Chapter Five
Her father sent the scouts out in threes before the bodies of the Campbell scouts were off the grass.
He gave the order with his back to her. He didn’t look around after either. Alexandra stood there long enough to be sure of it, then walked away from him, knowing she wouldn’t get a word out of him. But he had allowed her to stay, so that was fine... for now.
The camp had come apart and was putting itself back together in the way a camp does after a fright.
Men who had been sitting were standing. Fires that had been lit were being lit again in different places, further from the walls, out where nothing could come at them from the black.
Somewhere off to the left a McGregor was being sick and being told to get on with it.
She walked through all of it with her sleeve stiffening on her arm and her hands going in and out of fists, and every man she passed found somewhere else to look.
That was the thing she could not get past. Two hours ago they had looked straight through her.
Catriona had the healers’ fire and a broken bridle strap and no interest whatever in the fright.
“Sit down,” she said.
“I’ll stand.”
“Sit down, ye’re swayin’ on yer feet.” Catriona did not look up.
She had the strap over her knee and an awl in her hand, working it through the leather with her thumb behind it.
“There’s water in the black pot and it’s hot enough tae be some use tae ye.
Wash yer arm before it dries or ye’ll be pickin’ at it for a week. ”
Alexandra sat down.
She washed her arm. The water went pink in the bowl. She looked at it longer than she meant to, then tipped it out on the grass and did it again.
“Ye kept yer elbow in,” Catriona said.
“What of it?”
“When ye went at him. Ye kept yer elbow in and ye kept yer feet under ye.” Catriona pushed the awl through and pulled it out.
“Most folk throw the whole arm at it the first time. They open up like a gate and the next man in takes them under the ribs. Ye didnae do that. It was good work, and I’ll say so once and nae more, because ye’ll get insufferable. ”
The corners of her mouth twitched. “It doesnae feel like anythin’ at all. That’s the trouble with it.”
“Aye. It never does the first time.” Catriona bit the thread off. “Nor the tenth, if ye were wonderin’.”
That was the whole of the conversation. Catriona went back to the strap and Alexandra sat with her wet arm and waited to feel something that would have made sense, but what came instead was a hot flat anger with nowhere to go.
She was angry at her father. She was angry at the six of them for coming out of that wall.
She was angry at herself for the two hours she had spent boiling rags while her father walked out into the open with his back to a byre.
She got up and went for her sword, because her hands wanted work.
The fire nearest the horse lines had been left to itself. She took it. Sword across her knees, rag, the small flask of oil out of her saddlebag, and she went at the blade harder than the blade required.
“Ye’ll have nae sword left.”
She did not look up. Her heart had already told her who it was, which she found extremely irritating.
“I ken how tae clean a sword, Arran Kincaid.”
“Ye ken fine how tae clean a sword. Ye’re takin’ yer temper out on that one, and it’ll snap on ye the first time it meets somethin’ harder than a rag if ye keep at it.
” He came around and sat down on the log across the fire from her, not next to her, which she noticed and had opinions about.
“Ye’re rubbin’ like ye’re tryin’ tae get through tae the other side. ”
“Did ye come all this way tae talk about me sword?”
“Nay.” He held something out over the fire. “I came tae give ye that.”
It was a flask. She took it and looked at it.
“Is it water?”
“Aye.”
“Ye’re a disappointment tae me, Arran Kincaid.”
“I ken.” His mouth did something at one corner and got itself under control. “There’s whisky in the wagons and Hamish is sittin’ on it like a hen, and I’ll tell ye now I’m nae the man tae get it off him. Drink the water, Alexandra. Ye’ve had nothin’ since the ford, I’ve been countin’.”
“Ye’ve been countin’.”
“I have.”
She drank the water. She was thirstier than she had any idea of. She drank half the flask before she came up, and when she came up he was watching her with an expression that had far too much in it for a man handing over a drink.
“Say what ye came tae say,” she told him.
“I came tae thank ye.”
“Ye’re welcome. Was that so hard?”
“Ye’ve nae idea.” He put his elbows on his knees. “I was a fool in that corridor at yer father’s keep. I stood there and told ye tae stay behind and I was wrong tae do it, and I’ll nae be sayin’ it tae ye again. That’s me lesson learnt.”
