Sue-Ellen Welfonder - MacKenzie 07 (20 page)

His men had turned sneaky of late.

And even though a fierce wind howled around the keep, keening like a banshee, his men's gleeful voices had carried up to him as soon as he'd set foot in the stair tower. One hoot in particular was especially suspicious as he was sure the gloating burst of laughter had come from Mungo.

Everyone knew the crabbit old seneschal wasn't given to bouts of hilarity.

If the truth were known, Darroc sometimes suspected that Mungo had been born cranky. He'd certainly worn dark enough scowls during the first weeks since they'd plucked Lady Arabella from the sea. Indeed, if he cornered Darroc one more time with another outlandish suggestion as to how they could use her to knock the wind from Clan MacKenzie, he didn't want to be responsible for his reaction.

Several others had been equally annoying.

One or two, downright noxious.

Especially the first evening Mad Moraig helped the lass into the great hall for supper. Each man had slunk away, leaving empty tables and filled trenchers.

Their ale cups brimming and untouched. The slight - to a lady, even of an enemy clan - had been unforgivable.

Yet now...

Darroc frowned.

Slowly, very slowly, he inched his way down onto the next step. The night wind screamed and a blast of frosty air rushed in through a narrow slit window, blowing his hair across his eyes.

He swallowed a curse.

Then he crept down one more step - the last - and edged along in the shadows, making for the arched entry into the great hall. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way he stepped on a discarded chicken bone and the ensuing crack sounded louder than the roar of the wind.

Inside the torchlit, smoke-hazed hall, his men's hoots and blether stopped at once.

Silence reigned.

Triumph shot through Darroc.

They were guilty.

Sure of it, he leapt around the corner and into the hall. At once, there came a wild scramble as his men hurried to claim seats at trestle benches or appear otherwise occupied. Only Mungo didn't move. Standing closest to the archway, he chose instead to hook his thumbs in his belt and - much to Darroc's amusement - swell his barrel chest.

"It's yourself, Darroc!" Mungo greeted him cheerily.

"Aye." Darroc lifted his hands and turned them palms up, looking down at them as if to confirm his identity. "I am myself."

Mungo slid a cagey glance at the high table. "Geordie Dhu's outdone himself this night. Fine leg o' mutton roasted all day out in the stone pit in the kitchen garden, just as you like it best. Meat's so tender it falls off the bone!"

Darroc folded his arms. "I'm no' hungry."

He had noticed that the high table lacked linens. It was the last table to lose its costly covering. The napery on the other two tables on the dais had gone missing three nights before.

"Where are the table linens?" Darroc looked the seneschal in the eye.

"Geordie Dhu made a grand sauce for the mutton." Mungo didn't even blink.

"Wine and broth laced with just the right touch o' spices."

"And the linens?" Darroc cocked a brow.

Mungo remained where he stood, trying to appear innocent. "Linens?"

Darroc didn't bother with an answer.

He did glance around the hall, raking the other men with a narrow-eyed stare.

Clearly guilty, they immediately scratched elbows, peered into ale cups, or dug energetically into their evening meat.

Darroc turned back to Mungo. "No' going to badger me about ransoming the lass?" He tried another tactic. "No more talk of turning her over to slavering, flat-footed Campbells? Or setting her out on the Glasgow docks, abandoning her to her fate?"

Mungo coughed. "Och! That was just my tongue flap-ping. Though" - he exchanged a look with the men nearest to them - "I wouldn't be for shunning a bit o' sword crossing with the maid's father!"

"I seem to recall you saying we should take a blade to her." Darroc arched a brow.

"What was it now? That if I wouldn't ransom her, having done with her would save us the cost of feeding her?"

Mungo clamped his jaw, silent.

He still hadn't budged. And the look in his one good eye said he wasn't going to, either. Some might even say he was deliberately blocking Darroc's way.

Having none of that - this was, after all, his hall - Darroc started to stomp around him. But he stopped after only two steps. There was more wrong here than he'd realized.

Sniffing the air, he knew what it was.

Mungo stank.

Or rather, he smelled like he'd been bathing in gillyflowers.

Darroc sniffed again, sure of it.

Mungo jutted his chin, defiant.

