Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
By evening, the blood had been washed from the stones. That did not mean the castle had forgotten it.
Dun Ard remained restless after nightfall. Cormac’s captured supporters had been confined beneath guard, while the men who claimed confusion rather than loyalty were questioned one by one before the council.
Lachlan had been carried at last to the cairn.
The burial took place beneath a sky already surrendering its light, with half the proper prayers omitted and the other half spoken into a wind that allowed no dignity to remain undisturbed.
Donaldina stood beside the stones until her feet became numb and the last man departed. She did not weep.
Now she sat before the fire in her chamber, dressed in a dry gown, while the bruises upon her wrist darkened by the hour. She wondered if grief might allow her to sleep when someone knocked at the door. In Dun Ard, only one man seemed to see doors as places to declare military intent.
“Enter.”
Roy entered casually. He kept the same tunic and expression he had during the fight. His dark hair was still damp at the ends, and a freshly cleaned sword hung at his side.
Donaldina looked from the weapon to his face.
“Have ye discovered another rebellion between the stairwell and me chamber?”
“Nae.” He glanced toward her bandaged arm. “The cut?”
“Remains a cut.”
“Dizziness?”
“Nae.”
“Pain?”
“Only when questioned.”
His gaze rested upon her for a moment longer, as if he suspected sarcasm concealed a mortal injury.
Donaldina folded her hands in her lap. “Why are ye here?”
“I am returning tae the cliff path.”
She straightened. “Tonight?”
“Aye.”
“But the light is nearly gone.”
“That is the purpose.”
It took her a moment to understand. “You expect Cormac left men behind.”
“I expect naething. I intend tae make certain.”
He spoke with the calm simplicity of a man proposing to inspect a roof before rain. Donaldina stared at him.
“Ye fought through me castle, driven out a traitor, attended me brother’s burial and spent the remainder of the day questioning armed men. And now ye mean tae walk along a cliff in darkness.”
“There is still light,” he said plainly, moving toward the door.
Donaldina rose. He stopped.
“Ye should rest,” he told her.
“And ye should possess the sense God grants ordinary men. We must each endure disappointment.”
“Donaldina.” The use of her name halted her more effectively than the command hidden within it.
Since returning to the castle, he addressed her properly before the councilors and clansmen: Lady Donaldina or me lady. Those were words that restored distance and concealed the strange intimacy of the cliff path. Now they were alone, and her name sounded different in his voice.
“Ye arenae coming,” he said.
“I ken the path better than ye.”
“I’ve seen enough of yer knowledge of it.”
She felt the sting of the remark and knew at once that he had not intended cruelty. Something harsher than reproach lay beneath it.
Fear.
The realization unsettled her.
“Ye believe I shall be safer here?” she asked.
“Aye.”
“Dun Ard hasnae proved particularly gifted at keeping me safe today,” she continued. “At least upon the path I shall have the benefit of kenning where danger lies.”
“And if there are men waiting?”
“Then it is fortunate I shallnae be alone.”
He regarded her in silence. Donaldina lifted her cloak from the chair.
“Ye may spend the remaining light arguing,” she said, fastening it at her throat, “or use it tae conduct yer inspection.”
His expression suggested he was realizing that royal decrees were just the easier part of claiming a MacNicol bride. He opened the door.
“Remain on the inner side of the path.”
“I ken where the cliff is.”
“I begin tae believe ye regard it as a challenge.”
Donaldina passed him into the corridor. “Only when men presume tae instruct me upon it.”
They left Dun Ard by the lesser western gate.
The storm moved farther out to sea, leaving the air sharp and scrubbed clean.
Clouds stretched low across the horizon, their undersides stained violet by the dying sun.
Below the cliffs, the water rolled darkly against the rocks, each wave edged in fading silver. The path glistened beneath their feet.
Roy walked between Donaldina and the drop.
He did so without remark, adjusting his stride whenever the trail narrowed so that she remained nearest the wall.
Donaldina noticed after several minutes and pretended not to.
She suspected he would deny the consideration if thanked for it, calling it strategy or simple sense.
They reached the place where Cormac had held the knife against her throat.
Donaldina knew it before Roy stopped. One of the stones remained streaked with blood, diluted by rain to the color of rust. The sight drew the cold memory of iron beneath her jaw, Cormac’s breath at her ear and empty air beneath her slipping heel.
