Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Nandag was still catching her breath, still deciding what to do with a bare-chested laird standing in the middle of her chamber, when the knock rapped sharp against the door again.
"Nandag? It's Mairi. I have a message from yer faither."
Every thought in Nandag's head scattered at once.
"Ye have to go," she hissed, already shoving both palms flat against Fearchar's chest, pushing him toward the wardrobe in the corner with more force than she'd have thought her arms capable of.
"Go where?"
"Anywhere that isnae in me chamber half undressed while Mairi's standing outside the door!"
She wrenched the wardrobe open and shoved him in among her gowns, and it was only once she'd slammed the door shut that she realized his shoulder hadn't quite cleared the frame, one bare arm and a stubborn slice of ribs still very visible through the gap where the door refused to latch properly around him.
"It daesnae fit."
"I can see that, lass, thank ye fer pointing it out."
"Nandag?" Mairi's voice again, closer now, a hand audibly testing the latch. "Are ye decent? I'm coming in."
Nandag hauled him back out by the wrist, ignoring his muttered protest, and cast one wild look around the room. The bed. It was the bed or nothing.
"Under. Now," she hissed.
"I'm nae a hound, ye cannae just expect me tae hide in there."
"Fearchar."
He dropped, folding himself down with considerably less dignity than a man who'd led warriors into war. He wedged himself beneath the bed frame with a grunt that suggested it hadn't been built with a man his size in mind.
Nandag caught the trailing hem of a bedsheet, yanked it down to cover the gap, and had just enough time to smooth her own skirts and arrange her face into something resembling calm before the door swung open.
"There ye are." Mairi stepped in, eyes sweeping the room once, twice, like she suspected something was wrong. "Ye look flushed."
"I was in the gallery. It's warm."
"It's the middle of autumn."
"The stairs. I climbed them quickly."
Mairi's gaze drifted, slow and deliberate, toward the wardrobe, where one sleeve of Fearchar's discarded shirt had somehow ended up caught in the door, dangling out like a pale flag of surrender. Nandag's stomach dropped straight through the floor.
"Is that a man's shirt hanging out yer wardrobe?"
"It's a rag. Fer polishing."
"Fer polishing." Mairi crossed her arms, one eyebrow climbing toward her hairline in an expression Nandag had seen turned on stable boys caught stealing apples. "Ye polish things with fine linen now."
"I've taken up new habits."
From beneath the bed came the faint, unmistakable sound of someone trying very hard not to laugh and mostly failing, disguised badly as a cough.
Nandag's eyes went wide. She dropped instantly into a fit of coughing of her own, loud and thoroughly unconvincing, one hand pressed to her chest. "Dust. This room's full of it. I should have someone sent up to clean it."
"Nandag." Mairi's voice had gone flat and mocking.
Nandag saw she was choosing, for reasons of her own, not to finish investigating a mystery she'd already half solved.
"I only came to tell ye yer faither wants ye at the noon meal.
He's asked Cook tae prepare something proper, seeing as last night's feast went so poorly.
That's all. I'll leave ye tae yer... dusting. "
"Thank ye, Mairi."
Mairi turned for the door, then paused halfway through it, glancing back over her shoulder with the ghost of a smile tugging at her mouth. "Fer what it's worth, whatever ye're daeing in here. I hope it's worth the coughing fit."
The door shut behind her.
Nandag stood frozen for the length of three full breaths, listening to Mairi's footsteps recede down the corridor, before she dropped to her knees and lifted the sheet.
Fearchar lay wedged beneath the bed frame at an angle that could not possibly have been comfortable, one arm bent awkwardly behind his head, the other pinned against his side, his expression somewhere between long-suffering and thoroughly entertained.
"Ye can come out now."
"Can I? Or is there another wardrobe I should be acquainting meself with first."
"Out. Now. Before I change me mind and leave ye there till supper."
He hauled himself out from under the bed frame with considerably more grace than he'd managed getting in, unfolding to his full height and rolling one shoulder with a wince.
"Remind me nae tae let ye hide me anywhere again.
I have a bruise coming up on me ribs that I dinnae get from Duncan's blade. "
"Ye were the one who couldnae fit in a simple wardrobe."
"It's a wardrobe built fer a woman's gowns, lass, nae a grown man."
"Ye should have thought of that before ye followed me in here half undressed."
"As I recall, ye were the one who pushed me toward it."
"Because ye were the one who wouldnae leave when I asked ye tae."
He caught her hand as she reached to smooth the sheet back into place, and the laughter that had been building in his chest finally broke loose. It was low and unguarded, shaking his shoulders in a way she hadn't seen from him yet, not once.
Nandag felt her own composure crack straight down the middle, and within a breath she was laughing too, hard enough that she had to brace a hand against the bedpost to stay upright.
"Yer face," she managed, between breaths, "I wonder how it looked when she asked about the shirt."
"Yer face, and trying tae cough like ye'd swallowed a whole loaf of bread."
"It worked, didnae it?"
"It worked very poorly. I could hear her nae believing a single word of it from under that bed."
"She dinnae say anything."
"She dinnae have tae." He was still holding her hand, she realized, his thumb tracing slow along her knuckles without either of them acknowledging it.
The laughter between them settled into something quieter, warmer, neither of them in any particular hurry to let go of the other's hand or the moment.
Fearchar spread the map of Strathglass across the table and set four stones at its corners to keep the parchment from curling, though his hand lingered a moment longer at the near corner.
"The eastern pass," Duncan said, tapping a spot near the ridge line. "That's where the scout spotted riders. Nae colors flying, but they moved like men who kent exactly where they were going."
