Chapter 5
Brodric lounged at the small table in Angus’s croft, cup of ale in hand. “Ye dinna need to reward Colin’s men,” he said, continuing the discussion Angus had begun with him over an hour before.
Angus paced. He’d wanted to think through his plans for dealing with the malcontents in the clan. Brodric was the best man he knew for talking an idea to death, which was exactly what he needed, to be ready for when the Council announced his election later today.
“They’ve done little of the work up to now,” Brodric continued. “Why make them a hunting party? They’ll just keep doing what they’ve no’ been doing, only out of yer sight. If I were ye, I’d put them to work for the stone mason. Let them make up for lost time.”
“Thomas wouldna appreciate the kind of help he’d get from that lot.” Nor would anyone else when a wall or the roof fell in on them.
“So ye’ll arm them with arrows they can shoot at ye from the trees…”
Angus paused and shook his head. “They’re no’ going to do that.”
“Why no’?”
“Because I didna drop that tree on Colin. They may no’ like the Council’s decision, but one of their own agreed to it, so they canna complain.”
“Och, aye, they can and they will.”
“Hence my wish to get them away from the rest of the clan. Let them hunt. If they come back empty-handed,thenI’ll put them to work for the stone mason.”
Brodric laughed and lifted his cup in silent agreement. “Now that’s settled, there’s something else bothering ye, aye?”
Angus frowned. “What do ye mean?”
“If I didna ken ye so well, I might no’ have noticed how ye watch the lass, Shona. I’d say ye want her, but there’s something holding ye back. Is it her uncle, Seamus?”
Angus gave a mirthless chuckle and settled across the table from Brodric. “Nay. ’Tis a notion Colin planted in my head before he died—or in Shona’s actually, and she related it to me—about the chief needing to marry to ally with another clan.”
Brodric scoffed. “We’ve got the Lathans and Iain MacIntosh. And Toran Lathan’s treaty. How many more allies do ye think we need?” He set his cup aside and leaned forward. “Now, if there were a lass in another clan who’d caught yer eye…but nay, ye’ve been carrying the weight of MacAnalen on yer back for months and havena been out of the glen, except to hunt.” He leaned back and picked up his cup again, a thoughtful frown on his face. “Come to think of it, neither have I…”
“There’s more on my mind than a lass,” Angus continued, suddenly needing to unburden himself of his suspicious, “and this may sound daft—”
“’Twould no’ be the first time.”
“I’m no’…”
Brodric waited a beat. “Spit it out, lad.”
“I think Shona may be like Aileana. No’ a healer. Something else. I canna be sure, and I dinna like the idea, but—”
“Ah, I hear our own healer, Craig, coming out of yer mouth,” Brodric grumbled and stood, then paced to the fire.
Angus watched him with some trepidation. He’d spent months nursing this sense of having been wronged, and he knew Brodric was of a very different mind where the healer was concerned.
“Ye ken I have first-hand knowledge what the Lathan lass can do. Craig is a fool, and I canna believe ye have let him sway yer thinking.”
“I dinna doubt ye wanted Aileana to have cured yer injury—”
“Which she did.”
“But she didna save the MacAnalen.”
Brodric turned to face him. “Is that what’s been chewing at ye all these months? Ye ken how we found him. Where he lay, near drowned in the loch. Craig couldna save him. ’Tis why ye made that dangerous ride to the Aerie, and why the Lathans risked the lass—for ye. For us. For, I’ve nay doubt, the damned Lathan treaty. ’Tis no’ the healer’s fault she couldna save yer brother. He was more dead than alive and had been for days.”
Angus lifted his hands, palm up. “If she could heal ye…”
“I wasna near to done for. And as for our lass, if there’s something Shona can do, well, she’s a different person. Ye must let her be herself, no’ judge her by what someone else did or didna do.”
