Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
The hall had been decked out for Mòrag's wedding not two days past, and nobody had troubled to change a single garland of it before pressing the same trestle tables back into service.
Fearchar found something almost fitting in that, watching servants carry out the venison Cook had roasted for one wedding and never gotten to serve, setting it down now in honor of another.
He took a cup of ale from a passing tray and let himself lean back against a pillar near the edge of the hall, content for the moment to simply watch his wife work the room.
Nandag moved through the crowd without hurry, stopping at every table she passed, and Fearchar found himself tracking the shape of it rather than the words, though he caught enough of those too.
"Ye lost yer roof in the spring floods, did ye nae?
" she asked an older woman near the hearth, crouching slightly to bring herself level with the woman's seat.
"I'll have someone send timber up from the southern stores this week.
There's nay reason ye should be patching thatch with straw through another winter. "
"Ye neednae trouble yerself, me lady, on yer own wedding day."
"It's nay trouble. It's the reason I'm meant tae be sitting at that High Table at all." Nandag squeezed the woman's hand and moved on before the thanks could turn into a fuss.
At the next table, a younger man with his arm in a sling from the courtyard fighting tried to rise as she approached, and she pressed him back down with a firm hand on his shoulder before he'd gotten halfway up.
"Sit. I'll nae have ye tearing that wound open fer the sake of manners."
"Ye're too kind, me lady."
"I'm too practical. Sit."
He laughed, low and easy, and sat.
Fearchar took a slow pull of his ale and watched the pattern repeat itself, table after table.
Nandag never lingering long enough to be tedious about it, never so brisk she seemed cold, thanking a Farquharson elder for standing his ground during the fighting, comforting a young mother whose husband had taken a wound protecting the west gate, laughing at something a child.
"She's good at that," Duncan said, appearing at his elbow with his own cup in hand.
"She is."
"Ye sound surprised."
"I'm nae surprised." Fearchar's eyes stayed on her, on the way she'd crouched again beside an elderly man whose hands shook too badly to hold his own cup, steadying it for him without making a spectacle of the kindness. "I'm paying attention. There's a difference."
Duncan grinned into his ale and said nothing more, which Fearchar appreciated, because he wasn't entirely certain what his own face was doing right now and would rather not have it pointed out to him.
She'd been raised, by her own account, believing none of this would ever fall to her.
Groomed for accounts and household matters, never for the particular weight of standing in front of a hall full of frightened, grieving people and making each of them feel, in the space of thirty seconds, like someone had finally noticed what they'd lost. And yet here she was, doing exactly that, table after table, with none of the practiced formality he'd have expected from a woman thrown into the role without warning.
He'd stood across council tables from lairds twice her age who couldn't manage half of what she was doing right now without visibly performing it.
The musicians in the corner struck up something livelier, pipes and a low drum, finding their rhythm, and the hall's mood shifted with it, tables shoving back to clear space for dancing. Fearchar set down his cup and crossed the room, catching Nandag mid-conversation with Mairi near the hearth.
"Might I steal me own wife fer a dance," he said, "or has the whole clan already claimed every hour of her evening?"
Nandag glanced at Mairi, who waved her off with an unsubtle grin, and turned back to him with her chin lifted, a familiar challenge in her eyes even now. "I'm nae certain I trust a man who dances the way he fights. Ye'll likely put me through a wall by the second turn."
"I'm considerably gentler with dancing partners than I am with Robert's guards."
"That's a low bar, Chisholm."
"Take the risk anyway."
She hesitated, just a beat, and then set her hand in his, and Fearchar felt something settle in his chest at the simple weight of it that had nothing to do with the wedding cord from earlier and everything to do with the fact that she'd chosen it herself, freely, with no priest or parchment standing between the offer and the taking of it.
He led her out onto the floor as the drum found its pace, and the clan cleared space around them, a ring of watching faces, torchlight catching the gold thread in her gown as they turned.
"I wasnae exaggerating," she said, after the first turn, breathless and laughing despite herself. "Ye dae dance like ye fight."
"Ye're still standing, arenae ye?"
"Barely."
