Nhaimeth sat at the far left end of the high board, his feet not quite reaching the floor. He couldn’t have cared less. Occasionally, he felt Rob’s penetrating gaze on him but didn’t seek a reason. He was too caught up in his own thoughts, speculating on the Bear’s reaction if he had been able to see him at the high table, imagining the bellow he would let out.

Tonight everything felt strange, out of place, though Nhaimeth had lived in Dun Bhuird every day of his life until Astrid had taken him to Cragenlaw. The view from here of the clansfolk was something he had never thought to see. On the surface, the hall itself had changed little. Behind him, the great shield, passed down from father to son, glimmered in the torchlight, yet it would never be his. And rightly so, since he would be hard pressed to lift it. The smell of the torches scented the air. In the centre, a dark space that used to house the firepit was cold, bare of the fuel used to heat the griddles and cooking pots. Above it, heavy chains hung from the ceiling, neglected.

Whilst Astrid still lived, he had capered and jested in the foreground, played the Fool well enough to earn the rough edge of Erik the Bear’s tongue—but one of the reasons he and Astrid were sent away to Cragenlaw.

Never afore had the truth about his life been brought to his consciousness with such pitiless malice. He wondered if the auld gods laughed. Surely the one Rob and Jamie sometimes worshipped couldn’t be so deliberately cruel. It had been many years since he had wished and wondered what might have been, what might he have done, if he hadn’t been born misshapen. If, he had instead, resembled his half-brother Alexander, the golden lad.

Ach, Nhaimeth couldn’t put the blame on Alex, couldn’t lay his envy upon a lad whose life had been stripped away and him barely straddling the line that would have made him a man, could never have wished death upon a lad he had just begun to ken and like.

He felt Rob nudge his elbow. “Aren’t ye hungry wee man?”

The words didn’t match the look in Rob’s eye or the question he read there. Rob knew him too well. They were like brothers of the soul and had found each other at a point in each of their lives when the way ahead appeared dreich and scary. Throat tight, Nhaimeth found it difficult to answer. “I’ve lost my appetite, help yourself.”

Rob was always hungry. Like yin of the young seabirds on the cliffs at Cragenlaw with its beak aye open, he grew so fast his belly was hard to fill.

He had hoped Rob might leave it at that, but wisdom didn’t come with height, it came with experience. Rob was always ready to barge into fights and places in a way that age would eventually temper.

“I know what’s going on in yer head, and can’t say I blame ye. But look at Gavyn, married two years and caught in a web of Malcolm Canmore’s making. Then look at us three. And you can take that smirk off your face, for I’m counting Jamie as well. We’re young, we’ve all but served our apprenticeship, and soon we’ll all be free to have an adventure.”

It was on days like this that Nhaimeth felt a hundred years aulder than Rob, a damn sight more than the handful separating them. “Ye make a guid point, lad. I’d bet you a hundred silver shillings to a handsaw that Kathryn won’t let him escape his duties so easily next time.”

“And where would ye find a hundred pieces of silver?” Rob leaned closer, cupping his mouth with his hand to whisper close to Nhaimeth’s ear. “Did you see their faces as they walked through the hall to take their places at the high board. Grim. It would appear she’s grown up since the day she rode up to Cragenlaw in Erik the Bear’s shadow.”

Nhaimeth nodded his agreement. “The lass I knew would hardly have dared shoot an arrow at a wee sparrow without Comlyn’s urging.”

For the first instance that e’en, Nhaimeth felt like grinning as Rob said, “I’d be hard pressed to say I envy Gavyn. Ach, when the man rides up on the back of that braw grey of his, the image of a parfit gentle knight, or mayhap yon Frenchman he’s been fighting alongside, then gets shot at, it’s enough to make you wonder.” Hand shielding a guffaw, he gave a quick glance over his shoulder in the direction of Gavyn and Kathryn. They held a sort of court flanked by Magnus and Abelard. All the while tidbits of food were waved under their noses for their delectation.

All laughter fled, Rob murmured, “Aye, but do you never imagine what it would be like? Not the chieftain part, I ken fine I’ll come to that sooner or later—later, God willing. But then…” He jerked his head in the direction of the Ruthven heir at the other end of the high board next to Kathryn’s cousin, Brodwyn. “Jamie already has seventeen years. As for you, you’ll soon have twenty under your belt, six more than me. And what do we have to show for it between us? Jamie’s visited the king’s court with his father. He’s seen all the falderals the nobles wear. Not that prancing around, bending the knee to folk who believe they’re superior whets any sort of envy.” The hint of a groan left his lips as he admitted, “I suppose being a bastard has its compensations, for the likes of me would be unacceptable—”

‘Hush, lad,’ Nhaimeth shushed. “Who cares for that? However, it begs the question why you’d ever want to be bothered learning to bow the way Jamie does?’

