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There had been a William McAfee as Thane of Fife for longer than there had been a Canmore on the throne of Scotland. Indeed, the McAfee line had been the first of the Scottish thanes to throw in behind Malcolm I when he overthrew the last of the Stewart Kings. 

Mac, called so because his father had been Junior, his grandfather had been Will, and his grandmother wouldn’t hold for Billy, was, officially speaking, the 9th Thane of Fife, and the 8th to be called William. He’d married Catriona Gordon, Maid Menteith at their parents’ arrangement, and then took over stewardship of St. Andrews at 24, when his father died in battle with the Norwegians. 

That had been twelve years ago, and Mac wasn’t quite prepared to let it go, not standing on the plains of Fife with the Norwegian banners once again flying in the sharp breeze off the North Sea and his father’s  sword heavy at his hip. 

The news of the landing had come late the night before, and Mac had scrambled to prepare. His men were in the field and battle would join, but he knew, looking across the field at the entrenched Scandanavians, that it had taken him too long to get moving. It was going to be an ugly slog for every inch of plain, and little chance of the Norwegians retreating back to the sea. 

Mac and his people just had to hold until the King arrived. Scotland’s army was on the way, likely headed by her king, and better, definitely commanded by her captains. King Domhnal had long ago entrusted the running of his army to the Thanes of Glamis and Lochaber, because Rab Findlaich and Boyd Abrach were the best commanders anyone in the British Isles had ever seen. Rab was a monster on the battlefield, leaving a bloody swath around and behind him, and Boyd had won the last battle of the previous Norwegian war with a map, a squad of pikemen, and a group of angry peasants with shovels, and no one had even been surprised.  

If Mac could hold the line until Rab and Boyd arrived, everything would be all right. 

That was what he kept telling himself, anyway. But the thing about holding out, was that it involved time , and Mac had never been good with time. From the time he came too early and his mother died for it, Mac has always been too early or too late, too fast or too slow--like today when he couldn’t get to the field in time to stop the Norwegian entrenchment. 

“Sir?” Graeme, the captain of his men at arms, said politely from his elbow, belly-down on the hill beside Mac. “What orders?”

Mac sighed. “We have to hold till the King arrives,” he said. The field between Mac and the Norwegians was St. Andrews’ primary growing field. The cows had been moved to the spring pasture after a winter in the field, and the plowing was done, but the sowing hadn’t yet started, leaving uneven ridges and muddy furrows running downhill. The runrigs pointed askew of the Norwegians, forcing either side to mount the ridges every few feet, instead of marching down the furrows. The closer to the low ground it got, the muddier it was.

Graeme nodded, looking at the men. They had forty men at arms in the field, twenty more in reserve, and fifteen waiting to hold the castle in the event of disaster, against approximately thrice that of Norwegians. The armsmen of Fife were spearmen, mostly, with a single squadron of swordsmen and one of bows. 

“Bows in the back,” Mac ordered, giving them the nominally high ground though also keeping them inconveniently out of range for longer, “Keep the swordsmen left, much as we can, where it’s drier. The spears can use the haft for balance and leverage if they get stuck.”

“Aye, sir,” Graeme said. “Do we charge?”

“Not yet,” Mac said carefully, still staring at the land. He wasn’t brilliant like Boyd, but these were his lands; he’d played these fields as a boy, and he knew their secrets. “Tide’ll be out soon,” he said. “Send a runner back to Catriona, to send a squad of those we left in the castle down the beach when the tide clears to burn as much of the camp as they can, push them back towards the Eden, and then join the battle on our seaward flank, and you take the reserves back to the Eden and unhitch the ferry. Bring it down with the tide and catch them between us.” The men were out of sight still, a half-hour’s march away, yet.

Graeme grinned slowly. “Aye, sir,” he agreed.

As Graeme hastened on his orders, Mac fussed among the men, forcing them into straighter ranks and offsetting the rows. He was stalling, waiting for the tide, waiting for the glint of metal at the waterside, waiting for the moment. 

Finally, he could stall no longer. “Form up,” Mac barked. “Piper!” And Mac led the march to the top of the hill. 

The Norwegians saw them coming, of course, as soon as the Scots crested the hill. They scrambled to action, forming their own ranks and facing Mac across the field. 

“As soon as you are in range, fire at will,” Mac called back to the sergeant at arms in charge of his archers. “Play the charge,” he ordered the piper. 

Time stretched out, elastic and sticky around him, and his own blood churned in his ears. His men ran forward, roaring, and the Norwegians bellowed their own charge. 

Mac’s feet caught in the mud, his sword weighed like stone in his hands, and it felt like the battle was leaving him behind. Like a dream, where every step went nowhere and every movement hung in the air, Mac struggled to join the battle his men were fighting. 

He was conscious of Graeme’s force smashing unexpectedly into the Norwegian flanks, and he could smell the smoke in the air as the Norwegian camp burned, but a sword flashed past his face and the lights danced along the blade as he narrowly failed to dodge. 

Pain along his side, and time snapped back into place. Mac dodged the second swing, returned the blow, and spun with the parry. He drove his armored elbow in the Norwegian soldier’s face. He stepped away, feinted, and stabbed him through the gap at his shoulder. 

Mac joined the battle with a furor, and bellowed for his men to reform their lines. 

Graeme fell in at his shoulder, the men ranking up around him, as the Norwegians regathered their scattered numbers as well. 

The skirmish between the Norwegian’s flank and the armsmen from the castle was still going on, and Mac caught sight of them, backing in an orderly arc around toward Mac and the main body of the army. 

Catriona led them, armed and armored, flaming hair in a braid, like Boudicca of the Iceni returned for vengeance. 

The Scots roared , a wall of noise and battle-din. 

Mac’s throat caught, and time tunneled around him again. 

When it snapped back, Catriona was beside him, touching his cheek, and then his bleeding side. “You with me, love?” she asked.

Mac blinked, nodded, swallowed, and found his tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth. “You-”

“Yell at me later, Lord Fife,” she told him, sword flashing in the sun. 

Graeme covered her flank.

Mac shook himself loose and took her other side, sword ready again in his hands. 

With Catriona at his side, time behaved itself as they battled till they lost the sun, and then retreated to the separate camps-- the Scots back to St. Andrews castle and the Norwegians to their charred and damaged tents at the beachline. 

Catriona and her men had surprised and slain the guards, burned or soaked as many of their supplies as they could reach, and then torched the tents for good measure. 

If Mac was any guess--and Graeme’s measure agreed-- the Norwegians had lost forty men today. Mac had lost fifteen, and four more too wounded to return to the field tomorrow. 

But Mac hoped the army would arrive by the afternoon tomorrow. And they could hold here for that long. 

“You can yell at me now,” Catriona told him once they were back in the great hall.

“Never, lady,” he told her, kissing her bloody hand. 

Graeme was grinning, but kept his face turned to try to hide it; the men of Fife loved their liege lady with a fervor Mac wouldn’t have doused for any money in the world. 

The arms of the McAfee family bore a sword, and Catriona had become wholeheartedly theirs when she lifted on in defense of St. Andrews in the last Norwegian war--when the Norwegians had landed at St. Andrews and killed the Thane on the wall of his own castle, their new Thane’s brand new bride had held the stairs to the East Tower alone with her month-old baby on her hip, defending her eldgerly grandmother-in-law and the ladies of the castle with her fallen father-in-law’s sword. 

When the castle had been cleared and the Norwegians dead or fled, Catriona had dropped the sword, retied her hair, set Keir to feeding at her breast, and taken command of the castle till Mac had made it back from the fighting on the beach. He hadn’t fallen in love with her then, but it hadn’t taken long after that, either.

“I know you didn’t intend for me to come.”

“I didn’t not intend it,” Mac said honestly; it hadn’t occurred to him either way. “And I wouldn’t presume to issue you orders like a common soldier, anyway,” he added, letting her see the heat in his eyes. She was beautiful with a sword, and more beautiful still with the blood of victory on her hands. 

“I would let you, My Lord,” she said, lowering her lashes demurely to hide the mischief in her eyes. 

Graeme coughed, discreetly.

Mac pulled back, eyes hot, but face steady. “Aye, lady,” he rumbled. “But not today.” Then he turned from his wife back to his men, to issue orders for a watch to be posted and for as much sleep to be had as possible before they rejoined battle with the return of light in the morning. 

Finally alone, Catriona touched his cuirass. “You’re bleeding, still,” she said, serious now.

“No,” Mac disagreed. “I just bled a lot at the beginning.”

“Here,” Catriona said, pulling gently at the buckles of his cuirass. “Let’s see.”

Time sped up, Mac’s pulse and gaze skittering as Catriona’s hands smoothed slow and gentle across his bloodied clothes. Her soft humming was half-time to its usual cadence, but Mac closed his eyes and let her move him at her speed, instead of his own too-rapid one. His thoughts raced circles of plans for the morning, and his fingers tapped a frantic tattoo against his thigh.

Catriona caught them, stilling them and time simultaneously, and pushed him towards the wardrobe. 

Cleaned, bandaged, abed, Mac thought time would be unruly all night, but with Catriona tucked under his chin, sleep came easy, and if time sped or slowed, he didn’t notice it.

The Norwegians were careful that morning; the Scots had proved hardier and more vicious than they’d really expected, and the terrain was treacherous. 

The destruction of the camp and the battle had let Mac field a little more firmly between the Norwegians and the town, so he settled in to wait and watch, to see if the Norwegians were ready to try the men of Fife again.

They weren’t, not for hours. Mac posted a guard and supervised the evacuation of the upper town into the keep--the lower town had evacuated as soon as the Norwegian sails had been spotted off the coast. The last family had left Mac’s sight when the runner came for him that the Norwegians were finally moving.

“Sun’s dried the muck a bit,” Graeme said. It was their third sunny day in a row, and nearing noon as it was, the ground was drier than it had been in months--not dry, certainly, but drier. 

“Let’s meet them, then,” Mac said grimly, and the Scots took to the field. 

It was a grim slog. Mac trusted his men, trusted their skill, and kept to the line. His sword weighed his arms, and there was blood in his eyes from where a halberd had pierced his helmet, the padded cap under it, and his eyebrow, but not his skull. 

His helmet was useless, and his vision impaired enough by the blood, that Mac ripped the helmet off and, lacking any better solution, slammed it as hard as he could into the nose of the halberdman who’d broken it in the first place.

Now helmetless, his view was better, excepting the blood, but his head less safe. Catriona would throw a fit.

“Well that’s one way to do it, I suppose,” a voice remarked cooly, a familiar soldier falling in at his side.

“Rab!” Mac cried gladly.

“Afternoon, Mac,” Rab Findlaich, Thane of Glamis, said cheerfully. “Heard you were having some trouble with some Scandinavians, thought we’d come see.”

Now that Mac noticed it, the battle was louder, with more cries of “Scotland! Scotland and the King!” and much less shouting in Norwegian. “Your timing is excellent!” he said gladly. “Welcome to Fife!”

“Thank you, kind sir,” Rab drawled, offering a flourishing gesture with his sword as he bowed elegantly. “Your face is a sight.”

Mac barked a laugh. “Well I’m not writing home about yours either, though I am frightfully glad to see you.”

Rab, grinning, said, “I meant the blood.” He gestured at his own eye, meaning to indicate Mac’s bleeding wound.

“Me too,” Mac replied dryly, waving Rab up and down. Rab was drenched in the blood of the men he’d already killed, nearly covered arms to knees.

Rab laughed, saluted, and pushed onward.

Relieved, Mac let himself fall back instead, finding the edge of the line, and Boyd Abrach, Thane of Lochaber, ahorse, watching the battle thoughtfully. 

Mac leaned on the shoulder of Boyd’s horse, shading his eyes to look up at his friend. “Glad to see you,” he said.

Boyd grinned down at him. “Sorry we’re late,” he answered. “We meant to be here in the morning, but didn’t quite get the march on we wanted. Small matter of an ambush.”

Mac shook his head. “No, your timing was perfect. We might’ve held into the afternoon, but by tomorrow, we’d be in the castle.”

Boyd nodded. “You look like yesterday went well, though.” 

Mac sawed a hand. “Sneaky, more than valorous, but we held.”

Boyd huffed. “There’s valor in discretion,” he demurred. 

Mac laughed. “True enough, then.” He looked back towards the line of servants and civilians already making camp a ways from the battle site, confident of the Scottish victory. “Did His Majesty come?” he asked Boyd, surprised, catching sight of King Domhnall’s banner flying over the camp. 

“Aye,” Boyd agreed. “And the lads, as well,” he added, meaning Domhnall’s sons, eighteen year old Malcolm and sixteen year old Young Domhnall. He nudged Mac’s shoulder with his boot. “Should go say hello.” He cast a weather eye over the field. “You can tell him that Rab’ll have this lot cleared away by sunset, and get him to tell you about the force we met outside of Perth on the way here. Bloody Cawdor,” he muttered. 

Mac blinked up at him. “Cawdor?” 

Boyd waved him off. “Get on,” he said cheerfully. “You’ve a message for the king, now.”

Mac saluted mockingly and turned towards the tents.

“Well you’re bloody enough that you must’ve come from the battle,” the page said, ushering Mac into the King’s presence. “The king wants news.”

Domhnall was seated near a rough-dug fire pit, with both sons, a handful of the older thanes who seldom fought anymore, and a couple of servants with trays of food and drink on them. They were all bent over a map on a board on the ground at Domhnall’s feet.

Malcolm, near the edge, looked up when the page ushered Mac forward. “God’s blood,” Malcolm said, startled, at the blood on Mac’s face, then he recognized him. “Oh, good afternoon, Mac!”

Mac smiled at the young man; Malcolm had ridden at Mac’s side, trained with him, and shadowed him at his duties for two and half years as a squire. He offered a deep bow to King Domhnall and a wink to Malcolm. “Majesty,” he greeted. “My lords,” he added to the two princes and the collected thanes.

“McAfee,” Domhnall replied. “What news from the field?”

“Thane Lochaber bids me pass on to you that the Norwegians will be suing for terms by sundown, to his estimation. Glamis was nearly to the waterside last view I had, and there seemed to me to be more blood on his blade than in his foes.”

“And the people of Fife?” Domhnall asked.

Mac dipped his head in acknowledgement. “Will have to plow the field again, sire, but there will be men aplenty to do the plowing. My people were evacuated to the keep before the fighting began.”

Domhnall’s face split into a grin, and his broad shoulders--thinning now as age crept upon him but still strong--eased. “Good news indeed. And We are glad to see you well, my Thane.”

“Yours, ever,” Mac agreed softly. 

Malcolm stepped over to offer a sodden rag, and gestured vaguely at Mac’s face when Mac just looked at him.

Mac nodded his thanks and used it to carefully clean the blood from his around his eye and off his jaw.

“You’ve split it open again,” Malcolm said wryly, stepping forward to help while Mac blinked against the new rush of blood. Malcolm put pressure on the split in Mac’s eyebrow until it stopped bleeding again.

Mac mopped the now-diluted blood from his face again. “Thank you, Prince Malcolm,” he said softly. “It likely needs a stitch or two, but that will hold me till I can see a physic.” 

Malcolm nodded and fell back to his place at his father’s shoulder.

“You are well?” Domhnall inquired. 

“Aye, sire,” Mac assured him. “Nothing a couple of stitches and a little more water won’t cure.”

“Fetch a doctor,” Domhnall ordered the page, who bowed and vanished. To Mac, he continued, “What even happened?”

“A halberdman,” Mac answered, “This morning before your Majesty arrived. Pierced my helm, but not much more of my head than my eyebrow.” 

“It’s just as well We know you to be hardheaded,” Domhnall said, smiling fondly.

Mac bowed, smiling. “If I may be so bold, sire?”

Domhnall gestured expansively.

“Thane Lochaber suggested I should ask about your action outside Perth?”

Domhnall laughed, tipping his head back. “Trust him to want to spread word of his friend’s deeds far and wide! That victory belongs decisively to Glamis, and none other. We were ambushed just this side of Perth, met by a force hidden in the woods. Lochaber focused himself perhaps too much on Our safety. Glamis however ferreted out immediately where the rogue in command was, forced his way there within but a moment, and split the knave open from waist to chin.” He paused to drink.

Young Domhnall added, conspiratorially, “You could see the man’s spine in the cut.”

Mac was privately glad he had not been present. He’d never been squeamish about battle gore, but there were parts of a man you didn’t need to see, and his spine and innards were among that number. 

The greenish tinge to Malcolm’s face said he agreed, but Mac had never even been able to cure his young squire of his squeamishness about where food-meat came from, let alone battle gore. Mac hadn’t felt it dire enough to go out of his way to fix--perhaps a king that disliked the cost of war might keep the peace a little more firmly. 

“Aye, and most of his ribs as well,” The king continued. 

Malcolm’s jaw went tight and he swallowed convulsively, but Mac didn’t think anyone else noticed.

“And when Glamis gets to the chin, he just flicks the rogue’s helmet off with a twist of his sword, and who should it be but the Thane of Cawdor himself.”

Mac rocked back in surprise. Cawdor was a wealthy protectorate near the king’s seat at Forres, and while Mac hadn’t known the man well, it was hard for Mac to imagine what had convinced him to turn traitor. 

“Aye,” King Domhnall agreed. “And don’t tell him yet, but We’ve decided Glamis will take his lands and title if Sweno is defeated today.”

Mac let the smile touch his mouth; Rab deserved it, for all he’d done in the king’s service over the years. He was by far the best warrior among them, and Glamis was a paltry holding barely deserving of his greatness. “Quite the tale, your Majesty,” Mac said, admiringly. “Glamis will hear nothing from me.”

“We expected no less,” Domhnall said.

The page arrived with the doctor, then, and Mac let himself be ushered out of the king’s presence and sat still to let the man put stitches into his face. There would be much to do once the battle was ended.

Malcolm appeared around the curtain that sectioned Mac off from the rest of the men in the medical awning. “Mac,” he said warmly. “Am I intruding?”

“Never,” Mac said, standing to hug the young man. 

Malcolm hugged him gladly. Behind the curtain, he could lean affectionately into his former mentor. “How are you?” he asked, looking up at Mac earnestly. 

Mac smiled. “I’m to resist the urge to lift my eyebrow at everyone for a while, but no damage done. Probably have a scar in the eyebrow, though.” He gestured invitingly at the cot he’d been thrust onto by the harried doctor, and sat once Malcolm had.

Malcolm smiled. “Should be very dashing, I think.”

Mac chuckled. “I suppose, cub.”

The Canmore arms were a lion rampant, and Malcolm--born late after several years of his parents’ trying--had always been the country’s beloved lion cub. Malcolm rolled his eyes, fond and amused. “And Fife? I heard what you told Father, but truly?”

“We’re fine,” Mac promised. “Nothing but some churned up furrows, and another few days of plowing will settle that. No building damage.”

“Many lost?” Malcolm asked. 

“Fifteen, yesterday,” Mac acknowledged. “I don’t know how we fared today.”

Malcolm nodded, mouth twisting a little in sorrow. “I’m sorry for that,” he said.

Mac nodded. “Me too, but they served well and died honorably. It was nothing any of us wouldn’t have done. We’ll honor them properly.”

Malcolm hummed. 

“You look well,” Mac observed.

Malcolm seemed nonplussed by this conversational gambit. He shrugged. “I am, I suppose. Been helping my father a lot; this is my first time in the field in, oh, six months? I’m surprised I haven’t seen you at Forres, honestly.”

Mac was somewhat surprised. It had made sense to him, that Domhnall had wanted Malcolm to squire to multiple people, to learn different skills, but it hadn't occurred to Mac that Domhnall might be one of those people. “Took an early winter,” Mac replied. “Went home when the leaves were still turning and stayed. Boys’re growing so fast,” he admitted, “I wanted to be there.”

Malcolm grinned. “How are the boys?”

Mac shook his head ruefully. “Small versions of Catriona, mostly,” he said. “Terrors. Keir would be glad to see you, if you could get away at all tomorrow.”

“I’ll try,” Malcolm promised. “I’d like to see him too.” Malcolm had somewhat adopted Mac’s oldest as a younger brother; he and Keir shared a birthday, and had celebrated it jointly the one winter Malcolm had stayed in Fife as Mac’s squire. Malcolm had always been sweetly kind to the younger boy, sending sweets and letters to him when Mac wrote Catriona while they were away. The last few years, he’d sent a brief note for their shared birthday. 

Mac knew Keir modeled his own treatment of his younger brothers on how Malcolm had treated him, which left a warm glow in his chest whenever he thought of it. “You’re good with him.”

Malcolm grinned. “I’d trade him for Don, if Father would let me,” he said cheekily. The prince’s actual younger brother was twice as much of a terror as all three of Mac’s boys combined. The statement was a lie, of course; Malcolm loved Young Domhnall fiercely, but they were brothers.

“No thank you,” Mac replied primly, hiding his grin. “I’ll keep Keir.”

Malcolm’s eyes were bright and happy when he smiled back at Mac. “Okay,” he said reluctantly. “I should go, Father will be waiting for me. I just wanted to make sure you were all right and see that you were well tended.”

“I am,” Mac promised. “It’s good to see you, cub.”

Malcolm nodded, and slipped around the curtain again, leaving Mac to wait alone for the doctor to let him leave.

King Domhnall flat out refused to come to St. Andrews once the battle was won. He insisted Mac and Catriona had enough to contend with resettling their people, burying their dead, and organizing a second plowing to deal with a State Visit. He remained encamped on the plain, and once Rab was finished forcing the unconditional surrender of Sweno and his men, the army joined him.

He wasn’t wrong, and Catriona sent her hearty thanks to her king and a polite request that her husband stay out of the way--not phrased thus, of course, but Mac could read between the lines of the message--by doing their joint service to the king. 

Fife was more Catriona’s than Mac’s. Mac had spent his springs and summers traveling for his king, and only the cold months in residence at St. Andrews, so he dutifully kept himself from the castle. 

Rab took great enjoyment from the tale of Catriona’s valor on the beach, and the gathering--King Domhnall, the princes, Rab, Boyd, Mac, and the cheerful, well-liked Thanes of Menteith, Ross, and Lennox--toasted to her skill at arms. 

Cinaed Gordon, Thane Menteith, was a cousin of Catriona’s, and had inherited his Thaneship from her father. He shook his head ruefully. “Her mother was just the same,” he said. 

“Where d’you think she got it from?” Mac asked. “Certainly wasn’t her father!”

A round of laughter followed from everyone present except Malcolm, who looked to be deep in thought. Ewan Lister, Thane Lennox, then launched into a story about the former Thane of Menteith, a quiet, bookish man who hated fuss, and his rambunctious young wife with a flock of geese.

Rab followed up with a story about his wife, Greer, from before their marriage. Greer Findlaich had not the bloodthirsty fire of Catriona, but she had twice the political acumen as any of them sitting around this fire, and every one of them knew it. She’d been married to the Thane of Moray before he and their son had died in the same war that had killed Mac’s father, and she’d married Rab--widowed ten years already, and childless--just a short year later after a whirlwind courtship. 

Mac toasted the Lady Glamis with the rest of his fellows, and waved off Ewan when he inquired if Catriona was as bold in bed as out of it. His silence was vastly funnier to them than any answer he gave could have been, because he broke it by saying, “Listen, would you be brave enough to imply either way of her?”

Ewan laughed, shaking his head ruefully. “I wouldn’t dare, not and then share her company again. I like my life.”

Mac tipped his head. “And I share a room with her.”

Ewan quirked an eyebrow in Rab’s direction.

“Catriona would just murder you,” Boyd said, shaking his head in warning. “Greer would ruin your life.”

Rab toasted in silent agreement, mouth curled in a smirk. “No comment,” he drawled.

King Domhnall seldom spoke at these gatherings, but he was definitely the barometer by which his men measured their conversations. He looked, now, as though he was lost in thought, and Mac guessed he might have been thinking of his late wife, gone nearly fifteen years, now. The Queen had been a lovely woman, all warmth and kindness and grace, and all three of the Canmore men missed her terribly, though Young Domhnall only barely remembered her at all.

Rory Thorburne, Thane of Ross, was Mac’s cousin by marriage, and the one of the gathering closest to Mac personally, except perhaps Malcolm, though it had been several years since Mac had spent any span of time alone in the young prince’s company, and it was likely the young man had grown significantly since then. Rory gracefully steered the conversation away from their wives and back into politics and war. “I heard a rumor,” he said, head tilting in conspiracy, “That Emma of Normandy is looking to add a crown to her head, and has her eye on Sweno.”

“Isn’t he married?” Malcolm asked, proving he was paying attention after all.

“And broke?” Ewan added, since part of the peace terms agreed that very day included a substantial sum to be paid immediately to the Scottish crown.

“Yup,” Rory said happily. “I don’t think money matters to her, since her dowry ought to be extensive at this juncture, and the rumor I heard suggested that already married was a plus .”

There was a moment when they all considered this. Mac turned it over in his mind a few times, but couldn’t decide if Rory meant-

“Plus like, good he sleeps with someone else, or like, good I can sleep with his other wife too?” Ewan asked.

Rory grinned. “I’ll leave it to your imaginations, gentlemen.”

There were a lot of groans, and some throwing of pebbles and sticks in Rory’s direction, but his grin never wavered. 

They continued in this vein well into the night, and it was with somewhat unsteady feet that Mac eventually rose to wind his way back to the castle.

“Mac,” Domhnall called softly as the men dispersed.

“Sire?” Mac answered, stepping dutifully back to his king’s side.

“I would that you would travel with us, for a time,” he said, breaking for once his royal plural timbre of command in the safe dark of the night. “At least as far as Glamis. Rab and Greer will host us, and we can celebrate Rab’s promotion. I know he would value your company, and so would I.”

“It would be my honor, sire,” Mac said, bowing slightly. “Gladly, I will join your retinue, as far as Glamis, and further, if you command it.”

Domhnall touched his shoulder. “The opportunity so rarely presents itself for me to tell you how glad I am your obedience comes out of love, and not command.” He turned the touch into a gentle push. “Now, to bed with you, Thane of Fife, for we will ride by noon.”

Mac bowed, and took his leave. 

Despite the sobering effect of King Domhnall’s regard, Mac was tipsy as he slipped back into the castle. The porter and a handful of servants were still up, waiting on his return, but he lightened his step going into the bedroom, hoping Catriona was asleep.

She wasn’t; a candle lit by the bedside as she needlepointed what looked like the bodice of a dress. She looked up and smiled at him. “Have a good time, my love?”

Mac hummed an affirmative as he changed into his night shirt and climbed in beside her. 

Catriona, still sitting up against the headboard, paused her stitching long enough to arrange him so he was curled into her, head in her lap. She stroked his hair a few times, and then resumed stitching.

“Rory sends his regards,” Mac rumbled after a few moments of silence.

Catriona hummed and stroked his head again.

“And his majesty sends his again, probably twice.”

Catriona chuckled. “How’s young Malcolm?” she asked. She’d grown fond of him, the winter he stayed with them. 

“He looks well,” Mac answered thoughtfully. “Still turns green at descriptions of gore, though.”

Catriona huffed. “Poor lad,” she said. “With his father so.”

Mac grunted agreement. “His brother’s the same, couldn’t wait to tell me he saw his first spine.”

“Well it is a milestone,” Catriona drawled. 

Mac smiled against her leg, nuzzling her affectionately. “He found something, though,” he said, searching for the words. Malcolm had joined the talk around the fire that evening, joking with the men as much as he ever could, as reserved as he was naturally and as separate as his position made him. It was something he would never have done, three years past.

Catriona made a questioning noise.

“He talks, now,” Mac said finally.

“Perhaps being away from your influence was good in that regard,” she teased him. 

Mac nipped her leg in retaliation. 

“Hmm,” Catriona said thoughtfully, peering down at her needlework. “I suppose I could be done with this, then.”

Mac looked up at her hopefully.

“Like an eager hound,” she teased. Smiling wickedly, Catriona set the cloth aside, and rolled him to the middle of the bed. When time went liquid around him, Mac was glad of it.

Domhnall finished his business with Sweno and the Norwegians on the beach at ten in the morning. Mac was not present, being too busy frantically wading through the way time seemed to be clinging to his arms and legs to try to get started fixing the aftereffects on the land of Sweno’s invasion to listen to the talking about it. Once the talking was done, however, Domhnall called all the Thanes present to attend to him. A gentle invitation was also issued to Catriona, should the lady of the house have the time to spare. 

Mac and Catriona joined the rest of the nobility in front of the king’s tent gladly. She had thrown an ornate overskirt and lovely dyed-wool cloak on to disguise the fact that she hadn’t had time to change out of her plain linen work-frock. Mac was in a leather work jerkin and his armor, like the rest of the men. 

“Preparations are already being made for us to set off,” Domhnall told them, sweeping his arm about grandly. “But before we depart there is some business We would see reconciled before the close of another day.” 

Malcolm appeared at his father’s elbow with a leather case, which he offered flat, prepared to be opened when the time was right.

“First off, to Our captains, a mighty thanks.” Domhnall nodded deeply to Rab and Boyd, standing together near to hand. 

They both bowed deeply, and when the pause hung and it became apparent Domhnall was actually seeking a reply, Boyd said graciously, “Our deepest honor, Sire, to offer our skill and strength at arms in your service.”

“To you, Thane of Lochaber, We have not enough to recompense your wit, but this a small token of Our regard.” He opened the case, and offered Boyd a beautifully wrought spyglass. 

Boyd bowed over it, and when Domhnall released it to his hands, he clutched it close. “Sire,” he murmured, “Your regard would be enough.” He swallowed. “But this is a beautiful thing, and I will bear it gladly in your service.”

Domhnall smiled at him. “Then will We be doubly glad of your foresight.” Then he turned to Rab, both hands open in acknowledgement. “Great Glamis,” he said warmly. 

Rab bowed again, eyes sparkling up at his king.

“Twas you who rendered the service of striking down the traitorous Thane of Cawdor. We can think of no more fitting reward than to pass to you those lands and titles now unclaimed.” Domhnall offered his hands, and Rab knelt before him, something very strange in his face. 

Rab kissed each of Domhnall’s hands, eyes low and mouth stiff. His hands trembled visibly with some great emotion, and his voice cracked when he murmured, “Sire.”

“Rise, Thane of Cawdor,” Domhnall ordered, and Rab rose, shooting a wild look at Boyd as soon as the king’s attention was off of him.

Boyd shrugged at him.

Rab bumped their shoulders together.

Boyd kicked his ankle.

