The Chieftain by Caroline Martin

old-fashioned in cut, but would not have looked out of place in her parents’ best parlour. She found it impossible to imagine Hector dressed in anything so civilised. More in keeping was the sword that lay beside it, running the whole length of the chest. It was a massive weapon, broad-bladed and basket-hilted, and surely far too heavy for any but a giant to lift. She ran her finger over the entwined pattern decorating the blade, deep in thought, and then slowly replaced the garments she had disturbed and closed the lid.
    There was little else in the room to tell her anything about its unusual occupant, if such he were - only a high-backed armchair, and a door that opened to reveal a cupboard in the thickness of the wall, containing a pair of shiny buckled shoes, an odd heavy round object with a vicious central spike, which looked like some kind of primitive war shield, and not much else. A simple table at the bedside completed the furnishings. A tidy well-cared-for room, not luxurious, but clean and neat and almost comfortable. It did not fit at all.
    And then Isobel realised what was most strange about this place, about their arrival, and the decaying settlement, and the castle. What, above all, had made it seem so unreal. There were no women.
    There were men of all ages - bent and white-haired, middle aged, scarcely bearded. And they had homes, of sorts; and someone must care for this room, with its polished dust-free surfaces and spotless floor; and someone must have set the glasses ready downstairs at the fireside. But there were no women to be seen; no women and no children.  
    Except for the woman in the portrait, and Isobel MacLean, wife to a man who grew stranger, more unknown with every second that passed.
    She went to one of the windows and sat on the wide sill, padded with a cushion of faded blue velvet, and looked out over the sea. Only it was not the sea on which her eyes first rested. She gave a little exclamation and pressed her face close to the small leaded panes of the window.
    Strange that she should not have noticed before, but on the ship her eyes had been turned to the shore where she must land, and, later, on her way along the path, she had been concerned only with the castle… Now she saw that the headland on which the castle stood reached out towards another shore. Two miles, perhaps, separated Ardshee from the more mountainous land across the sea, where dark purple-blue slopes rose from shore to sky. Another island, she supposed. She had not seen a map of her homeland, but she knew that the wild western Highlands were bordered with innumerable islands, of all shapes and sizes, like pieces roughly broken from the untamed mainland and scattered in the unpredictable sea. She had guessed, of course, that Ardshee lay on one of these, cut off more firmly than ever from the decencies of civilisation. She had not expected that another would lie quite so near.
    Or was it, perhaps, not an island at all? Could it be the mainland at which she gazed now? Wild, mountainous, full of dangers, but the same land mass on which her parents lived their ordered lives, and John Campbell walked in the sunlit garden.
    She felt a little shiver of excitement, which was not quite hope. And then, behind her, the door opened, closed again, and Hector came in.
    He stood there saying nothing for a moment. There was an air of good humour about him, which had, she knew, nothing to do with her; though he did not smile.
    ‘Did they bring you water to wash?’ he asked after a while.
    She shook her head. ‘No,’ she said, standing up.
    He went to the door, opened it and spoke to someone just outside. She heard steps hurrying away down the stairs before the door closed again.
    ‘They will bring food too,’ he said. And then he crossed to the chest and drew out the plaid she had seen. ‘When you have washed,’ he went on, ‘you will put this on.’  
    He held it out to her, but she made no move to take it. She wrinkled her