Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Fearchar carried Nandag through the postern gate himself, his warriors falling into step behind him with their swords still drawn, and did not stop when Duncan Macrae reached out to take her weight off him.
"I have her," Fearchar said, before Duncan's hands had even closed on air.
"Ye're bleeding on her dress."
"It's nae mine."
Duncan fell back without arguing further, which told Fearchar something about how he must have looked right then, though he didn't have the mind to spare on it.
Nandag's head was tucked against his shoulder, her arms looped loosely around his neck.
He crossed the Great Hall past the overturned tables and the scattered wedding rushes without breaking stride, took the stairs two at a time despite the weight of her, and followed a servant to her chamber.
A maid inside gasped and pressed herself flat against the wall to let him through.
"Fetch water and clean linen. Now."
The maid fled without a word.
He set Nandag down on the edge of the bed with more care than he'd handled anything all night, and it was only then, kneeling to steady her, that he saw it.
The hem of her saffron skirt had gone dark and stiff on the left side, and beneath it, where the fabric had ridden up over her calf, a thin dark line of blood had dried against her skin.
"Ye're cut."
"I'm fine."
He was already reaching for the hem of her skirt, and stopped himself, hand hovering. "May I?"
Nandag's chin came up, some of the fight from the courtyard still in her, even soaked through and shaking. "Ye already carried me up two flights of stairs without asking permission. Seems late tae start now."
"That was different. Ye were nae bleeding then."
"I was bleeding then too. Ye hadnae noticed."
He didn't have an answer for that, so he pushed her skirt back instead, gently, past her knee, and found the cut.
Not deep, but long, running along the outside of her calf, where she must have caught it on the sconce, or the trough, or one of the dozen things she'd nearly died on in that courtyard while he'd been three seconds too slow to stop any of it.
The maid returned with a basin of water and a stack of linen and set them down without a word, casting one long look between the two of them before slipping back out and pulling the door shut.
Fearchar dipped a cloth in the water and wrung it out.
"Ye dinnae have tae dae this," Nandag said. "Send fer Mairi. Or the healer."
"I'm here."
"That's nae a reason."
"It's the only one I have." He pressed the cloth to her calf, and felt her flinch under his hand, though she didn't pull away. "Hold still."
"I am holding still."
She let out her breath in a short huff, more insult than surrender, but her leg went slack under his hand all the same.
He worked the blood away in slow strokes, watching the wound clear, checking the edges of it the way he'd checked a hundred wounds on a hundred men in the field, except his hands had never once been this careful about it.
"Ye fought him," Fearchar said. "The one who grabbed ye."
"With a wall sconce."
"I heard. Broke his jaw."
"I was aiming fer his throat. He moved."
Fearchar's mouth did something at that. "Remind me nae tae make ye angry."
"Bit late fer that. Ye've been making me angry since the garden."
His hand stilled on her calf. He looked up.
Nandag looked back down at him, and neither of them moved to fix the silence that followed, the water dripping slow off the cloth in his hand, her fingers curled loose in the coverlet, close enough now that he could see the exact place where her pulse beat at the base of her throat, quick and unhidden.
"Ye're staring," she said, quietly.
He looked back down at the wound, which was clean now, had been clean for longer than he wanted to admit, and reached for the linen instead of answering her.
He tore a strip with his teeth, wound it twice around her calf, and found that his hands, which had gutted men an hour ago without a tremor, were taking their time about a task that required none of it.
His thumb pressed the linen flat against her skin, smoothing a fold that didn't need smoothing, and he was aware of the exact warmth of her, aware of it in a way that had nothing to do with fever or blood loss or any of the reasons a healer might have for touching a woman's leg.
"Fearchar."
He looked up again. She hadn't moved either, hadn't put a single inch of distance between them since he'd knelt, and her eyes held his the way they'd held his across a rain-soaked courtyard not an hour ago, except there was no blade between them now, no Torcall, no gate slamming shut on her sister.
"Aye," he said.
"Ye're daeing it again."
"Daeing what?"
"Looking at me like ye're trying tae remember something."
"I already remember it. Have fer seven years." The words came out rougher than he meant them, and he busied his hands with tying off the linen so he wouldn't have to watch what crossed her face when she heard them. I've been remembering ye since the garden in Edinburgh, lass."
“That goes fer me too.”
He tied the final knot, and let his hand rest against her calf, his thumb tracing once along the line of linen before he made himself stop.
When he finally looked up, she hadn't looked away, hazel eyes steady on his, her breath coming a little quicker than it should have for a woman sitting perfectly still.
"Ye'll be fine again within days," he said. "It's nae deep."
"That's a very healer thing tae say."
He huffed something that was almost a laugh, low in his chest, and forced himself up onto his feet, putting the distance between them that he should have kept from the start. "Ye should rest."
"Ye keep saying things I should dae."
"Someone has tae."
She didn't answer that, only watched him from the bed, her hand pressed flat over the linen at her calf as if she meant to hold his warmth there a while longer. Fearchar found himself standing in the middle of her chamber with no earthly reason to stay and no particular wish to leave.
A hard knock cracked against the door.
"Laird Chisholm." Duncan's voice, clipped, urgent through the wood. "The Council's summonin’ ye. They're deciding what's to be done about the Accord, and Malcolm's already talking louder than he should be allowed tae."
Fearchar's jaw went tight. He glanced back at Nandag, who had gone very still on the bed, her eyes narrowing on the door like she already knew exactly what was being decided about her without her in the room to say a word of it.
"They cannae," she said. "Nae without me."
Fearchar didn't answer that. He was already moving for the door.
He reached the hall where the Council was and took the seat across from Laird Alasdair without being offered one, planted his boots wide, and let the old man's Council get a good look at him before anyone said a word.