Rab ducked his head, seemingly coming aware that Mac was staring at them, and that he wasn’t the only one. Rab twisted his mouth ruefully at Mac, shrugging one shoulder.

Either failing to notice or choosing to ignore the two Thanes on his periphery, the King continued, “And finally, We wish to make official something which all have long known.” The king gestured at his son to put the case down and step up beside him.

Looking confused, Malcolm obeyed.

“Loyal Thanes,” Domhnall said, sweeping a gesture at them all, “We present to you Our heir, the Prince of Cumberland.”

Mac bowed; there was nothing else to do. 

The other Thanes mirrored Mac, and Catriona swept into a fluid curtsey, head tilted deeply. 

Domhnall’s voice slowed to a crawl and Mac tried to sculpt his face to attentiveness despite the weight of time clawing at him. Malcolm, movements looking sluggish and slow, continued to look baffled, but he followed the ceremony correctly, at least. Someone had taught him that, though they certainly hadn’t warned him he would need it now . 

It was strange, Mac thought as time dilated until every vowel of the king’s words seemed to take a full span of one of Mac’s breaths, that Malcolm and Rab took their new promotions with similar and yet entirely different slightly befuddled expressions.

Catriona gladly saw him off when the army finally marshalled just past noon, and his small party folded easily into the great workings of the army on the march. He found himself riding a few lengths behind the king, with Rory on one side and Malcolm on the other. It felt both deeply odd and entirely right to have Malcolm once again riding at his side; they’d spent the better part of three years riding side-by-side through all the lands of which the prince would one day be king, Mac acting as his king’s messenger and emissary, and Malcolm his silent shadow, but the three years between felt like a yawning gulf of the unknown.

Time stretched, elastic and weighted, as Mac searched for something to say. It seemed to only be him dragging as if anchored, though; his horse kept perfect time with the two on either side. Time returned to normal in an easing, rather than a snap, though, when Malcolm said softly, “Are you all right, Mac? You’re quiet today.”

Mac blinked; it was well into the afternoon--they’d made good time, regardless of how it traveled around Mac.

Rory chuckled. “Nah,” he disagreed. “This is Mac as usual. Not chatty, our Mac.”

“Not in my experience,” Malcolm replied.

There had always been something to teach his charge, and Mac had kept a steady flow of lessons on the march or in the evenings in their rooms wherever they were. “Wool gathering,” he told Malcolm, ignoring Rory. “All’s well, cub.” 

He smiled at the nickname, but his gaze was shrewd as he examined Mac, searching for a lie. 

Mac met his eyes evenly, smiling slightly. Malcolm might have no stomach for gore, but he was a sharp mind and a master of human behavior; he’d be a great king someday. 

“Well that’s classic Mac,” Rory continued, unperturbed by being ignored. “Should teach you to spin, make use of your gathered wool.”

“You’re hilarious as ever, Rory,” Mac replied evenly. To Malcolm, he added, “Just daydreaming about the work to be done in Fife, nothing major.”

Malcolm nodded, accepting this. 

Rory patted Mac’s shoulder patronizingly. “Look at you, using your words!” he cheered.

Mac darted out a hand and caught Rory in a light headlock. 

Rory yelped as his courser huffed and danced to the side, leaving Rory dangling precariously between his inside stirrup and Mac’s arm around his neck. “Mac!” he protested. “Mac, no!” As he flailed his far foot in the air above the saddle, struggling for balance, he whined, “Unfair! Unhand me!”

Mac loosened his grip slightly, with no intention of actually dropping Rory.

Predictably, Rory yelped, “Not like that!”

Laughing, Mac heeled his charger into sidestepping and tipped Rory back into his saddle. “Happy now?”

“Ecstatic,” Rory muttered sullenly, hands moving unconsciously to soothe his restive mount. “You’re terrible.”

“You’re the one who chose to ride here. I was minding my own business.”

“I try to help you carry a conversation, when you are clearly struggling, and this is how you repay me?”

“Malcolm and I were conversing just fine, weren’t we, your highness?” Mac looked at the prince.

Malcolm’s mouth twisted, likely in annoyance at Mac titling him, but his eyes were bright with mirth. “Aye, Mac. It was a lovely conversation.” He added, “If brief.”

Mac clutched his chest dramatically. “Betrayed!” he gasped. 

Malcolm laughed outright, bright and happy. 

Mac saw, from the edge of his vision, King Domhnall turn, a smile on his own face at the sound of his heir’s laughter. Mac smiled too, pleased; Malcolm was as prone to silence and wool gathering as Mac, so to see him cheerful was always a pleasant treat.

Rory took the thread up again, hands and mouth going at roughly the same speed, and the two of them picked and teased at Mac the rest of the way till evening, Mac giving it back to the pair of miscreants the best he could.

The following morning, Mac found himself riding with Boyd and the king. Rab had, apparently, lit out at dawn like his horse was on fire, to beat the army to Glamis and warn Greer they were coming. 

Boyd explained this, frequently muffled by yawning, over a cold breakfast eaten in the saddle, to explain absently why Mac had been summoned to the front.

Mac was certainly not the next Thane in rank, but he was the next Thane in the king’s graces, and everyone knew it. Thankfully, it had seemed to make him popular, rather than despised among those closest to the king.

Boyd fell immediately out of the conversation once he finished chewing, leaving Mac to attempt pleasantries around his biscuit while the king examined the countryside.

“It was good to hear him laughing, yesterday,” Domhnall told him quietly as they rode in the relative quiet of the morning. 

Boyd appeared to be dozing in the saddle, though Mac doubted reality matched appearances much. He glanced at the king. “Sire?”

“Malcolm,” Domhnall said. “It was good to hear him laugh at whatever Ross was doing to his poor horse.”

Mac grinned. “I’m afraid I was somewhat involved in the poor creature’s torment, sire,” he admitted. “But no harm was done to anything but maybe its nerves.”

Domhnall chuckled. “We didn’t doubt it for a moment. If nothing else, Malcolm would never have laughed so at genuine cruelty.”

“He’s a good lad,” Mac said, not for the first time.

“He is,” Domhnall agreed. “And We’re gratified to hear you say it, though I think perhaps you have at least as much a role in it as anyone else, if not more than most.”

Mac inclined his head. “He’s grown since I knew him,” he answered. 

“He has,” Domhnall agreed, all fatherly pride. “He’s become a shrewd statesman, when he assists Us behind closed doors, and he’s damn good at leveraging people’s strengths.”

Mac nodded; he’d seen glimpses of it even when Malcolm was a boy, and with some experience at his father’s side, he would likely be developing it into a solid skill. “He needs some…” he fumbled for a word, “burnishing, perhaps, yet, but he’ll shine true.” Time would give him that, and experience at his father’s side.

Domhnall chuckled fondly. “I sent him to ride a campaign or two with Glamis, a year past,” Domhnall said, which Mac hadn’t known. “He’s stopped vomiting, at least.”

Mac winced. It hadn’t been what he meant, but it was very true.

Domhnall chuckled. “He fought very well in the skirmish outside Perth; We recognized your swordwork in his form.”

Mac bowed in the saddle, unable to reply otherwise. “He’ll be a great king, someday,” he offered, confident. 

Domhnall sighed deeply.

“Sire?”

“Do you believe in fate, Mac?” Domhnall asked.

Mac blinked. “Aye, sire,” he said slowly. “I believe the Good Lord has a plan for us, and we’ll do as well by His Hand as we may.”

Domhnall nodded. “Good,” he said, and fell utterly silent. Time warped again, and it seemed Mac blinked and missed several hours.

Glamis castle was an imposing edifice, made more so by the storm clouds gathering on the horizon. The wind hadn’t yet turned, so the breeze was still meadow-sweet and spring-rich, and the sun was still bright overhead as they approached the castle.

The army broke off to camp, including Mac’s men. Mac would go to the castle for the formal greetings and evening meal, and then return to the army and camp with his men. Only the Canmores would stay in the castle, he suspected, and watching pages peel off from the Thanes, he seemed to be right--with one exception.

Boyd did not send a page to arrange his campsite for him, because he would stay in Dunsinane as well, on the merits of his close friendship with Rab. He instead extolled the virtues of the stonemasons who had only recently redone the posts of the mighty gates of the castle, resetting the hinges and strengthening their weight. 

Four yards away or so, his son, Fintan was silently pantomiming a credible impression of his father for Young Domhnall’s amusement. Fintan, before becoming his father’s squire, had lived several years at Domhnall’s court as a companion for Young Domhnall, who was the same age. The boys, sixteen now, were cheerfully rambunctious together in a way both their fathers clearly enjoyed. 

Boyd shot him a repressing look and received an innocent grin in return. Boyd rolled his eyes and dismounted, passing his horse into the care of one of Rab’s grooms. 

Mac and the others followed suit, shadowing the king to where Rab and Greer waited to greet them out of the bustle of the castle’s courtyard. 

Greer was clearly in high spirits, eyes shining and face glowing with pleasure as she greeted first King Domhnall and then the rest of them. 

Rab cheerfully passed his wife to his king’s arm, and let the pair lead them all into the great hall.

“Rooms are prepared for your majesty,” Greer was telling the king, “If you should prefer to rest for a time before dinner.”

“Nonsense,” Domhnall said, waving this idea away. “I’ll rest when I’m dead!”

Greer laughed richly, leaning on the king’s arm. It really wasn’t that funny, but Mac thought maybe Greer was just glad to see them.

The hallway from the courtyard to the great hall seemed to Mac to last hours.

“Please, let Us grace your company a while longer, before I send you off to do your duties elsewhere,” Domhnall said, breaking time and Mac’s stride at once.

“First and foremost our duty is to you, Sire,” Rab said, offering his own seat on the dais to the king. 

“And a trouble We know it to be,” Domhnall said. “Taking you from home so often and then imposing on you like this.”

“Your being here is salve enough, for that wound,” Greer replied promptly. “You could stay here for the rest of your life and not overstay your welcome.”

“Too kind by far, gentle lady,” Domhnall answered. 

“Nay,” she answered.

“No,” Rab agreed, laughing, “That’s certainly not the woman I married.”

Domhnall pff’ed, waving Rab off. “Kind to an old man, at least,” he insisted.

“Spoken only out of the love I bear,” Greer answered. “Not kindness, as might be offered to a stranger or a foe. I am proud of the hours spent without my husband as he works in your name, and prouder still that you are here and I might too have the chance to show you , Sire, my loyalty.”

Domhnall shook his head ruefully. “We are lucky indeed in our Thanes,” he said, his warm gaze brushing each of them in turn. “We hope you have not gone too far out of your way to feed a beggar-king wandering the wilderness.”

“Only so far as befits your station and our regard for you,” Rab replied. 

Domhnall growled playfully at him. “Such pretty words, my Thane,” he said, wonderingly. “Did he learn that from you?” he asked Greer.

“Well he certainly didn’t learn it from Boyd,” Greer replied. 

Boyd swept an elaborate, flourishing bow. “Pleased as always to see you, Lady Glamis. And Cawdor too!”

Greer inclined her head to Boyd. “Lord Lochaber, the pleasure, certainly this time, will be mine! I believe it is my turn to win the pleasantries.”

Boyd put his hands up. “Lady I would never presume upon your intended victories, nor impede upon your battle campaigns!”

Mac hid a grin; Boyd and Greer’s ongoing feud over who was more pleased to see the other at any given meeting was the stuff of legends around the Canmore court. 

“Good,” Greer said tartly. To Rab, she said, “Will you introduce your companions, my love? I know them all, and yet I find myself uncertain after too long apart.”

Rab graciously swept a bow--not quite so elaborate as the one Boyd had given Greer, but definitely in the same vein and began the litany. “My Lady,” he began formally, “May I present, of course known but perhaps grown since you saw them last,” he offered a courteous wink to the princes, “Prince Malcolm of Cumberland, Mac Domhnall, and his brother Prince Domhnall the Fair. And with Prince Domhnall, the honorable Fintan Abrach, Mac Boyd, of Lochaber.”

Greer curtseyed deeply to the princes and offered Fintan a warm grin.

Rab continued, “And as retinue and guard for the king, Eideard Melville, Thane of Caithness, Ewan Lister, Thane of Lennox, Gilchrist Sangster, Thane of Sunderland, William McAfee, Thane of Fife, Torquil Buchanan, Thane of Angus, and Rory Thorburne, Thane of Ross.”

Mac bowed politely when he was named, and returned Greer’s smile. He also politely declined the offered seat and stood beside Ewan and Rory while the others sat. Mac rarely wanted a chair after a day in the saddle, and would gladly stand since he wasn’t the first to decline. He leaned absently on the wall, arms crossed, watching Boyd, Rab, and Greer banter to amuse the king. Their conversation seemed too fast to follow, though Mac knew it was just him, moving too slow again.

Rory tipped his shoulder into Mac’s, knocking him back into the moment. “Cousin,” he murmured. “Is it me, or are we trying too hard?”

Mac inclined his head. There did seem to be an odd intensity in Rab and Greer. Boyd seemed to be his usual self, but there was a sharpness in his eyes Mac was most used to seeing directed at a battlefield. “Not been in society much of late?” Mac whispered back.

“It’s rude to whisper,” Young Domhnall whispered, appearing to lean on the wall on Mac’s other side.

“Aye,” Mac agreed, still whispering. “Fair rude. You shouldn’t do it, especially when important people are talking.”

Malcolm, sitting nearest, smothered a laugh into a cough. 

King Domhnall raised an eyebrow at Mac.

Mac winked in reply, and the king grinned, distracting Greer, who’d turned to Malcolm in concern, with a question about the spring lambing. 

Young Domhnall snorted. “Mal wants to ask you to train, come morning,” he said tartly, “But he won’t, because he doesn’t want to intrude.”

“ Don ,” Malcolm hissed.

The king, well used to his sons’ bickering, paid them no mind. 

Mac grinned. “I’d be glad to, if he ever decides to ask,” he told Young Domhnall, elbowing Rory to make him stop cooing mockingly. “I’ve missed morning training with him.”

Young Domhnall kicked the leg of Malcolm’s chair. 

Malcolm tipped his head in Mac’s direction. “Sorry about him,” he murmured. “He’s such a pest.”

Young Domhnall scowled. “I’m helping ,” he muttered. “Because you’re stupid .”

Mac smiled conspiratorially at Malcolm. “Little brothers, aye?” He had one himself, as Malcolm knew, serving as a knight-errant in France on England’s purse. 

Malcolm smiled hopefully up at him. “So you don’t mind me joining you, in the morning?”

Mac shook his head. “Be glad of it,” he repeated. And he would-- the prince was a skilled swordsman and a good partner, willing to match wherever his opponent was.

Young Domhnall rolled his eyes. 

“Oh, but sire ,” Greer said suddenly, her voice strident enough to draw everyone’s attention. “You must let us, please?”

‘What?’ Mac mouthed at Rory.

Rory shrugged. 

“We would not refuse such a request if you will insist on it, Lady Greer, but please understand We have no wish to put you out.”

“We understand,” Greer said, clutching Rab’s arm in solidarity. “We do, but we want to throw a banquet tomorrow. Everyone’s had a hard road, and the battle was fierce. Stay an extra day and let Glamis treat you all.”

A party, Mac thought wryly. 

Malcolm clearly agreed; his face was admirably collected, but his eyes were at little crinkled at the corners. 

King Domhnall accepted their fate gracefully on behalf of the tired men and horses of the army, and Mac tipped his head back against the wall with a noiseless groan. 

Rory nudged him. “Come on,” he muttered. “It’ll be fun! A day of tending your horse and training with Malcolm, a fancy party-”

“That I’m not dressed for,” Mac interjected.

“In the evening, and then an early departure homeward!”

“For you,” Mac replied. “I’m still going in the wrong direction.”

“I thought you were only coming as far as Glamis?” Malcolm asked, looking up at him, surprised.

Mac smiled down at him. “I’m at my Lord’s pleasure, as always,” he replied. “When we rise the day after tomorrow, if he asks, I’ll ride on with you. If not, I’ll turn for Fife.”

Malcolm examined him with shrewd, dark eyes. 

“Ask,” Mac ordered, gently. He would never have done it to the king nor the younger prince, but Malcolm would know it for the invitation it was.

“Which would you rather?” Malcolm asked after another moment’s steady contemplation.

Mac let his slight surprise roll across his face, and then tucked it away. It was enough that Malcolm had seen it; he didn’t need to broadcast it over the room. He realized he didn’t know the answer.

“No,” Malcolm said softly. He shook his head. “You’re not needed in Fife, not truly, Lady McAfee has it handled. You’re not needed here either-- father’s plenty amused and defended. There could be an errand for you at Forres, and it would need doing, but it wouldn’t have to be you-- Ross or Lennox could do it just as well as Fife. There is nothing except your king’s desires--and your own. What do you want ?”

Mac stared into Malcolm’s face, considering. He’d squared up in the jaw since Mac had last spent time examining him, and sharpened across the cheekbones, his mother’s delicate nose bladed between his father’s keen eyes. There was scruff on his cheeks and a fierce tilt to his mouth Mac had never seen before.

He wanted to go home, he realized faintly. He always sort of wanted to go home, so he’d learned to ignore the desire and do his duty. But what he wanted was to watch Catriona harry the farmers, spend nights in his own bed, and teach his sons the sword and the bow. “I want to go home,” he admitted softly, only his cousin and his prince to hear.

Malcolm nodded once. “I’ll speak to my father,” he promised softly, and then turned that too-much gaze back towards the room in time to join his father for the transition into supper.

Supper was interminable, spanning hours when all Mac wanted was to sleep. When Rory finally herded Mac back to camp, the horizon was still grey at the edge, the sun only just past down. Mac frowned-- dinner had been him, then, not actually as long. It was good, then, that he hadn’t complained of the length.

“Tired?” Rory asked quietly. “You were quiet tonight.”

“Thought that was typical me,” Mac shot back, instead of answering. He was tired, but only because today had been twice as long as it ought, which he could hardly explain to his cousin.

Rory patted his shoulder. “You’re only testy because you’re tired,” he said airily. “I’ll leave you to your rest.”

Mac shook his head fondly and waved Rory to his bed.

Mac was well used to a bedroll on the ground and a tent as the only wall between him and the elements, but still, dawn came terribly early after an evening of enjoying Glamis’ winecellars with his kith and king. 

Mac groaned softly and rolled out of his bedroll, using the chilly basin of water left the night before by his page, still sleeping in the corner of the tent, to rinse the sleep from his face and tame his hair back off his face. Then he dressed quietly in his leathers but left his armor, and slung his sword belt over his shoulder rather than put it on. 

He managed to get out of the tent without waking his page, and took a moment to re-lay the fire in the pit outside the tent, though he didn’t bother to light it. 

It took far longer than it ought to have. Now almost an hour past dawn, he turned towards the castle, and stood quietly in the empty space between the edge of the army’s camp and the great gates of Dunsinane. He waited patiently for what felt like five minutes and the sun said was half an hour before the small door cut in the gate swung open.

“Thank you, sir,” Malcolm said politely over his shoulder, presumably to the porter, and then joined Mac in the shadow of the castle. “Morning, Mac.”

“Good morning, your highness,” Mac answered cheerfully, just to see the twist of Malcolm’s mouth. “You know,” Mac said, “You’re going to at least have to stop making the face, even if you hate it for the rest of your life. You’re official now, and everything.”

Malcolm sighed gustily. “I know.”

“It’s not like you didn’t know it was coming.”

“It isn’t the title,” Malcolm said, a little rueful, a little shy. “It’s the distance.”

Mac tilted his head, inviting elaboration, as they both set down their sword belts and drew their swords. 

“When the others do it, it’s fine, I guess, whatever, I don’t know them,” Malcolm explained. “But when you do it, or God forfend, Don, or even Fintan, when he’s messing with me, it’s like you’ve put a wall up between us that isn’t usually there. You only ‘your highness’ me when you’re trying to step back.”

“Or when we’re teasing you,” Mac pointed out gently, knowing that was always Young Domhnall’s reasoning, and his own more than half the time. 

Malcolm’s mouth twisted. “I can’t always tell,” he admitted quietly as they squared off. “You and Don are the only ones who ever do, and I can’t-” he hesitated. “Always tell,” he finished lamely after a second. 

Mac feinted, forcing Malcolm to dodge. “Would you rather we stopped?” Mac asked, needing to know if he’d pushed too far. 

“No,” Malcolm insisted quickly, parrying Mac’s sword quite neatly and getting close enough to landing a return that Mac had to dodge. “But it’s why I make ‘the face’ as you call it.”

Mac smiled, feinting again. “I guess you can make the face at me, as long as you don’t do it in public.”

Malcolm recognized the feint and held his guard this time. “Thank you,” he drawled, playfully snide. “I hadn’t thought of it.”

Silence fell between them for a while, their sparring growing more physical. Mac checked Malcolm’s forward motion with his shoulder at one point, and Malcolm hooked one of Mac’s feet out from under him, forcing Mac to roll or fall. Malcolm caught Mac in the bicep with the flat of his blade, a stroke that in battle would have been painful but not debilitating, and grinned, pleased.

“You’ve gotten fast,” Mac told him, panting.

“Rab,” Malcolm answered shortly, equally short of breath. 

Mac nodded and came at him again. “I do,” he admitted quietly after a while, letting their bout slow and their breath return as they traded easy jabs and parries. “Title you to step back,” he added.

Malcolm tipped his head this time, waiting for the explanation. 

“You’re,” Mac paused, looking for the word, and swiped easily at Malcolm’s leg. 

Malcolm hopped the swipe, returning with one Mac could easily duck.

“Important,” Mac said finally, stepping back to circle Malcolm. “To me. But you’re also, hmm,” he muttered, dodging what turned out to be a feint from Malcolm. “A public figure, and I don’t want either get in the way or get caught in it.”

“So you step back in public,” Malcolm said keenly, keeping some space between them to examine Mac’s face.

“Exactly,” Mac said, closing the gap.

Malcolm dodged his blade entirely and rammed his shoulder straight into Mac’s chest. His foot was suddenly between Mac’s, catching on Mac’s nearer heel, and Mac flailed a bit to keep his balance.

When Mac had his limbs back under control, he found Malcolm’s sword leveled neatly at his chest. Malcolm had one eyebrow cocked playfully. 

Mac lowered his sword, bowing slightly to indicate his surrender. 

Malcolm let his own sword drift, nodding back. 

Mac dropped his sword, lowered his shoulder, and tackled Malcolm into the dirt.

Malcolm yelped, dropping his own sword, and it turned immediately to grappling like untrained boys in the dirt. 

If Mac had been surprised to find himself looking down Malcolm’s sword, it was nothing compared to the shock of finding himself belly-down in the dirt with his sword arm twisted behind his back, his free arm trapped under his own body, and Malcolm’s weight low across his hips. The hand not pinning Mac’s wrist to his spine was settled between Mac’s shoulder blades, but Mac had no doubt that had Malcolm been truly looking to subdue him, it would’ve been on his nape or in his hair.

“I Yield,” he rumbled, struggling to gain his breath back.

“You cheat,” Malcolm replied, holding a moment longer.

“All’s fair,” Mac replied, and rolled his shoulder out when Malcolm let him up. He’d dislocated it, in battle a few years ago, and it had a click now. “Where’d you learn that trick?” he asked.

“Rab,” Malcolm replied. “Of course.” 

“Of course,” Mac repeated. He should’ve guessed, probably; one, Rab had done most of the training not done by Mac himself, and two, the move oozed Rab’s take-no-prisoners approach to warfare.

“He taught me a lot,” Malcolm said. “But he was never as warm with me as you were.”

“Presumably why you’re out here with me and not in the courtyard with him.”

“That,” Malcolm said, a hint of mischief in his voice, “And he never gets up early after his first night home.”

Mac was tired enough that it took him a moment, and then he wrinkled his nose at Malcolm. “None of that,” he protested.

Malcolm grinned at him, keen eyes bright and sparkling in the morning sunlight. “All right,” he agreed. “Best of three?” he asked, picking his sword up from where he’d dropped it under Mac’s tackle.

Mac eyed the height of the sun. “Let’s make it five,” he answered, and couldn’t help but return Malcolm’s brilliant grin.

The king decided to take luncheon in his chambers with his sons, so the Thanes, freed briefly from the formality of their liege, took their luncheon in the camp, with their feet kicked up around the fire in front of Mac’s tent.

The others wandered off relatively quickly, but Rab and Boyd stayed at Mac’s fire until it was just the three of them and Rory. 

Rab sighed, hands folded behind his head. “Not bad, eh?” he said. “Well fed, victory behind us, in the king’s graces.”

“There are worse lives to live, for certain,” Boyd agreed cheerfully, shooting a look at Rab that Mac couldn’t read. 

“We could be French,” Rory offered. 

“Or English,” Rab agreed. 

Rory and Boyd both spit. 

Mac rolled his eyes fondly. He blinked, and had definitely missed a significant portion of the conversation, because Rab had moved the log he was sitting on closer to Rory to better wave his hands to make his point, and Boyd had abandoned his log entirely in favor of sitting in the dirt leaning on the log. 

In a break in whatever Rab was haranguing Rory about, Boyd told Mac, “You’re quiet.”

“That’s what I said!” Rory interrupted himself to shout, pointing at Mac. “He will insist that’s typical him, but it’s not! ”

“ You said it was typical me,” Mac told Rory. “Two days ago, to Malcolm!”

“Beside the point,” Rory said loftily. “You’re being weird .”

“Not everyone is as wordy as you, Rory,” Rab said placatingly. “Mac’s hoarded his words since he was Young Domhnall’s age or before. Long as I’ve known him, to be sure.”

Mac made a rude gesture at Rab. “Just don’t have much to say,” he told Boyd, since Boyd actually seemed interested in the answer. “I looked Fate in the face, in the battle, and I don’t know that I liked what I saw,” he admitted.

Rory nudged their boots together companionably.

“She’s a strange mistress,” Boyd said, something odd in his face. “But what did you see that disturbed you so?”

“Inevitability,” Mac answered. “The Thane of Fife dies in battle-- we all have, as long as the McAfee’s have held the title. I just hope I wait long enough that Keir’s of age before I do. If it had been last week,” he trailed off. “I’m not ready to leave Catriona and the boys. They’re not ready for me to be gone.” He shrugged. “And I could’ve been. If you hadn’t been on time, I would’ve been.”

That was the truth. If the army had not arrived, Mac and his small force would have fought to the death eliminating as many of the Norwegians as they could, in the hopes that St. Andrews could withstand a siege long enough for the army to arrive.

Rab huffed a dismissive noise. “I don’t believe in fate,” he said. “Nothing says you have to die in battle. We were in time, and it’ll be a new king on Norway’s throne before they’re bold enough to come calling again. Who’re we going to war with, the English?” He shook his head. “Nah,” he said. “Die in your bed, Mac. The cub certainly won’t put you in the field if you don’t want to be there. And Domhnall won’t be king for ever.”

The sun flashed in Boyd’s as he glanced at Rab, but Mac couldn’t tell if it was surprise or reproach in his gaze. 

Mac just shrugged at Rab. “I’ll do as I’m needed,” he answered, resigned to it. Time would betray him in the end, like it had his father. 

“Loyal Mac,” Boyd said. “Too good for the rest of us, by far.”

Mac rolled his eyes, shaking his head. “You’re maudlin,” he returned. “I fit right in with everyone.”

“Maybe,” Boyd murmured oddly, and he closed his eyes and said no more.

Rab rolled his eyes dramatically. “He is maudlin,” he told Mac. “He’s just sulking because Ewan insulted his spyglass.”

Rory shook his head. “Rude,” he drawled.

Rab nodded solemnly. “Deeply rude. And therefore totally in character for Ewan.”

Mac had to agree. Ewan was a deadly fighter, a fierce friend, and a total asshole. ”It’s a lovely spyglass,” Mac told Boyd bracingly.

Boyd’s eyes opened again. “I know you’re just trying to make me feel better,” he said, eyes narrow, “But I will take it, because it is a lovely spyglass.”

Rab huffed a low laugh. “Now,” he said, “I have to go. Because I don’t know if you heard, but I will be throwing a party tonight.”

“I might’ve heard something along those lines somewhere,” Rory agreed, nodding sagely.

“Good,” Rab said. “You can come help.”

Rory squawked in offense, but let Rab scruff him and drag him off. He was, despite being overly chatty, a solid planner with a good head for details. Of the three of them, he was definitely the one to ask to help organize a party.

Mac dropped off the log to lean back against it, mirroring Boyd. “You’re quiet too,” he observed when Rab and Rory were gone. 

Boyd hummed softly in agreement. After a moment, apropos of nothing, Boyd asked, “Do you believe in magic?”

Mac blinked. “What brought that on?” Mac asked, stalling for time as he fumbled for an answer.

“Straightforward question,” Boyd answered. “Just idle curiosity.”

Mac frowned. “You don’t do idle,” he accused.

Boyd tipped his head in agreement. “But the question stands.”

“Witchcraft?” Mac clarified.

Boyd shrugged. “Sure, since you named it that.”

“No,” Mac said definitively. 

“But since you had to clarify, there are types of magic you believe in?”

How could he not, when time ebbed and flowed around him like a horse on a long lead orbiting the tie in search of grass? “I suppose,” he said slowly. “Fae folk and strange spirits. The world’s too weird for it not to be. There are sacred places, and not sacred to our God, that you can feel when you enter. I’ll believe that.”

“But not witches?” 

“Humans have not that power, except by God’s hand, and He’ll none of that.”

“Fair,” Boyd said. He stared into the distance, mind a long way away.

“Dare I ask again what brought this on?” Mac asked.

Boyd met his gaze. “Ask again and I’ll tell you, friend,” Boyd said. “But I think you’ll like the knowledge even less than I do.”

“I see it sits disquietly within you,” Mac said. 

“So do you ask?” Boyd asked. He looked like he desperately wanted Mac to, like he didn’t want to carry his weight alone, and also like he couldn’t bear to weigh Mac down with it.

Mac considered it for a long time. “Not yet,” he said finally.

Boyd nodded. “I think we all may know in time anyway. I fear it.”

Mac bit his tongue hard. He did not want to know, not if it made Boyd so raw, but he desperately wanted to relieve some of his friend’s disquiet. “Can I help?”

Boyd smiled wanly. “You do, Mac,” he said gently. “You do.” He looked out to the horizon over the camp again. “Weather’s changing,” he said eventually, eyeing the clouds. “It’ll be a bad night.”

“Spare a thought for us outside in tents while you sleep snug in the castle,” Mac teased gently. 

Boyd smiled that terribly wan smile again. “I shall,” he said, mind clearly far away. 

