Chapter Thirteen
A MacKenzie, you say?”
Ronan stood in the middle of his grandfather’s privy quarters, his hands fisted against his hips, and trying very hard to
keep the annoyance out of his voice.
But it wasn’t easy.
Someone — a Holder, saints preserve them — had guised himself as a MacKenzie for the sole purpose of confusing an old man. And if he could get
his hands on the dastard, he’d gladly spend his last breath to make certain he ne’er tried the like again.
Ever.
“Aye, I said he was a MacKenzie.” His grandfather remained stubborn. Oblivious to the truth. “Did you no’ hear me the first
time?”
Ronan pulled a hand down over his chin, seeking words that wouldn’t alarm.
“Every last one of the Black Stag’s men departed with him,” he finally reminded the older man. “You saw them go. I rode with
them to the end of our glen.”
“Be that as it may, one of them returned.” Valdar leaned forward in his high-backed oaken chair. “A courier, he was,” he insisted,
his furred bed-robe straining over his girth. “Sure as I’m sitting here.”
A courier from hell, Ronan almost blurted.
Instead, he choked back a snort, doing his best to disguise it as a cough.
Already the old man’s face was flushed red and glistening, while the light from a spiked candle near his chair clearly showed
tiny beads of perspiration beginning to mist his brow. Most worrisome of all, his eyes glittered dangerously and he couldn’t
seem to keep his left foot from thumping against the floor rushes.
Ronan didn’t want to think about what might happen if his grandfather knew the missive’s contents.
He could scarce stomach them himself.
A warning, Raven . . . meet me at the Tobar Ghorm on the morrow’s noontide to learn who amongst your men would betray you.
Do not be late and come alone . . . your own life and the lives of those you hold dearest hang on a thread. Ignore my summons
at greatest peril.
Dungal Tarnach
Frowning, he rolled up the parchment and thrust it beneath his belt, not bearing its blackness in his hands. He could feel
the inked poison affecting him, drying his throat and making the pain in his ribs throb and burn.
Still, he had to get to the bottom of it.
“The man was winded.” Valdar stabbed the air with a finger, making his point. “He’d ridden hard and fast by the looks of him,
said he only wished to deliver Kintail’s letter and be on his way.”
Ronan went to stand before the fire, stepping close to catch the warmth of the well-burning birch logs. “MacKenzie didn’t
send him. He had nothing at all to do with it.”
“So say you!” Valdar hooted.
“Aye, that is what I say.”
Valdar shook his head.
“Split me! Kintail wanted to surprise us, is what he did.” His beard jigged with conviction. “That’ll be the way of it, I
vow. The reason you didn’t see his man circle round and ride back here.”
Ronan folded his arms.
“I knew Kintail before you were born, know him as well as I knew your own da.” Valdar half-rose from his great carved chair,
but dropped down again almost immediately.
Almost as if his legs wouldn’t hold his great bearlike body.
“Like as not he wishes to announce a lairdly feasting at Eilean Creag,” he boomed, regardless. “Invite us all for a sennight’s
merrymaking to mark your nuptials! Or” — he hitched up his squirrel-lined robe and wriggled his brows — “perhaps he seeks
a Dare man for his other daughter, the more quiet, older one.”
Ronan said nothing.
Twice now, his grandfather had swiped an arm over his brow. And the damnable scroll — whatever its true purpose — was burning
a hole in his side.
Soon, he, too, would have sweat streaming out of his pores.
He could feel it coming.
“And you,” Valdar roared, displaying his powerful lungs to be unaffected, “you dinna even believe the man was a courier.”
He leaned forward again, his big hands gripping the chair arms. “I see the doubt all o’er you.”
Ronan glanced up at the hammer-beam ceiling and released a long, slow breath.
Then he strode across the tapestry-hung chamber and unlatched the nearest window shutters. He flung them wide despite the
night’s raw, wet wind.
“I didn’t say the man wasn’t a messenger.” He stepped back from the blast of icy air. “Only that he wasn’t a MacKenzie.”
“Pshaw!” Valdar leaped to his feet, swaying crazily before sinking into his chair again.
“Think you I dinna have eyes that can see?” He wagged his head at Ronan. “I know a MacKenzie when I see one!” he jerked, blinking
a time or two. “Tall the fellow was and built like a prize stirk, his hair as black as your own and that of the Black Stag
hisself.”
“Forget the Black Stag!”
Ronan crossed the room in three great strides. Leaning down, he braced both hands on his grandfather’s chair arms and looked
him hard in the eye.
Something ailed him, and the thought of the possible causes chilled Ronan’s blood.
“Did this courier give you aught to drink?”
Valdar bristled.
He met Ronan’s stare, belligerence all over him.
“Since when does a visitor bring his own ale to a Highland table?” he demanded, his bearded chin jutting. “Our guest received
Dare’s finest meats, libation, and entertainment — as is fitting!”
