GREGOR ROY AND MARION

The mystical and often violent lore of Glen Lyon is the backdrop for Gregor Roy and Marion, a biographical novel set in the stunning natural beauty of the 16th century Scottish Highlands.  The novel is an historically accurate tale of enduring love, clan warfare, and political intrigue.

From 1560 to 1570, Gregor Roy MacGregor of the White Hands was Chief of Clan Gregor.  He and his younger brother Ewin were orphaned and placed in fosterage to Red Duncan Campbell, Laird of Glen Lyon, where Gregor Roy fell in love with the laird’s vital and attractive daughter, Marion.  Though taught by her mother to hate all MacGregors and betrothed to the heir of the Baron of Dall, Marion comes to love her bold and daring Whitehands.  Defying her parents, Marion leaves the comfort and safety of Carnbane Castle and joins her outlawed husband in his struggle to protect his clan and escape capture by the Campells of Glen Orchy.

Excerpts:

MORENISH AND KILLIN

November 22, 1551

            Winter dark comes early in the Scottish Highlands, and Duncan Ladosach MacGregor of Ardchoille judged that the low clouds, which hung like a portent over the chill waters of Loch Tay, might muffle sounds of violence as completely as the blackness now stifled sight.  Leather-sheathed dirks pendant from their belts and claymores clinging to their backs, Duncan and his son Gregor had just reached the tiny settlement of Morenish and now stopped to rest in the lee of a scraggly rowan tree whose misfortune it was to have grown on a rocky, wind-racked bench above the waters of the loch.

            Tossing back the fold of tartan that cloaked his head and speaking in a hushed, conspiratorial tone, Duncan turned to his son, whose prolonged silence suggested he might have reservations about this night’s business.  “We’ll teach a lesson to anyone who surrenders his allegiance to Clan Gregor, lest others follow his cowardly example.”

            “Certainly, Father.  Unless we stand united against the Campbells, all of us shall become landless outlaws, but still . . .”

            “Nay, Son, there is no other way.  Dun Alasdair must be destroyed.  I am bent upon it, and I expect your dirk to second mine.”

            Even as Gregor nodded his assent to the darkness surrounding them, he pictured the inoffensive Alasdair hunched over the warmth of a peat fire as his wife busied herself with their evening meal.  Though accustomed to killing in the heat of battle, he found the calculated nature of their enterprise far more unsettling than the fact that it would occur on the Sabbath.

            But his father’s voice called him from thought to action.  “Tis the second house on the left.  I marked it on our way to Fortingall.  The door will not be barred this early.  Should a woman answer your knock, tell her a fellow MacGregor has come to treat with Alasdair.  If he’s within, we’ll drag the wretch from his hovel and our dirks will do the rest.”

            “But what if his woman should come in the way?”

            “Push her to the floor and keep her down till the work is done, but first scatter their fire with your foot, for the deed is best done in darkness.”

            Hoping that he might have only a secondary role in the affair, Gregor attacked the door’s rough-hewn planks with the knuckles of his clenched fist.  His three spaced raps shattered the quiet like the successive discharges of a flintlock.

            A moment of silence, then a deep but querulous voice, “Who knocks?”

            “A clansman come to treat with you.”

            Before Alasdair Odhar could rise from his stool, Gregor shouldered the door aside and stood glaring into the interior of the black house.  Knowing that his father was a step behind him, he had yet to draw his dirk.

            Then, in a voice that had all the power of a curse, Duncan the Lordly shouted, “Ah, the smoky nest of a Campbell henchman!”

            Alarmed by the cold edge of a voice from the winter night, Alasdair exclaimed, “God’s peace, I am unarmed!”

            With a single stride, Gregor kicked the iron swey, upsetting the broth of mutton and onions that had just come to a boil and whose fragrance matched that of the glowing peat, which hissed, steamed, and went as black as a lump of coal.

            Grappling in the dark, Duncan found his clansman and with both arms, as a bear would embrace a tree, lifted him from his feet then flung him face down upon the earthen floor, where he lay breathless and groaning.

