“Well, then,” began Ian, “you know who Argyll is, do you not? Mac Cailein Mor, Chief of Clan Campbell in the Highlands, and also head of the Covenant Army of the Lowlands. So he has that power added to the power of his own clan, and he uses it ill, Kelpie. He is a vicious man, cruel, ambitious, and vindictive.”
Kelpie could not resist a gibe. “And is he not also a Campbell, and his clan at feud with yours?” she remarked.
Ian flushed. Even in the dusk she could see it. “’Tis not that!” he protested. “I am not one to hate a man for his name, Kelpie! And in any case, my own uncle married a Campbell lass; and the son of Lochiel, our own clan chief, married Argyll’s sister, and we are anxious to be at peace. But Argyll, devil that he is, wishes to dictate his own terms entirely. Do you know what he has done, Kelpie? He has taken his nephew Ewen—Lochiel’s own grandson, who will be chief of the Camerons some day—and is keeping him at his own castle of Inverary. He says he wishes to see to his education—and I can guess what kind of education ’twill be—but do you see that Ewen is hostage for Lochiel’s actions? And if Lochiel dares to take the side of the King against Argyll—”
“Mmmm,” said Kelpie, seeing.
“Nor is it just our clan,” Ian went on, deep anger in his voice. “He was commissioned to secure the Highlands for the Covenant, which is bad enough, for we have not tried to inflict our politics or religion on them. But Argyll has used his commission and the Lowland army to settle his private grudges. He burned the great house of Airly, with no enemy there but a helpless woman. And he burned and ravaged the lands of MacDonald of Keppoch, and is even now laying waste the lands of Gordon of Huntly. They say he would make himself King Campbell, and a black day for Scotland if he should.”
Kelpie remembered the face she had seen once in the crystal, which Mina had called Mac Cailein Mor, Marquis of Argyll. A cold, cruel face it had been, with twisted sneering mouth, a heavy and pendulous nose, and a squint in the crafty eyes of him, so that one couldn’t be just sure what he was looking at.
“Aye,” she agreed suddenly. “He is a red-haired uruisg. I have been seeing him helping with his own hands to fire the homes and burn people too.” She didn’t add that the people burned were accused of witchcraft, as this might not be a tactful thing to mention.
“You’ve seen that?” exclaimed Ian.
“In the crystal, only,” confessed Kelpie. “I was also seeing him mounting the scaffold to be hanged,” she remembered with relish. “But,” she added regretfully, “he was looking much older then.”
“Dhé!” exclaimed Ian, deeply impressed. “I did not know you were having the Second Sight, Kelpie.”