Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
The heavy scent of roasted venison, spilled ale, and melting tallow filled the great hall of Castle Strathglass, thick enough to coat the back of the throat.
Nandag stood half a step behind her sister, her fingers steadily tightening the silver-threaded laces of Mòrag’s velvet bodice. Mòrag’s hands were calm, resting over her stomach, her chest rising and falling in smooth, untroubled rhythm.
"Ye're pinching," Mòrag murmured softly, not looking back.
Nandag loosened her grip on the laces, smoothed the cream ribbon trailing down Mòrag’s back, and glanced toward the High Table.
Her father, Laird Alasdair, sat slouched in his high-backed oak chair, a heavy fur mantle wrapped tight around his narrow, stooped shoulders. His face was gray as winter moss, his breath coming in thin, rattling wheezes that made his chest heave beneath his embroidered tunic.
Beside him stood his distant cousin Malcolm, dark-bearded and sharp-eyed, leaning down every few moments to whisper into the old laird’s ear while pointing toward the front of the dais.
"He shouldnae be out of bed," Nandag said, her voice barely carrying over the low hum of the gathered crowd. "The draft from the north windows is cutting right through the hall."
"He insisted," Mòrag replied gently, patting Nandag’s wrist. "He wants to see the succession settled before the winter sets in. It brings him peace, Nandag."
Nandag’s eyes drifted from her father to the man standing at the center of the dais.
Robert Cameron stood with his boots set wide, his dark hair slicked back with oil, wearing a freshly tailored tunic of fine green wool.
He was smiling—a polite, measured curve of the lips—as he acknowledged the nods of the senior councilmen lining the hearth.
But his gaze kept slipping past the priest, past the altar rail, fixing instead on the carved arms of the laird's High Seat.
He didn't look at Mòrag. He hadn't looked at her since the piper finished the entry march.
"He's already counting the cattle," Nandag muttered, tugging a stray leaf off the hem of Mòrag’s wedding plaid.
Mòrag tilted her head back, her hazel eyes warm and amused. "Robert is practical. The clan needs a strong hand, and Faither cannae hold a sword anymore. Ye judge him too harshly."
"I judge what I see." Nandag looked up as Malcolm stepped forward, raising his hands to silence the murmuring crowd. "He looks at Faither's chair the way a hound looks at a plate of meat."
"Nandag," Mòrag cautioned, though her tone remained gentle. "Seven years have passed. Laird Chisholm is dead in some western bog. The King's accord died with him. We must move forward."
Nandag swallowed. Her fingers found the smooth silver brooch pinned at her collar and stayed there, turning it slowly against the wool.
Seven years.
Seven years since a golden-haired stranger had kissed her in a palace garden and signed away his life to a decree.
She hadn't known his name until it was too late to matter.
Seven years of telling herself that that warrior belonged to no one, that he'd said so himself, only to learn a fortnight later that Clan Chisholm's young laird, who had signed the Accord, would have been bound to marry into her family under its terms. To marry Mòrag.
She had never told her sister that part. She had never told anyone.
Nandag's thumb pressed hard enough into the brooch pin that it should have hurt. It didn't, not the way it should have.
She watched Mòrag straighten her veil with steady hands, watched her sister look, for the first time all morning, almost peaceful about the man waiting at the altar, and thought that if the rumors were true, if that golden-haired stranger really had died in some bog in the west, then at least he would never have had to stand at this altar and she would never have had to watch it happen either.
Small mercies. She'd take what she could get.
She forced her eyes back to the priest.
Father Thomas cleared his throat, raising his silver crucifix over the couple. "By the power vested in Holy Mother Church, and before the eyes of Clan Farquharson..."
Across the dais, Robert reached out and caught Mòrag’s fingers. His grip was tight, immediate, his knuckles white against her skin. Over her head, his eyes locked with Malcolm’s.
Malcolm gave a single, firm nod. A shadow of a smirk touched the corner of Robert’s mouth, satisfied, settled, victorious.
"...I declare ye husband and wife."
The hall erupted.
Men slammed their wooden tankards against the long oak tables, shouting toasts, while the pipers at the back of the room blew a loud, skirling blast to signal the start of the feast. Robert pulled Mòrag’s hand to his lips, kissing her knuckles with practiced grace, his eyes already sweeping the room to greet the cheering councilors.