"Robert's scouting the road out. Or waiting fer us tae move first." Fearchar leaned over the map, tracing the border of Farquharson land with one finger, stopping short of the pass. "He'll nae strike outright. Nae yet. He hasnae the men fer it."
"He's got enough men tae steal a bride out a side door."
"He's got enough men fer that. He hasnae enough tae hold Strathglass against the two of us combined, and he kens it, which means his next move will be something quieter. Buying time. Buying allies."
"Which brings us tae the King. His Majesty will want word the Accord's satisfied, one way or another, and if we let Robert's people reach Edinburgh first with their own version of events, it willnae dae us any good."
"They'll nae get the chance." Fearchar straightened. "We send word ourselves. A letter, confirming the marriage proceeds under the original terms, signed and sealed before Robert's got a rider halfway tae the border."
"Confirming a marriage that hasnae happened yet," Duncan said, dry.
"It'll have happened by the time the letter's read."
Fearchar didn't elaborate further, only reached into his belt pouch for the small, folded scrap he kept there and began winding it around two fingers without quite noticing he'd done it, the fabric soft and faded from years of the same careless habit.
"That ribbon again," Duncan said, after a moment.
Fearchar looked down at his hand as though it belonged to someone else, the pale strip of cloth wound twice round his fingers, edges gone soft and fraying at one end. He didn't stop turning it.
"It's naething."
"It's nae naething if ye've carried it seven years." Duncan's voice had gone quieter, the teasing edge dropped
Fearchar was quiet a moment, working the ribbon loose and smoothing it flat against the table. "A lass in a garden in Edinburgh wore it in her braid. It came loose and I picked it up meaning to give it back to her but the bells rang us both toward that hall. I never got the chance."
"And ye've carried it since."
"Aye."
"Through a war."
"Through a war." He folded it back into a small square and returned it to his belt pouch, and if his hand wasn't quite steady doing it, Duncan didn’t mention it.
"It seemed a foolish thing tae carry into battle, a lass's hair ribbon, and I told meself that every single time I nearly threw it away. Never managed it."
Duncan let that sit a moment before he spoke again, gentler than Fearchar had heard him all morning. "She's under this roof now, ye ken. The lass from the garden."
"I ken exactly where she is, Duncan."
"Then ye also ken the letter's nae the only thing that needs settling before Robert makes his next move."
Fearchar looked up at that.
"The wedding," he said, "needs tae happen before the letter's sent. Nae after. Or the King reads a promise instead of a fact, and Robert's got a full season tae whisper otherwise intae whatever ear will listen."
Fearchar rolled the map closed, tucked it under one arm, and was already moving for the door. "Then I'll need an audience with Laird Alasdair. Today."
He did not wait for an invitation. Fearchar turned on his heel and strode out of the hall, his boots striking hard against the flagstones.
The castle corridors were thick with hushed whispers, guards and servants alike flattening themselves against the stone as he passed. The air grew colder as he climbed the narrow spiral stairs leading to the laird's private quarters, away from the noise of the courtyard.
He pushed open the heavy oak door without knocking.
He found the old laird alone in his solar, wrapped in the same furs he seemed never to shed, staring into a fire that had burned down to embers without anyone troubling to build it back up.
"Chisholm." Alasdair didn't look up. "I assume ye're here about the letter."
"I'm here about the wedding." Fearchar took the chair across from him without waiting to be offered it, the way he'd taken his seat at the council table the day before.
"It needs tae happen before any word reaches the King.
If we send confirmation of a marriage that hasnae taken place, and Robert's people reach Edinburgh first with a different story, we hand him exactly the opening he's hunting fer. "
Alasdair's cough rattled through his chest, and he waved off the concern before Fearchar could voice it. "Ye want tae wed me daughter tomorrow."
"I want tae wed her before Robert has the chance to make it harder than it needs tae be. Every day we wait is a day he spends gathering men who'll believe whatever version of this he tells them."
The old man was quiet a long moment, his gaze fixed on the dying fire, his hands folded loose in his lap. "She's nae had time tae make peace with any of this. Ye ken that."
"I ken it. I told her as much meself, in the corridor last night.
" Fearchar leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees.
"I'm nae asking because I've fergotten that.
I'm asking because Robert isnae going tae wait fer either of us tae finish being fair about it, and I'd rather she stand married and protected than exposed and still deciding. "
Alasdair's cough came again, worse this time, and he pressed a hand to his chest until it passed.
"There's little left in me tae argue with that logic, much as I'd like tae find fault in it fer her sake.
" He let his breath out slow. "Tomorrow, then.
Quietly. I'll nae have the whole castle whispering about it before the vows are even spoken, nae after what happened at the last wedding held in this hall. "
"Agreed."
"The priest will need summoning. And it'll need daeing without half the kitchen staff carrying word tae the stables before sundown."
"I'll see tae the priest meself."
Alasdair reached for the small bell at his elbow and rang it once, and when the servant appeared in the doorway, his voice had steadied into something closer to the laird Fearchar had first faced across a council table, brisk and certain despite the fire gone cold behind him.
"Fetch Father Lennox. Quietly. Tell him his laird requires him within the hour and tell no one else."
The servant bowed and vanished, and Alasdair turned back to Fearchar with something that might have been the ghost of a smile, worn thin around the edges of a man who'd buried too much in too short a span to manage anything fuller than that.
"Discreet," the old laird said. "Every step of it, Chisholm, until the moment it's done and there's nothing left fer Robert Farquharson tae unmake."