Highland Seer (7 page)

“‘The likes of ye’?” Donal interrupted, tensing.

Micheil pushed the lass out of the way. “Be about yer business and stay away from these,” he snarled before he faced Donal. “I’ll only warn ye once, so listen well. Leave our women be.”

“Yer women have need of some men about,” Bram broke in, his face going red.

Micheil lifted a fist as if ready to throw the first punch, but Donal stepped between them.

“Do ye think yer laird would appreciate a fight in her hall? Did ye learn nothin’ on the practice ground?”

Jenny MacKyrie tugged on Micheil’s arm, pulling him aside. “Micheil, come away. We were just talking. This display is unseemly.”

“I told ye to go,” Micheil retorted, jerking his arm free of her grasp. “Obey me, now.”

“I willna. Ye are no’ laird, nor ever will be. Stop this now, Micheil.”

Donal watched this byplay with great interest. “
No’ laird, nor ever will be,” eh?
Did Micheil often use his friendship with the laird this way? Could he harbor feelings for Ellie? Or simply ambition for the position marriage to her would bring him? Either way, a brawl in the MacKyrie great hall would not help the situation.

But Micheil pushed Jenny aside and swung at Bram, shouting, “We dinna need ye here.”

Bram ducked safely aside. “If that’s the best ye can do,” he taunted, “then aye, ye do need us.”

A low rumble warned Donal the argument had attracted the attention of others in the hall. This was no place for them to settle their disagreement. “Take this outside, ye fools.”

Micheil swung again. With a resigned shrug, Bram hit back. Micheil staggered but kept coming.

“Did ye no’ hear the man?” Bram told him. “If ye’re determined to have a lesson, let’s go out of the hall.”

“Lesson? Are ye daft? I’m going to teach ye a lesson for dallying with MacKyrie women.”

With a frustrated growl, Donal took Micheil by both arms and herded him toward the door. “Outside, I said.”

“Look out!” Bram’s warning came just in time.

Donal ducked as a bench went flying by and crashed to the floor, narrowly missing him and Micheil. Damn it! “If that’s the way ye want it, then ye MacKyries are in for a lesson ye’ll never forget.”

He shoved Micheil forward, then left Bram to deal with him while Donal turned to take on the rest of the hall.

What he faced stunned him. Three small lads brandished dirks. It must’ve taken all of them together to hoist the bench they’d flung. Donal cast a quick glance over his shoulder. Aye, Bram and Micheil were well into it, but with fists, knees, and elbows. Donal was relieved to see no other weapons.

Bram was slowly forcing Micheil toward the door to the bailey.

At least that was going right. Donal stepped away from them toward the lads. He raised his hands. “There’s no need for that.” He took another step. “They’re only fightin’ over a lass. Surely ye’ve seen the like before. Ye can put down the dirks. No one will be hurt”—he glanced again over his shoulder at the flying fists of the two combatants—“much.”

Jenny, the subject of the brawl, moved to the lads. “Listen to the man. Put away the dirks.”

Slowly the lads lowered their blades. Donal breathed a sigh of relief. Twice now, he’d been at risk of having to hurt these untrained lads—at the wagons and now in the hall. He didn’t like it much.

“Let’s go help Micheil,” a red-headed lad said.

Donal had a better idea. “Let’s go over there.” He would get some use out of this debacle. “If ye’ll take a seat, I’ll tell ye what they’re doing wrong.” He led the lads to a bench out of range of the wildly swinging fists.

Interested now, they settled where Donal indicated.

Jenny stood nearby, watching her two champions and wincing with each blow struck.

“Tell us,” the redhead demanded.

He looked to Donal to be the leader of the small pack, so Donal addressed him with the seriousness due a laird. “First rule of fightin’,” he began as he moved aside so the lads could see him as well as the combatants across the room. “Haud yer wheesht. They’re both spittin’ mad and gettin’ madder. Do ye see?”

“Aye.” They made a fine soprano chorus.

“Temper makes ye stupid. Makes ye take chances yer rational mind would reject. If ye ever find yerself in such a fix, remember this. Ye’ll live to fight again if ye can think.” He turned to regard the combatants for a moment. Good. Bram had Micheil to the door, about to push him outside. But Micheil ducked under his arm and back into the room. “See ye, both are tiring, but Micheil is still angered and fights madly on.” He shook his head. This brawl was going to end in the hall. “Bram is starting to calm down and analyze. He’s picking his chances to land his blows while he avoids Micheil’s. See how he dances out of the way? But Micheil keeps coming, though he’s wasting his effort.”

