Lord of the Isles (Coronet Books) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Also by Nigel Tranter

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Map

  Principal Characters

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Part Two

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Part Three

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Historical Note

  Also by Nigel Tranter:

  The Bruce Trilogy

  Children of the Mist

  Crusader

  Druid Sacrifice

  Flowers of Chivalry

  The House of Stewart Trilogy:

  Lords of Misrule

  A Folly of Princes

  The Captive Crown

  Kenneth

  Lion Let Loose

  MacBeth the King

  The MacGregor Trilogy:

  MacGregor’s Gathering

  The Clansman

  Gold for Prince Charlie

  Mail Royal

  Margaret the Queen

  The Master of Gray Trilogy:

  Past Master

  Montrose, The Captain General

  The Patriot

  Rough Wooing

  Tapestry of the Boar

  True Thomas

  The Wallace

  The Wisest Fool

  The Young Montrose

  About the Author

  Nigel Tranter, who wrote over ninety novels on Scottish history, was one of Scotland’s best-loved writers. He died on 9th January 2000 at the age of ninety.

  LORD OF THE ISLES

  Nigel Tranter

  www.hodder.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain in 1983 by Hodder & Stoughton

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © 1983 by Nigel Tranter

  The right of Nigel Tranter to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  Ebook ISBN 9781444766981

  Paperback ISBN 9780340368367

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.hodder.co.uk

  Principal Characters

  In Order of Appearance

  SOMERLED MAC GILLEBRIDE MACFERGUS: Son of the exiled Thane of Argyll.

  CONN IRONHAND MACMAHON: Irish gallowglass captain and shipmaster.

  SAOR MACNEIL: Foster-brother of Somerled.

  DERMOT FLATNOSE MAGUIRE: Irish gallowglass captain and shipmaster.

  CATHULA MACIAN: Young Morvem woman of spirit.

  MACIAN OF ULADAIL: Morvern chieftain, half-brother of Cathula.

  GILLEBRIDE MACFERGUS: Thane of Argyll.

  MALCOLM MACETH, EARL OF ROSS: Brother-in-law to Somerled.

  THORKELL FORKBEARD SVENSSON: Viking leader.

  EWAN MACSWEEN: Titular King of Argyll and the Isles.

  SIR MALCOLM MACGREGOR OF GLENORCHY: Chief of that clan.

  FARQUHAR MACFERDOCH: Hereditary Abbot of Glendochart.

  HERVEY DE WARENNE OF KEITH: KnightMarischal of Scotland.

  DAVID THE FIRST: King of Scots, son of Malcolm Canmore and Margaret.

  HUGO DE MORVILLE: High Constable of Scotland.

  WALTER FITZ ALAN: High Steward of Scotland.

  RAGNHILDE OLAFSDOTTER: Princess, daughter of the King of Man.

  AFFRICA, QUEEN OF MAN: Daughter of Fergus of Galloway.

  OLAF GODFREYSSON, THE MORSEL: King of Man.

  MALACHY O’MOORE: Bishop of Armagh and Papal Legate.

  WIMUND: Bishop of Man.

  FERGUS, EARL OF GALLOWAY: Great noble.

  ELIZABETH, COUNTESS OF ROSS: Somerled’s sister.

  GILLECOLM MAC SOMERLED MACFERGUS: Son of Somerled.

  DONALD MACETH: Nephew of Somerled, later Earl of Moray.

  ARCHBISHOP THURSTAN OF YORK: English prelate.

  RAOUL D’AVRANCHES: Bishop of Durham.

  THORFINN OTTARSSON: Manx chieftain.

  DOUGAL MAC SOMERLED MACFERGUS: Somerled’s second son. Ancestor of Clan MacDougall.

  AUGUSTINE: Abbot of lona.

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER 1

  It made a peaceful scene in the warm May afternoon. The sea, in the wide loch-mouth, was almost mirror-calm so that the slap-slap of the wavelets against the longship’s timbers was so gentle that it did not drown out the sleepy crooning of the eiders from the skerries. Even the haunting calling of the cuckoos drifted across the quarter-mile of blue-green water which separated them from the nearest island. Only the rhythmic snoring of one of the oarsmen, sprawled over his sweep, disturbed—that and the stench of sweat from near one-hundred male torsoes after long and strenuous exertion.

  The young man who sat alone on the high prow-platform beneath the fierce dragon-head, chin on fist, elbow on bent bare knee, may have appeared to be in somnolent tune with it all, but was not. His mind was busy assessing, calculating, seeking to judge chances and distances, times and numbers, and probable odds; and every now and again his keen glance lifted to scan the long fretted coastline of Ardnamurchan to north and west, its features and contours, and then to swing still further westwards across the glittering waters of the Hebridean Sea, empty of sail if not of isle and skerry—and pray it to continue empty meantime. If all the beauty of that colourful seascape was scarcely in the front of his mind, it was not wholly lost on him, despite presently being impervious to the peace of it all.