Then the reason dawned in his mind and he raised an enquiring brow as he thought of both lads’ reaction to Lhilidh.

Rob smirked, a mere curl of the lips. Nhaimeth could always depend on the lad to cheer him up and was about to tell him, ‘Even though I’m auld, I will still wait on ye…’ Suddenly, Rob’s cheer turned to a scowl, so ferocious as the lad usually reserved for cateran and their like.

“God’s blood,” the lad spat out the curse. “What is that scoundrel doing here?” He began leaping to his feet until Nhaimeth grabbed his elbow. For once, Rob shrugged his hand off. “Can you see who’s sitting at the end of the board closest to the wall? That is the self-same, cowardly cur who crept up behind the McArthur and tried to kill him within a day of Astrid’s dying.”

Rob slammed down his cup of ale, sent it slopping across the wooden boards.

With the half of his brain that wasn’t in shock, Nhaimeth noticed an ale stain spreading on the sleeve of his new linen shirt, a gift stitched by one of Morag’s women and worn this e’en’ for what had seemed like an occasion. None of that blinded him to the knowledge that Rob’s dander was up.

Nor, he noted when he glanced past his friend, had it escaped Gavyn’s attention.

Listening to Magnus with but half an ear, Gavyn pondered the tactics he’d taken with Kathryn earlier, unsure if the mental tongue-lashing he’d given himself while dressing would do his conscience much good. No use excusing himself with faux protests such as two years abstinence, or blaming the temptation of Kathryn’s beauty for making a blunder equal to a ship’s captain sailing side-on to a storm while the waves toppled his vessel. No matter that they’d been wed for two years, she was still a maiden, unprepared for the rough-and-tumble play of long-time lovers.

Thank the Lord he’d never pulled her into the tub with him as he’d intended. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t do the same after they knew more of each other’s likes and dislikes.

Kathryn was a handful—courageous, with more of the Bear in her make-up than might be good for her husband. However, he was willing to set aside both their mistakes and start anew.

Start that night.

He’d conveyed his decision to his young wife. In response she had been close-mouthed, attending to her wifely duties but saying little. In a world of silence, she had tended to his hose, tied his cross-laces and helped with slipping his feet into the soft leather boots he’d had made in France. It had been her gesture of bringing him a Breacan-an-feile then helping him to kilt it around his waist in the way of a true Highlander that had pricked his conscience.

“This was one my father had woven as a dress Breacan-an-feile for Alexander. It’s a fine worsted but warm, and the weavers drew their dyes frae the countryside around Bienn á Bhuird, the better to blend into its surroundings. He never wore it, and it’s a shame to let it go to waste.”

Never one to ignore a concession given in good faith, Gavyn said, “I thank you for the compliment of letting me wear it. Though I didn’t reach Cragenlaw in time to meet him, the McArthur had naught but good to say of the lad. Alexander was brave. Not one to stand back when a friend was in danger.”

Her lips thinned. “And I believe you brought that friend here with you to the Comlyn hall,” she sniped, her fingers working on the long length of chequered worsted, pleating and tucking it around his waist.

“If there’s blame to be laid at anyone’s door, it’s that of my brother, Doughall Farquhar. First he attempted to take my head off and left me for dead then colluded with his catamite to kill our father. Rob and my sister Morag were next on his list of folk who stood in his way, and if not for Alexander’s bravery, he might have had his wish.” He clenched his teeth, remembering Doughall’s death. “Aye, he became Baron but his position was no more tenable than the Norman who rules Wolfsdale today.”

Her breath had caught in her throat, he could see it work as she swallowed and was aware he had worried her, for all her protestations about ability to rule at Bienn á Bhuird without him. “No, lass, I have no plans to take it back. I have too much to do to make Dun Bhuird safe for me and mine to be leaving you behind. I think it was obvious how much I want you, and tonight when I get you in that big bed I’ll show you.”

She’d rewarded him with a nervous sniff that gave him hope. Unwisely, he had almost begun his seduction in a tub of water, but he would finish it once and for all in the big bed that took up most of the chamber.

For a big man, Magnus was soft-spoken, and Gavyn leaned closer as the constable began making enquiries about the masons Gavyn had hired, wondering about the expected date of their arrival.

Glad to have his thoughts dragged away from Kathryn and the way he should have handled their reunion, he said, “I’m expecting them any day now. Graeme McArthur’s Keep that Euan was having built is on his northwest boundary, so it’s not too far a journey, but until they get here I won’t know whether or nae they can make use of the local stone.”

