Chapter Four #2
Truth was, were he made differently, he’d march across the hall this minute, flip up her skirts, and show the world just how much he wanted her! How very able he was to enjoy the bounteous charms his lute-strumming friend ogled so freely, damn his serenading hide.
Janet set her platter of cheese and bread on the table. “Without a bedding—”
“Bedding?” Dugan’s eyes snapped open. “What fair maid is in need of a tumble?” Sitting upright, he glanced round. “I shall tender my services to any lass in need thereof!” he announced, a roguish grin spreading across his face . . . until his gaze fell upon Magnus.
“By the Rood—Magnus!” Leaping to his feet, he bounded around the table to throw his arms around Magnus in a bone-crushing hug.
After a moment, he stepped back to give his older brother a thorough and sweeping scrutiny. “Sakes, but it is good to see you . . . even if I can scarce keep my eyes open to look upon you at this scourge of an ungodly hour.”
“I’ll second that about the hour,” Hugh broke in, pushing to his own feet. But he flashed Magnus a broad smile as he came forward, his arms opened wide in welcome.
Grown just as tall and broad-shouldered as Dugan, he clasped Magnus to him in a fierce embrace.
“Aye,” he declared, releasing him, “much as it pleases me to know you home, I could have done without Dagda awakening us in the middle of the night, claiming you would have important words with us, and then you taking forever and a day to hie yourself down here.”
Magnus cuffed his youngest brother on the shoulder. “If I mind aright, we e’er broke our fast before sunrise. Mayhap you ought retire a bit earlier of a night and not be out and about until the small hours?”
Hugh blinked, couldn’t quite stifle another yawn. “We have not been idle. There has been good reason to—”
“I ken what you’ve been about. But for now, I am thinking a bit of fresh air will help chase the sleep from your eyes.” Crossing the dais, Magnus threw open the shutters of the nearest window.
At once, damp, gusty wind swept in to whip the edges of the newly hung tapestries and gutter not a few of the finely tapered beeswax candles lining the high table.
Enjoying the little disturbance more than a grown man should, Magnus cleared his throat and hardened his jaw—cautionary measures to hide the satisfaction he took in the blustery weather squelching even such ineffectual evidence of his trampled pride.
Flemish wall rugs and candles so delicate they could not withstand a wee breath of fine Highland air!
“Guidsakes, where were you, man?” Dugan caught his ear. Scratching his beard, he gave a great stretch. “We sat here like dolts for well over an hour.”
“Ho, Dugan! You have not touched a single oatcake,” their father cut in, sliding the platter of bannocks toward his middle son. “Eat some afore you stop growing.”
Dugan hooted. “Not so! I ate six of ’em, each one smeared with butter and honey—and I would have wolfed down more had I not fallen asleep waiting on you and Magnus to show your faces.”
“Men have things to do of a morning, never you mind.” The old laird snatched up his wine cup, tossed down a hearty gulp.
“What things?” Hugh wanted to know. His gaze on their father, his russet brows drew together. “I ken that look on you. Something is amiss here and I would know what it is.”
Hugh’s clear blue eyes narrowed. “Aye, I would hear the whole of it, and so would Dugan. We are no longer wee bairns to be spared ill tidings.”
Donald MacKinnon’s face turned mottled red. “It was nothing and I forbid anyone to speak of it.” Slamming down his wine cup, he glared round the table.
Even Dagda and Janet received a glower fierce enough to scorch blood.
“Now I know something is underfoot.” Bracing his hands on the polished surface of the new high table, Hugh leaned forward to within inches of his father’s tight-lipped face.
“I will not leave be until—” Hugh broke off at once, sniffing the air as he straightened.
“Lucifer’s knees, when was the last time you had a bath?
” he demanded, clenched fists on his hips.
“You smell as if you’ve been sleeping in the cesspit. ”
The red stain on Donald MacKinnon’s face deepened to purple.
When their da replenished his wine and sloshed more of it onto the table than into his cup, Magnus clamped a firm hand on his younger brother’s shoulder.
“Have done with your badgering, Hugh,” he said, tightening his fingers in additional, silent warning. “The matter is of no import—”
“Of no import? Hah, I say!” Their father half-rose from his chair, his flushed features working. “’Tis little wonder I reek of the cesspit when I could well have drowned in it!” He gripped his wine cup so tight his knuckles gleamed white. “’Twas the curse again, I swear it.”
