Focus.
Angus broke left again, a feint, and Fergus did not take it. He stepped inside the arc of the move and brought the flat of his blade down on Angus's shoulder, controlled, decisive.
Angus raised a hand. "Aye. Aye, all right."
Fergus stepped back. He was breathing hard. Good.
Movement at the edge of the yard caught his eye.
A boy, around seven or eight years old, stood near the wall holding a stick with both hands. His stance was almost completely wrong—his feet were too close together, and his grip was too tight. His chin was tucked in, like children did when they were concentrating very hard on something they doubted they could do.
He was watching the men with an expression of total, devoted attention.
As Fergus watched, the boy tried a strike. The stick swung wide and nearly took him off his feet. He caught himself, reset, tried again.
The boy reminded him of when he was a lad, learning to hold a sword. Fergus was already moving before he decided to move.
The yard stilled as he crossed it. His men stopped. The boy looked up and froze, the stick gripped at his side, his eyes very wide.
Fergus crouched to his level. He took the stick, turned it, and placed it back in the boy's hands, adjusting the grip with two fingers, repositioning the small fists without a word. Then he stood, stepped behind him, and nudged his feet apart with the toe of his boot until the stance was right.
"There," he said. "Try it now."
The boy tried it. The strike came true this time, straight and clean.
His face split open with it, the pure, uncomplicated joy of a body doing what it was asked to do.
Fergus straightened.
He looked up and found Margaret at the edge of the yard. She was standing in the shade with Lilly against her chest, still and quiet, her eyes on him with an expression that looked almost like recognition.
He held her gaze.
He held it the way he held his blade after a bout that had cost him something, steady and without apology.
Chapter Fifteen
"The eastern fence held through the night," Angus said. "MacAllister's man came by at dusk, said the boundary markers are still where ye put them. Nay trouble."
"Good."
"Grain stores are down another quarter from the autumn count. O'Brien says we'll need to make a decision before the first frost or we'll be short come winter."
"I'll look at the tallies in the mornin'."
"Aye." A pause. "The Brennan widow asked after ye today. Wanted to ken when the gatherin' would be called."
Fergus said nothing.
The torch at the north end of the corridor had burned down to almost nothing, casting more shadow than light. He kept his pace even, his eyes moving the way they always moved on night watch, checking doors, checking corners, reading the quiet for anything that did not belong in it. Angus walked a half step behind him, comfortable with the silence the way only a man of long acquaintance can be.
The castle was mostly still.
"She is nae the only one askin'," Angus said, carefully.
"I ken she's nae."
"Donal came to me as well. Said the men are?—"