Ronan leaned closer. “Did you leave the table at any time?”
“And did you fall into the cesspit?” Valdar wrinkled his nose, waved a hand between them. “You smell worse than a barrel o’ rotten fish.”
Ronan straightened. “ ’Tis Auld Meg’s goldenrod unguent.”
“That foul goo?” The old man’s brows drew together. “I wouldn’t allow that clapper-tongued she-goat to smear her bog slime
on my big toe!”
“She didn’t.” Ronan flicked at his plaid, not about to admit that his toes were packed in the odious-reeking ointment.
“Lady Gelis did the honors.” He saw no reason to deny it. “She insisted when Auld Meg decided I might have need of her unguent.
My lady —”
“Your lady!” Valdar’s eyes lit with mirth.
He shot to his feet again, this time standing tall.
“Ho, laddie! And she dipped her fingers in that stinking rot for you?” He stared at Ronan, his mouth twitching. “Did I no’
tell you she was a fine piece o’ womanhood? I vow she has greater stones than some men!”
Ronan’s face heated.
He knew exactly what she had between her shapely thighs, and stones had naught to do with it.
Praise the saints!
And damn him for thinking of that part of her now. Already, he could feel a stir and a twitch below. Nae, it was more a sharp pulling, hot and insistent.
He frowned.
If only he hadn’t called her his lady.
The thought alone roused him, and in ways that had little to do with the heated pulsing at his loins.
It had to do with his heart, which made it all the more frightening.
“She meant well,” he began, hoping to correct the slip before his grandfather guessed the truth. “Auld Meg convinced her I’d
bruised my ribs earlier, and mayhap I did. The like happens. Lady Gelis only —”
“You’re under her spell, you are!” Valdar rocked back on his heels, all but choking on his laughter. “Ne’er did I think you’d
fall so quickly,” he roared, slapping his thigh. “You, who’d vowed to monk yourself.”
Clearly no longer troubled by whatever had plagued him, he grabbed Ronan’s sleeve and pulled him to a table near his bed.
Set with a round of plump green cheese, honey bannocks, oatcakes and butter, it also held a small pewter flagon.
Still chuckling, he snatched up the flagon and sloshed a generous measure of uisge beatha into a cup.
“Seeing as your lady has befuddled your wits tonight, I’ll tell you that this is all that ails me this e’en.” He thrust the fiery Highland spirits into Ronan’s hand. “I was in fine fettle o’er having
an unexpected guest at my hearthside and drank a wee bit more than I should have. If I’m a bit wobbly on my feet, that’s why.”
He leaned close, raising his voice above the hard drumming of rain on the shutters. “You needn’t fuss o’er me like an old
woman. The courier didn’t poison me. And even if he’d tried, I’m no bairn to be so easily cozened.”
Ronan set down the cup untouched. “I didn’t say —”
“You didna have to.” Valdar tossed back his own uisge beatha, slapping down the little cup with a loud clack. “I’ve known you since you were in swaddling. And” — he swiped the back of his hand across his mouth — “ ’twasn’t Kintail’s
man who sought to cozen me. ’Tis you!”
Ronan blinked. “Me?”
“Aye, you.” His grandfather put back his still-powerful shoulders. “Treating me like a feeble auld mannie!”
“I ne’er meant —”
“You mean to protect me, I know, but I dinna need the like.” He waved a hand when Ronan started to protest again. “Ne’er did,
if you’d hear the truth of it!”
Suddenly looking younger and more vital than he had in years, he whirled and plucked a great Norse battle-axe off the wall.
Grinning broadly, he leaped into a fighting stance and made a few grand flourishes with the axe, then slapped the thing onto
the table.
“Dinna ask how often that axe blade’s run red with the blood of our foes,” he said, not even panting. “I say you the times
were . . . numberless!”
“Ach, Grandfather.” Ronan clapped a hand on the older man’s shoulder. He hadn’t wanted to make him think he doubted his strength.
He’d feared the Holder had harmed him somehow.
Grateful that he hadn’t, Ronan sought to reassure him. “Everyone at Dare knows of your valor. I only —”
“You want to shield me, I just said!” Swatting Ronan’s hand away, he smoothed his bed-robe. “But you forget, I’m no’ faint-heart.
Think you I’d have sailed right to the edge of the Corryvreckan and plucked your lady’s father from that boiling whirlpool
if I were?”
But that was years ago.
Ronan kept the thought to himself.
Valdar’s eyes sparked as if he’d heard all the same.
“A man doesn’t lose his heart just because he might count a few gray hairs in his beard!” He thumped his chest in emphasis.
“The spirit is the same, especially a Highlandman’s spirit. We are the best of men!”
“No doubt” — Ronan looked from his grandfather’s proud, bristly face to the open window — “and there are surely few who would