Page 12 of Fletcher

“That would be great,” Lark admitted. “But only if you can spare some.”

“I’ve been working with the clan’s carpenters to teach them how to turn rags and wood pulp into paper for my students. Pencils will be next once I secure a reliable supply of graphite and clay. Hey, why don’t you come with me to my schoolhouse? Then you can pick out what you’d like––not that I’m trying to lure you out of this chamber.” The laird’s wife grimaced. “Okay, I am. I just want you to see that the MacMar really are nice guys, the stronghold is an amazing place, and the island is gorgeous. And if you stay cooped up in here much longer I think our seneschal will tear out his hair.”

“Fletcher?” She straightened, but managed to keep the resentment off her face. “Why would he care what I do?”

“He worries about everyone, but he’s been interrogating every maid who comes back from your chamber. He checks all your meal trays to see how much you’re eating, and nags our cook Brochan to make special dishes to tempt your appetite.” Valerie rolled her eyes, “I’m pretty sure he’s been lurking out in the hall outside every night, too.”

Lark thought of how she’d spent every night pacing around the room until she was tired enough to try to sleep. All this time he’s been right outside my door, doing the same thing.

“I didn’t realize.” She tucked her arms around her waist to hide her hands, which were knotting into tight fists. Even when she’d heard about Lawrence and Kate she hadn’t been this angry, and she couldn’t understand why. “How nice of him to take an interest when he’s so busy.”

“Fletcher is definitely interested,” the laird’s wife assured her. “So, do you want to show our seneschal you’re perfectly fine, and check out the very first schoolhouse on this big rock while you’re at it?”

A short time later Valerie escorted Lark to the great hall, where a dozen maids were clearing empty dishes and platters from the long tables. Several guards surrounded Shaw, who stood with just a plaid slung over his sweaty, bare chest and dirty trousers and boots. His physical perfection made her wish she could see him in better-fitted clothing, because the man made male runway models look homely. He smiled and winked at Lark as soon as he saw her.

“Your chieftain is very friendly,” she mentioned to the laird’s wife.

“He’s the biggest flirt on the island.” Valerie scowled at Shaw, who grinned back. “In our time he’d be the bad boy with the Harley skipping school.”

“He certainly has the tattoos,” Lark said, eyeing the chieftain’s heavily-inked arm. “Is that a common thing in this time, too?”

The other woman’s smile vanished. “Not here. Ah, if you don’t mind, please don’t ask Shaw about the ink. It happened while he was enslaved by the Pritani, and he never likes to talk about those years.”

“Okay.” There was so much Lark didn’t know about these people that she had a very strong desire to run back to her chamber. “Where is your schoolhouse?”

“Lass, what do you here?” Fletcher came striding across the hall, taking off his tartan and wrapping it around her before she could say hello. “My lady, dinnae you ken what she wears? She shouldnae scamper about in but a shift.”

His words only just registered after she remembered not to stare at him, and she glanced down at her neat little dress. “I made it from linen, but it’s not a shift.”

“Right,” Valerie said, taking Lark’s arm. “Ah, let’s go find a gown to put over that, and then we can do the tour.”

“Why?” Lark looked at the seneschal’s narrowed eyes. He was angry with her for what she was wearing? Who did he think he was? “I’m completely covered. Nothing shows through.”

“’Tis still a shift,” Fletcher said. “You’ll drive the men mad the moment they look upon you, lass.”

“I see. Chieftain Shaw can walk around the stronghold half-naked, but I can’t wear a dress made of very comfortable linen.” Double standards always annoyed her, but he was acting as if he owned her or something. “Should I cover my hair like the maids do? How about I wear a veil over my face? Just in case my freckles drive the men crazy.”

A maid uttered a strange sound, and she threw the pitcher she was carrying into the air. The sound of it smashing onto the floor made the seneschal jerk around before he regarded Lark again.

“You neednae veil any part of yourself,” he said, his tone stiff, “but you must wear a proper bodice and skirt.”

“Why?” She took a step closer to him. “I’m not from this time. I don’t belong to your clan. I don’t even work here. You certainly want to have nothing to do with me. So why should you tell me how to dress?” Before he could reply she took off his tartan, pushed it into his hands, and turned to Valerie. “Excuse me, but I think I’ll go back to my room now.”

At midday Merrick called off the hunt, so the men could sail back to their underwater settlement in Caladh Bay before sunset. Although they could swim there in half the time, they needed to maintain their ruse of being human fishermen, especially during daylight, when their ghost boat might be spotted by a passing vessel. For the same reason they all wore uncomfortable landwalker tunics and trews over their sleek native garments, and breathed air instead of sea water.

This place had demanded much of Merrick and the Selseus in the three millennia since the first of their kind had fled their native world. Since they had nowhere else to go, they had adapted, but all of them resented the many deceptions that required. In centuries past that brooding bitterness had resulted in an attempted coup of Merrick’s sire. The subsequent upheaval had nearly torn apart the Selseus, forcing the former king to execute the ringleader and his band of conspirators to put an end to the rebellion. Yet a lad then, Merrick had stood watch with the rest of their people as his sire had staked out his own brother on the Islet of Death to die slowly and painfully. He still remembered what his uncle had shouted, defiant to the end.

All of us could become kings of this world, you witless dolt.

A long wall of impenetrable mist appeared before the ghost boat, forming the magic barrier surrounding Caladh. Above it long, thin white clouds resembled foaming waves rolling across the endless blue of the sky, which disappeared as they passed through towering walls of white protecting the island from view. Enchanted to appear like a rolling fog, the barrier also concealed high reefs, scattered islets and shoals that served as other blockades for errant vessels. Besides the Selseus, only the landwalkers on Caladh knew how to safely navigate through the barrier.

The fair day and calm waters did nothing to dispel Merrick’s abominable mood. After leading the long and unsuccessful hunt for Duxor, now missing more than a moon, returning to the settlement seemed like an unwilling surrender.

Where skulks that scheming bastart?

His petulant, self-indulgent cousin had always seemed too lazy to leave the only home he had ever known. When he’d vanished, Merrick had assumed Duxor had simply become lost or trapped somewhere. After weeks of searching, he now believed his cousin’s disappearance not only deliberate, but calculated.

“My king.” The boat’s captain, an experienced whale hunter and expert on the waters outside the barrier, held up a hide bucket. “You’ve stood dry all morn.”