Highland Master (10 page)

“I don’t mind the rowing, and all three of us can swim,” she said, confirming Fin’s earlier deduction.

Mackintosh turned to him. “Can ye no manage a pair of oars yourself, then?”

Fin smiled. “She would not let me.”

She said, “With Boreas in the stern, as he must be, Fin is too heavy to—”

“Ye should properly call the man Sir Finlagh, I’d wager,” Mackintosh interjected, turning back to Fin. “Ye
have
won your knighthood, aye? As puffed up as your master is in his own esteem, I doubt he’d trust any lesser man with his messages.”

“Who is this puffed-up master of his?” Lady Annis asked her husband.

“I’ll tell ye that later an I tell ye at all. Now whisst, and let the man talk.”

“I do have the honor to hold a knighthood,” Fin admitted.

“And, nae doots, ye won that honor on the battlefield,” Mackintosh said. “Thus earning the name by which others do call ye.”

“That’s right, sir,” Fin said, wondering if the old man would demand a list of the battles he had fought. He devoutly hoped that he would not.

Before the Mackintosh replied, Lady Ealga said, “If you two mean to walk the shore of the loch, you should tell someone to fetch some apples and other food to sustain you until our midday meal. One always gets hungry, rambling about.”

“I havena said that I approve this outing,” the Mackintosh reminded them all.

To Fin’s surprise, Catriona said, “You do know that you can trust Boreas to protect me, sir. If Sir Finlagh should prove dangerous, that is.”

Mackintosh chuckled. “Faith, ye do well enough protecting yourself. Ye may go, aye. Just bear in mind, lad, that I see more and ken more than ye think I do.”

“I had deduced as much, aye, sir,” Fin said with increasing suspicion that the old man
did
know exactly who he was.

Mackintosh said, “I’ve put out the word to send your lads here when they show themselves. Nae doots, they’ll arrive by suppertime if not afore then.”

Fin thanked him and returned his attention to his food.

While he finished his meal, he tried to recall all that he had heard about the Captain of Clan Chattan. Men had called him canny and shrewd. Others spoke highly of his integrity. All said that his word was his bond and that no one had known him to break it. But the same was true of most Highland lairds.

A Highlander who broke his word lost the trust of neighbors, friends, and family, let alone that of any enemy clan with whom he might have to parley.

No one had suggested, either, that the Mackintosh played the verbal games that some men played when they did give their word, such as arranging their words with care so they could draw on that phrasing later to prove that what
seemed
to be breaking a promise was not. Such men were likely to earn more scorn than respect.

Fin decided that Mackintosh would be fair with him when he learned that he was a Cameron. If he was fair, he would not erupt in fury or order Fin hanged or thrown into a pit (doubtless water-filled if it lay in a dungeon at Rothiemurchus).

Recalling his safe conduct from Rothesay, Fin sighed. He would do better to depend on the old man’s reputation, considering what Mackintosh thought of Davy.

“Do you want to go at once, Sir Finlagh?”

Lost in thought, aware of little beyond a hum of low conversation, Fin started at the sound of Catriona’s voice. He had not realized that she had risen from her stool and walked behind the others to speak to him.

He said, “I must fetch my sword. Have you aught to do before we go?”

“Just to fetch some apples and Boreas. He’ll be in the kitchen, because our cook is his most favored friend. But I’ve only to shout down the stairs for him.”

“That thin dress won’t keep the chill off,” he pointed out. He noted that the cheerful yellow kirtle fit her body sleekly and looked soft to the touch. It delineated her delightful curves even better than her moss-green gown had the evening before.

“ ’Tis camlet, sir, fine wool,” she said. “I’ll send for a shawl though. It may grow windy.” As she spoke, she gestured to someone in the lower hall.

Collecting his sword and sword belt from his room, Fin went down to the entryway but found the young gillie Tadhg waiting there instead of Catriona.

“I thought ye might need me tae help look after the dog, sir,” Tadhg said. “See you, I mean tae be a knight one day m’self. I can swim, and I’m a fine runner, and I mean tae be a great swordsman, too. Ye could teach me much, I wager.”

Fin smiled at him. “You need to grow a foot or two first, lad.”

“Aye, sure, I will. And Sir Ivor says I ha’ tae learn tae use me head, too.”

Recalling that Ivor was Catriona’s brother, Fin said, “He is right about that, laddie. You cannot come with us today, but we’ll talk more of this anon.”

Grinning, Tadhg dashed off, and Catriona soon joined Fin. Launching the boat as they had the day before, they laughed together at the audible sigh that Boreas gave as he curled himself in the stern and laid his head on his forepaws.

Once ashore, Fin slung on his sword belt so that the weapon lay across his back in its sling. Then he and Catriona strode northward along the track.

He smiled when she raised her face to the cloudy sky and drew a long breath. Despite her smaller size, he barely had to shorten his stride to accommodate her. Moreover, much of the track was wide enough for them to walk abreast.

“Do you know the Cairngorms?” she asked ten minutes later.

“We caught glimpses of them on our way here,” he said. “I cannot say that I know them, but they do look as forbidding as men say they are.”

“They can be gey dangerous, aye,” she said. She was silent again for a time. Then, she said, “I want to ask you something else.”

“Ask me anything,” he said rashly. “If I can answer you, I will.”

“You mentioned Lochaber yesterday and told my grandmother that you spent your childhood there. The first seat of the Mackintosh lies in Lochaber, albeit at a distance from Loch Ness. Do you know of Tor Castle?”