"I'll take barely." He turned her again, drawing her closer than the step strictly required, and felt her hand tighten briefly against his shoulder before she caught herself and eased it.
"The whole hall's watching us."
"They watched us marry an hour past. This is a good deal less interesting by comparison."
"I suppose." Her mouth curved, teasing despite the color rising faintly at her throat. "Ye seemed rather invested in making a spectacle of the kiss."
"That was fer me own benefit, nae theirs."
"Ye're insufferable."
"Ye've told me that already. Twice, I believe, since yesterday."
"I intend tae keep telling ye, until it takes."
The music slowed, the drum easing into something quieter, and the space between them narrowed without either of them deciding it should, her hand settling more naturally against his shoulder, his own resting lower at her waist than the earlier turns had allowed.
The teasing didn't stop exactly, only softened, the words coming slower, with longer pauses stretched between them that neither one seemed in any hurry to fill.
"Ye did well taenight," Fearchar said, quieter now, the hall's noise fading somewhere behind the sound of her breathing close to his. "With the clan. I watched ye at every table."
"I noticed ye watching."
"Did ye?"
"Ye're nae subtle, Chisholm." But she said it soft, no bite left in it at all, her eyes holding his through the slow turn of the dance. "I only did what needed daeing. Anyone would have."
"Nae everyone would have. Nae like that.
" He turned her once more, drawing her fractionally closer than before, close enough that the torchlight caught the flush still lingering high on her cheeks.
"Ye've a gift fer it, lass. I'd nae have expected it, given everything ye told me about being the overlooked daughter, and I find meself glad tae have been wrong about it. "
Nandag's steps slowed, her hand tightening against his shoulder, something unguarded crossing her face before she caught it and tucked it back behind a look that was almost, but not quite, composed. "Ye werenae wrong to expect it. I didnae expect it of meself either."
"Then we're both learning something taenight."
"Aye. We are."
Neither of them spoke for the last full turn of the dance, the music winding down slowly around them, the hall's noise dimming to a hush of watching faces and held breath as the final notes lingered in the torchlit air.
Fearchar found himself in no particular hurry at all to let go of her hand when the pipes finally, reluctantly, fell silent.
The chamber the servants had prepared for them sat at the end of the east corridor, the fire already built up high enough to throw gold across the stone walls, a fresh coverlet turned back on the bed like the whole household had conspired to make certain neither of them could pretend, even for a moment, what this night was supposed to be for.
Nandag stopped just past the threshold, her hand still loose in his from the walk up, and looked at the bed.
Fearchar shut the door behind them and let the latch fall softly into place.
"Ye can breathe," he said. "I'm nae about tae fall on ye the moment the door's closed."
"I'm breathing fine."
"Yer shoulders say otherwise." He crossed to the small table by the fire, where a jug of wine and two cups had been left, and poured one without asking, setting it near the edge where she could reach it if she wanted it and ignore it if she didn't. "Sit. There's nay rush fer anything taenight."
She sat on the edge of the bed, spine straight, hands folded in her lap, watching him.
"I meant what I told ye in the corridor," Fearchar said. "Before any of this. I'll nae take anything from ye that ye havenae freely chosen tae give. Nae taenight. Nae any night, until ye're the one closing that distance yerself."
Nandag's hands, which had been gripping each other tight in her lap, loosened by a fraction. "That's an easy vow tae make. It's another thing entirely, alone in a locked room."
"Then watch me keep it." He crouched by the hearth, added a log to the fire though it hardly needed one, more to give his own hands something to do than because the room required more heat.
"I've fought men who'd have called me weak fer saying such a thing plainly.
I dinnae much care what they'd think of it.
I care what ye think of it, and I'd rather ye trust me word. "
She was quiet a moment, watching the fire catch on the fresh log, and Fearchar let the silence sit rather than fill it. It was Nandag who broke it eventually, her voice smaller than the bold defiance she'd worn through most of the day.
"There's still the matter of the letter tae the King."
"Aye. There is." He straightened, and reached for the small blade at his belt, the same one he'd carried through the courtyard fight, cleaned now and honed sharp.
