“Nay.” For the first time since that accursed arrow had pierced his back, he’d forgotten the wound. “I just need to speak wi’ ye. Come to my study.”
He went out, loped back to the chamber, the buzz clearing from his mind as he went.
Leith soon joined him. Without waiting, Rory thrust the letter he’d scribed into his cousin’s hands. “Read that.”
Leith took the sheet and puzzled it out. When he finished, he raised his eyes to Rory’s face.
“Wha’ will Moira MacBeith think o’ that?” Rory demanded. “Or, more to the point, wha’ will Farlan think o’ it? Who am I dealing wi’ there, Leith? Her? Or him?”
Leith drew a breath. “Matters are complicated there at MacBeith, and I was locked in a chamber—”
“Yer woman talks to ye, does she no’? She is one o’ them—the sisters MacBeith.”
“There’s a council. Older warriors that stood wi’ the old chief, and a few younger bucks as well. They do no’ trust Farlan and dislike his standing at Moira’s side. They say their war chief—that Alasdair—must mak’ all decisions wi’ her, for now.”
“For now?”
“Till they learn to trust Farlan, I suppose. If they ever do. They say if Moira weds wi’ him proper, she maun gi’ up the place o’ chief. She insists she’ll keep both the place and the man.”
“She maun be quite the woman.”
“Farlan did no’ choose her idly. Rory, ye know him. Farlan is a man o’ sense. Loyalty—”
Rory scoffed.
“Loyalty to Moira now. He believes she is his destiny.”
“Then he is a fool.” But Rory thought of the warmth of Saerla in his arms. Of the light inside her.
“Rory,” Leith began, and Rory had never seen him so serious, “there maun be a better way than war. The killing. There is a road to peace—”
“I ha’ offered her peace. I ha’ offered her the return o’ her sister. God knows, I want naught more than to send the woman back.”
A lie.
Leith wagged his head. “Aye, so. All she has to do is gi’ up everything she holds dear, the glen her ancestors settled, over to ye.”
“Aye. There will be peace after that, Leith. I will let them live on the land.”
“That belongs to them no longer.”
Rory shrugged. “Let Moira MacBeith decide wha’ means more to her—her sister or her lands.”
“Wha’ I am trying to tell ye is, that choice is no’ hers to make.”
“Let her fight out that battle wi’ her council. Is she chief, or no’?”
Leith shook the sheet of foolscap at him. “Ye ha’ given her ten days. Then you say her sister’s life will be forfeit. Would ye truly do it, man? Saerla is a sweet lass wi’ a valiant heart. The gods speak to her—”
“The gods,” Rory scoffed again.
“Aye, so believe it as ye will. Would ye anger the very gods that protect her?”
Rory said nothing. He meant to force Moira’s hand. And Farlan’s.
“Wha’ o’ our man, Kevan?” Leith asked then. “Will ye refuse to trade for him? Leave him there among strangers to die?”
“’Tis war, this, just in another settin. He would ha’ gone to die on the battlefield, would he no’?”
