Chapter 16 #2
Roy’s expression changed. The transformation was slight, but Donaldina saw it. Something within him tightened at the question, as though he heard those same words spoken by other voices in darker places.
“Nae,” he replied firmly. “Ye are frightened, and ye have taken a hard fall. That isnae the same thing.”
He placed one hand carefully behind the boy’s head and examined him. His fingers moved through the child’s hair, searching for blood or swelling with the ease of a man who had tended injuries too many times.
“Look at me,” Roy instructed.
Iain’s wet eyes found his.
“What is yer name?”
The boy’s mouth trembled. “Ye ken me name.”
“I dae. I wish tae see whether ye remember it.”
“Iain.”
“And where are ye?”
“At Dun Ard.”
“Good. How many fingers?”
Roy held up three.
Iain squinted through his tears. “Four.”
The other children gasped. Roy looked at his hand, then back at the boy.
“Three.”
A faint, watery laugh escaped Iain.
“Better,” Roy answered. “Can ye move yer feet?”
The boy kicked both boots weakly against the straw.
“Yer hands?”
Iain lifted them, then reached suddenly for Roy. He caught fistfuls of Roy’s shirt and pulled himself upright, burying his face against Roy’s chest.
Roy went still. Donaldina remembered how he looked when she took his hand beside Lachlan’s cairn, as though even comfort might be a danger he had not prepared to meet.
The child clung harder. For one uncertain heartbeat, Roy’s hands hovered above him. Then one broad palm settled upon the back of Iain’s head. The other curved around his narrow shoulders, drawing him securely against his body.
“Ye are safe,” Roy murmured.
Iain sobbed into his shirt. Roy did not hush him. He did not tell him boys ought to be brave or that the fall was too small to justify tears. He merely held him, one hand moving slowly along his back while the child’s fear spent itself.
Donaldina stood only a few paces away, Bran’s reins forgotten in her grasp.
She had seen Roy use those hands to wield a sword.
She had watched them wrench Cormac away from her, bind wounds and press against maps while he spoke of patrols and war.
Now one rested gently over the head of a frightened child.
The stable yard quieted around them. Even the other children ceased whispering. Footsteps sounded beneath the arch. A woman rushed into the yard with her skirts gathered in both hands, followed closely by a broad-shouldered man Donaldina recognized as one of the fishermen from the village.
“Iain!”
The boy’s mother dropped beside Roy.
Her face had gone white. “What happened? Is he hurt?”
“He fell,” Roy explained. “He struck the ground, but he remained conscious. His eyes are clear, and he can move every limb. The healer should still examine him.”
The woman reached for her son. Iain tightened his arms around Roy’s neck.
The boy’s father knelt beside them, breathing hard from the run. “Come now, lad. Let the laird stand.”
Iain only clung more fiercely. Donaldina expected Roy to become uncomfortable. He endured the child’s embrace with patience, but tenderness before witnesses was not a thing he appeared willing to display for long. Instead, he adjusted his hold.
“It is all right,” he told the parents. “Give him a moment.”
The boy’s mother looked at Roy with startled gratitude.
Roy seemed not to notice. He continued speaking quietly to Iain, asking whether he had ever fallen from the stone wall near the cottages or slipped upon the fishing path.
The boy answered between ragged breaths.
His sobs gradually softened into hiccups.
“Was the horse angry?” Iain whispered.
“Nae. Afraid.”
“Of me?”
“Of something she didnae understand.”
Iain considered this from the shelter of Roy’s chest.
“Will she bite me?”
“Nae if ye approach her properly.”
“I dinnae want tae go near her again.”
“Ye neednae today.”
“Ever.”
Roy’s hand moved once over the boy’s hair.
“Fear has a habit of growing when it is permitted tae choose for us.”
Donaldina felt the words touch somewhere deep within her. Roy glanced toward the stable doors.
“But courage doesnae mean ye must return before ye are ready,” he added. “Tomorrow, perhaps, ye may stand outside her stall. The day after, ye may offer her an apple from the other side of the gate.”
“And then?”
“Then ye decide what comes next.”
Iain’s fingers loosened upon Roy’s shirt. His mother reached for him again. This time, the boy allowed himself to be transferred into her arms, though one hand remained curled around two of Roy’s fingers until the final moment.
Roy rose slowly. Dust marked his knees. Iain’s tears darkened the front of his shirt. A strand of straw clung to his sleeve. He looked nothing like the feared MacIver warrior whose name had entered Dun Ard before him, wrapped in rumor and blood.
He looked tired and gentle, human in a way Donaldina had never imagined when he first crossed her brother’s hall beneath cold stares and accusations.
Roy turned. His gaze found hers. Something in his expression hardened slightly, as though he understood what she had witnessed and wished he could take it back beneath the protection of reserve.
Donaldina tightened her hold upon Bran’s reins.
“The healer should see the boy,” Roy urged.
“I will send for her.”
He nodded. Behind him, Iain rested against his mother’s shoulder, no longer crying. His eyes followed Roy with complete trust.
Donaldina’s heart tightened. She believed Roy’s gentleness rare because she had seen so little of it. Now she understood that it was not rare at all. It was merely guarded.
And perhaps that was why every glimpse of it felt like being entrusted with something precious.