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Chapter 8
Colonsay I
 

 
It would probably be best, all in all, if I left Colonsay to itself. The McPhees, as is true for all of the clans, certainly resent having any part of the land of the clan be tributary to an English noble—even one with a good Scots title, like the Earl of Moray, as the Morays have married far too much into English families for local tastes.

And while I doubt that there's the resentment of my family that the mainland McPhees have over Moray's tight hold on his Scottish lands, whenever we arrive to summer at Kiloran, I wonder in the back of my head if perhaps I should petition His Majesty to let Colonsay lapse back to Moray when I'm gone. At least he's a Scot, if one of diluted blood.

I know that Michael would make no protest. He's a proper English land baron, and will, no doubt, resent leaving Fallsworth when it's necessary to go to Londinium, when it becomes his turn, and while he came willingly to Kiloran as a boy, remaining behind in Fallsworth is something that he always chooses these days, and likely would have preferred in his younger ones, as well, although I can't remember him protesting.

He'd have no trouble with me giving away Colonsay.

I doubt that the Colonsay McPhees would prefer it if all McPhee land was tributary to the same English lord, though, although there would be some advantages to them. When the Colonsay McPhees send their one-in-twenty to take service with the Crown, there would be advantages to having them serve under the earl's banner, rather than under His Majesty's alone.

 
And there was a time, of course, when the Barons of Shanley raised their own companies, and maybe some would have preferred to serve under that, although perhaps not if they'd known me during my army days, or the later navy ones.

Still, knowing the McPhees as I do, I have my own suspicion that, sooner or later, were that the case, the rampant Shanley griffon would find itself wearing a bright red-and-green tartan, with strands of bright white and yellow. The McPhees have a way of having things their way, after all.

And while I trust I reign over the island rather more than I rule it even when I'm there, I'd still stay away, if I didn't love Kiloran so.

But I do love it so, after all.

—Giscard, Baron Shanley

The drunken singing and laughter poured in through the open windows.

Closing them would have lost Giscard the breeze, and done little to cut down on the noise, alas.

And, besides, while the singing was one thing—who could enjoy the sounds hundreds of drunken McPhees singing, each in his own key?—and although he wouldn't have admitted it aloud, Giscard enjoyed the laughter.

Not just that of the children—though it had been too long since not only the laughter of children had filled the house at Fallsworth or here—but that of the adults, as well. Laughter was better in the throat than a fine whiskey, and better in the ears than any music.

And if the price of the laughter was the drunken Scots singing, well, he could bear that, as though it was a trade and he was a tradesman. It had been too long since he had heard laughter, and he couldn't remember the last time it came from his own lips.

Or from hers.

He looked across toward the foot of the table where Grace sat, picking at her food, seemingly oblivious to the sounds outside as much as to the care with which Cook had taken with the pottage pig, which was—which had been—one of her favorite dishes.

These days, she had no favorite dish; her plate was still annoyingly full. She hadn't had more than a polite bite or two when they had put in their appearance at and after the wedding, although she had made a point to taste everything, even though he knew for a fact that she utterly despised mutton, and would willingly tolerate lamb only when it was very young and fresh.

The wedding party was easily a hundred yards outside, on the beach, partly under the tents, although the sounds of laughter and the singing—all in Gaelic, naturally—flowed through the open windows with a volume that clearly irritated Grace.

Then again, Grace was more than a little irritable these days, although the baron flattered himself, and he hoped her, in that none other would be able to see it but him, or perhaps Becket.

Becket's eyes weren't what they had been, long ago, but his sight was still keen, in most ways, and they had had the honor of Becket as their guest in happier days, as well as these ones.

Becket gave him a glance, and the slightest of shrugs, as though to say, what can't be cured must be endured.

"Sounds like a fine party outside," the priest said, smiling. Father Olafsen certainly didn't seem to be able to detect her irritation.

The priest had presided over the official ceremonies—well, the marriage, at least—and had, as he always did, accepted the baron's invitation to dinner and to stay the night. The road up to Scalasaig, after all, was hardly the sort of thing one could expect an old man to walk in the dark, as it was far more path than road, although the natives seemed to manage it with few falls, all in all. The priest was not a native to Colonsay.

He couldn't really tell about the boy. Sir Niko was quiet at table, as he usually was, and his table manners, under Becket's ungentle instruction, had become impeccable. About the only thing that remained from his early days was his tendency to eat as though there would be no food tomorrow—in quantity, these days, although not in rapidity of the early days that had earned him more than a few tongue lashings from the older knight that the baron had admired the craft of, even if he had affected not to hear them.

The time that Niko had spilled soup across the front of his tunic, Becket's use of words had been particularly . . . colorful. Excessive, perhaps, but, well, that was just Becket being Becket, he supposed.

The five of them were dining alone in the cottage, as while they had all been invited to the wedding, it was really the sort of affair that went better with the lord merely making an appearance, save for the obvious, and a priest would have shed almost as much of a pall on the party.

He shook his head. Cheap folks, the Scots—all of them. While he was in residence, weddings seemed to wash up on the beach at Kiloran bay more often than the ever-arriving driftwood on the Oronsay flats. It was always some father of the bride, anywhere from Priorty to Balnahard, and always with the same pretext—and always in English, as though the laird couldn't understand Gaelic: "And since you'll need to be exercising your permer nockter rights and all, milord, will you be joining us?" And, as always, having no desire to either leave Kiloran or find himself stuck in some black house up near, say, the well-named Sguid nam ban Truagh for the night, he would always offer the use of the beach—of his beach, dammit—for when the day's revelry was done, even when it didn't last through until dawn, all would be far too drunk to make their way home.

Of course, those from Oronsay could cross the Strand only at low tide. But it wasn't just them—the revelers, Colonsay proper and Oronsay, would sleep it all off on the beach under the stars, enjoying the shelter of the hills around Kiloran from the harsh winds that blew even during summer, only to arise, one by one in the morning, clean up the detritus of the previous night—they did that religiously; he had to give them that—and stagger their separate ways home.

And if he hadn't offered at least a sheep or two for the wedding dinner, and not supplied a keg or two as well as enough bottles of good Scots whiskey to toast the bride and groom, he'd have found himself feeling more like a guest than a host in his own home, and likely end up being known across the island as Tòicear Shanley or perhaps Laird Sgrubaire, rather than the much less insulting Lord Eachdranach, which he didn't particularly mind.

Of course, he'd have his own little celebration, such as it was, and a damned silly one it would be.

Just as well, actually. He had, of course, made his proper appearance at the ceremony itself, and even in his young and randy days—and, despite legends to the contrary, Lieutenant Lord Giscard Shanley of the Gaheris had had his randy days—he would not have found the bride tempting. This Rebbecca McPhee—called "Becka" to her face and "Becka Calum Peter" behind her back to help distinguish her from all the other Rebbecca McPhees in Balnahard—was not only dark enough to remind him that the original name of the clan was Mac Dubh Sith, and that dubh was Gaelic for "black," and either had developed a small potbelly, as uncommon in young McPhee women as it was prevalent in the older ones . . . 

Or, of course, she was already expecting, as he expected was the case. He doubted that many brides hereabouts made it to the altar as virgins, and at least some as pregnant. That was often hereabouts, and no doubt the subject of much gossip, none of which would reach the ears of the lord, unless he made some effort.

He doubted that McPhee fathers actually told their daughters, come early spring, to lay with their intended and force a wedding at the time when the lord would be in residence, but perhaps he was being overly generous. Certainly, if a Colonsay McPhee could have gotten his daughter's wedding to be hosted by the baron while she was flat on her back screaming in pain, pushing out the baby while attended by fretting midwives, he no doubt would have.

"So what did you think of the ceremony, Sir Niko?" the priest asked.

"It was very nice," the boy said, after a short pause. Presumably he spoke freely in front of Fotheringay, but his servant was probably the only one. Becket reported that the novices didn't find him at all talkative in private, and Giscard certainly had not.

"Nice?" Becket snorted. "You think it nice, what with all the hollering and whooping and yowling like a bunch of New World saracens?"

He gestured toward the open windows. Beyond the windows, flames roared up from the driftwood fires on the beach, the crackling of the wood and the whoosh-whoosh-whoosh of the waves gently breaking on the beach beyond, to the extent that one could hear them over what was probably the eighteenth repetition of "In Praise of Morag," which appeared to be, for some reason, tonight's favorite, although Giscard couldn't imagine why.

Yes, it was better than porcine Prussian drinking songs, certainly, in principle—but Prussia was far, far away, and this was here.

Well, at least they were only singing it now, rather than trying to have their voices compete with the ceol mor piping out the same tune. Enjoyment of the pipes were either an acquired taste or more likely the result of calluses of the ears built up from birth, and Giscard had acquired neither the taste nor the calluses.

Becket smiled at Giscard. " 'In praise of Morag' is the sort of thing that goes better without the lyrics, and at a distance," he said. "It's sort of like a dead skunk—I actually find the smell somehow pleasant, if it's far enough away. Doubt that I'd enjoy it much if the skunk were hung out the window any more than I care for this."

He was slurring his words more than usual; Becket was thoroughly drunk, which Giscard noted without faulting him for it.

Becket turned back to Niko. "And you don't find that the dignity of the sacrament is sullied by this sort of drunken revelry?"

No pause this time: "No, Sir Martin," the boy said, meeting the older knight's eyes. "I do not."

Giscard hid his smile behind his napkin. One thing you could say about the boy: he was learning. Becket would upbraid him for the disagreement, no doubt, but he would have been far more severe with compliance. Perhaps Niko couldn't win with Becket, at least not in the short run, but he could minimize his losses.

"We'll speak on that later," Becket said. "And without that blasted Fotheringay of yours to try to distract me."

The priest chuckled as he leaned forward, toward Becket. "You can speak to me later on it, if you'd like, Sir Martin, as I fully agree with the young knight. The singing, the drinking—none of it does any harm." The priest took a long pull at his own glass, and nodded, careless of the way that he was dribbling down his beard and onto his cassock. Anglians! "The sacrament, of course, remains untouched, and while it should be shown due respect, the respect was paid when it was performed, and while I think the groom was less than steady on his feet, that may have had more to do with the father-in-law than anything else I can think of. A celebration after, even a bit raucous of one, does the sacrament no disrespect, and no man can do it harm. Very standard theology, Sir Martin," he said. "As you should know."

Becket glowered at him. Being reminded that, as a knight of the Order, he was a priest as well, was the sort of thing that Becket would be certain to take offense at.

