Peter, white faced, nodded. MacDuffhumphed,opened his hands and Peter, gasping, fell to the ground. Sarah dropped to her knees and checked the red marks beneath Peter’s jaw. “Are you all right?” When Peter nodded she snarled, “MacDuff, you could’ve killed him!”
MacDuff, standing with legs splayed, hands fisted on his hips, shook his unruly sun-streaked mane. “Nay. He appears a good lad for all his ratsbane of a tongue.” To the others he said, “Who among ye best wields a sword?”
Mark, turning pale, raised a tentative hand. “Uhmm … I’m on the fencing team.”
MacDuff eyed him then, apparently satisfied, asked, “Who best tends coos?” When they looked at him blankly, he pointed to the three shaggy, long-horned beasts grazing beyond the pool. “Who kens those?”
When they all raised hands, MacDuff pulled a rough-hewed bucket from a peg imbedded in his stone croft’s wall and tossed it to Ty. “Dress then milk, laddie.”
Apparently deciding it was wiser to obey than admit he’d never milked in his life, Ty elbowed Bryce. “Come on.”
Sarah whispered to the other boys, “Gentlemen, why don’t the rest of you get dressed.” She had to speak to MacDuff. Alone.
They took off at a dead run as MacDuff settled on his haunches to pick up the remains of the boys’ lunch. “What say you, Spaniel? Do you stay or go?”
She folded her arms across her chest and glared at him. “You can’t manhandle children that way.”
His eyebrows shot together as he came to his feet. “Is it not the rule of clan and church to discipline in a parent’s absence? Ye told the lad three times within my hearing – and God only kens how many more times without it – to mind his tongue and he had yet to pay ye any heed.”
“Yes, but—”
He leaned forwards and tapped the tip of her nose. “Naybuts,mistress. Ye want them to grow into good men who respect women, aye?”
She heaved a sigh. “Yes, of course. But please don’t pick him up like that again.”
MacDuff grinned. “Ye’ll find I shan’t have need. He’s learned his lesson.”
“And please don’t call me Spaniel.”
“Oh? ’Tis what the lads shouted when they could not find ye.”
“My name is Sarah.”
“Why then do they call ye Spaniel?”
Bone weary, she settled on the grass and tucked the huge, coarse linen tunic reeking of male musk, sawdust and smoke that he’d loaned her about her legs. “They think I look like one.” When his brow furrowed, she said, “A spaniel is a spotted hunting dog.”
Laughing, he sat down next to her. “Ye have bonnie brown eyes and charming spots upon yer cheeks, but without a long snout and tail I have to say nay, ye do not.”
“Thank you.”
He studied the boys for a moment. “Ye call them children, not bairns. Are they of royal blood then?”
She watched Peter, Jeremy and Mark romp through the field as if they hadn’t a care. “In our world, yes.”
“And ye?”
“I’m their teacher. Well, one of them. The children often move from place to place. Our school, with its many branches in different cities, provides continuity, some measure of stability.”
“And where is yer world?”
Dare she tell him? Would he think the boys and her bewitched? “You won’t believe me.”
He grinned. “I believe there is more to life and this place than priests will allow.”
Didn’t she know it. “We live in London but in a different—”
“Nay!”MacDuff had jumped to his feet and was pointing at Bryce and Ty who’d been peering beneath one of the long-coated cows. “Are ye daft, lads?” he shouted. “Them’s bollocks!”