"The Crown will want proof the marriage is consummated.
Proof enough tae satisfy anyone who might try telling His Majesty otherwise. Robert included."
Nandag's eyes tracked the blade as he turned it in his hand, and something wary crossed her face again, quicker this time. "Fearchar."
"I'm nae asking anything of ye." He held her gaze steady, let her see there was no demand hiding behind the blade in his hand. "I said I'd nae force anything from ye, ye hadnae chosen, and I meant it. There's another way tae satisfy what the letter needs."
He drew the edge across his own palm, quick and shallow, a thin line welling red before he'd even finished the motion. Nandag was on her feet before he'd lowered the blade, closing half the distance between them without seeming to notice she'd moved.
"What are ye daeing?"
"It's a scratch, lass. I've taken worse shaving.
" He crossed to the bed and pressed his palm flat against the sheet, once, leaving a small dark mark against the pale linen, deliberate and precise, nothing like the frantic spreading stain a deeper wound would have left.
"This is what travels tae Edinburgh. Nae anything of yers.
Nae anything either of us dinnae choose freely tae give. "
Nandag stood very still, looking from the mark on the sheet to the shallow cut still welling faint against his palm, and something in her face shifted, the wariness giving way to something less guarded, though she didn't quite have a word ready for it either.
"Ye'd lie tae the King."
"I'd protect ye from a decision that isnae his tae make, nor mine, about what happens in this room."
He wrapped a strip of linen from the table around his palm, tying it one-handed.
"The letter will say the marriage is consummated and binding, because it is binding, whether or nae we've shared a bed taenight.
What happens between the two of us, and when, is nae business of any king's, however many parchments he's had signed about it. "
"And if someone questions it? Malcolm, or Robert, or anyone else looking fer a crack tae work a blade intae?"
"Let them question it. They'll find nay crack, because there isnae one tae find. A bloodied sheet is a bloodied sheet. Naebody in Edinburgh will be counting the days between the wedding and the reasons behind it."
He tied off the last of the bandage and flexed his hand once, testing it.
"Ye've had a day, Nandag. A wedding forced on ye by circumstance, a clan ye're only just learning tae lead, a sister still missing and a man out there who'd see ye used as leverage if he could manage it.
I'll nae add meself tae that list of things being decided fer ye without yer say in it. "
Nandag looked at him for a long moment, firelight catching the last of the flush still lingering at her throat from the dancing earlier, and when she spoke again her voice had lost most of its edge. "Ye're a strange sort of husband, Fearchar Chisholm."
"How so?"
"Most men I've heard of would take the excuse ye just handed away and use it twice over."
"I'm nae most men." He crossed to the window, drawing the shutter half closed against the night air, giving her, without saying so outright, the space of his back turned while she settled herself for whatever came next.
"And I'd rather earn a place in yer bed than take one I havenae been given leave tae sit in. "
"That could be a very long wait."
"I've waited seven years already fer less certain reasons.
I expect I'll manage a while longer." He glanced back at her, and something easier crossed his face, not quite the teasing grin from the training yard, something quieter than that.
"There's a second blanket in the chest by the wall.
I'll take the floor, if it eases yer mind any. "
"Ye fought a war and carried me up two flights of stairs bleeding. Ye're nae sleeping on a floor in yer own wedding chamber on me account."
"Then we'll share the bed, and I'll keep tae me own side of it, and ye can trust the door's locked and I'm a man of me word, or ye can stay awake all night watching tae make certain of it. Either way, lass, the choice is yers tae make, same as everything else taenight."
Nandag looked at the bed, then at him, weighing something behind her eyes that Fearchar couldn't quite read, and didn't try to rush.
"Yer side," she said finally. "Stay on it."
"Done."
She climbed beneath the coverlet, drawing it up to her shoulder, and Fearchar banked the fire low before crossing to the far side of the bed, settling atop the blankets rather than beneath them, putting every inch of careful distance between them that the frame allowed.
The room went quiet, firelight ticking soft against the stone, and neither of them, for a long while yet, showed any sign of finding sleep.