Page 61

17

Iona ran for the yard with her father’s seal burning behind her eyes, and she did not know, until she saw Alasdair, whether she meant to stop him or to beg him to go.

The yard was a din of iron and horses. Men came at a run from the armoury with swords in their fists and targes, the small leather shields, slung on their backs. Lads dragged saddles out faster than the beasts could be caught. The raider still knelt on the cobbles with the spear at his back. Somebody had pulled a sack over his head.

Alasdair stood by his horse, buckling on his sword belt. His hands were quick and steady on the leather, and his face was calm. That frightened her more than any rage.

She went through the men to him. A thick-necked man with a targe on his arm saw her coming and did not step aside, and as she passed he spat on the cobbles at her heel.

“Dunmore’s get,” he said.

Alasdair dropped the belt. He was across the cobbles before it hit the ground, and he had the man by the front of his plaid and back against the stable door so hard that the bar jumped in its brackets.

“Her father is mine to settle,” Alasdair said into his face. “No’ yours. Spit at my wife again and ye’ll walk to Dunmore behind my horse, on a rope.”

The man’s eyes went to the sack on the raider’s head and back again. “Aye, my laird,” he muttered.

Alasdair let him go. He turned, and found Iona in front of him.

For a breath neither of them spoke. Her heart pounded. His face was still the stranger’s face from the garden, shut and cold.

“Go in, Iona,” he said.

“Let me go to him first,” she said.

He bent for the belt and picked it up.

“Alasdair. Let me go to him.” She caught the loose end of the leather, and he stopped with it half through the buckle. “He’ll open his gate to me. He’ll never open it to you. Let me stand in his hall with that seal in my hand and make him tell me to my face what he’s done. Let me bring him out to the King’s man, so it’s done by law and no’ by your sword.”

“By law.” He pulled the belt out of her fingers and buckled it. “He sat down under a peace and broke bread with my father. That was law too.”

“He’s my father,” Iona said.

“He put archers in the rocks over the road to my keep,” Alasdair said. “He kent ye were on my horse, lass. He kent it, and he let them shoot. And ye’d have me send ye up to his door with a paper in yer hand, and stand in the heather and hope?”

The words struck her low and cold. She had thought the same thing herself among the windfalls, and it was worse in his voice. Her knees wanted to give. She locked them.

“Send me,” she said, “and see what he does.”

“I’ve seen what he does.” He put his face close to hers. “Find me one way to keep ye safe at Torquil Dunmore’s gate, and I’ll take ye there myself. Go on. Find it.”

She could not. Her mouth opened on nothing. He watched her fail, and he did not look away, and he did not soften.

“Ye dinnae want me safe,” she said. “Ye want him dead.”

“Aye,” Alasdair said. “I want him dead.”

“Then say it plain, and stop calling it care.” Her voice rose until the men nearest them stopped with their hands on their saddle straps. “Ye’ve done this before, MacVey. A raid in the dark, in a rage. A boy went home dead.”

A muscle jumped in his cheek.

“Yesterday ye wept on my chest for that boy,” he said, very low.

“And today ye’re riding out to make another.”

He took that like a blade. She saw it go in.

“Ye said ye’d trust me,” he said.