The Chief Read Free Page B

his stronghold on Islay.
    What wasn’t clear was why he’d summoned Tor. He didn’t answer to MacDonald. Skye had never been part of MacDonald’s dominion. Blood every bit as royal as MacDonald’s flowed through Tor’s veins. Not since his uncle Magnus, the last King of Man, had sat upon the throne had the MacLeods bowed to anyone.
    Hell,
Innse Gall
—the Western Isles—had been part of Scotland for only forty years. Technically, he owed fealty to Edward as King of Scotland, but he’d not been called upon to give it. Nor would he.
    So why would MacDonald summon him? He suspected it had something to do with the growing unrest in Scotland under King Edward’s ever-tightening grip.
    The last thing Tor wanted was to be drawn into the distant squabbles of Scotland’s kings. He’d been very careful to avoid the appearance of taking sides—not just between an English king and a Scottish one but also between the MacDonalds and MacDougalls. In the Western Isles it was the struggle for power between these two branches of Somerled’s descendants that dominated the political seascape.
    The clerk stopped and frowned. “There’s an additional note at the bottom written in a different hand. It reads, ‘I have a proposition for you, an opportunity you won’t want to miss.’ ”
    Tor didn’t bite. If MacDonald thought to entice him with vagaries, he’d miscalculated. Whatever proposition Angus Og had for him, it did not interest him. He had more pressing concerns. Nicolson, for one.
    He opened his mouth to instruct the clerk to pen a gracious but clear refusal when it struck him: Nicolson would be there.
    Unlike the MacLeods, clan Nicolson, with their vast lands in Assynt, had been under the dominion of the King of the Isles. The Nicolson chief would answer the summons to Finlaggan, and that would give Tor an opportunityto attempt to clean up this mess before a costly war. Even if his first instinct was to fight, as chief he owed it to his clan to try to avoid it.
    He relaxed back in his chair and eyed his men. “Ready the
birlinns
for the morrow.” One corner of his mouth lifted in a wry smile. “It seems I have been summoned.”
    The clerk gave him a perplexed look, but the guardsmen chuckled, understanding the jest. If they were journeying to Finlaggan, his men knew it wasn’t because he’d been summoned.
    No one
made the Chief of MacLeod do anything he didn’t want to do.
    Touchfaser, Stirlingshire
    Christina’s breath caught, nearly causing her to choke on the sugared plum she was chewing. Her eyes flew across the page, but she couldn’t read fast enough to calm the racing of her heart.
    Lancelot and Queen Guinevere had just arranged a liaison for later that night. In order to reach his love, Lancelot seizes the iron bars that block the window, bends them, and then removes them to climb through.
    Iron bars! What amazing strength! She plopped another plum in her mouth, not breaking concentration for an instant. Her body tingled with restless anticipation, knowing what was about to happen next: the lovers’ tryst.
And the Queen extends her arms to him and, embracing him, presses him tightly against her bosom, drawing him into the bed beside her and showing him every possible satisfaction; her love and her heart go out to him. It is love that prompts her to treat him so; and if she feels great love for him, he feels a hundred thousand times as much for her. For there is no love at all in other hearts compared withwhat there is in his; in his heart love was so completely embodied that it was niggardly toward all other hearts. Now Lancelot possesses all he wants, when the Queen voluntarily seeks his company and love, and when he holds her in his arms, and she holds him in hers. Their sport is so agreeable and sweet, as they kiss and fondle each other, that in truth such a marvelous joy comes over them as was never heard or known.
    Cheeks flushed, Christina closed the volume gently, leaned back against the wooden