Darroc jammed his hands on his hips and stared at the old goat. He just now noticed that Mungo's salt-and-pepper hair was sleeked back, neat and shining damply. Mungo had recently washed and trimmed his usually wild mane.

His bushy gray beard glistened.

The beard had definitely seen the tines of a comb.

"What goes on here?" Darroc looked around again. He wasn't surprised when no one met his eye.

Then, from the smoky haze at the rear of the hall - just where the lighting was poor enough so that he couldn't make out faces - someone slapped a hand on the table and cleared their throat.

"Could be Mad Moraig was for boiling the linens."

Darroc scrunched his eyes. He tried to see who'd spoken. All around him, men bobbed heads and grunted in agreement with the deep voice.

"Aye," someone else called out, "that's the way of it. Mad Moraig collected the linens for washing."

Darroc grinned.

He'd never heard a greater pack of lies. Then, before he could stop himself, an always-just-below-the-surface touch of Highland mischief made him turn back to Mungo.

Still grinning, he reached to tweak a fold of the seneschal's plaid.

"And was Moraig also for boiling a few plaids?" He rubbed the squeaky clean wool between his fingers.

The sweet scent of gillyflowers was overpowering.

Equally telling, the most-times generously draped plaid now stretched tightly across Mungo's hunched but proudly held shoulders.

Mad Moraig knew better than to boil wool.

The flush on Mungo's face said he knew it.

Satisfied, Darroc let go of the shrunken plaid and stepped back. "There are extra plaids in the strongbox in my thinking room," he announced, striding toward the hall's raised dais and the now naked high table. "Anyone who might need a better-fitting plaid can help themselves. And" - he reached the table and dropped into his high-backed laird's chair - "the next time you wish to make yourselves pretty, I suggest you let Moraig do the washing."

At the other end of the high table, Conall nearly choked on his ale. The other men crowding the long table looked at each other.

"For sure, Mad Moraig does the laundering," two of them said in unison. "None o'

us would dare touch such women's work."

Too bad for them, their stretched-tight plaids belied their words.

"So I see." Darroc eyed the men until they squirmed.

Then he helped himself to several spoonfuls of green cheese. The soft curd cheese, freshly made, and - thanks to Geordie Dhu's mastery - delicately flavored with herbs, was all that he could stomach.

He had a very good idea just who was behind his men's antics and the possibility sat in his gut like a stone. The devil was riding his back as well, so he set down his cheese spoon and stared down the table, fixing Conall with the most congenial look he could manage.

"And you?" His voice was surprisingly pleasant. "Has... er, ah... Moraig been washing your plaid, too?"

Darroc smiled wickedly.

He could already see that Conall's plaid hadn't been laundered in a while.

"Errr..." Conall busied himself tucking into the generous helping of roast mutton on his trencher. "My plaid doesn't need cleaning."

Darroc disagreed, but now wasn't the time to argue over clan cleanliness.

Instead, he grinned and lifted his ale cup in silent toast to his cousin. As was to be expected, the younger man's face flamed as bright as his coppery red hair.

Hair that gleamed more than usual and - Darroc couldn't help but notice -

smelled distinctly of gillyflowers.

Just to needle his cousin, Darroc wrinkled his nose.

Then he looked around the dais, taking care to keep his nose twitching. "Can it be someone has brought flowers into the hall? I'm sure I smell some . . .?"

He let the words tail off and sat back with a look of mock confusion.

Several of his men sniggered.

Conall shifted on the trestle bench. "Goad kens!" His burr deepened in his agitation. "D'you think I'd be washing my own heid with women's soap? Moraig did it a-purpose, I swear! We asked her for some o' her sage-and-rosemary washing soap and she gave us a jar o' her own!"

"Ahhhh." Darroc sat back with a satisfied sigh. "At last, we're getting to the heart of the matter. Perhaps" - he folded his arms - "one of you will now also reveal the whereabouts of the table linens?"

Several sets of bushy gray brows drew together and more than a few bearded chins jutted stubbornly.

No one spoke.

Darroc shrugged good-naturedly. Then he leaned forward to spoon up more of Geordie Dhu's herbed green cheese.

"I'll tell you myself where the linens are." Mad Moraig appeared at his elbow, a platter of fresh-baked oatcakes clutched in her hands.

