Chapter 22 #2
“Elspeth,” Magnus said again, with rather more care this time. “What precisely is in the basket?”
She didn’t answer. She lifted the lid instead.
Two enormous white swans emerged with considerable enthusiasm, honking loudly, wings half spread, waddling directly toward him.
Magnus went very still.
“They’ll look beautiful on yer loch,” Elspeth said, beaming, unaware that the color had drained from his face by several full shades.
“I thought of it the moment I saw the water. It seemed a shame for it to sit empty of anythin’ so fine, and swans are meant to be terribly loyal creatures.
They mate for life, ye ken, which struck me as rather fitting for—”
“Elspeth.”
“—a handfasting gift, and I thought—”
“Elspeth.” His voice had gone tight enough that she finally stopped.
“What?”
“Naught.” His jaw worked once. “They’re fine creatures.”
One of the swans, apparently unconvinced by his assessment, extended its neck toward him and hissed, low and vicious, wings lifting slightly from its sides.
Magnus took a step back.
“Magnus?” Elspeth’s smile faltered, noting something in his expression she couldn’t quite place. “Do ye nae like them?”
“They’re fine creatures,” he said again, as though repetition might convince either of them.
“Ye’ve said that twice now, and ye’re currently retreating from one of them.”
“I am nae retreating. I am…” The second swan hissed louder, mantling its wings out to twice its previous width, and advanced on him. “Repositionin’.”
Duncan’s poorly stifled laughter had by now become un-stifled, and he sat down heavily on a nearby rock, one hand braced on his knee, shoulders shaking.
“D’ye find something amusing?” Katherine asked, glancing between the two of them, plainly missing whatever was so obviously entertaining him.
“Nay,” Duncan managed, wheezing slightly. “Nay, nae at all.”
“Duncan.”
“I’ve simply never seen a grown man repositioned quite so thoroughly by a bird before. It’s educational.”
Agnes had abandoned the reeds by now and come to stand beside her father, watching the unfolding scene with the same grave attention she gave to livestock lessons. “Are the swans angry, Da?”
“They seem to be, aye.”
“Is Magnus afraid of them?”
“I couldnae possibly say,” Liam said.
Magnus turned and walked away.
He did not run. He would maintain, for the remainder of his days, that a laird of Ben Cruachan did not run from livestock of any kind. What followed was a brisk and purposeful walk toward the keep, undertaken for reasons unrelated to the swan that had, at this point, committed fully to pursuit.
The swan did not agree with this characterization. It followed him at a pace that matched his own stride for stride, wings half-lifted, honking with what could only be described as triumphant menace.
Magnus found his own pace lengthening considerably, past the well, past the stable yard where two grooms stopped to watch, mouths open, until what had begun as a walk had become something closer to a determined march, undertaken with as much remaining dignity as a man could muster while actively fleeing a waterfowl.
“Magnus?” Elspeth called after him, bewildered. “Where are ye going?”
“I’ve matters to attend to.”
“What matters?”
“Indoor matters.”
“Ye’ve never once, in the whole time I’ve ken ye, referred to something as an indoor matter.”
“There’s a first time for most things.”
Katherine had gone very quiet beside Elspeth, watching the retreat with a frown, some old memory apparently stirring loose. “Elspeth, did anyone ever tell ye why Magnus…”
“Why Magnus what?”
“Never mind.” Katherine’s hand had already risen to her mouth, failing badly to hold back what was building underneath it. “I’ll explain later. Once I can speak without laughing.”
The swan snapped at the air a mere pace behind him as Magnus reached the main door of the keep.
At the threshold, he permitted himself one final glance back over his shoulder at the small assembled crowd.
Elspeth standing utterly baffled by the water’s edge, Katherine pressing her hand hard to her mouth, Liam wisely saying nothing at all, Agnes watching with rapt fascination, and Duncan simply sitting down on the rock, apparently no longer capable of standing through the force of his own amusement.
“Swans,” he said, with as much authority as a man could summon while one pace ahead of an angry bird, “are merely unpredictable, violent creatures deservin’ of caution.”
Then he stepped through the door and closed it behind him with force, leaving the swan to honk its displeasure at the wood, wings half-mantled, unsatisfied with how the pursuit had ended.
A long silence followed, broken only by the swan’s continued protests against the closed door.
“Well,” Katherine said finally, giving up all pretense of composure and laughing outright, “I daenae think that went quite the way ye planned it, Elspeth.”
“I daenae understand what just happened.”
“Nor do I.” Katherine’s hand had already risen to her mouth, fighting the last of her laughter. “Though I have a strong suspicion Mrs. McAulay kens every detail of it.”
Elspeth looked back once more at the closed door, at the swan pacing in front of it, wings settling by degrees.
“Then I intend to find out,” she said, and started for the keep, leaving Katherine to catch up.