Mac almost asked, just to know, but fear burned his heart far more than curiosity burned his stomach. He fumbled for something. “Chess?” he offered.

Boyd actually looked at him. “I’ll be a terrible opponent,” he warned, but he was already shifting to rise.

“Maybe I’ll stand a chance, then,” Mac answered, leading the way into his tent to find the chess set. 

Dinner was a lively affair. Mac was seated on Malcolm’s right, one seat down from the King, with Young Domhnall and Fintan across from them. Rory was on Mac’s right, and Ewan the next seat down, so their side of the conversation was full of cheer, banter, and nonsense, between Fintan and Ewan, plus Rory’s irrepressible sense of outrage. 

Mac had feared it would drag interminably as so many of the social occasions he had attended lately had done, but it didn’t. The conversation around him kept a steady, normal cadence, and while he did miss most of the soup course, he was pretty sure that was just him daydreaming a Catriona, not time shifting around him again. 

At the end of the meal, as they were rising and turning each in their orders to leave the King’s presence, Domhnall stopped Mac. “You rise most orderly at dawn, do you not?”

“Aye sire,” Mac agreed.

“Most excellent. You will come and wake Us most precisely on the hour of seven, and we shall part ways with breakfast. We know Fife has great need of you, and you have kindly kept Us company by Our desires despite your own needs. We will keep you no longer, but We do desire to say Our farewells properly.”

Mac bowed. “It has been no difficulty to be in your company sire, and I will yearn for it even as I yearn for home. I will come most promptly to you in the morning,” he promised, and took his leave with a grateful glance at Malcolm.

As Boyd had predicted, the weather had turned and the wind was blowing gustily through the hills. It didn’t smell like a storm, though Mac thought they’d get rain in the small hours, but the wind seemed unable to decide which direction to go, and twirled their cloaks around their legs and their hair about their faces as the Thanes made their way back to the camp. 

Mac had banked the fire before he left for the banquet, but he spread the coals out more when he arrived back at his tent, to make sure the wind wouldn’t throw sparks as the coals died. There was no need to relight the fire in the morning, and he didn’t want to risk burning tents because of the weather. 

An owl cried, the familiar twit-twoo of a common tawny owl splitting the air, and Mac wondered if the hunting could be any good in the wind. 

He ducked into the tent, and his page startled up. 

“Easy, lad,” Mac soothed. “You all right?”

“There’s been strange noises,” the boy admitted. “Since the wind started.”

“The owl?” Mac offered.

The boy shook his head. “Proper screams, sounded like, sir,” he said. “You’ll see. They’ve been pretty regular.” He stepped forward to help Mac with his jerkin and doublet. 

In just his shirt and hose, Mac took one last circle of the tent to check the stakes and ropes to make sure it wouldn’t come down in the wind, and the weatherproof leather covering was sound. As he was circling back to the entrance, he did, indeed, hear what sounded like a shriek. 

He cocked his head, listening, and there was a second a moment later, a slightly different pitch and cadence. 

“Pretty sure it’s a bird,” he told Ellar, coming back in. He couldn’t have named the species, but the repetition and pattern made him think it was an animal call, not a human noise. 

Ellar looked like he desperately wanted to believe Mac, so he was going to. 

“Go to sleep, lad,” Mac advised him. “I’m to wake the king just past dawn and then we’re heading back to Fife.”

“Yes sir,” Ellar answered, heading to his pallet obediently. He flinched when the noise rent the air again. 

Mac dozed through the intermittent night-cries, but woke suddenly sometime in the small hours as the shriek noise elongated. He lay, staring at the sloping fabric of the tent in the dark, counting heartbeats as the cry dragged out into a horror-noise of fear and pain; it was no longer, in the stretch and warp of it, just the call of an animal.

Mac closed his eyes again, breathing slow and even as the cry finally cut off abruptly. 

It was difficult, Mac thought, in the dark of the night, with Boyd’s weird solemnity and Rab’s weird intensity, and the discussion about magic, with time unreliable and some strange bird shrieking in the wind, to not have a terrible sense of foreboding. 

Someone just at the edge of Mac’s earshot shouted muffled words and then cut off abruptly, probably a nightmare hushed by a comrade. It was perhaps comforting that other people were having as poor sleep as Mac was, but it also deepened his unease. 

Mac set his jaw and breathed through it, repeating that there was nothing to be done, anyway, and he would be better with a good night’s sleep than facing whatever he dreaded exhausted. 

Ellar whimpered in his sleep, and Mac hummed a low note, fumbling for it a moment before finding the melody to the song Catriona sang to the boys when they had nightmares. 

He hummed the song through once, feeling the tension ease out of his own limbs. Even another bird-cry-shriek didn’t startle him too badly with Catriona’s song on his lips.

Mac let the song end, closed his eyes, and counted backwards until he fell asleep again. 

The night seemed very long; it could have been time, stretching out on him, or it could simply have been the unruly night.

Mac roused just before dawn, dressed in his traveling leathers and armor, and roused Ellar to begin packing up their gear. Then he turned for the castle, and his duty to his king.

Despite the hard winds in the night, the sky was clear, and the sun was dawning bright and unencumbered by cloud nor mortal concern. 

He met Ewan in the packed-dirt road before the great gates. The Thane of Lennox looked uncharacteristically grim. “Did you sleep?” he asked.

Mac sawed a hand, shrugging. “Not well,” he acknowledged, and knocked on the gate. 

“Then you did better than most,” Ewan said, and the deep bags and hard lines in his face supported his words. “Then men think it is a premonition of bad travel.”

Mac eyed the sky. “Not the weather,” he said, confident. “And I struggle to think of a band of brigands or kerns that might face this army undaunted, we having so recently claimed two victories.”

Ewan shrugged. “I promised to report it to His Majesty post-haste and advise delay. It was the only way I could even get the men moving to pack. They want to stay here until the signs are better.”

Mac sighed. “The King’ll have something to say to that,” he guessed. “He’s set to move homeward.”

“So are we all, but I heard the screaming in the night too. I can’t blame them for being unsettled.”

“It was a bird,” he told Ewan, just as he’d told Ellar.

Ewan gave him a skeptical look. “What kind,” he said flatly, phrased as a question but without the lift of one.

Mac shrugged. He didn’t know, and Ewan knew it, but he had to believe it, or he’d talk himself in circles and get lost in fear, just like the men.

Ewan shook his head and lifted a hand to pound on the small door on the great gates. “Looks like we weren’t the only ones carousing late into the night,” he observed as they heard the shuffling, slow footsteps of the porter, much delayed. 

Just before the gate swung open, Mac’s heart lurched in his chest and his stomach drew tight with a deep, unnamable dread. He wanted to throw his hands out and stop the door, stop Ewan, stop time , but he couldn’t--he’d never had control over it--, and the door opened.

The porter looked deeply, unpleasantly hungover, but he fumbled his way through bows, and admitted them, muttering pleasantries.

Rab was crossing the courtyard towards them. “Ah,” he said, catching sight of them and smiling.

Mac’s heart eased. All could not be that terrible if Rab was still at his ease. “Morning Rab,” he said, breathing slowly through his nose to try to release the tightness in his chest.

“Good morning, Mac, Ewan. You’re here early.”

“His majesty bade me call upon him as early as I may; I fear I’ve waited too long as-is. Is he awake?”

Rab shrugged. “I’ve not seen him this morning, but he may be awake in his chambers. Come, I’ll show you.”

Mac and Ewan fell in with Rab. 

“Sleep well?” Rab asked. “It was windy, I know.”

Ewan barked a rough laugh. “No,” he said dryly. 

Rab made a curious noise, an invitation to continue, as he opened the door into the public part of the suite he’d given the king.

Mac left them in the receiving room of the king’s quarters talking about the strange night, and ducked down the short hall to knock on the bedroom door. 

There was no answer, so Mac knocked again, louder, and tried the handle, which swung. “Sire?” he called hesitatingly as he cracked the door open. 

The room was still dim, and Mac had to step back into the corridor for a torch from the wall. The circle of light illuminated odd dark patches on the stone floor, and more of them as he drew nearer the bed.

For a moment, his brain refused to register them. 

“Sire?”

The king’s eyes were open, his mouth twisted in a terrible snarl. The sheets were stained in the same dark, and it registered as blood the same moment Mac realized Domhnall was dead. 

He stumbled back hard and dropped the torch. Bile rose in his throat. He was shaking. His blood rushed in his ears. He stumbled back again, nearly falling.

Strong arms caught him. “Mac?” Rab asked in his ear, holding him steady. “Are you-?” he choked off with a noise of dismay.

Distantly, Mac realized he was muttering, “No, no, no,” over and over, and he pressed a hand over his mouth to make himself stop. He steadied himself on the wall.

Rab released him and retrieved the torch from where Mac had dropped it, and relit it from one in the hall. His face was carven stone, grim and terrible, and his eyes burned from within. 

Mac closed his eyes as Rab lit the torches in the room, but he couldn’t avoid the scene forever. There was blood everywhere. The bed was drowned in it, from the gory mess of the- the body, Mac forced himself to acknowledge. It splattered across the floors, in an ugly trail to the pallets of the two body-servants that stayed near the king. 

Mac thought they must have been dead as well, so much blood there was on their sheets and pillows, but they stirred as Rab lit the torches near them, muttering in sleepy incomprehension. 

One sat up, and a gory dagger fell away from his body onto the floor.

Rab snarled in fury, and Mac felt the same rage in his chest. 

Rab grabbed the man by the throat and slammed him to the wall, snarling invectives into his face.

The second servant wailed and bolted.

Mac caught him by the collar and forced him to his knees. “ Why ?” he demanded, anguished.

“I- we- I didn’t!” the man wailed.

Rab backhanded him to the floor. “Don’t lie, ” he snarled. “You’re covered in the evidence.”

“I don’t know,” the man stammered. “I don’t remember!” he buried his face in his knees and shook, weeping and repeating that he didn’t know.

The other servant was dead--Rab hadn’t checked his great strength when he’d grabbed him, and his neck had broken. 

Mac reeled away, still ill and sick. The smell of the blood in the room was choking him, and he stumbled to the receiving room, which had a window. 

“Mac?” Ewan asked, concern in his voice.

Mac waved him off, waved him towards the room. He leaned his cheek against the glass of the window, finding his vision blurred with tears. 

He was distantly aware of commotion behind him, shouting and bustling, but he didn’t turn till he heard Malcolm’s voice.

“What’s going on?” Malcolm asked, something sharp in his voice.

“Your highness,” Ewan said, hands up, placatingly. 

“Cub,” Mac rasped, holding a hand out.

Malcolm crossed to him immediately. “Mac?” he said, concerned.

Mac dragged him into a hug. “I’m sorry,” Mac muttered into his hair. “Your father--” he broke, and then made himself say it. Malcolm deserved to hear it from him. “Your father’s dead.”

Malcolm went totally still in his arms for a moment, and then cracked, head tipping to Mac’s shoulder and his muscles going loose like a broken marionette. He choked out a single sob, and then wrenched away, his face blazing with grief and fury. “How,” he demanded, looking from Ewan to Rab to the gathered assorted persons, all of whom had frozen when he’d come in. 

“His servants were bribed,” Rab answered promptly. “Ewan found the purse in their things.” He frowned and looked away. “They’re dead,” he added, something perhaps a little chagrined in his otherwise steady tone. “I lost my temper.”

Young Domhnall was standing with Boyd in the doorway. “Mal,” he said softly. 

Malcolm crossed to him immediately, dragging the younger boy into a one-armed hug, eyes still on Rab. “I know the feeling,” Malcolm said fiercely. “I want to know who.”

Boyd cleared his throat. “Perhaps a moment to collect ourselves?” he suggested, face white. 

The princes were still in their sleep clothes, Boyd was shaking, Mac thought he still might vomit, and Ewan looked like he wanted to tear something in his hands. They weren’t going to be productive like this. 

Rab nodded. To his steward, also in the mass of humanity in too small a place, he ordered, “Breakfast in the hall. And have someone finish clearing up in there. Keep the evidence.”

“Yes lord,” the man said, and the servants all dispersed at a trot. 

Rab went to tell his wife the news, Boyd went to dress, and Ewan waved vaguely in the direction of the great hall.

Mac enfolded the two grieving boys to his chest.

Malcolm choked down another sob. He hid his face in the curve of Mac’s shoulder, fair head bowed, whole body trembling.

“It’s all right,” Mac soothed. “You can cry, lad,” he whispered into Malcolm’s hair.

Malcolm sobbed. 

Domhnall had leaned into Mac at first, but now he was still as stone, eyes dry. “You’re next,” he said, voice raw with terrible certainty.

Malcolm lifted his head, face wet and eyes red. 

Mac went cold. 

If someone had killed the king for the throne, Malcolm-- and Domhnall, too, no longer Young, just the only--were next in line, as next in the way.

Mac’s mind raced. “You have to hide,” he told them. “Till we know who did it.”

Malcolm looked years older in a moment. “I trust no one but you,” he told Mac. “There’s nowhere we can go.”

“Ride for Fife,” Mac answered. “Catriona will look after you till I can send news.”

Malcolm and Domhnall exchanged glances. “We’re safer apart,” Domhnall said slowly, wheels already turning behind his eyes. He was very much his father’s son, in all the ways Malcolm wasn’t. 

“Where will you go?” Malcolm asked.

“Lochaber,” Domhnall answered. “I’ve friends there, among the peasantry. Boyd won’t even know I’m there.”

That the younger prince wasn’t even sure he trusted Boyd and Finatn struck deep in Mac’s chest. “Run,” he said hoarsely. “Best be gone before anyone knows you’re planning to be.”

Malcolm hugged him once more, tightly, and shed a single tear against Mac’s neck before he jerked away and darted out the door after his brother. 

Mac walked slowly towards the great hall, time and the corridor stretching around him, heart like molten lead in his chest.

“Now will you tell me?” Mac asked Boyd. 

Except Ewan, who was staring vaguely into space and hadn’t acknowledged Mac when he came in, they were alone in the hall, so far, but the others would be there soon, he didn’t doubt. 

“Not here,” Boyd answered, face grim. He’d put on his armor, and wore his sword.

Mac’s heart clenched. He didn’t even want to consider what it might mean, that Boyd didn’t want to speak there . 

Greer arrived next, her eyes red-rimmed and her face grey and exhausted. She looked old suddenly, in a way Mac had never considered her to be before, despite the nearly fifteen years she had on him. 

Rab followed her shortly, his face troubled. He too was armed and armored. He’d sent runners to the camp, so Rory, Cinaed, Torquil, Gilchrist, and Eideard came together, looking fraught. 

“What the hell kind of message was that?” Gilchrist demanded. “What’s the matter?”

Rory had taken in Mac’s face, and he stepped back, like he didn’t want the news, already starting to shake his head.

“The king is dead,” Rab said. 

They could have heard a mouse shift. Torquil sat down hard, right on the floor where he stood. Eideard, near the wall still, leaned heavily into it. 

“How?” Gilchrist choked.

Rab looked to Mac.

Mac shrugged helplessly. “I went to wake him,” he said slowly. “When he didn’t answer, I went in. Took a torch. There was blood,” his voice cracked. “He’d been stabbed several times, and his throat slit.” He would see the image behind his eyelids every time he closed them for a long time to come, he did not doubt. 

“We found his servants bloody, bearing knives,” Rab said. “And a purse with nearly twenty pounds in assorted coins in their bags.”

“You should not have killed them,” Greer said, voice ragged. She was hugging her arms close to her body, and had one hand over her mouth as if to stifle any noises that might try to escape.

“No,” Rab agreed. “I lost my temper.”

“Good God, man, why?” Gilchrist demanded.

Rab gestured futilely. “The blood- If you’d seen-” he gestured again. His eyes closed. “His face,” he whispered, voice cracking.

“I was right there with you,” Mac told him. He remembered the way his own hands had shaken around the collar of the second servant, the way he’d wanted to grab his throat. “But I do wish we could question them.” With only the purse, with the two men dead, there was no way to know who had ordered the deed.

Rab sighed. “ Someone paid them off.”

There was a shifting as they all looked around, but no one wanted to look at each other.

“Where are the princes?” Boyd asked suddenly.

Silence fell as they all looked around, registering who they were missing. After a moment, Ewan, Rab, and Boyd all looked at Mac. Seeing this, the others did too.

Mac shook his head. “I sent them to get changed,” he said, which was true enough, he supposed.

“Alone?” Ewan said, alarmed. He was already moving to the door.

Boyd followed him, hand  on his sword hilt.

“Together,” Mac replied. 

“They were roomed together,” Rab agreed, jogging to catch up with Ewan and Boyd. “I’ll show you.”

They waited in jagged silence none of them knew how to fill.

Mac prayed; he prayed for Domhnall’s soul, he prayed the princes made their escape cleanly, and he prayed they would get to the bottom of this.

Rory silently offered a handkerchief, and it was only then that Mac realized his face was wet. 

Mac just pressed his face into the fabric, leaning into Rory’s arm as it wound around him. 

“They’re gone,” Rab reported grimly from the door of the hall. Mac couldn’t read the expression on his face.

“Signs of a struggle?” Rory asked, squeezing Mac’s arm. 

“Signs they packed in a hurry,” Rab answered. “They’ve run. Must’ve left as soon as they parted from Mac. Boyd and Ewan went to check the stables, and the watch.”

Mac lifted his head. “They seemed all right to me,” he said. “Just sad.”

“Malcolm seemed stilted,” Ewan said slowly.

“His father is dead,” Rory snapped. “I think anyone would take it hard.”

“Why run, though?” Rab asked. His face was still strange, the tension in it not a kind Mac recognized despite their years of association.

“Well someone murdered the king,” Eideard drawled. “Perhaps they thought the prince might be next?”

“We would have protected them!” Rab insisted; his eyes were wrong, for worry.

Mac bit down hard to keep from saying, ‘like his father?’ 

“This is pointless,” Torquil said. “What do we do now?” 

“The king is dead, his heir has vanished,” Gilchrist said. “Someone must take over until Malcolm is found, or decided unfit.”

“Closest kin is Greer,” Cinaed said slowly. “Rab should do it.”

Rab took a step back. “Me?”

“You’d be next in line for the throne, by rank, inheritance, and merit,” Eideard agreed. “You should be regent until the council decides.”

“Of course, if that’s what’s needed, but, that-” Greer’s hand on his arm cut off his fumbling. Rab offered a half bow. “Yes,” he said after a moment. “Of course I will serve.” He looked at all of them. “Cinead, return to the army and settle the camp; we’ll stay here until the ceremonies can be done and his body sent to Colmekill. Gilchrist, Eideard, will you send messages to bring the rest of the council here as soon as may be? Mac, I know you meant to start for Fife today, but I could use your strength, friend.”

Mac nodded, as did the others. Rab gave his orders, and they dispersed. Mac was grateful that he and Rory were sent to mind the encampment-- he wasn’t fit for society just then, and he wanted his cousin with him.

Mac walked alone onto the moors a ways, wind in his hair and the late afternoon sun on his face. He felt scraped hollow, and he’d never wished so hard for time to move faster. It didn’t.

He found himself praying again, for safety for the princes, for justice for his king, and for direction for himself. His eyes stung, his throat was tight, but he had no tears left to weep, not for his fallen king, and not for two fatherless boys who should have been with their friends grieving. He could still feel the tear Malcolm had left on his neck as though it were a brand on his skin.

“I’ll tell you now, if you like.”

Mac turned in surprise.

Boyd had followed him out into the hills. They were alone as far as they could see, and the wind tore their words to pieces the moment they left the space between them. It was as safe as it could be. 

“Why did you ask me about magic?” Mac asked.

Boyd looked bleak. “On the way off the battlefield at Fife, Rab and I seemed to fall into… a pocket perhaps. It was Fife and yet not Fife-- the light was wrong, and the sounds of the field vanished. Three… things greeted us. Humans, and yet not. Women, and yet not. They greeted Rab by the titles ‘Thane of Glamis’, ‘Thane of Cawdor’, and ‘King’.”

Mac shifted convulsively. 

Boyd carried on relentlessly. “The pocket was perhaps a bubble, because it burst, and we were back at the camp. And the next day the King made Rab the Thane of Cawdor.” Boyd shook his head. “The Fated Figures had told me my line would get kings, and that night Rab asked me if I now wondered if Fintan would be king someday. I teased him that perhaps he now dreamed of the crown himself. I didn’t think I was serious.”

“But now you fear you were,” Mac said. “And so was he.”

Boyd shrugged helplessly. “And two days after that he tells you he doesn’t believe in fate. And a day after that, he’s regent, and the prince has fled. How can I know what to think?”

“You know him better than anyone,” Mac said quietly.

Boyd nodded. “And I know him enough to know he loved the king, and that he always wanted more. I know enough to know he felt little enough remorse at killing men, but that he doesn’t do it carelessly.” He huffed out a wry, bitter laugh. “I know enough to know he doesn’t lose his temper.”

Mac looked away. It was suspicion, nothing more, and it ate at his heart. Rab had taught Mac almost everything he knew of the sword, battle, and horsemanship. Rab had served relentlessly, tirelessly, and honorably for nearly thirty years. Rab had been the only person with access to the King’s rooms, and he’d seemingly been promised the crown.

He couldn’t bear to think of it any more. “Did you find where the princes were going?” Mac asked to change the subject, remembering Boyd had gone to the stables and to ask the watch.

Boyd shook his head. “The stablehands saw nothing, nor did the watch. They must have left by the side gate, but there’s no trail to follow.”

“Maybe for the best,” Mac wondered. 

Boyd met his eyes. “I agree they would not have lasted another night here, with their father’s murderer still on the loose, but I think their absence will have Rab on the throne before long.”

Mac nodded. “Do you think-?” he started to ask.

Boyd held up his hands. “Please don’t,” he said, voice breaking. “Don’t ask me that.”

Mac nodded, and left Boyd on the moor.

The formal funerary rites were performed only two days later, in the great hall at Dunsinane. Everyone important was present--except the princes--and once the ceremonies were over, the body would be borne overland to Colmekill to be interred. 

There had been no word of the princes. Mac, of course, was of the opinion that no news was good news, but most of the rest of the Thanes worried about it terribly, and the rumor mill was flying. 

Mac had heard, over the course of the two days, that they’d been killed, kidnapped, were in hiding under Rab’s protection, had fled to the Welsh mountains, had defected to Norway, and had in fact murdered their father themselves and then fled the crime.

Boyd had snapped at the stupidity of that last: “Why kill him for the throne and then run for it?” 

No one else had offered anything even halfway thoughtful in response to any of the other ideas. Boyd watched Mac with steady eyes, but no one else--even Rab, who’d asked him to stay to support him--payed him any mind at all. 

Mac stood as near to the back as he was allowed, in the shadows of a column, and kept his head bowed. The priest’s words dragged and stretched, and Mac counted breaths, counted heartbeats, and tried to burn the images into his mind.

Malcolm should be here, Mac thought helplessly. His heart hurt. Malcolm should be a man grown, standing beside his father’s coffin. His brother should be beside him, and they should have the support of the entire court. 

There was a viper somewhere in the room, Mac thought, chest empty and stomach tight. 

Time snapped back into place as they processed from the funerary ceremony to the memorial feast, and Rory fell in at his elbow. He looked as blank and hollow as Mac felt. 

Rory didn’t try to carry the conversation the way he usually did, and they sat in heavy but not uncomfortable silence as conversation around the rest of the mourners ebbed and flowed. Mac could hear remembrances of the dead and speculations of what was to come, but neither he and Rory, nor Ewan sitting across from them, joined in. 

Ewan looked lost, like something fundamental had come out of his world.

Mac felt much the same. 

At the end of the meal, Ewan finally looked up from his plate and met Mac’s eyes. “You really don’t know anything of the princes?” he asked, voice hoarse like he hadn’t used it in days.

Mac shook his head. He was a terrible liar, but he’d go to his grave for Malcolm’s safety, and everyone was so out of sorts that he managed to get away with it.

“He’ll be crowned in days, not weeks, then,” Ewan said, flicking a gaze towards Rab.

Mac nodded, resigned to the situation. But there was no way he was bringing Malcolm back into the reach of anyone who might want him dead. It wasn’t as if Mac and Boyd could voice their suspicions to anyone; hells, Mac could scarcely articulate them in his own thoughts, and Boyd had outright rejected naming them. 

“I’ll stick around for the coronation,” Rory said, shrugging.

“Aye,” Ewan said. “I’m curious.”

Mac shook his head. “I’m going home,” he murmured. “Before dawn tomorrow.”

“I’ll make your excuses,” Rory promised. 

Ewan shook his head. “Thought the McAfee’s always bore the crown.”

Mac shrugged. “Rory can do it. He’s McAfee by marriage, or near enough. I’m needed in Fife. I stayed too long as-is. I can’t stay another week.”

Ewan shrugged. Rory patted his shoulder. Mac tipped his glass in silent toast to their fallen liege, and they fell silent again.

Mac rode alone back to Fife. He’d sent Ellar and his small retinue back to St. Andrews with missives for Catriona when it became apparent he would be staying at Dunsinane longer, so he made the ride alone in the aftermath of the funeral.

Eideard had offered to ride with him, or send some men, but Mac wanted the quiet. It was faster alone anyway. 

Catriona flew into his arms in the courtyard as he handed his horse off to the hostler, and he gratefully buried his face in her neck. 

“Oh, Love,” Catriona murmured. She pulled back to look at his face, and immediately started towing him towards their room. Alone, away from watching eyes, she crawled into his arms and held on tight while he shook with all the emotion he’d suppressed for days.

“The cub?” he choked after a while.

Catriona petted him slowly. “At the old hermitage, off the river,” she answered. “Nobody knows he’s there but me and Ellar, who I sent with some supplies after he got here with your message.”

Mac nodded. He would trust Ellar with Malcolm’s life. He leaned his head gratefully into Catriona’s neck again, exhaling slowly. “I have a terrible fear,” he admitted to her shoulder. “That this ends bloody.”

“Things that start bloody rarely end elsewise,” Catriona said sensibly. 

“They’re going to name Rab king, because they think Malcolm’s fled out of guilt.”

Catriona huffed, and he didn’t need to see her roll her eyes to know that she had. “That’s plain stupid.”

Mac hummed. 

“Could do worse than Rab,” Catriona said. “He’s a good head on his shoulders and no one knows court better than Greer.”

Mac made a low noise. He didn’t know how to tell her another man’s fantastical tale that had left the coal burning beneath Mac’s breast. He didn’t want her to have to carry that weight, and he didn’t know how to say it to make it not a foolish fantasy. 

“Hush now,” Catriona murmured, sing-song and sweet. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

Mac closed his eyes and leaned into her, trying to believe her.

That afternoon, Catriona took him and the boys on a walk through fields, showing him the work of the spring planting. They’d rushed it, and finished despite the setback of the invasion. The three boys spent the walk out telling their father everything that had happened while he was away. Keir and Aidan had helped with the planting this year, and Niall had gotten to stay up late one night as part of the watch over the pregnant cows as the calving season began. 

Catriona had to interject sometimes, laughing, to clarify something one of the boys said, or to make them breathe as they spoke, or force them to take turns. It was the joyful chaos of his family Mac had most missed in the days he’d been gone. The sun above, warming them, time taffy-stretched and slow around him, making every touch and every word linger sweetly, and his family cheerful and laughing around him.

Fife did not, truly, need him there, despite what he’d told everyone at Dunsinane so he could leave . This fact was made abundantly clear as they walked out to the fields, but as Catriona released the boys to do as they pleased as long as they stayed in earshot of Mac’s whistles, Mac couldn’t regret his return. He needed them.

“I’m glad you’re back, my love,” Catriona told him as they walked slowly back towards the village and the castle, arm linked around his. 

Keir’s voice was audible in tone if not words, issuing orders to his brothers as they bounded through the scrub brush beside the road, at what was like as not a hunt for beetles, at least based on past walks like this, and Niall’s current fixation.

“I needed to be here,” he said roughly.

“We had it handled,” she said. “You needn’t have rushed on our account.”

“I wasn’t,” he admitted. “I needed you and the boys.”

She leaned up to kiss his cheek. “This has you more upset than I think I realized,” she said softly.

Mac searched for the words. “He’s not a cub anymore,” he said finally. “He beat me squarely, with a sword three of five and grappling once.” Even alone in the fields, he did not dare speak Malcolm’s name aloud.

“Of?” Catriona asked.

“Just the once,” Mac said. 

Catriona nodded knowingly. “Didn’t try again after he pinned you, hey?”

Mac tipped his head in sheepish acknowledgement.

Niall, his youngest, scuttled up just then. “Papa, look!” He thrust out a large green beetle. It was a new one, as far as Mac could recall.

Mac examined the specimen closely with appropriate admiration. “That is a lovely shade of green. Wouldn’t your Mama look lovely in a dress that color?”

Niall looked from the beetle to his mother, eyes wide. He nodded vigorously. 

Catriona looked at the beetle as well. “He looks like a good friend to the plants, my love. Best leave him where he’s happiest.”

“We’ll put him back,” Aidan promised, emerging rumpled from the brush beside them. He was nearly eleven, and desperately wanted to be as grown up as Keir seemed to him to be. 

Mostly because Keir kept all his still-childish habits away from his brothers; he took his responsibility as the oldest very seriously. He came to herd Niall back to the brush so they could return the beetle.

“He’s grown, and he’s shrewd,” Mac continued to Catriona when the boys moved away again, modulating his pace to keep them from leaving the boys behind or reaching the castle too soon. “And he’s strong, picked his head up and squared his shoulders to face a threat even with the tears still on his face from grief.”

Catriona nodded. “He was very brave, when I saw him.”

“But he’s still my cub,” Mac admitted softly. “And I hate that he’s grieving his father alone. He didn’t get the funerary celebrations, he hasn’t got his brother.”

“Or you,” Catriona interjected.

“Any support,” Mac answered. “But he’s safer if I don’t go to him. And it kills me.”

Catriona squeezed his arm. “He knows he has you, even if you’re not there. And he knows he has Domhnall. And it isn’t forever. It may do him some good, some time to grieve before he has to step up and be in the public eye again.”

Mac didn’t say he wasn’t sure how that day might come. “You’re wiser than I,” was all he could say in response, and then the porter hailed them from the castle gates, and they could no longer talk freely. The sun was nearly down, and Mac didn’t know when that had happened, but he didn’t seem to have missed any of Catriona’s conversation, so he didn’t think on it.

Mac whistled a few bars of the piper’s recall tune for the boys.

