Page 12 of Highland Slayer
“Did ye say something?” he said.
She nodded. “I said that my name was Anaxandra,” she said. Then she shrugged. “You asked, after all.”
Something in his pale eyes seemed to warm a little. “I did,” he said. “Anax…?”
“Anaxandra.”
“An unusual name,” he said. “Are ye named for someone?”
She shook her head. “I do not know,” she said. “I came to St. Margaret’s as an infant, a foundling. I do not know where the name comes from, but it means ‘defender of the people.’”
He smiled faintly. “Is that what ye were told?”
“It is.”
“My name means ‘crown.’”
“Does that mean you are royal, then?”
He snorted softly. “Nay,” he said. “Not even close.”
“But you said your father was the Earl of Torridon.”
“That does not make him royal,” Estevan said. “But he does have old bloodlines. We all do.”
“We?”
“My brothers and sisters.”
“How many?”
“Seven brothers, two sisters.”
Her eyes widened. “Such a big family?”
He nodded. “There are ten of us,” he said. Then he threw a thumb in the direction of the sanctuary. “My younger brother is with me. Kaladin. Ye almost killed him with yer bolts. Ye almost killed me, too.”
She shook her head. “Untrue,” she said. “If I had wanted to kill you, I would have. I simply prevented you from approaching the gatehouse too closely.”
“Why?”
She seemed surprised by the question. “Because you do not belong here,” she said. “We discourage any visitors. Especially male visitors.”
“But we aren’t visitors,” he said. “We brought a sick woman we found by the river. In fact, were it not for the weather, we would be in Dumfries now, cozy in a gambling room, losing all of our money. So, I suppose I should be thankful for the weather.”
Anaxandra pondered his statement curiously. “Gambling room,” she repeated. “What is that?”
“Where men go tae gamble.”
“What is gamble?”
He thought she might be teasing him, but from the expression on her face, he could tell that she was serious. He had to remind himself that the woman had grown up in an abbey. He was fairly certain that the subject of gambling had not been part of her upbringing.
“Well,” he said, stepping away from the horse and reaching down to pick up two sprigs of dried grass. He extended one to her. “Let’s say this is a gold coin and it belongs tae ye. Take it.”
Hesitantly, she did. “What do I do with it?”
He held up the other sprig. “This is my gold coin,” he said. “Now, let’s say ye feel strongly that it is going tae stop raining by the time ye count tae five.”
