Page 15 of Tair

I need to find the laird. She wished she had gotten a floor plan sketch out of Seumas, but she would have to go slowly and see what she could see.

Following the right passage, Lucy soon discovered it was lined with thin wood panels that were probably painted to resemble stone or walls on the outside. Some had peep holes under small, gray-painted disks, but when she looked through them, all she saw was a torchlit stone wall across from the panel. She listened to a few that didn’t have peepholes, but when she heard voices talking she kept going. At last she smelled something delicious like rotisserie chicken, fresh-baked Hobnob biscuits and raspberry preserves, and glanced through the peephole to see a rail-thin old man inspecting some jam-covered bread on platters held by three women dressed in lace caps and stained aprons over dark wool gowns.

“Take those to the night patrollers first,” the old man told them, and then went back to cutting up a roasted chicken so huge it resembled a goose.

Lucy’s empty stomach growled, making her press a hand to it. The delicious smell of the food made her mouth water, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten for half a day or more. How long had she been unconscious? The old man was working very near to the panel, and when he went to check a bubbling cauldron hanging over the flames of a gigantic fireplace, she dared to push the false wall open and slip out to grab a leg and thigh.

“Stay and eat if you’re hungry, lass.” Someone reached out with an arm to stop her from darting back into the hidden passage. “You’ll need a full belly for what’s to come.”

Lucy looked up at yet another dark and handsome Scotsman, but this one was wearing a thick linen blindfold that covered his eyes. He also held a small dagger in his other hand, but a moment later he slipped that back into a sheath hanging from his belt.

“You’re too kind to the wenches, Chief,” the old man stirring the cauldron said without turning around to look at either of them. “’Twillnae please the laird that she’s escaped the dungeons.”

“Aye, but then, naught pleases my brother.” The blindfolded man chuckled. “The lass deserves a meal before she faces Tair, Ronan.”

Lucy didn’t know what would happen next, but when the cook brought a stool and thumped it down by his worktable she decided to play along.

“Sit, wench.” When she did he put what she’d grabbed along with more of the roasted chicken on a thin wooden plate, added a hunk of very yellow cheese and a golden-brown pear, and then placed it in front of her.

The blindfolded man went over to another table and began preparing a second plate. The fact that he seemed to be doing that strictly by touch fascinated Lucy.

“Eat,” Ronan said.

She didn’t want to act the glutton, but she was starving, and the food smelled so wonderful she couldn’t help herself. In just a few minutes she devoured everything but the chicken bones and the pear’s stem and core. She’d also watched the Scotsman add jam to two brown rounds and slice an apple with his small blade before picking up the plate and walking out of the kitchen, all without removing his blindfold.

“Good lass.” Ronan stopped cutting up more chicken to remove the empty plate. “Spent an unhappy night in the dungeons?”

“Not a place I’d hold a party.” She watched him heap the roasted meats onto three more platters. “Will you and the blind chap get any grief for feeding me?”

“From the laird? Himself’s too wise to bother with me or Lochran.” He filled a silver goblet with something dark pink and fragrant, and held it out. “Claret from Francia. Naught shall drink the stuff but me and the chief.”

She took a sip of the wine, which tasted like a pricey rosé, and sighed with pleasure. “Thank you, Mr. Ronan.”

A moment later the three women returned, stopped in their tracks and stared at Lucy, gasping as she waved at them.

“Dinnae stand there gawping—the men want their meat.” The cook glowered at them as he shoved the heaping platters into their hands. After they fled the kitchen he glanced at her. “Expect more of the same, and worse. You’ve no friends here, lass.”

“Yes, I got that message while I was locked up.” She might as well face the real problem, so she got to her feet and nodded in the direction the maids had left. “Can I find your laird through there?”

“Aye. The clansmen no’ on duty now gather for the evening meal in the great hall,” Ronan said, and then with obvious reluctance, added, “Pay them no heed, for they’re a tetchy, cross lot who shall do their best to alarm you. I daresay if they harm you in truth our lord shall have their heads adorning his dining table.”

“I like him even more now.” She nodded. “Thanks again for the meal, sir.”

He gave her a slightly twisted smile, as if he pitied her. “Go with the Gods, lass.”

The sound of the morning harps drifted from the watch towers into Fifer MacAlen’s bed chamber, rousing him from what had been a fitful sleep. For a time he lay and stared at the painting of the heavens on the boards of the ceiling. Awash in his dreams of the past, he had more and more trouble rising of late.

I’m laird. I’ve my kin to care for and protect. I’ve no more time for melancholy.

He knew better than to long for the days of his boyhood, and yet he could not stop thinking of that time. As young lads he and his best friend Gael had roamed the eastern sea’s shores to catch crabs and mollusks for their evening meal. Much later, when they had toiled in the brine pits for coin, their bared calves frosted white with salt crystals, they had still joked and laughed. After a long day of skimming the froth and assuring the boiling pans did not go dry and blacken, they would walk back together to the fishing village. There his lady màthair would have ready an evening meal of simple but plentiful food, which they would share as they talked about their work, their neighbors, and things that mattered only to them.

Someday you shall find and gather your clan, Gael had once assured him. You must leave me behind, and seek your destiny.

Never shall I, Fifer had vowed.

Unhappily that destiny had later found him, along with the blood kin who had instead come searching for him. As he traveled with the men of the MacAlen to find a place where they might build a stronghold together, tragedy struck. News came that the pestilence had reached his village, taking both Gael and his lady màthair.

I shallnae again brood away the morning.