“Aye,” the three chorused, and the redhead continued. “Micheil is still stupid, and Bram is smart.”

“Nay lad, they’re both stupid to be fightin’, especially in the hall,” he said and shrugged an apology to Jenny. “Bram is thinking. Micheil is just reacting. He looks to do that until he falls or Bram knocks him down. Which should happen about...now.”

On Donal’s mark, Bram snapped back Micheil’s head with a carefully placed uppercut.

Micheil dropped to the floor.

Bram stood over his opponent, panting, blood dripping from a cut on his cheek, then turned to grin at Donal. But his grin quickly faded as he took note of the expression on Donal’s face, and of the audience he had. Donal saw recognition light in his eyes—aye, he saw Donal schooling the lads. He understood there’d likely more schooling for him later. Donal nodded, his message delivered. Bram headed for the door to the bailey, where he should have gone in the beginning, without stopping to talk to Jenny MacKyrie.

“Now, lads,” Donal said, turning back to his students, “help Miss Jenny with poor Micheil there while I go have a talk with Bram. And remember what I told ye.”

“Aye,” came the soprano chorus as the lads scrambled from their seat to run to their prostrate clansman.

Jenny smiled and followed them, hushing them when they started to tell Micheil he was “stupid to be angry.”

Donal hoped Micheil still slept or he’d have worried the lads would make him angry again. But Jenny would settle them all down. She’d seen the trouble she’d caused and would not let more be started on her account.

But this made twice in two days the Lathans had embarrassed the young MacKyrie warlord. Which wouldn’t sit well at all.

On top of that, Micheil’s message had been clear. MacKyrie women were not to be trifled with. Donal worried lest his interest in Ellie become apparent—or hers in him. Then Micheil would likely start a brawl the likes of which the MacKyries hadn’t seen since before the massacre at Flodden killed off their fighting men. And the last thing Donal wanted to do was add to the carnage these people had already suffered.

****

Standing by her high table seat in the great hall, Ellie MacKyrie looked down on the big men she’d called to her presence. She put on her best “Laird MacKyrie” face and glowered at the tops of their downturned heads.

She’d remain on her feet for this meeting, hoping to accomplish with her elevated position and irritation what she could not with her own lesser height. Jamie, Donal, Bram, and Micheil stood, too. She would not give them leave to sit.

She’d just come from Fergus’s sickbed. The old man hadn’t made as much progress toward recovery as fast as she’d hoped, so she was in no mood to deal with more trouble right now. “Brawling in my hall? This I willna tolerate.”

“Lady, I’m sorry,” Jamie replied, contrite and lacking his usual cheerful demeanor.

Surely he had given Bram a lecture fit to pin back his ears once he’d heard of the disturbance, and would not spare Donal the same for allowing the fight to go on—even as a lesson for some of the MacKyrie lads. Though it had been as clever an attempt to make a silk purse out of this sow’s ear as she’d ever seen, she had to put a stop to such displays in her hall.

And Micheil. Had he lost all sense? Aye, she’d expressed her displeasure already, and thoroughly, too. She had no objections to the Lathans talking to the MacKyrie people, women included. Knowing Jenny as she did, Ellie suspected any flirting taking place had started with her, not that Ellie could blame her. These Lathans were a braw lot, big, muscular, and pleasing to look upon. Even Donal, the fiercest and most battle-scarred, who never failed to draw her eye. MacKyrie women would look upon them with favor even if they hadn’t already done the clan an important service. What would Micheil think of that? Now was certainly not the time to find out. Micheil so wished for the MacKyries to recover on their own, he looked for slights from every stranger.

Well, perhaps he had given her an unlooked-for advantage. Jamie would feel he owed her something for the unseemly disturbance in her hall.

Micheil stood before her, head down. How it must gall him to be shoulder-to-shoulder with these Lathans, facing her wrath, instead of at her side, lording over them.

She forced back a smile of satisfaction. Aye, because of this, the Lathans’ sense of honor would demand they make amends. Jamie’s determination to get her signature on the treaty made her doubly certain her bargaining position had just gotten stronger.

