by Ken Hood
Toby turned back to the merchant. "So you have no use for a prizefighter, sir?" Dreams crashed like falling icicles.
"Not for a prizefighter." Stringer no longer spoke like an idiot. He even seemed to have acquired more chin. "But today I saw a remarkable display of courage — a beaten man refusing to give up, persevering no matter what the cost, and going on to victory. I can use a man like that."
Rory stiffened, as if surprised. "Before you go any farther, sir, I think we should tell the Tyndrum Terror the latest news."
Bad news, obviously.
"Yes, I was about to." The thin man took a couple of steps away from the fire, as if the heat had suddenly become unpleasant. He cleared his throat. "While you were winning your spurs in the ring, lad, a courier came in. He brought word from Edinburgh. A very strange law has just been rushed through Parliament and signed by the governor. I don't recall any precedents in Scotland. Do you, Master?"
Rory said, "No," watching Toby.
"It's an Act of Attainder. It names you, Tobias Strangerson of Tyndrum in Strath Fillan. It convicts you of being possessed by a demon. It offers a reward for your corpse with a blade through your heart." Stringer had switched to Gaelic. His English accent was not as marked as Rory's.
"This is some sort of a joke?" Toby stared from one to the other.
"No joke," the merchant said. "Upon my honor. I don't recall that ever being done before. And even stranger — the reward. Five thousand marks."
Toby walked over to a chair and sat down. If he were sober, and if his brains were not all jangled up, then perhaps he might be able to make sense of this. Or perhaps not. If Rory alone had told him, he would never have believed anything so outrageous. "Isn't that the same price they've put on Ferg — on His Majesty?"
"It is," Stringer said. "We find it as incredible as you do. I have the paper here, if you want to see it."
Toby shook his head, which was again a mistake. There was more to this merchant than he had realized, a lot more. "I don't understand, sir. Why?"
"We don't understand, either. It must involve Valda, somehow. We think Baron Oreste has a hand in it."
Rory said, "You're in good company, Slugger — or should I call you Susie? You're mixed up in deep demonic affairs. You can't trust anyone now, you know. Five thousand is a sizable bag of change. I'm almost tempted myself. I can't guarantee anyone."
He was hinting that there might be a freelance posse of Campbells strapping on swords in the armory right now. Plain enough — but he could not resist a chance to twist the knife. "I doubt I can keep the news quiet for more than a day or so. You'll be planning an early start, I expect. We'll have the cooks make up a jammy bap for you to take."
"Not so fast, Master," Stringer said sharply. "I am sorry to be the bearer of such terrible tidings, Longdirk."
"Not your fault, sir." Which way could he run? Who would aid an outlaw with a demon in his heart? Rory would give him a day's start and run him down with the deerhounds. It was small wonder Stringer had lost interest in him as a prizefighter.
Yet the thin man was regarding him very intently. "The government and the English are both against you — not that there is much difference between them. You have no liege lord, I understand. Is there any person or group to whom you can appeal for protection?"
Rory laughed. "I once asked Muscles which king he supported. He wouldn't answer. Are you any clearer now, boy?"
"I can have no loyalty to a government that condemns me without trial."
"A wise decision. Wisdom comes too late, though."
Stringer said, "He is a cautious man, and I approve of that. He still hasn't answered, notice?"
Toby heaved himself to his feet and straightened, so he could look down on Rory and take a better look at the other. Now he realized what Hamish had been looking for in the old coins. But five thousand crowns reward! He was a walking corpse. He spelled disaster to everyone who came near him.
"I can't think why anyone would want me now, my lord — even King Fergan himself."
He stared at the king with mute appeal. The king smiled grimly, but then he gave the outlaw the answer he needed so desperately now.
"I already said I want you."
Toby sank to his knees and raised his hands, palms together. "Then, Your Majesty, I am your man, of life and limb, against all foes, until death."
