Page 22 of A Constant Blaze

“I thought I heard your voice,” Mairead said neutrally. “How safe are we?”

“We should be fine if we keep going,” Christian replied. “We have the king’s safe conduct through Lothian, Fife, and Angus, all the way north to Moray. We’ll meet Adam and the bulk of the men in Fife.”

“Then he knows you’re here?”

“Of course, he knows,” Christian said calmly. “He doesn’t like it, but it was his lady mother’s idea that I insinuate myself and my men as his father’s escort. If I couldn’t do it, your journey and Donald’s would have been rather more…perilous. I’m sorry if my presence caused you disquiet. I think the lady was worried about too much information falling into the wrong hands if her messenger was captured. Or any of yours. If it makes you feel better, you worried me, too.”

Mairead and Donald were gazing at her with rather peculiar fascination. Malcolm knew how they felt, but now he wanted to laugh instead of weep because, of course, Halla was behind this whole escapade. All she’d needed were the pieces in place.

“Well, new daughter,” Malcolm said to Christian. “It seems you managed very well.”

“So far,” Christian allowed with a rather charming, self-deprecating smile. “Please, let’s move on. The farther away we are from Roxburgh when they discover Donald’s escape, the happier I’ll be.”

*

“He’swhat?” theking exclaimed, staring at the messenger who’d just arrived at one of Fergus of Galloway’s houses where the king was spending the night on his way to inspect the west coast defenses and the position of Somerled’s ships.

He’d already had good news, that the ships seemed to have melted into the mist and vanished, so he wasn’t prepared when the messenger from Roxburgh brought such impossible news.

“Gone, Your Grace,” the messenger repeated nervously. “The cell was empty. The figure under the blankets that the guards had taken for Donald mac Malcolm was found to be Malcolm MacHeth’s clothing.”

“How the devil did they do that?” the king wondered, distracted and not a little impressed.

Fergus began to laugh.

“It doesn’t matter, does it?” Ferchar of Strathearn said bitterly. “We’ve lost every hold we had on Malcolm MacHeth. His son threatens Fife with a huge army that can cause incalculable damage before we can get to it. We’re reduced toprayingMalcolm MacHeth keeps his word to us. God’s teeth, we can’t even admit we’ve lost Donald, or Your Grace will look ridiculous.”

The king felt his eyes widen.“This must be what the world sees,”Christian de Lanson had said to him.“All the world ever sees, so your authority remains paramount. I am Your Grace’s servant in Ross.”

“I have a servant in Ross,” the king said ruefully. “Perhaps all is not lost.”

*

Malcolm MacHeth wokeafter his first night of freedom. Since it had been raining, he’d slept under a canvas tent with Donald, but at some point, he’d obviously stuck his head outside, for gentle rain pattered on his face.

He opened his eyes. It was still dark, the camp quiet. He lay half-in, half-out of the tent. The top of his blanket was soaked, so he’d obviously been like that for some time. He didn’t mind. He welcomed all the discomforts of freedom.

When he was young, he’d generally camped without tents, just finding what shelter he could when the weather turned bad. He’d quite often woken to rain on his face like this. Such as when he’d first met Halla in the hills of Ross…

He’d been so young and foolish then that he hadn’t regarded marriage as such a big thing. It was an alliance, a means to an end, to cementing his friendship with Somerled of the Isles. It was only as he and his men set off to meet the islesmen that he’d begun to wonder what the sister herself was like. After all, he would be fathering children upon her. And so, he’d left the men and raced ahead to watch the islesmen in secret.

He’d seen the boy wandering away and watched the women panicking. He’d assumed the boy to be some younger sibling of Somerled’s. It hadn’t entered his head until she’d spoken behind him that she wasn’t a boy at all. But she’d certainly gained his attention.

Beneath the grime and the baggy boy’s clothes, he could see she was pretty enough, and when she’d actually shot him, he was thoroughly intrigued. It became an obsession to understand how she saw their marriage, and everything else, too. Very quickly, Halla grew into moments of his busy life that he looked forward to, oddly exciting, fun moments because he was never sure where they would go.

It had helped that the morning he first awoke in her camp, rumpled and soaking from the night’s rain, her women had pushed her from the tent, washed and scrubbed, in a bright blue gown, with her hair combed into a shining golden mass like a halo. She no longer looked remotely like the child he’d called her. In fact, his bold, clever urchin was a breathtaking beauty, but by her slightly embarrassed manner, he assumed no one had ever told her so.

“Good morning,” he greeted her cheerfully, trying not to stare. “I hope you can run and climb in that gown.”

“Of course,” she said scornfully.

And she had done.

Although it hadn’t exactly been a courtship—there had been neither the privacy nor the time—Malcolm had wanted to make her comfortable with him. And in that, he’d succeeded. Just as well, for as soon as they reached his chief hall at Brecka, they were married.

It hadn’t been the most glittering wedding ceremony in the world. Because of his quarrel with the King of Scots, most of the great nobles had stayed away, and those of a more independent spirit who did attend—his cousins of Moray, Somerled of the Isles, Fergus of Galloway—had left their ladies and their heirs at home.

But the chief men and women of Ross had come in force, and their children had run about the hall in high excitement. Halla had spent a lot of time watching the children, her expression unreadable, perhaps regretting that her role as bride prevented her from playing with them; she wasn’t so very much older.

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