Time to say something. "I think the wine for communion was quite good," Giscard said, and not just to change the subject, but, so he hoped, to provoke a response from Grace. He had provided the wine, out of his own cellar here—a Burgundian claret that had aged very nicely, although perhaps a little too tannic.

Certainly expensive; at least arguably too expensive. She wouldn't quibble with the expense, but there was a time when she would argue about the necessity of providing a particularly good wine for Communion, it being a sacrament and all, and not possible of further ennobling.

And he would argue back.

It was one of his favorite arguments with Grace, and for a moment, he thought he saw the light back in her eyes, and that they would launch into this, perhaps his favorite one of the fierce arguments that both of them had so dearly loved, despite how the fury of them would horrify strangers. There were no strangers here, and he could remember many an evening when, when their arguments flagged, Becket egging the two of them on, switching sides whenever one or the other would seem ready to drop the matter.

But it was just for a moment. The light in her eyes dimmed, and she pushed herself back from the table with a quick gesture for them all to remain in their seats, a gesture that Niko ignored; he rose instantly.

"I'm sorry," she said. "But I feel a touch unwell. Please don't end your evening on my account," she said, as she turned and walked out of the room.

Well, that ended the evening, as surely as if each and every candle had been blown out.

"Just sit down, boy," Becket said, eying the door. "The lady's unwell; leave it at that."

The boy sat.

The priest looked at the door for a long time. "Well, in truth," he said, into the silence, "I find myself more than a little tired, as well. If it won't offend the baron, I'll take to my bed, as well, and give the—and give you more privacy."

"Of course," Giscard said. "And my apologies for cutting the evening so short."

"Ah, it's not necessary that it be short," Becket said, gently, as the priest walked away. "I'm sure you've got a bottle of something interesting somewhere about, and since I can't sleep while all this yowling and yammering goes on outside, I think I might prevail on you to find that bottle, and share it with me, after I get the novices to refresh me, for an hour or so, if you follow my meaning. After, of course, you've performed your own duties."

"I'd be grateful for the company," he said, as he always did, and always meant.

Instead of reaching for the bell cord, Becket banged his fist three times on the table, and the two novices, who had clearly been waiting just outside the hall, quickly rushed in, and wheeled him out of the room, leaving Giscard alone with the boy.

Giscard forced himself not to push back angrily from the table. Anger was what was called for when a wife misbehaved, be she a peasant's or a king's, and Giscard tried, to the extent he was able to, not only to conduct himself as was appropriate, but to feel that which was appropriate.

But the truth was, he felt no anger at her, and if he displayed it in front of the boy, the boy would have misunderstood, more likely than not.

"And you, Sir Niko?" He forced a smile. "Will you abandon me, too?"

"No, sir. I'll stay with you, if you'd like." The boy was stopping himself from saying something. He simply rinsed out his fingers in the finger bowl, and then carefully dried them on his napkin.

Out with it, Sir Niko, he could have said, and the boy would have done as ordered, or at least affected to.

But, no. It was not right to compel him to talk.

On the other hand . . . "What with the wine and the noise, and my . . . responsibilities of later this night, I find myself desirous of some air at the moment," he said. "Will you keep me company?"

"Of course."

He thought for a moment about going to his room and changing from his dinner clothes into something more appropriate for a walk up and away from the beach, but decided against it.

Perhaps . . .

Perhaps what? Perhaps Grace would be in his room, rather than her own? Perhaps in the act of changing his clothes he could bring some light back into those dead eyes? He forced himself not to sigh.

"Let's go out through the kitchen," he said. "I've some rough clothes out in the woodshed." It wouldn't be the first time that he had gone out into the night, after all, of late, whether here or at Fallsworth.

It likely wouldn't be the last.

Giscard led the way, under the light of the flickering torch.

The road up into the hills and then down to the lake was rough and ill-traveled, as were all three of the roads coming into Kiloran. Truth to tell, on the rare occasions when Giscard wanted to or had to go somewhere else on Colonsay, he tended to use the launch, over Grace's protests.

Surely, a man who had taken the deck of the Gaheris herself could, with a little help, manage a single-masted launch beyond the edge of the cove, and if he would head perhaps a touch too far into the Firth of Lorn than was strictly necessary to make his way out past the shoal waters around the point on his way to Scalasaig, it was decidedly more pleasant to have a few hours out on the water than to go tramping through damp heather and the peat. And it was probably quicker, all in all.

But there would be no skiff tonight; the distance was small, and the destination uphill, not shoreside.

The moon was full enough that they needed no light after their eyes had adjusted from inside, and he carefully extinguished the torch in a boggy spot by the side of the road before throwing it off into the heather.

"It's just over the next hill," he said.

"The lake?"

"Yes. The lake. What there is of it. I'd call it little more than a pond, mind you, but Loch an Sgoltaire is what it's named. Ever pond, every hill, cleft, valley, cave, and half the rocks have a name hereabouts. At least we're not up in the hills, where the cattle browse, where half the stones seem to be named after a gruagach." He forced himself to chuckled. "And if you're up near Garvard, don't be surprised if you find that most of them have spoiled milk in them."

"Grugrach?"

"Grugrach. One of the Old Ones. Well, one of many; each to her own place. She watched over the cattle, and the milk, and if you didn't leave her an offering of milk, all of your milk would spoil, and your best cow would be found dead in the morning. I'm sure that there's much the same sort of thing in Pironesia, even these days—didn't you tell me about some goat sacrificers on one of the islands?"

Niko nodded. "Yes."

He looked like he was going to say something more, but stopped himself.

Just was well. Giscard didn't want to know if, back on his island, they'd still sacrificed bulls to Jupiter or the like.

But most of the Old Ones had gone with the end of the Age, and the rest were quieter; and it was a far tamer world, now, thankfully, than just a few hundreds of years ago, a man might worry that if he walked the Scottish lowlands, he might find an old woman at a ford, washing a shirt, and have to forebear asking whose shirt it was, lest she answer, Se do leine, se do leine ga mi nigheadh; it is your shirt, your shirt that I am washing. And he would know that it was the shirt he was shortly to be buried in.

Or, worse, when the Cailleach bheara would still be seen washing her own clothes off Jura, and riding her night mare through the dark.

But a tamer world? he asked himself. Here he was, walking side by side with a knight of the Red Sword—and a newly created one, at that, and—

Perhaps things weren't quite so tame these days, after all.

"Do you fish—" He stopped himself, and forced a laugh. "Now, there's a silly question for a knight who was raised as a Pironesian fisherboy, eh? You're probably better with a stick and hook than—" No; he stopped himself, then went on. "—than I am."

"I'd doubt that, my lord," Niko said. "I've never hunted fish with a hook, just with nets. Spear and gaff, at times. Traps, too, for the crabs. But mostly nets."

"But where would be the sport in that?" He shook his head. He was being a foolish old man. "But then, you didn't fish for sport, but to eat, and for trade. A rather different thing, I'd suppose."

Niko nodded. "Very, I think. But I can learn this kind of fishing, if need be."

That seemed to be the boy's response to everything.

"Hmmm . . . of all the arts and usages that a knight of your Order needs, I'm not sure that hook-and-line fishing is among them."

Niko nodded gravely, but happily; it seemed to reassure him that there wasn't another skill he would have to struggle to learn.

Giscard led him up the hill and down to the rocky shore of the pond. He would call it a lake out loud, but not in his own mind.

At the waterline, there was, of course, the large, mostly flat-topped boulder that he remembered well, although he had long since forgotten its Gaelic name, which would no doubt roll off out of the throat and off the tongue in grandiose syllables, and end up meaning something like "the big, flat rock where John of the Sea used to fish."

If you stood atop it, and held the fishing pole and curled line just so, you could cast out near the middle of the pond, where the larger trout seemed to spend the heat of the day, coming up only to the tangle of weeds at the waterline at dawn and dusk.

It made for a good spot to fish, easily roomy enough for a man and a boy, as he knew from experience, and through most of the year it was high enough out of the water that one could sit down on the edge and dangle one's legs over it without getting one's boots wet.

They sat there in silence for a while, and he took out his pipe, and filled it from his tobacco pouch, toying with it, although he had no fire kit in his rough jacket, and even if he had, lighting it would have been too much of a bother. If he'd wanted to smoke, he should have thought of that before he extinguished the torch.

The wind brought only occasional hints of the drunken singing down on the beach, most of a mile away, although sparks rose in the night, only to be taken and snuffed by the wind, and he had to remind himself that this was damp Colonsay, and not like Fallsworth in a dry autumn, where fires, while unavoidable, were to be managed carefully. Here, the problem would be to keep a fire lit, not to worry about it burning down the heather.

"So," he finally said. "Sir Martin tells me that you're coming along well."

Niko didn't say anything for a moment, then: "He's not said that to me, Your Lordship." He hesitated, as though afraid to speak. "He's not much for praise."

"True enough." Giscard grinned. "That said, I don't think I've seen him enjoy himself so much in years. Standing down a clan war? You've given him the opportunity to do that, and more."

"It wasn't me, Your Lordship." Sir Niko shook his head. "He did it himself."

"No man does anything himself, Sir Niko. Not even Sir Martin."

Could he explain to Niko that, under all the bluster—real and affected—how grateful Martin was for that one last chance to be a knight of the Order once more? No. The boy wouldn't understand.

Niko just cocked his head to one side as though to say something, but didn't.

"Come now, Sir Niko," he said. "The idea was to get away from the noise and the unpleasantness for a while, and walk and talk. You've done the walking part; do I have to hold up the whole conversation myself?"

"I'm sorry, Your Lordship. It's just that . . ."

"Well?"

"She blames me for Bear—for Sir David."

Giscard closed his eyes. "Do you remember what I said when we first met? Something about how I knew that David's brothers in the Order always called him Bear?" His forced chuckle rattled in his throat. "An understandable nickname; he was a large baby, a big boy, a larger man, and looked little like a Shanley. I wouldn't be surprised if there were some who thought me a cuckold, eh? Or, in the old days, hereabouts, there'd be suspicion that my real son was stolen by the Good Folk, leaving one of their own in his place.

"But, no, he was my son; I've never had a worry on that score. And to me, he'll always be David; to you, he'll always be Bear, and please do me the courtesy of continuing to refer to him as you knew him. And please do him that honor. He deserved that, from his brothers, and his friends."

And you were both, Sir Niko, he thought. No. It was not enough to think it.

"You were both his friend and his brother in the Order, Sir Niko. Yes, it was for but the short time that was accorded you, true, but no less a brother and friend for that."

The boy reached down and touched at the hilt of his sword, a gesture so familiar from David's infrequent visits home of recent years that Giscard found himself unable to speak for a moment.