She put the flask down.
“Which lesson?”
“What?”
“Ye said ye learnt yer lesson. Say which one.” She leaned forward. “Say it out loud where I can hear it, so I can hold ye tae it in a fortnight when ye’ve forgotten.”
He looked at her across the fire for a moment. Then, to her considerable annoyance, he laughed—a short one, out of his chest, gone almost at once, but it was real.
“That ye’re better than half the men on this field,” he said.
“That I’ve kent it since ye were wee and I’ve been arguin’ against it out of me own fear and callin’ it sense.
And that if I’d had me way this afternoon, yer father would be lyin’ in that grass, and so would I.
” He held her eyes. “Is that plain enough for ye, or shall I put it in writin’? ”
Her face went hot. She had not been ready for it to be that plain.
“It’ll do,” she said.
“Good.”
“For now.”
“Aye. I thought as much.”
He shifted to reach the fire. The movement pulled his shirt tight down his left side. She saw the dark patch on it, and every part of that conversation went straight out of her head.
She was on her feet before she had decided to stand.
“Ye told me it was a scratch.”
“It is a scratch.”
“Take yer hand away from it!”
“Alexandra—”
“Take yer hand away, or I’ll take it away for ye, and one of those is goin’ tae hurt ye more than the other!”
He took his hand away.
She came around the fire and crouched at his side. She got the hem of his shirt up as far as it needed to go and no further. There it was. A clean line across the ribs, the length of her hand, dark at the edges and still wet in the middle where he had been leaning on it.
“That’s a scratch, is it.”
“It didnae go deep.”
“And who looked at it tae tell ye so? Yerself? In the dark, with yer shirt on?”
“...Aye.”
“It’s been open since the middle of the afternoon and ye’ve been walkin’ about on it givin’ orders.” Her hands had started shaking again. She was furious with them. “Have ye had anythin’ on it at all? Anythin’ at all! Or did ye decide the dirt would see tae itself?”
“There were men worse off. Donnchadh’s lad took one through the shoulder, and there was a McGregor that…” He stopped himself. “There were men worse off.”
“There are always men worse off! That’s nae an answer, that’s a thing ye say instead of an answer!”
She went and got the pot and the cloth and the salve out of Catriona’s basket without asking. Catriona watched her take all three and said not one word about it. When Alexandra glanced back, the woman had her head down over the strap and a look at the corner of her mouth.
Arran sat still for it and watched her move about.
That was the worst part. He did not flinch when the cloth went on.
He did not flinch when she washed it out properly, and it must have burned him white.
He sat there with his jaw set and his eyes somewhere over her shoulder, like a man having his boots cleaned.
“Ye can make a sound,” she told him. “There’s nae one here but me and I’ll nae think less of ye for it.”
“I’m grand, I tell ye.”
“Ye’re nae grand. Ye’re bein’ stubborn at me, and that isnae the same thing.” She pressed the pad down and bound it and pulled the knot tighter than she strictly needed to. He made a sound then. She felt a great deal better. “There. Was that so terrible?”
“Ye enjoyed that.”
“I did.”
She should have stood up and walked away. She did not. She was crouched at his side with her hand flat on the binding and his shirt bunched under her wrist. He was breathing under her palm. The fire had suddenly got very loud.
“Ye put yerself in front of a blade,” she said.
“Aye.”
“For a man who’s spent this whole week tellin’ ye tae get off his land. Who put ye on yer knees in his own courtyard and then said it cost ye nothin’.” Her voice had gone low and would not come back up. “Why?”
“Because he’s yer father.”
That was all he said. He did not dress it up. He looked straight at her the whole way through it, and Alexandra had no answer anywhere in her at all.
“And ye’d do it again,” she said.
“Aye. Tomorrow, and the day after that, and ye needna ask me again.”
“Ye’re reckless.”
“I’m nae reckless.” He had not raised his voice once. “I ken exactly what I’m doin’ every time I do it. Ye’ve lost yer brother, Alexandra. I’ll nae stand and watch ye lose another one that ye love. Nae while I’m on me feet, and nae while I’ve a blade in me hand.”