The hall still smelled of spilled wine and the copper tang of a fight nobody had cleaned up after.
Servants had righted the High Table but left the rest of the wreckage where it lay, benches on their sides, a torn length of wedding cloth still draped over the hearth stones.
Malcolm stood near the fire with his arms crossed, dark beard freshly combed as if that alone might restore some order to the room.
"Ye'll fergive us," Malcolm said, "if we're nae eager tae hand ye a seat at this table after what ye've done tae it."
"I didnae break yer table, Malcolm. Yer nephew did that, dragging his wife across it by the wrist."
A councilman near the end, grey-haired and heavyset, made a sound that wasn't quite a laugh but wasn't nothing either. Malcolm's jaw tightened.
Laird Alasdair raised a hand from where he sat wrapped in furs despite the fire, his knuckles pale where they gripped the arm of his chair. "Enough. Both of ye." His voice came thin, but it carried. "State yer claim plainly, Chisholm, and we'll hear it plainly."
"The claim isnae mine tae make plain. The King already did that.
" Fearchar reached inside his tunic, drew out the folded parchment he'd carried through a courtyard fight without a single tear in it, and set it on the table between them, red seals up.
"The Highland Marriage Accord, signed at Edinburgh in the year of our Lord fifteen ninety-seven, by five lairds including meself, binding each of us tae marry intae the rival clan named against ours.
Chisholm tae Farquharson. I never renounced it. The Crown never voided it. It stands."
"It stood," Malcolm said, "until yer clan vanished into a seven-year war and left the rest of us tae manage without ye. Robert married Mòrag Farquharson in good faith, before God and this hall, nae an hour past. Ye're seven years too late tae make a claim on anything."
"I made me claim the moment I signed that parchment. A war daesnae undae a signature."
"A war undaes a great many things." Malcolm's voice dropped, and he looked around the table as he said it.
"The Accord bound ye tae Clan Farquharson, tae the eldest daughter, Morag.
Robert has now married her. The alliance the King wanted is made.
Ye've come four years late tae a wedding that already happened. "
A murmur went round the table at that, low and considering, and Fearchar watched two of the older councilmen exchange a look he didn't care for.
"Ye're half right," Fearchar said. "The Accord names Mòrag because she was the eldest daughter, and the inheritance of yer clan's lands flows directly through her line. That's exactly why yer nephew's marriage daesnae settle it."
Malcolm's eyes narrowed. "Explain yerself."
"The Crown sealed this decree to bind our clans through the primary heir.
Robert isnae a Chisholm, and his stolen vows with Mòrag are void under royal law.
With Mòrag's standing stripped by a broken union, the birthright—and the obligation of the Accord—passes immediately to the next eldest daughter. Tae Nandag."
Fearchar stepped closer to the table, resting a heavy hand on the hilt of his broadsword.
"Robert's trick settled naething. It merely shifted the King's mandate, the inheritance, and the bride tae the girl upstairs."
"Ye're twisting words to suit yerself."
"I'm reading the words as written." Fearchar tapped the parchment once, flat-palmed, and let it sit there. "Ye ken how tae read, Malcolm. Read it."
The old grey-haired councilman leaned forward and pulled the parchment toward himself without waiting for permission from either man, unfolding it with careful fingers, moving his lips slightly as he worked through the Latin at the top before dropping to the plainer Scots below.
"It says what he says it says," the old man announced to the table at large. "Clan Chisholm tae marry intae Clan Farquharson. Nay daughter named."
"Then it's open tae interpretation," Malcolm said, sharper now.
"It's open tae exactly one interpretation, and that's mine, because I'm the only Chisholm in this room, and the last time I checked, it takes two clans tae make an alliance, nae one clan and a bridegroom who happened tae be standing nearby."
That got a real laugh out of someone down the table, quickly swallowed. Malcolm's face went a shade darker.
"And who, precisely, dae ye propose tae marry now, Chisholm? We have one daughter left, and she's a lass barely out of her faither's house, nae a match fer a laird with a war behind him."
"I'm aware exactly who's left." Fearchar's voice didn't rise, though something under it went colder, flatter. "Nandag Farquharson. Unmarried. Farquharson-born.”
Silence dropped over the table so fast it was almost a physical thing, the fire popping loud in the hearth in the gap that followed. Fearchar didn't look away from Malcolm while it settled.
"She's a child," Malcolm said, though it came out weaker than his last three sentences combined.
"She's four and twenty, and she put a wall sconce through one of Robert's men an hour ago while yer nephew was busy dragging her sister out a side door. I'd nae call that a child."
Laird Alasdair shifted in his chair, and every eye at the table went to him. He was quiet a long moment, his gaze moving from the parchment to Fearchar's face, and Fearchar held still under it, let the old man take whatever measure he needed to take.
"He speaks true," Laird Alasdair said finally. "The accord names the clan. Nae the daughter."
"Alasdair." Malcolm's voice cracked, just slightly, on the name. "Think what ye're agreeing tae."
"I'm thinking of what I signed ontae seven years past, before ye were the one whispering in me ear at every council meeting.
" The old man's cough rattled through his chest, and he waved off the hand that reached to steady him, waited it out, kept talking.
"The King's decree stands. If Chisholm's claim on Nandag satisfies it, then it satisfies it, and I'll nae be the laird who invites royal displeasure ontae this clan fer the sake of his nephew's pride. "
Malcolm opened his mouth, closed it again, and looked instead toward the grey-haired councilman, who only shrugged and folded his hands, offering nothing.
Fearchar felt the room tip, slow and certain, and did not let his face show a flicker of what that cost him to sit still through.