Cam’s gaze lingered on the host of faces staring back at him. It was so very odd to know he was in the heart of Clan Keith, looking at the people who had killed his grandfather and destroyed his village. For a man who had been suffering rage since that very day, there was a sense of satisfaction that he was finally here where he needed to be.
Friendly faces that wouldn’t be so friendly once he finished with them.
“Come,” Niall said, catching his attention. “My sons will take the horses tae be stabled, but ye will come with me. There are people I want ye tae meet.”
Cam obeyed, following Niall as Isadora joined him. When their eyes met, predictably, she smiled.
This time, he smiled in response before he could stop himself.
The door to the hall yawned wide and he stepped into a large chamber that was surprisingly bare. There was a big table, well worn, but only a few chairs. The hall had been built long ago and was without a hearth, but there was a great iron cage in the center of the room that acted as a brazier, and it was packed with peat and kindling. Smoke billowed up to the ceiling, finding a way out through the slender windows.
Niall had Cam sit down at the table, near the fire, and sent men running for food and drink. Across the dim hall, Cam could see Isadora speaking with a trio of older men, pointing to Cam as she spoke. Cam was curious about the older men, but he was more interested in watching Isadora speak.
There was just something about her that gave him pleasure simply to watch.
He sat there by himself for quite a while, trying not to be obvious about watching Isadora, as people milled curiously around the entry door to the hall, peering in but not entering. Ewan and Ossian eventually returned with an old lady between them, and the three of them were allowed into the hall, but Niall closed the door after that.
Ewan and Ossian were surprisingly gentle with the old woman, who stared at Cam rather strangely before collecting her chair. Isadora and the three men she’d been speaking with also made their way over to the table, with Isadora taking a seat next to Cam as the others settled down. Women appeared from the shadows with drink and an iron pot of something steaming. When they reached the table, wooden cups were dunked into the steaming pot and passed around.
It was some kind of soup and Cam drank it down, hot and salty. As Isadora took his cup and dipped it into the pot again, Niall spoke.
“I’m sure ye wish tae rest after our journey, but ye must understand that our folks have been waiting weeks for ourreturn,” he said. “They are eager tae see ye and our elders are eager tae speak tae ye. After that, we’ll show ye tae a place where ye can rest, but for now, ye must meet those ye will serve.”
Cam looked around the table as Niall began to introduce them. “This is my brother, Tyrone,” he said, indicating the silver-haired man sitting next to him. “Next tae him are our cousins, Camne and Ailbert. Their mother was our father’s sister.”
Cam nodded his head in greeting to the two men who looked a good deal alike, both with very little hair, both with bulky bodies. Ailbert had a big gash on his face that ran from his ear down his jaw, and it looked fairly fresh.
Niall continued to the woman seated at the end of the table. “And that is Clova, my father’s last surviving sister.”
Cam looked to the old woman, her gray hair wound up in braids on her head that weren’t in any particular pattern or style. She was wrapped in a tattered shawl, but in her hands she held a bundle of weeds that sent thin ribbons of smoke into the air. She inhaled the smoke from time to time and Cam could smell a distinctive sweet odor from where he sat.
“These are my kin, the elders of our village,” Niall said. “They are worthy of yer respect. They are why I dinna tell ye the reason behind our visit tae the Ludus Caledonia, the very reason I purchased yer fealty. It is something ye must hear from all of us, as they have the right tae speak on it, too.”
So now they were getting down to the truth of the matter and Cam was understandably curious.
“Go on,” he said.
Niall sat down finally, reaching for a wooden cup. Instead of dipping it into the pot of soup, he took the wooden pitcher on the table and poured cloudy ale into the cup. He needed the drink more than the food, and a mood of expectation settled in the hall.
“Those of us who went tae the Ludus Caledonia know where ye’re from, but there are those at this table who dunna,” he began. “What I say, I say for their benefit. Ye went tae The Cal tae learn tae fight after yer village of Netherton was burned. Isadora thought ye’d be perfect for our purposes because of yer connection tae Netherton. Ye were born there. Ye lost everything when it was raided. Is there anything else ye’d like tae tell the elders?”
Cam found himself looking around the table at the older Scotsmen and one very old Scotswoman at the end of the table, smelling her smoking weeds. These were the people who had razed his town, who had taken everything from him, but as he looked at the group, he could feel doubt clawing at him.
His fealty was purchased by the very people who’d burned his village. They knew he was from Netherton, yet they purchased his fealty in spite of that knowledge. Isadora had originally told him that her father needed a warrior to lead the men of their clan, but she had never been clear on what, exactly, he would be leading them against. She’d only mentioned that they’d had trouble.
Now, Cam was about to discover that reason but it seemed to him, as he looked at the weary faces around him, that these didn’t look like people guilty of burning Netherton. The hatred he had for them, and the powerful sense of vengeance, were now mingled with doubt because the facts as he reviewed them weren’t making much sense.
Something was off.
“Nay,” he said after a moment. “They know that Netherton was my village. My grandfather was killed in the raid. I went tae The Cal because… because I had nothing left. ’Tis a new life I needed.”
That was the truth, somewhat, but it was enough so that those at the table understood his motivation to a certain extent.But the death of his grandfather wasn’t something Niall had heard before.
Briefly, the man closed his eyes, shaking his head with sorrow. There was a pained look in his expression that was not the reaction of a guilty man.
Cam’s confusion was growing.
“God be with ye, lad,” Niall muttered. “I dinna know about yer grandfather. It would seem that the raid on Netherton has touched us both in different ways. It has taken yer grandfather and now it threatens tae take everything the Keith hold dear.”