The fire snapped. The soldiers kept on with their chores. And yet the beat of her heart sounded louder in her ears.
She was close enough to see the marks the illness had left on his face, the ones she had known her whole life and stopped seeing when she was still a girl.
She was close enough to count them. He had gone very still, the way a man goes still when he has said more than he set out to say, and his blue eyes had come down to her mouth and gone back up again fast.
“Then ye’ll protect yerself better,” she said.
“What?”
“Ye heard me.” Her heart was going so hard she could hear it. “Ye’re on that list, Arran. Ye’ve been on it a long while. So the next time ye put yerself in front of somethin’ ye can think about that first.”
It was out and standing in the air between them before she had decided to say it, and his whole face changed. Arran opened his mouth—
His hand came up. It got as far as her cheek and stopped there, near enough that she felt the warmth of it come off his palm, and every part of her leaned toward that hand without moving at all. She would have given a year of her life for him to close the last of it.
“Kincaid! Are ye at that fire?”
Hamish came through the horse lines with three McKenzies and a McGregor behind him and a pot in his hand, and the whole shape of the night changed with them. Arran’s hand dropped. Alexandra was up and two steps away, looking hard at the sword she had left on the log.
“Aye, I’m here,” Arran said. His voice was almost level.
“Then shift yer great legs and let a man sit. Ye’ve the fire, the log and the best of the wind, and ye’ve nae shame in ye at all.”
They sat. They put the pot on the fire. Hamish had got hold of someone’s oatmeal and was proposing to do something to it, and the McGregor lad had opinions about that, and inside the length of a minute the fire was six people instead of two.
Alexandra sat back down. Arran had moved along the log to make room. She took the room. Their shoulders were touching, and neither of them said a word about it or moved away.
“Ye’re the one that shouted,” the McGregor said to her. He was young. He had been crying at some point and had scrubbed it off badly. “I heard ye. I was at the wagons and I heard ye come around that wall.”
“Aye,” she replied, staring at the flames.
“Ye came around it at a run and drawin’ yer sword at the same time,” Hamish said. “The both at once.” He was stirring the pot and not looking at her, which she was grateful for. “I’ve been forty years at this and I’ve seen grown men fall over their own feet doin’ that. Where did ye learn it?”
“Me father.”
“Aye,” Hamish said. “He’ll be pleased about that in a week or so. Give the man till tomorrow and he’ll change his mind.”
The men laughed.
“I’ll tell ye what I saw,” said one of the McKenzies, an older man with a burn up the side of his neck.
“I saw six of them come off a wall at me laird’s back, and I saw nae one of us move, and I’ve been at his shoulder since before ye were born.
Nae one of us. We were lookin’ at the cattle.
” He turned the cup in his hands. “It shames me tae say it and I’ll say it anyway, me lady, for ye ought tae hear it out loud.
Ye were the only one of us doin’ the work. ”
“Ye were at the wagons,” Alexandra said. “Ye couldnae have seen it.”
“Aye. And ye werenae at the wagons, were ye.” He drank. “That’s me whole point.” Alexandra laughed, and it surprised her coming out, and beside her she felt Arran turn his head to look at her when she did it.
She let the talk go on around her.
They were all right, these men. They were warm and loud and they had decided she belonged at this fire, and a week ago she would have given anything for it. She sat in the middle with her shoulder against his and the heat of the fire on her face, as the fear came up and took her by the throat.
She had been fast enough today. That was all it was.
She had been standing in the one place in that whole village where a person could see over the byre wall, and if she had been ten paces further back she would have seen nothing, and her father would be dead.
She had not been skilled. She had been lucky, and luck is not a thing a person can practise.
She had shouted at Rory too. That was the last thing she ever did for her brother...
Beside her Arran said something to Hamish about the horse lines and the men laughed again. His shoulder moved against hers when he spoke.
Tomorrow they would be back on that road. He would put himself in front of the next thing that came, because he had told her to her face that he would, and there would be no wall for her to see over next time.
Alexandra looked into the fire and let them think she was listening.