled back, with three goats, none of them young and tender but made much of as symbols of prowess. Thereafter, Somerled informed all that they were going walking and by night, for their own safety. They would move as soon as the dusk came down.
    There were grumblings and questionings but nothing sufficiently serious for drastic measures.
    An hour after sundown they started off, leaving a dozen of the older men with the galleys, enough to get them afloat again at high-water if absolutely necessary. It was low-water now and they were able to cross to the mainland on wet sand and shingle at the east end of the island—Oronsay meaning half-tide island—and thereafter to turn away south-eastwards into the shadowy hills.
    For the first four miles or so their route followed the boggy south shore of Loch Teacuis, a long and narrow arm of the sea, its mouth all but stoppered by the lumpish Isle of Carna. The gallowglasses were scarcely nimble walkers and it took two hours to get that far, with resentment beginning to become all too vocal. Somerled coaxed and jollied them on for another mile or more, then recognised that something more was required if he was to get his company the remaining four or five miles to Kinlochaline. There were many complainers, but one in especial, a heavy-built surly oaf whom his companions called Cathal Frog, was loudest, announcing that he was an oarsman and sword-fighter not a landloper or a night-prowler, and he had blisters on his feet. With others making a chorus of it, Somerled called a halt, but quite genially, and strolled back to the chief vocalist.
    “Your feet, friend, pain you—as your voice pains me!” he said. “Let me see them.”
    “Eh . . .?” Cathal Frog blinked.
    “These feet, man. That pain you. Show me.”
    The man drew back, doubtfully.
    “Saor—I wish to consider these painful feet. See to it.”
    Grinning, MacNeil acted swiftly. He slipped behind Cathal Frog, flung an arm around his neck and with an expert explosion of strength heaved him backwards off his feet. As the man sprawled, Somerled stepped forward, stooped and jerked off first one filthy rawhide brogan, then the other, and tossed them to Conn MacMahon, then grabbed up both ankles high so that the gallowglass, for all his burly weight, hung like a sagging hammock between the two Scots. “So—feet of a sort, yes! Faugh—how they stink!” He peered close, in the half-light. “I see corns, the dirt of ages, scabs—but no blisters. Still, far be it from me to disbelieve an honest man. This sufferer shall ride. Lest he should hold up men with better feet. Saor—on my back with him. Up, I say!” And he dropped the legs and turned round, arms wide.
    MacNeil promptly hoisted the protesting man to his feet, stamped on the bare toes by way of warning, and heaved. Somehow he got him on to the other’s back, and Somerled reached round to grasp the legs firmly, and then started forward.
    “Come!” he shouted, into the noisy laughter of the company. “Now we shall make the better time.”
    Cathal Frog struggled, of course, causing his lordly bearer to stagger. But the grip on him was strong. Moreover, Saor MacNeil’s drawn dirk was a potent reminder of realities.
    The march resumed.
    Cathal Frog clearly was at a loss, however much of a fool he felt. He probably could have freed himself, at the cost perhaps of a few pricks of that dirk-point. But without his brogans he would have been able only to hobble along feebly, and look