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He had always been mercurial with his moods, all charm, ease and warmth one minute, intimidating darkness the next.
They rode in silence for a few moments, and then Conall’s good humour seemed to return, and he shouted over, ‘If you think about it, you are being incredibly cruel really, depriving the court ladies of my company.’
‘Aye, along with your arrogance and your stupidity.’ Rory shook his head. ‘Conall, what am I to do with you?’
‘Let me have my head and live my life as I please. Let me find my own way. I heard you are sending a patrol up north in a few days to catch those cutthroats who have been preying on farmers. I can go along. I’m good in a fight, you know that.’
‘Those men I seek are outlaws, dangerous men.’
‘I’m dangerous too.’
‘The only danger you pose is to a young girl’s virginity. Besides, are you sure Elspeth will be able to bear your absence?’
‘I will make it up to her, many times over, when I get back. You can be assured of that.’
Conall winked and smirked and looked boyish for a moment. Rory could only admire his self-assurance and lack of restraint. He suddenly wished he was young again and not a man of forty-five with his best years behind him, his duties as Laird bearing down on him and loneliness in his soul as he crept into a cold, empty bed each night.
‘Come on, we must get back.’
‘I must say you are a woeful hypocrite, Rory, for I have heard tales of you and my father and what you used to get up to when you were young. It is said there wasn’t a lass for miles who hadn’t had your….’
‘That is different. I was not a laird’s son with a duty to marry a suitable wife to give heirs to the clan.’
‘Duty! It’s not supposed to be a bloody duty.’
‘Well, it is in your case. Now get a move on before Angus Muir spots us and slices us both to ribbons, despite your superior fighting skills.’
‘Alright, but do stop bellowing at me. My head feels like it is being squeezed in a vice.’
‘Sucking down a barrel of ale will do that to a man.’
Rory spurred his horse forwards, but Conall soon overtook him, setting a blistering pace, and before long, the imposing walls of Dunslair Castle came into view.
‘Let’s find you some food, Conall,’ shouted Rory, ‘and then a bed for you to sleep off your sins.’
Once inside, Rory and Conall headed to the great hall seeking peace and quiet, but all they found was a commotion and voices raised in anger. Dunslair’s priest, Father Boyle, came waddling up to them all a-flutter, rosary swinging wildly over his vast belly, taut with fat.
‘Laird, you must come and intervene at once.’ There was irritation in his voice. ‘A conjugal dispute has arisen. One man rejects his wife and seeks to return her to her father, but he will have none of it. Says she’s good and wed, and that’s that. Burst in they did, while the whole of Dunslair was breaking its fast and demanded an audience with the Laird. Such cheek! The husband is an oaf, but he has rights before the law.’
‘And what law is that, Father?’ asked Rory evenly.
‘Why the common law, Laird. A hand-fasting took place some time ago, the husband expresses dissatisfaction with the wife, ahem, abed, and elsewhere and says he has a right to return her. The father refuses to take her back, and the matter is getting ugly. And the woman is…well…somewhat strange. I cannot get her to speak. Come Laird and see for yourself.’
Rory turned to Conall. ‘This is turning out to be a very tiresome day, a very tiresome day indeed.’
Chapter Two
‘Every day, I am forced to mount her while she lies there, cold and still as a dead fish.’
On and on droned Logan Blythe, disappointed husband. Coarse in manner and appearance, he had been speaking at length and with some vehemence of his wife’s shortcomings and his voice was beginning to grate on Rory’s nerves.
‘Every full moon, all I get is bleeding and weeping and no heir,’ he continued.
‘Must you speak of her in such an indecent way, must you shame her so. She is your wife for God’s sake?’ snapped Rory. Half the clan were gathered in the hall witnessing this dispute.
‘My wife no longer, for she is nought but a hag, and I am done with wasting my seed and the sweat of my balls on her. Why should I support a frigid bitch whose belly I can’t fill? It was promised at the hand-fasting that she was fertile, and she has proved otherwise. And since marrying her, I have found out she was barren with her first husband too, and so it turns out she was offered to me under false pretences. If she will not breed, it is my right to return her to her father so I can seek another wife.’
‘She’s not some piece of livestock that you can buy and sell!’ shouted Conall.
