Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Nandag smoothed her skirt twice before she reached the solar door and told herself the second time was only because the first hadn't done it right.
A servant let her in without a word, and the room she stepped into was nothing like the wreck of the Great Hall below.
A fire burned low and steady in the grate, the table laid with more care than the day's chaos should have allowed, three places set instead of the two she'd expected, and candlelight throwing long shadows across the tapestries her mother had chosen years ago, back when the room had still belonged to a laird with a wife in it.
Her father sat at the head of the table, wrapped in the same furs he'd worn all day, though someone had at least combed his hair and set a cup of watered wine at his hand that he wasn't drinking.
Fearchar stood near the window, arms crossed, still in the same blood-marked tunic from the courtyard, though he'd at least washed his hands.
"Ye sent fer me," Nandag said, from the doorway. "I assumed we'd be discussing Robert. What's been done tae find Mòrag?"
"Sit, lass." Her father gestured at the empty chair across from Fearchar.
Nandag sat, mostly because refusing would have meant standing in a doorway like a scolded child, and folded her hands in her lap where no one could see them tighten.
The servant poured wine she didn't touch, set down a plate of bread and cold meat neither man reached for and left, pulling the door shut with a soft click that felt unreasonably final to Nandag.
"Faither." She looked between the two of them, the careful formality of the table, the way Fearchar hadn't taken his seat yet, only stood there watching her with an expression she couldn't read past the firelight. "What is this?"
Her father set his cup down without drinking from it. "The Council met this afternoon."
"I ken."
"Then ye ken what was decided." He said it slowly, each word given its own weight, the way he'd spoken to her only a handful of times in her life.
"The Accord names Chisholm tae marry intae Farquharson.
Robert's marriage tae yer sister daesnae satisfy it.
Mòrag is gone, taken by a man who was never entitled tae her in the first place, and the King's decree still stands over this clan whether we like the shape of it or nae. "
"Aye. I heard that part." Her fingers found the edge of the table and pressed flat against the wood. "I want tae hear the part where someone asks me what I think of it before deciding it fer me."
"Nandag."
"I'm asking a plain question, Faither. Is there a marriage being arranged in this room, or is there nae?"
The silence that answered her told her everything before either man opened his mouth.
Fearchar finally took the seat across from her, unhurried, his eyes never leaving hers. "There is."
"With me."
"Aye."
She laughed, short and without any humor in it, and looked to her father instead, because at least he had the decency to look uncomfortable about it.
"It was never meant tae be me," Nandag said, her voice tight.
"Ye ken that. The whole clan kent that. Mòrag was raised tae lead this alliance, groomed tae stand at the center of the King's court while I was taught just enough tae be wed off quietly tae some minor border lord.
She had the weight of the clan placed on her shoulders, and I was left in her shadow.
Ye cannae simply swap us out like horses at a fair and expect me tae play the high lady fer a crown contract I was never meant tae inherit. "
"Circumstances have changed the shape of it."
"Circumstances." She turned the word over like it had insulted her personally. "A man rode into a wedding and started a war, and now the shape of it is me."
"Aye," her father said, quiet. "That's precisely what's happened."
"I wasnae prepared fer this." Her voice came out sharper than she meant it, sharper than she'd allowed herself to sound with her father in years, and she didn't take it back.
"I dinnae ken how tae be the woman standing between two clans and a king's temper.
That was never meant tae be mine tae carry. "
"Naething that's happened taeday was meant tae be anyone's tae carry," Fearchar said.
"Robert wasnae meant tae drag yer sister out a side door with a knife in his belt.
I wasnae meant tae be sitting at this table seven years later.
None of us are living the lives we thought we'd be living this morning, lass.
That's nae an argument against duty. It's the exact reason duty exists, so someone still stands where they're needed when the plan everyone counted on falls apart. "
"That's an easy thing fer ye tae say. Ye came here already kenning what ye wanted."
"I came here tae hold the clan tae a promise the King himself put his seal on. What I want has very little tae dae with it."
"Daesnae it?" She looked at him hard across the table, searching for the crack in that, the seam where his easy certainty might give way to something less convenient for him, and found nothing but the same steady amber gaze he'd worn all through the Council. "I heard ye stood in that hall and argued yer claim like a man arguing fer a piece of land. I’m sure ye never thought of me while ye were daein’ it. "
"I thought of ye plenty."
That landed somewhere she hadn't braced for, and she looked down at her hands instead of answering it, because there was nothing safe left to say to a man who could put a sentence together like that and probably mean it.
"Nandag." Her father's voice again, gentler now, though it didn't soften what he was about to say.
"I've buried a wife and I've near buried a daughter today, watching Robert drag her out of this castle like she was something he owned.
I cannae lose the other one tae a war that's only just started, and I cannae let this clan stand exposed tae Robert's next move because we quibbled over the King's paperwork.
I need this settled. I need ye settled. I'm asking ye tae dae this, as yer laird before I'm asking ye as yer faither, though God kens I'm asking as both. "
Nandag looked at him for a long moment, at the grey in his beard that seemed to have deepened since morning, at the way his hand shook faintly around the cup he still hadn't drunk from, and found she had no argument left that would survive being said out loud in front of him.
She looked once more at Fearchar, who hadn't moved, hadn't reached for her, hadn't offered a single soft word to make any of this easier to swallow.
He only sat there watching her with that same unflinching patience he'd carried into every room she'd seen him in since the courtyard, and something in her chest went tight and airless.
