“And I come down from the North coast,” Lyall said vaguely, since the isle was to the north and had plenty of coastline.
“I am Heckie, the corn farmer,” the man said, and with a sudden burst of words he began to talk about his farm and wife and the wain’s load, the mill and a bad tooth. Lyall stared at thechattering little man whose face was slightly swollen on one side and listened with half an ear until Heckie the corn farmer said, “The laddie and his dog.”
Lyall did not move for a long moment, but then his hand was inside his purse. “A laddie and his dog?”
“Aye. Gordon of Suddy the lad was.”
Gordon? Lyall almost laughed out loud at the irony: she sends him on a false trail three times in the woods and then uses her foster family’s name. He laughed to himself instead. Luck was his, this day, perched upon his shoulder like a falcon.
“And that hound…What was its name?” the corn farmer said absently. “Drunk as a wounded mercenary, the hairy beast was.” The man frowned slightly. “Fergus! That was it. A sweet laddie, that Gordon and his droopy-eyed hound named Fergus.”
Sweet laddie, my arse.
When the man took an odd, whistling breath, Lyall leaned forward slowly, forearms on the table, setting some coins between them where they caught the candlelight and gleamed bright silver.
“This could be a day of fine luck for both of us, Heckie of Drumashie,” he said easily pushing the coin closer to the man. “I am on the trail of some important information….”
Ramsey pacedin his private chamber, hands locked behind him and dictating a message to his scribe, when three small children came running across the stone floor shrieking, “Greatpapa! Greatpapa!” and they were suddenly shimmying up him like the odd, agile monkeys he once saw in London. As those small hands and feet frantically covered him, his mood lightened and his precise and careful choice of words written to the earl of Sutherland were quickly forgotten.
“We will finish later,” he told his scribe, who quickly gathered his precious writing tools close to his chest. All knew Mairi’syoung and curious children had free reign at Rossi to destroy whatever they could, at their whim, and the scribe rushed the room as if his hair were on fire.
Ramsey pulled Duncan and Gregor into his broad arms and Robbie, the eldest, was already hanging from his back.
“Be the bear, Greatpapa!”
So he growled and carried on, juggling his grandchildren, step grandchildren if one wanted to be accurate, as he prowled the inner chamber like a dancing bear and nothing near to an infamous warrior or a baron. He was at that moment merely ‘Greatpapa,’ a name Robbie had come up with mixing up great and grand, and despite all Mairi’s scolding, nothing could change Robbie’s name for him. Secretly Ramsey cared not what the lads called him and thought his grandson’s stubbornness was a good trait, and at one point, he taught Duncan to call himtheGreatpapa, which, when Mairi caught him in the act, earned him a weak scolding from his laughing stepdaughter.
For Ramsey, the sound of children’s voices echoing off the stone walls of his castle gave him great joy, and was something he had longed for. All his wealth and power could not give him sons and daughters. No babes had grown from the wombs of either of his wives. He had his two stepchildren--though he could not wait to get his hands on one of them—and he had Mairi’s sons.
By the time he and the lads were all tumbling upon the thick carpet he had brought back from his youthful journey to the Holy Land, Beitris and Mairi came inside arm in arm and stood watching and shaking their heads, ready as usual to put a halt to their antics.
“Come along you,” Mairi said as she began pulling children off of him. “Leave Greatpapa be.”
Robbie puffed himself up, “I am the great knight Sir Robert of Glamis!” He held up a mock sword. “I shall save all from the mad bear!” He kissed the imaginary sword and acted out jabbing it into Ramsey, who rolled and groaned and moaned, flopped and twitched like he was dying, then flung his arms outwards and layperfectly still on the carpet, while Robbie rested his small foot on his chest and bowed victorious to all.
“Enough foolishness,” Mairi said, but her voice held no censure. “Come. Cook has warm honeycakes waiting for you.”
The children froze and looked down at him as if to judge which was more desirable, Greatpapa or sweets. “Go on with you,” he said, winking. “But save me the heftiest honeycake.”
The women gathered up the bouncing children, who were now arguing over which would choose first, and sent them off with two capable nursemaids, so Ramsey leapt up easily and ran a hand through his tousled dark hair which was just beginning to show the steely edges of some gray, and he grinned sheepishly at his wife, then turned to his stepdaughter. “Come and give an old man a proper greeting.”
“What old man? I do not see an old man,” Mairi said and nestled into the crook of his arm, hugging him.
“Two score and five this coming year,” he declared. Spoken aloud, the number sounded old to his ears. He slipped his arm tighter around her and he thought perhaps she had finally began to put some meat back on her willow-thin bones.
“You are so good for them,” she said quietly, her cheek to his chest and her voice thick with emotion.
Widowed just over a year ago, Mairi still looked wan and lost without Robert Gray. Her husband died in a shipwreck off the coast of Ireland while there as an emissary for his maternal uncle, the earl of Pembroke. Ramsey knew she would need another husband to protect Grey lands for his grandsons, and while many believed he should marry her off to another quickly, Ramsey wanted Mairi to be content. She, like Beitris, had had enough pain. For now, he held guardianship over her and the lads and provided their protection, because he knew his strong-willed stepdaughter could not yet face another marriage.
Beitris handed him a large goblet of wine and turned slightly away…taking another small piece of his heart as she did so. “Sit,” he released Mairi and took a drink of dark wine that suddenly held little flavor. He sat down heavily in a chair, his long legs out in front of him.
“Tell me what was so urgent to send guards to escort us here immediately,” Mairi said.
Mairi and Lyall were close as a brother and sister could be.
Beitris stood next to him, her good side to him, her unscarred hand resting gently on his shoulder. She understood how difficult this was for him. If only she understood what she meant to him.
He took another drink and set down his goblet, talked to Mairi about the importance and secrecy of what he was about to tell her…and he told her what Lyall had done.
