The Warrior by Margaret Mallory Page B

chieftain gave it to them as reward for serving as the MacLeods’ hereditary
     pipers. That’s where I’ll try to land.”
    “Won’t these MacCrimmons deliver us to the MacLeods?” she asked.
    “I’m hoping they won’t since I’m kin of sorts,” he said. “My mother’s mother was a
     MacCrimmon.”
    Why did she not know that? What else didn’t she know about him?
    “All the same, let’s not tempt them by telling them ye are the MacDonald chieftain’s
     only sister,” Duncan said.
    Not that Connor cared what happened to her.
    Duncan touched the back of his fingers to Niall’s forehead. Then, using an oar in
     place of the broken rudder, he guided the boat toward the MacCrimmon cove. At the
     same time, he minded the sail and bailed with one hand. Did he think she was useless?
    “Let me do that,” Moira said, snatching the bucket from him.
    Duncan picked up a large wooden bowl that was floating in the bilge and began to bail
     with that. The land was farther away than it looked, and it seemed like they bailed
     for hours. Despite the cold winter mist, Moira was sweating when they finally drifted
     into the cove. A small crowd had gathered on the shore. The men had their blades drawn.
    “Your MacCrimmon relations don’t look friendly to me,” she said.
     
    * * *
    Duncan grounded the boat and hopped over the side. As he dragged it up on shore, several
     men with unsheathed blades surrounded him. The women and children gathered on the
     beach stared at him from behind their men.
    “I am the great-grandson of Duncan MacCrimmon,” Duncan said. “I have an injured man
     in desperate need of a healer.”
    Without waiting for permission, Duncan lifted Niall’s limp body out of the boat.
    A young, fair-haired woman pushed through the men and peered down at Niall. “He’s
     in a bad way,” she said and then turned to one of the warriors. “Take him to my cottage.”
    Luck was finally with them. They had found a healer. Duncan let the MacCrimmon man
     take Niall from him so he could help Moira out of the boat.
    “Ye must come to my cottage as well.” The young woman took Moira’s arm and gave Duncan
     a sour look. “Big fellow like you should be ashamed of yourself.”
    By the saints, the healer thought he had done that to Moira’s face.
    Moira touched her swollen jaw, as if she had forgotten her injuries. “I’m fine,” she
     said. “And it wasn’t him that did it.”
    “Wasn’t your husband?” Duncan heard the healer say as he followed behind the two women
     toward a line of cottages built along the shore. “That’s a story I want to hear.”
    It was odd to hear the healer mistake him for Moira’s husband. For the first time,
     it struck him that Moira was free. Hope was a foolish thing. He had no reason to believe
     Moira would have him now, or if she did, that he could keep her. Yet, despite the
     unremitting disasters since they were reunited, hope sparked in Duncan’s chest for
     the first time in seven years.
     
    * * *
    Moira sat on the edge of the bed holding a vile-smelling compress to her eye while
     she felt Niall’s forehead with her free hand. Praise God, his fever was down. Despite
     all the commotion in the little cottage, he was sound asleep. Duncan had had to hold
     Niall down while the healer cleaned and sewed up the wound on his leg, and the process
     had sapped Niall’s strength.
    “How do we know you’re who ye say ye are?” one of the men asked Duncan.
    “My mother gave this to me.” Duncan pulled the six-hole whistle he always carried
     on a leather cord around his neck from inside his shirt and held it out for them to
     see. “She told me it belonged to her grandfather, the one I’m named for.”
    An ancient woman with wild white hair shuffled up to Duncan and examined the whistle
     an inch from her nose. As she turned it in her hand, Moira remembered that the whistle
     had a thistle carved on the back of it.
    “This is Old Duncan’s whistle, but ye could