Read Online The Wolfe by Kathryn Le Veque - Free Book Online Page B

or his actions, but in his eyes. Paris let out a long,
speculative sigh.
    “Watch yourself, William,” he
whispered to himself. “Watch yourself.”
     

 
     
    CHAPTER SIX
     
     
    The huge gates of Houndslow Castle,
seat of the McKenna Clan and sometimes known as McKenna Keep, yawned open for
the approaching rider. The sloppily dressed soldiers watched curiously as the
weary man and his horse came pounding into the unkempt compound, not a one of
them even offering to take the horse as they came to a halt.
    No matter, though. The rider nearly
fell from the horse, stumbling to the stairs of the run-down castle and taking
them like a drunken man before being swallowed up by the open door.
    If the outside of the keep was
appalling, the inside was worse. A foul, heavy stench hung in the air and to
every occupant like a cloak of death. It was a dank, dirty structure that could
have just as well been a barn for animals.
    The McKenna were a slovenly people
and saw no horror to their existence; it had always been so. Dunbar McKenna sat
in a shabby room off of the grand hall, contemplating the fly in his wine as
the exhausted rider entered the room.
    He glanced up at the young man, his
only acknowledgement, before looking back to his drink.
    “Ah,” he said. “I heard tale you
were riding from Langton. What is it you have come to tell me?”
    The man sat heavily on the nearest
dilapidated chair, wondering if it were going to collapse under his weight.
    “He’s gone and done it,” the man
said. “By God’s Blood, if the man has not gone and done it.”   
    Dunbar drank the wine, fly and all.
The cup clattered to the floor where it lay with several others as he rose and
faced the window, hands clasped behind his back thoughtfully. Then I pity him,”
he said finally.
    “I always knew Thomas Scott to be
somewhat of an idiot, but I never knew the man to be weak,” he said. “Who did
he pledge?”
    “Who else? Jordan.” The rider
replied, needing drink but not really wanting it from McKenna stores.
    Dunbar mulled over that information.
“So he pledged his beauteous Jordan, his only child, to the English warlord,”
he chuckled bitterly. “For peace.”
    “Aye, he did,” the young rider said.
“He could have pledged Caladora or my sister, but he dinna. He pledged the only
Scott woman worth anything.”
    “Pity,” Dunbar repeated. “I was
hoping to obtain the girl for me own boy, Abner. As ye know, I have pressed
Thomas Scott for years to broker a contract, but he wouldna. It seems me boy
wasna good enough for his baby Jordan.  But by pledging her to the English lord
he is insulting the entire McKenna clan. He is saying that the English are
better than we.”
    Malcolm Scott shifted uneasily in
his chair. He knew Dunbar McKenna to be a volatile man and capable of much
violence. He hoped that the man would not take this obvious insult out on him.
    Malcolm was the second son of
Matthew Scott, Thomas’ youngest brother. He had never quite fit in to the
family with his mean streak and shabby character, and by befriending Abner
McKenna, he had come to know Dunbar and think of him as more of a father than
his own.
    Which was why Dunbar was the first
laird outside of Clan Scott to know that the English king had sent a missive
proposing peace. It had then become Malcolm’s job to inform Dunbar the decision
so appropriate action could be taken against the Scott’s.
    The McKenna were an aggressive clan
and they would rather take a dirk in the heart than live peaceably with the
English. For them, there was only war. It was the common hate and the common
love that they all shared. Even thought they were not truly allied with the
Scott clan, they were more than happy to come to their aid in a border
skirmish. Anything that meant killing the English.
    The McKenna were a smaller clan,
numbering only about one hundred fifty men, in comparison to the six hundred
that the Scotts claimed. But the McKenna were widely considered