Keir whistled back an acknowledgement, and the three of them tumbled out of the brush a moment later, and trotted to catch up with their parents, arguing animatedly about something or another.

“Papa,” Keir asked Mac the next day as Keir shadowed Mac through his sword forms. His brothers were inside at their lessons, but Keir had gotten an early start on his book work that he might spend the morning training with Mac before returning to his books when Mac turned to accounts for the castle.

“What is it, Keir?”

“Is Prince Malcolm all right?”

Mac paused his form to look at his son. “What do you mean?”

Keir looked up at him, stern and serious. He was thirteen and had all of Catriona’s fierce beauty-- her too-narrow and elfin face, her liquid, dark eyes, her burnished copper hair--and all of Mac’s quiet steadiness. Aidan and Niall were both Catriona all through, but Keir took after Mac in temperament. “His papa just died, it’s all anyone talks about,” Keir said slowly. “And no one’s said anything about him. I don’t think I’d be all right if something happened to you,” he added. He bit his lip. “I don’t want you to leave again, but maybe you should help him.”

Mac drew Keir into a fierce hug. “You’re a kind heart, son,” he said softly. “I don’t think he is okay, Keir, but I can’t go help him.”

“Is that why you’re upset?” Keir asked.

Mac nodded. “One of the reasons, yes,” he agreed. “I wish I could help Malcolm. But he’s hiding, and he’s got to keep hiding.”

“Why?”

“Because his father didn’t die; King Domhnall was killed. And I’m afraid, and Malcolm is afraid, that whoever did it will try to kill Malcolm too.”

Keir buried his face in Mac’s shoulder. 

When had he gotten so tall? 

“I don’t want Prince Malcolm to die!” 

Mac squeezed the boy tightly. “I’m not going to let that happen, son.”

Keir nodded slowly, face still pressed to Mac. 

Mac was grateful the boy was still young enough to believe a promise Mac had no way to keep. “He’d be glad to know you’re thinking of him,” Mac told Keir soothingly. “And prayers can always help.”

Keir nodded, stepping back. “I’ll add him to my nightly prayers.”

“Good lad,” Mac said, ruffling his hair. “Now, pick up your blade and show me what your mother’s been teaching you.”

Mac set Keir through his paces, and he was pleased with what he saw. Keir would be an excellent swordsman one day, probably better than Mac himself. It was almost time to think about sending Keir off to squire for one of the younger warriors; Ewan had some younger brothers who might do, or perhaps Eideard would be willing. Mac pushed the thought away; he wasn’t ready yet, and neither was Keir.

“Papa,” Keir said again as they headed back to their rooms. 

“Yes, lad?”

“If Prince Malcolm is hiding, who’s going to be the king?”

Mac didn’t react outwardly, but his heart cracked a little in his chest that such a question had to exist. “Nothing’s official yet,” he said, “But everyone thinks it’s likely that Lord Findlaich will be chosen.”

Keir nodded. “He’s your friend, right? You squired for him like Prince Malcolm squired for you?”

Mac nodded, heart aching. “Exactly so.”

Keir nodded. “Will he stop being king when Malcolm can come out of hiding?”

Mac’s throat closed up. 

“What’s this, now?” Catriona asked, sweeping through the corridor to join them. She patted Keir’s shoulder and kissed Mac’s cheek. 

“If Lord Findlaich gets to be king, since Prince Malcolm is in hiding, I was asking if he’ll stop being king when Prince Malcolm doesn’t have to hide anymore.”

“Well that’s a fine morning’s conversation!” Catriona laughed. “You’ve been hounding your father about politics as well as swords.” She nudged Mac with a shoulder gently. 

“Mostly swords,” Mac said. “Of course he will, Keir. If Malcolm can safely come back and be king again, Lord Findlaich will have to let him.”

Keir nodded. “Good, I’m glad,” he said, and kissed his mother’s cheek and headed for his room to change out of his practice clothes.

Catriona looked at his face. “You think you’ve lied to him,” she said shrewdly. “But it sounded like sense to me.”

Mac shrugged helplessly. “Rab seemed odd, these last few days,” he said finally, unable to articulate it further.

Catriona didn’t push him, a fact for which he was profoundly grateful.

Rory showed up after the coronation. “A lovely ceremony,” he said, shrugging. “His Majesty bid me pass to you his sorrow at your absence, and his understanding of your duty to your lands.” He laughed. “He was quick to assure me I was not an unwelcome substitute, but all understood your absence was felt keenly.”

Mac tipped his head. That was not actually reassuring, though he knew Rory meant it to be. “How were opinions?”

Rory tilted his head thoughtfully. “In favor of Rab, universally popular. About the necessity of him being named? Decidedly mixed.”

Catriona frowned. “What does that mean?” 

Rory spread his hands illustratively. “Everyone agrees Rab will be a great king,” he said. “But the Thanes are deeply divided about the official decision, which is that Malcolm had his father killed and then fled out of guilt. Some buy it, some think it’s poppycock, and some, like my good self and yours, have expressed no opinion either way. Some think Rab should just be a steward until our rightful king returns, some think Malcolm should be hanged for murder, and some thing he’s dead already.”

Mac looked away, mouth pressed tight.

After a lengthy pause, Rory touched his shoulder, drawing his attention back. “I ask nothing else, cousin, but this: Is he safe?”

Mac met his gaze. “He’s safe.”

Rory nodded. “And I wish to know nothing else.” He circled his hands, encompassing the whole room. “The monastery was draped in finery and a truly talented pair of pipers played music for the occasion. It was a lovely ceremony.” He repeated, smirking. “I didn’t trip when I brought the crown to the priests,” he added. 

“I expected nothing less,” Catriona said gravely, a glint in her eye.

“And His Majesty made a great speech.”

“About what?” Mac asked, curious, and a little apprehensive.

“Uniting in grief, overcoming difficulties, strength in unity, and some not-terribly subtle jabs at filial piety and divine right, and some actually-subtle remarks about the fate of traitors. He never used that word, of course.”

“Of course,” Catriona said wryly.

Rory eyes Mac. “You know something I don’t,” he said finally, reading Mac’s silence and stance.

Mac shook his head. “I know nothing,” he rebutted. “I think too many things, and I don’t like any of them.”

“Do you want to tell me?” Rory asked.

Mac frowned. Sharing the burden would not, he did not think, lessen the weight of it. But if Rory wanted to know, he would tell him. “Do you want me to?” Suddenly he understood Boyd too well.

Rory looked apprehensive. 

“I do,” Catriona said. 

Mac nodded to her; she deserved to know why sometimes it was like she had a stranger in her home, instead of her husband. But he would wait till Rory decided.

“I will take my leave of you until dinner,” Rory said. “And I will think on if this is a burden I want to bear with you, cousin.”

Mac nodded. “I can tell you later,” he advised, “But I can’t un-tell you.”

Rory patted his shoulder and left.

Catriona looked at him.

Mac didn’t say anything for a long time. “Rab will be a good king,” he said finally. 

“But.”

“Boyd and I suspect he took it through foul play.”

Catriona’s eyes narrowed. “That’s a broad leap from acting oddly,” she said carefully, recalling his remark from earlier. 

Mac nodded. “We’ve no proof. Only fear and supposition. And nothing to act upon.”

Catriona nodded slowly. “Tell me the whole thing,” she asked. 

Mac nodded, and told her of his conversation with Boyd, of Rab’s odd behavior, of Greer’s strange intensity, and of his sudden inability to read a friend he’d known for years. He admitted all his fears, all his guesses, and all his predictions for the future. He spoke the poison in his heart into the world, and only prayed he wasn’t speaking it into existence. 

Catriona stepped into his arms. “That frightens me,” she admitted to his shoulder. 

Mac kissed her hair. “Me too,” he said quietly, and held on.  

Mac headed out of the castle alone the following morning instead of his usual dawn workout. He warned Catriona that he was taking a walk, and he didn’t know when he’d be back, and he told the porter the same when he left the castle. This wasn’t precisely unusual; in times of peace Mac had often made a survey of the lands he controlled, on foot or on horseback. Sometimes it was a genuine need to see his people and his lands, and sometimes it was idle hands or an unquiet mind, but either way, neither his family nor his servants were surprised to see him in his traveling clothes and sturdiest boots. 

All of Fife was aware by now that the Old King’s death had hit their thane hard, and the porter nodded fondly and wished him a pleasant journey and a peaceful mind as he waved him farewell. 

Mac walked the fields, nodded politely to the workers on their way to their places, and as the sun rose and burned off the mist, let his steps turn towards the river, the woods, and the old abandoned hermitage. 

Time had moved like water around him as he had walked, that morning, and despite the small distance covered, it had taken him nearly three hours to make the walk. 

Malcolm met him in the garden with a knife unsheathed in his hand, but it vanished back into his clothes as soon as he recognized Mac. “Mac,” he breathed, and flung himself into Mac’s chest.

Mac dragged him in close, tucking Malcolm’s head under his chin and resting his cheek in his hair. “Hey cub,” he murmured. “It’s all right.”

They stood there for a long time. Malcolm clung like he was afraid to let go, and Mac held him like he was fragile and precious. Eventually, though, Mac pulled himself away and chivvied Malcolm back into the hermitage. 

The old building was probably beyond repair now, but Malcolm had tucked himself into the most watertight corner and made himself a little pallet with leaves, remnant’s of the hermit’s bed, and his bedroll over the top, and he’d cleared the hearth and made use of the iron pot crane and firedog for warmth and cooking. His fire was neatly laid to avoid smoke, and he seemed both well-supplied and well-situated. 

“I’m well,” Malcolm said, following Mac’s examination with his own gaze. “Ellar brought everything I might need.”

“Good.” 

Malcolm gestured at his bed nest sort of facetiously; aside from the filthy hearth, it was the only thing to sit on in the whole, dilapidated building. “Please,” he said dryly. “Have a seat.”

“Too kind,” Mac replied, equally dry, and sat, carefully, on what he figured might be the foot-end. 

Malcolm settled next to him and leaned their shoulders together. “Did he suffer?” he asked after a long silence that neither of them pretended was anything except trying to find a way to start. 

Mac relived the moment he’d seen the king--rictus face, bloodied chest, opened throat-- and closed his eyes. “I think it was quick,” he said. “He--there was-- his face was surprised, but not pained.”

Malcolm nodded slowly. “I have gone longer without seeing him at Forres,” he admitted. “But it’s different.”

“Of course it is,” Mac said, wrapping his arm around Malcolm’s shoulders. 

“I miss him,” Malcolm said. It had the air of an admission, like Malcolm was embarrassed or ashamed that he missed his dead father.

“Me too,” Mac agreed, evenly. Then he sighed and produced the flask he’d brought with him. He prised open the seal and then offered the flask to Malcolm.

Malcolm made a grateful noise, took a swig, and coughed deeply. “Dear God,” he wheezed, staring at the flask in perhaps slightly amused dismay.

Mac took the flask and took his own drink. “Whiskey,” he said. He hadn’t precisely come here with the intent to get Malcolm drunk and talk about Domhnall to lance the poison from Malcolm’s grief--and likely his own--, but he’d definitely come here prepared to do so. 

“Yes,” Malcolm agreed, still coughing. He took the flask back and took another drink. He managed not to choke that time. “When I was a kid,” he began.

Mac took a steadying drink, then handed the flask back to Malcolm. 

“He’d let me sit on his lap when he was having audiences. I remember thinking that he was so thoughtful, about how he answered petitions.” He took another drink.

“The first time I met him,” Mac started. He’d never told Malcolm this story, but it was a good time. “He watched me fall off a horse into a mud puddle, and he still asked me ‘what land is lucky enough that you will one day steward her for me?’ He knew I was one of his Thane’s sons, and instead of mocking me, or treating me like a fool, he made it seem like I could be a good leader like my father.”

Malcolm huffed a laugh and they traded the flask back and forth again. “When Ma died, he handed me Don, and then pulled me into his lap and said he and I would have to be as kind and warm as Ma had been, for Don, since he would never know her.”

“When my father died, he called me Forres. It was normal, had to go swear fealty as the new Thane. But he wouldn’t hear of my oath, not for hours. He asked after my mother, and Catriona, and Keir. He asked after the state of Fife, after the invasion. He told me about how he felt in his new robes after his father died.” Mac brushed the tears away. “I didn’t expect to mean the oath of fealty so much, but how could I not?”

“He taught me to ride himself,” Malcolm said, voice cracking. “I know he had things he should’ve been doing-- it was right before the last war with Norway and I know he had duties, but every afternoon for a month, he took me down to the stables and taught me to ride. I was late; Ma had died right when I should’ve learned, and I’d never got around to it after that. He knew I needed it, and he made it happen.”

Mac chuckled. “I’ve never seen a man so besotted as he was with your Ma, cub. I remember when she was pregnant with you, and he went about that whole fall looking like he’d been handed all the treasure in the world, and like he’d been whacked in the head. Once you were born, he showed you off to everyone at court, barely three days old. Your Ma had to come take you back. He was that proud.”

“Don got sick, about a year after Ma died,” Malcolm said, voice beginning to slur. This was a wake, Mac realized, and found a waterskin as well. He nudged Malcolm until the younger man drank most of the water in it. Water empty, Malcolm picked up, “He wouldn’t stop crying except when Da had him. So Da went about for three days, doing his duties one handed, carrying Don.”

 “I played chess with him, sometimes, when my father had sent me to Forres, before you were born. I never understood why he’d taken an interest in me, the son of not a very important thane, but he was always so kind, and he’s the only reason I know how to play chess at all.” As he spoke, he tore little pieces off the loaf of bread he found in Malcolm’s things and fed them, bite by bite, to the young prince.

Malcolm was starting to slur a little less. “When he was eight, Don threw a temper tantrum; I’ve forgotten why. He was a prince and didn’t have to do whatever it was, is all I remember. Da put us both under the orders of the steward, put us to work for a week. I learned so much .”

They traded the flask and stories of Domhnall back and forth. Mac was content to ignore time for once, and time seemed, for once, to be willing to return the favor. The sun hardly seemed to move, but the stories wove on and the flask grew lighter.

Mac took the flask and took another drink; it was nearly empty, and Malcolm had drunk maybe two-thirds. They were both well drunk, he thought, a little hazily. But in a good way, lighter and warm, and they’d end hungover but not wishing for death. “He was a great man, and a great king,” Mac rasped. 

Malcolm nodded neck a little loose-looking. “He was,” he agreed. 

Mac tipped him gently over so he was laying with his head in Mac’s lap instead of leaning against his side. He petted Malcolm’s hair, the way he had when Malcolm had taken a fever, the winter he was fourteen. “He’s with your mother now,” he said quietly.

Malcolm cried, silent tears wet on his cheeks, turning his cheek into Mac’s thigh to hide it. 

Mac rubbed his back, long even strokes. “It’s all right, Cub,” he whispered, low. When he was sure Malcolm had fallen asleep, Mac tipped his head back against the wall and let his own tears come again, hot and quick. Not for the king he’d lost-- he’d mourned Domhnall quite a lot over the last days-- but for the young man asleep in his lap, for his grief and pain, and the terrible situation he didn’t think Malcolm was going to be able to avoid for much longer. 

Then he dried his eyes and shuffled them both to a more comfortable position for a short nap. He would shuffle home after, leave Malcolm to nurse his inevitable hangover with a lighter heart, hopefully, and return to St. Andrews as though he’d spent the morning pouring libations to his dead king in the woods. But for now, he held Malcolm close, and closed his eyes.

Mac made his slow way back to St. Andrews in the early afternoon, bleary and uncoordinated enough to think himself still a little drunk, but already nauseated and with an aching head of the hangover still coming. 

All drunkenness drained out of him at the sight of Catriona’s drawn face. “What is it?” he demanded. “What’s wrong?”

“A great honor,” she said, mouth twisting wryly. “Her Majesty the queen has requested that I come to court to be her chief lady in waiting.”

Mac’s heart pounded with totally misplaced adrenaline. “That’s- you can’t-!”

Catriona huffed a laugh. She stepped into his chest and looped her arms around his neck, tugging his head down until their foreheads rested together. “Believe me, love,” she said. “I know. I’ve no intention of it.”

Mac breathed out a slow sigh of relief. “Not that you don’t know this, I’m just stressed and a little drunk and thinking out loud, but you’ll need to be very circumspect in how you refuse.”

“I’m already drafting the reply in my head,” Catriona assured him. “Why are you drunk?”

“Little private wake,” Mac answered. “Whiskey and storytelling.”

Catriona nodded. “Feel any better?” she asked.

Mac nodded carefully, not dislodging the way their faces still tucked close together. Seeing Malcolm in one piece and starting to heal had made the terrible hole in his heart begin to close.

“Good,” Catriona said gently. She brushed their noses together slowly. “I’ll tell her I can’t leave the boys just yet, that maybe once Keir’s off to squire for some lord or other I’d reconsider, but I want all the time I have with him before I have to give him up. She’ll understand.”

Mac thought of Greer’s son, lost in battle years before, and knew that she would. “That’s good, yeah.”

She kissed his cheek and released him, stepping back to her desk and lifting her pen. “My dearest Majesty,” she read aloud as she drafted. 

Mac leaned on the back of her chair, closing his eyes and tucking his nose into her hair. 

“It was my joy and pleasure to hear from you so swiftly after your change in status, and you honor me beyond the saying of it to make such an offer. I often recall our days together with tender nostalgia and delight, and it would please me very much to have the opportunity to serve you in such a way again. However, I cannot, in good conscience, allow myself the freedom to do so. I have duties now which I did not have in those quiet, long-gone days, first and foremost to my sons, but also to my husband and my lands. Keir is thirteen now, and will soon be off to some other land as a squire to another warrior, as is our tradition. I will not grudge him his departure, though as his mother I know shall worry endlessly; however, I also cannot bear to speed our parting by being the first to go.” Catriona paused. “Should I mention you and Fife?” she asked.

Mac hummed softly. “You have already. Probably should clarify it a little.”

Catriona echoed his hum. “My husband, as you well know, is so often away on duties to the Crown, a fact which I expect to increase rather than decrease at the change in the wearer of said Crown--your esteemed husband is a dear liege-lord to us both, and it is our honor to serve him in whatever fashion he sees fit. I do not wish to leave Aidan and Niall with nannies in the absence of their father were I to come to court, and would wish even less to unfairly divide my attention between them and you by bringing them with me. Niall in particular is too impressionable, yet, for me to trust his raising to any but myself or Mac, not if I intend him to grow up to be a fine lord like his father.” She hummed a few musical notes, a bare snatch of tune, and then continued, “Fife, too, should not be left in the absence of both its lord and lady, and I think I would have more trouble finding a nanny for her than even for my two younger troublemakers. She is a finicky obligation, which requires much attention and guidance, and yet I would be as loathe to see her founder as any of my boys.” 

Mac hummed his approval. He liked how Catriona hit all her points, but kept circling back to the boys.

“If it still please you to consider me again in a few years’ time, when my boys are off for themselves and Mac has perhaps settled to home as his father did, it would be my greatest joy to return to your side, but for now I must, if you will forgive it, refuse. Yours in heart and service still, ever and always, Catriona McAfee, Lady Fife.”

Mac rumbled his approval into Catriona’s braids, eyes still closed. She smelled good, and she was smart and beautiful, and he was probably a little drunk still. 

Catriona laughed and leaned back into his shoulder where he was leaning over her. “Go take a nap, love,” she said. “You’re no good to anyone like this.”

“Had one already,” he protested. 

“Not enough,” Catriona replied. “Sleep it off, love.”

Mac made a discontented noise at the thought of leaving her, but obeyed, offering a last affectionate nuzzle behind her ear and kiss to the side of her neck before he went. 

Mac woke to Catriona sitting on the edge of the bed. She ruffled his sleep-mussed hair when she saw his eyes open. “Sober now?” she asked, voice light and teasing despite the solemn look on her face.

He grumbled his assent, brain perking up at her tension even if his body remained lax on the bed. The nausea was mostly gone, but his head hurt much more than it had before his nap. Not quite hungover, but definite regretting the amount of whiskey consumed; he hoped Malcolm wasn’t feeling terribly. 

Catriona petted his hair. “I have to tell you something,” she said. “I was going to tell you when we talked about Greer’s offer, but you were hardly in a shape to hear it.”

Mac sat up, frowning. “What is it?” he asked. What could possibly be worse than having to refuse the queen already?

“It occurred to me that I have seen Boyd’s Fated Figures.”

Mac stared at her, open-mouthed. “You what?”

“When I was a fourteen,” Catriona said, “I was walking in the hills outside of Perth, and I came upon three crones under a tree, with keen eyes and indescribable faces.”

Mac felt goosebumps break out over his shoulders and down his back. “Did they speak to you?” he asked.

Catriona nodded. “They gave me three warnings,” she said slowly. “That I have ever refused to heed. My fate is my own, and I had no need for any to meddle, least of all such as I knew naught of.”

“What did they tell you?” Mac asked, feeling like his stomach was made of lead.

Catriona frowned, concentrating hard to remember the words precisely. “First, that my mother would die of the pox if I didn’t keep her from her sister’s house that winter. Second, that my father would marry me off to a monster of a man if I didn’t run away with the knight who would ask for my hand. Third, that all my children would die before me if I didn’t wait upon the queen when she asked.”

Mac swallowed tightly. The threat against his children made his heart tremble in his chest and his eyes tight at the corners. He couldn’t tell if the noise that wanted to build in his chest was a snarl or a sob.

“Before you say I should go to Forres,” Catriona began fiercely.

Mac shook his head, interrupting with a raised hand. “If you knew this and still refused her, I trust you know what you’re about,” he said.

Catriona closed her eyes, leaning into his side. “I love you,” she said lightly. “I told you,” she added, “That I would have none of their meddling, so I ignored the advice. My mother went to my aunt’s that winter, and lived another three years before dying of consumption. The knight who asked for my hand was Ewan, and I turned him down because I didn’t like his laugh. My father engaged me to you three weeks later, and I’ve no fear of you and no regrets about us.”

He kissed her forehead, gathering her close into his arms. “Nor I. And I do not like your chances, nor mine, nor the boys’ if you were to go to Forres. I love you, too.”

Catriona settled her head beneath his chin. “I have wondered often,” she admitted quietly, “These last few days since you told me of Boyd’s meeting with them, what might have happened if I had stopped my mother from going to my aunt’s. Or if I had eloped with Ewan.” She shook her head slightly. 

“Given my fears for what would happen if you went to Forres,” Mac said, “And given my suppositions about how Rab became king and what that may mean for us all, I cannot help but think they meant to ruin you any way they might.”

“I thought that too,” Catriona said. “I will not let anything happen to our boys,” she snarled.

“Aye,” Mac agreed. “Nor I.” 

Catriona nodded, and let herself relax finally. 

Mac held her close, relaxing his own body, finally convinced they might be safe for now.

Mac was somewhat surprised when Ellar slipped into his office. 

“My lord,” he said slowly. “I have something I ought to tell you, I think.”

Mac gestured at the chair opposite his desk. 

Ellar shuffled awkwardly, but perched nervously on the edge of the seat. “Sir, I was down in the town yesterday midday, running an errand for My Lady since she knew I was free while you were on your walk. I paused for a luncheon in St. George’s Arms, and a man joined me for the meal. A stranger, new to the parts. I didn’t recognize him, and neither did Tadg when I asked him after. We fell to talking, as you do, but I couldn’t help but think he was feeling me out, like My Lady does with the servants when she thinks the cook might be drinking again.”

Mac nodded. He was a good lad, and a solid page, but he could ramble a bit when he got into it.

“He wanted to know how I liked it, in the castle, My Lord,” Ellar said, slowly, feeling out the story. “He wanted to know if you were a good master. And I couldn’t for the life of me figure why he might want to wheedle that out of me, so I’m, sir I’m sorry, I’m afraid I lied a bit, to see him on.”

Mac nodded, gesturing for more.

“I mean, I didn’t say anything askance, you know. But I might’ve undersold you a bit, and made a few unsubtle faces.”

“Damned by faint praise,” Mac murmured wryly.

“Aye, sir,” Ellar said. “And he said, if I were unhappy, and perhaps willing, I might could improve myself.”

Mac sat forward, interested now. “How’s that, now?”

“I expressed a guarded interest, said it couldn’t come back to you, and he swore it wouldn’t. I might’ve implied I was a bit afraid of you, which seemed to please him. And he offered me a letter, sir. And a pouch of coins.” Ellar looked unhappy. “I took it, of course, and he said he’d meet me again in a week’s time. And well,” he held out a folded paper.

Mac took the paper and glanced down at it. It was an offer of employ, in guarded terms, with a weekly stipend--a fairly generous one, Mac noted to some surprise--and the only duties listed being weekly reports. On what wasn’t precisely explained, but Mac could gather, by the veiled hints in the note and the substance of the stranger’s conversation with Ellar, that it was a request to spy on his household. “You took the position?” he asked.

Ellar nodded, looking deeply nervous. “I thought it might be useful, to be able to control what information whoever sent him might have of you,” he said shyly. “Did I do right, sir?”

Mac smiled at him. “You did, Ellar. You did very well.” He could guess who had sent the stranger to hire Ellar, and it could be very useful indeed to control the flow of information. “First of all, Ellar, I know you know this but I have to say it out loud, have to make it an order: he cannot know of what is happening at the hermitage.”

Ellar nodded furiously. “Yes sir, never sir,” he said fiercely. “On my life!”

Mac nodded. “Good. Otherwise, for now, I think we are trustworthy enough that a true report will hurt nothing.”

Ellar nodded. “I’ll check with you,” he offered earnestly, “Before the next meeting, to make sure I don’t include anything I ought not.”

Mac nodded. “Good lad.”

“Thank you sir!” Ellar nodded, and scurried off to his duties. 

Mac leaned back against his chair back with a deep sigh. This was getting to be more intrigue than he’d ever wanted. 

“What’s the matter, love?” Catriona asked from the doorway. “Ellar looked like you’d lit his tail alight.”

Mac shook his head. “He’s been bribed to spy on us,” he explained.

Her eyebrows hiked.

“He took the job and came immediately to tell me of it. He thought it would be useful to us to control what information went.”

Catriona smiled. “He’s a bright lad.”

Mac nodded. “He’ll report to me before he sends his reports on.”

“Does he know who hired him?”

“No, but I can guess.”

Catriona nodded. “Well,” she said slowly. “Except for that one thing, we are exceptionally boring, so I’m not worried about what he can pass on for now.”

“And that one thing he’d take to his grave, we all would.” 

Catriona nodded. “Well good for him. This may be very useful indeed in the coming days.” Catriona kissed his forehead and left him to his accounting.

Very early the next morning, the porter woke Mac himself. “I’m sorry, my lord,” he said gruffly from the doorway, “But the lad insisted secrecy was an issue.”

Mac nodded. “I’ll come down to the gatehouse,” he said. “Give me five minutes.”

The old man bowed himself from Mac’s rooms, and Mac turned to dress, hastily. 

“What is it, love?” Catriona asked.

“I don’t know,” Mac said, throwing on his clothes and armor. “Porter said a boy’s come in secrecy and needs to talk to me urgently. I’m going to go down to meet him.”

“Be careful,” Catriona said.

He kissed her briefly and slipped out. He jogged the darkened hallways and down to the entrance, and ducked into the gatehouse.

The porter was offering water and hardtack to a slight, hooded figure, slouching in the shadows away from the torch. He bowed politely to Mac and slipped out with a soft, “I’ll leave you, sir.”

The figure tipped his hood back. It was Fintan Abrach, pale, dirty, and with blood streaked across his cheek. “Mac,” he said hoarsely. 

Mac strode forward to push back the cloak, checking gently that the young man wasn’t hurt. “Fintan,” he said softly. “Are you all right, lad?” 

“I don’t know,” he said softly. “I don’t-” he choked on a ragged noise of pain. 

“Are you hurt ?” Mac rephrased, dragging the lad into a firm, but careful hug.

Fintan shook his head, and muttered into Mac’s chest, “My father is dead.”

Mac closed his eyes and tightened his grip on Fintan. “I’m so sorry, Fintan,” he murmured. “I’m so sorry.”

Fintan hiccoughed a little sob, and then mustered himself to explain. “The king was throwing a party in the evening,” he said slowly. “So he gave us the afternoon to ourselves. Da wanted to go on a ride, so we took a luncheon on the road and went. They jumped us in the woods. Da,” his voice cracked and broke, and then he carried on grimly, “Da dismounted to fight them, and told me to run. He spooked my horse. Last I saw they’d dragged him down.” He sobbed again, once, and then tried to swallow it.

“It’s all right, lad,” Mac murmured. “Cry as you need.” He held Fintan as the boy let out his grief and fear, and finally subsided, shaking, against Mac’s shoulder. “No shame in grief, Fintan,” he said gently, rubbing his back. “You miss him, and it’s terrible. That’s all right.”

Fintan leaned into him, exhausted and drawn. He’d been on the road non-stop, probably only slowing to rest his horse. 

Mac sat him down at the little table to coax him to eat the hardtack and drink the water, and then tipped Fintan’s head up. “How long ago was this?” he asked gently.

Fintan blinked slowly, sluggishly trying to add the time. “Yesterday evening, must have been an hour before sunset?” 

Mac nodded. And then he’d run non-stop for Fife, without sleep or food. But he couldn’t stay here. “All right, lad,” he said when Fintan was done eating. “Come on, it’s not much safer for you here than anywhere else.”

“I didn’t know what else to do,” he said plaintively.

“You did right, lad,” Mac assured him. “And I’m going to take you somewhere safe to rest.”

Fintan nodded, and put his hood up before following Mac into the dark pre-dawn. Time slipped around them, eddying and pooling like the tide. The stars were still in the sky, and Mac was, for once, grateful that time seemed to hold for him.

Malcolm once again met him in the clearing with a drawn blade, and didn’t put it away when he recognized Mac. He was sleep-mussed and grim. “Mac?”

“It’s Fintan,” Mac said, guiding the boy past Malcolm into the ruined building and pressing him down by the fire. 

Malcolm followed, a baffled frown on his face, and started stirring the fire and putting water in a pot.

“They’ve killed his father,” Mac said grimly. 

Malcolm dropped the pot, swore, picked it up again, and resumed his actions. “Boyd’s dead?” he asked hoarsely.

Mac nodded. “He needs to sleep, and then you both need to get out of here.”

Malcolm looked up at him in surprise.