Then came the blow.
It was not a soft sound. It was the crack of oak splitting against stone as the massive, iron-studded outer doors were thrown open with such force that they bounced off the interior walls.
The wind howled into the hall, snuffing out a dozen candles near the entrance. The pipers’ song sputtered and died in a hideous, discordant screech.
A man stepped across the threshold.
He was broad-shouldered, towering over the guards at the door, draped in a heavy wool cloak caked in dark, drying road mud.
Rain trickled down the worn leather of his bracer, dripping onto the stone flagstones with a steady tap, tap, tap.
Beneath the torn, mud-splattered cloak, the dark green and red tartan of Clan Chisholm hung in ragged strips across his chest.
He did not draw his sword. He didn't have to.
His hand rested casually on the pommel of a broadsword strapped to his hip, his knuckles scarred and bruised.
Golden hair, dark with wet mud and sweat, hung past his jaw in tangled strands, framing a face lined with exhaustion and hardened by four brutal years of war.
Silence fell over the hall like a wet blanket dropped onto a fire.
Robert froze, his hand still holding Mòrag’s fingers. The smirk vanished from his face, replaced by a sudden, rigid tension in his jaw. Beside the High Table, Malcolm took a step backward, his hand dropping reflexively to the hilt of his dirk.
Laird Alasdair pushed himself up from his chair, his weak, trembling hands gripping the carved arms as he stared down the center aisle. "By the Saints..." the old man breathed, his voice cracking.
The mud-covered warrior took three long, deliberate steps into the hall. His boots squelched against the rushes on the floor.
He didn't look at the armed guards reaching for their weapons. He didn't look at the councilors scrambling out of their seats. He lifted his head, amber eyes burning through the dim torchlight as he scanned the elevated dais.
His gaze brushed past Robert, ignored Malcolm entirely, and landed squarely on Mòrag, and the silver-and-white wedding ribbon wrapped around her wrist.
Fearchar Chisholm halted ten paces from the altar rail. He rolled his shoulders, a slow, heavy motion that rustled his damp plaid, and wiped a smear of drying mud from his cheekbone with the back of his scarred hand.
"Ye start the feast early in Strathglass," Fearchar said. His voice was low, rasping like rough linen over stone, unused to soft rooms after years of battle command.
Malcolm stepped forward, his chest puffing out beneath his fur trim. "Who claims entrance tae Strathglass without leave? The laird is ill, and this is a private holy union."
"I ken who the laird is," Fearchar cut him off, his voice quiet, devoid of anger, but carrying an iron weight that made Malcolm's mouth snap shut.
Fearchar turned his amber gaze directly to Laird Alasdair. He dipped his head—a short, formal inclination of respect—before looking back at Mòrag.
"I am Fearchar, Laird of Clan Chisholm," he said, stepping closer until the firelight caught the faint, pale scar running from his temple to his jawline. "And I have come tae collect me bride."
Nandag’s heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird. Her breath caught in her throat as she stepped out from behind Mòrag, her hazel eyes wide as she stared at the man standing in the aisle.
The gold hair was darker now, threaded with grime and sweat.
The easy confidence of the young laird in the Edinburgh garden, a man grown but not yet hardened, had been carved away, replaced by the lethal, flint-hard posture of a veteran commander.
But as he shifted his weight, his eyes flicked past Mòrag for a split second, catching Nandag's gaze in the gloom.
A tiny, almost imperceptible muscle twitched in his jaw.
Robert let go of Mòrag’s hand entirely, stepping to the edge of the dais and resting his palm on his sword hilt.
"Ye are seven years late, Chisholm. The western war took ye, and everyone kent it. I heard it said the Crown had let the accord die with ye. Mòrag is me wife. The priest has spoken."
Fearchar did not reach for his blade. Instead, he reached inside his mud-stained tunic, pulled out a thick, folded piece of parchment heavy with red wax seals, and tossed it onto the high table directly in front of Laird Alasdair.
It landed with a wet thud beside the old man's silver goblet.
"Ye heard wrong, then," Fearchar said softly, looking Robert straight in the eyes. "King James has nae abandoned it. The Accord stands, sealed and signed, and I never renounced it. Under royal law, Cameron, ye are standing in me place."