“’Tis the burden of leadership,” Cain said, his words a soft grumble. His father had trained him from birth to pick up the reins of Clan Sinclair the moment the old warrior took his last mortal breath. As a woman, had Ella Sutherland been given the same instruction?

Her father, the brutal Alec Sutherland, would have continued to try to beget a boy on his young wife to raise as the next chief while he married Ella off to another clan to form an alliance. In fact, there had been whispers that she was betrothed to Chief Hew Mackay, but that Ella had called it off when her father was killed in battle. Without a living son, Ella had taken the seat. If she’d married Mackay, she’d be giving him control of their clan.

“Is that why ye broke the betrothal contract with Hew Mackay?” Cain asked, remembering his father’s poor treatment of the chieftain who currently survived in Girnigoe’s dungeon. “Or do ye object to the man?”

“Such a whiny bastard,” Gideon said, removing his own armor for one of the young squires to take away to clean and polish. He looked at Cain, well aware that Cain disagreed with his father forcing thirst on the prisoner. When Mackay had been captured after burning one of their crofter’s fields on the edge of Sinclair territory, their father had locked him in the dungeon, giving him only salted meat to eat and no water, wine, or ale. After a fortnight, the chief was begging for anything liquid. Even though the dungeon was several floors below, Cain swore he heard the man wailing at night.

Ella’s mouth opened with the snap of anger, but it took a moment for anything to come out. “That is nothing with which to concern yourself.”

“Actually, it is,” his aunt, Merida, said while she pointed out more blood on his father for the maids to wipe. “If ye would not have Hew Mackay because ye think he is a self-righteous, weak-minded, lustful goat, then Cain would be given hope that ye will view him as a better candidate.” Merida, even with all her eccentricities and heretical leanings, was exceedingly clever. She could clear away the debris to find the piece of information that was crucial. And she could apparently predict the coming of death, although knowledge of such could weaken a man or make him act foolishly.