"She blames me," the boy finally said, again.

"Which she would that be? The One whose name you never seem to speak?"

He knew full well what Niko was saying, but for reasons that he couldn't quite understand, he needed to have it said aloud, to have it said explicitly, as though the words themselves would make a difference.

"No. Not Her. The baroness. For, for Bear."

Which Giscard already knew. It couldn't be the Queen of Air and Darkness; Niko had never met Her, as he had not made the trip into the Arroy; Becket said that would happen when he, Becket, thought the boy was ready. Damned if Sir Martin Becket was going to send the boy to Her when he still found his skills wanting, albeit improving.

Betwixt and between, Niko was—not quite a knight, despite the Red Sword and the title; and not a novice, mainly because of the sword and the title.

And a certain something else, perhaps.

There was an . . . intensity to the boy. It wasn't just that he went through all the work that Becket set him to with energy and without complaint; it was as though, even when he was doing something as ordinary as throwing charcoal into a forge, or setting to work on a leather gauntlet with pincers and awl, he was utterly dedicated to the task, not for the sake of the task itself, but because it was what a young knight in training ought to be doing.

Not that Giscard thought himself any judge of such things. After all, when he had had David sent to Alton, it was mainly to prepare him for a military or administration career. Michael was the heir to Fallsworth, after all, and Matthew next in line. He had thought that a year or so at Alton would leave David with the ring of the former novice, and a good start in life. A year or two at Alton was . . . 

But he was woolgathering to avoid the subject. A bad habit, and one that he would not have tolerated in himself in Parliament; it was little better here.

"I could tell you that that isn't so," he said, "but I'm not sure that you'd believe me."

"Yes. I'm not complaining—"

"Well, you damn well should be complaining, if that's what you think." He bit hard down on his pipe stem and tried to take a deep draught of it, irritated with himself when he remembered that it was unlit. "You should be complaining to me about my wife's misbehavior, if that's how you see it. I'm her husband, boy; I'm responsible for her."

"I've . . . I've no complaints." He shook his head. "If I'd just been a bit better, a little faster—"

"If you'd been a fully trained knight, instead of a fisherboy who Sir Cully had found it expedient to be equipped with that Red Sword, and if luck had been with you and Bear and Sir Joshua and Sir Cully, and all the rest, yes, David might still be alive." He waved his pipe stem. "And don't you think that a day goes by that I don't think that, too, and wish that it had been the case." He shook his head. "But blame you? No. Not her, not I. It is a . . . signal honor to have a son rise before the king with two swords in his sash, and it's an honor that's granted to few fathers. And then, for him to be made a Knight of the White Sword?" He rose. "It was as proud a moment as a father could have," he said, "until the moment His Majesty said of David, 'He was a good and kindly knight.' " He kept his voice low, not permitting it to crack. "And did you think that his mother and I did not know the risks that he had undertaken, of his own, stubborn will, and with pride? Yes, Grace aches for the loss of her son, as do I. That's as it should be. But blame you? No. Not her; not I." He shook his head. "Have you nothing to say?"

Niko shook his head, too. "Just that I hope you'll forgive me, too."

Giscard sighed. He was supposed to be quite a speaker, at least, that's what was said in Parliament. He had obviously left the boy unconvinced.

In a way, he supposed, that was as it should. The world should ache for the loss of his son, as he and Grace always would. But of all the world, why this boy? Why?

Well, at least he had tried. He would try again, should the occasion warrant.

"Well, we'd best be getting back," he said. "I've got some duties yet to perform tonight. Prima nocte, and all." He grinned.

Niko looked puzzled, and it took him a moment to work out the Latin, and then to remember what it was supposed to mean. "First night? You mean that you really—"

"Of course not." Giscard sniffed. "It's a ritual, that's all, and largely a way of the McPhees getting me to help pay for the wedding. I'll be sitting up with the bride, this evening—yes, in my bedroom—while her mother and father and one of her cousins bear witness both to the fact that, as is my right to insist—and as the McPhees do the best to insist on me insisting—she spent her first married night in the bedroom of the lord, with her husband noticeably absent, and also to bear witness that I not so much as laid a finger upon her." He shook his head. "It's not the silliest thing that a man of my station has to do, although I can't think of a sillier one, not at the moment." He shrugged. "An hour or so of polite conversation and a few 'drops of his own,' and I can be done with it, and down by the fire sharing a bottle with Becket."

He would have said something about how each man had his own duties, but this one was an embarrassment, and the evening had already held enough embarrassments as it was.

With another to come.

"Let's go, Sir Niko."

"Yes, Your Lordship."

It was the screaming that woke Niko.

He had had no trouble falling asleep, of course; he never did. When he had returned to his rooms, Fotheringay had already had his bed turned down, and had warmed it with the bed iron that had Niko had never seen the old sergeant take from the fireplace.

This whole notion of wearing clothes to bed still seemed strange to him, but after setting his swords down beside the bed, he undressed and carefully folded his clothes onto the bureau next to where Fotheringay had already set out fresh clothing, and carefully laid out his next day's clothes and his boots beside his bed, as always.

While he had been inconsistent in ringing the waking bell while on Colonsay, Niko knew that if he did, Niko had better be down the stairs and out onto the training ground behind the house before Sir Martin could count to twenty. Sir Martin was not patient with "dawdling," one of those trade language words that Niko had never quite understood.

But it was the screams that woke him up. High-pitched; frightened.

He was out of bed and out the door, into the hallway, with both his swords in hand, Nadide still in her sheath, before he quite knew what he was doing.

Lanterns burned in their niches, flickering light casting weaving shadows.

The screams continued—they were from down the hall. Her rooms.

Somebody's hurting Bear's mother.

There were sounds of footsteps behind him, but he didn't look behind as he dashed down the hall, and into the room.

The only light in her room came from the fireplace, and in it, some dark form was over her bed, holding her down, his fingers reaching for her throat.

The right thing to do, the knightly thing to do, would have been to draw his sword—his mundane sword; drawing a live sword was something too dangerous to be done without necessity—and run the dark shape through.

But he found himself dropping both of the swords, leaping on the other, his forearm coming across the throat, as he had been taught. He would have told himself that he was doing that out of fear that his sword might hurt the lady, but the truth was that it was that he wanted to, he needed to get his hands on whoever it was that was hurting her.

Hurt Bear's mother? he thought. Not while I can get my hands on your throat.

Blunt hands reached back for him, but he shook them off. Concentrate, Sir Martin had told him—concentrate on what you're doing, boy.

He did. His whole world shrunk to his right arm, and where his knees found purchase on the larger man's back.

There were sounds around him, and others were shouting, but that wasn't part of his world, part of his universe, nor were the words that the woman in the bed were saying.

No. None of it mattered. One thing at a time, Sir Niko, he could almost hear Becket say. Concentrated, damn your eyes, concentrate.

He squeezed, and pulled, and ignored the blows and the cries, even when the body went limp.

He became aware that there were others in the room, and that Fotheringay was standing over him.

"Easy, young sir," the old sergeant said. He had a lantern in one hand, and a dagger in the other. "You've done for the bastard." He handed the lantern to somebody who Niko couldn't see, and made his dagger disappear. His gentle fingers were strong as they pried Niko's arms loose, and helped him to his feet.

Fotheringay was undressed only in the sense that his buttons were unbuttoned, and his boots unlaced; he, as usual, had slept in his clothes as his nightclothes, and had not taken time to do more than step into his boots.

They were all there, wide-eyed servants, the priest in his cassock, and Becket, with the two novices—including the baron, in his own nightshirt. He should have looked preposterous with the nightshirt falling only to mid knee, and his skinny legs protruding beneath them. But he had a sword in his hand, too.

While Becket was more held up than supported by the two novices, he was the only one who seemed to have any dignity; he was in his robes, and his good hand clutched a sword, although he let the point drop.

"Roll the bastard over," he said. "I want to see what's left of his face."

Fotheringay—faithful Fotheringay—looked to Niko, and waited for his nod of confirmation before he dropped to one knee and rolled the man over onto his back.

It was a McPhee, of course; the clan tartan was distinctive.

The dead man's face was red and swollen, the cheeks already blackening. Niko doubted that he could have recognized him in life; he certainly couldn't now.

Niko took a deep breath, and wished he hadn't; the McPhee had fouled himself in death. He picked up Nadide, and tried to put her away in his sash.

But the sash wasn't there. He was just wearing the silly nightshirt. He stood there, wondering why he didn't feel as foolish as he no doubt looked. It just didn't seem important.

Fotheringay shook his head. "Recognize him? Anybody?"

It was so like Fotheringay to take charge when everybody else was simply standing around.

"Calum McPhee," the baron said. "Calum Peter Michael, he's called. Oldest brother of the bride. Not one of the . . . guests in the bedroom." His voice was unnaturally calm as he stood in the doorway. "Get the other McPhees in here, and now," he said, to somebody out in the hall.

"No, no—leave them where they are," Niko said, and the baron, after hesitating only a moment, made a waving-away gesture to whoever he had spoken to, and shook his head. "Please," Niko said, "just go to your wife, milord."

Becket started to say something, but desisted at a gesture from Niko.

"Please, Sir Martin." He turned back to the baron. "Get her out of here, sir. Now, please. She doesn't need to see this."

"Better not for either of them to leave the room until we've got a better idea of what's going on here, young sir," Fotheringay said. "If you asked me, which I don't recall you doing."

Niko forced himself to stop listening to the pounding of his own heart. Yes, Fotheringay was right. A drunken McPhee staggering up the stairs and trying to rape the baroness? How had he gotten past the servants? And why? Were there more of them? What was going on?

The baroness had gathered her bedclothes about her. The straps of her nightdress were torn.

Niko, at least, knew what to do about that. "Fotheringay—the lady needs a robe."

"Yessir." From somewhere, Fotheringay found a robe, and didn't quite elbow the baron aside as he draped it over the baroness's shoulders. "Easy, now, Lady," he said. "Let's get you out of the bed, and maybe over to the chair, where you don't have to be bothered by the sight of that."

"No." She drew the robe around her, and rose from the bed. If it weren't for the fact that her knees seemed ready to buckle beneath her, Niko would have said that he'd never seen a man or woman so dignified. Her mussed hair, the growing bruises about her face—they didn't matter. "I was here for the worst of it; I can stand to see what's here." Her knees did buckle, then, and she sat down on the bed trembling.

"Grace. Do as the sergeant says."

"No. We shall do as Sir Niko says." She looked over at Niko. "Thank you," she said, quietly.

"You're welcome, but you've nothing to thank me for, Lady," he said. "Just doing my duty, that's all."