Mac stared down at the prince, kneeling in the dirt beside a filthy fireplace, hands busy starting water boiling. His face was clean from having been splashed with water, but his clothes and hair were dirty. Mac’s heart hurt. “If Rab’s killed Boyd , no one is safe. I won’t be able to hide you for much longer, I don’t think. You’ll be safer out of Scotland.”

Malcolm nodded slowly. “Someone needs to warn Don.”

Mac nodded. “Fintan’s going to go,” he said. “And then both of them are going to Ireland. Go to Skye from Lochaber, and get passage from there to Ireland.” Mac looked at the boy, dozing sitting up. “You’ll have to tell him when he wakes,” he told Malcolm. “He’s been traveling all night to get here.”

Malcolm nodded, his face soft as he, too, looked at the slumbering young man. “He did well,” he said.

Mac nodded. “Tell him that, too.”

Malcolm smiled slightly. “I will. And I’ll be gone by nightfall,” he assured Mac. “To England, to see if Elizabeth will offer me sanctuary.”

Mac nodded. “I have to go,” he said. “I have to be at the castle before dawn,” he said. “No one can know he came here.”

Malcolm nodded and stood. “Mac,” he said softly. 

Mac shook his head; he didn’t want Malcolm’s gratitude. 

Malcolm pulled him into a hug, firm and strong. His heartbeat was steady and even under Mac’s palms on his back, and they leaned together for a long moment. 

“Be careful,” Mac pleaded.

Malcolm nodded against his shoulder. “You too. If he’s killed Boyd, you’re not safe.”

“I will,” Mac said, and kissed Malcolm’s forehead before leaving at a brisk walk. The stars stayed still and the eastern horizon had not even begun to lighten when he reached the castle, and the Porter mimed sealing his lips as Mac headed back to bed.

“You weren’t gone long,” Catriona murmured as he shed his armor and settled beside her again.

“Felt longer than it was,” Mac answered dryly. “It was Fintan. Boyd’s dead,” he told her, this second repetition not feeling any realer than the first. “I sent Fintan to get Domhnall and go to Ireland, via Skye, and sent Malcolm to England as soon as the sun goes down.”

Catriona pressed her face into his throat. “This grows grimmer every hour,” she murmured.

Mac nodded, and kissed her hair, unable to do anything else.

Ewan arrived in the early afternoon the day after Mac’s early morning. He looked like a caricature of himself, jovial smile awkward and pasted on, the light in his eyes something like fear, not his usual spark of mischief. He greeted Catriona warmly and genuinely, offered polite smiles to the boys, and then asked Mac if they could talk in private.

Mac led the way to his study. 

“Boyd is dead,” Ewan said quietly once the door was closed and they’d seated themselves on either side of the fireplace. 

“I know,” Mac admitted. Having now said it out loud twice and had it said out loud to him twice, it felt real enough, but Mac also felt almost like he had no more grief left to spend. He knew his face and his voice hadn’t conveyed the appropriate grief, but he also couldn’t quite care, not with Ewan. 

Ewan’s sharp eyes flicked to him sharply, narrowed, clearly trying to figure out how Mac knew. 

Mac kept his face smooth, letting him work it through.

Ewan nodded once, figuring only Fintan could have gotten here fast enough. “The king… is not well,” he added.

Mac inclined his head, silently acknowledging his lack of knowledge of that matter. He kept the sharp bite of hope in his chest, off his face, out of his eyes. But if Rab were unwell, perhaps there was an end to this in sight after all.

Ewan frowned deeply. “There was a banquet,” he started carefully. “And his behavior was… most unusual,” he said finally. He waved a hand impatiently.

“Just spill, Ewan,” Mac said quietly. “You know where I stand, and who’ll hear from me.”

Ewan looked at him. “This is what we’ve come to,” he said bleakly. “I don’t know that anymore.”

“Catriona,” Mac answered promptly. “And Rory perhaps if I think he needs to know and it’s something I think he can keep quiet, and I see him in person to tell him; I’d not put it in a letter.” He patted Ewan’s shoulder. “No one else in this country will hear anything from me.”

Ewan’s eyes narrowed again at ‘in this country’, and he nodded once. “He was jumping at shadows, conversing with the air, and his words… he seemed to feel himself accused by whatever spectre he saw that we did not.” His mouth twisted. “You cannot say that I did it,” he quoted softly. 

Mac tightened his grip on Ewan’s shoulder. “That…” he trailed off.

Ewan nodded. “He also made quite a bit of noise about blood shed and emptied graves, and shouting that he would not fear a shadow, and yet he seemed to, deeply. He said he could not imagine that we should be so calm, seeing such sights when he feared so.”

“What sights?” Mac asked.

“Your Rory tried to ask that,” Ewan replied. “And Her Majesty said not to talk to him, because it would only make it worse.”

Mac bit his lip. “What else had Her Majesty to say of it?”

“That the king is often taken by such fits,” Ewan said dryly. “And has been, since his youth.”

Mac stared blankly at the wall for a moment. “I lived in Rab’s pocket for three years in my youth,” he said finally, flatly, “And have never seen him jump at shadows, let alone the rest.”

Ewan nodded grimly. “I know.” He shrugged helplessly. “She also seemed quite angry at him, and accused him of cowardice and stupidity and all kinds of things I think I was not supposed to hear.” His mouth twisted again, rueful and a little angry. “She mentioned the old king,” he added. 

Mac pressed his mouth flat. “If you did not already suspect him of that deed, I have overestimated your thoughts, friend.”

Ewan nodded. “I suspected, but I did not want to believe it of him. Not until this night, and Boyd’s… accident,” he said finally, bitterly.

Mac shrugged. “Boyd was the first to suspect, and look how it ended for him. We must be careful.”

Ewan nodded. “Officially I am here to extend to you an invitation from His Majesty,” he said, “Or I would not have dared to bring you this news, no matter how you needed it.”

Mac nodded. “I understand. What does Himself want?”

Ewan shook his head, ruefully. “He made a great big deal at the start of the party, about how everyone who mattered, everyone he liked, everyone who was anyone was at the party-- except Boyd who surely must just be late. Pretty much everyone knew it was a jab at you.”

Mac gritted his teeth. “That’s a change of tune,” he said, “Since he seemed just fine with me missing the coronation, according to Rory.” He sighed softly; Rab had not been, in years past, the kind of person to put on a false smile and say one thing, and let the irritation of the lie stew in him till it boiled over, but that felt very much like what was going on here. He could not deny--or would not have been able to, even just weeks ago--that Rab and Greer loved each other, but Mac would admit to some worry about the kind of man her deeply politicking influence had made of him. 

Ewan shrugged. “Either way, he sent me to tell you he’s missed you at court, and he’d love to see you at the next ball.”

“Is it scheduled?” 

Ewan shook his head. “But expect it in the next week or so.”

Mac sighed. “And I shall attend, at his majesty’s pleasure.” 

“Be careful , Mac,” Ewan said. “He’s not stable, and if he decides he wants you dead…”

Mac squeezed his shoulder. “Believe me, I know. But what else can I do? He’s the king.”

“Wrongly,” Ewan muttered.

Mac shrugged. “It’s what we have, though.”

“If Malcolm came back,” Ewan said hopefully. 

“Rab would kill him too; think, Ewan.”

Ewan scowled. “He’d need an army, then,” Ewan said. They both paused, considering if they thought Elizabeth would give him that; she would welcome Malcolm, Mac was pretty sure, and she’d hate having Rab as a northern neighbor if things here kept getting worse, but there was no way to know if she’d be willing to lend troops to Malcolm’s cause. 

Mac nodded. “And support here. Lots of it.”

Ewan nodded grimly. “Support he shall have. Fife will stand with him, I know, and so will The Lennox.” 

Mac nodded. “Ross,” he said, sure of Rory as he was of anything. “ Maybe Menteith, if someone explained things properly to Cinaed.”

Ewan pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Perhaps Catriona could make an overture?”

Mac tilted his head back. It hadn’t occurred to him that she was a resource, but she likely could convince her cousin to stand with them. He nodded slowly. “If we could contrive it to get her there.”

Ewan nodded. “Ask her; she’s smarter than you.”

Mac huffed a breath of a laugh. “True enough.” He reached for the map rolled up in the stand by his desk and spread it across the surface. “Is anyone with him, for certain?” 

Ewan shrugged. “Sutherland, unless we can prove in court Rab took it wrongly. Moray, maybe? I think everyone else is on the fence, willing to be swayed, and more have doubts than don’t.”

Mac nodded.  “Who else are we sure of?”

Ewan shrugged. “We’d need Lothian,” he said, “If Malcolm is coming from England.” He shot Mac a look. “He is, isn’t he?”

Mac nodded deliberately, and then turned back to the map. “Angus,” he said, waving at the proximity of the Protectorate of Angus to Dunsinane and Glamis. 

“Torquil was rightly discomfited by the spectacle at the party,” Ewan observed. “And seemed equally offended that Her Majesty thought, ‘it’s fine, he does this all the time’ would be reassuring in the face of a mad king.”

Mac nodded. “You know, I hadn’t thought of that, but Torquil is not wrong.”

“Nope,” Ewan agreed. “Do you know Lothian well?”

Mac shook his head. He’d met Inness Lyne, Thane of Lothian, a couple of times over the years, but never spent much more time than official business allowed in his presence. He was a few years older than Mac, of an age with Eideard and Torquil, but not quite as old as Gilchrist of Sutherland, who was the oldest of the Thanes still fighting and traveling for the king.

“Me neither. He’s friends with Eideard, though.” Ewan shrugged.

“Was he at the event?” Mac asked. 

“Eideard, or Inness?”

“Either.”

“Yes to Eideard, no to Inness.” Ewan frowned. “Eideard is coming through Lennox next week,” he mused aloud, “On his way to Galloway. If I could convince him, and he paid his friend Inness a visit on the way home…” he trailed off meaningfully. 

“Hinges on Eideard,” Mac said warily. He liked Eideard well enough, from the time they’d spent together with the king, but he didn’t know him, not like he did Rory, or even Ewan and Cinaed.

Ewan nodded. “I trust him, well enough,” he assured Mac.

Mac nodded slowly. “I think we have to trust,” he said softly. “I think we have to trust each other, and trust our bonds, because if we let his madness and paranoia infect us too, even if we remove him, we will have lost all that makes use great.”

“Brave Mac,” Ewan said fondly. “May get us all killed,” he warned. 

“I’d rather be killed for trusting my friends than live fearing them all,” Mac replied. “I have to choose that, instead of his madness.”

Ewan nodded. “I’ll tell Eideard you said so,” he promised. “And anyone else I see.” He smiled slightly. “You may just win Inness over with it,” he added. “He’s the old fashioned sort.”

Mac snorted. “Honor isn’t old fashioned.”

“Isn’t it, though?” Ewan asked facetiously. He shook his head. “We have a plan, then? You and Catriona will work on Cinaed, and I’ll get Eideard and Innes through him.”

Mac nodded. “And speak of this no more together,” he agreed. “Come,” he said, clapping Ewan’s shoulder. “Let’s to supper.”

Once the meal was had, Ewan was comfortably settled in a guest room, and the boys were in bed, Mac and Catriona retired to their rooms. 

“Ewan’s news has sat grimly with you this evening,” she observed to him.

Mac shrugged, and then nodded in agreement. “He has confirmed for a few things, and opened new doors. I have hope now that I did not much dare before, but also more fears.”

Catriona drew him close to her in bed. “What tidings did he bring?” she asked, stroking his hair.

Mac closed his eyes and tucked his face into her throat. “Official tidings of Boyd’s death,” he reported, “Though he said no word of Fintan, nor did I. I think he understood, when I already knew, though.”

Catriona hummed a soft note of acknowledgement, lips against his forehead.

“And strange tidings indeed, of the king’s health.”

“Is he ill?” Catriona asked hopefully.

Mac huffed a bitter, rueful laugh. “I had the same hope,” he said. “But not as a doctor would have it, no.”

“Damn,” Catriona said evenly.

Mac hummed agreement into her neck. “He was distempered at the party, the evening of Boyd’s death, conversing with the air and shouting at shadows. Ewan quoted directly, ‘You cannot say that I did it’ and said that he seemed greatly threatened by whatever it was he saw.”

“A guilty conscience,” Catriona observed thoughtfully.

Mac shrugged. “The Queen was angry with him, Ewan said. And tried to cover saying that it was a malady he’d suffered from his youth.”

Catriona scoffed. “Neither true nor reassuring.”

“That’s the general consensus as Ewan saw it,” Mac agreed.

“And yet you have hope?” Catriona asked. “Madness is no less dangerous than vindictiveness.”

“Ewan could not name any unequivocally for him,” Mac answered. “Only Sutherland for duty, and perhaps Moray for familial pride, but even they would not stay with him if it became clear that he was in the wrong.”

Catriona breathed deeply. “That is hope, I suppose,” she said. “But everyone is silent out of fear.”

Mac nodded. “Not Ewan,” he replied. “He’s determined to get Caithness, Lothian and Menteith to declare for us. He was actually hoping you would speak to Cinaed.”

Catriona hummed again, a few bars too short for him to recognize the tune. “He’d trust me,” she agreed. “If we can manufacture an excuse for me to go for a visit.”

Mac smiled. The answer to this conundrum had come to him at dinner. “I was thinking Keir should squire to Cormag.” Cinaed’s younger brother acted as marshall and steward for Cinaed, and would be an excellent role model for Keir in the running of a protectorate. He was also a fine knight and a good man, and kin. And if Catriona went to ask her cousin to take on their son, she could speak to Cinaed while there. 

“He’s a little young yet,” Catriona said reproachfully, both unwilling yet to see her oldest off entirely, and gently poking holes in Mac’s plan that others might find as flaws later.

“Never hurts to set things up early,” Mac answered. “And if he says no we have time to think up a second choice.”

Catriona chuckled. “Good thinking, my love. Did Ewan bring other news?”

“Apparently His Majesty is cross with me for not coming to his party,” Mac answered. “I’m expected at the next, come hell or high water.”

Catriona went tense in his arms. “Mac,” she breathed, soft in her worry.

“I know,” he answered. “But I can hardly refuse a direct order from the king.”

Catrona snarled derisively. “You must be careful, my love,” she said fiercely, “Because I will go to Dunsinane and geld him if he hurts you. And if you are dead and he is not, then I will see no cause not to send the boys to their prince in England and burn Scotland to the ground.”

Mac did not doubt she would do it. “Peace, my warrior,” he rumbled, stroking her back soothingly. “I’ve no intention of letting him hurt me.”

“I imagine neither did Boyd,” Catriona returned.

Mac put his free hand up in mock surrender. “But I am forewarned and forearmed.” More gently, he said, “I’ll be careful.”

“You’d best,” Catriona said, subsiding and laying her head back against his. After a moment she sighed. “Is there anything else we can do? Talking to Cinaed doesn’t seem like enough.”

Mac hummed again. He felt it too. “Fintan won’t be the only refugee to flee through here. If it’s not well-known already, it will be soon enough that I’ve displeased the king, and that and my friendship with Malcolm will be enough, I think, to make it seem that I’m safe.” 

Catriona nodded. “We’ve fisherman that could make it to Northumberland, likely,” she said thoughtfully. “If they’d be willing.”

Mac nodded. “And if Inness will join us, we can send them overland through Lothian as well.”

Catriona nodded. “Hopefully,” she agreed.

Mac shrugged. “And we lie. About everything and everyone.”

“Not exactly your strong suit, my love.”

Mac shrugged one shoulder. “For this? I’ll learn.” There wasn’t any other choice; he wouldn’t be the thing that put others in danger, so he’d lie. 

Catriona nuzzled closer, breathing into his hair and stroking his back. “I hope so,” she murmured. 

Mac nuzzled back, brushing his nose and lips against the skin of her throat. “I love you,” he promised. “So much.”

Catriona pressed close. “And I you,” she agreed softly, and they slept.

There were fifteen Protectorates whose Thanes were near to the King’s council, allowed to have men-at-arms, and expected to host the King when he was traveling: Orkney, Sutherland, Ross, Argyll, Cromarty, Moray, Banff, Lochaber, Angus, Menteith, Fife, The Lennox, Lothian, Strathclyde, and Galloway. 

But there were eighteen more Protectorates and Thanes, who, though less politically important, were no less important to the administration of the country and the survival of the Scottish people as a whole. And it was these eighteen that began to show the tension first. 

Two simply disappeared; one day all was well in Dumfries, and the next the castle was empty and none of the servants could or would say what had happened to their lord and lady. The same again happened two days later in Selkirk, and then a day after that, the Thane of Bute was found dead in a ditch, despite his porter insisting he’d been inside all day. The Thane of The Mearns apparently hung himself in his closet, but his wife--fleeing by sea but stopped for supplies near St. Andrews--insisted he would never have done so.

For the most part, the lords of the various holdings themselves stayed in their places, unless they had something specific to fear, but many sent their families south to England. 

Mac heard many rumors over the next few days, as more and more people slipped silently through Fife, nobles and peasants alike. The King was raising an army. He’d offered a reward for every man who stole a cow from Cromarty. Norwegian spies had plowed already sown land, ruining the crop in Argyll. Banff’s fields had burned for three days. It went on and on.

Graeme, Old Hugh the porter, and Mac’s steward Bhaltair offered what food could be spared and helped refill fresh water.

Ellar was deeply attentive to Mac and his duties--so deeply in fact, that he never saw hide nor hair of any of the refugees. Mac, too, kept mostly out of it, leaving the organizational substance to Catriona, and the actual action to his men. Ellar’s reports to the man from the pub were bland and boring, though he periodically mentioned suspicions that Mac might be up to something, though, he apologized deeply, he had no proof, since Mac spent his days at his desk, accounting and keeping his correspondence.

Mac was keeping, as he always had when not traveling himself among them, a lively correspondence with Rory, Ewan, Cinaed, and several friends he’d made in smaller holdings over the years traveling with the king. His post--delivered by royal messengers--was banal and uncomplicated.

After a few days, Cinaed finally replied to Mac’s overture about Keir, and it was agreed that Catriona and the boys would go spend a few days, perhaps a week, in Menteith. Catriona took Graeme and five men-at-arms with them, and they set off early in the day, hoping to make Perth before nightfall.

Mac kissed each of them--except Graeme, who did offer--goodbye and continued his very boring, unsuspicious days, waiting for the summons from the king.

Ellar dutifully reported the departure of the Lady of the Castle, and her intent to return in five days’ time. In their absence, time passed in odd starts for Mac. Ellar sent a report that suggested the Thane of Fife was deeply distubed by something, since he spent much time staring into space. Mac blinked through an entire afternoon in a few heartbeats, but without his family home, he did not miss the time. 

It had been two rapid days since Catriona had left when a letter with the King’s Seal came across Mac’s desk. Mac eyed it much the same way he often eyed snakes in the wilderness, and enemies on the field of battle: wariness, skepticism, and deep dislike. Then he cracked the seal.

“Robert Findlaich, by the Grace of God, King of Scotland, &c, to William McAfee, Thane of Fife, greetings,” he read aloud to Ellar. “We hope this letter finds you and yours in good health, and Fife in good standing. We do wish it that you attend to Our Royal Presence post-haste, and certainly in time to join a small gathering of friends in the evening of the fifteenth of this month. We desire your counsel and your friendship, for your absence has been keenly felt of late. We are aware your Lady Wife is not in Fife, but could be there in a day once you quit there. Do not fail us. Witness my hand, at Dunsinane, on the twelfth day of April in the first year of our reign.” He set the letter carefully back down. “Well that’s unequivocal,” he observed. “Ellar, send word to Menteith tonight that I’ve been summoned to Dunsinane and must leave at first light, and it would be ideal for Catriona to set out at a similar time, that Fife not be left unattended for too long.”

“Yes sir,” Ellar agreed, bowing and scurrying off to obey.

Mac leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, breathing slow and even.

Mac left St. Andrews alone, as the sun just pinkened the eastern horizon. His retinue would follow before noon, Ellar assured him, but Mac wanted to make sure he made it in plenty of time, to appease his king. He had no intention of going all the way to Perth--he’d cross the Tay closer to the sea and ride cross country a ways instead of following the easy roads--so it was unlikely he’d encounter his family on the road, but he idly wished it. 

Time settled into what felt a relatively natural pace, the sun moving at a natural speed and Mac’s heart and horse keeping a steady, rhythmic beat. He rounded a copse of trees and a bird-call stretched into a molasses-slow screel.

The quarrel from the crossbow came slow enough, dragging like the air was honey, that Mac could dodge out of its way, even with his horse caught in the slowing of time as well. 

Things snapped back to speed, and Mac kneed his warhorse into a charge to bear down the crossbowman before he could reload. The horse slammed its shoulder into the first of the swordsmen that came out of the trees, and Mac beheaded the second without shifting his seat. 

Two men dragged Mac off his horse, one struggling to take control of Mac’s sword arm. 

Mac let himself fall, and kicked out hard at the man after his sword, and let his weight fall on the other. He rolled free while they were still flailing, and his backslash tore open one’s throat in a quick pass. 

Mac’s horse was still wreaking havoc among his assailants, and he spared a prayer for the creature as he engaged the next group of brigands.

He killed three more before the last two standing both fled, leaving Mac to offer a mercy-killing to one who’d wound up under the horse’s hooves. 

Mac stood, holding his horse’s reins, in the middle of a low place, shaded by trees. It was a good ambush spot, he thought objectively, since it was on a direct line to the only place to cross the Tay until the bridges near Perth. 

Still silent and calm, he briefly rifled through the clothes and gear of the men he’d killed, but found no identifying information, and certainly nothing incriminating. 

Rab knew better, Mac thought wryly. Then he rifled through the bodies of the men he’d killed to find leathers and armor that would fit him that he hadn’t damaged or gotten covered in blood. A few of the less messily killed men yielded things that would fit well enough, and he hastily put them on. He found their camp a few yards away in the trees, and ransacked it for useful equipment--he’d only intended to spend one night on the road, so he’d not packed his bedroll, nor his hunting equipment, but the hired assassins had been well provided, and Mac left with his saddlebags full. 

That done, he mounted his horse and turned the warhorse’s nose southward. He certainly wouldn’t be riding to Dunsinane now . 

Mac, dressed plainly and ill-fitted in dark leathers and a light cloak against the weather, received many wary looks from everyone he saw, from peasants working the land to other travelers on the road, particularly with his sword slung on his saddle. His clothes, travel wear, and the mess of his hair were saying perhaps something just short of ‘brigand’, but his sword and horse said ‘noble’. It was bound to be confusing, and in these uncertain times, he couldn’t blame those he rode past for crossing out of his reach. 

He could see the markers of suffering everywhere he rode, and in a town near where he crossed the Forth, he saw a gallows. He didn’t stick around to ask who was hanging.

And then, as he skirted Stirling, he ran into someone who recognized him. He stepped his horse to the edge of the road to allow a cart to pass going in the opposite direction, and the man driving the cart looked straight into his face and said, “Lord McAfee?” 

Mac stared for a long moment, and then recognized Ewan’s steward. “Dear Lord,” he said. “It’s Alastair, isn’t it? You’re steward to Lennox.” The cart was full of straw, and covered in leather cloth to keep the weather out of whatever goods were packed in the straw.

“Yes my lord,” Alastair said promptly. “But can I ask what brings you all the way out here, alone?”

Mac’s mouth twisted. “I could say the same, friend. You’re a long way from Dumbarton.”

Alastair inclined his head. “Overseeing a trade between my Lord and Stirling,” he said. Then he winked at Mac and flipped up one edge of the leather drape. 

Mac found himself looking into the wide eyes of Ewan’s youngest child, a little girl perhaps a few years younger than Niall. Mac inclined his head silently to Alastair, who resettled the covering. 

If Stirling was on their side--and he must be, for Ewan to send his children-- it was a good idea; the sea journey to England would be faster from Stirling than the overland trip Mac would be taking. Mac wished, briefly, that he were brave enough to try it, but he had to stick to what he knew. “I wish you the luck of it, friend.” Mac smiled slightly. “If you can find a way to discreetly mention to Ewan that you saw me, do, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t spread it around.”

“You’re heading south,” Alastair observed. 

Mac inclined his head again. “The weather up north wasn’t agreeing with my constitution,” Mac replied dryly.

Alastair nodded gravely. “Many are having that problem, of late.”

“God be with you,” Mac said, and nudged his horse on.

“And you, My Lord,” Alastair replied, and urged his horses on as well.

As he rode, even though each stride of his horse seemed to eat the ground and every heartbeat sped the sun through the sky, there was still plenty of time to doubt and wonder. He’d left Catriona behind, he thought in despair. And it hadn’t occurred to him to send to her with Alastair until far too late-- he’d been too concerned about getting away from places people might recognize him; just because it had worked out with Alastair didn’t mean the next person to recognize him wouldn’t sell him back to Rab. 

But Catriona and the boys were in danger; Rab had turned on him, and they weren’t safe either. But there was nothing he could do about that now. Catriona was smart and deadly-- she’d bar the gates of St. Andrews and Graeme and the others would hold with her. 

He just had to get to England, get Malcolm to muster an army, and come back before the St. Andrews could fall. The thought of it made him sick at heart, but he pushed on. He had to trust that she could take care of herself and the boys.

And then there were soldiers on the road just inside the English border. “Who’re you?” they demanded.

Mac nodded politely. “I’m James Thurgood,” he said, making the name up on the spot, trying hard to imagine he was a farmer; thankfully, he’d started rolling his swords up in his bedroll two days ago, and his horse was now so filthy and tired that he could pass as a plow horse and not a warhorse. “Live off near Rowanburn,” he continued, naming the village he’d just ridden through. “And I’ve got kin in Stapleton.” He named the only English town near this part of the border he knew the name of, and he only knew that one because the Thane of Dumfries had once spent half an hour extolling the virtues of the mead served in the bar in the brothel there.

There were a lot of narrow eyed exchanging of looks. “Lots of people got kin just on the other side of the border of late,” one of the men drawled. “And you’ve the look of a liar.”

Mac shrunk in on himself in what, he thought, was a lovely bit of acting. “Look, all right,” he said quickly, holding up his hands. “There’s a girl,” he admitted like it was being torn out of him. He ducked his head, thinking of Catriona, remembering her hair and eyes and grin. “At the Red Lantern,” he added quietly, once again making use of that long-ago conversation. He stared at the ground by his horse’s hooves, as though awaiting his doom. 

A beat a silence, and then a round of guffaws. The men continued hooting, but the officer seemed to rally. Still smirking, he gestured for Mac to pass them with a flourish. “All right, then, sir,” he drawled. “Be on about your business. Good luck with your fair lady!”

Mac ducked his head in a half-bow, like any polite, well-bred farmer, and nudged his horse on, trying not to look like he was hurrying. 

When he arrived at the palace in London, he was given a room and lent some clothes to wear befitting his station. It was clear to Mac the English were much more unhappy with his state of attire than Mac was. The clothes weren’t elegant, but they fit well enough and they protected him from indecency and the elements, so Mac would take it. 

The English chamberlain who showed him to the guest quarters couldn’t stop wrinkling his nose at Mac’s attire, though, so Mac cleaned and changed obediently. That chore done, Mac asked to be brought to wherever Malcolm was.

Mac saw the prince well before Malcolm spotted Mac, coming towards him through the small side garden. He looked well, dressed in clothes befitting his station and clean of the days of road grime he’d worn when last Mac had seen him. 

His face was a little thinner, and still as carven marble in some picture-perfect portraiture of grief. His eyes were as keen and shrewd as ever. He rose when he spotted Mac, his face flickering in surprise before going still again.

Mac stepped forward to embrace him, and time slowed horribly as Malcolm took one, small but deliberate, step back. Mac stepped back as well, startled. 

Malcolm’s eyes narrowed slightly, flickering over his face, his clothes, his frame. His chin lifted just slightly, something imperious coming into the cast of his mouth, the set of his chin.

Mac’s heart clenched in his chest, that Malcolm couldn’t trust him. He knew his grief was written across his face--he’d never been able to hide from Malcolm, any more than he could Rory or Catriona or the boys. He swallowed tightly and bowed politely, awaiting what test Malcolm would need to trust him. He swore he would kill Rab for doing this to Malcolm.

Then time snapped back to normal and Malcolm’s face softened a little. “What are you doing here, Mac?”

Mac inclined his head. “Got an irate summons to hte king’s side, and on the way, some rather well-funded bandits tried to murder me. I figured Scotland wasn't the place for me anymore.”

“And you just left Catriona and the boys?” Malcolm asked sharply.

Mac bowed his head. “There wasn’t time,” he said roughly. “They were in Menteith, and two brigands got away. I ran for it.”

Malcolm crossed his arms over his chest, frowning and meeting Mac’s eyes keenly.

Mac held his gaze. “You have to know what it looks like to me.”

Mac inclined his head ruefully.

“People who’ve only barely glanced the king’s way are dead or fleeing their homes, and everyone says he was mad at you, yet you lived unmolested for ages . And then you say you’re in trouble but you left your family in Scotland, even though you feared for your life?”

“I know,” Mac said. “I know how it looks.”

“He’s tried a dozen different ways to get at me,” Malcolm said. 

Mac bowed his head. “Malcolm,” he pleaded softly.

“Tell me the truth,” Malcolm demanded, mouth twisting bitterly.

“I’m here for you,” Mac said desperately. “Because you’re the rightful king, because Rab has to be stopped. Because I missed you. Because everything is awful. Because no one I love will be safe till you’re on your throne. Including you,” he added. 

Malcolm’s face softened again, head tilting slightly into that soft little half-smile Mac had looked for daily when the too-serious child had ridden at his side. “Mac,” he said, his body language opening as he stepped forward again. “You’re such a rotten liar,” he murmured ruefully as he dragged Mac into the hug they’d aborted earlier.

Mac crushed him close, tucking his face into Malcolm’s hair. “You’re all right?” he asked softly into the prince's shoulder.

Malcolm nodded into the curve of his neck. “I’m okay,” he said, and held on for a moment that was far too long for propriety, but neither cared.

Mac took stock of the body in his arms, tucked against his chest. “You feel thin,” he said, finally drawing back to look at his prince. 

“Don’t have much appetite,” Malcolm admitted. “When every day messengers bring more dire news from home.” He dropped his gaze. “He thought he killed you,” Malcolm said. “He was crowing about it. Then he just stopped talking about you entirely.”

“Probably got word I was alive after all, and on my way here. I wasn’t subtle, once I hit this side of the border.” Mac brushed Malcolm’s hair back from his forehead, so he could see the prince’s eyes. 

“ We thought he killed you,” Malcolm said softly. “And then you were here, and I just- I’m sorry.”