Out the corner of his eye, Gavyn noticed that Kathryn’s head had turned his way, taking her attention away from Abelard to focus instead on him. No doubt it was the mention of the McArthur and the fact of young Rob being with them at the high table. Kathryn wouldn’t be swayed; she held the McArthurs responsible for Alexander’s and her father’s deaths—as if the Bear’s grim determination to have his own way had nothing to do with the demise of both himself and his only son.

Dragging his own focus back to his conversation with Magnus, he said, “You will have known that the McArthur’s cousin, Graeme, married to a Ruthven, Jamie’s sister, has been given the duty of minding the boundaries and reporting any disturbances. The new Keep has more comforts than one would expect, but Euan is fond of Graeme. Besides, for years the man was his constable at Cragenlaw.”

“I mind him fine. Graeme McArthur always did his job well. And he’s one of the kind you would feel happy standing next to in a shield wall.” A high compliment, decided Gavyn, but Magnus wasn’t done, for he told Gavyn. “That kind of loyalty deserves a Keep and he won’t let the McArthur down.”

“That said, Magnus, I won’t be offering up a keep for your command but, as constable of Dun Bhuird, I’ll be expecting your help with the curtain walls. A man of your experience is bound to know which areas of Dun Bhuird be most vulnerable to attack. Together, we’ll make plans for the new defences.”

A stir at far end of the hall drew Gavyn’s attention away from both defences and his constable. He’d made no mention of Magnus’ limp. Time enough for that; the day would come when Magnus felt sure enough of his new Chieftain to tell him of his own accord.

Gavyn was well aware his mercenaries were feeling exuberant. Who could blame them for feeling their oats—certainly not Gavyn Farquhar. Witness his own recent moment of practically throwing caution to the wind. His men had been at war most of their lives, just as he had.

However, on the morrow he would have a canny word with his men about taking care not to upset the local lasses and, more importantly, any clansmen who had a claim on them. Many a lass’s eyes would light up at the notion of a man with a heavy purse. They didn’t have the slightest notion that there was more to his mercenaries than riches, and that went for him as well. Aye, there were days when it appeared all the wealth in the world was theirs, just sitting there for the taking. At the heart of matter, what remained was the sheer daily grind of commanding more than fifty mercenaries whose greatest enjoyment was fighting. Upon occasion, the blood they spilled came from the same warriors they had stood shoulder-to-shoulder with in the shield wall—a change in personality that always amazed him.

Some days, yon great vicious brutes of dogs that he’d brought back from France seemed more easily controlled; on other days, Gavyn thanked God for staunch and reliable lieutenants and their willingness to keep his warriors in check. That iron grip on his mercenaries extended to having his lieutenants make certain that only the most trusted of them helped shift the silver in the bullock carts that allowed them to know the exact location of the fortune they had brought to Dun Bhuird.

For a moment, his head buzzed as if invaded by a swarm of bees as he came to imagining the effort of fairly dividing the spoils. Some of the mercenaries who actually had families would leave, taking their share of the plunder with them.

That suited Gavyn.

Others would choose to remain at Dun Bhuird. Yon were the men he would need to watch until they managed to settle any grievances with the clansfolk and, if they were fortunate, make a marriage and have children. That kind of result could take years to achieve and would ultimately depend on how many women weren’t already taken. In the main, any trouble would begin with lasses willing to abandon their partners for a man with more silver.

Betwixt that thought and the next, his problems shifted from the far end of the great hall to the high table.

Magnus’s elbow dug into Gavyn as they both swivelled at the sound of a curse spewing out of his nephew’s mouth. He watched as Rob leapt to his feet, barging his muscular thighs into the table while wee Nhaimeth held his arm to pull him down.

Rob was a big lad. Some said he was the McArthur’s spit, but Gavyn recognised a streak of wildness that came from the Farquhar line when Rob gave the wolf free rein, as he did now. Few here would realise that his nephew’s great size didn’t equal wisdom, not with Rob’s blood running especially hot with the fires of impending manhood.

Just as Gavyn made to leave his chair, Magnus gripped his forearm, firm like a warning, “Leave your nephew to me,” he said as if emphasising the relationship with Rob. “I’ll discover what is amiss with the lads and come back to ye.” So Gavyn allowed him; he was the constable after all and only doing his job.

Rob looked sulky. Eyes narrowed and mouth stubborn, he shook his head at Magnus. Sensing disrespect, Gavyn growled, “Enough! Come here, Rob, and you as well, Nhaimeth.”

They strode along smartly to the centre of the high board and stopped level with Gavyn. Magnus reached past the lads and pulled his chair back out of the way. The lads’ journey ended in the space left by the constable’s chair.