Donal picked that moment to look up and meet her gaze—squarely, with no hesitation in his light eyes. How like him, so sure of himself, never backing down. His dark blond hair gleamed in the rays of sunlight slanting through the clerestory windows high in the outer walls of the hall. But his eyes looked like chips of ice in winter. A chill ran down her back. Did they reflect the man or hide a blaze he’d kept from her so far?

Though she fought to remain calm, Ellie could feel the heat of a blush beginning to stain her cheeks.

Donal raised one eyebrow.

Good. Let him think her color arose from anger over his and Bram’s actions, not from the desire that flooded her when she looked upon him. He’d learn, they’d all learn, to tread carefully where she was concerned. She might be a woman, aye, but never a helpless maid.

Laird. She must be laird now, to school these massive warriors to her way of thinking.

“I accept yer apology,” she answered Jamie. “I’ll take yer bond that this willna happen again, or the negotiation will be over and ye’ll be on yer way back to yer laird without MacKyrie.”

Ellie hid a smile as Jamie nudged Bram and Donal, arrayed on either side of him. “Sorry we are, as well,” Bram added.

“Aye.”

She waited, but it appeared Donal had nothing else to say on the matter.

With a sniff, she turned her attention to Micheil. A moment passed before the intent behind her pointed stare sank past his wounded pride.

“I regret my actions, Laird. It willna happen again...” He paused for a moment.

She caught the glint in his eye, as if he considered adding “in the hall” but quickly thought better of it. She frowned at him.

He closed his mouth and studied the floor.

“Very well. We’ll put that behind us.” She took her seat to signal an end to the lecture. “But it does bring the matter of the treaty to mind. What would have happened if this incident”—and here she paused and gave each of them one more scathing look—“had instead been an invasion? The battle wouldha been lost before help could reach us.”

“If an invader managed to break into yer keep, aye. But if ye saw an invader approaching yer gates, ye could send for help from the clans nearby.”

“The clans nearby are likely to be the invaders at the gate,” Micheil muttered.

Ellie nodded. “Micheil speaks rightly. I see little value in this treaty as it applies to us. But I do see a way I could be persuaded to sign.”

It amused her to see Jamie perk up, standing straighter with a hint of his usual joviality returning to his face.

“I’d be pleased to ken what that is, Laird,” he replied with a smile.

A charmer, this one. No matter. Either he would agree or they would continue to talk until she convinced him of her seriousness. She supposed she should allow them to sit down. But nay, let them continue to stand before her. It would serve as a reminder that she was in charge. That they were not equals. She sat straighter and took a breath. Time to cast the dice, while she had the advantage. “I require Donal McNabb’s services for a period of at least a year, better two, to train up my lads so we willna be dependent on the assistance of other clans. If ye’re willing to consider my condition, then we have something to discuss.”

Jamie’s smile had disappeared while she talked. Donal’s eyes had widened and his lips had parted, like he’d taken a punch to the gut. Surprised, certainly. Perhaps even shocked. He looked pale, until the red started creeping back into his skin. Aye, he’d told her he did not plan to stay. She regretted surprising him in this way, but if Jamie could order it, she wanted him to do it. She counted on his sense of honor to give her what she wanted.

Donal turned to Jamie.

For a moment, Ellie held her breath. If he revealed that she’d already approached him about this and he’d turned her down, Jamie might refuse her demand.

Jamie glanced at Donal, then shook his head.

Donal’s jaw clenched but he remained silent.

“Ye ask much, Laird MacKyrie, to keep the Lathan arms master for a year or more.”

Ellie leaned forward to look Jamie in the eye. “Ye ask much of clan MacKyrie, to sign a treaty to defend ourselves and the other signatories with no more fighting force than we currently possess. If ye wish a strong alliance, ye must help make us strong. We have lads aplenty who can soon grow into warriors worthy of such an alliance. We have an arms master, aye,” she said as she glanced Micheil’s way. His back ramrod stiff, he stared toward the doorway as if trying to wish himself away from here, or simply to ignore the discussion, but she saw his brow furrow and knew he listened. “One who was merely a promising lad in training four years ago. One who has done all he can since then for the good of the clan. But we will have little success unless our lads are well trained by an expert. If they canna fight, or fight poorly, they are of no use to their clan or to the treaty.”