It was all he could do not to kick the body.

Lay a hand on Bear's mother? The bastard was lucky that Niko had gotten to him first. Gray, Cully, any of the others would have done worse than killed him. Niko would have, too, if he'd had time to think about it.

Becket was starting to say something, but Niko waved him to silence.

"I don't like this at all," Niko said. His own voice seemed to come from far away. "It's not . . . it's not right."

"I can smell the whiskey on him from here," Fotheringay said. "He probably should have had a dram or two less."

"Shut up, Nigel." He shook his head.

No. A drunk McPhee, invading the lady's bedroom to assault her? That was the obvious explanation, the simple one, but it wasn't enough. There had been drunken McPhees at every wedding on the beach, the baron had implied. Why this? Why now?

He would get the explanation. But get the family safe, first.

"Nigel—get the drapes drawn, and quickly now."

"Should have thought of that myself," Fotheringay said, moving to do just that.

There were sounds from outside, but nobody had—yet—come in through the door. Fotheringay quickly drew the shades, and helped the baroness out of her bed and into a chair up against an outer wall, over her quiet protests.

Niko looked to Becket. "Sir Martin? What do we do?"

"Not mine to say." Becket shook his head. "Your mind isn't cluttered by drink, as mine surely is, and you've handled this well enough so far; you're in charge, Sir Niko." His grin wasn't friendly. "As you seem to have already decided."

There would be no arguing with Becket; Niko knew that from experience. So he turned to the novices. "Get Sir Martin on the bed, and then go dress and arm yourselves—have the servants keep the McPhees in the lord's bedroom; you guard the bottom of the stairs."

Too many doors into the house; this was built as just a residence, not as a castle, or a keep. But at least the foot of the one staircase should be defensible, if need be. "Now," he said, "if you please."

Becket nodded. "Do it, boys, and quickly, now, and never mind my aches and pains—just chuck me on the bed and we'll worry about my dignity some other time, if I ever happen to acquire any again."

Despite Becket's growling, the novices lay him down carefully albeit quickly on the bed before running from the room.

Niko took one quick look at Sir Martin, who shook his head, as he lay sprawled on the bed.

"Nearest earl's soldiers in Oban," Becket said. "Be midafternoon before we could have any here. Get the baron and baroness in the skiff and go, you think?"

And what if there was some danger waiting at sea? Or between the house and the dock? No. Better to defend the house, if necessary.

Niko shook his head. "Get the skiff going, yes—but for help."

"Makes sense, it does." Fotheringay nodded. "The downstairs valet is ex-navy; served on the old Lord Davy—should be able to handle a skiff, with or without some help. From the house staff."

"You could do it."

"Meaning no more than my usual impertinence, but my place is here, Sir Niko, with you. Unless you got a lot more men you can trust at your back that I've not been hearing about?"

There were voices being raised down the hall, but Niko wasn't going to leave the baron and baroness to investigate; he gave Fotheringay a quick glance, and the sergeant stalked out of the room, his short knife held against the flat of one arm, while another one clutched a length of thick kindling wood that Niko hadn't seen him retrieve.

The baron was still standing next to his wife, his sword still in his hand. "What do I do, Sir Niko? I'm not as young as I was, but I'm—"

"You're the baron, and a husband, sir. Please, sir, just stay here, with your wife."

"He can get paper and pen from that writing desk," Becket said, gesturing. "The word of some Shanley retainer will go over better and quicker in Oban with a note from myself and one from the baron."

"Do that," Niko said. He found that he still had Nadide, scabbarded, in his hand, and tried to slip her into his sash.

But the sash, along with his clothes, was back in his room, and he wasn't going to leave this room, not now. Still, there were sounds outside, and they weren't the drunken sounds of laughter that he had heard.

"I hear it, too," the baron said, shaking his head. He had brought the bedside writing desk over to Becket, who was scribbling madly.

"Sir Niko," Becket said, "I think the baron can be trusted to go to your cell and get your clothes."

"No. I'll be fine." He didn't want to let the baron out of his sight. Close, Niko could get between him and danger, without leaving the baroness exposed.

He hadn't seen her rise, but the baroness was kneeling in front of a deeply carved bureau, and had the bottom drawer slid open.

"Sir Niko," she said, her voice as flat and emotionless as always, "this is far too large, but it will do for now," she said, taking out a tunic jacket and sash. She rose and approached him. "Please."

He allowed her to help him on with it—with Nadide's scabbard in his hand he could hardly have dressed himself—and then she knelt to belt a thick Order sash about his waist. The trousers, undertunic, and boots would have to wait, at least for now, but at least he had some way to get both hands free without dropping the sword again.

"Stand back, please, all of you."

He went as far across the room as he could, and stepped behind the curtains. They were heavy enough to block out daylight, for when the baroness would take to her bed during the day, and looked out toward the beach and the sea, rather than up toward the hills.

Too many lanterns had been lit in the bedroom; it took him a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the dark.

The wind had picked up outside; the hills around Kiloran were only partial protection, after all.

It took the burning embers from the bonfire and drove them both to the east, and high in the air, showed no signs of extinguishing it. If anything, the bonfire still burning on the sands, seemed much larger, and people were still gathered on this side of it, but it wasn't the merriment and celebration of before. Lit by the burning flames, the crowd of more than two hundred was swaying, back and forth, as though moving to a slow dirge.

But the pipers were gone. Beyond the fire, mostly obscured by the flames, a dim figure swayed back and forth, but instead of the ceol mor, the bagpipes, he seemed to be playing a syrinx—two or three simple reed pipes, and while it was hard to hear the much of any of the tune over the roaring of the wind, the few sounds that reached Niko's ears made him dizzy.

There was no drummer that he could see, but a harsh, monstrous drumbeat thumped in time with the beating of his own heart, and as the pace of the drumbeat slowly, inexorably increased, so did the sway of the dancers.

And his own heart.

At the edge of the crowd, piles of naked bodies writhed, and he forced himself not to force his eyes away.

There was nothing even vaguely erotic about all of it; children, adults alike in a mass of coupling that seemed to have no sexuality to it.

The wind began to die down, and the sound of the pipes reached his ears more clearly. He found himself painfully erect, his body swaying in time to—

No.

No.

No.

He forced himself to clap his hand to Nadide's hilt.

Niko? Niko. Niko!

Help me, Nadide.

He was never quite sure whether it was him or her that let him stagger back through the curtains, not quite falling. They seemed to deaden the sound, at least a little, but it was still hard to put his feet down where they belonged. His whole body wanted to sway, to give in to it.

But the wind picked up again, driving the last traces of the pipes more from his mind than his ears.

He was having trouble breathing, and his eyes refused to focus. There were too many people in the room—

Niko, come back to me.

He forced himself to focus.

There were too many people in the room. In addition to the baron, the baroness, and Becket, Fotheringay was standing behind four of the McPhees: the bride, her mother, and another young McPhee woman whom Niko couldn't place.

All of them had their hands clasped behind their backs, as though inspecting him; all were wide-eyed, and couldn't stop from looking down to the body on the floor, and up to Niko, from where they stood, pressed up against the far wall of the bedroom.

"They're not going to be doing any harm, young sir," Fotheringay said, as he rose from tying ankles together. "Not without pulling their thumbs out of their sockets, or falling flat on their faces." His expression was every bit as calm as always, but there was an edge in his voice. "Just a precaution, given that I'm only one, and all."

"There's something going on out there," Niko said. "A piper—he seems to have everybody under a spell."

Shanley grunted. "Not that that's any excuse—but, Sir Niko, are you . . . ?" He didn't seem to have the right word.

"A piper?" It was the McPhee father—Calum was his name, although Niko didn't remember what he was usually called. He was a big, thick, stout man, easily a head taller than Fotheringay; but the old sergeant seemed to handle him with ease.

"But the ceol mor does nothing of the sort." His voice was higher-pitched than Niko would have expected, and his face was greasy with sweat. Niko could smell the reek of the whiskey even over the charnel house smell of the body on the floor; this McPhee had apparently had more than a few "drops of his own" before the screaming began.

At Niko's nod, Fotheringay pushed Calum McPhee forward. "Well, let's see about that," Fotheringay said. "Seems to have taken the young knight ill—let's see what the sound does to the likes of you, shall we?" His left hand gripped the McPhee's hair, and from the way that the bigger man rose to his toes to comply, Niko was sure where the knife was.

"I think that nobody else goes outside," he said, as he shoved the man through the curtains, and Niko quickly pulled them back around his arms, to keep out what he could of the piping sound.

From behind him, there was a crashing sound downstairs, and cries of pain.

"Just two," came a shout from down the stairs, "but there's more coming."

"Hold them, as long as you can," Becket said.

"They'll not hold them alone, by God." The baron dashed for the door, sword in hand, ignoring Becket's curses.

Becket beckoned to the baroness. "Come, Grace, get a chair in the door and get me to my feet, what there is of them," he said, trying to rise. His sword slipped out of his fingers and fell to the bed, but he ignored it and used his good arm to pull him to his feet, standing wobbly.

"Of course, Martin," she said. She was surprisingly strong for such a slight woman; she slid the huge dressing chair near the foot of the bed across the room, not glancing down at either the body, or how her gown fell open, then half supported, half carried Becket into it, and placed his sword in his hand.

"I can't hold many in the doorway long, Sir Niko," Becket said. "And I can't go chasing off after the baron, either."

Niko nodded.

Fair enough. Keep Fotheringay with the baroness, and he could join the baron—

"Wait." Fotheringay had dragged Calum McPhee back through the curtains.

His eyes were wide with madness.

"Amadan Dubh," he said. "Amadan Dubh." There was spittle at the corner of his mouth, and he shook his head as though to clear it.

But his eyes stayed wide.

Fotheringay dropped him to the floor with an economic foot sweep. "Just what we bloody needed, eh?"

Niko shook his head. "I don't understand."

"If you'd been reading your Celtic history more," Becket said, his back to Niko, his voice back to its usual calm, scornful self, "you'd know that he's talking about the Black Piper, the Fairy Fool, the Dark Piper. A sidhe supposedly, but not a halfling like Our Lady is—full-blooded, ancient, and crazy. Passer-on of madness, through his damned pipes."

But the sidhe were long gone, so it was said; all of the Old Ones were, with but a few remaining, like the Wise on Pantelleria, and the Queen of Air and Darkness, and but a few others.

I'm not sure what it is, Nadide said. But it's time. This one will hurt Bear's mother, and his father.

"That may be so," he said, as much to himself as to her, "but not while I breathe."

He drew the sword, and the world changed once more.