CHAPTER FOUR
King Fergan had gone off to make his farewells to Lady Lora. Toby sat down carefully in one of the thronelike chairs and surveyed the great hall, with its high banners and its festoons of weapons. He eyed the silent minstrel gallery and wondered. When he had suggested that Hamish eavesdrop up there, he had not realized what dangerous things he would learn. Most likely the door was kept locked, or even guarded, to prevent just that sort of spying. What would it be like to be heir to such power and wealth as all this? The master of Argyll was a more fortunate man than the hunted king of Scotland, who must slink about his realm in the guise of an English merchant.
But the king of Scotland was the better man. Already, he was sure of that.
Rory came wandering back to the fireplace and seemed displeased to discover he still had a guest there.
"Are you waiting for a stretcher? If you miss the boat, I wash my hands of you."
Toby was not going to let the spite rile him. It was too petty to bother with. "I have a couple of questions to ask, Master."
"Ask quickly. I don't promise to answer." Rory poured himself another drink from a dusty flagon, without offering to share.
"Are you a rebel or a traitor?"
The master smiled and took a sip from his goblet. "Both."
"A double traitor, you mean?"
"Ah! You must not confuse cynicism with realism, lad. I'm mostly rebel, my father mostly traitor, but we switch roles once in a while. We play the two sides off against each other. Whoever wins in the end, we shall be there. Both sides know what we're up to, but they both need us. The Campbells are the key to the west. This is called politics. You wouldn't understand."
Even a lifelong cynic could find such cynicism disgusting. Refusing to play the game, as Toby had done until a few minutes ago, was better than playing and cheating.
"Inverary is very strategic," Rory said, scowling. "But perhaps not as strategic as it was, thanks to you. Did you bury Valda's creatures under that slide?"
"Some of them, I think."
"Father Lachlan says the demons will work their way to the surface fairly soon. Glen Kinglas will not be a road to recommend to one's friends in the future. You washed away half a village, too. You really are incredible, Muscles! You find a girl in trouble and earn yourself a death sentence. You get yourself pursued by at least one notorious hexer, probably two. Acts of Parliament are passed to raise the entire population against you. You're given a chance to show how you can box, and you beat your opponent to death. Everything you touch just dies! You are a disaster, a walking hob. You seem to mean well, but that's the best anyone can say of you."
Looking satisfied, Rory took another drink.
It was all horribly true.
"So why should the king want me? That's my second question: What was the real reason for staging that fight?"
The master took the flagon and walked over to an oak chest to lock it away. "What do you think the real reason was?"
Toby rubbed his throbbing jaw. "I think the king has hexers after him. He needs gramarye on his side. I think you put on that fight to see if my guardian demon would come to my aid."
"Partly, perhaps."
"Not a very nice thing to do to an innocent sailor, who thought he was just going to earn a few marks at fisticuffs."
"Oh, spare me! He was a brainless buffoon. He had too much pride to let his shipmates see a kid beat him. He died of his own stupidity."
"And it didn't work, did it?"
Rory laughed scornfully. "Not that I noticed. It isn't much of a guardian if it lets you get smashed to pulp."
That was comfortin
g. It was not good to have killed a man in what should have been a friendly bout of fisticuffs, but to know he had slain him with his bare hands felt better than to have cheated by using gramarye. "So why does King Fergan still want me?"
"I told you he's an idiot. He saw a man who wasn't smart enough to know when he was beaten, and his romantic soul was thrilled by this display of courage. Display of stupidity, I call it."
Toby sighed. It was what he had been afraid of. He had been taken on as royal hexer, and he had nothing to offer.
"And that wasn't the only reason for the fight," Rory said, leaning an elbow on the mantel.
"What else, then?"
The silver eyes shone in the firelight. "As I recall, you were very insistent on our travels together that Kenneth Campbell of Tyndrum had placed his daughter in your care."
Toby froze. Bugles sounded danger in the back of his mind.
"So?"
Rory showed most of his teeth. "You claimed to be her guardian — on an unofficial basis, of course."