“Hush,” Mac ordered, pulling him back into a hug. “None of that, now.”

“I do trust you,” Malcolm insisted into his neck.

“Of course you do,” Mac agreed.

“I hurt you.”

“I hurt that you’re in such a place where you have to question everyone. It had nothing to do with me,” Mac replied. “I hurt that I can’t help you.”

“You do,” Malcolm answered. “You really do.” He guided Mac back to the bench he’d been sitting on, and they settled shoulder to shoulder. 

Mac wrapped his arm around Malcolm’s shoulder. “But you’re well,” he repeated.

Malcolm nodded, tipping his head to Mac’s shoulder. “Her Majesty has been incredibly kind. She’s in a spitting fury that Rab would interfere so in the line of kings.” Malcolm and Elizabeth were distant cousins, with several removals and second marriages between, but even beyond familial duty, Mac could see how a queen like Elizabeth would be deeply uncomfortable with someone just trying to take a crown. 

“Not a great neighbor to have, either, I imagine, with all the refugees.” 

Malcolm huffed. “I’ve promised we’ll all go home once Rab is dealt with. She’s glad enough to help it happen, if it will prove Rab wrong and get all the Scots to go back north. She’s sent for Sir Walter Raleigh to marshall his men and meet us near Sheffield.”

Mac made a surprised noise. He’d imagined some more negotiation might be required to get what he wanted.

“If you’d been a day later, I’d have been gone already, headed back north.”

“You’ll see no complaints from me,” Mac answered. “I came to try to help you convince her to lend troops.”

Malcolm grinned ruefully. “She likes the idea of me owing her a favor.”

“No doubt,” Mac agreed. He also knew Malcolm would prove a hardier diplomat than Elizabeth likely expected from a boy king on an unstable throne. “Have you heard from your brother and Fintan?” Mac asked quietly.

Malcolm shook his head. “I sent word to him not to contact me. I don’t-” Malcolm hummed quietly, searching for the words. “I don’t want anyone to think he might be an easier puppet than I am. Or that he might be leverage over me.”

Mac huffed a laugh. “Only someone who’s never met him would think our Domhnall would be easy to puppet, and I pity the man that tries to use him as a hostage. Bloodthirsty little thing.”

Malcolm smiled. “I’ve let everyone here think he’s dead and I escaped Dunsinane by the skin of my teeth. It’s easier.”

Mac nodded. “They’ll hear no different from me,” he assured Malcolm. 

“How was your journey?” Malcolm asked.

Mac huffed. “Rushed and miserable and filthy,” he answered. “I had almost no coin on me, so I’ve mostly been hunting and sleeping rough. Once I crossed the border I felt no shame asking farmers to rinse in their troughs and such, but I tried not to talk to anyone while I was still in Scotland.”

“How did you cross the border? The last message said Rab had posted guards on all the roads to try to prevent escapes.”

Mac grinned and told him the story of the lie he’d spun to the border guards.

“And that worked ?” Malcolm demanded, appalled.

Mac shrugged. “I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.”

“No, fair,” Malcolm agreed. “But I’m embarrassed on their behalf.”

“You can replace them, when you’re king.” 

Malcolm rolled his eyes. “Hopefully I won’t need border guards to prevent my subjects from escaping when I’m king.”

“Ideally,” Mac agreed wryly. 

“If it was such a hard road, have you eaten? Rested? Cleaned up?”

“The last,” Mac replied, “But not the first two. But I can wait till supper, and I’ll sleep in a bed tonight, which is plenty. I don’t want to risk a nap and then struggle to sleep tonight, not if we’re leaving in the morning.”

Malcolm nodded. “If you’re sure. I’ll be glad of your sword. Raleigh is well enough, and he can field more than ten thousand men. But Rab has an army too, and you know how he fights when Boyd isn’t there to guide him.”

Mac’s mouth twisted. Boyd had definitely been the tactician of the pair; Rab’s method was usually just smash them till everyone was dead. “He’s not exactly tactically gifted.”

“But he has fifteen thousand men.”

“He doesn’t,” Mac objected.

Malcolm nodded. “Mostly Irish mercenaries and pressed peasantry, but he does.”

“The Scots will leave him for you as soon as you spread the Canmore banner,” Mac vowed.

Malcolm nodded. “I think so too, but that still leaves the mercenaries. And Rab.”

Mac nodded ruefully. Rab was a force all on his own. But Mac had sworn, and he would see it done. “We’ll make it,” he said softly, tucking Malcolm more firmly against his side.

Malcolm nodded, leaning further into his embrace. “I don’t doubt it. And Raleigh’s a skilled soldier; I don’t doubt him.”

“I know, your highness,” Mac teased gently. “It’s just in your nature to plan things to death.” 

Malcolm smiled primly. “Precisely,” he said, matching Mac’s playful tone. “I’m glad you’re here,” he murmured after a moment, much more gently.

“Nowhere else I’d rather be, cub,” Mac replied, dropping a kiss to Malcolm’s temple. “Nowhere.”

They set out northward early in the morning. Mac’s warhorse heaved a long suffering sigh as Mac tacked him up again, but once ready fell in at the side of Malcolm’s courser without further complaint. 

The new, imperious cast to Malcolm’s face remained, his eyes stayed sharp and bright, and there was something new, something steadfast, in the set of his shoulders that Mac had never seen before. Whatever burnishing Mac had once thought the young man needed before becoming king, he no longer needed it. He was every inch a leader Mac would be proud to follow.

Malcolm, with Mac silent at his shoulder, took graceful command of the portions of the army that would ride north with them from London. He issued clear orders, and yielded gracefully to the expertise of the captains under his command. By the time they’d been on the march a day, even Sir Walter, who’d bowed to Elizabeth with some studied insouciance in his tone and body language, stood straight and met Malcolm’s eyes head-on.

However, Sir Walter and the other captains seemed not to know quite what to do with Mac. Wat, Raleigh’s son, finally asked, late in the afternoon of the first day. “What brings you here,” and then he stuttered on what to call Mac.

Malcolm had introduced him as “Mac, most likely currently former thane of Fife,” and then breezed on to other things, and it no one seemed perfectly sure how to deal with that many descriptors. 

“Mac’ll do,” Mac said. “I’m not lord of your anything.”

Raleigh chuckled. “I don’t blame you. If I could drop the ‘sir’ in daily life, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Need it at court, but at home? Tedious. Seems a tad impolite, though, if you are lord of anything. ”

Mac shrugged. “Currently former,” he said cheerfully. “So Mac’ll do.” He didn’t doubt Malcolm would reinstate him as soon as he was officially king, but for now, he was perfectly happy to simply be a soldier in his prince’s employ. “I’m here for Prince Malcolm,” he answered. “He’s dear to me, as well as my true liege.”

“Mac taught me most of what I know,” Malcolm said brightly. “At least about horses, swords, and people.”

Mac shook his head. “Not people, Your Highness,” he protested. “His Late Majesty had much more to do with that than me.”

Malcolm shook his head. “Not about how to treat them,” Malcolm replied gently, a private aside for Mac the others politely ignored. “I was his squire for two years,” Malcolm explained to the others.

Raleigh looked at Mac with something a little more like respect after that-- there was something beyond just status, in the fact of a king trusting his heir’s training to someone. “Well met, then, Mac,” he said wryly.

Mac grinned. “Honor’s mine, Sir Walter,” he replied, his grin indicating exactly how aware of how what he said fit in the context of their conversation.

Raleigh’s captain, Edward, guffawed at the look on his lord’s face. “Well played, Mac,” he said cheerfully. Mac’s refusal of his title let Edward join the conversation a little more readily, not that any of the nobles would have minded either way.

Mac bowed politely, smirking.

Wat, grinning at his father’s stupefaction, asked Mac, “Have you fought many battles, Mac?”

Mac sawed a hand. “Both recent conflicts between Norway and Scotland were fought in my lands, so I’ve seen plenty of battles with the Norwegians, but not much beyond skirmishes with bandits beyond those.”

Malcolm kicked his foot out of the stirrup to kick Mac’s ankle. “Tell them about Catriona in the last battle.”

“Catriona’s my wife,” Mac explained to Raleigh, Wat, and Edward, who listened raptly as he recounted the skirmish at the waterside. 

Raleigh whistled admiringly. “Quite a woman you’ve got, Mac,” he said.

Mac nodded. “I’m the luckiest man alive.”

“My Liv would want me to argue,” Edward said, “But I’m not sure I can.”

Mac ducked his head. “She’s my life,” he agreed.

Raleigh told the story of one of his naval battles, an absurd tale featuring swinging from ropes, exploding canons, and lots of sailing terminology, all of which was interesting to both Mac and Malcolm for the very reason that neither of them had ever been in a naval battle, and the afternoon passed in light conversation of ridiculous feats in battle.

It became clear to Mac that Wat, though a few years Malcolm’s senior in age, was less mature than the young prince, and Mac got the impression that he both desperately wanted to please his father and had also never been around the man much. He was a good audience for battle tales, though, asking eager questions about great feats and blithely unconcerned with the ugliness of war. 

Mac could see in Malcolm’s fond half-smile that Wat reminded him a little of Domhnall in spirit, though less savvy than the younger prince. 

Mac kicked his ankle in return, and just said, “Spine,” into the lull between tales.

It earned him several strange looks and a bark of laughter from Malcolm. “You remind me a bit of my brother,” he told Wat. “And Mac wants me to tell you the story of Don’s first battle.”

Raleigh’s eyes quirked. “You got all that from one word?”

“We rode together two years,” Malcolm replied, “And Mac doesn’t say very much sometimes. I learned to read a lot from his face and tone.”

Mac tipped his head in silent acknowledgement.

Malcolm waved at him as if in illustration, and then launched into the story of how the Thane of Cawdor betrayed his homeland, and how Young Domhnall saw his first spine.

“Cool,” Wat breathed, when Malcolm described Rab’s killing blow, rather proving Mac and Malcolm’s point about his similarities to the younger Canmore brother.

Edward followed up with a tale about his first battle, and then of course Mac and Raleigh were obliged to do the same, carrying them well into the evening.

They made camp well after dark that night, and rode out again at first light, pushing the horses and the men. 

“We’ll slow once we join the rest of the force in Sheffield,” Malcolm said to the commanders during their brief lunch stop. “But I want to get there in time to join the muster, instead of them waiting for us.”

So they pressed on. Time fluttered around Mac in fits and starts, sometimes rushing past until he missed hours in a blink or two, and sometimes dragging on so long he thought he’d fall asleep in the saddle out of the boredom of barely-changing scenery. As they neared Sheffield, it seemed to drag more and more, and Mac felt like their last day’s ride was actually several days long. 

“Are you all right?” Malcolm asked that night in the tent he’d insisted Mac share with him, though his status certainly allowed him one alone. “You’re quiet of late.”

Mac felt his mouth twitch ruefully at the remembrance of the last time they’d had this conversation, and he saw that Malcolm was thinking of it too. “Caught up in my head,” he said again. 

“Woolgathering?” Malcolm asked, smiling just slightly.

Mac nodded. “Wondering if there was anything I could have done differently.”

“Don’t,” Malcolm said fiercely. “Nothing good comes of that.”

Mac nodded. He couldn’t stop his mind wandering as time dragged on, but he agreed with the prince that only madness lay beyond what-ifs. He considered, not for the first time, attempting to explain his difficulties with time, explain why he was withdrawn and seemed far away sometimes, but he’d never found the words for Catriona, and he doubted he could describe it to Malcolm any better. “I’ll try,” he promised. “Are you all right?”

Malcolm nodded. “I’m glad you’re beside me,” he admitted. “It feels like I can do anything, with you at my shoulder. But it also feels like I am making this up as I go.”

Mac shrugged. “I make everything up as I go,” he said.

“Stop,” Malcolm said, disbelieving. “You do not.”

Mac nodded, smiling wryly. “No one knows what they’re doing, cub. No one. We’re all just muddling through. Secret they never tell you till you’re a grownup for real.”

Malcolm searched his face. “I can never tell when you’re messing with me,” he complained. 

Mac grinned. “Often,” he said. “But not this time. Totally earnest, cub, I swear. We all just do the best we can with what we know, and hope for the best.”

Malcolm sighed deeply. “I don’t know if that makes me feel better, or infinitely worse.”

Mac chuckled, low and warm. 

“You can laugh,” Malcolm muttered. “You weren’t suddenly just handed an entire bloody country. Or worse, expected to just take it.”

“Did get unexpectedly handed an entire bloody protectorate,” Mac replied. “I was older than you, fair, but felt no less ready than I imagine you do.”

“What did you do?” Malcolm asked.

“Relied on my people,” Mac answered. “Who knew what needed to be done. Once Rab’s taken care of, your father’s advisors are still around, most of them. They’ll help you.” More quietly, he promised, “I’ll help you.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Malcolm said, just as soft.  

“You’ll be all right, cub,” Mac said. “Sleep now. You need it.”

“Goodnight Mac,” Malcolm said softly. 

“Good night, cub,” Mac replied. “Sleep well.” He listened to Malcolm’s breathing slow and draw even, and then counted breaths as he let sleep creep over him as well.

The last push to the marshalling at Sheffield dragged interminably for Mac. Every step of his horse’s hooves seemed to take full minutes.

Malcolm was busy planning with Edward and Raleigh, so Mac, thankfully, wasn’t required to join the conversation he could barely understand for how long the words dragged out. But the closer they drew to the encampment outside the city, the more time dragged, and the greater Mac’s dread grew. It felt terribly like the moment before the porter had opened the castle gate at Dunsinane, and the knowledge sat heavy in his gut.

Time settled around Mac again, moving easily like a cloak around his legs, but the dread remained in his gut as they folded into the muster and made their camps. Malcolm once again pushed Mac to stay with him and Mac acquiesced, the churning in his gut desperate to be soothed by keeping Malcolm, at least of all those he loved, close under his eyes. 

They ate a hasty supper as they settled, Malcolm and Raleigh finalizing their plans for the march in the morning, and then parted ways to see to their own duties.

Once Mac and Malcolm were seated around the firepit outside the command tent, a young runner in Raleigh’s colors approached and bowed politely to Malcolm. “If you’ve the time, your highness,” he said, “There’s a messenger from Scotland here. He came by ship into Hull and came here to wait once he’d word you were on your way north.” 

Malcolm nodded. “Gladly,” he answered, dismissing the runner with a polite handwave. He shot Mac a look, one eyebrow lifted in question.

Mac shrugged. They were as alone as they could be in the bustle of camp--Raleigh was off harrying his forces into shape so they could march in the morning--and the slouch of Malcolm’s shoulders would hardly withstand courtly scrutiny. “More news,” was all he said in reply, unspoken that it was unlikely to be good news, even the dread in his gut notwithstanding. Any more information would be helpful for when they crossed the border. 

The runner returned, Ewan looking ragged and tired behind him.

“Ewan!” Malcolm cried, standing to greet the Thane of Lennox-- or perhaps currently former, like Mac. Malcolm examined his face with his sharp eyes for a long moment. 

Ewan stood still under the scrutiny, face pale and thin and mouth twisted with some kind of rueful sorrow. “Bad news from Scotland,” he said offering his empty palms in a strange cross between a shrug and an entreaty. 

Malcolm nodded in acceptance, in trust , and stepped forward. “Lennox,” he said softly.

“Your highness,” Ewan replied, almost a sigh of relief. He bowed his way into the glad one-armed hug Malcolm initiated.

“How are you?” Malcolm asked. “What brings you here?”

Ewan shook his head ruefully, but didn’t answer except to wave at the world at large.

“You look awful,” Mac said, noting the deep circles under Ewan’s eyes and the new grim lines etched around his mouth. He stood to pull his friend into a full hug, and Ewan leaned into gratefully, sagging with a soul-deep exhaustion that had nothing to do with needing rest.

Ewan pulled away and shook his head. “I’m bearing awful news,” he replied, looking between Malcolm and Mac.

Malcolm sat and waved them both down to join him. “What news from Scotland?” he prompted.

Ewan buried his face in his hands. “The protectorates are in disarray-- most are currently without leadership, because too many Thanes are in hiding, missing, or dead outright. Everyone’s frozen without good leadership. No one likes Rab anymore, but no one’s willing to stand up to him, either.”

“I will,” Malcolm said calmly. “We’re on the way to do just that. We leave in the morning.”

Ewan made an expression that was clearly attempting to be a smile. “That’s great news, your highness,” he said. 

“And yours is better for us than I’d hoped. We don’t have the numbers to face Rab on the field unless his Scottish troops will throw him over as soon as we get there.”

Ewan nodded slowly. “Most of them will,” he said. “Everyone’s afraid-- even a quiet dinner at home is full of awkward silences and fraught with fear. Scotland’s people are suffering deeply.”

“Not for long,” Malcolm promised. “Not if I can help it.”

Ewan shook his head in wonder. “I’m glad to hear it,” he admitted slowly.

“But?” Malcolm asked.

“There’s one piece of news I have yet to deliver, because I can barely begin to say it aloud.”

“To whom should you deliver it?” Malcolm prompted gently.

Ewan chewed his lip. “You won’t like it,” he told the prince, “No one with a heart would. But it’s for you, Mac,” he finished, turning his solemn gaze to Mac. He looked like he wanted anything in the world but to say out loud what came next.

Mac closed his eyes; he was pretty sure he knew. He shook his head slowly.

“I’m sorry,” Ewan choked. “Catriona-”

“No,” Malcolm whispered.

Mac shook his head more desperately.

Ewan rallied himself. “Rab sent forces under the command of one of his Irish mercenaries. To Fife. They torched the fields and killed everyone in the castle.” He took a heaving breath, voice breaking, before he continued, “Catriona, the boys, I’m so sorry Mac.”

Mac pressed his hands to his face, eyes burning and throat so tight he couldn’t breathe. He slid from his seat to his knees, curling around the burning in his chest.

Malcolm was there, suddenly, pulling him into a fiercely clinging hug. “Mac,” he whispered.

The noise Mac made wasn’t words; it barely held sounds, just raw anguish torn from his chest till it scoured his throat raw. “No,” he pleaded softly into the cloth at Malcolm’s shoulder. “No.” 

Ewan made a noise of despair. “Yes,” he said, hopeless.

“It’s okay, Mac,” Malcolm said softly. 

“It isn’t,” Mac refuted, bleak. Tears were rolling down his face unchecked, and he didn’t move to brush them away. He clutched at Malcolm’s hip and sobbed. 

Malcolm was crying too. “No,” he agreed, voice cracking. 

“Catriona,” Mac muttered. “ Keir .” The last was almost a wail, but for volume. He choked on a sob. 

“Feel it,” Malcolm muttered into his hair. “It’s okay to grieve.” His arms were brutally tight around Mac’s shoulders and waist, but he murmured soft soothing noises and pressed his cheek against Mac’s hair. “I’ve got you.”

Mac wept bitter tears into Malcolm’s neck.

“Shh,” Malcolm whispered, but Mac couldn’t stop the low wounded cries he was making. 

He could picture Catriona’s bright eyes, Keir’s sweet smile, Aidan’s high laugh, Niall’s easy joy. “I should never have left them,” he gasped. “This is my fault.”

“ No ,” Malcolm growled. “You did as you thought you must, and you couldn’t know he would stoop so low. You trusted her. They wouldn’t blame you, Mac.”

“Rab,” Ewan said. “He did this, not you.”

Rab had snuffed out all light in his life. Grief turned abruptly to rage and he went cold and still in Malcolm’s arms. “I’m going to kill him,” he whispered against his prince’s shoulder.

Malcolm nodded gently, cheek still against his hair. “I want you to,” he said. “I’ll help ,” he snarled. 

Mac lifted his head and saw the same fury in Malcolm’s face as he felt in his heart. 

Rab would pay . 

He dried his face and marshalled his still-shaking limbs. Catriona had promised to burn Scotland to the ground if Rab killed him; Mac could do no less for her. 

They had one last hasty council of war over porridge the next morning while the camp came apart around them. Edward and Raleigh had established their route from Sheffield to the Scottish Border, and Malcolm and Ewan had established their planned route from there to Dunsinane. 

Time was moving at one and half speed around him, making everyone else seem frantic and his conversational additions feel weighty and sluggish, but the others seemed to take it as the force of his grief. Mac just felt cold inside. It would be real when he came home to an empty castle, and likely not before. Until then, he wrapped the cold around himself and narrowed his focus to how best to make Rab pay.

Malcolm and Edward mounted their horses still talking about how to deal with the Scottish deserters they were certain to encounter, and Mac fell in behind them instead of at Malcolm’s side. 

His mind was full of swordplay and the weight of his sword. Rab was a better swordsman than anyone Mac had ever met, and his brutal strength had made it hard for anyone to stand before him in battle. He’d never lost a single combat, and he had, Mac knew, a tendency to forget he was mortal when fighting, which made him a deeply dangerous foe. Mac was a good fighter, better in single combat than in the chaos of battle, and Rab had less height and weight on Mac than he had on most foes he faced. Mac also had the distinct advantage that he cared absolutely no whit if he died in the process of killing Rab. Rab would underestimate him--he always had, from the time Mac was young--and Mac would kill him. There was simply no other choice. 

Mac was still contemplating this when time snapped to normal with enough violence to feel like whiplash and Raleigh fell in at his side. 

Mac glanced at him, wondering if this was simply expediency or if the Englishman actually wanted to talk to him.

“His Highness told us all of the news Lennox carried,” Raleigh said softly. He looked deeply awkward.

Mac nodded. He had assumed as much, given how gently the others had been talking around him when he wasn’t joining the planning. 

“I know you likely don’t want to talk,” Raleigh continued. 

Mac wondered uncharitably why he was talking about it.

“But I just wanted to-” he trailed off. “Offer my condolences,” he finished finally. “There aren’t words,” he added. “But, I’m sorry.”

Mac nodded, throat tight. That cloak of cold was precarious, and he held onto it hard through the stinging in his eyes. 

Raleigh patted his shoulder awkwardly and peeled his horse off to join Malcolm and Edward.

“He means well,” Wat said quietly from behind Mac.

Mac looked back, and shifted his horse so the young man could come beside him. He tilted his head to show that he was listening.

“He talks things to death, especially when you don’t want to talk about them,” Wat explained. “Because he wants to make sure you know he cares. Or at least, that’s what he does to Mum and me, and Carew.”

Mac nodded. 

“Anyway,” Wat continued brightly, “can I interest you in a story about my brother, Carew? He’s at Oxford right now, and his cohort have a gift for absurd shenanigans.” 

Mac looked at the younger man in surprise. “Sure,” he agreed slowly, aware that he had underestimated the young man over the previous few days. He was young and reckless, certainly, but he was a keener observer than he let on. 

Wat smiled, a little rueful, and little warm. He knew exactly the impression he gave off, and cheerfully used it to his advantage. But he also obviously didn’t mind shedding the illusion with Mac, and he’d gathered Mac wanted to be distracted rather than coddled.

So Wat spent the next several hours chattering easily about his brother and his friends, lighthearted tales of youthful mischief, and Mac let his mind wander, half listening as the ground vanished beneath their horse’s hooves and they drew nearer and nearer to Rab and Mac’s revenge.

Mac was back beside Malcolm near the front of the force when they crossed the Socttish border. The startled squadron of border guards all but flung themselves to their knees in their haste to surrender. 

Malcolm rode forward, Mac at his flank, until the shadow of his silhouette fell across the leader of the group. He leaned his elbows on the front of his saddle, bending to look the kneeling men full in the face. “Do you know me, Scots?” he asked, voice soft and even.

“Not by any meeting between us, your highness,” the captain said, head still deeply bowed, “But by your face anyway. You’ve much the look of your father about you.”

This was true enough. His mother’s eyes and tawny coloring softened him enough that the resemblance was not uncanny, but he was definitely Domhnall’s son. “And what say you, to Malcolm Canmore marching out of the south with an army?” Malcolm asked.

“God be thanked,” one of the men cried. His fellows hushed him.

“For certain, that,” the captain said, lifting his chin and tilting his head in the direction of the man who’d spoken. “And that if he will have us, we will gladly serve Scotland’s true king. Whatever oath you shall have us swear, your highness, we should do so gladly to march at your side.”

Malcolm examined the men steadily, eyes sharp and bright. Finally he sat straight. “No oath needed, friends,” he said, “Except the one you have already sworn--to serve Scotland. Gather your weapons and fall in as you can.”

The captain bowed deeply and marshalled his men.

Several of them were weeping outright in joy. 

Mac felt hope, for the first time, that perhaps Scotland, at least, could be okay after everything. 

“Was that wise, your highness?” Raleigh asked quietly as they rode on.

Malcolm glanced at him briefly then turned his eyes back to the road. “I will not be so trusting with everyone,” he assured the Englishman, “But those men, yes, I trust them.”

“That level of emotion is hard to fake,” Ewan observed from the rank behind them. “For us, at least. We Scots are freer with our emotions than you stuffy Englishmen.” 

The insult was cheerful, and the stuffy Englishmen laughed instead of taking offence. “I find that true enough,” Edward agreed. Mac had seen his wondering gaze as Ewan teased their prince and Malcolm confided his fears candidly to Mac; it was nothing like the stilted formal way  the English interacted in public, even Wat and Raleigh. 

“There are some,” Malcolm said, “Who have learned to hide and lie.” Greer hung unspoken between the three Scots, her effusive comments with hidden barbs. They all doubted she could be the only one, and there would be men who had sworn to Rab out of fear or thirst for power who would hold those oaths, whatever came. “And I will guard myself among them as necessary. But the common soldiers? They will either hold their oaths to my father, or to Rab, and say openly which it is.”

Raleigh nodded. “Fair enough,” he agreed. 

“He knows well enough to distrust the nobility when they come with false face,” Mac added, recalling his first reunion with Malcolm.

“Mac, no, really?” Ewan asked, directed at Malcolm.

Malcolm inclined his head. “I had to ask,” he insisted. “Rab had sent others to try to get me alone; Selkirk showed up to try to get me to come back, he said, and tried to stab me while my back was turned.”

Ewan and Mac snarled simultaneously. The mere thought of someone trying to stab their cub, when everything was already so terrible, made them both furious and terrified.

Malcolm rolled his eyes. “I’m fine,” he told them. “I had on a mail shirt under my jerkin. I’m not an idiot.”

“Is that why you hugged me despite barely testing my story?” Ewan asked. “I wondered.”

Malcolm smiled a half-smile. “You looked like such shit I found it unlikely you were there to do anything except tell me how much worse it was.” 

There was a brief, strained silence as all three Scots remembered how much worse it was, and then Malcolm pressed on. “Anyway, we’re headed through Dumfries,” he said. “And the Thane of Dumfries is in hiding; Rab’s likely put some puppet in place here. We may have a fight, but it should be a small one.” Their force would drastically outnumber the armsmen any one protectorate could field. They wouldn’t have a true battle until they faced the army, and they were all sure that that would be near Dunsinane. “Take prisoners if anyone surrenders,” Malcolm added. “Rab is the only real enemy here.”

Edward nodded. “We said it, but I’ll make sure the sergeants tell the men again.” He peeled off to ride back down the column.

Time shifted again as they rode on, and Mac blinked through the afternoon in a few breaths and heartbeats. Mac wouldn’t complain; the sooner they got there, the sooner he could kill Rab.

Scotland felt different. Mac couldn't say if it was his knowledge of everything that was going on, or if Rab’s toxicity really had made the very air in the country feel heavier. 

But their presence was changing things. They were keeping to the well-maintained main roads, because the army could march faster on good roads, and the farmers and villagers stopped their work to watch them pass, and cheered with joy when they saw the Canmore arms on the banners at the edges. 

They camped in fields and along the hedgerows of the road. The captains made sure the men were careful not to disturb the livestock some of them shared fields with, and the owner of the land Malcolm and Mac were camping on literally wept at Malcolm’s feet when he offered them payment for the use of their land. 

They were still in Dumfries, though drawing nearer to Strathclyde, and still had faced no opposition except the border guards. Malcolm was wary, and posted sentires around the camp, but settled in to dinner with Ewan and Mac all the same.

A runner arrived when they were just finished eating and contemplating drinking or bed. “Sire,” the young English runner said politely to Malcolm, “Sirs,” he added to Mac and Ewan, “The sentries have a man who says he’s a friend to you, and would bring you news if you would hear it. He says his name is Inness Lyne, and you might know him as the one-time Thane of Lothian.”

Malcolm nodded. “Bring him,” he ordered, “And we shall see if it is indeed our friend Inness, for the Thane of Lothian is well known to all three of us, and if it is him, we shall be glad of it.”

The runner bowed his head politely and hurried off. 

“He’s a long way from home,” Ewan observed. 

“No more than you or I,” Mac replied wryly. 

“Fair,” Ewan said. “I’m just curious what brings him out this way, if he’s introducing himself to the sentires as the former Thane of Lothian.”

Malcolm nodded grimly. “I don’t think it makes a very good trap,” he said, “And I’ll be glad to hear his news, if it is him. But experience suggests care.”

Mac already has his sword drawn, though it was across his lap as he tended the blade, and Ewan mimicked his posture, as if they both were simply performing routine sword maintenance after supper while talking with their prince.

But the man the runner brought into their presence was definitely Innes Lyne, though never had Mac seen him as far from lordly as he was at this moment. His clothes were worn, well-maintained leather and wool, and his usually-loose long hair--Lyne’s one vanity-- was tamed in a tight braid down his back. There was dirt on his face, but it looked intentional, like camouflage or sun-blacking, instead of wear. He bowed deeply. “Your highness,” he breathed.

Malcolm rose to meet him. “Inness,” he answered, offering a hand for a clasp.

Inness dropped instead to his knees and kissed Malcolm’s hand. 

The prince had his face under control by the time Inness lifted his head, but Mac and Ewan both got to see the shock, discomfort, and dislike that flickered rapidly across his features before vanishing behind his steady mask.

“My prince,” Inness said, lifting his gaze to Malcolm’s face without rising. “I have come to swear my services to you and yours, however I may be of use to you.”

Malcolm pressed once on his shoulder, gently, and then tugged him up. “I accept your service gladly,” he said gravely, “But the time for oaths will come later.”

Inness nodded. “Highness, I have six thousand men at your disposal.”

Malcolm blinked in surprise.

“How?” Ewan blurted.

Malcolm waved at Ewan, a silent repetition of the question.

Inness grinned fiercely. “I fled Lothian ahead of the false king’s butchers, sire.” He nodded to Mac. “The same as he sent to Fife, and I would not be taken. My family fled to England in a fishing boat, with a sailor I trust, and my armsmen and I came south.” 

