Page 71 of A Constant Blaze

One of the horses snorted, interrupting the momentary banter. Halla sat on its back, wearing the scout’s helmet, his bow and quiver over her shoulder. “Keep out of sight,” she ordered, and before anyone could recover enough to stop her, she rode down the hill toward Fergus’s camp.

Muiredach groaned. Tomas swore long and fluently.

“What now, O Harper?” Mairead asked in her most provoking voice.

“Now,” Muiredach said as the other captured scout was dumped unceremoniously at their feet, “I suppose I’d better be somebody’s captive.”

In the end, despite his arguments and commands, both he and Mairead played captive to Tomas, while the other guard stood over the captives and the remaining horses. Which was how they came to be in the thick of it when Fergus of Galloway challenged Malcolm MacHeth.

Muiredach, leading Malcolm’s horse, and Mairead edged nearer to Halla as the combatants circled each other, the one tall and rangy, the other slight and wiry.

“Can he win?” Muiredach asked Halla in a low voice.

“Malcolm?” Halla didn’t look at them. Her attention was all on her husband, her expression unreadable. “He always used to.”

“Before he was in prison for twenty years while Fergus honed his battle skills,” Muiredach felt compelled to warn her.

“That’s what Fergus is relying on,” Halla murmured.

Tomas urged his horse next to Muiredach’s, ready for whatever would happen next. If Malcolm died here, his blood would not be the last spilled today.

Fergus made the first attack, a sudden wicked lunge that looked as if it might actually hit home. A tiny yet despairing moan of fear escaped Mairead’s lips. But it seemed Malcolm was quick, too, especially for his size, for his own great sword swung up to take the blow and immediately struck back, driving Fergus several paces back before he knocked up Malcolm’s sword and circled again, sneaking in lower. Malcolm spun away, his sword crashing down on Fergus’s as they faced each other once more.

The fight was riveting, all the more so for the stakes involved. If Malcolm won, he ruined Fergus’s alliance with the King of Scots, at the very least. If Fergus won, no one doubted he would kill Malcolm and take his wife and his people. And then the MacHeths really would come. War between Ross and Galloway would be inevitable, with the King of Scots the only possible winner. Were Malcolm and Fergus really so blind that they couldn’t see beyond their own petty anger and injustices?

Muiredach wondered why he ever expected anything different. It was just like Ireland. Malcolm was no better than Muiredach’s own father and uncles and brothers in their relentless pursuit of power for power’s sake.

And yet he had hoped that Malcolm would be different now from the boy who’d plunged his country into war twice for a crown. The odd times Halla had spoken of him had revealed a man who was rather more than that, a man for whom the crown was a beginning, not an end in itself. And Muiredach had wanted that to be true, for Halla’s sake if for no other.

Yet here Malcolm MacHeth stood, willing to kill and die after finally, finally returning to the woman he didn’t deserve.

Halla murmured to Tomas. “Take Bernard de Brus behind you and go while their attention is fixed elsewhere. Mairead, go with Muiredach.”

Muiredach’s gaze flickered to her in alarm. “I can’t leave you here alone.”

“I’m the only person here who’s safe.” Halla dragged her gaze away from the increasingly brutal fight—Malcolm had brought Fergus to his knees with a vicious kick, though Fergus fought back immediately, slashing at Malcolm’s legs and forcing him back. There was blood. She caught Muiredach’s eyes. “Why do you think he gave you his horse?”

“For his honor, we can’t leave,” Muiredach said bluntly.

“If you’ll notice, Malcolm didn’t actually agree to his terms. Which may be sophistry, butIcertainly agreed to nothing. I am ordering you as your lady to take Mairead and go.”

“Lady—”

She turned on him with hard, commanding eyes, a side of her he rarely saw. “Malcolm is here because of Donald. But this is a stupid fight, engineered by Fergus solely to save his alliance with the King of Scots after ravaging the said kingdom falsely in the MacHeth name. We owe him nothing.”

“Agreed,” Muiredach said impatiently. “But what of you if Malcolm mac Aed loses? What if he dies?”

A faint smile flickered over the lady’s face and vanished. “Then there will be nothing anyone can do for me. I will kill Fergus. And you will still be safe.”

Muiredach’s heart ached. It almost sounded as if she were saying farewell. Her next words confirmed it.

“God be with you, Muiredach. You have been a good friend to me and mine, your value beyond words. Now, go.”

Muiredach swallowed. Mairead tugged at his arm, her eyes huge and sad in her beautiful face. She’d do Malcolm’s last, silent bidding; and she acknowledged the lady’s right to stay with her lord. Muiredach saw at last that he had to do the same. And so, he edged away from the scene, Tomas and Mairead still with him.

At the back of the crowd, quite unguarded, Bernard de Brus stood stiffly, presumably catching only glimpses between the shifting crowd of the fight that was meant to decide his life or death.

“Mount,” Muiredach murmured to him as Tomas reached down to him.

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