The big bumpkin was being outsmarted here somewhere, somehow. He just knew it. And mocked, too. "What do you mean?"
The smile became a sneer of triumph. "I mean, Tobias Bastard, that I have the honor to ask you for your ward's hand in marriage."
Toby was too stunned to say more than, "Marriage?"
"Marriage. My request is purely a formality, of course. Her parents will be here by tomorrow for the ceremony. To my future happiness!" The master of Argyll drained his goblet and tossed it into the fire.
"Meg has agreed to this?"
"Oh, yes! Even if she didn't, I am sure her family would persuade… but she has agreed. She plighted me her troth, as they say. Right after the fight, it was."
The fight where Toby Strangerson had shown himself to be a brainless, murdering brute, not merely getting himself pounded to porridge, but going on to kill his opponent. That had been the real reason for the fight all along.
"If you feel so inclined, you may congratulate me on my engagement," Rory said generously. He examined his fingernails. "Your trouble, Longdirk, is that you are a cynic. You don't believe in love." The silver eyes looked up challengingly. "Do you?"
"Sometimes."
"But not this time? Or do you accept love in women but not in men? Well, this time you must believe. My intentions are perfectly honorable, for once. The problem you cannot avoid, Longdirk, is that I am rich, I am handsome, I am the most eligible bachelor in all Scotland. By your primitive standards, I am probably a thoroughgoing scoundrel, but I have fallen so much in love with a tanner's daughter that I am going to make her my wife instead of just bundling her in the hay. Your cynicism can't handle that, can it? My grandmother was rather shocked, too, I admit, until she got to know Meg. I think she fell for her about as fast as I had — ten minutes, twelve at the most."
Meg in Inverary Castle, dressed up in Lady Lora's castoffs…
"It was the lute," the master sighed, admiring the nails on his other hand. "She sat beside me on the rock in the moonlight. I played the lute and she sang."
"And she fell in love?"
"No, I did. I thought she was the most incredible girl I had ever met. She was totally innocent, yet she had fire, and gaiety, humor… I suddenly imagined life with Meg for company all the time and I sank without trace! Of course I could hardly announce my feelings at that point, although I was sure of them. And she could talk of nothing except the big, handsome Tyndrum lad who had saved her from the Sassenach. Then you came shuffling out of the darkness with a broadsword on your back, trailing your knuckles…"
Toby leaned back in the chair. Now he understood what had happened between them that night. "That was when the trouble started!"
"Indeed it was! Love is not all that can happen at first sight." Rory chuckled. "But now the trouble is over. I have won."
A penniless vagrant against the heir to Scotland's premier earldom? Even when Toby had begun to realize what the contest was, the match had never been fair. "Does that really surprise you?"
"I suppose not. No, it doesn't surprise me. My father is going to burn me at the stake, of course. He expects me to marry a flat-faced, flat-chested, flat-footed MacDonald frump. But Grandmother will handle him."
Bitterness would be useless. "I want to speak with Meg."
"You have a boat to catch."
"I have time to say good-bye, haven't I?"
"You punched a man to death in front of her eyes. Why would she want to speak with you?"
"Which do you fear: that I will carry her off, or that she will run away with me?"
"Watch your tongue, boy!"
Toby rose. "I am the king's man now."
"That king is a throneless mirage!" Rory pouted. His gaze wandered to the minstrel gallery and then returned to Toby. "What exactly do you wish to discuss with my fiancee?"
"To tell her I am overjoyed at her good fortune. To wish her happiness."
Obviously Rory did not trust him, even now. "You do understand, don't you? She is a tanner's daughter. I shall inherit an earldom, a thousand armed clansmen, Argyll, seven or eight castles, estates in England, houses in Edinburgh and other cities. You are nothing, and will always be nothing. She had a juvenile crush on you, I admit. I can forgive that, because she is very young. But you are only beef, Longdirk. You are unlikely to live a week now, and even if you do, you have no future, nothing to offer a woman. You do understand that, in the real world, she had no choice?"
