“Aye, and go see to it, Blair,” Searrach cooed, and his eyes shot to her, his frown quirking despite himself at the woman’s pandering allusion to the fact that Lachlan would soon be clan chief.
Lachlan wrenched open the door and stepped out into the bright light of midday. It seemed as though the whole of the town was gathered on the green before his grandfather’s longhouse, clustered in a wary circle around a mounted rider who seemed as out of place in the fresh green Highland spring as a dagger clutched in the hand of a newborn babe.
The stranger was clad all in black, from his long, queued hair to his fine boots, nearly invisible against the flank of his equally black mount. He made no outward effort to control the beast crowded so by the obviously curious villagers, as there was no need; the man’s horse stood as still as any mountain boulder, but its head was up, alert, and Lachlan had the impression that should any from the town attempt to lay a hand upon either the horse or its master, they would be stomped into the green in a blink.
The rider carried a long sword strapped across his back for transport, but the man was certainly armed well enough without it, as even from across the green Lachlan could spy no fewer than four blades of varying lengths, as well as a bow fixed in a tidy bundle across the back of the man’s saddle. The rider’s profile looked more out of place than even his fine mount, his long, pale face with its bony prominences seeming cold and detached here in the lush, humid green.
The townsfolk turned wary, frowning faces toward Lachlan as he neared, revealing the stooped and robed figure of Archibald Blair, Lachlan’s grandfather, in their midst. Lachlan felt rather than saw the stranger’s gaze fall upon him, but he would not dignify the man’s presence with his attention as of yet.
“Is aught amiss?” Lachlan called out in an easy tone.
The old man was clearly distressed, the long, dirty-gray hair he was so proud of quivering and swaying like fluffy fleece over the shoulder of his long tunic, cut in the old fashion, his ancient shawl fastened over his concave chest.
“A stranger,” he lisped, and jerked his head toward the black-clad man. “Englishman with wont to speak before the fine.”
Lachlan stopped on the fringe of the group and at last turned up his face toward the man on the dark horse. He met the stranger’s gaze, icy-blue and without the least hint of concern for his own safety in the midst of so many wary Highlanders.
He was either an idiot or the devil himself.
“We doona gather council upon the command of foreigners,” Lachlan said.
The man raised a thin, black eyebrow in his pale face, as if amused, then dismissed Lachlan without a word, turning to look at his grandfather once more instead. “I bring news from the south that may be of great import to your clan. The fine will no doubt wish to—”
“I said,” Lachlan interrupted, his ire rising at the blatant disregard of the cool man, “we doona gather council at the command of a foreigner.”
The rider didn’t so much as glance at Lachlan as he continued. “Very well. If you give me leave to dismount, Blair, I will convey the word to you privately, and then you shall do with the information what you will. My only duty is to impart the facts as I have been given them.”
“You doona have my leave,” Archibald hissed. “Ennathin’ you have to say to me, you can do it from your sack-of-bones horse and then take yer leave from this vale, lest ’tis yer hope never to see England again. That is my grandson ye offend.”
At this, the man turned his head to Lachlan once more, his expression changed, his gaze now bright and earnest.
“You are Archibald Blair’s grandson?” he asked, looking Lachlan up and down as if he were some animal at market. “Aged approximately one score, eight? Your mother was called Edna?”
“Aye,” Lachlan said, feeling his head draw back slightly at both the accuracy of the information and the sound of his mother’s name issuing from the man’s lips; it had been so long since Lachlan had heard it spoken aloud. “I should think I know my own mother’s name. Who are you to know of her?”
But before the stranger could reply, Archibald Blair seemed to erupt with anger, raising his arm to point a crooked finger at the man. “Ye get out of here! We doona wish to hear ennathin’ from yer lyin’ English lips! Go on, then!”
This time it was Archibald Blair the rider in black dismissed as he answered Lachlan’s question. “I am Sir Lucan Montague, knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter of His Majesty King Henry of England. Your name, sir?”
“Doona say ennathin’!” Archibald shouted, holding both hands skyward now as Lachlan glanced over at him. His grandfather’s face had reddened, his yellowed eyes bulging. “You canna trust a bloody Englishman!Hah, geddout!” Archibald stepped toward Lucan Montague’s mount, as if to shy the horse from the green, but the animal stood as if made from stone.
“I am Lachlan Blair, and aye, I am the only child of my mother Edna,” Lachlan supplied calmly, his curiosity piqued despite his grandfather’s distress.
“Is your mother present in the town, Master Blair?” the knight inquired in his crisp, southern accent.
“Master Blair now, is it?” Lachlan laughed. “My mother’s been dead for a score and five. And as you’re too young to have known her, I’d be answered as to your purpose at Town Blair.”
“My condolences on your loss,” Lucan Montague said with a slight bow in his saddle. “It is true that I claim no acquaintance with your mother; it is on your father’s behalf that I travel.”
“Tommy?” a townsman hidden within the crowd called out hesitantly, a faint reverence in the word that straightened Lachlan’s spine. And yet he still found himself scanning the sea of faces for sight of Marcas or Dand as the gathered folk leaned their heads together, their murmurs rippling around the green.
“Ye get out of here now, I said!” Archibald shouted hoarsely, whipping his dagger from his belt and staggering forward so quickly that he tripped and would have fallen onto the horse had it not been for the men around him, catching the chief and struggling to assist him while he swung at them and cursed. “He canna be trusted! He canna be—” His words wheezed to a halt as Lachlan’s grandfather clutched at his chest and closed his eyes, sagging within the grips of the two braw townsmen who supported him.
One of the men, Lachlan’s friend Cordon Blair, met his eyes with a look of concern. Archibald’s health had been failing for months, and the curious disquiet this English stranger was causing was a clear threat to the Blair chief.
“If by ‘Tommy’ you refer to Thomas Annesley,” Lucan Montague called out over the din, “then yes; your father, Tommy.”
Lachlan looked back up into the calm face of the stranger, who seemed not at all bothered by Archibald Blair’s distress. “Perhaps you’d best say what you mean outright, Montague. You’ve caused my grandfather a great upset and I do find myself agreeing with his measure of your honesty: You are too young to have known my father either, for he, too, died many years ago. Before I was even born.”
