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He opened his mouth.

The door at the foot of the stairs crashed back against the wall.

Dougie came through it, or most of him did. The old guard caught himself on the frame with one hand. Blood was running from a gash above his ear, down through the grey of his beard and onto his plaid, and he was breathing like a bellows.

“My laird,” he said. “The village. They’ve set the village on fire.”

Alasdair was down the stairs before the man had finished. He took Dougie by the shoulders and held him up.

“Who?” he said.

“No colours, my laird.” Dougie spat blood onto the rushes. “No plaid, no badge. Same as at the ford. They came out of the trees on horses and went through the houses with torches, and they were away again before we could get a blade near them.”

Behind Alasdair, on the stairs, Iona made a sound in her throat. He did not turn around.

“Gavin!” he roared down the passage. “Horses! Every man that can ride!”

The keep woke under him. Doors banged. Somebody was running in the yard.

He looked back at last. She stood halfway down the stairs in his mother’s wedding gown, one hand pressed flat against the wall, her face as white as the silver thread at her throat. She was looking at him, and he knew what she was asking, because he was asking it too.

He left her there with the question in her face, and went to find out who was burning his village.

12

Iona had never dreaded the end of a road so much in her life, and she would have died before she let Alasdair MacVey see it.

She had torn his mother’s silk off with fingers that would barely work the laces, dragged her brown wool back over her head and run. The yard was a roar of men and horses when she reached it. Her mare stood saddled by the wall, because she had stood over the lad in the stable until he did it.

Alasdair came out of the hall buckling on his sword, and saw her up on the mare, and stopped.

“Get down,” he said.

“I willnae,” Iona said.

“It’s no’ a fair, lass. There’ll be folk lying in the road.”

“Then they’ll want somebody who can bind a wound.” She gathered the reins short. “Ye stood in this yard and told yer people I was their Lady. Leave me here and I’ll follow ye anyway, and ye can explain to them why their Lady rode out alone.”

His jaw went hard under the scar. For a moment she thought he would order the gate shut in her face. Then he swung up into the saddle.

“Keep by me,” he said. “If I tell ye to go, ye go.”

“If ye tell me why,” Iona said.

“I’ll tell ye at home, if we both get there,” Alasdair said, and drove his horse at the gate, and she kicked the mare after him.

They smelled it long before they saw it. Smoke lay along the road and got into her throat. Then the track came over a rise above the loch, and the village was below them.

Most of the roofs were gone. Where the thatch had been there were only black ribs of timber, still smoking, and walls scorched dark to the lintel. Women carried water up from the shore in anything that would hold it, and children sat in the mud, too frightened to cry.

Iona’s stomach turned over. Her hands went cold on the reins.

Not him, she prayed, with all her heart. Please God, let this not be my father’s doing.

Alasdair was already off his horse and shouting. “Gavin! Get the men down to the shore, every bucket and pot ye can find. Pull that thatch down before the wind carries it to the byres!” He swung around to her. “Ye wanted wounds, lass. There’s wounds. Stay where I can see ye.”

She was off the mare before he had finished.