Page 86 of A Highland Healer Captured
“Four men. Two bows, two spears. Keep ‘em low till I signal. If he’s nae counted them, he’ll walk straight into a rake.”
“And the east hedge?”
“We’ll turn it. Quietly. Tonight. Cut a man’s-width only and pack the brush back. We’ll take ten lads out that way as soon as they come through. Pinch them at the well-head.”
Zander shifted, palms flat on the old oak. “Stable court?”
“Spikes and ropes,” Mason answered without looking up. “Ye ken I like rope. Horses hate it. Men break ankles when they’re too keen and ye’ve tucked a coil under the straw.”
Zander nodded once, short and satisfied in spite of the rage burning his throat. “The granary roof?”
“Two archers,” Mason said, mouth quirking. “The new bairns—quiet ones who ken patience. They’ll have the angle.”
“Aye, good,” Zander said, teeth showing without humor.
Mason’s gaze flicked up, measuring his laird. “Ye wanthimfor yerself.”
Zander didn’t soften his stare. “I’ll have him.”
“Aye.” Mason dragged a small wooden soldier to the well-head and set it sideways. “I’ll hold his dogs while ye slip the chain through his neck.”
Zander studied the lines again, felt them settle into his hands the way a haft did when it belonged there. He moved pieces around. A wedge of men at the smithy, one by the ash pile, two at the brewhouse door. He wasn’t thinking of glory, not of any braggart’s tale. He was thinking of the small bed under the solar window and the boy in it, the slow rise and fall of a chest that had fought too hard for air. He was thinking of Skylar’s voice, low and sure,“I’ll stay.”
“Right,” he said at last, and the word was an iron key turning. “Move.”
Mason straightened, rolled his shoulder till it popped. “I’ll set ‘em.”
They gathered the map, the little wooden men clacking into the pouch like seeds. At the door Mason paused. “He’ll bait ye with words,” he said, almost gentle, which was how Zander knew the man feared for him. “He kens where ye bleed.”
Zander’s mouth went thin. “He can try.”
Mason’s eyes narrowed as if he wished to add more, then he just nodded once. “Meet ye in the armory with the captains, when ye’re ready.”
The door clicked shut behind him, and the study flared very quiet. Zander stood alone in the candlelight, hands braced on the table, head bowed. The roar in his blood didn’t quiet, but it changed its shape. He turned?—
—there it was. A sheet of paper on the edge of his desk, weighted by the little iron hawk.
The seal was unpressed, the hand neat. He knew the slant before he touched it.
Skylar.
He didn’t open it. Not yet. He knew what it had to say.Goodbye.He felt the weight of it, the steadiness of that script, the way she wrote even when her heart must have hammered. He set it down with a care that felt like prayer and pulled fresh paper toward himself.
The quill oved quickly.
MacLennan—
No matter what has been sent before, your daughter is in my house by my own making. I will answer it face to face or blade to blade when I can afford to bleed for honor. Tonight, though, I’ve no such luxury.
There is a man coming at midnight who swore to put my son in the ground. He has been poisoning him these past months, and reason why your daughter is here. This is the same man who led the strike at my gate the day you heard that I took my men to ground against them. He wears the name Marcus Hughes of the eradicated O’Brian clan.
Lady Skylar has chosen to stay through the ambush. If I die before I put him down, you’ll know what hand moved against both our houses this night. If I live, I’ll bring her rightly to your table myself when the road is safe. If she chooses to stay further, that choice will be hers, and not mine.
—Strathcairn
He read it once, twice. It was too bare, and he liked it for that. No flourishes. Just truth hammered flat. He folded it, sealed it fast with his signet, and rang the bell.
The door opened at once. A boy half-grown skidded on the rushes, heels squeaking, hair sticking every way it could. “Laird?”