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Framed

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Contents

Chapter 8
Colonsay I
 

 
It would probably be best, all in all, if I left Colonsay to itself. The McPhees, as is true for all of the clans, certainly resent having any part of the land of the clan be tributary to an English noble—even one with a good Scots title, like the Earl of Moray, as the Morays have married far too much into English families for local tastes.

And while I doubt that there's the resentment of my family that the mainland McPhees have over Moray's tight hold on his Scottish lands, whenever we arrive to summer at Kiloran, I wonder in the back of my head if perhaps I should petition His Majesty to let Colonsay lapse back to Moray when I'm gone. At least he's a Scot, if one of diluted blood.

I know that Michael would make no protest. He's a proper English land baron, and will, no doubt, resent leaving Fallsworth when it's necessary to go to Londinium, when it becomes his turn, and while he came willingly to Kiloran as a boy, remaining behind in Fallsworth is something that he always chooses these days, and likely would have preferred in his younger ones, as well, although I can't remember him protesting.

He'd have no trouble with me giving away Colonsay.

I doubt that the Colonsay McPhees would prefer it if all McPhee land was tributary to the same English lord, though, although there would be some advantages to them. When the Colonsay McPhees send their one-in-twenty to take service with the Crown, there would be advantages to having them serve under the earl's banner, rather than under His Majesty's alone.

 
And there was a time, of course, when the Barons of Shanley raised their own companies, and maybe some would have preferred to serve under that, although perhaps not if they'd known me during my army days, or the later navy ones.

Still, knowing the McPhees as I do, I have my own suspicion that, sooner or later, were that the case, the rampant Shanley griffon would find itself wearing a bright red-and-green tartan, with strands of bright white and yellow. The McPhees have a way of having things their way, after all.

And while I trust I reign over the island rather more than I rule it even when I'm there, I'd still stay away, if I didn't love Kiloran so.

But I do love it so, after all.

—Giscard, Baron Shanley

The drunken singing and laughter poured in through the open windows.

Closing them would have lost Giscard the breeze, and done little to cut down on the noise, alas.

And, besides, while the singing was one thing—who could enjoy the sounds hundreds of drunken McPhees singing, each in his own key?—and although he wouldn't have admitted it aloud, Giscard enjoyed the laughter.

Not just that of the children—though it had been too long since not only the laughter of children had filled the house at Fallsworth or here—but that of the adults, as well. Laughter was better in the throat than a fine whiskey, and better in the ears than any music.

And if the price of the laughter was the drunken Scots singing, well, he could bear that, as though it was a trade and he was a tradesman. It had been too long since he had heard laughter, and he couldn't remember the last time it came from his own lips.

Or from hers.

He looked across toward the foot of the table where Grace sat, picking at her food, seemingly oblivious to the sounds outside as much as to the care with which Cook had taken with the pottage pig, which was—which had been—one of her favorite dishes.

These days, she had no favorite dish; her plate was still annoyingly full. She hadn't had more than a polite bite or two when they had put in their appearance at and after the wedding, although she had made a point to taste everything, even though he knew for a fact that she utterly despised mutton, and would willingly tolerate lamb only when it was very young and fresh.

The wedding party was easily a hundred yards outside, on the beach, partly under the tents, although the sounds of laughter and the singing—all in Gaelic, naturally—flowed through the open windows with a volume that clearly irritated Grace.

Then again, Grace was more than a little irritable these days, although the baron flattered himself, and he hoped her, in that none other would be able to see it but him, or perhaps Becket.

Becket's eyes weren't what they had been, long ago, but his sight was still keen, in most ways, and they had had the honor of Becket as their guest in happier days, as well as these ones.

Becket gave him a glance, and the slightest of shrugs, as though to say, what can't be cured must be endured.

"Sounds like a fine party outside," the priest said, smiling. Father Olafsen certainly didn't seem to be able to detect her irritation.

The priest had presided over the official ceremonies—well, the marriage, at least—and had, as he always did, accepted the baron's invitation to dinner and to stay the night. The road up to Scalasaig, after all, was hardly the sort of thing one could expect an old man to walk in the dark, as it was far more path than road, although the natives seemed to manage it with few falls, all in all. The priest was not a native to Colonsay.

He couldn't really tell about the boy. Sir Niko was quiet at table, as he usually was, and his table manners, under Becket's ungentle instruction, had become impeccable. About the only thing that remained from his early days was his tendency to eat as though there would be no food tomorrow—in quantity, these days, although not in rapidity of the early days that had earned him more than a few tongue lashings from the older knight that the baron had admired the craft of, even if he had affected not to hear them.

The time that Niko had spilled soup across the front of his tunic, Becket's use of words had been particularly . . . colorful. Excessive, perhaps, but, well, that was just Becket being Becket, he supposed.

The five of them were dining alone in the cottage, as while they had all been invited to the wedding, it was really the sort of affair that went better with the lord merely making an appearance, save for the obvious, and a priest would have shed almost as much of a pall on the party.

He shook his head. Cheap folks, the Scots—all of them. While he was in residence, weddings seemed to wash up on the beach at Kiloran bay more often than the ever-arriving driftwood on the Oronsay flats. It was always some father of the bride, anywhere from Priorty to Balnahard, and always with the same pretext—and always in English, as though the laird couldn't understand Gaelic: "And since you'll need to be exercising your permer nockter rights and all, milord, will you be joining us?" And, as always, having no desire to either leave Kiloran or find himself stuck in some black house up near, say, the well-named Sguid nam ban Truagh for the night, he would always offer the use of the beach—of his beach, dammit—for when the day's revelry was done, even when it didn't last through until dawn, all would be far too drunk to make their way home.

Of course, those from Oronsay could cross the Strand only at low tide. But it wasn't just them—the revelers, Colonsay proper and Oronsay, would sleep it all off on the beach under the stars, enjoying the shelter of the hills around Kiloran from the harsh winds that blew even during summer, only to arise, one by one in the morning, clean up the detritus of the previous night—they did that religiously; he had to give them that—and stagger their separate ways home.

And if he hadn't offered at least a sheep or two for the wedding dinner, and not supplied a keg or two as well as enough bottles of good Scots whiskey to toast the bride and groom, he'd have found himself feeling more like a guest than a host in his own home, and likely end up being known across the island as Tòicear Shanley or perhaps Laird Sgrubaire, rather than the much less insulting Lord Eachdranach, which he didn't particularly mind.

Of course, he'd have his own little celebration, such as it was, and a damned silly one it would be.

Just as well, actually. He had, of course, made his proper appearance at the ceremony itself, and even in his young and randy days—and, despite legends to the contrary, Lieutenant Lord Giscard Shanley of the Gaheris had had his randy days—he would not have found the bride tempting. This Rebbecca McPhee—called "Becka" to her face and "Becka Calum Peter" behind her back to help distinguish her from all the other Rebbecca McPhees in Balnahard—was not only dark enough to remind him that the original name of the clan was Mac Dubh Sith, and that dubh was Gaelic for "black," and either had developed a small potbelly, as uncommon in young McPhee women as it was prevalent in the older ones . . . 

Or, of course, she was already expecting, as he expected was the case. He doubted that many brides hereabouts made it to the altar as virgins, and at least some as pregnant. That was often hereabouts, and no doubt the subject of much gossip, none of which would reach the ears of the lord, unless he made some effort.

He doubted that McPhee fathers actually told their daughters, come early spring, to lay with their intended and force a wedding at the time when the lord would be in residence, but perhaps he was being overly generous. Certainly, if a Colonsay McPhee could have gotten his daughter's wedding to be hosted by the baron while she was flat on her back screaming in pain, pushing out the baby while attended by fretting midwives, he no doubt would have.

"So what did you think of the ceremony, Sir Niko?" the priest asked.

"It was very nice," the boy said, after a short pause. Presumably he spoke freely in front of Fotheringay, but his servant was probably the only one. Becket reported that the novices didn't find him at all talkative in private, and Giscard certainly had not.

"Nice?" Becket snorted. "You think it nice, what with all the hollering and whooping and yowling like a bunch of New World saracens?"

He gestured toward the open windows. Beyond the windows, flames roared up from the driftwood fires on the beach, the crackling of the wood and the whoosh-whoosh-whoosh of the waves gently breaking on the beach beyond, to the extent that one could hear them over what was probably the eighteenth repetition of "In Praise of Morag," which appeared to be, for some reason, tonight's favorite, although Giscard couldn't imagine why.

Yes, it was better than porcine Prussian drinking songs, certainly, in principle—but Prussia was far, far away, and this was here.

Well, at least they were only singing it now, rather than trying to have their voices compete with the ceol mor piping out the same tune. Enjoyment of the pipes were either an acquired taste or more likely the result of calluses of the ears built up from birth, and Giscard had acquired neither the taste nor the calluses.

Becket smiled at Giscard. " 'In praise of Morag' is the sort of thing that goes better without the lyrics, and at a distance," he said. "It's sort of like a dead skunk—I actually find the smell somehow pleasant, if it's far enough away. Doubt that I'd enjoy it much if the skunk were hung out the window any more than I care for this."

He was slurring his words more than usual; Becket was thoroughly drunk, which Giscard noted without faulting him for it.

Becket turned back to Niko. "And you don't find that the dignity of the sacrament is sullied by this sort of drunken revelry?"

No pause this time: "No, Sir Martin," the boy said, meeting the older knight's eyes. "I do not."

Giscard hid his smile behind his napkin. One thing you could say about the boy: he was learning. Becket would upbraid him for the disagreement, no doubt, but he would have been far more severe with compliance. Perhaps Niko couldn't win with Becket, at least not in the short run, but he could minimize his losses.

"We'll speak on that later," Becket said. "And without that blasted Fotheringay of yours to try to distract me."

The priest chuckled as he leaned forward, toward Becket. "You can speak to me later on it, if you'd like, Sir Martin, as I fully agree with the young knight. The singing, the drinking—none of it does any harm." The priest took a long pull at his own glass, and nodded, careless of the way that he was dribbling down his beard and onto his cassock. Anglians! "The sacrament, of course, remains untouched, and while it should be shown due respect, the respect was paid when it was performed, and while I think the groom was less than steady on his feet, that may have had more to do with the father-in-law than anything else I can think of. A celebration after, even a bit raucous of one, does the sacrament no disrespect, and no man can do it harm. Very standard theology, Sir Martin," he said. "As you should know."

Becket glowered at him. Being reminded that, as a knight of the Order, he was a priest as well, was the sort of thing that Becket would be certain to take offense at.