Her body remembered faster than her mind. She halted.
Roy turned immediately. “What is it?”
“Naething.”
He followed her gaze to the stained stone. His face altered very little. Only his stillness deepened.
Donaldina moved past him before either of them could speak. “Cormac had horses waiting beyond the ridge.”
Roy joined her. “I saw the tracks.”
“So he planned it before entering the hall.”
“Aye.”
“He stood before Lachlan’s body kenning what he meant tae dae.”
Roy said nothing. There was no comfort he could offer without insulting the size of what had been betrayed. Donaldina found herself grateful that he did not attempt it.
They climbed toward the higher bend where the rocks shielded the trail from Dun Ard. The wind moved through the heather with a dry whisper. Somewhere below, a gull cried once and was answered only by the sea.
Roy crouched beside a patch of soft earth.
“Three horses,” he concluded. “One shod poorly on the left rear hoof.”
“Can ye learn all that from mud?”
“Men tell lies. Tracks rarely trouble themselves.”
Donaldina watched him study the ground. In war, she imagined, such knowledge determined whether a man reached shelter or found an enemy’s blade waiting beyond it.
“Ye have done this often.”
“Often enough.”
His answers shortened whenever they approached the years he had been away.
Donaldina looked toward the horizon. “When we were children, Lachlan told me there were sea spirits living below these cliffs.”
Roy rose. “Did ye believe him?”
“I was six.”
“That doesnae answer the question.”
“I believed him until I was seven.”
A faint movement touched his mouth.
“He said they stole children who wandered too close tae the edge,” she continued. “Then he would dare me tae stand nearer it.”
“That seems contradictory.”
“He possessed the protective instincts of a brother and the judgment of a boy.”
They continued walking. Memories surfaced more readily after she allowed the first one.
She recounted to Roy how Lachlan had hidden honey cakes in the old watchtower and blamed the mice when they vanished, and how he taught her to ride a patient gray mare, almost coming to blows with the stable master when she fell.
Roy listened. He did not offer polite laughter where none was required, nor hurry her through the silences. He merely remained beside her, his steps matching hers.
“Our mother died when I was nine,” Donaldina said at last. “Our faither followed two winters later.”
Roy looked toward her.
“Lachlan was scarcely a man. Yet from then onward he was expected tae be laird, brother and faither before he had properly learned tae be any one of them.”
“He managed.”
“Aye.” Her throat tightened. “Nae always well. But always entirely.”
The fading light blurred the distant islands into shadows.
Donaldina drew her cloak closer. “Every happy memory I possess includes him somewhere. Even those in which he wasnae meant tae be present. He was always entering rooms without knocking, spoiling surprises or correcting stories that werenae about him.”
Roy’s gaze remained upon the path.
She forced the next words past the ache in her chest. “I… dinnae ken how tae remember happiness without remembering that it is gone.”
The confession remained between them, too exposed to be withdrawn. Roy stopped walking. Donaldina expected consolation and feared it.
“Ye neednae learn tonight,” he said instead.
Her eyes burned. She turned toward the sea before he could see.
For a time, they stood without speaking while the wind moved around them. The silence did not demand that she master herself. It permitted grief to exist without becoming spectacle.
When they resumed walking, the first stars appeared through breaks in the clouds.
She glanced at him. He seemed made for the dimness: broad shoulders beneath the dark cloak, the scar upon his jaw pale in the failing light, and his expression cautious even when no one stood near enough to threaten him.
“What of your family?”
His pace did not change. “Me father died when I was young.”
“And yer mother?”
“Later.”
“Brothers? Sisters?”
“Nae.”
The responses felt like doors closing. Donaldina might have seen them as rudeness if from another man. From Roy, they seemed less like refusals and more like a defense so aged that he no longer noticed raising it.
“Was there nae one?” she asked.
His jaw shifted. She regretted the question immediately.
Whatever tentative peace existed between them might not survive curiosity pressed too far.
Yet Roy did not tell her to be silent. He looked out across the water.
The last of the sun vanished, leaving a thin, colorless glow along the horizon.
It touched his face without softening it.
Donaldina chose her words carefully. “Have ye ever loved someone enough tae miss them every day?”
Roy remained still. A gust moved over the path, lifting the edge of his cloak. Far below, a wave struck the cliff with a deep sound that traveled through the stone beneath their feet.
She thought he would not answer.
“Once.”