  For that matter there was little enough that spoke of peace about that ship, from the rearing red-painted dragon-prow and shield-hung sides, to the stacked arms at the high stern-platform, with swords, throwing-spears and battle-axes at the ready. Nor were the men pacific in appearance, any of them, most naked to the waist, in ragged saffron kilts, with shaggy hair and thin down-turning, long moustaches, Irish gallowglasses almost to a man. Few would look for peace and quiet from that crew.

  The young man in the bows, so thoughtful, was distinct in almost every respect. He was fair-haired, for one thing, where the others were dark, hint of the Norse in his ancestry. He was clean-shaven, and though strong enough as to feature, it was a sculptured strength which spoke of a very different breeding. He wore the saffron kilt also but of finer quality, with a silken shirt reasonably clean and a long calf-skin waistcoat on which were sewn small metal scales to form a protective half-armour, pliable and light but effective. His great bulls’-horned helmet, silver-chased, the curling horns tipped with gold, lay on the deck at his side and the shoulder sword-belt gleamed golden also. Somerled MacGillebride MacGilladamnan MacFergus looked what he was, a Celtic pri
nceling of part-Norse extraction. It was perhaps aptly amusing that his father, the exiled Thane Gillebride, should have given him, at his Norse mother’s behest, the Christian name of Somerled, which in her tongue meant the peaceful-sounding Summer Voyager

  He turned his speculative attention to the two smallish islands so close together on the south, off which they lay, in the very jaws of the long and fair sea-loch of Sunart. The islands, a bare half-mile apart, were extraordinarily dissimilar to be so close, the seaward one, Oronsay, jagged, rocky, strangely M-shaped, cleft into many small headlands yet nowhere much higher than one-hundred feet above the waves; whilst its neighbour, Carna, was smooth and green and lofty, no more than a mile-long grassy whaleback rising to a peaked central ridge five times as high as Oronsay. It was the former which held the man’s attention.

  A shout from the stern turned all waking heads towards where the helmsman, Big Conn of the Ironhand, pointed away north-westwards towards the far Ardnamurchan shore beyond the point of Ardslignish. At first it was difficult to distinguish anything in the hazy sunlight other than the frowning cliffs, ironbound shore and shadow-slashed corries of Beinn Hiant. But after a moment or two the keen-eyed were able to discern what appeared to be a small low white cloud, down at sea-level, a moving cloud which seemed to roll over the face of the water towards them. Presently to even the untutored eye it became apparent that most of the cloud was in fact spray, but rising out of it was a single square sail.

  Until it was within half-a-mile or so, the hull of the oncoming craft could only be glimpsed occasionally amidst the spume set up by the double banks of long oars on each side, forty-eight all told, which lashed the sea in a disciplined frenzy, each pulled by two men, and with the sail’s aid drove the slender, low-set galley at a scarcely believable speed in calm conditions. Evolved out of the Viking longship and the Celtic birlinn, the Hebridean galley represented by far the fastest craft on any water, greyhound of the seas indeed—although some would call them wolves, rather. They held their own grace, even beauty, but few saw them as beautiful.

  The newcomer swept up in fine style, scarcely slackening speed until almost alongside and then pulling up in a few lengths with back-watering sweeps in masterly precision and timing, great sail crashing down at the exact moment and the helmsman bearing on his long steering-oar to swing the craft round on to the other stationary ship only a few yards from its prow, all in a flourish of dramatic seamanship. Saor Sleat MacNeil was like that.

  A shout, part bark, part crow, part laugh, spanned the water-gap. “No shipping, no Norsemen, Somerled! Only a few fishing-cobles at Mingary and Kilchoan. And some dotards and old wives. We have it all to ourselves, man.”

  The fair-headed young man had risen. “That is well,” he called back. “But why, then, half-slay your crew? In your return? I need these men for better work than as playthings for your vanity, Saor MacNeil! Mind it!”

  “Yes, lord,” the other acknowledged, grinning.

  “Take heed, Saor—or you will find it difficult to laugh, hereafter! Even you.” That was quietly said but with a sibilant hiss in the Highland voice.

  Considering those actual few words, the impact of them was rather extraordinary, quite transforming the scene. Where all had been relaxed, all but somnolent, in tune with the warm May afternoon, abruptly in those ships there was a tension. Men sat upright on the rowing-benches. Saor MacNeil himself stood stiff, grin gone. The quiet sounds of lapping water and crooning eiders seemed suddenly loud. Somerled MacGillebride MacGilladmnan MacFergus, roused, could frighten other men strangely, possessed of a violent shattering force supremely at odds with both his years and normal pleasing appearance and habit. That none knew just what could be expected to rouse him, was part of the difficulty.

  For long moments this pause lasted. Then Somerled jerked a beckoning hand. “Come you aboard,” he commanded, but mildly enough now.

  Saor MacNeil wasted no time. He flung an order to his oarsmen on the starboard side, who dipped in their sweeps in a single controlled motion which slewed the galley’s fierce prow round to leeward through a ninety-degree arc, to close the gap with the other vessel, whilst he himself leapt down from the stern-platform, ran lightly along the narrow gangway between the two sets of rowing-benches, sprang up onto the bow-platform and so was in position to jump the yard or two of space as the two prows came together, an agile, exactly-timed performance, like so much of what that man essayed—for he liked to impress.

