Highland Master (17 page)

“I do, aye. I’ve heard he has a fiendish temper. I have also heard that we are to be his hosts for some time longer.”

“If you expect me to tell you how long, I cannot oblige you,” Fin said with a smile. “He rarely shares his exact intentions.”

They talked desultorily until the Mackintosh indicated that the meal was over and suggested that Rothesay and Shaw join him in the inner chamber.

When Shaw gestured for James to go with them, Ivor said in an undertone to Fin, “Don’t you dare go anywhere until we have talked, my lad.”

“I was just going to say the same to you, albeit more courteously,” Fin said with a rueful smile. “I am, after all, enjoying your family’s hospitality.”

“If that was meant as a comment on my manners, we can go out to the yard to discuss which of us has got better ones,” Ivor retorted with a glint in his eyes.

“Hawk, I have already deduced where your sister got her temper,” Fin said. “You needn’t remind me.”

“Just what did you do to learn that she
has
a temper?” Ivor demanded.

“Nowt to raise a brother’s hackles, as you who know me better than anyone should know,” Fin replied calmly.

“I may have known you once,
Lion.
But I did not know your true name even then. And, for all I know now, events may have altered you beyond my ken.”

“I could say the same of you,” Fin said, glancing around to be sure that no one else had wandered near enough to hear what they said. In a lower tone, he added, “Would it not be better to talk in the yard or elsewhere?”

“We’ll go to my chamber,” Ivor said. “ ’Tis nobbut a hole in the wall. I shared a larger one with James before he married and that option vanished.”

“I should hope so,” Fin said, grinning. “Lead the way then.”

Despite Catriona’s relief that the meal had ended, she was annoyed to find herself relegated to the company of women and more so to see Ivor bear Fin off and up the stairs without as much as a word from either one of them to her.

She saw that Morag was just as peeved when James followed their father into the inner chamber but found no solace in that.

Although Catriona wanted to know what Rothesay sought from her kinsmen, she cared more about what Fin and Ivor were saying. Both having agreed to explain their relationship, she had hoped that they would do so together.

“I’m going to bed,” Morag stated to all generally. “If you see James, prithee be so kind as to tell him that I shall be eager to welcome him when he comes to me.”

Catriona nodded but had no intention of waiting for James to reappear.

Believing that Fin would seek her out later if Ivor did not, she tried to think how she could avoid spending the time until then stitching or tatting in the ladies’ solar with her mother and grandmother.

Should that be her fate, she knew that with so many more men at the castle, the older women would insist that she go to bed when they did.

Her excuse to evade that had to be plausible, though, and she dared not lie to them. It would be unwise, for example, to say that she was going to bed if she meant to slip out the postern door to gaze at stars as she frequently did. Not that doing so would be wise in any event that
night. Her father had brought enough men with him to fill two lower-hall trestles at supper, and many would sleep in the yard.

After months of feeling nearly empty, the castle now felt full to overflowing.

Hawk was right. His chamber was too small, and it felt even smaller when he turned toward Fin after lighting a number of candles.

He still held the taper that he had taken from a box at the foot of the stairway and lit from a cresset in one of its niches. Extinguishing the taper now, he looked long and thoughtfully at Fin, and sternly, as if Fin were an errant squire.

Fin met the look silently until Hawk grabbed his shoulders and squeezed them hard, saying, “It is
good
to see you, Lion. I cannot describe how I felt when I saw the river Tay swallow you and sweep you off toward the sea. When you went under…”

He turned away and fiddled with the nearest candle as if it had sputtered.

Fin knew that it had not. “I let the current carry me for a time, lest someone pick up a bow and finish me off.”

“Sakes, you don’t think—!”

“Nay, nay, although you
are
the only man I know who could have made such a shot.” A sudden memory of Catriona, boasting, made him chuckle.

“What’s so funny?”

“Your sister told me that her brother Ivor was the finest archer in all Scotland, and I informed her stoutly that I knew a better one. Mayhap I should have suspected the
truth then. After all, you were fighting with Clan Chattan against us.”

“I was, aye. But I don’t believe that either of us was thinking much by the end of that battle. A dreadful affair it was.”

“Aye, and all Albany’s doing, according to Rothesay,” Fin told him.

“Father suspected that from the outset, for all that his grace the King issued the command to trial by combat. Albany does not like us here in the north, especially Clan Chattan. We were allies of the last Lord of the North, after all. And we have refused to let Albany’s worthless son succeed him in place of his own son.”

“ ’Tis true, aye. No one in the north could want Murdoch Stewart to take Alex’s place at Lochindorb. By all accounts, Alex is a better man
and
warrior.”

“Donald of the Isles might prefer Murdoch for being the weaker,” Ivor said. “But never mind that, Lion. Where did you go when you climbed out of the Tay?”

“Where do you think?”

“St. Andrews?”

Fin nodded.