Mac nodded gravely to him.

Malcolm gestured to him to join them sitting around the fire. 

Inness sat, showing teeth. “We offered a fight to the first of the king’s men we encountered in Dumfries, and were politely turned down.” He nodded agreement off all three of their noises of surprise. “It was just a squad of them, and they asked to join us instead. And so it went, sire,” he said, gesturing vaguely. “We’ve fought a few forces that outnumber us, mostly led by Irish Kerns, but if we outnumbered them, the Scots surrendered and asked to join. We’ve taken all the king’s forces in Dumfries and Galloway, and most of southern Strathclyde.”

“Sweet Lord,” Ewan said faintly. 

Inness shrugged. “We’ve taken and held Dumfries Castle; we’re keeping the Irish prisoners there, but the rest of the army has been sending back reports and taking orders like nothing is wrong. We marshalled when we got word of you coming across the border, and we’re ready to march north on your order.”

Malcolm eyed Inness keenly. “What have the orders been?”

“Report sedition, mainly,” Inness replied. “Capture fugitives--that one’s fun; I’m the most wanted, currently, but Jim and I trade it off.”

“Is Jim all right?” Ewan asked, offering a mug of ale. Jim Thorpe was Thane of Galloway.

“Back at home now that we’ve got all the soldiers on our side,” Inness replied, toasting with the mug. “His littlest is just three, and his wife gone on, God rest her, I sent him home as soon as could be, but he was out here with me until two weeks ago.”

Malcolm nodded. “And Strathclyde?”

Inness shrugged. “Keeping to himself,” he replied. “I imagine if I went and knocked on his door, he’d have a thing or two to say, but none of the men I’ve either fought nor brought over on Strathclyde lands have been his armsmen. They’ve all been King’s Soldiers, in the livery, and marching on his orders. Can’t say if he knows what we’re doing down here, but I don’t think he’s reporting on me if he does.”

“Well we’ll find out,” Malcolm said. “We’re marching straight through.”

“And then to Lennox?” Inness asked.

Ewan nodded, lifting his ale in a cheerful toast. “I imagine most of mine will turn with us, same as yours.”

“Last we spoke, Cinaed was spitting mad,” Inness added, “So I don’t imagine Menteith will be that hard to cross either.”

“Cinaed’s still in power?” Mac asked quietly, hopeful and hurting in turns.

Inness nodded. “Or he was a week ago,” he answered, sawing a hand. “He’s said a lot of pretty lies to the false king’s emissaries, and kept his head down, and helped funnel a lot of people onto the water in Perth.”

“Good man,” Ewan murmured.

Malcolm nodded. 

Inness hummed in agreement. “But in private in a towering fury about his assassination attempt on you, Mac, and the attack on Fife.”

Mac pressed his mouth into a thin line.

“That was a mistake,” Inness said thoughtfully. “I mean, it was horrible, and I offer my sincerest condolences,” he added to Mac.

Mac waved these off, still unable to find a way to accept this and keep himself collected.

“But,” Inness continued, “It was also a tactical mistake. There were plenty of Thanes, particularly the small holdings, who would have been perfectly pleased to keep their heads down and ignore the major players as they always did, until he went for you.”

“Me?” Mac repeated. Surely he meant Catriona and the boys-- the innocents of Fife.

Inness nodded. “You’re well liked, Mac,” Inness assured him. “You get on with everyone, and even when His Majesty, God rest him, dragged you kicking into the limelight, you never put on airs. You’re kind, and easy, and you never hold grudges. If Rab would go for you , it meant no one was safe. It tipped the scales for more than a few men I’ve spoken to.”

“Same,” Ewan replied. “It tipped Eideard, when I asked him to speak to Inness.”

Inness nodded. “And it tipped me, when Eideard came to me. And then it was me on the block next, and I knew we’d done right.”

Malcolm smiled ruefully, eyes sparkling with silent laughter as Mac shook his head in wonder. “I’m not surprised that Rab didn’t think Mac was that important.”

“He’s always underestimated me,” Mac agreed, not willing to touch his supposed impact with a ten foot pole. 

“Let us hope that he continues to do so,” Malcolm said, something decisive in his voice. It was clear to all of them that the conversation had ended. Ewan and Mac sheathed their swords, well polished now and extremely sharp, and Ewan and Inness excused themselves for the night with soft farewells.

Mac followed Malcolm into their tent. 

Malcolm shot him an impish little half-smirk. “Universally beloved,” he said teasingly.

“I promise not to bring up the face you made when Inness kissed your hand if you will drop that line of conversation right now,” Mac offered hopefully.

Malcolm laughed, warm and rich and full-bellied. “Deal,” he agreed. “Though I know you’re coming out well ahead.”

“Rest, highness,” Mac said dryly.

Malcolm was still grinning as they curled into bedrolls, but he dropped easily into sleep. Mac, for the first time in a while, felt something other than blankness in his chest, and followed the only person left to him who mattered into sleep with a lighter heart than expected.

Inness’ forces fell into the column easily, and the march northward continued. They finally met their first armed resistance about halfway between Glasgow and Stirling. 

Edward’s shouted demands for the smallish force to surrender, given in Malcolm’s name, were met with jeers. Edward, fifteen paces forward to shout the message, shrugged philosophically, shouted, “We’ll still be here if you change your mind!” and rode back to Raleigh’s side.

“Hope Stirling is okay,” Ewan said dryly, preparing for battle almost negligently. 

Mac shrugged, drawing his own sword. “Me too,” he agreed, but he couldn’t really worry about it. 

Most of the army stayed back--they outnumbered Rab’s forces badly enough that to field their whole force would just be confusing for them. But Mac rode at Malcolm’s side as he and the Englishman bearing his banner led the charge. Ewan flanked the standard bearer, and between them they kept back the most opportunistic of their foes. 

Mac’s warhorse accounted for two foes on his own, and Mac killed three more, before they broke ranks past the Irish mercenaries in the front ranks of the small army, and the first man in the king’s colors dropped to his knees with his hands on his head. 

Mac spent a few minutes fighting to keep his horse from damaging his new captive, and by the time he had the animal under control, the battle was all but over. 

There was still skirmishing going on on the flanks, but the center of the line were dead or captured. “Captured”, Mac thought wryly, since he’d imagine most of them would be joining the force north-bound once the captains could sort of who was with them and who wasn’t. 

“All right there?” Malcolm asked Mac wryly. His courser’s eyes were white and rolling, she was breathing far too heavily for the little exertion, and her flanks shook and quivered with fear. But she was still under him, and had obeyed him in the fray. 

Mac tipped his head, smiling. “Fine, Prince Malcolm,” he said, loud enough to carry. 

Nudges as whispers swept through the lines of surrendered troops, necks craning to try to see the prince.

Malcolm shot Mac a flat look. 

Mac shrugged innocently. He dismounted a few steps away, taking the time while Malcolm, Raleigh, and the captains sorted the men to wash the blood from his horse and sword. 

“Lord Fife?” one of the men in the rows called. 

Mac looked up. 

The man looked relieved. “I thought it was you, sir,” the man said desperately. His fellows tried to hush him, but he shrugged them off. “Lord Fife, what’s to be done with us?”

Mac dropped his reins and stepped on them briefly; his horse bowed his head and stood still as Mac removed his boot and crossed to the captives who had, nominally, surrendered to him. “Where are you from?” Mac asked, instead of answering. 

“Outside Inverness, Lord,” the man answered. “Town’s called Dalcross.”

“You know me,” Mac observed. 

“By face, My Lord,” he answered. “I served as an armsman for the Old Lord Cromarty, before his son took it up and I went to the army.”

Mac nodded, and finally answered. “You surrendered quick enough,” Mac said. “Like as not His Highness will take your word and send you home.”

The man nodded slowly. “Will he take us on?” he asked.

Mac tipped his head in question.

“If we want to join him, make up for what we’ve done, will he let us?” The reply came from the young man next to Mac’s conversation partner.

Mac frowned as if thinking. “What’ve you done?”

“Served the butcher ,” the boy growled. 

“You had your oaths,” Mac replied.

“So did you,” the boy said in reply, “And yet here you are at our rightful king’s side.”

Mac inclined his head, acknowledging the truth of this silently.

“We took Stirling from its Lord,” the man from Inverness said slowly. “And sent him to the king.” He sounded full of regret. 

“And the Irish whipped a man in the square for mouthing off, and none of us said anything ,” the boy continued. 

Mac frowned. “His Highness will not blame you for the actions of your superiors,” he insisted. “He knows the difficult place you’ve been put.”

“He’s kind,” the boy said, a little wonderingly.

“He doesn’t hold grudges. He’ll take you on, if you want it,” Mac said soothingly to both men. “He’s a good man.”

They both wilted with relief. “Thank you, my lord!” 

Edward sauntered over to stand beside Mac. “What do you think, Lord Fife?” he asked cheerfully. “This lot coming with us?”

Mac looked the squad over. “The ones that want,” he answered. “The rest can stay here and guard the Kerns.”

Edward nodded and took over.

Mac went back to his horse. By the time he’d resettled his gear, tightened his girth, and retrieved his reins, it was time to mount up and continue the march. 

They’d fought three more skirmishes with forces predominately made of mercenaries by the time they left The Lennox, and when they camped a half-day’s ride outside Perth, Mac was somewhat unsurprised to hear that the scouts fought a sortie with a few squadrons of kingsmen. As per usual, the Irish retreated in disarray and the Scots surrendered and joined their forces. 

That evening, Cinaed, with a handful of battered-looking armsmen arrived at the edge of their lines. “I’ve been forcing them to chase me in merry circles around Menteith for the last few days,” he said, cheerful and exhausted. “Don’t know what tipped him to me,” he added, “I’d been in his good graces till a week ago, and then I don’t know if someone ratted on me or if I oversold my grief about Greer.”

“What?” Malcolm said, sitting forward.

“You didn’t know?” Cinaed said, startled. “Her Majesty the Queen died a week ago. A doctor had been attending her, and it was put about that she was ill--though no one has said with what-- but the rumor is that she did it herself.”

“That’s an ugly rumor,” Malcolm said mildly.

Cinaed shrugged. “Her lady in waiting had a loose tongue,” he answered, “And said she’d been sleepwalking, talking, demanding a light at all hours. The gist is that her conscience was greatly disturbed by something , though it seems, according to my sources, that the lady refused to repeat after anything Greer said in her sleep, lacking someone to corroborate her words.”

“Guilt lies heavy on some,” Ewan said, shrugging philosophically. “And others not at all, at no bearing to the actual weight of the deeds.”

“You want to suggest she had nothing to do with Rab’s madness?” Cinaed asked, disbelief rich in his tone. “He was never the ambitious one.”

“He was,” Mac disagreed. “Just quieter with it, and more likely to want to earn, rather than take.”

“But he’d do anything for her, we all saw that,” Cinaed countered. 

Mac inclined his head in agreement. 

Malcolm made a soft noise, and they all turned to him. It made Mac smile, how easily he took, and how quickly they yielded, their attention. “Still,” he said firmly, “No use speaking ill of the dead, and her judgment is not in our hands.”

Cinaed nodded, abashed. “Sorry, My Lord.”

Malcolm smiled gently. “No need, Cinaed. I know it can’t have been easy, being here alone. You’ve done well, and this was intelligence I needed. But we don’t need to spread vile rumors or idle gossip, either.”

Mac’s heart hurt fiercely, a combination of pride and desperate grief at how quickly Malcolm had come into himself as a leader of men. 

“Rab’s going to be like a wounded beast, without her,” Malcolm continued. “Have you any idea how many mercenaries he has under his command?” he asked Cinaed. “Most of the Scots will turn for us when we get there, but the Irish will fight for the purse he’s promised.”

“Or so it has been as we’ve come north,” Ewan added, in answer to Cinaed’s surprised look. 

“More of the Scots with him will stay with him, for fear or love,” Cinaed replied. “He’s been keeping his loyal soldiers close as you’ve come north. I’d put the numbers at close to ten thousand,” he finished. “But he’s sent some north to put down insurrection in Ross.”

“Good old Rory,” Ewan said, grinning.

Mac smiled. “Rory’s raising hell?”

“He seemed deeply upset about the attacks on you, and then on Fife,” Cinaed answered. “He’s got Caithness, Sutherland, and Cromarty with him, and they’ve kept Rab’s forces south of the Conon for six weeks.”

“How did he get Gilchrist with him?” Ewan asked. “I was sure he’d stick with Rab out of duty alone till we could get a tribunal together.”

“We thought Rab had killed Mac,” Cinaed answered. “And Gilchrist couldn’t stomach that. By the time we knew better, Rab’d put Fife to the sword, and Gilchrist doubled down instead of backing off.” 

“Told you,” Inness said in a sing-song at Mac.

Mac tipped his head ruefully. “Good for Rory,” he said instead of answering. 

“Well,” Malcolm said, mercifully refusing to comment, though his mouth pulled up on one side in a smirk, “That means we outnumber them, at least. But Rab’s a force unto himself in the field. I would think he evens the field almost by himself.”

“He’s mine,” Mac growled, before he even knew he was going to speak.

The others nodded solemnly in acknowledgement. “I certainly won’t be stepping up to face him,” Inness said wryly. “He’s twice the swordsman I am.”

“Same,” Ewan said. “I’ll happily leave him to you, Mac.”

Mac nodded, and let the planning move on again without him. As long as everyone understood that Rab was his, Mac didn’t much care about the logistics of the battle. He would fight it as it came.

They camped for the night at the edge of Birnam wood. It was only late afternoon, but the wood was old and deep, and Malcolm wanted camp made before dark, for the first time in their march north. “Nothing good will come of walking in the wood in the dark,” Malcolm said. 

Raleigh, eyeing the ominous wood skeptically, nodded his agreement. 

“We’ll spend one night in the wood, come out on the plain below Dunsinane, camp one night on the plain, and then besiege the castle on the third day.”

“He’ll see us coming,” Inness observed unhappily. “That plain’s as clear as a shooting gallery.”

“And count us easily too,” Raleigh agreed, equally unhappy.

Malcolm shrugged. “It’s what we have, friends,” he offered, no happier than the others but hiding it better. “We outnumber them, still, so perhaps a full view of our force will be disheartening.”

“You ever know Rab to be disheartened?” Cinaed muttered.

“No,” Mac said, “But I can see that you are, and that’s not like you either.”

This drew a huff of laughter from them all. “I blame the wood,” Cinaed said, clearly rallying some cheer. “Creepy forest.”

Malcolm smiled warmly at Mac. “We’ve some daylight left,” he said. “Have the men run a few drills, half-speed, to make sure we haven’t left all our skills in our feet from the march.”

Raleigh, Inness, and Cinaed headed for their forces with polite agreements. Ewan fell in with Raleigh, talking about wanting to see the English infantry for himself. 

Mac stayed at Malcolm’s side. “Spar with me, your highness?” he offered, a teasing tilt to his mouth.

Malcolm grinned and gestured to the empty space at the edge of the wood, where they would be out of the way of the workers setting up Malcolm’s camp. 

They crossed blades easily, keeping to half-speed just like Malcolm had ordered the men, just feeling the swords in their hands and stretching their muscles. 

They passed a couple of easy bouts, trading light touches and points back and forth. Eventually, Mac began to sweat, and he could see Malcolm beginning to wear as well. They’d drawn an audience by now, the drills over as the sun set, so the pair of them kept on a little longer--it would be good for the men to see their commander had skill with a blade. 

In a momentary lull where they both stepped back to breathe, Malcolm tipped his head in question. Mac nodded deliberately, and when they came back together, it was full speed and strength.

Malcolm’s sword clashed with Mac’s, flat to flat to protect the edges, and Malcolm put his shoulder into a push in the split second of stillness after the clash, shoving Mac back.

Mac ducked the next strike and swiped at Malcolm’s legs. 

Malcolm dodged back, returning a back-handed blow that Mac parried rather than blocking, already dodging in to use his shoulder in a mirror of the move Malcolm had used to put him on the ground, back at Dunsinane before the world changed. 

Malcolm barked a laugh and let himself fall with the strike, rolling back to his feet out of Mac’s range. His eyes were bright as he closed with Mac again, lunging in a faster jab than Mac expected.

Mac only barely dodged, and didn’t have his feet under him when he blocked the follow up, and his stumble cost him.

Malcolm’s sword rested on his shoulder, just shy of his throat.

“I yield,” Mac said, smiling.

Malcolm withdrew his blade, grinning. “Well fought.”

“You’re faster than I expect, every time,” Mac told him, a touch ruefully.

Malcolm’s smile turned impish. “I have to have some kind of advantage, don’t I? You’re bigger than me.”

Ewan clapped Mac on the shoulder. “Commiserations, friend,” he said cheerfully, not sounding at all sorry. 

“None needed. There’s no shame in being bested by the cub,” Mac replied. “He’s learned from the best.”

Malcolm invited the Thanes to join him around the fire with a tip of his head, and they followed gladly, still ribbing Mac about his loss. 

Time slowed during dinner, and Mac did his best to keep abreast of the awkward, dragging conversation, but begged off drinking and storytelling to go to bed early.

He dreamed. The world spun and twisted, and the stars wheeled behind his eyes. He heard voices he didn’t understand, and if he saw anything clearly, he didn’t remember it when he woke. 

“Mac?” Malcolm’s voice, soft, roused him from the place between sleep and waking. “Are you okay?”

Mac’s face was wet with tears, and his muscles ached from holding tension in his dreams. “Dreams,” he rasped, uncertain. 

Malcolm nodded. “It’s nearly dawn,” he murmured. “Want to just get up?”

Mac made a grateful noise, and they slipped out of their bedrolls and out to the fire together, feet soft to keep from waking the servants.

The camp was covered in moss and vines.

“What in God’s name,” Malcolm breathed. 

It looked like the forest had grown around them, years in the single night. Mac bit his lip, thinking of the spinning of the world in his dreams, the swirl of the sun and stars. He and Malcolm looked at each other in wonder and fear, and listened to the men curse and startle as they emerged to face the day.

“The men think it’s an omen,” Edward observed to Malcolm.

Malcolm shook his head. “I can’t think but it’s a good one,” he replied.

Edward made a startled noise.

“Life,” Malcolm replied. “Growth, the forest welcoming us in. I’m willing to twist that into a good sign if it’ll help assuage the men’s fears.” He offered a half smile and shrug. “And if it’s grown the same distance out the other way that it did towards us in the night, we can get closer to Dunsinane castle without being seen.”

“Huh,” Ewan said thoughtfully. 

Edward nodded, and he and Inness and Cinaed went to spread the word of Malcolm’s interpretation of the omen. 

Their next night, spent deep in the wood of Birnam, was much the same. Mac dreamed, and woke, and sometimes couldn’t tell the difference. He wept in his sleep, and heard voices he recognized--Boyd, his father, King Domhnall--saying words he couldn’t make out, and voices he didn’t cackling a terrible laugh. The night felt long, and Malcolm woke him in the morning feeling worse than when he’d gone to bed.

They were, once again, covered in moss and vines, and the tents were surrounded by the shoots of adolescent trees, sprung up five or six years overnight.

Malcolm greeted the forest with a fierce and terrible grin. The old tree they’d pitched their tent beneath was ancient, now, and moss-covered. Malcolm pressed a palm to it and murmured his thanks to the forest. He turned burning eyes on his captains. “If we come out close enough to besiege the castle without him counting us, because the woods have moved, we can pin him in the castle and hold the siege as long as we need.”

The captains did their best to put down murmurs of witchcraft. Ewan spent a lot of the day’s ride talking clearly and loudly about how much of the vegetation in Scotland had died under Rab’s rule--the burned fields of Fife and Dumbarton, the unsown acres of Lothian, Strathclyde, and Galloway--and how glad he was to see green life anywhere . It seemed to soothe all but the most high-strung of the soldiers.

Their march that day did not bring them out into the fields below Dunsinane Hill. Compasses and maps insisted they were on the plains, but the forest continued to rise stubbornly around them. Mac didn’t know if the knot in his chest was hope or terror. 

They camped in the woods again, and Mac dreamed. 

He dreamed of battle, of flame, of the crash of steel and screaming men. He dreamed of pain and fear and rage, and woke on his own, fist in his mouth to muffle his shouting. 

Malcolm sat upright a moment later. “Mac?”

“Here,” Mac rasped, voice wrecked like he’d screamed all night. It was nowhere near dawn, he knew.

“Are you all right?”

Mac shrugged. “Have to be,” he answered the darkness. “Go back to sleep, cub.”

Malcolm made a discontented noise and shifted his bedroll over to press close to Mac. He rearranged their blankets without saying a word, draping himself against Mac’s still-heaving chest.

“I’ll keep you up,” Mac protested, sure his dreams would be just the same when he fell asleep again.

Malcolm only burrowed closer, clearly choosing to ignore him.

Mac was wrong anyway; the dreams were worse. He whirled through time and images too fast to picture, people screaming words he couldn’t catch, pressure building in his heart and behind his eyes. He was dizzy and sick with guilt and grief.

“Mac,” Malcolm murmured over the screams of the dead, and they obediently hushed for the rightful king.

The fields of Fife burned around him, and Mac wept bitterly. Flame and smoke rose up to choke him and he knelt, wishing it would come for him.

“Mac,” Malcolm murmured through the winds off the sea, and the smoke dissipated.

Battle joined behind Mac’s eyes, and his arms ached under the weight of his sword. Steel crashed and horses screamed and everything spiraled beyond his control. He felt steel at his throat and despair in his heart.

“Mac,” Malcolm murmured, and the battle calmed as he strode across the field with a crown on his head, and Mac finally rested.

Mac woke in the morning feeling more refreshed than in days, and Malcolm greeted their overgrown encampment with the same fierce smile as the day before. They sent scouts running ahead as they breakfasted, broke camp, and marshalled for the march.

The scouts returned with the news that the trees opened up in just four miles, and there was then less than another four between the edge of the woods and the sharp incline up the slope to the castle on the hill. The lead scout hastily sketched Malcolm a map, and the prince gave his orders for setting the perimeter to begin a siege. 

“This won’t be a field battle unless Rab has totally lost his mind,” Malcolm said. “He’ll stay behind the walls.”

But as the section of their force Malcolm would command himself settled into their position, right on the road and clearly visible from the front gates, a runner brought a young armsman in the king’s colors to Malcolm’s side.

Malcolm tilted his head curiously at the boy. 

He bowed deeply, literally shaking with fear.

“What’s your name?” Malcolm asked gently. 

“Ian, your highness,” he stuttered.

“Where are you from, Ian?”

“Perth, your highness.”

Malcolm nodded. “A good city,” he said reflectively. “What brought you to the King’s service, Ian?”

“We needed the money, sire,” the boy said, voice cracking. “But I can’t- if I die who’ll pay for my sisters?”

Malcolm nodded. “You’ve nothing to fear from me, Ian,” he said firmly. “If they brought you to me it was because you said something during your capture that the guards thought would be useful to me, so why don’t you start with what you told them? I promise no harm will come to you here.”

Ian squared his shoulders, even if he didn’t stop shaking. “Just that the king is mad, sir,” he reported. “I can’t think of what--I said I needed to get away, I said I’d sneaked out the kitchen gate, that he’s mad and I wouldn’t stay.”

“Kitchen gate,” Mac murmured to Malcolm.

Malcolm nodded slightly, but kept his eyes on the boy. “What makes you so sure he’s mad?”

“He talks to himself, sometimes,” Ian reported. Malcolm’s gentle tone and relaxed posture seemed to slowly be settling him. “Or, a lot, really. About you, Lord McAfee,” he added, politely bowing to Mac, something almost apologetic in his tone. “And poor Lord Abrach who died, and Her Majesty the Queen. Hendry said he heard something about witches, but I can’t say that for sure. I only heard him talking to the dead.”

“ To ?” Malcolm said keenly.

Ian shrugged. “I mean, might’ve been about. But it felt like an address. Most of what he says is mutterings, I only get parts and pieces, but ‘‘Boyd, for your get have I filed my mind,’ he said that one pretty clear.”

Malcolm glanced at Mac out of the corner of his eye. 

Mac shrugged.

“Mac’s not dead, though,” Malcolm said. “If he’s talking to the dead, why’s he talking to Mac?”

Ian shook his head. “He never talks to Lord McAfee,” he said. “Just about him. I’ve heard him mutter ‘beware the thane of fife,’ probably a dozen times.”

“As well he should,” Mac rumbled.

Malcolm couldn’t quite hide the twitch at the corner of his mouth at the way Ian startled. “Indeed. You’ve been quite close to him a lot of late.”

Ian nodded. “Hendry and me, we take shifts at the door to the throne room. He never seems to remember we’re there.”

“Did Hendry run with you?” Mac asked curiously.

Ian shook his head. “His sister works in the kitchens,” he said. “He’s a local. Said he couldn’t leave her, but he let me out, and wouldn’t give me away.”

“Pity,” Mac said. “I would’ve liked to hear about the witches.” 

Malcolm shot him an odd look, and then he nodded shortly. “Thank you, Ian of Perth, you’ve been most helpful.”

Ian bowed deeply and let the soldiers lead him away. They would kit him out if he wanted to join them, or send him back to Perth if he wanted to go.

Malcolm looked at Mac. “Sounds like he’s ready for you.”

“He always underestimates me,” Mac replied. “Even when he thinks he’s ready.”

“What’s your interest in Hendry’s witches?” Malcolm asked.

Mac realized he’d not told the prince of his last private conversation with Boyd. “Oh, right,” he said. “This needs to be private.”

Malcolm followed him to the far edge of the encampment, where they would see messengers coming from camp and they were safe under the eyes of the sentries, but they were well out of earshot of anyone. His expression was a mix of curious and deeply dubious, but he listened to Mac with his head tilted and his eyes focused.

Mac related the whole story--Boyd and Rab’s encounter, what he could recall of the words of prophecy, and then Catriona’s report as well, voice cracking as he reported the prophecy that the boys would die before her if she didn’t obey. 

Malcolm released his breath in a rush of air and turned away from Mac, hands in his hair as he thought. He looked back at Mac. “None of you are prone to flights of fancy,” he said slowly. “But this stretches the bounds of my imagination.”

“I know,” Mac agreed. “But if he’s speaking of witches, what Boyd called Fated Figures and Catriona describes as crones spring immediately to mind.”

Malcolm nodded, pressing his lips together in thought. “Rab obeyed them,” he said slowly, thinking it out, “And got the reward he wanted, but it’s ruined him, too. Greer is dead, and he has a civil war on his hands, and by all accounts is not doing well mentally.”

Mac nodded, silently letting Malcolm think.

“And Catriona did not, and the disasters promised her were averted.”

Mac made a noise.

Malcolm shrugged helplessly. “They boys had her with them, at least,” he offered brokenly, scant comfort but all either of them had. 

Mac nodded; he wanted to hug Malcolm, either for his own comfort or the prince’s, but didn’t dare under the eyes of the whole camp. 

Malcolm rested a hand on Mac’s shoulder, all either of them would risk. “If I were him, I would want to know more--they got him this far, and now it has to feel like the walls are closing in.”

Mac nodded in agreement, forcibly pushing himself past the gaping hollow of Catriona’s loss into the present balanced on the edge of a knife. “Which is why I wanted to know what Hendry had to say, if they’ve told him any more.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Malcolm said after a moment. “Anything they tell him will lead him more to ruin. And if he’s not seen them again, we will still win this.”

Mac hummed in agreement and let Malcolm lead him back into the camp proper. 

Ewan met them on the edge and fell in with them. “Everyone is in place, your highness,” he reported. “Inness asked me to tell you that his lads have staked out the village proper and removed those who could be spared from the field duties to a safer locale. The ones who’ve stayed know the danger, and have armed themselves as best they can, and intend to fight on your side if the fighting reaches their fields.”

Malcolm shook his head slightly in wonderment. “Thank you,” he said, “And I’m glad to hear it.”

Mac knew the unification of the common people of Scotland behind him never ceased to amaze and warm Malcolm; the boy prince had spent his years at Mac’s side riding on the cusp of society and quietly observing the strange gap between nobility and peasant, and had known early a lesson some nobles never learned: that just because the nobles liked you and the peasants obeyed you, that didn’t mean the peasants liked you, nor did did it mean that you were actually a good leader.

Malcolm knew also that this was as much an ‘enemy of my enemy’ situation, that things under Rab had been bad enough that people would unite under him just to see Rab out, but he had little enough faith in the general goodness of humanity that he’d expected at least some to cheerfully accept Rab’s tyranny if it meant they could get ahead of others.

Still, hope warmed his eyes at Ewan’s news, and he invited further reports with a tilt of his head.

Easily prompted, Ewan continued, “Sir Raleigh reports they’re settled in comfortably under the ridgeline midway up the slope; they moved a  bit closer than your order, because Edward felt the angle actually put them harder to hit closer than their original orders. Neither thought you’d mind.”

“I do not,” Malcolm agreed, “As long as they are safe from archers.”

“Edward says, and I quote, ‘A longbowman could hit us here, if someone held his belt so he wouldn’t fall off the wall, but any idiot with a rock could’ve hit us where we were before.’”

Malcolm chuckled at Ewan’s attempt at mimicking Edward’s English accent and nodded.

“And Cinaed said simply, ‘We’re good.’”

Malcolm laughed outright. “Perfect,” he said. 

“Will we parley, your highness?” Ewan asked.

Malcolm nodded. “I thought I’d give them time to see us settle in before we talked terms,” he said, smirking wolfishly. “But we’ll take a force to the gates to talk in the afternoon.”

“When they’re staring into the sun to talk to us, I see,” Ewan said, matching Malcolm’s grin. “May I ride with you, Your Highness?” he asked.

Malcolm nodded. “You and Mac,” he said, “And ten armsmen.”

“I’ll see it done,” Ewan said. “We’ll be ready when you give the word.”

“Thank you Ewan,” Malcolm said softly.

Ewan’s face softened too. “My honor, sire,” he murmured, and bowed himself out of Malcolm’s presence.

Mac bumped their shoulders together, the closest he could come to admitting his pride without saying it out loud. Then they sat together in easy silence, cleaning their armor to gleaming for the parley. 

Mac carried the Canmore banner at Malcolm’s side as they rode forward to parley with Rab. Ewan rode at the prince’s other flank carrying the white parley flag, and the armsmen marched behind as an honor guard. 

“Unless you’re here to offer your surrender, I’m to speak no words to you,” one of the guards on the wall called down to them once they halted in easy shouting distance. 