  Somerled smiled, less than impressed. And as the dark man leapt, so, as exactly timed, the fair man’s fist flashed out, to take the leaper on the shoulder and spin him round and backwards. Balance gone, agile precision likewise, arms waving wildly, MacNeil toppled and fell, outboard. He hit the water with a splash and shouted curse.

  A howl of mirth rose from the packed benches on both craft.

  Stooping unhurriedly, Somerled picked up a rope and tossed it over to the flailing swimmer, to draw him up and aid his streaming person back and over the side. Then, as MacNeil panted and glared and spewed out salt water, the other clapped him on the wet shoulder with a blow which almost felled him, and burst into a shout of laughter.

  “Ardour cooled?” he demanded.

  For a second or two the dark man’s eyes flashed dangerously; but meeting the amused but cool and piercing gaze of the other, he swallowed and shrugged and the grin reappeared in some fashion on his dripping, trim-bearded features. After all, Somerled was his foster-brother.

  “Yes, lord,” he said again, but in a different tone from last time.

  “Yes, then—so be it.” The Lord Somerled waved forward two others to the prow-platform, Conn Ironhand MacMahon, the steersman, and Dermot Flatnose Maguire, captain of gallowglasses, both Irishmen from Fermanagh, as were all save the pair already forward. When these came up, he at once reverted to the quietly businesslike, turning to face the south and the islands. He pointed. “This is the back-door to Morvern. Our rear, we hear, is safe from Ardnamurchan meantime. And we are hidden from Mull. No sail is in sight. God willing, this will serve. We beach the galleys behind this Oronsay, eat, and then march. March by night.”

  “March?” Dermot Flatnose said. “My lads are seamen, see you—not bog-trotters!” He spoke with the Erse brogue, so different from the lilting soft Hebridean tongue of Somerled which was so genial and so deceptive.

  “They will march, nevertheless, my friend—march far and fast. And as like as not fight at the end of it. Or I will know the reason why!”

  Maguire held his tongue.

  “There may be as many as ten miles to cover, at a guess. I have not been here since I was a lad, mind. Up yonder glen, by Loch Teacuis and through the hills beyond to the Aline River, then down to Kinlochaline. The clachan there is where we make for, the principal place of this Morvern, where my father used to have a house. And where the Norse are like to be. For whosoever holds Loch Aline, if they have ships, holds the Sound of Mull and the key to the Firth of Lorn.”

  “Why march by night, lord?” Conn Ironhand asked. “If the men must march and fight, will they not be fighting better rested and in God’s good daylight?”

  “Perhaps. But the only way we may succeed here is by surprise. We have less than two hundred men, leaving some few with the ships. Even if they are all heroes, two hundred will not take Morvern from a thousand Vikings and more. There must be no warning. The local folk, these MacInneses, are much cowed, we know, lack spirit after all these years under the Norsemen’s heavy hand. We cannot rely on them for help. And some might even warn of our presence in their hills. We march by night.”

  “The gallowglasses will not like it.”

  “I do not ask them to like it—only to march.”

  Saor MacNeil hooted. “And Mary Mother of God help them!” he said. He had stripped off his hide jerkin, ragged shirt and kilt and was wringing them out, standing naked and by no means ashamed or hiding himself.

  The two Irishmen exchanged glances.

  “See you to it,
then,” Somerled told them. “We row in behind this Oronsay. The passage is narrow and opens only towards the west. At the east it shallows and dries out at low-water. In there is a creek where we hide the galleys. Back to your ship, Saor, and follow me in. To your helm, Conn.”

  Gathering up his clothes in his arms and laughing, MacNeil the exhibitionist beckoned his own galley’s bows closer and, naked as he was, leapt the gap once more, already shouting orders to his crew, who commented in frankest fashion. Somerled, watching, smiled. He was fond of that odd character, but well recognised the need to keep him in some control.

  Quickly the two galleys were on the move again, wheeling about, first westwards then south round that promontory of Oronsay and in eastwards thereafter between the island and the mainland of Morvern by a channel little more than two hundred yards wide, and shallow—but not too much so for the shallow-draught galleys, provided that they kept to the centre, although they could see the waving weeds of the rocky bottom in the clear water below them. It was half-tide. Half-a-mile of narrows and the channel widened out to an almost landlocked lagoon a mile long and half that in width. The south or Morvern shore was open woodland sloping upwards; but to the north Oronsay itself was cut up here, like the rest, with narrow probing inlets. Into the central of these Somerled manoeuvred his galley, and cautiously, for there was barely space for the long oars to work, to beach his craft almost half-a-mile deep into the rocky isle, MacNeil close behind. A more secret and secure hidingplace would have been hard to find on all the intricate thousand-mile coastline of Argyll—but no place to get out of in a hurry.

  “A death-trap!” Conn MacMahon called, critically, and a growl of assent rose from the rowing-benches.

  “Just that,” Somerled agreed. “If we are for dying, hereafter, as well here as anywhere! But matters will be in a bad way, whatever, if we need to fight our way out of here.”

  Unconvinced to say the least, the galley crews shipped their oars, gathered their gear and arms and made their way ashore.