Gavyn looked at Nhaimeth, at the stain on his sleeve. “I won’t have the pair of ye cursing and shouting at the high-board. Tell me of yer disagreement.”

Nhaimeth spoke up, “There is naught amiss betwixt us, Laird.”

“And that’s the truth, Gavyn. The recklessness of my outburst was not caused by Nhaimeth.” Rob glowered. “It’s that scoundrel sitting at the board below us. He’s the one who tried to kill the McArthur in our own Bailey. My father was given to understand he had been banished by Comlyn as part of the agreement when Alexander came to Cragenlaw and began his training with both me and Jamie Ruthven.’

Unaware of the story, Gavyn looked to Magnus, who explained, “That is the truth, sure enough. The man Rob means is Harald Comlyn, a second cousin of Kathryn’s. But that was a few years ago now. The daft bugger took it into his head that he’d been in love with Astrid, and of course he blamed Euan McArthur for her death. To avoid trouble, the McArthur had banned the wearing of weapons inside Cragenlaw for everyone in Comlyn’s party. The Bear was the only exception. It was his daughter they were burying. Harald, however, nipped into the guardhouse and stole a sword behind their backs. That’s what he used to gang after the McArthur Chieftain. If ye want my opinion, yon is when everything turned to shite. The Bear was not a man to back down, but under the circumstances, he had nae choice. He’d always fancied a connection with the McArthurs. I ken he offered Kathryn’s hand to Euan McArthur, but he turned him down. And who could blame him?”

He saw Rob blink and lift his brows, obviously the offering of Kathryn as a bride to his father was news to him, but the lad was more concerned about his part in preventing Euan’s death. “Aye,” he agreed, “though my father and Erik Comlyn weren’t what you’d call best friends, one of the Bear’s men sneaking up on him with a sword had them both snarling like dogs on a midden. I was in the stables when that scoundrel snuck up real sleekit-like behind the McArthur’s back as he walked back to the Keep in the dark.”

Rob stopped mid-story to take a breath, a reminder to Gavyn of the lad’s true age. He was excited now as he continued, “When I saw what the de’il was up to, I picked up a shovel and dealt to him. It was a guid shovel and hindered his plans so to speak.”

Magnus filled in the rest, “Afterwards, the Bear was as good as his word and banished Harald, but Kathryn let him return while you were away in France.”

Gavyn nodded. No point in acting prematurely—not with a great hall filled with mercenaries who loved nothing better than a good scrap and would be easily set off. “My thanks, Magnus, for telling me the circumstances surrounding the incident. As for you lads, pull yer horns in and leave the matter in my hands; otherwise it’s back to Cragenlaw for the pair of ye. I’ll soon discover the truth of this affair. However, it’s just one wee matter on a list of things I have to deal with, so be patient.”

Brodwyn hadn’t been relegated to a seat in the hall beside all the riffraff. However, she wasn’t best pleased with the inane conversation of Jamie Ruthven. For all he was tall and well dressed, he was na?ve and bland. Aye, bland was the word. Life was nothing but dull and dreary without a pinch of something to add excitement.

He reminded her of Alexander. The colouring was different for sure, but he had that well looked after appearance, as if his mothers and sisters had coutered him most of his life. He had none of the roughness that had quickened her blood when she first saw Gavyn. Now there was a man. She almost envied Kathryn, though her cousin would have no notion how to make use of him for her own pleasure.

Jamie was leaning forward, interested—as was she—in the new laird’s conversation with Magnus and his nephew. As for Nhaimeth, Astrid had had the right of it where he was concerned: being a Fool was all he was suited for.

Jamie sat back on his stool, his Breacan-an-feile dipping between his spread knees, his eyes following Lhilidh, who had but that moment returned to stand behind Kathryn’s chair. Aye, the lad was well interested in Kathryn’s wee maid, another na?ve nobody who probably had around about Jamie’s level of sexual experience—none.

She pitied them.

However, she could tell Jamie wanted the lass, see the heat rise up the back of his neck as he watched Lhilidh’s face, smell a hint of male musk. It was a wonder the worsted covering his knees hadn’t formed a wee tent.

Brodwyn wondered what he would do if she were to slip a hand under his Breacan-an-feile and check out his cock for herself. Wondered if it matched the size of the hands that held his knife.

Lhilidh bent o’er Kathryn’s chair to listen to her mistress, and Jamie swivelled on his stool, following her every movement.

Young love . Brodwyn’s lip curled, they’d soon discover there was little satisfaction to be found there. She could show Jamie better. It might actually be interesting, leading him astray. Aye, there were many ways to find pleasure, and she knew them all.