Page 47 of Rebellion's Fire

“Take off your clothes,” the prisoner said, “and get into bed. Quickly.”

“I like an impatient client,” the girl said, beginning to obey.

Laughter shook the prisoner’s shoulder as he turned his back on her. “Lady Mairead, you are outrageous. Thank you for coming in the storm. I thought you might not be able.”

“I only have tonight. I have to rejoin the court at Edinburgh before my husband notices I’ve gone.”

The girl huddled under the blankets with a sigh, and he turned and strode to the chair, which he placed facing her. This girl, a lady recruited by his brother-in-law and his son, was his only link with the outside world, with his wife and his family and the events that affected them. His guards, with the constable’s tacit permission, were happy to grant him this occasional pleasure, and though he never touched her, he was surprised by how much pleasure he actually got from her simple company. Not just for her news and the letters she occasionally brought him, but for her wit and her courage and her sheer vitality. She’d become more real to him than his own wife, whom he hadn’t laid eyes on for twenty-two years.

“What news?” he asked Mairead, as he always did.

“There’s a letter from your lady in the bodice of my dress. I hope the rain hasn’t spoiled it.”

Impatiently, Malcolm, son of Aed, rummaged in the discarded dress until he found the parchment. Opening it with one hand, he distractedly hung the dress to dry on the back of his chair with the other.

“Did your guards tell you the latest exploits of your sons?” Mairead asked, and proceeded to regale him with the details of a story he’d already heard in part. He laughed out loud when she told him about being robbed by Adam and having to feign such fear and distress when she reached home. “Though to own the truth, I was more than a little scared when I first opened the carriage door. I knew all those ruffians in the isles, but somehow, they seem much scarier in the dark.”

“Including my son? Somehow, I imagined you were used to seeing him in the dark.” Malcolm wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Jealous of both of them, he suspected ruefully. Captivity did twisted things to one. This magnificent girl was his son’s age, and part of him was proud of Adam for winning such a conquest.

“That was a year ago and more,” Mairead said without embarrassment. “I suspect we’ve both grown up. I met another interesting character for the first time while I was in Kingowan. The Lord of Galloway.”

“Fergus,” Malcolm said with a quick smile of reminiscence. “He was a wild lad. I imagine he still is. What was he doing at Kingowan?”

“I think he’d been commanded to follow the king there. Do you trust him?”

“Up to a point,” Malcolm said cautiously. “He’d do us a good turn if it wasn’t bad for him. Like the rest of us, he looks after his own. But he’s…slippery. Or was. Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know. I just thought he was very observant. I caught him watching me a couple of times.”

“I imagine men must watch you a great deal.”

“I assure you, I’m less noticeable in real life.”

“I doubt that.”

She blushed a little. He hadn’t known she could blush, and he rather liked the effect.

“I’ve seen admiration in men’s eyes,” she admitted in a rush. “And I’ve used it to my own advantage. In Fergus’s case, I was afraid he’d guessed that my robbery wasn’t real, suspected somehow that I was in league with your sons. What would he do?”

“I don’t know,” Malcolm said slowly. “He needs the King of Scots’ friendship, but he values his independence over everything. It would depend, but I’d suggest you be very careful. Stay away from here for a while.”

“I’ll ask Adam.”

Malcolm blinked. “Has Adam met him?”

“Not to my knowledge, but he might have seen him. In his waking dreams.”

Malcolm shifted uncomfortably. “Does he really…see?” He didn’t actually want to hear or even think about this rumored aspect to his son, as if it diminished him, opened him to ridicule.

“Oh yes,” Mairead said blithely. “He has waking dreams and sleeping ones. Your people only rose up because Adam saw that the king would not kill you, that youwillgo home to Ross.”

Malcolm hadn’t laid eyes on Adam since he was two years old. He’d been a funny, curious child then. Mischievous, daring. But sometimes he hadn’t seemed to hear when you spoke to him; he’d gazed at nothing. At other times, he’d listened so attentively to what you said that even at two years old, he could repeat it back word for word. In any language. It broke Malcolm’s heart that he’d no idea what sort of man this boy had grown into, that he had to ask a stranger.

“Do the men follow him?” he asked bluntly.

“Oh yes,” Mairead said. “Into hell, if necessary.”

*

---