Nigel Tranter - Past Master

Just before she went below, Mary turned to the silent Argyll standing by her side. 'My lord,' she said, 'that was good for us, I think. Clean danger, not foul. That was living, was it not?'

He nodded, wordless.

'All men are not betrayers,' she added. 'There is courage and strength and honesty in men. Aye, and faith – much faith. Deceit and treachery – these, in the end, must fail. The good, the true, must prevail. I know it. Something… something in this night tells me so.'

For a little he stared straight ahead of him. Then slowly he inclined his head. 'It may be so. I hope so. I thank you, Mary Gray.'

She touched his arm briefly, and left him there.

As she lay in her dark bunk thereafter, it came to her that this unsmiling lonely youth, whom men already were calling The Grim, had not asked her why and what made her speak as she had done, how she had come to her conclusion. He had somehow understood and accepted. Which was more than Ludovick Stewart, for instance, would or could have done.

Probably it was the comparative quiet and the lack of motion which wakened Mary. The Countess and her maid still slept. She rose, tidied herself, and slipped out into the grey light of early morning.

It was a strange sight that met her gaze. All around her, men slept, slumped over their oars, curled on every bench, littering every inch of space in the crowded galley. And on every hand the galley's sister-ships lay sleeping also, tight-packed in neat rows in a small bay, gunwale to gunwale, stem to stern, a concentrated mass of timber and armour and sleeping clansmen, motionless save for the slight sway that was the echo of the Atlantic swell. Close by, to the south, a rocky beach rose in broken red-stone cliffs, backed by grassy hills of an intense greenness, even in that dove-grey morning light. The bay was sheltered, irregularly shaped, and perhaps half a mile at its mouth, and of approximately the same depth. Seaward, perhaps five miles to the north, on the edge of the slate-grey horizon, the long black line of a low island showed.

The girl's impression that all the Highland host slept, exhausted, was soon corrected. On their own ship's forecastle two or three men stood, wrapped in their plaids, silent – and when she looked around her, she perceived that on every vessel men thus stood, on watch. She perceived also that all these seemed to divide their attention between two points – or rather, three – forward, where Sir Lachlan's galley lay broadside on to the bows of the first row of ships, giving it greater opportunity to manoeuvre, and east and west to where on the green summits of the headlands which enclosed the bay, two dark columns of smoke rose high in the morning air. That these were signals of some sort could hardly be doubted. They were obviously preoccupying the attention of the silent watchers.

Mary could by no means make her way forward to the fore-castle over the sprawled bodies of some hundreds of Campbells, but she climbed the ladder to the after-deck which roofed in the Countess's cabin. There, amongst more sleeping men, including the galley's captain, one man sat, hunched in a corner but awake -Archibald, Earl of Argyll, MacCailean Mor himself. He might have been there, waking, all night by the set look of him.

'My lord,' she whispered, 'Do you not sleep?'

He shook his dark head. 'I am no great sleeper,' he said. 'Besides, we shall have more to do than sleep presently, I think.' And he nodded towards the smoke signals.

'Where are we? Is this Ireland?'

'Aye. A small bay to the west of the great bay of Ballycastle, on the north coast of Antrim. Yonder, to the east, is Kinbane Head. Here we await Donald Gorm. But… it seems we have been discovered.'

'Those smokes? Are they to warn the MacDonalds that we are here?'

'Who knows? But they are surely to warn someone. O'Neill and O'Donnell have sharp eyes, it seems. For we crept in in darkness. The fires have been lit but a score of minutes.'

As they watched those ominous black columns that drifted away on the north-west breeze, there was a certain stir amongst the watchers on each vessel nearby as a small rowing-boat wove its way in and out amongst the closely-ranked galleys, a man therein shouting up to each one, in the Gaelic, as it passed.

'What does he say, my lord?' Mary demanded, as it came near.

'That Maclean orders all captains to be ready to sail at his signal. He has sent ashore a party to deal with those fires.'

As the bustle of waking men stirred the fleet, a single man came climbing up from the small boat into Argyll's galley. It proved to be the Duke of Lennox himself. Embracing Mary frankly, openly, he turned to the Earl.

'I came to apprise you of what is toward, my lord,' he said. 'It would be wisest, I think, if you would now move to another ship of your array, and keep close to Maclean, so that this galley with the women may remain hidden and secure. There may be fighting shortly.'

The other nodded. 'Are Donald Gorm's ships sighted?'

'No. Not that we may see from here. But perhaps from the high ground. These smokes may mean that watchers on the headlands have seen them, and seek to warn them of our presence. Or it may be only that the warning is for Tyrone and O'Donnell themselves, inland. Ballycastle, their main stronghold, is but some five or six miles south by east of here. That is why here it is that the MacDonalds must come.'

Then… it may not be a warning at all?' Mary put in. 'If these watchers look for a Highland fleet, will they not be likely to take us for the MacDonalds? So these signals may be but a sign to the Irish chiefs that his friends are come.'

'Yes. It could be so. We cannot tell. Maclean has landed a party to go up there and discover the matter. When we have their report, we may have to move swiftly.'

'Move from this bay?'

'Aye, if need be. This place, though it hides us well from sight from the sea, could be a death-trap for us. As was Tobermory Bay for Clanranald. We are here to hide from Donald Gorm, to sally out and attack him when he is unready, approaching Ballycastle Bay, and knowing nothing of our presence. But if he is warned that we are in here, he could bottle us up. We would be lost.'

'Maclean did not foresee this?' Argyll demanded.

'He did not look to be observed so soon. Not in this remote bay of Kinbane. He knows this coast well. There is empty moorland and bog behind here, for miles, he says – savage, waterlogged country where no men live. It is strange that it should be watched, guarded.'

'It may be only because the Irish look for Donald Gorm?'

'How could they know when he would come? He has been many weeks preparing…'

While they were discussing it, a considerable outcry developed from the detachment which Maclean had sent ashore. They had climbed up the rising ground of the eastern horn of the bay, Kinbane Head itself, making for the nearest fire, and had reached an intermediate summit, a spur of the headland. Here they had halted suddenly, and begun to wave and gesticulate wildly, their shouts sounding thinly on the morning air. Obviously they had seen something which excited them greatly.

'Donald Gorm! They have spied his fleet!' Mary cried.

'I think not,' Argyll said, in his unemotional, factual way.

They would have shouted before this, in that case. If they can see the MacDonald ships now, they could have seen them before – for they have but moved on to a knoll yonder. They would not have waited. No, it is because they can now see down beyond. Eastwards, into the next bay. Into the main Ballycastle Bay, or whatever lies beyond that cape. It is something down there that they have seen.'

'You are right,' Ludovick nodded. 'It must be that. Perhaps it is an encampment, there. Of the Irish…'