Page 114 of Promised to the Forbidden Laird

“Inside,” Roy ordered.

They took him to the council chamber, where the fire burned low beneath a heavy smell of damp wool, sweat and peat smoke. Water gathered beneath the scout’s boots as he stood before the long table. He refused the offered chair until Roy pointed toward it a second time.

“Report.”

The man swallowed from a cup before speaking. “Cormac has left the northern woodland. He is moving between the inland glens.”

“With how many men?” Hamish asked.

“That is the trouble.” The scout wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “He has fewer mercenaries than before. Perhaps a dozen still ride beneath him.”

Malcolm frowned. “Then he grows weaker.”

“Nae.”

Roy heard the answer before the scout gave it. The room had gone too still.

“He is meeting chiefs,” the man continued. “MacAulay men near the western pass. Two branches of the Gunns. A MacRae cousin who holds land beyond the loch. Others, too. Small houses. Men with perhaps ten warriors each, perhaps twenty.”

“Men who would sell their swords,” Malcolm said.

The scout shook his head. “He isnae purchasing swords. He is promising land, council places, fishing rights along MacNicol water.”

Roy’s hand settled upon the edge of the table. The old wood felt rough beneath his palm. Lachlan’s maps lay open before him, with the western coast divided by faded lines, each boundary earned through marriages, bloodshed or bargains so old that no living man remembered which had come first.

Cormac had begun offering pieces of it, land he did not possess and power he had not won. The promises did not need to be lawful. They merely needed to be desirable.

“What does he ask in return?” Roy demanded.

The scout looked toward him. “That they oppose the marriage.”

The fire shifted softly in the hearth. No one spoke.

Roy looked down at the map. Dun Ard stood marked by a small black tower near the coast. Black Craig lay farther south. Between them stretched glens, roads and minor holdings whose chiefs had endured generations beneath stronger neighbors.

Cormac was no longer gathering desperate men for raids. He was giving resentment a banner.

“He says the accord died with Lachlan,” the scout continued. “That the King who signed it nae longer concerns himself with Highland law. He claims Lady Donaldina was forced intae accepting ye while her clan stood divided.”

Hamish muttered a curse. Roy did not. Anger came easily. It rose through him, cold and familiar, demanding horses, steel and enough men to drag Cormac from whichever borrowed hall presently sheltered him. Roy held it still.

That was what Cormac expected; a military answer to a political attack would grant every accusation weight. Roy could ride into those glens and scatter the gatherings. He could burn the homes of men who received Cormac’s letters and place guards upon every road between Dun Ard and the inland passes. And by nightfall, Cormac would tell the Highlands that Roy MacIver used a royal marriage to conquer MacNicol lands by force.

“He learned,” Roy concluded.

Malcolm glanced at him. “What?”

“Cormac learned that taking Donaldina strengthens us.”

The name altered something within him, as it always did now. He remembered her in the hunting lodge, with smoke surrounding her and ropes cutting into her wrists. He remembered the certainty in her eyes when he reached her. He remembered her in the garden that morning, sunlight upon her hair and honey bright across her fingers.

Cormac had seen what violence accomplished. Each attempt to tear them apart made Donaldina choose Roy more openly. Each blade raised against her drove the MacNicols toward the man who stood between her and danger. Cormac had put away the blade… for now.

“He means tae make the marriage itself the enemy,” Roy continued. “Nae me. Nae Donaldina. The accord.”

Hamish moved closer to the table. “Can he challenge a decree sealed before the King’s council?”

“He doesnae need tae win before the King.”