Page 30 of Highlander’s Sloth

“Losh, Cal,” Dunn said. “’Tis though ye have had a fire lighted underneath ye!”

Callum gave him a brief smile. “I can think of no better time for it to happen than now, can ye? While I’m off to me mither’s chambers, Dunn, be a good friend and send scouts out into the surrounding hills and woods. I have a feeling we’re being watched and need to squeeze some information out of the spies. Can I leave it in yer hands?”

Dunn promised his friend he could and went to the guards’ room to find some of the newly hired sentries to help him. He could not help smiling at how fast things had changed. Only the previous month, Callum had been worried his wife might be having an affair with one of the new servants, and here he was now using them to seek out possible spies for the baron.

That evening, Dunn and the two sentries returned to Macanroy Lodge with a struggling prisoner in tow.

Callum told them to take the man to the stables; the lodge had turned all the old cellars where they used to keep prisoners into storage rooms for whisky.

He said to the man, “I feel this is an appropriate place to lock ye up. The baron did the same to my servants. I hope you find the horses amiable company.”

The man struggled. “I’m no’ with the baron, I swear!”

Callum sighed. “Aye, I ken. Ye’re with Laird Duncombe, are ye no’?”

The man said nothing and hung his head.

Callum nodded. “Just as I thought. And when is Laird Duncombe planning to attack the lodge?”

It took a while and more than a few kicks to the spy’s backside before Dunn and Callum discovered that Laird Duncombe was making imminent plans to attack. Armed with this information, they returned to Laird Macanroy’s sickbed.

There, they found Lady Elspeth and Kirsty nursing the old man, feeding him soup and plumping his flattened bolster.

Kirsty looked up when she saw her husband. “What did he tell ye?” She had no doubt that Callum and Dunn could be quite resourceful when it came to extracting information out of spies.

Callum gave his family the news.

“Hoots! That’s terrible news,” Laird Macanroy cried.

Even Kirsty and Lady Elspeth had to agree with the laird. “What are we to do?” Lady Elspeth wrung her hands and cried.

“There’s naught for it,” Laird Lachlan said. “We must surrender. I will order the caskets containing the receipt to be brought up from the strong room—”

“Have ye run mad, Faither?!” Callum was outraged. “Never mind that Kirsty an’ I want that receipt to stay in the clan for the sake of the bairns we plan on having in the future, but I will be damned afore that measly baron and that blackguard Duncombe get their greasy hands on the receipt. Even now, Duncombe is plotting to attack us—with no provocation—in times of peace. We must fight!”

Even Lady Elspeth stopped crying and had a hopeful look return to her face at her son’s rousing words, but Laird Lachlan shook his head.

“I-I don’ want to fight. I believe this is justice on me clan for the hateful way in which we got the receipt...ye see, yer great-grandfather stole it from a holy house. He was a wastrel, cast out from the industrious Macanroy clan for his fecklessness. He was offered food, shelter, and kindness by an order of monks. They were preparing to flee for their lives—it was during King Henry’s reign, ye ken—but they took him in, and all he did in return was cheat and steal from them. Those poor men. Who kent what happened to them. But yer great-grandfather returned here with the receipt locked away in caskets, and it was the ruination of the clan. He sold off our lands so he did no’ have to bother about collecting the annual monies, and now here I am, ready to reap the whirlwind ye great-grandfather sowed. I have no doubt the receipt is cursed and am all too happy to pass that curse along to the baron and Duncombe. I summoned ye back here to tell ye this, Son, just as me own faither did to me.”

There was stunned silence in the chamber. All they could think about was the poor monks; wretched men cast out of their home by a bloody tyrant of a king, waking to find their only way of earning money had been stolen from them by some laird’s layabout son.

Callum stood up straight. “I ken me wife is strong enough to break any curse that might be on this clan. Look how she’s improved things already. I say we fight. Who’s with me?”

Everyone in the room cheered.