            “Help me, Son!  With his legs!”

            Fearing for her life, his wife fled to the cattle byre in the adjoining room and, on her knees, cowered in the stall behind her milk cow, praying and crossing herself.

            Seized by the wrists and ankles, Alasdair was dragged through the doorway and out into the cloud-laden darkness where mist had settled onto the withered grass.  With his victim still lying face down and pleading for mercy, Duncan thrust the blade of his dirk through folds of tartan and into the small of Alasdair’s back.  His mortal scream was echoed by a shriek of despair from the byre, and each time Gregor’s twelve-inch blade found its mark, his victim gasped and his body shuddered like the boughs of a birch in a gust of wind.

            When Alasdair at last lay still, Duncan turned to his son.  “You should have done more than just hold him!”

            “I tried,” Gregor stammered, then paused, having discovered the man’s purse lying at his feet in a pool of blood that, had it not been dark, would have been seen to steam in the freezing air.  Duncan’s dirk had severed the belt that held his sporran close to his body.  “But, Father, see what I’ve found, and it’s heavy with coins!”

            The light of a late winter dawn would later show a joyful Duncan that it contained forty Scots pounds in gold and silver, but now the pair had other things than robbing a dead man on their mind.

            Leaving the body where it lay, the murderer and his accomplice hurried through the night till they reached the village of Killin at the head of Loch Tay.  As they strode along the drove road, Duncan turned to his son, his voice flushed with triumph.  “Though it concerns neither you nor Clan Gregor’s survival, I have a quarrel with John MacBain, the piper.  And this night, having gone well, seems suited for settling matters between us while my dirk is still hot with Highland blood.”  He paused, but did not break his stride.  “And in helping me, you’ll have a chance to redeem yourself for your failure to enact vengeance upon Dun Alasdair.”

            “It shall be as you wish, Father.”

            Having given Finlarig Castle, a Campbell stronghold, a wide berth, they passed the Falls of Dorchart, where the river hurled itself over the slaty ledges in a swirl of foam and sound.  At last they reached MacBain’s sod-covered bothy, which lay south of the village and close by the Standing Stones of Acharn.  Now, more than two miles from the west end of Loch Tay, the brigands found that the clouds had lifted and a waning moon, having cleared Stony Mountain, cast its attenuated light upon them.

            Though the windowless dwelling was one of the smallest and meanest in Killin and more of a fox’s den than a habitation for a human being, its low, drystane walls were thickly laid and its entrance merely a narrow defensive slit that led down into a subterranean interior.  Duncan judged that should the piper deny them entry he might be as difficult to dislodge as a badger from its burrow, but he was determined to punish the man for having bested him in gaming and for selling him a set of pipes whose sheepskin bag reeked of mold.

            The door proved to be a slanted board less than two feet wide and barely four feet high, and Duncan was obliged to crouch down in order to test it. Firmly barred on the inside, the door refused him entry.  He raised his voice in anger.  “John MacBain, be you within?”

            “Tis for you to find out, Ladosach, for I’ll not come to your call.”

            Chagrined to find that the piper had recognized his voice, Duncan turned and looked up at his son.  “I counted on an easier task, Gregor, but if we must lay siege to this goat’s nest, we must.”

            Softly glowing in the moon’s light, white, water-worn boulders edged the road where it neared the river’s bank, and it was to these that Duncan turned.  “We’ll have a try at putting the stone and see what MacBain says to that.”

            Once launched toward the offending door, each stone served quite as well as a battering ram, and in minutes the piper’s door was broken into shards and splinters of pine.  Finding himself helplessly trapped, MacBain offered terms of surrender.  “Enough, MacGregor.  I’ll come forth and treat with you if you swear an oath that I shall come to no harm.”

            “Well said, MacBain.  My son and I swear we’ll not lay a hand upon you.”

            The piper hesitated before answering.  “May God strike you both dead should your oath be a false one.”  Only half reassured, MacBain, whose poverty had led him into sharp dealings, tucked his dirk into the belt of his plaid and began to crawl through the entrance of his lair.

