Chapter 1
Bloody Meat
DICKSON KEEP
In Robert Murray’s opinion, the food was thoroughly undercooked. Bloody meat sat heavily on wide, chipped serving platters, red juice spilling over the lip of the platter onto the wooden tabletop, glistening unappetizingly.
Still, it would be a mistake not to eat any. Their host preferred his meat bloody, after all, and it was polite to eat what he’d put before them. Sucking in a breath, Robert leaned forward, knife at the ready, and hacked off a chunk of meat. Itsplatteredonto his bread trencher, looking almost entirely raw. Maybe it was entirely raw.
This was, after all, one of Laird Dickson’s feasts, and it wouldn’t be unusual of him to try and sicken his guests by doing something like serving raw meat. Once, to make a point, he’d forced a misbehaving minor laird to eat an entire bowl of moldy fruit.
Robert was not going to be a misbehaving minor laird. He’d learned from the mistakes of others and weighed each step and word with great care.
The back of his neck prickled, and he glanced up almost without thinking.
Laird Dickson sat at the head of the table, only a few places away. He was watching Robert. A shockingly small man for the amount of power he wielded, Laird Dickson was slim and neat, with pale gray eyes, a high forehead, and a pointed brown beard. Without his Dickson tartan and his troupe of guards, he might have been a very ordinary sort of man. A fisherman, perhaps, or a farmer.
Nay, not a farmer,Robert thought, suppressing a shudder.This man could never be the sort to till the land. He’d be a butcher.
“Not eating, Rob?” Laird Dickson inquired.
As always, a hush fell over the table when their host spoke. A few of the other minor lairds eyed Robert anxiously. They had been ushered in at the last moment to fill the places left by lairds who were dead and whose heirs had turned on Laird Dickson; Grahame and Kenneth, for example.
Robert cleared his throat. “Och, aye, M’Laird. Very hungry.”
To make a point, he sawed off a chunk of the bloody meat and popped it into his mouth before he could let himself think twice.
It wascold. Cold and raw, and the texture made Robert want to gag.
But Laird Dickson was watching him, so he chewed dutifully until it was time to swallow, and then he did that, too.
“Delicious,” Robert managed.
Laird Dickson gave a roar of laughter, bringing down his fist onto the table with athunk,makingthe dishes rattle. Robert flinched, and he wasn’t the only one.
“Wonderful, Rob, wonderful!” Laird Dickson laughed, shaking his head. “I imagine that ye like yer meat stewed or roasted, like a woman would, eh?”
Aye,Robert thought miserably.I do.
Aloud, he only laughed and raised a foaming glass of ale in a toast to the Laird’s health. They all dutifully drank, except for the Laird himself.
“And to my son,” Laird Dickson said, when silence had fallen. The silence became uneasy, and all of his guests exchanged worried looks.
Is he going mad?Robert thought.Has he forgotten?
“To my son,” Laird Dickson repeated, “to my traitorous spawn who murdered my captain and sided with the enemy. May my son—and my wee daughter, Kyla, for that matter—join us soon, stewed and roasted to Laird Murray’s specifications.”
There was a heartbeat of silence. Even the most ardent of Laird Dickson’s supporters needed a moment to recover after hearing their leader talk about killing, cooking, and eating his children. It was a joke, wasn’t it? It must be.
Robert swallowed and drank deeply. So did the others.
So far, nobody had risked mentioning their great loss in battle. Countless Dickson men lay dead, scattered around the Highlands, routed by Grahame and Kenneth men.
And indeed, they had been routed by Laird Dickson’s own son. Struan, the Hammer of the Dicksons, had turned his tartan and joined his father’s enemies. He was even said to be sharing the bed of an Alcorn woman, a remnant of a long-dead clan. There were not many Alcorns left, but they opposed the Dicksons violently. Laird Dickson in particular.
In Robert’s opinion, the loss of Struan Dickson had driven his father to the brink of madness. What came next was anybody’s guess.
“What of yer daughter, Robert? Where is she now?” Laird Dickson asked suddenly, making him jump. “Don’t tell me that ye cannot find yer own girl.”