She plunked down the griddle-hot oatcakes and a waft of fine wheaten bread filled the air, the pleasing aroma rising up from her flour-dusted skirts like a cloud.

Only there wasn't a single loaf of fine wheaten bread in the entire hall.

Darroc's mood soured.

The recriminatory look Moraig shot at him as she straightened let him know he'd guessed right as to who was dining so royally.

"You haven't been to look in on the lassie in well o'er a sennight." Moraig's voice rang with disapproval. "She be up and walking more by the day. It isn't decent to have her clad in naught but your plaids and shirts. So" - she put back her bony shoulders - "I took it on myself to take her sewing linens. We're - "

"You mean the table linens." A corner of Darroc's mouth twitched despite himself.

He also felt guilty.

He should have offered her the linens. It was already clear that she could work wonders with a stitching needle. If only her name weren't such a scald on his soul, he would have thought of it himself.

As it was, he frowned.

Moraig sniffed importantly. "We're making her a few gowns, we are. Soon she'll be able to join us in the hall every night. She's making fine progress."

"Indeed." Darroc reached for his ale cup. "I am glad to hear it."

The sooner she recovered, the sooner he'd be rid of her.

Moraig glanced at him sharply, as if she'd heard. But then she preened and dusted her skirts. Little puffs of fine white wheaten flour swirled around her, making her look like a tiny, wizened sprite caught in a snowstorm.

Her blue eyes twinkled. "She's a fine lassie," she quipped, then turned and hobbled away.

"Ach, she's a fine one, right enough." Mungo took his seat at the table, the set of his hunched shoulders warning anyone who might question his changed attitude.

"Did you know" - he leaned around his bench mate to pin Darroc with an assertive stare - "word is the best man to e'er grace her father's garrison was a one-eyed Sassunach?"

Mungo looked around the table, his own single eye sparking with pride. "Sir Marmaduke is the man's name and he now lords it at his own keep, Balkenzie Castle, on the southern shores of Loch Duich!"

"Imagine that." Darroc set down his ale cup, untouched.

Now he knew why the seneschal was sporting a boiled plaid and reeked of perfumed soap.

He'd had his head turned.

Just like Moraig, Geordie Dhu, Frang, and all the rest. Flattery by a honey-tongued, sapphire-eyed she-vixen had made them forget honor and pride.

The weal of the clan.

Vengeance.

Darroc pushed aside his serving of oatcakes and green cheese.

His appetite had fled.

Mungo shoved up his sleeves and reached for the platter of roasted mutton, piling great slabs onto his trencher. "Word is" - he spooned rivers of sauce over his meat

- "the lass was heading for the Seal Isles. She told Mora - "

"The Seal Isles?" Darroc stared at him.

The stone he'd felt in his gut was suddenly joined by several friends.

An entire rockslide was now rumbling around inside him.

Mungo stabbed a piece of mutton with his eating knife. "Aye, so I said, just." He dipped the meat into the rich gravy. "Moraig says the isles are part of the gel's dowry. She was on her way to see them when the merchant cog was attacked."

Darroc forced himself to nod pleasantly.

In truth, his world was spinning.

He'd known she had something to do with seals!

But that wasn't what made his mood go from bad to worse. It was the mention of a dowry. Heiresses had dowries for only one reason and although he knew she was bound to have one - and a right impressive one, no doubt - it didn't sit well to think of her as some man's soon-to-be bride.

In fact, the idea quite galled him.

Needing to get his mind on something else, he decided to poke a bit more fun at Conall about his flowery-scented hair. But when he drew himself up and peered down the table, he saw that his cousin was gone.

Or rather, he'd left the table.

He was still in view.

Barely, considering how he was skulking along in the shadows at the far end of the hall. And he wasn't just skulking. He was crouching over something large and unwieldy that he clutched in his arms.

Pushing to his feet, Darroc strode to the end of the dais and stood watching his cousin's awkward progress through the hall. Conall was making for the stair tower and it wasn't until he passed beneath a well-burning torch that Darroc saw what he was carrying.

It was a creel.

A laundry creel if Darroc wasn't mistaken.

And it appeared to be filled with white linen.

Darroc started to hasten after him, but stopped just a few paces beyond the dais steps. He already knew where Conall was taking the table linens and if he stopped the lad, his entire clan would make him feel like a heartless dastard.