She pushed back her chair and stood.
"Fergive me, Faither." Her voice came out stiff, formal in a way that felt like the only armor she had left in the room. "I need air."
She was through the door before either man could rise to stop her.
Fearchar gave her ten steps before he went after her.
He caught up to her at the base of the servants' stair, close enough to hear the uneven scuff of her bandaged leg against the stone, and matched his stride to hers without a word, which only made her walk faster.
"Ye'll tear the stitches."
"It’s linen, nae stitches. And I'm fine."
"Ye're limping."
"Shouldn’t be yer business, I suppose."
“It is. Ye are tae be me wife soon.”
She stopped, looked at him, turned back and continued through the corridor toward her chambers at a pace that told him exactly how much purpose she meant by it. Skirts gathered in one fist, the other hand trailing along the stone wall for balance she wouldn't admit to needing.
Torches guttered in their brackets as she passed, throwing her shadow long and short and long again across the flagstones, and Fearchar let the silence hold until she reached her door and turned, sharp, to face him.
"Ye are still following me."
"Aye."
"I didnae ask ye tae."
"Ye didnae ask me nae tae, either." He stopped an arm's length from her, close enough to see her breathing hadn't fully settled from the stairs, or from something else entirely. "Nandag."
"Dinnae."
"I'm nae here tae argue the Council's decision again."
"Then why are ye here?"
He had an answer ready, had turned it over three times climbing the stairs behind her, and found it still wasn't the one that mattered most when he opened his mouth. "Because ye walked out of that room before I could say the one thing I actually meant tae say."
That stopped her reaching for the door latch, at least for a moment. "And what's that."
"Yer home is in the sights of a man who took yer sister and willnae hesitate tae come back fer the rest of yer land," Fearchar said.
"We dinnae have the luxury of waiting while Robert gathers men in the glens.
" He let that sit a moment before he went on.
"I'm nae asking ye tae be glad of it. I'm asking ye nae tae refuse it outright before ye've let yerself think past this afternoon. "
"Ye think I havenae thought about it."
"I think ye've thought about everything except what it might mean fer the two clans, because ye're still too busy being furious that nay one asked ye first."
Her jaw tightened, and for a moment he thought she'd turn and go inside without another word, latch the door between them and leave him standing in the corridor with his own honesty for company. She didn't.
"I never imagined this," she said instead, quieter than anything she'd said all evening.
"Standing where Mòrag stood. Being the one they turn tae when the plan falls apart.
I've spent me whole life being the daughter nay one built expectations around, and I liked it that way, Fearchar.
I liked being the one who wasnae watched. "
"Ye're being watched now."
"Aye. I noticed." Her mouth twisted, not quite a smile. "It's nae as comfortable as I'd have guessed."
"It daesnae have tae be comfortable. It only has tae be true.
" He shifted his weight, close enough that the torchlight caught the exact line of her jaw when she looked up at him.
"I'm nae asking fer an answer taenight. I'm asking ye tae give yerself the time tae find one that's actually yers, and nae just yer faither's, or the Council's, or a piece of parchment signed before either of us kent what it would cost."
"That's kind of ye." She said it like she wasn't sure it was kindness at all, still turning the idea of him over like an unfamiliar coin. "Fer a man who argued his claim on me in front of a full Council table like I was a line of inheritance tae be settled."
"I argued the Accord because it needed arguing, and because I wasnae about tae let Malcolm hand yer sister's marriage over as proof the King's decree was satisfied when it wasnae. That's nae the same as arguing fer ye like ye're a line on a ledger."
His voice roughened slightly, the first crack in the careful patience he'd held all evening. "I ken exactly who I'm asking tae marry me, Nandag. I've kent it since a garden in Edinburgh, long before any council table entered intae it."
She looked away from him at that, down at her own hands where they'd curled into the fabric of her skirt, and he watched her take a slow breath before she looked back up, steadier this time.
"I need time tae think," she said. "Nae tae spite ye. Nae tae spite me faither. I need tae sit with the shape of me own life before I agree tae hand it tae someone else's decree, even a fair one."
"I understand that."
"Dae ye?"
"Aye. I'd want the same, in yer place." He held her gaze a moment longer before he let the harder truth surface, because she deserved that more than she deserved comfortable silence.
"I'll nae pretend Robert's going tae give us the luxury of much time tae sit with it, though.
A man desperate enough tae drag his own wife out a side door with a blade in his belt isnae a man who waits patiently while the rest of us take our time deciding things properly. "
"Ye think he'll come back."
"I think he's already decided what he's willing tae lose tae keep what he's taken.
Whatever time ye need, lass, take it. I'll nae rush ye.
But dinnae mistake the quiet in this castle taenight fer peace.
It's only the space before the next move, and I'd rather ye went intae whatever comes next kenning that clearly, than comfortable and unprepared. "
Nandag studied him for a long moment, the torchlight flickering gold and shadow across the planes of his face.
Something in her expression eased, just slightly. Not agreement, not warmth exactly, but something closer to the look she'd worn across a fountain in a garden seven years gone, weighing a stranger who'd made her laugh.
"Then until then," she said, soft.
She didn't wait for him to answer that. She turned, lifted the latch, and slipped through the door into her chamber, the hem of her skirt catching for half a second on the frame before it cleared, and the door swung shut behind her with a quiet, final click.
Fearchar stood alone in the corridor, torchlight guttering in its bracket beside him, staring at the closed door long after there was any reason left to.