            As soon as his head emerged into the moonlight, the shaggy, unkempt curls shimmering a silvery gray, Duncan gave his son a whispered command as venomous as the hiss of an adder: “Now!”

            Unseen, Gregor crouched to one side, his claymore, a massive two-handed sword, ready to descend upon command.  With a thin but deathly whisper, the twelve-pound weapon fell upon the unfortunate piper with all the force of the boulder-weighted blade of the Maiden, instantly beheading him.

            With a smile of satisfaction, Duncan turned to his son.  “Well done, Gregor. Now tell me, is it not God’s truth that we have not laid a hand upon him?”

            “Aye, Father, only the edge of my sword.”

—————

THE BETROTHED

July 16, 1553

            In the morning Lady Margaret left for a visit to her sister in Lawers, taking Mary with her, and Marion, having declined her mother’s invitation to visit her aunt, had been assigned extra chores to be completed to the satisfaction of the steward, Malcolm Og.  As a precaution, Margaret had arranged for Angus MacLaren to take a party that would include his son Ian and both the MacGregors to Boar’s Head, Red Duncan’s hunting lodge north of Innerwick.  Here they would spend the next several days rethatching the roof with bracken and making other repairs necessary to ready it for the fall hunting season.

            After Marion finished cleaning out the dovecote and feeding and watering its inhabitants, she found herself free for the rest of the afternoon.  Restless and given to romantic fantasies, she sought out the dominie and asked if he would entrust her with one of his most treasured manuscripts, the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which MacNab had transcribed by hand in his student days at the University of Glasgow.

            Having had the advantage of a private tutor since the age of four, Marion had begun reading English at the age of five and by the age of eight had all but mastered the language of the Saxons.   Now she looked forward to reading a story that Finlay had so often praised.  Since she knew the ancient tumulus north of the castle would be the most likely place to find a cooling breeze this hot and all but windless afternoon, she took herself and the leather-bound volume there.

            Perched on the crest of Mote Hill like a pigeon on its roost, Marion had a clear view to the east as far as the birch-lined track up to Balintyre.  But engrossed in the romance, she rarely looked up.  When at last she finished the long passage that begins, “When a being most dreadful burst through the hall-door,” Marion stretched, arching her back, and looked off into the distance to rest her eyes.  At that moment, she was surprised to see, not more than a quarter of a mile away, a man approaching on horseback accompanied by a tail of four gillies running with effortless strides, two on each side.

            She was aware that any visitor, as an accepted courtesy, would have sent one servant ahead to announce his arrival.  But seeing none were armed, she stood up to make her presence known, then moved down from the hill to greet him as one of his gillies gave the gentleman a hand down from the huge bay he’d been riding.

            As he stood before her, his bonnet in his hand and his attendants, rank with sweat, sprawled in the grass to rest, he smiled and cleared his throat.  “I say, ahem, I am in luck.  From what I’ve been told, you must be Marion, Glenlyon’s eldest daughter.”

            Marion had a sudden premonition who he was, but was unwilling to confirm his observation just yet.

            “Are you sure my name is Marion and not Mary?”

            “Well, ahem, not really.  Are you?”

            “Am I what?”

            While he stammered in confusion, Marion had a chance to take his measure.  Round-faced, clean-shaven, with thin flaxen hair that was already receding, the visitor was dressed in a rust-brown doublet, purple-checked trews, and black riding boots now streaked with trail dust and horse sweat.  He was overweight for his height and his head sat deep on his fleshy shoulders like a hazel nut stuck upon a pear.  If he had a neck at all, it was concealed behind a silk cravat that, no longer white, must have been uncomfortable on a day as warm as this.

            Guessing that this might be Patrick MacOmie come on a surprise visit to his betrothed, she succumbed to a mischievous impulse to test his wit.  “Well, stranger, I shall reveal my name, but only on the condition that you answer just one riddle of the three I’ll ask.”

            Deciding it could do no harm to humor the girl-child before him, he nodded stiffly.

