“Skirts,” Munro said, shaking his head as Cathal released Alice. “Nothing for it but practice, I suppose.”
“I don’t think I can pass as a boy,” Alice said, sighing, “so you’re right. I’ll see if I can’t get the motion down, at any rate. Sophia, you try.”
With Alice, Cathal had only hesitated to gauge his strength; she might have been one of his younger men. When Sophia stood before him, her face sober with concentration, his hands at once felt larger than usual and less a part of him. He took her by the shoulders and felt desire flare up at once, quick and consuming.
For a second her eyes widened, darkened, and he knew she felt it too.
Then she brought her fist around and up, and hit him squarely in the nose.
It wasn’t a strong blow. Sophia dropped her hand back to her side no more than a breath after the contact. “Oh!” she said, dismayed, but with a hint of pride underneath it. “Oh, I didn’t think that wouldwork. I’m sorry.”
“No. No, don’t be.” Cathal blinked quickly, shaking his head to clear it. “That was the point.”
“Don’t worry about Sir Cathal, mistress,” said Munro, chuckling. “Might sting a bit for him, but you can damage the castle as easily as you can truly hurt him. That’s why he’s out here with us… Aye, sir?”
“You have the right of it, man.”
He’d also wanted to be around Sophia. Not wise, that, but he was going to go off and perhaps die in a few days, so he would give himself that indulgence. He’d also wanted to be useful—and truth to tell, he’d longed for a task.
They waited on the weather because a cloudy night would give Cathal the necessary cover. Naturally, the skies had been fair, and while Douglas settled into the running of Loch Arach, Cathal had found himself with time on his hands.
By God, it was nothing to complain about, being free of the duties under which he’d chafed for months. He wouldn’t have taken them back again if Douglas had offered. It was only that he’d been used to activity. Now there was waiting, and then the journey, and then—if they were fortunate—Fergus’s recovery.
And then?
Once he’d had a ready answer to that question. Only, looking back on the last few years of his wandering life, Cathal was no longer sure that was the answer he wanted—battles for causes he didn’t believe in for a succession of lords who would come and go like clouds crossing the sun. That path had satisfied him once. Had the war not come to Scotland, would it have done so indefinitely?
He knew not.
“Now,” Munro said, “we’ll get to knife play shortly, but remember that a weapon can be taken from you. Your feet and hands, well…” He glanced at Cathal and made a face, as both of them remembered Valerius. “Theycanbe taken, but it’s a sight harder. And you’ll see how even that little tap made a man like Sir Cathal go cross-eyed. Speaking of eyes…if you’ll come over here, sir? It’s hard to explain this next one without demonstrating.”
“Don’t get carried away,” Cathal said. “I’ve only the pair, you know.”
The ladies both laughed, as Cathal had intended. If he didn’t survive the next few days, his last memories might as well be of Sophia, eyes shining with mirth. If he did survive, he’d want those memories too—wherever he ended up going.
He’d been a warrior for most of his life. Blood was the price of every battle; he didn’t seek death, but neither did he fear it. Perhaps that was why the second possibility lay as heavily on his heart as the first did.
* * *
This time, things went awry without the help of demons or dreams, and Cathal had no suspicion of a problem besides the ones he’d already known himself to have.
He sat with Douglas in the solar, drinking ale and planning as best they could: lists of provisions for him and for Alice, likely times and sources of cover, how long he should wait concealed before taking action, and what kind of action that should be. Douglas had voiced his opinion in favor of abandoning the quest and returning to Loch Arach—and had done so in such a way as to make it seem the only sensible option.
“And leave the girl to Valerius?” Cathal snorted and shook his head. “Don’t be an ass—”
“Then don’t be sentimental. You know how such matters work. You’ve left men behind before, I don’t doubt.”
“Men. Soldiers who took pay. Not women who volunteered to help us and couldn’t win a fight against a kitchen boy with a meat knife. And I left them to other men, not creatures like Valerius.Andthose were fights I knew I’d never a chance of winning.”
“You’ve no great chance of winning this one,” Douglas pointed out. “You can’t even kill the man, remember?”
“I could take him prisoner. After that…” Cathal shrugged. He didn’t like torture, didn’t think it did much in most cases, but if he could bring Valerius into a room and cut bits off until Fergus came back all the way and Sophia was out of danger, he’d live with the memories.
Douglas shook his head. “And if I were him, I’d have safeguards for just that moment. Spells to call demons down on all of us, mayhap, or throw Fergus’s soul out into the pit. ’Tis much easier to cast the deadlier ones when you’re standing in front of your target. That’s assuming you can even reach the man, much less capture him, mind you. You’venotthought this through.”
The dragon-blooded had few children and spread them apart a fair way in time. At Cathal’s birth, Douglas had been a man full grown and more. He showed his maturity, as neither Moiread nor Agnes would have, by not addingof courseout loud, but Cathal heard it nonetheless.
“I’ll have you know…” he began, standing up from the table, and then he heard the footsteps running up the stairs.