“Aye, sure,” he said, hoping that his tone concealed his reluctance to discuss that topic at any length yet. “I’d wager that anyone from Lochaber has heard of Tor Castle, although it lies high in the mountains, in Glen Arkaig.”

“My grandfather wants to be buried there. He goes there every Christmas.”

Fin nearly admitted that he knew that, too. But he managed to hold his tongue. After a period of silence, he told her about meeting Tadhg and what the boy had said.

She chuckled. “Aye, Ivor says he’ll make a fine knight. But if he doesn’t, Tadhg has declared that being a running gillie would be almost as good.”

Fin laughed. “I doubt he’d find carrying messages as much fun as a tiltyard.”

She smiled again, and the sun had come out. It was a fine day.

Boreas trotted ahead of them. Carrying his snout high, the dog ranged back and forth from one side of the trail to the other, taking scents from the air.

They approached a narrowing of the track where dense shrubbery closed in on both sides. On the landward side, the shrubs covered much of the steep hillside until woodland took over. Fin slowed to let Catriona go ahead of him.

As she did, Boreas stopped and turned to look uphill, sniffing, ears aprick.

Catriona halted. Fin, perforce, did likewise.

The dog’s growl started low and deep in its throat. But it was loud enough for Fin to hear. Putting a hand on each of Catriona’s shoulders and feeling her start at his touch, he murmured, “Let me by, lass.”

So intently had Catriona concentrated on Boreas that she had not sensed how close Fin had come. When his warm hands grasped her shoulders, although she started, she felt an immediate sense of safety.

“Prithee, sir, stay as near the downhill shrubbery as you can when you pass me,” she said quietly. “I need to watch Boreas, so I can command him if need be.”

She was pleased when he did not question her or ignore her request as many men would have. He just shifted his left hand to her right shoulder and eased past her, pressing into what, on him, was waist-high shrubbery.

His body brushed against hers, so near that he pressed the sheathed dirk she wore under her skirt into her hip and thigh. Only after he had moved ahead did she see that he had drawn his own dirk. His sword remained in its sling.

Boreas blocked the path, his head still high.

Snapping her fingers twice, Catriona watched the dog shift body and head until both aligned with the direction of the disturbing scent.

When Fin glanced back at her, lifting an eyebrow, she murmured, “Whatever he senses is directly ahead of him.”

“Man or beast?”

“I cannot say for sure, but human, I think. Were it a wolf or a deer, he would show excitement rather than wariness. He looks much as he did yestermorn, with you, although he showed more intensity then because of the blood. Likely one man, or more, lurks ahead. Were they in the open, fishing or the like, Boreas would not be so wary. His behavior indicates that he is curious but also protective.”

“So he does not trust me to protect you. Is that it?”

“He is not thinking about
you
, only of what lies ahead of him, and of me.”

“Then we’d best find out what it is,” Fin said.

As she watched him stride toward the dog, Catriona reached through the right-hand fitchet in her kirtle to grip the handle of her dirk. Their apples, in a small cloth sack with its long end wrapped around her linked girdle, were out of her way.

Boreas had not moved. But as Fin neared him, Catriona put two fingers to her mouth and gave a low whistle. At the signal, the dog began loping up the hill, ranging back and forth and barking deeply.

If archers lay in wait there, they might shoot. But the weaving dog made a poor target for any man concealed in woodland or shrubbery.

Fin made a better one.

She was about to shout that he should beware when a man stepped out of the shrubbery. Pulling off his cap to reveal thick, curly red hair, he shouted, “Call off yon blasted dog, lass! ’Tis only me!”

F
in glanced back at Catriona, who looked annoyed.

When she eased her hand free of the slit in the yellow kirtle, he wondered if she carried a weapon. He had not considered that possibility, but it would help explain her confidence the previous day when she’d had only Boreas for company.

She did not speak as they watched the redheaded man bound down the hill toward them, leaping over bushes as he made his way to the track.

“Who is that?” Fin asked.

“Rory Comyn,” she replied, her eyes never leaving the other man. “Boreas,” she said then so quietly that Fin barely heard her, “to me.”

The dog loped back. Just before it reached her, she made a sweeping gesture with her right hand. Stopping, the dog turned, fixing its gaze on Rory Comyn.

“Stop there,” Fin said when the man reached the track ten feet ahead of him.

Comyn snatched his sword from the sling on his back and held it at the ready, snapping, “Who
are
ye, and where d’ye think ye be taking her ladyship?”

Fin watched every move but did not reach for his own
sword and held his dirk low. A fold of his plaid hid it from the other man.

Comyn was some inches shorter than Fin was, although he was as broad across the shoulders and thicker at the waist. He wore a green and blue plaid, kilted at his waist with a wide leather belt, and rawhide boots to his knees. He held his sword steady. His dirk remained sheathed at his waist.

In reply to his question, Fin said quietly, “They call me ‘Fin of the Battles.’ ”

Comyn’s eyebrows shot upward, suggesting that he recognized the name. But he said with a cocky grin, “Do they now? Do they also give ye leave to take liberties with other men’s women?”

“I am
no
man’s woman,” Catriona snapped from behind Fin.

“Aye, well, ye
will
be mine, lass, just as soon as we get matters sorted.”

“Nay, I will not.”

“Just ye wait until James and your father return, lassie. Then we’ll see.”