Time to say something. "I think the wine for communion was quite good," Giscard said, and not just to change the subject, but, so he hoped, to provoke a response from Grace. He had provided the wine, out of his own cellar here—a Burgundian claret that had aged very nicely, although perhaps a little too tannic.

Certainly expensive; at least arguably too expensive. She wouldn't quibble with the expense, but there was a time when she would argue about the necessity of providing a particularly good wine for Communion, it being a sacrament and all, and not possible of further ennobling.

And he would argue back.

It was one of his favorite arguments with Grace, and for a moment, he thought he saw the light back in her eyes, and that they would launch into this, perhaps his favorite one of the fierce arguments that both of them had so dearly loved, despite how the fury of them would horrify strangers. There were no strangers here, and he could remember many an evening when, when their arguments flagged, Becket egging the two of them on, switching sides whenever one or the other would seem ready to drop the matter.

But it was just for a moment. The light in her eyes dimmed, and she pushed herself back from the table with a quick gesture for them all to remain in their seats, a gesture that Niko ignored; he rose instantly.

"I'm sorry," she said. "But I feel a touch unwell. Please don't end your evening on my account," she said, as she turned and walked out of the room.

Well, that ended the evening, as surely as if each and every candle had been blown out.

"Just sit down, boy," Becket said, eying the door. "The lady's unwell; leave it at that."

The boy sat.

The priest looked at the door for a long time. "Well, in truth," he said, into the silence, "I find myself more than a little tired, as well. If it won't offend the baron, I'll take to my bed, as well, and give the—and give you more privacy."

"Of course," Giscard said. "And my apologies for cutting the evening so short."

"Ah, it's not necessary that it be short," Becket said, gently, as the priest walked away. "I'm sure you've got a bottle of something interesting somewhere about, and since I can't sleep while all this yowling and yammering goes on outside, I think I might prevail on you to find that bottle, and share it with me, after I get the novices to refresh me, for an hour or so, if you follow my meaning. After, of course, you've performed your own duties."

"I'd be grateful for the company," he said, as he always did, and always meant.

Instead of reaching for the bell cord, Becket banged his fist three times on the table, and the two novices, who had clearly been waiting just outside the hall, quickly rushed in, and wheeled him out of the room, leaving Giscard alone with the boy.

Giscard forced himself not to push back angrily from the table. Anger was what was called for when a wife misbehaved, be she a peasant's or a king's, and Giscard tried, to the extent he was able to, not only to conduct himself as was appropriate, but to feel that which was appropriate.

But the truth was, he felt no anger at her, and if he displayed it in front of the boy, the boy would have misunderstood, more likely than not.

"And you, Sir Niko?" He forced a smile. "Will you abandon me, too?"

"No, sir. I'll stay with you, if you'd like." The boy was stopping himself from saying something. He simply rinsed out his fingers in the finger bowl, and then carefully dried them on his napkin.

Out with it, Sir Niko, he could have said, and the boy would have done as ordered, or at least affected to.

But, no. It was not right to compel him to talk.

On the other hand . . . "What with the wine and the noise, and my . . . responsibilities of later this night, I find myself desirous of some air at the moment," he said. "Will you keep me company?"

"Of course."

He thought for a moment about going to his room and changing from his dinner clothes into something more appropriate for a walk up and away from the beach, but decided against it.

Perhaps . . .

Perhaps what? Perhaps Grace would be in his room, rather than her own? Perhaps in the act of changing his clothes he could bring some light back into those dead eyes? He forced himself not to sigh.

"Let's go out through the kitchen," he said. "I've some rough clothes out in the woodshed." It wouldn't be the first time that he had gone out into the night, after all, of late, whether here or at Fallsworth.

It likely wouldn't be the last.

Giscard led the way, under the light of the flickering torch.

The road up into the hills and then down to the lake was rough and ill-traveled, as were all three of the roads coming into Kiloran. Truth to tell, on the rare occasions when Giscard wanted to or had to go somewhere else on Colonsay, he tended to use the launch, over Grace's protests.

Surely, a man who had taken the deck of the Gaheris herself could, with a little help, manage a single-masted launch beyond the edge of the cove, and if he would head perhaps a touch too far into the Firth of Lorn than was strictly necessary to make his way out past the shoal waters around the point on his way to Scalasaig, it was decidedly more pleasant to have a few hours out on the water than to go tramping through damp heather and the peat. And it was probably quicker, all in all.

But there would be no skiff tonight; the distance was small, and the destination uphill, not shoreside.

The moon was full enough that they needed no light after their eyes had adjusted from inside, and he carefully extinguished the torch in a boggy spot by the side of the road before throwing it off into the heather.

"It's just over the next hill," he said.

"The lake?"

"Yes. The lake. What there is of it. I'd call it little more than a pond, mind you, but Loch an Sgoltaire is what it's named. Ever pond, every hill, cleft, valley, cave, and half the rocks have a name hereabouts. At least we're not up in the hills, where the cattle browse, where half the stones seem to be named after a gruagach." He forced himself to chuckled. "And if you're up near Garvard, don't be surprised if you find that most of them have spoiled milk in them."

"Grugrach?"

"Grugrach. One of the Old Ones. Well, one of many; each to her own place. She watched over the cattle, and the milk, and if you didn't leave her an offering of milk, all of your milk would spoil, and your best cow would be found dead in the morning. I'm sure that there's much the same sort of thing in Pironesia, even these days—didn't you tell me about some goat sacrificers on one of the islands?"

Niko nodded. "Yes."

He looked like he was going to say something more, but stopped himself.

Just was well. Giscard didn't want to know if, back on his island, they'd still sacrificed bulls to Jupiter or the like.

But most of the Old Ones had gone with the end of the Age, and the rest were quieter; and it was a far tamer world, now, thankfully, than just a few hundreds of years ago, a man might worry that if he walked the Scottish lowlands, he might find an old woman at a ford, washing a shirt, and have to forebear asking whose shirt it was, lest she answer, Se do leine, se do leine ga mi nigheadh; it is your shirt, your shirt that I am washing. And he would know that it was the shirt he was shortly to be buried in.

Or, worse, when the Cailleach bheara would still be seen washing her own clothes off Jura, and riding her night mare through the dark.

But a tamer world? he asked himself. Here he was, walking side by side with a knight of the Red Sword—and a newly created one, at that, and—

Perhaps things weren't quite so tame these days, after all.

"Do you fish—" He stopped himself, and forced a laugh. "Now, there's a silly question for a knight who was raised as a Pironesian fisherboy, eh? You're probably better with a stick and hook than—" No; he stopped himself, then went on. "—than I am."

"I'd doubt that, my lord," Niko said. "I've never hunted fish with a hook, just with nets. Spear and gaff, at times. Traps, too, for the crabs. But mostly nets."

"But where would be the sport in that?" He shook his head. He was being a foolish old man. "But then, you didn't fish for sport, but to eat, and for trade. A rather different thing, I'd suppose."

Niko nodded. "Very, I think. But I can learn this kind of fishing, if need be."

That seemed to be the boy's response to everything.

"Hmmm . . . of all the arts and usages that a knight of your Order needs, I'm not sure that hook-and-line fishing is among them."

Niko nodded gravely, but happily; it seemed to reassure him that there wasn't another skill he would have to struggle to learn.

Giscard led him up the hill and down to the rocky shore of the pond. He would call it a lake out loud, but not in his own mind.

At the waterline, there was, of course, the large, mostly flat-topped boulder that he remembered well, although he had long since forgotten its Gaelic name, which would no doubt roll off out of the throat and off the tongue in grandiose syllables, and end up meaning something like "the big, flat rock where John of the Sea used to fish."

If you stood atop it, and held the fishing pole and curled line just so, you could cast out near the middle of the pond, where the larger trout seemed to spend the heat of the day, coming up only to the tangle of weeds at the waterline at dawn and dusk.

It made for a good spot to fish, easily roomy enough for a man and a boy, as he knew from experience, and through most of the year it was high enough out of the water that one could sit down on the edge and dangle one's legs over it without getting one's boots wet.

They sat there in silence for a while, and he took out his pipe, and filled it from his tobacco pouch, toying with it, although he had no fire kit in his rough jacket, and even if he had, lighting it would have been too much of a bother. If he'd wanted to smoke, he should have thought of that before he extinguished the torch.

The wind brought only occasional hints of the drunken singing down on the beach, most of a mile away, although sparks rose in the night, only to be taken and snuffed by the wind, and he had to remind himself that this was damp Colonsay, and not like Fallsworth in a dry autumn, where fires, while unavoidable, were to be managed carefully. Here, the problem would be to keep a fire lit, not to worry about it burning down the heather.

"So," he finally said. "Sir Martin tells me that you're coming along well."

Niko didn't say anything for a moment, then: "He's not said that to me, Your Lordship." He hesitated, as though afraid to speak. "He's not much for praise."

"True enough." Giscard grinned. "That said, I don't think I've seen him enjoy himself so much in years. Standing down a clan war? You've given him the opportunity to do that, and more."

"It wasn't me, Your Lordship." Sir Niko shook his head. "He did it himself."

"No man does anything himself, Sir Niko. Not even Sir Martin."

Could he explain to Niko that, under all the bluster—real and affected—how grateful Martin was for that one last chance to be a knight of the Order once more? No. The boy wouldn't understand.

Niko just cocked his head to one side as though to say something, but didn't.

"Come now, Sir Niko," he said. "The idea was to get away from the noise and the unpleasantness for a while, and walk and talk. You've done the walking part; do I have to hold up the whole conversation myself?"

"I'm sorry, Your Lordship. It's just that . . ."

"Well?"

"She blames me for Bear—for Sir David."

Giscard closed his eyes. "Do you remember what I said when we first met? Something about how I knew that David's brothers in the Order always called him Bear?" His forced chuckle rattled in his throat. "An understandable nickname; he was a large baby, a big boy, a larger man, and looked little like a Shanley. I wouldn't be surprised if there were some who thought me a cuckold, eh? Or, in the old days, hereabouts, there'd be suspicion that my real son was stolen by the Good Folk, leaving one of their own in his place.

"But, no, he was my son; I've never had a worry on that score. And to me, he'll always be David; to you, he'll always be Bear, and please do me the courtesy of continuing to refer to him as you knew him. And please do him that honor. He deserved that, from his brothers, and his friends."

And you were both, Sir Niko, he thought. No. It was not enough to think it.

"You were both his friend and his brother in the Order, Sir Niko. Yes, it was for but the short time that was accorded you, true, but no less a brother and friend for that."

The boy reached down and touched at the hilt of his sword, a gesture so familiar from David's infrequent visits home of recent years that Giscard found himself unable to speak for a moment.

