Wick's harbour reeked of tar and fish as the autumn gales drove foam against the quay. Masts creaked, gulls wheeled, and in the town's crooked lanes news whispered faster than smoke: Margaret Sinclair had failed again. The poisoned cow had risen. The Craiks had laughed, called it Bainne-Beò — Milk-Alive — and their songs spread like nettles in bare feet.
Margaret heard them even within the stone of her hall. A piper passing through Wick had dared play the tune of "Milk-Alive" in a tavern, and though his notes had been clumsy, the laughter that followed carried to her ears. She had flown into a rage, hurling a candlestick that shattered against the hearth.
"They mock me with a cow," she spat, pacing, her scarlet skirts snapping like battle flags. "A beast lives, and they name it for their defiance. My powders wasted, my coin wasted, and still the Gunn breathes, still that red-headed witch smiles."
Keith sat in a chair by the fire, arms folded, eyes heavy with scorn. His scar twitched as he spoke. "Perhaps it is not the cow that mocks you, but the land itself. The Craiks stand because they are of this place. Your poison is foreign. It does not belong."
Margaret whirled on him. "Honourable talk, Keith. Steel and banners, aye? Did Culloden not teach you? Honour leaves bones on moorland. Cunning wins."
Keith's fist struck the arm of his chair. "Cunning that fails, lass, is worse than folly. You shame yourself and your house. You shame me, fighting beasts with powders instead of men with swords."
Margaret's eyes glittered, dangerous as ice. "Then we go with swords. If poison fails, we burn. If deceit fails, we strike by night. We'll march north, take them while they sleep. Gunn's cough will not save him when my dirk finds his ribs."
She called Bain's old followers — ruffians, broken soldiers, men who had no clan but coin. They came to her hall, smelling of peat and cheap whisky, eyes hard. She stood on the dais, pale and radiant with fury, and promised them silver for every Craik head.
"You'll not need banners," she told them. "The night is your standard. The flame is your trumpet. You'll put salt pans to the torch, drive their beasts into the loch, drag Agnes Craik to me by her hair. As for the Gunn — I want his head for my table."
The men roared. Some spat on the floor, some beat their targes with dirks. They were not clansmen fighting for land; they were wolves scenting blood.
Robert Sinclair watched from the shadows of the hall. His face was grey as ash, his hands clenched behind his back. These were not the loyal men of his youth, bound by kinship. These were sell-swords, and his daughter treated them like hounds to be unleashed.
"Margaret," he said quietly when the hall emptied, "you court damnation."
She turned on him, eyes blazing. "No, Father. I court victory. The Craiks defy me, mock me, thrive when they should starve. Do you not see? If I cannot break them, I am nothing."
He reached for her arm. "Child, listen. Each step you take into darkness leads to a place you cannot return from."
She pulled free, her laugh brittle. "I passed that place long ago. And you led me there."
Robert flinched as if struck.
In the days that followed, Margaret schemed like a general. She laid out maps of Caithness, marking the moor tracks, the burns, the ridges overlooking Loch Wattenan. She chose the night — two days hence, when the moon would be a thin sickle, clouds thick. She chose the hour — the second watch, when even warriors' eyes grew heavy.
Her plan was simple: approach from the east, where the gorse offered cover. Half her men would set fire to the kelp pits, choking the air with smoke. The rest would storm the longhouse, cut down Seumas and Agnes, and scatter the rest. In the chaos, she herself would strike the killing blow.
"It ends there," she told Keith, who stood glowering at her table. "The Craiks die in their beds, and by dawn their salt pans are ours."
Keith's mouth twisted. "If you had one ounce of sense, you'd parley, not slaughter."
"Parley?" Margaret sneered. "With that Gunn bastard and his whore of a Craik? Never. Blood alone ends this."
Keith spat on the floor. "Blood ends you first." He stormed from the hall, disgust etched into every step.
Margaret only smiled.
And in the shadows, Robert's heart cracked further. He had prayed, pleaded, warned — but Margaret's path now led only to ruin. He knew then what he had long feared: to save Agnes, to save Seumas, to save Caithness itself, he might have to do the unthinkable.
The wind rose from the Pentland Firth that night, howling in the chimneys of Wick. Robert Sinclair sat sleepless in his chamber, staring into the guttering flame of a single candle. Its wax had spilled across the pewter stand, hardening like frozen tears.
Margaret's words echoed in his skull: "I passed that place long ago. And you led me there."
Had he? He thought back over the years — the child Margaret, hair a wild tangle of copper, chasing gulls on the strand; the girl who brought home lost lambs, cradling them as if they were bairns. She had been fierce, aye, but tender too. Somewhere between then and now, that tenderness had curdled. And he, blind with ambition and pride, had let it.
Before dawn, Robert went to the kirk. The door was swollen with damp, its iron hinges groaning as he forced it. Inside, the air smelled of cold stone, old peat smoke, and salt carried on the wind. The only light came from a lamp on the altar, where Father Màrtainn knelt in prayer.
The priest rose as Robert entered, bowing slightly. "My lord Sinclair. You look troubled."
Robert's laugh was a rasp. "Troubled? I am a man with a devil for a daughter. Where else should I come?"
The priest gestured to a pew. "Speak, if it lightens your burden."
Robert sat heavily, clasping his hands until the knuckles cracked. "She means to ride north, Father. To burn, to slaughter. Men and women, bairns in their beds. She calls it war. I call it murder."
"And you?" the priest asked quietly.
"I stood by too long," Robert whispered. "I paid her debts. I gave her coin to hire blades. I told myself it was duty, that a father must shield his child. But now… now I see I shielded not her, but the monster she became."