"I understand that very well, Master. I never told Meg I loved her. I won't now. I will say nothing to upset her."
Rory hesitated, then said, "Wait here, then." He strode off along the hall.
All his vicious jibes were true. No girl in her right mind could be expected to turn down a rich and powerful — and handsome — noble for the sake of an ignorant, musclebound, penniless outlaw. He liked Meg, enjoyed her company. No more than that. If he loved her, he would have told her so, wouldn't he? As a friend, he must rejoice in her good fortune.
Why did it hurt so much? Was he just sore at losing? He hadn't even been playing the game, had he? So why care if he had lost?
When he was sure Rory was out of earshot, he looked up at the minstrel gallery and said, "Scram! You'll have company in a minute." There was no answer.
He heaved himself stiffly out of the chair to stand and gaze at the fire.
CHAPTER FIVE
He turned at the sound of her tread on the rushes. She seemed very much a lady in a dark gown trailing to the floor with a high neck and sleeves puffed like pillows. Her hair was back in the silver net again. The string of pearls around her throat would buy all Tyndrum. He thought her eyes looked pink, and she was certainly very pale, as if the castle had fallen on her.
She winced at the sight of his face. He made a courtly bow, as well as he knew how and as much as his bruises would let him. She curtseyed solemnly, to the manner born.
"Congratulations, my lady. I am very happy for you. I wish you well." His throat hurt even more than his jaw. Why?
"Thank you, Toby."
Silence. He wished he could read the expression in her eyes. Under the shock and fear, there was a glimmer of triumph, wasn't there? Well deserved, yes? He wished he could make speeches.
"Is there anything more to say?" Meg asked. "Except thank you, of course. None of this would have happened without your help. I am very, very grateful."
What did she mean by that? His hurtful efforts to advise her might have strengthened her resolve to resist Rory's blandishments and thus provoked him into proposing marriage. Meg could never say that openly. He hoped that he had not offended her to no purpose.
"I am very sorry I said those bad things to you. I didn't mean to. I felt real bad."
She tossed her head. "You could have sent me a note."
Ah! Dear Rory!
"Well, I'm not much for writing, or for giving advice. I'm not much of anything, except muscle. I never had a family, never had friends. I don't know how to be friends,
so I don't suppose I'll ever know anything about love. Lord Gregor's a fine man, and I'm sure he'll make you very happy."
She turned to the fireplace, so he could not see her face.
"Rory says love is like a flash of lightning, but it isn't like that for most people. My Ma told me she was almost sick every time Pa even looked at her — after what the Sassenachs did to her, you know — and she thought her Pa had done a rotten job of finding a man for her anyway, she admits that, but eventually, she says, she managed… She says she grew to love him."
Meg must not be allowed to ramble on like that. She didn't know her fiance was listening up there in the minstrel gallery.
"I think you fell in love with Rory that night in Glen Orchy. You just didn't realize it."
She spun around. "Really? You really think so?"
"Yes, I do. The way you looked at him, and the way you kept telling me how handsome he was, the way you laughed at his jokes…"
She blushed and turned away again. "Thank you, Toby. I'll try to believe that. Is Hamish going with you? You need someone to… Well, Rory says I mustn't ask where you're off to."
"Ask all you want, I don't know." Oh, Meg, Meg! He couldn't keep this up much longer. "I'll always remember you…" even if I live a whole week "…and our escape together. One day I'll be able to brag that I know the countess of Argyll!"
"You can brag that you saved her from being raped or murdered."
"No, I won't mention that. People might think you'd been stupid."
"Toby!" she stormed, but then she laughed. "I've learned sense now, haven't I? No romantic foolishness now. Hard, cold—"
"I won't kiss your fingers, my lady. I might get blood on them." Or tears. Funny — he wasn't usually a sentimental person. "Be happy." He bowed, and turned, and started to walk away.
"Toby! Wait!"
He went back.