"She blames me," the boy finally said, again.

"Which she would that be? The One whose name you never seem to speak?"

He knew full well what Niko was saying, but for reasons that he couldn't quite understand, he needed to have it said aloud, to have it said explicitly, as though the words themselves would make a difference.

"No. Not Her. The baroness. For, for Bear."

Which Giscard already knew. It couldn't be the Queen of Air and Darkness; Niko had never met Her, as he had not made the trip into the Arroy; Becket said that would happen when he, Becket, thought the boy was ready. Damned if Sir Martin Becket was going to send the boy to Her when he still found his skills wanting, albeit improving.

Betwixt and between, Niko was—not quite a knight, despite the Red Sword and the title; and not a novice, mainly because of the sword and the title.

And a certain something else, perhaps.

There was an . . . intensity to the boy. It wasn't just that he went through all the work that Becket set him to with energy and without complaint; it was as though, even when he was doing something as ordinary as throwing charcoal into a forge, or setting to work on a leather gauntlet with pincers and awl, he was utterly dedicated to the task, not for the sake of the task itself, but because it was what a young knight in training ought to be doing.

Not that Giscard thought himself any judge of such things. After all, when he had had David sent to Alton, it was mainly to prepare him for a military or administration career. Michael was the heir to Fallsworth, after all, and Matthew next in line. He had thought that a year or so at Alton would leave David with the ring of the former novice, and a good start in life. A year or two at Alton was . . . 

But he was woolgathering to avoid the subject. A bad habit, and one that he would not have tolerated in himself in Parliament; it was little better here.

"I could tell you that that isn't so," he said, "but I'm not sure that you'd believe me."

"Yes. I'm not complaining—"

"Well, you damn well should be complaining, if that's what you think." He bit hard down on his pipe stem and tried to take a deep draught of it, irritated with himself when he remembered that it was unlit. "You should be complaining to me about my wife's misbehavior, if that's how you see it. I'm her husband, boy; I'm responsible for her."

"I've . . . I've no complaints." He shook his head. "If I'd just been a bit better, a little faster—"

"If you'd been a fully trained knight, instead of a fisherboy who Sir Cully had found it expedient to be equipped with that Red Sword, and if luck had been with you and Bear and Sir Joshua and Sir Cully, and all the rest, yes, David might still be alive." He waved his pipe stem. "And don't you think that a day goes by that I don't think that, too, and wish that it had been the case." He shook his head. "But blame you? No. Not her, not I. It is a . . . signal honor to have a son rise before the king with two swords in his sash, and it's an honor that's granted to few fathers. And then, for him to be made a Knight of the White Sword?" He rose. "It was as proud a moment as a father could have," he said, "until the moment His Majesty said of David, 'He was a good and kindly knight.' " He kept his voice low, not permitting it to crack. "And did you think that his mother and I did not know the risks that he had undertaken, of his own, stubborn will, and with pride? Yes, Grace aches for the loss of her son, as do I. That's as it should be. But blame you? No. Not her; not I." He shook his head. "Have you nothing to say?"

Niko shook his head, too. "Just that I hope you'll forgive me, too."

Giscard sighed. He was supposed to be quite a speaker, at least, that's what was said in Parliament. He had obviously left the boy unconvinced.

In a way, he supposed, that was as it should. The world should ache for the loss of his son, as he and Grace always would. But of all the world, why this boy? Why?

Well, at least he had tried. He would try again, should the occasion warrant.

"Well, we'd best be getting back," he said. "I've got some duties yet to perform tonight. Prima nocte, and all." He grinned.

Niko looked puzzled, and it took him a moment to work out the Latin, and then to remember what it was supposed to mean. "First night? You mean that you really—"

"Of course not." Giscard sniffed. "It's a ritual, that's all, and largely a way of the McPhees getting me to help pay for the wedding. I'll be sitting up with the bride, this evening—yes, in my bedroom—while her mother and father and one of her cousins bear witness both to the fact that, as is my right to insist—and as the McPhees do the best to insist on me insisting—she spent her first married night in the bedroom of the lord, with her husband noticeably absent, and also to bear witness that I not so much as laid a finger upon her." He shook his head. "It's not the silliest thing that a man of my station has to do, although I can't think of a sillier one, not at the moment." He shrugged. "An hour or so of polite conversation and a few 'drops of his own,' and I can be done with it, and down by the fire sharing a bottle with Becket."

He would have said something about how each man had his own duties, but this one was an embarrassment, and the evening had already held enough embarrassments as it was.

With another to come.

"Let's go, Sir Niko."

"Yes, Your Lordship."

It was the screaming that woke Niko.

He had had no trouble falling asleep, of course; he never did. When he had returned to his rooms, Fotheringay had already had his bed turned down, and had warmed it with the bed iron that had Niko had never seen the old sergeant take from the fireplace.

This whole notion of wearing clothes to bed still seemed strange to him, but after setting his swords down beside the bed, he undressed and carefully folded his clothes onto the bureau next to where Fotheringay had already set out fresh clothing, and carefully laid out his next day's clothes and his boots beside his bed, as always.

While he had been inconsistent in ringing the waking bell while on Colonsay, Niko knew that if he did, Niko had better be down the stairs and out onto the training ground behind the house before Sir Martin could count to twenty. Sir Martin was not patient with "dawdling," one of those trade language words that Niko had never quite understood.

But it was the screams that woke him up. High-pitched; frightened.

He was out of bed and out the door, into the hallway, with both his swords in hand, Nadide still in her sheath, before he quite knew what he was doing.

Lanterns burned in their niches, flickering light casting weaving shadows.

The screams continued—they were from down the hall. Her rooms.

Somebody's hurting Bear's mother.

There were sounds of footsteps behind him, but he didn't look behind as he dashed down the hall, and into the room.

The only light in her room came from the fireplace, and in it, some dark form was over her bed, holding her down, his fingers reaching for her throat.

The right thing to do, the knightly thing to do, would have been to draw his sword—his mundane sword; drawing a live sword was something too dangerous to be done without necessity—and run the dark shape through.

But he found himself dropping both of the swords, leaping on the other, his forearm coming across the throat, as he had been taught. He would have told himself that he was doing that out of fear that his sword might hurt the lady, but the truth was that it was that he wanted to, he needed to get his hands on whoever it was that was hurting her.

Hurt Bear's mother? he thought. Not while I can get my hands on your throat.

Blunt hands reached back for him, but he shook them off. Concentrate, Sir Martin had told him—concentrate on what you're doing, boy.

He did. His whole world shrunk to his right arm, and where his knees found purchase on the larger man's back.

There were sounds around him, and others were shouting, but that wasn't part of his world, part of his universe, nor were the words that the woman in the bed were saying.

No. None of it mattered. One thing at a time, Sir Niko, he could almost hear Becket say. Concentrated, damn your eyes, concentrate.

He squeezed, and pulled, and ignored the blows and the cries, even when the body went limp.

He became aware that there were others in the room, and that Fotheringay was standing over him.

"Easy, young sir," the old sergeant said. He had a lantern in one hand, and a dagger in the other. "You've done for the bastard." He handed the lantern to somebody who Niko couldn't see, and made his dagger disappear. His gentle fingers were strong as they pried Niko's arms loose, and helped him to his feet.

Fotheringay was undressed only in the sense that his buttons were unbuttoned, and his boots unlaced; he, as usual, had slept in his clothes as his nightclothes, and had not taken time to do more than step into his boots.

They were all there, wide-eyed servants, the priest in his cassock, and Becket, with the two novices—including the baron, in his own nightshirt. He should have looked preposterous with the nightshirt falling only to mid knee, and his skinny legs protruding beneath them. But he had a sword in his hand, too.

While Becket was more held up than supported by the two novices, he was the only one who seemed to have any dignity; he was in his robes, and his good hand clutched a sword, although he let the point drop.

"Roll the bastard over," he said. "I want to see what's left of his face."

Fotheringay—faithful Fotheringay—looked to Niko, and waited for his nod of confirmation before he dropped to one knee and rolled the man over onto his back.

It was a McPhee, of course; the clan tartan was distinctive.

The dead man's face was red and swollen, the cheeks already blackening. Niko doubted that he could have recognized him in life; he certainly couldn't now.

Niko took a deep breath, and wished he hadn't; the McPhee had fouled himself in death. He picked up Nadide, and tried to put her away in his sash.

But the sash wasn't there. He was just wearing the silly nightshirt. He stood there, wondering why he didn't feel as foolish as he no doubt looked. It just didn't seem important.

Fotheringay shook his head. "Recognize him? Anybody?"

It was so like Fotheringay to take charge when everybody else was simply standing around.

"Calum McPhee," the baron said. "Calum Peter Michael, he's called. Oldest brother of the bride. Not one of the . . . guests in the bedroom." His voice was unnaturally calm as he stood in the doorway. "Get the other McPhees in here, and now," he said, to somebody out in the hall.

"No, no—leave them where they are," Niko said, and the baron, after hesitating only a moment, made a waving-away gesture to whoever he had spoken to, and shook his head. "Please," Niko said, "just go to your wife, milord."

Becket started to say something, but desisted at a gesture from Niko.

"Please, Sir Martin." He turned back to the baron. "Get her out of here, sir. Now, please. She doesn't need to see this."

"Better not for either of them to leave the room until we've got a better idea of what's going on here, young sir," Fotheringay said. "If you asked me, which I don't recall you doing."

Niko forced himself to stop listening to the pounding of his own heart. Yes, Fotheringay was right. A drunken McPhee staggering up the stairs and trying to rape the baroness? How had he gotten past the servants? And why? Were there more of them? What was going on?

The baroness had gathered her bedclothes about her. The straps of her nightdress were torn.

Niko, at least, knew what to do about that. "Fotheringay—the lady needs a robe."

"Yessir." From somewhere, Fotheringay found a robe, and didn't quite elbow the baron aside as he draped it over the baroness's shoulders. "Easy, now, Lady," he said. "Let's get you out of the bed, and maybe over to the chair, where you don't have to be bothered by the sight of that."

"No." She drew the robe around her, and rose from the bed. If it weren't for the fact that her knees seemed ready to buckle beneath her, Niko would have said that he'd never seen a man or woman so dignified. Her mussed hair, the growing bruises about her face—they didn't matter. "I was here for the worst of it; I can stand to see what's here." Her knees did buckle, then, and she sat down on the bed trembling.

"Grace. Do as the sergeant says."

"No. We shall do as Sir Niko says." She looked over at Niko. "Thank you," she said, quietly.

"You're welcome, but you've nothing to thank me for, Lady," he said. "Just doing my duty, that's all."