The words broke from him like blood from a wound.
"I have written letters, Father. Warnings. Begged Agnes Craik to guard her folk. But words are not enough. Margaret will not stop. And I—" He swallowed, eyes burning. "I may have to be the hand that stops her."
The priest was silent for a long time. Then he said, "Cain slew Abel, and his mark endured. But Cain killed from envy. If you act, it must be from duty — to God, to neighbour, to the innocent. Yet still, it will scar you."
"I am already scarred," Robert said bitterly. "Better me than Caithness."
Father Màrtainn laid a hand on his shoulder. "Then pray before you act. For when you strike your own blood, you strike yourself."
On his way back, Robert walked the strand. The tide was high, waves crashing white against black rock. He saw Margaret as she had been at ten years old, running ahead of him, skirts hiked, fearless as she leapt from stone to stone. "Look, Da! I can fly!" she had cried, arms outstretched.
She had nearly fallen that day, and he had caught her by the wrist, hauling her back. She had laughed, not afraid, and he had laughed with her.
Now she flew toward ruin, and he could not catch her.
He sank to his knees in the sand, salt spray lashing his face. "God forgive me," he whispered. "I should have raised her better. I should have broken her pride when it was still a child's pride. Now it is iron, and it will kill us all."
By the time he rose, Robert's decision was made. He could not let Margaret's hate consume Caithness. He could not let her torch the Craiks' hearths or drive Seumas Gunn to an early grave.
If no other hand would stop her, his must.
That night he sharpened his old dirk. Its hilt was worn smooth, the blade nicked from battles long past. He held it up to the candlelight, watching the edge glimmer.
"My shame," he whispered, "and my salvation."
Then he wrapped it in his cloak and prepared to follow his daughter into the dark.
The night Margaret Sinclair chose for her vengeance was a dark one. The moon was a sickle behind heavy cloud, the kind of sky that swallowed light whole. Wind hissed low over the moor, bending the gorse and heather like kneeling worshippers. It was a night made for wolves, not men.
She gathered two dozen blades outside Wick — ragged mercenaries, broken soldiers, and desperate crofters bought with silver. They stood in the glow of torches, muttering, sharpening dirks and claymores, pulling plaids tighter against the chill.
Margaret rode among them, her cloak scarlet even in the dim light, her hair a flame in the wind. She spoke not like a lady but like a warlord.
"Tonight," she cried, "we cut out the Gunn's heart! We silence Agnes Craik's lying tongue! Their pans will be ash, their beasts scattered, their blood soaking their loch. By dawn, Caithness will know whose hand rules it!"
The men roared. Some beat targes with the flats of their swords, others howled like beasts. It was not loyalty they gave her, but bloodlust — and Margaret welcomed it.
At the edge of the torchlight, Keith stood with folded arms, face grim. He had come because his honour demanded he watch, but not to lead. When one of the mercenaries jeered at his silence, Keith spat into the dirt. "I've no cheer for cowards' work."
Margaret sneered at him. "Then stay behind, Keith. Let men do what honour cannot."
He said nothing, but his eyes were knives.
Robert Sinclair trailed them in secret, riding a grey mare half a mile back. He had told no one of his intent. His cloak was dark, his face pale in the gloom. The dirk at his belt seemed to burn through the cloth with the weight of his decision.
He watched the torchlight snake across the moor ahead, a river of fire crawling north. He remembered leading men once — not rabble like these, but kinsmen bound by blood and oath. This procession was no army. It was a pack of wolves unleashed by his daughter's madness.
She will burn them all, he thought. Unless I end it here.
Past midnight, the raiders reached the ridges above the Craik lands. The loch lay black and still, dotted with pinpricks of firelight where the longhouse and pans glowed. Smoke from kelp fires drifted into the sky, pale against the dark.
Margaret pointed down with her dirk. "There! The bitch's hearth! We strike from the east. Half of you set the pits alight. The rest with me — to the longhouse. Leave no one standing."
The men murmured assent, some licking their lips, some already setting fire to bundles of dry brush.
Keith's voice cut across the night. "This is murder, not war."
Margaret turned on him, eyes blazing. "War is murder with banners. Do you think the Craiks showed mercy at Torran Dubh? Did Gunn spare Bain?"
Keith's jaw clenched. "At least he faced him blade to blade. You'll gut women in their sleep."
Margaret laughed, high and harsh. "Then the women should have stayed in their kitchens."
Robert had crept close enough now to hear every word. His heart twisted. He saw in his daughter's face not the girl he raised, but a creature of fury, her pride rotted into madness.
He stepped into the torchlight.
"Margaret."
The raiders started. Swords half-drew. Keith swore under his breath. Margaret's eyes widened, then narrowed.
"Father? You follow me like a thief?"
Robert raised his hands. "Aye, I followed. To beg you — stop this. End it here, tonight. Turn back."
"Turn back?" Her laugh was jagged. "To what? To mockery? To weakness? To let that Gunn bastard and his harlot rule while I crawl?" She spat into the grass. "Never."
He took a step closer. "Daughter, listen. This path leads only to ruin. The Craiks will not break. They are bound tighter than steel. You'll spend your blood and theirs for nothing."
Margaret's voice rose, shrill and cold. "Then let all Caithness drown in blood if I cannot have it!"
Her men cheered, struck by her fury. But Robert saw only despair.
He reached for her arm. "Margaret, please. You are my child. I cannot lose you."
She wrenched free, eyes like coals. "You lost me long ago, Father. The night you taught me victory is all that matters."
The torches hissed in the wind. The men shifted, waiting for her command. Robert's heart thundered. His hand went to the dirk beneath his cloak.
He knew then what he must do.