Page 5 of A Constant Blaze

Cailean kicked the messenger, who glared and said resentfully, “Nothing, unless you’re Sir William de Lanson.”

Lanson. So, Adam’s ruse was working. The king still didn’t know that his knight, Sir William de Lanson, was dead, and so for now, he would send no other army against the MacHeths. And yet, for some reason, the sound of his name stirred Adam to unease.

Cailean raised his fist to the messenger in an obviously threatening manner, but Adam, who’d just spotted his wife, Cairistiona, entering the hall with her arms full of wild roses, stayed him with one finger. There were many ways to elicit information, and they didn’t all involve blood. “For quickness, would the Lady of Tirebeck do? Lanson’s wife?”

Cairistiona—or Christian in English—frowned slightly as she caught the words. Changing direction, she came toward them and deposited her flowers on the table.

“What is it?” she asked the messenger.

Adam’s heart warmed all over again. It seemed she knew what he wanted, picked up on a situation immediately, and acted upon it, even when she disliked, as Adam knew she did, being reminded that Lanson had been so recently her husband. That he had died at the hand of the man who had then promptly married her himself.

“You are the Lady de Lanson?” the messenger asked, although he must have known her by the now-famous linen mask she wore over one side of her face.

“Obviously,” Cairistiona said haughtily. “I am Christian of Tirebeck. Tell me the king’s will.”

“Perhaps in privacy,” the messenger said, casting an uneasy glance around her clearly Gaelic entourage.

“I’m losing patience,” Cairistiona interrupted while Henry usefully brought his Norman presence to the messenger’s attention by leaning on the table directly in front of him.

The messenger shrugged and took a deep breath. “His Grace greets Sir William and advises he should be ready as soon as the MacHeths march south.”

Deliberately, Adam didn’t look anywhere except at the messenger. “Is that it?”

The messenger nodded, his gaze flickering between Adam, Cairistiona, and Henry. “Find him refreshment and a place to sleep,” Adam said to Cailean, then switched to Gaelic. “And don’t let him leave.”

Judging by the messenger’s sudden resumption of struggling, he understood that, too.

“If he gives you any trouble,” Adam advised, “kill him.”

The messenger stopped struggling, and Cailean hauled him away again.

“What,” Henry said thoughtfully, “should Sir William be ready to do? When the MacHeths march south?”

Adam shrugged with quick impatience. “Attack us where it matters. Take our halls and our womenfolk and kill as many men as are left behind to protect them. The more interesting question iswhywe should march south.”

“You do so quite a lot,” Cairistiona said dryly. “In fact, you have only just come back.”

“Exactly,” Adam said. “And yet the messenger didn’t say, ‘when the MacHethsnextgo south or raid south.’ He said, ‘march south,’ as if this would be more than an opportunistic raid.”

He became aware only gradually of Cairistiona’s uneasy regard. This was difficult for her. She’d been brought up to regard the crowned king of Scots as the one true king, and her loyalty was too deep and true to be easily swayed. He couldn’t be sorry for that, although he could and did wish to have first hold on that loyalty. In time, perhaps.

She said, “Maybe now would be a good time to send the messenger back to the king with an offer to negotiate peace.”

“Maybe,” he said to please her. Most of his mind was occupied with the reasons for the king’s first ever message to his isolated knight in Ross. Something was happening. He just didn’t yet know what. He could only wait. “Come,” he said abruptly to Henry. “If we wait any longer, we won’t have time today.”

He took Cairistiona’s hand and kissed it, and was relieved to see her brow clear as her fingers clung for a moment to his lips. “Take care,” she said.

He didn’t think she was referring to a ride through his own country. Like him, she sensed something was happening, or about to happen. His fingertips seemed to tingle with it as he left the hall and mounted the gray horse already waiting for him.

“Send after me,” he said to Findlaech, “if any more messengers are found. Theirs or ours.”

Chapter Two

People came andwent from Tirebeck all the time, carrying messages to and from Adam. If Adam wasn’t around, most were passed on to Findlaech or whichever of the men were there. It was unusual for anyone to disturb him with a mere message before he had risen. But the morning after the king’s messenger had arrived, a knock on the bedchamber door froze Christian’s lips on her husband’s shoulder. His finger, teasing her breast, paused too, but he didn’t otherwise move away from her, merely raised his eyes from his finger to her face with a promising smile that caught at her breath.

“Adam,” came Findlaech’s voice through the door. “There’s a message from the Lady Mairead. You need to hear it.”

The exciting warmth died in Adam’s eyes. Without a word, his hand fell away from her. So did his arms, and he rose at once from the bed, reaching for his shirt.

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