            “What is redder than blood?”

            “Er, ah the lips of a pretty girl?”

            “No, the face of a stranger when he realizes he has come to a castle unannounced and unexpected.”

            His response was a simpering smile, but there was no trace of the blush of shame Marion expected.

            “Try me again, lassie.”

            “What is swifter than the wind?”

            “Swifter than the wind?”

            “Swifter than the wind?” Let’s see, ah, ah . . . the flight of an arrow?”

            “No, woman’s thought casting between two suitors.”

            “O dear, I’m afraid I’ll never learn your name now.”  But MacOmie did not seem concerned about his failures.

            “You still have one more chance, sir.  What deed is the best of deeds?”

            His pudgy face brightened.  “I know now, taking a lass like you to bed!”

            “Nay, sir, ‘tis a high deed and low conceit.”

            Impervious both to her wit and her irony, the heir to the Baron of Dall hung fire, at a loss for words.  Finally he offered, quite lamely, an explanation for his behavior.  “Well, if you are Marion, I’m Patrick MacOmie and I’ve come this day, the day after my twenty-first birthday, and with my father’s permission . . .”

            “But neither mine nor my father’s,” Marion interjected.

            “. . . and crossed the Tay on a miserable ferry and ridden twenty hot miles just to meet you, so you might . . .”

            “What, admit that I’m Marion Campbell, your betrothed?”

            “Yes.”

            “Well, Patrick, I am.  Are you satisfied?”

            “Hem, well, I see.”  Not quite unnerved, Patrick had the presence of mind to offer a diversion.  “What’s that you’re reading?”

            “Just an old romance.  It’s called Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.”

            “Never heard of it.  As for myself, I consider it unmanly to read fairy tales, but, of course, since you’re just a girl.”

            “A young woman,” Marion corrected.

            “Yes, a woman—precisely what I meant.”  He paused to deliver a pomposity.  “What little reading I do is of a useful, I may say, practical nature—accounts and things.”

            “Your father has no steward then?”

            “Of course he does.  Why do you ask?”

            Having, as it were, ruffled his feathers, Marion backed off.  “Excuse me!  I didn’t mean to offend.”

            Believing that the interview with his betrothed must be completed to the satisfaction of both parties, he began to ask a few carefully rehearsed questions.  He cleared his throat again, a nervous mannerism Marion pretended to find amusing.  “Ah, hem, um.  Naturally I would expect a wife of mine to be ever, ahem, indeed, ever faithful in her attendance to my needs, both personal and, hem, bodily.”

            “And to your need for privacy as well!”

            “Why yes.  Exactly.  Well put.”  He paused to reward his betrothed with a simper that Marion assumed was an expression of pleasure.  “And . . . and this.  That you be obedient in all things, at all times, to the, er, wishes of your devoted husband.”  Patrick gasped as if he just run out of breath, and Marion suspected that he had.

            “Oh yes, dear Patrick, obedience is my strong point.  Just ask my mother.”

            “I’m sure that won’t be necessary, my little lassie.”

            Marion could detect no irony in MacOmie’s last statement.  Though barefoot, she stood three inches taller than he did in knee-length riding boots and could hardly be called little by any measurement that wasn’t condescending.

            “Well, then,” he continued, “your presence at Dall will surely be most welcome, I’m sure, to all, ahem, parties concerned . . .”

            “I would certainly hope so.”

            Since he’d continued talking their remarks overlapped.  “. . . and considerably enhance my prestige, er, status in life.”

            “Yes, your exalted status.”

            “In a word then, Miss Campbell, I think you’ll do, and I’ll inform my father that such is the case.”

            “Thank you, sir, for your approval.  And now I’d better let my father know you’re here so you can receive the reception and entertainment due your august position.”

            Accustomed to subservience in the serving women of Mains Castle, he was unaware that Marion’s voice betrayed more than a touch of irony.  Calling his gillies to his side, he followed his betrothed across the drawbridge and into the Great Hall of Carnbane Castle.