His outburst over, he sank back onto his chair, aiming one last pointed glare at Hugh. “And that, laddie, is the reason your brother and I were late getting down here.”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Here is no way to talk,” Dagda soothed, stepping up behind him to knead his knobby shoulders with strong, work-toughened hands. “You ken there is no such thing as a curse hanging o’er this household. Ill winds blow through here at times, to be sure, but no ancient curse.”
The old laird sniffed and sipped his wine.
“So-o-o . . . what does the cesspit have to do with your great tardiness this morning?” Dugan slung an arm around Magnus’s shoulders. Ever in high spirits, he wriggled his brows. “Did Da take a wee swim in the morass?”
“Nay, but he may well could have if he hadn’t wedged himself in the latrine chute,” Magnus said after a space.
“The seat cracked beneath him and he fell into the shaft—had it been a wee bit wider, he would’ve plunged straight through to the cesspit.
As is, he got stuck after falling but a few feet. Even so, it took a while to free him.”
All humor left Dugan’s handsome face.
He exchanged a glance with Hugh. “That canna be,” he said, shaking his dark head. “Hugh and I replaced the seats in all the privies not longer than a fortnight ago. We used the finest, sturdiest oak. It would ne’er have given out under Da’s weight, not when we—”
“Aye, and I agree,” Magnus cut him off, nodding almost imperceptibly at Janet.
The lass hovered near, her bonnie face tinged bright pink. Dugan’s meaning was clear enough without words. Both he and Hugh had grown into towering, well-muscled men. If Coldstone’s privy seats supported their hulking frames, their father’s slight one should ne’er have posed a problem.
Not if, as Dugan claimed, they’d used the best timber.
A scarce commodity on MacKinnons’ Isle, fair as its sandy bays and rolling moorlands might be.
So where had his brothers gathered enough of the finest, sturdiest oak to waste on lowly privies?
Magnus compressed his lips. He’d wager anything he already knew.
But to be fair, he turned to Hugh, the brother most likely to give him a swift and straight answer. “Are you certain you used good-quality oak?”
His younger brother shuffled his feet, but nodded. “The best to be had—straight from the well-timbered shores of Loch Etive on the mainland.”
“I thought as much.” Magnus pinched the bridge of his nose, drew a long breath. “Paid for out of my bride’s dowry, no less?”
Looking uncomfortable, Hugh inclined his head again. Wordless, this time.
“And how else were we supposed to pay for two shiploads of prime boat-building material?” Donald MacKinnon shot back, his voice rising. Low murmurs and scuffling noises accompanied his outburst, rippling the length of the hall as curious gazes turned toward the dais.
“Best timber, wool and flax, tallow,” he went on, looking from one of his sons to the other, his agitation palpable. “All the cordage we need—everything. The MacLean arranged delivery and gave his lairdly word he would see more supplies sent if—”
“To be sure he will,” Magnus said, feeling older than his black-frowning da.
“Donall the Bold is renowned for his generosity. Nevertheless, we shall impinge on his goodwill no further. Make wise use of whate’er materials he has thus far provided and be glad for them for they will have to suffice.
It will be difficult as is to make adequate restitution. ”
Dugan was about to object, Magnus could see the protests forming on his tongue. Forestalling any such opposition, he raised a silencing hand.
“Do not press me, brother, or I would see all that he has already sent returned whence it came. That I do not, it is only because I would not deny you the experience of building a galley, seeing one come to life beneath your hands.”
And because, as the good king Robert the Bruce once sought aid from his friend Angus Og, I fear this realm will yet again look to the Isles—and leal Islesmen with swift-sailing galleys—if e’er Balliol and his Disinheriteds are to be routed once and for all.
Biting back the niggling threat of danger yet uncoiled, lest he overburden his brothers’ young hearts, Magnus curled his hand around his low-slung sword belt and gripped hard, clenching and unclenching his fingers on its smooth-worn leather until the tension began sliding from his shoulders.
“It is scarcely a noble course to decline wedding gifts,” Dugan blazoned forth, his tone and the way he toyed with his curling black beard indicating he meant anything but shiploads of timber. “Many are the men who would gladly relieve you of such a . . . bounty.”
“And are you declaring yourself such a man?” Magnus shot back, but his blood cooled upon seeing the amused twinkle in his brother’s dark eyes.
“I thought that was the way the wind blows.” Dugan gave him a playful punch in the arm. “I am pleased to see it.”
“As am I,” Hugh agreed, a dimpled smile lighting his face.