It was all he could do not to kick the body.

Lay a hand on Bear's mother? The bastard was lucky that Niko had gotten to him first. Gray, Cully, any of the others would have done worse than killed him. Niko would have, too, if he'd had time to think about it.

Becket was starting to say something, but Niko waved him to silence.

"I don't like this at all," Niko said. His own voice seemed to come from far away. "It's not . . . it's not right."

"I can smell the whiskey on him from here," Fotheringay said. "He probably should have had a dram or two less."

"Shut up, Nigel." He shook his head.

No. A drunk McPhee, invading the lady's bedroom to assault her? That was the obvious explanation, the simple one, but it wasn't enough. There had been drunken McPhees at every wedding on the beach, the baron had implied. Why this? Why now?

He would get the explanation. But get the family safe, first.

"Nigel—get the drapes drawn, and quickly now."

"Should have thought of that myself," Fotheringay said, moving to do just that.

There were sounds from outside, but nobody had—yet—come in through the door. Fotheringay quickly drew the shades, and helped the baroness out of her bed and into a chair up against an outer wall, over her quiet protests.

Niko looked to Becket. "Sir Martin? What do we do?"

"Not mine to say." Becket shook his head. "Your mind isn't cluttered by drink, as mine surely is, and you've handled this well enough so far; you're in charge, Sir Niko." His grin wasn't friendly. "As you seem to have already decided."

There would be no arguing with Becket; Niko knew that from experience. So he turned to the novices. "Get Sir Martin on the bed, and then go dress and arm yourselves—have the servants keep the McPhees in the lord's bedroom; you guard the bottom of the stairs."

Too many doors into the house; this was built as just a residence, not as a castle, or a keep. But at least the foot of the one staircase should be defensible, if need be. "Now," he said, "if you please."

Becket nodded. "Do it, boys, and quickly, now, and never mind my aches and pains—just chuck me on the bed and we'll worry about my dignity some other time, if I ever happen to acquire any again."

Despite Becket's growling, the novices lay him down carefully albeit quickly on the bed before running from the room.

Niko took one quick look at Sir Martin, who shook his head, as he lay sprawled on the bed.

"Nearest earl's soldiers in Oban," Becket said. "Be midafternoon before we could have any here. Get the baron and baroness in the skiff and go, you think?"

And what if there was some danger waiting at sea? Or between the house and the dock? No. Better to defend the house, if necessary.

Niko shook his head. "Get the skiff going, yes—but for help."

"Makes sense, it does." Fotheringay nodded. "The downstairs valet is ex-navy; served on the old Lord Davy—should be able to handle a skiff, with or without some help. From the house staff."

"You could do it."

"Meaning no more than my usual impertinence, but my place is here, Sir Niko, with you. Unless you got a lot more men you can trust at your back that I've not been hearing about?"

There were voices being raised down the hall, but Niko wasn't going to leave the baron and baroness to investigate; he gave Fotheringay a quick glance, and the sergeant stalked out of the room, his short knife held against the flat of one arm, while another one clutched a length of thick kindling wood that Niko hadn't seen him retrieve.

The baron was still standing next to his wife, his sword still in his hand. "What do I do, Sir Niko? I'm not as young as I was, but I'm—"

"You're the baron, and a husband, sir. Please, sir, just stay here, with your wife."

"He can get paper and pen from that writing desk," Becket said, gesturing. "The word of some Shanley retainer will go over better and quicker in Oban with a note from myself and one from the baron."

"Do that," Niko said. He found that he still had Nadide, scabbarded, in his hand, and tried to slip her into his sash.

But the sash, along with his clothes, was back in his room, and he wasn't going to leave this room, not now. Still, there were sounds outside, and they weren't the drunken sounds of laughter that he had heard.

"I hear it, too," the baron said, shaking his head. He had brought the bedside writing desk over to Becket, who was scribbling madly.

"Sir Niko," Becket said, "I think the baron can be trusted to go to your cell and get your clothes."

"No. I'll be fine." He didn't want to let the baron out of his sight. Close, Niko could get between him and danger, without leaving the baroness exposed.

He hadn't seen her rise, but the baroness was kneeling in front of a deeply carved bureau, and had the bottom drawer slid open.

"Sir Niko," she said, her voice as flat and emotionless as always, "this is far too large, but it will do for now," she said, taking out a tunic jacket and sash. She rose and approached him. "Please."

He allowed her to help him on with it—with Nadide's scabbard in his hand he could hardly have dressed himself—and then she knelt to belt a thick Order sash about his waist. The trousers, undertunic, and boots would have to wait, at least for now, but at least he had some way to get both hands free without dropping the sword again.

"Stand back, please, all of you."

He went as far across the room as he could, and stepped behind the curtains. They were heavy enough to block out daylight, for when the baroness would take to her bed during the day, and looked out toward the beach and the sea, rather than up toward the hills.

Too many lanterns had been lit in the bedroom; it took him a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the dark.

The wind had picked up outside; the hills around Kiloran were only partial protection, after all.

It took the burning embers from the bonfire and drove them both to the east, and high in the air, showed no signs of extinguishing it. If anything, the bonfire still burning on the sands, seemed much larger, and people were still gathered on this side of it, but it wasn't the merriment and celebration of before. Lit by the burning flames, the crowd of more than two hundred was swaying, back and forth, as though moving to a slow dirge.

But the pipers were gone. Beyond the fire, mostly obscured by the flames, a dim figure swayed back and forth, but instead of the ceol mor, the bagpipes, he seemed to be playing a syrinx—two or three simple reed pipes, and while it was hard to hear the much of any of the tune over the roaring of the wind, the few sounds that reached Niko's ears made him dizzy.

There was no drummer that he could see, but a harsh, monstrous drumbeat thumped in time with the beating of his own heart, and as the pace of the drumbeat slowly, inexorably increased, so did the sway of the dancers.

And his own heart.

At the edge of the crowd, piles of naked bodies writhed, and he forced himself not to force his eyes away.

There was nothing even vaguely erotic about all of it; children, adults alike in a mass of coupling that seemed to have no sexuality to it.

The wind began to die down, and the sound of the pipes reached his ears more clearly. He found himself painfully erect, his body swaying in time to—

No.

No.

No.

He forced himself to clap his hand to Nadide's hilt.

Niko? Niko. Niko!

Help me, Nadide.

He was never quite sure whether it was him or her that let him stagger back through the curtains, not quite falling. They seemed to deaden the sound, at least a little, but it was still hard to put his feet down where they belonged. His whole body wanted to sway, to give in to it.

But the wind picked up again, driving the last traces of the pipes more from his mind than his ears.

He was having trouble breathing, and his eyes refused to focus. There were too many people in the room—

Niko, come back to me.

He forced himself to focus.

There were too many people in the room. In addition to the baron, the baroness, and Becket, Fotheringay was standing behind four of the McPhees: the bride, her mother, and another young McPhee woman whom Niko couldn't place.

All of them had their hands clasped behind their backs, as though inspecting him; all were wide-eyed, and couldn't stop from looking down to the body on the floor, and up to Niko, from where they stood, pressed up against the far wall of the bedroom.

"They're not going to be doing any harm, young sir," Fotheringay said, as he rose from tying ankles together. "Not without pulling their thumbs out of their sockets, or falling flat on their faces." His expression was every bit as calm as always, but there was an edge in his voice. "Just a precaution, given that I'm only one, and all."

"There's something going on out there," Niko said. "A piper—he seems to have everybody under a spell."

Shanley grunted. "Not that that's any excuse—but, Sir Niko, are you . . . ?" He didn't seem to have the right word.

"A piper?" It was the McPhee father—Calum was his name, although Niko didn't remember what he was usually called. He was a big, thick, stout man, easily a head taller than Fotheringay; but the old sergeant seemed to handle him with ease.

"But the ceol mor does nothing of the sort." His voice was higher-pitched than Niko would have expected, and his face was greasy with sweat. Niko could smell the reek of the whiskey even over the charnel house smell of the body on the floor; this McPhee had apparently had more than a few "drops of his own" before the screaming began.

At Niko's nod, Fotheringay pushed Calum McPhee forward. "Well, let's see about that," Fotheringay said. "Seems to have taken the young knight ill—let's see what the sound does to the likes of you, shall we?" His left hand gripped the McPhee's hair, and from the way that the bigger man rose to his toes to comply, Niko was sure where the knife was.

"I think that nobody else goes outside," he said, as he shoved the man through the curtains, and Niko quickly pulled them back around his arms, to keep out what he could of the piping sound.

From behind him, there was a crashing sound downstairs, and cries of pain.

"Just two," came a shout from down the stairs, "but there's more coming."

"Hold them, as long as you can," Becket said.

"They'll not hold them alone, by God." The baron dashed for the door, sword in hand, ignoring Becket's curses.

Becket beckoned to the baroness. "Come, Grace, get a chair in the door and get me to my feet, what there is of them," he said, trying to rise. His sword slipped out of his fingers and fell to the bed, but he ignored it and used his good arm to pull him to his feet, standing wobbly.

"Of course, Martin," she said. She was surprisingly strong for such a slight woman; she slid the huge dressing chair near the foot of the bed across the room, not glancing down at either the body, or how her gown fell open, then half supported, half carried Becket into it, and placed his sword in his hand.

"I can't hold many in the doorway long, Sir Niko," Becket said. "And I can't go chasing off after the baron, either."

Niko nodded.

Fair enough. Keep Fotheringay with the baroness, and he could join the baron—

"Wait." Fotheringay had dragged Calum McPhee back through the curtains.

His eyes were wide with madness.

"Amadan Dubh," he said. "Amadan Dubh." There was spittle at the corner of his mouth, and he shook his head as though to clear it.

But his eyes stayed wide.

Fotheringay dropped him to the floor with an economic foot sweep. "Just what we bloody needed, eh?"

Niko shook his head. "I don't understand."

"If you'd been reading your Celtic history more," Becket said, his back to Niko, his voice back to its usual calm, scornful self, "you'd know that he's talking about the Black Piper, the Fairy Fool, the Dark Piper. A sidhe supposedly, but not a halfling like Our Lady is—full-blooded, ancient, and crazy. Passer-on of madness, through his damned pipes."

But the sidhe were long gone, so it was said; all of the Old Ones were, with but a few remaining, like the Wise on Pantelleria, and the Queen of Air and Darkness, and but a few others.

I'm not sure what it is, Nadide said. But it's time. This one will hurt Bear's mother, and his father.

"That may be so," he said, as much to himself as to her, "but not while I breathe."

He drew the sword, and the world changed once more.

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Framed