Aye, Leith had heard the clanging.
“Either way, fetch a sword and get to work. There is no use pampering yoursel’.”
Ruefully, Leith flexed the fingers of his right hand. Doing so still caused pain up near his shoulder. But could he say so to Rory, after watching him work with that hole in his back?
“I’ve nae strength yet, cousin.”
“Ye’ll no’ build strength standing there like a great lump. Fetch a sword, damn ye.”
Leith thought about it. He could, aye, walk over to the side, where he saw a number of spare weapons, and pick up a sword, any sword. Or he could try to reason with his cousin. Staring into that militant gaze, he knew the wiser course.
“Rory, man, gi’ yoursel’ a few days to recover. Ye and me both.”
“I do no’ ha’ a few days. How long d’ye think before that war chief o’ theirs is on his feet?”
“I do no’ ken, not knowing how badly he is injured.” But from all he’d seen of Alasdair, it would not take him long to be back training.
“Get to work,” Rory growled, and stalked back to the fray, pain in his every movement.
Not often did Leith defy his cousin. Neither he nor Farlan ever had, growing up. Rory made the rules he and Farlan followed into mayhem and mischief.
But Leith had been a boy then. Now he—just like Farlan—was a man. A man who loved.
He did not hesitate as he turned his back on the training field and walked away.
*
He had noneed to seek Rory out later to deliver the words that danced through his head. Instead, Rory found him sitting in the corner of the nearly deserted warriors’ hall with an empty mug in front of him.
It had grown late. The only thing that kept Leith from his bed was the thought of endless hours lying there alone.
Rory stalked in and thumped a flagon of ale down on the table. “So here ye are.”
“Aye.” Leith looked up at Rory, trying to measure his mood—dark and ugly, from what he could see.
Rory toed out the bench opposite Leith and sat down. “Why did ye walk out on training? Ye ken fine we never do that.”
Aye, for Rory, training was akin to sacred. In the past Leith had always gone along with that, a regimen that no doubt accounted for half his bulk of muscle.
No more.
“I will no’ pick up a sword against MacBeith.”
Rory stared at him. In that moment, completely nonplussed, he might have been struck dumb. Thoughts moved in his eyes—shock, honest surprise, and then anger.
The anger restored the power of speech. “What?”
“I say, I will no’ make war on MacBeith, no’ again.”
Disbelief joined the anger. Anger won. “Ye will. If I order ye. As yer chief.”
Aye, so. That was Rory all over. An order given out of an unswerving belief in entitlement. No shades between right and wrong for him.
Open defiance, as Leith well knew, would not work. An appeal to old affections might, only Farlan had already burned any such bridges.
“Man,” he said softly, “there maun be a better way. Better than continuing to kill each other. Ye be sore wounded, as am I. As is MacBeith’s war chief. ’Tis the right time to speak for peace.”
“Peace.” Rory repeated it, and all other emotion fled before his disgust. “Will MacBeith surrender to me, then? For ’tis the only way they will achieve peace.”