“I see. You saw his reverence then. Did you tell him what had happened?”

“I did, aye. At present, he is the only man save yourself who can identify the coward who left the field by flinging himself into the river.”

Shooting him a grim look, Ivor said, “Did you tell him that I
told
you to go?”

“Nay, I was sure that you’d tell him yourself if you wanted him to know.”

“I thank you for that, I think. It raises another issue,
though. Sithee, I have served Alex Stewart just as you serve Rothesay, and whilst we were in the Borders, Traill sent for me. He gave me a message for Alex to go to Moigh, saying that he dared put nowt in writing for fear it would end up in the wrong hands. When we met Davy in Perth, someone had just told him that we were to meet here instead.”

“That was my man, Toby Muir,” Fin said. “Rothesay sent me to persuade your grandfather to host the meeting, and the Mackintosh wanted it held here. I also sent a message to Lochindorb in the event that Alex should return meantime.”

“Traill must be heavily involved in this then, must he not?”

“Aye, for he sent me to serve Davy two years ago,” Fin said.

A loud double rap on the door diverted them both.

When Ivor snapped, “Enter,” the door swung open to reveal Catriona with a jug and two goblets in her hand.

“Grandame thought that the two of you might like some wine,” she said, smiling mischievously. “I have carried it all the way up here to you myself, to preserve your privacy. Does not such an effort deserve proper payment?”

C
atriona watched warily as Ivor took the jug from her, trying to decide if he was angry or amused. Either mood would annoy her, but the latter one was safer.

He said, “Come in, Cat, so I can shut the door. But I warn you, you may not learn all that you want to know. Some things are not for you to hear.”

“Sakes, you of all people should know that I can keep a secret,” she said. “I’ll hold my tongue about the two of you knowing each other,” she added when he frowned. “But only if you will tell me how that came to be so.”

“I hope that is not a threat,” Ivor said, his tone sending a shiver up her spine.

“Don’t scold her, Hawk,” Fin said. “I’ve already promised to tell her what I can, but I did want to discuss things first with you.”

“Aye, well, we met at St. Andrews,” Ivor said, taking the jug from her and pulling out its stopper. As he poured wine into one of the goblets, he added, “You will recall that Granddad and Father sent me to the bishop there some years ago.”

“To study, aye,” she said, trying to remember what she
could of those days. “I was no more than a bairn when you left, being six years younger than you are.”

With the quick, unexpected smile that often surprised her after she had irked him, he held the goblet out to Fin and said, “I do know that, lass.”

“I just meant that you cannot expect me to recall much about those days. I must have been about four when you left. And although you came back each year for a visit… long enough to teach me things such as to paddle our raft and to swim… you were away much of the time until I was nearly ten. I don’t know anything about St. Andrews except that you learned to read well there.”

“We did, aye, and learned much else forbye,” Ivor said.

“Also, you did teach me my letters and numbers.”

“Bishop Traill believes in educating anyone who wants to learn, and many who do not,” Ivor said with a wry look. “He believes that if men learn the history of places beyond their ken, and about each other, they will better understand themselves and other men—other countries, too, such as England and France, come to that.”

“But if you were a student with Fin… with Sir Finlagh,” she amended hastily, “then why did you not know his name?” She glanced at Fin, but he kept silent.

“For the same reason that he did not know my name,” Ivor said. “Traill’s students study at St. Andrews by invitation. He chooses mostly younger sons of powerful nobles and clansmen, as well as other lads who show promise in their studies, or with weapons, or in other ways.”

“What other ways?”

Ivor smiled again. “One friend of ours had already gained much expertise in sailing ships and galleys when he joined us.”

“I can see how ships might help the bishop spread understanding, if that is what he was to do. But why would a man of the Kirk teach you skill with weapons?”

“Because, in our world, such skill earns respect,” Fin told her. “And when a man commands respect, others listen to him. If he doesn’t, they don’t.”

“Why younger sons, then?” To Ivor, she added quickly, “In troth, sir, I’d think that James would command respect more easily because he
will
inherit Rothiemurchus. He might even inherit the captaincy of Clan Chattan.”

“Aye, sure,” Ivor said. “But Traill prefers to teach men more likely to go into the world. Sithee, lass, although some eldest sons do achieve knighthood, all who survive long enough eventually have to tend to their estates and their people.”

“Bishop Traill told us much of this over the years,” Fin said. “He also seeks lads who are less likely than eldest sons to be thoroughly steeped in their clan’s rivalries. The reason that your brother and I did not know each other’s names is that as soon as we arrived at St. Andrews, we received our student names—”

“Hawk and Lion,” she said, remembering that Ivor had called him Lion.

“Aye,” Fin said. “And the others had similar ones. We had to swear by our honor not to seek information about other students, their clans, or their homes. Our world whilst we lived at St. Andrews had to
be
St. Andrews, because we came from all over Scotland and his reverence did not want clan war to erupt at the castle.”