Malcolm nodded slowly. “Findlaich will not even come and treat with me himself?” he called. 

The man didn’t reply, which seemed to be answer enough. 

Malcolm hummed softly. “Are you allowed to listen?” he asked.

The guard crossed his arms and said nothing. 

“Well, it would be unsporting to shoot me under a flag of parley,” Malcolm observed, “And you’ve no way to make me go away except come down here and do so, and so I think I will make my offer to those who wish to hear it.”

The guards on the wall shifted from foot to foot, exchanging glances.

Malcolm raised his voice, pitched it to carry in an excellent imitation of the battlefield command voice Boyd had often used. “To any who wish to stop this fighting in peace, amnesty will be offered!” he called. “From any time forward until the fall of the usurper-king, I and all who follow me will accept unconditional surrender from anyone within the walls of Dunsinane Castle, civilian or soldier, alone or in groups, even should you initially raise arms against us. You will be unharmed and offered the means to journey to wherever you should like, or may join me with no penalty for having upheld your oaths, even to a traitor. No retribution will be offered against you, and your safety and security I personally avouch. All are welcome under my banner, in peace, safety, and prosperity.

“And to Rab Findlaich alone I offer this ultimatum--surrender now or die by the sword, for treason, murder, and regicide.”

There was a bellow of inarticulate fury from beyond the wall, and Rab appeared and heaved something at them.

It wasn’t until the blade was buried halfway down in the dirt beside Malcolm’s horse that the object registered as a sword. Malcolm observed it coolly for a long moment--it had happened so fast he hadn’t had time to flinch-- and then turned his gaze to Rab above the gate. “See you, Scotland,” Malcolm said loudly to anyone listening, “This offer of violence done under a flag of peace! So be it.” He nodded sharply, and with a gesture of command their entire party wheeled about to leave. Over his shoulder, Malcolm called, “My offer to all but your lord stands: clemency and mercy to all who would be true to Scotland, her land, and its people!”

Rab shouted a barely-articulate string of invectives about Malcolm’s age, ability, and parentage that none of them acknowledged. 

“That was well said,” Ewan observed more quietly as they headed back towards camp.

“Thank you,” Malcolm replied, shaking his head. “I feel like I should be grateful that he missed, but I don’t know whether to be grateful to his sense of propriety or to God.” His grip on his reins was tight enough to turn his fingers white to suppress the shaking that wanted to control his hands.

Mac risked a brief glance back, out of the corner of his eye. The sword hilt stood visibly in the center of the road, and the guards shifted awkwardly on the wall. Rab was gone. He shook his head in answer to the prince; he couldn’t tell if Rab had missed on purpose or not either, and it sat very uncomfortably in his chest.

Malcolm, Mac, and Ewan were sitting around the fire in front of Malcolm’s tent. A messenger had come during the parley to tell Malcolm that his armies in the north had overcome the king’s enemies in a pitched battle outside Moray and were now southbound to join their king. The message ended with a very Rory-esque, ‘long live the (rightful) king!’ that had made them all smile, hopeful. 

Rory and his forces were expected in four days, but Malcolm expected the siege to last at least that long, as Rab’s forces slowly shrank under the weight of desertion.

And then hopefully, with the added numbers of Rory’s force, this could be over in a few days.

“Sire, the first group of the deserters arrived,” a page offered, bowing.   “One asked to speak with someone about his friend who came through earlier. His name is Hendry, looking for news of an Ian of Perth.”

Mac perked up. 

Malcolm also sat straighter. “Yes, bring him here,” he ordered. 

The armsman who bowed into their presence a few minutes later was years older than his young friend, sturdy and with a steady face. He inclined his head politely to Mac and Ewan each, and then bowed again to Malcolm, deep and polite--someone had clearly trained him to greet nobility. “Highness,” he breathed.

“Hendry, yes? Ian mentioned you when he came through.”

“Yes, sire,” he said, head bobbing slightly. “Your captain told me he was sent back to Perth with a purse and missives. I’m relieved, sire, and I thank you for your kindness.”

“He was brave, and kind,” Malcolm answered. “I could not but answer it equally.” He smiled. “I have a question for you, though, based on something that he said to me.”

Hendry bowed politely. “How many I serve, sire?”

“Ian said you’d overheard Findlaich muttering about witches.”

Hendry rocked back onto his heels, biting his lip. “Aye sire,” he said slowly. “I did. I had the door in the evenings, you see sir, and as the sun dropped he frequently grew preoccupied with bleak things.”

Malcolm nodded. “There was much death around him to be preoccupied with,” Malcolm said tactfully. 

Hendry nodded. “He often muttered about the ‘weird sisters’, he called them, and the things they’d promised.”

Malcolm met Mac’s eyes, mouth tipped grimly. “Anything specific you can name?” 

“The forest was quite disconcerting to him, sire,” Hendry said. “To us all, I mean, for the woods to move so, but when the messenger brought the news to him it was like all the life went out of his face. I’m afraid I don’t know the words of it, but he said something about being undefeated till the woods came.”

Malcolm nodded, and looked at Mac again, and then to Ewan. “Spread it among the men,” he told Ewan. “That the woods were an omen, but to the usurper-king, not for us.”

Ewan nodded and slipped away. 

Hendry shrugged. “He was often in a dudgeon about My Lord Fife,” he said, tipping his head apologetically to Mac, “But that could have been political and not supernatural.”

“Or both,” Malcolm said wryly. “Ian mentioned it as well. ‘Beware the Thane of Fife,’” he quoted.

“Precisely, your highness,” Hendry agreed.

Mac growled, “As well he should,” again. 

Hendry nodded deeply to him, in agreement and solidarity. “It wasn’t right,” he told Mac, “What he did.”

Mac accepted the condolences with a tilt of his head. 

Hendry turned back to Malcolm. “I’m afraid I don’t know much more, sire,” he said. “He only rarely spoke loud enough to hear him at the door. More, I just caught odd words.”

Malcolm nodded. “Still, you’ve clarified a lot of things for me, and I am grateful. Will you stay with us, or shall we send you on, as we did with Ian?”

Hendry bowed. “I’ve been an arsman to the king since I was a lad,” he said. “I’ll stay, if you’ll have me, my lord.”

“Gladly,” Malcolm answered, and called for a page to take Hendry to get him outfitted and settled.

Mac met his gaze when they were nominally alone again. “Threes,” he said.

“Hmm?”

“The witches, or what have you, give predictions in threes-- Glamis, Cawdor, King, the three to Catriona. Threes.”

Malcolm hummed again in thought. “Undefeatable till the forest comes,” he said slowly.

“Beware the Thane of Fife?” Mac offered.

“And…?”

Mac shrugged. 

“Something to lead him to his doom. Something objectively true, but feels impossible, like the coming of the trees.”

“That, too, was impossible,” Mac observed.

Malcolm eyed him shrewdly. “You may not have noticed, but I did ,” he said fiercely, “That the woods groaned loudest when you were in the grips of nightmares.”

Mac stilled, tilting his head. Had he been responsible for the growing of the wood? Time had certainly felt like it was speeding by in his dreams, but the thought that time had shifted to grow the trees for him had never occurred to him. Time had never seemed to be on his side before, always pitted against him; he had fully expected to die because it betrayed him, eventually. That it could help him had never crossed his mind.

“What?” Malcolm asked.

Mac shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said slowly, “And I don’t know that I can tell you even if I did know.”

Malcolm narrowed his eyes, examining Mac’s face keenly. Then he nodded decisively. “If it comes clear, and the words come, and you wish me to know, I would hear it gladly, but I trust you not to keep secrets that would matter to me.”

Gratitude rose in his chest, not for the first time, for this brilliant, brave, beloved young man he’d been lucky enough to know. 

Malcolm smiled at him, could see the emotion in his face even if Mac couldn’t speak it aloud. 

Rory’s forces were not the first army to arrive from the north. The day before they expected Rory, Gilchrist, and Eideard, four thousand men in the king’s livery marched over the hill from the direction of Cawdor just before ten in the morning. 

“They made good time,” Ewan observed dryly. 

“Aye,” Malcolm agreed. “Tired from a fast march and battered from being harried by Rory’s force for the last several weeks.” His smile was predatory. “Do you think they marched all night?”

“They look it,” Ewan replied, peering through his spyglass. He examined the force carefully. “It’s also all soldiers,” he reported. “They must’ve left the support forces behind to get here faster.”

Mac hummed. “Going to be a long night tonight, if the support men don’t get here.”

Ewan shrugged. “Their bad choices are our gains,” he replied philosophically. “Are we just going to stare at each other, do you think?”

“No, here comes the missive,” Malcolm said, watching a single man jog towards them, waving a white cloth. 

One of their people trotted forward and took the paper, and they each jogged back to their own lines. 

Malcolm took the missive when it was brought to him, and glanced it over, huffing. “To the Upstart, Malcolm,” he read aloud, grinning while the men around him growled in offense. “Unlawful uprising, blah blah, disperse with due speed, etc etc,  immediate death by the sword, and so forth, on behalf of His Majesty, By the Grace of God, King Rab of Scotland.” 

Ewan hummed thoughtfully. 

Malcolm crumpled the missive up and tossed it aside, a big showy gesture that would be visible from the opposing lines. More visible still was the silent command that rippled down his ranks, the armsmen preparing their weapons for a charge. 

They fought two small skirmishes over the course of the day, testing each other’s defenses and pushing at the edges of who held what territory. Malcolm’s forces maintained their besieging circle around Dunsinane, though they did give ground a little, moving back towards the castle some.

Mac and Malcolm joined neither battle, watching from a hill instead, Malcolm’s head tilted slightly and his eyes keen and intent. 

Mac kept one eye on the fighting and one on his surroundings, knowing both that they were very visible and that killing Malcolm was the fastest way for Rab to end this. Just as killing Rab would be the fastest way for them. 

“They’re doing well,” Malcolm observed during the second skirmish. “Our Scots have fallen right in with the English.”

Mac hummed his agreement, watching Ewan lead a charge followed by a group of men that was half Englishmen in Raleigh’s colors and half un-uniformed Scots. “Not a word of scuffles in the ranks, either.” Which was unusual even in just the Scottish ranks, typically.  

“This is too important to the Scots to risk it,” Malcolm replied. “And Raleigh said his men had been bored, of late, without more adventures to go on. He was thrilled when Her Majesty ordered him to marshall.”

Mac smiled; their English ally was a good man, but not one built for quiet. 

Ewan won a decisive victory that afternoon, pushing the king’s men back to their camp just as the sun dipped to the hills. 

The mercenary captain sounded the retreat, so Ewan returned his own forces to the edge of the camp, though they stayed marshalled and arrayed until it was clear the enemy was indeed settling in for the night. Then Ewan released his own men to do the same, and joined Mac and Malcolm on the hill.

“They did well today,” Ewan said, bowing into Malcolm’s presence. 

Malcolm waved off the formalities. “They did,” he agreed. “As did you.”

Ewan bowed to accept the compliment. “Feel a little bad, getting to have all the fun,” he said cheerfully. “And Inness and Cinaed are cooling their heels holding the siege.”

“We’ll all fight before it’s over,” Malcolm said. More grimly, he added, “And it won’t be fun, at the end.”

Ewan ducked his head, abashed, but didn’t voice his apology out loud. “They’ll hit early tomorrow,” he predicted. “Try to catch us off guard.”

Malcolm nodded in agreement, and they went down to issue orders for a doubled watch and early preparation.

They slept that night on edge, with sentries posted, and woke before dawn to prepare for battle. No one grumbled at rising early and preparing in the dark, which proved prescient, as the Irish force attacked almost as soon as light touched the field. 

Mac, under orders from Malcolm, held one company in reserve, with their backs to the fighting, in case Rab brought forces from the castle to reinforce the battle on the plain. They waited, eyes on the great gates, and tried to keep their military discipline. 

Mac could feel the tension in his own chest, and could see his men fighting not to fidget. 

Sounds of fighting from around the back of the castle reached them, and Mac sent a man to find out what was happening. 

“This is awful,” a man muttered.

Mac didn’t reply, but couldn’t help but agree. 

Mac’s messenger returned looking grim. “Young Wat took a small group to try to force open the kitchen gate,” he reported. “They were fired upon, and though Sir Walter’s archers managed to kill most of the crossbowmen, Young Wat and most of his group were killed at the gate.”

“Damn,” Mac muttered, and offered a quick prayer for the young man’s soul. 

“A brave lad,” one of the men murmured, and there was a chorus of agreements and prayers.

Mac looked over the walls again, narrowing his gaze to try to see defenders on it, but he couldn’t see very many. Maybe twenty five crossbowmen, and another dozen spearmen. 

“Lord Mac,” one of the English soldiers under his command said, voice tight with controlled dismay.

Mac turned to look.

The battle had pushed back and was in danger of overtaking their position near the gates. “Is it that bad?” he muttered. They’d outnumbered the Irish, he’d thought. Had reserves come?

“More forces came in from the northwest,” the man reported. “Not King’s men.”

Mac’s head came up, scanning the melee. Their vantage wasn’t great, but they were slightly higher than the field. His heart soared as his eyes found a familiar banner-- “Sunderland! It’s our reinforcements from the north.”

One of the men whooped. 

They watched for a few minutes as the new troops melded into the battle and moved it, pressing it closer and closer to the open ground before the castle.

“Gate’s opening!” Another man called. 

“Well, then,” Mac said, grinning fiercely, glad for something to do that wasn’t watching. “Let’s go and meet them.” Their job was not to stop the men pouring from the gate--they were much too small a force. They were to let the men pass and join the battle, and try to keep the gates from closing so the castle could be taken. 

One company of Rab’s men peeled off to meet them, and Mac and his men spent too much time slogging through the soldiers. It was a bloody press, swords and men and mud.

Time stretched like taffy around him, swords moving slow, and Mac’s feet weighted like lead. 

The gates slammed closed, and Mac’s throat with it. 

He had one moment for dismay, frustration, and fury, and then battle was upon them for real, his company being almost immediately dispersed by the tide of humanity as the two sides pushed each other back and forth.

The main battle had moved into the shadow of the castle, and it was no longer possible for Mac to use the livery as an indicator of whose side a fighter was on, because there were just as many men in the king’s colors fighting with Mac’s little company as there were against. 

Mac found himself fighting with his back to the gate, and killed his opponent to get himself a breath. No one else stepped up to fight him, so he leaned back against the wood to catch his breath. 

He remembered, vaguely, Boyd talking about the work Rab had done to them, reinforcing and replacing. Not even a battering ram, should they fashion one, would get through. 

This wasn’t tenable, he thought desperately. They couldn’t just fight to the death in front of the castle. They had to take the castle, had to get to Rab. 

He had to avenge his family.

Time had helped him before, once, to aid in stopping Rab. Mac pressed his shoulder into the gate, thinking, please. Eyes squeezed tightly closed against the tears he hadn’t let himself shed since that first awful moment of grief, he didn’t see what was happening, but he felt the wheel of the earth beneath him, felt the heavens spinning overhead. He felt the shift and change of time, like when it ebeed around him, like in his dreams in the forest. 

More importantly, he felt the gate buckle against his shoulder. 

Mac lifted his head to see wood weathered by years of time and iron fittings rusted by age. He stared at it for a moment, then hammered his shoulder into it. 

It shook, far more than a great castle gate should under the shoulder of a single man.

But Malcolm’s forces saw, and soon he wasn’t a single man shouldering the gate, but there were many, and the great, rusted hinges gave way, and the beams buckled and the gate crashed inwards. 

Mac stalked the halls of the castle, sword loose in his hand but held low, out of guard. Even so, something in his face must have been terrible, because more than one soldier stepped up to stop him, and as they took him in their eyes widened and they retreated again without a word, letting him pass. 

Only one guard he met actually challenged him, and he was an Irishman wearing the livery of a captain of the king’s men. 

Mac snarled at him. “I’m looking for your master, not the hired dogs,” he growled.

The man spat what he assumed was a curse in Gaelic. 

Mac charged with a feint, and ran the man through when he dodged. Then he stepped over the body and carried on. He had business with the master of the castle and he didn’t intend to be swayed.

“Rab!” he roared periodically, voice echoing the halls. 

The servants were cowering terrified wherever they’d been when the gates had been breached, and Mac spared a brief prayer for the innocents as he hunted Rab through the castle. He hesitated a moment staring at a group of maids huddling beneath a sideboard in a hallway, torn between finding someone to entrust to ensure the servants’ safety and ending the war entirely by finding and killing Rab. 

With a growl, he peeled off to hunt down someone in English colors to send a runner to one of the captains about it. The itch in his spine said it took too long, but Mac knew it was the right thing to do. 

Servants safely dispatched into the care of an English captain who saluted Mac politely and knelt down to talk to the maids from several feet away, Mac felt comfortable returning to his hunt. 

He found him, perhaps not unexpectedly, in the Great Hall, armed and armored, sword bare in his hand. 

For a moment, Mac watched his back, nothing but a terrible burning fury in his heart. Hatred burned.

To Mac’s surprise, Rab took a step back when he saw him. “Mac, no,” Rab said, rough. His face was grey and thin, eyes harried. 

Mac snarled wordlessly, stalking forward. Rage thrummed under his skin, but his hands were rock steady.

“I won’t fight you ,” Rab said, keeping the table between them. “I’ve shed enough McAfee blood, I think.” For a moment, he sounded just like Mac’s boyhood mentor, gentling him away from a task to focus on something else.

“Then yield, coward,” Mac growled, heart burning at this reminder of why he had to kill this man, his former friend, “And hang instead.”

Rab shook his head. “Never. Not to that upstart boy.”

Mac snarled again, rounding the table. He had no words left for the man who’d stood at his wedding and then murdered his wife, not now. Not after everything, and an insult to his cub as well.

Rab was still giving way, sword in hand but both raised placatingly. “I don’t want to kill you,” he said, perhaps a little desperately. 

“You won’t, ” Mac replied, voice rumbling and mouth twisted into a sneer, holding on to the rage, holding on to the pain, because he couldn’t let himself waver now.

Rab looked frustrated. “I was promised that no one born by a woman can slay me, Mac, you have to stop!”

The third prophecy, Mac thought, as time slowed around him. His thoughts raced even as both their steps slowed. The last promise that would bring Rab to his knees. 

Mac had heard the story many times from his grandparents once they deemed him old enough, of how he’d started to come too early, his mother’s labor pains starting weeks before expected, and of how no matter how she screamed and pushed, once started, he never came. His mother died there in the birthing room, Mac still in her belly, and the doctor made a choice to try to cut Mac free. Mac had lived, but it had been a long joke in his family that he didn’t have a birth day-- just an arrival day. 

Time snapped back.

Mac bared his teeth in a vicious smile. “Empty promises to a foolish man,” Mac replied. “The doctor cut me from my mother’s stomach after she died. Wasn’t born, Rab, not like that.”

Rab recoiled, eyes wild. “The bloody trees,” he frothed, “And now you , not born of woman,” he trailed off in an inarticulate roar of rage, and he came for Mac, sword raised.

Mac dodged the first swing, wild and out of control as it was. 

Rab’s strikes were hard enough to split a grown man down the middle, but after that first out of control flail, they turned as graceful and calculated as they had ever been. 

Mac parried as much as he could, instead of blocking, because he felt every block in his wrists and shoulders, and he knew he couldn’t take many hits like that. Not that dodging them was tenable either--he’d wear quickly. Mac had been fighting all day, and Rab was fresh; he couldn’t afford to get tired. 

Rab landed a blow that ripped open Mac’s leather jerkin at the shoulder, but deeply into the muscle, and jarred him nearly off his feet. The tip of the sword had only just caught him, but it was still enough to make his whole arm ache fiercely. 

Mac landed a return strike, but it was more of a desperate bid to keep Rab off him while he recovered his feet than any kind of elegant strike. Rab took the flat of Mac’s blade to the side of the head, breaking the skin above his ear and making him stumble and shake the ring out of his ears.

They eyed each other warily for a moment. 

Mac showed his teeth in a challenging snarl. 

Rab lunged in with a stab. He was cursedly fast.

Mac parried and slammed his shoulder into Rab’s chest, knocking him off balance. It was a good move, but he’d reflexively done it with his injured shoulder, and the pain made lights pop behind his eyes, so he lost any advantage he might have gained getting Rab on the back foot. 

Rab punched him, solidly in the ribs with a gauntleted hand.

Mac felt the bruise, but breathed through it and managed to peel away and strike at Rab a few times. He didn’t land any hits, but it put room between them again. Rab was too strong for Mac to grapple with--he needed to keep it to swords.

Rab was grinning, fierce and feral, and there was joy and battlelust in his eyes. Whatever his compunctions about killing Mac he’d had were gone. He lunged, dragging the point of his sword in a vicious score along the outside of Mac’s right thigh. He’d been aiming for the inside, and Mac had only just managed to avoid having his femoral artery sliced. 

Mac’s return slash ripped through the leather strap holding Rab’s breastplate over his shoulder, leaving the armor hanging awkwardly. 

Rab retreated hastily to rip the breastplate the rest of the way off.

Mac took the moment to examine the slash on his leg-- Rab’s blade was sharp enough to tear right through his riding leathers, and the wound was bleeding sluggishly but steadily. A tentative step had the muscle trembling. Mac grit his teeth and held his ground as Rab came at him again, knowing his leg wouldn’t hold under the dodging he’d been doing.

Rab’s technique seemed to be to hammer on Mac’s left side, blade to blade, presumably to take Mac off balance, knock him off his feet. 

Mac parried and blocked, his shoulder feeling the strain of Rab’s brutal blows. His chest was heaving and his fingertips were numb with effort and exhaustion.

Finally, perhaps Rab grew tired of playing with Mac, but he lunged in.

By now, Mac had seen Malcolm perform this move a couple of times, and used it himself on Malcolm. He took Rab’s shoulder to the breastbone, Rab’s feet between his to skew his balance, and instead of fighting it, Mac let himself fall. He rolled backwards and sideways, getting his legs under him to come up on one knee, sword raised. 

Rab had expected him to fall straight back, so the slight angle left his flank wide open. 

Mac’s leg gave before he’d quite managed to drive his blade all the way into Rab’s ribs, but it had been enough. 

Rab staggered to his knees, sword clattering from suddenly nerveless fingers. He looked up at Mac, their eyes locked.

Mac was kneeling too, but he had his sword. And he had the strength to swing it once more.

Mac knelt, head bowed, gasping for breath for a long moment before he let himself collapse backwards, away from the headless corpse. He leaned against the table, bad leg stretched out in front of him while he panted, eyes closed. 

Rab was dead. Rab, who’d been his mentor when he was a boy, who’d taught him the sword and how to ride a warhorse instead of a courser. Rab, who’d stood with him at his wedding and sent letters and advice as he’d taken over Fife. Rab, who’d murdered their king, Mac’s entire family, and done his level best to ruin their country. Rab, whose eyes had been wild and mad but had gone clear and grateful at the end.

Mac wept, silently, and if it was for the country, himself, or for Rab, he couldn’t have said.

“Mac, hey,” Ewan said, rushing into the room. “Here you are; I’ve been looking for you everywhere!”

Mac blinked fuzzily up at Ewan. He shook his head to clear it, and focused his eyes in time to see Ewan actually register the state of the room: blood all over the floor, Rab’s body, Mac slumped against the table.

Ewan muttered a curse and dropped to his knees next to Mac. “Are you all right?”

Mac nodded. “Bleeding’s stopped. Leg’s sore, but I’m fine. Help me up?”

Ewan levered him to his feet and ducked away to grab Mac’s sword. He wiped the blood off on the tablecloth--he shrugged off Mac’s dubious look--and sheathed it for Mac, and then tucked himself under Mac’s good arm. “Come on,” he said. “His Highness has runners all over the place to find you.”

“Why?” Mac asked.

Ewan grinned. “He’ll be glad to hear this,” he said, not answering as he supported Mac out of the hall and towards the gates. “I’ll send somebody up for the body to prove to everyone once you’re with the prince.”

Mac shook his head, but knew better than to try to press Ewan; he’d only turn more cryptic and grin more. 

“I found him!” Ewan shouted as they exited into the castle’s main courtyard.

Malcolm was holding court among his exhausted, battle-weary captains. He whipped around at Ewan’s shout, and his face twisted with dismay at the blood all over Mac’s left arm and right leg.

“I’m all right,” Mac told him as soon as they were in earshot. “Messy, painful, but superficial.”

“I’ll get a doctor ready in your camp, sire,” a runner offered, bowing away from Malcolm and jogging off. 

Malcolm stepped forward to take Mac’s weight from Ewan.

Ewan bowed as well. “The usurper-king is dead, your highness,” he reported crisply. “I’m going to fetch the body down as proof. And the head, as they aren’t connected anymore,” he added in a cheerful sing-song.

Malcolm grimaced, and Mac’s chest twisted: still his gentle cub at heart. Then Malcolm turned back to search Mac’s face. 

“I’m all right, cub,” Mac murmured, soft between them.

Malcolm nodded. He was smiling slightly. “Runners went to fetch Rory and his captains, now that the fighting in the field has slowed. I have good news for you.”

“Oh?” Mac asked.

Malcolm nodded, his little half smile was fighting to escape into a full grin, and his eyes were bright. 

A commotion at the gates drew all their attention, and Rory strode in, sweaty and battle-stained but unhurt.

Catriona strode at his side, in plate armor Mac had never seen before and her sword still unsheathed and bloody in her hands.

Mac’s leg gave, and Malcolm was the only thing keeping him from the floor. Mac had no idea what sound tore out of his throat, but he must’ve made one, because Catriona’s head turned unerringly towards him. 

Their eyes met, and she froze. Her eyes widened, and then she released a high-pitched, broken noise that was almost a shriek and flew across the courtyard into his arms.

Mac buried his face in her hair and let the force of her bear him to the ground.

Malcolm managed to turn it more into a lowering than a topple, but only just, and then he released them and stepped back.

Catriona sobbed into his neck. “Love,” she choked. 

A hoarse, wrecked sob tore out of his throat, intended to be her name. 

Pressure against his shoulders and back, a strong frame to lean on as he and Catriona clung, resolved into Rory when he spoke. “We thought you were dead, for a while,” he said quietly. “Then we heard you weren’t, but it was hard to believe in good news, in all the bad. I’m glad to see you well, cousin.”

Mac leaned gratefully back into him and hummed agreement, still unable to form words in his relief. 

Rory continued. “The boys are fine, by the way; they’re in Dornoch with Lady Sutherland and her children.”

Mac released a shuddering sob into Catriona’s hair. 

“And I know you thought Catriona and the boys were dead, because Malcolm, His Highness I mean, straight out hugged Catriona in the middle of the field when he came upon us in the thick of it.”

Catriona muffled a chuckle of agreement into his neck. 

Rory was soothing him, Mac realized distantly. The low patter of nonsense was intended to calm his shaking-- which he only then realized he was doing--and hush his weeping. He wrestled himself back into focus. “Catriona,” he murmured. He still had tears rolling down his face, but he was all right with that. Catriona and the boys were alive.

“Hey, Love,” she replied, lifting her chin to meet his eyes. 

“How?” he rasped.

“Mercy unlooked for,” she answered, stroking his cheek tenderly. “I’ll tell you the whole story later.”

He touched their foreheads together briefly, and then turned to look at Rory. “Hey Rory.”

Rory grinned brightly. “Hi Mac.”

Rory and Catriona helped him back to his feet, Rory under his good arm taking most of his weight and Catriona pressed against his other side, under his wounded shoulder. 

Malcolm smiled at them, his eyes damp too. 

“Come here, cub,” Mac murmured.

Malcolm stepped forward into the hug, pinned between Mac and Catriona, and for just a moment, buried his face in their shoulders and hid from the world. Then he took a deep breath and stood again. He was still smiling, but it was a public thing, for everyone. “There is much to do,” he said to everyone gathered around. “Captains, marshall your men back in your camps, and our northern comrades shall have to make one, perhaps to the east of our main camp by the gates.”

Gilchrist, who’d come in with Rory and Catriona, bowed politely in acknowledgment. 

Malcolm nodded to him, and continued. “Irish hostages will be held here in the castle until such time as they can be dealt with and released. Scots who surrendered can be released and sent on their way to whatever their destination; if they wish to remain in the king’s service to me , they can be folded into my camp until such time as they can be interviewed for suitability.” 

The English captain who’d marshalled Malcolm’s troops thus far nodded his understanding. 

Malcolm took a deep breath, looking around at them all. “The time will come, friends, for rewards for you who served with me, and grief for the fallen, but for now we must manage ourselves for the good of all. But know I thank you, each of you, deeply from my heart, for we would not be here without all of you.” He met each of their eyes in turn. “Go,” he said gently. “No need to stand on order and ceremony for me, yet. We’ll make it official later.” His smile was impish, and they laughed with him as they went off with their orders. 

“I assume this goes to your camp?” Rory asked the prince wryly when everyone was gone, indicating Mac as if he was a sack of turnips or something equally bland.

Malcolm nodded. “He’s been sharing my tent,” he said. “But perhaps that should be reconsidered.”

“No,” Mac rasped, not quite ready to let his cub out of sight yet.

“No,” Catriona agreed, nodding. “If it please you, my lord,” she added, smirking.

Malcolm made The Face.

Mac grinned at him, exhausted, sore, and entirely happy, and let them support him back to the camp.

Mac dozed on and off for most of the week between the battle and Malcolm’s official coronation. On the first day, Malcolm’s voice woke him in the middle of the afternoon. The prince was holding court just outside the tent. Catriona was humming softly, petting his hair where his head was in her lap. 

“Hey, Love,” she murmured. “How’d you sleep?”

Mac nodded slowly, still not quite sure he was awake. “You’re alive,” he murmured.

Catriona stroked his face. “And so are you, despite several attempts to the contrary.”

Mac hummed. “How?”

“I told this story last night, but you were pretty groggy after the doctor came.”

Mac shifted slightly, and the stitches in his leg and shoulder made themselves known, and he remembered, vaguely, the doctor making him drink something containing significant amounts of alcohol during the process. He remembered Catriona’s voice, but not the words. He shook his head slowly. “Don’t remember.”

“Clearly,” she said, smiling fondly and smoothing his hair again. “We weren’t home yet, when Rab sent men to Fife,” she explained. “We were still with Cinaed.”

Mac nodded.

“The first we knew of it, Ellar showed up. He was filthy and terrified; he’d clearly been on the road all night. He said Fife had been taken by a group of Irish mercenaries, and they’d killed every man who drew a sword against them.”

Mac closed his eyes, thinking of the men who’d served him.

Catriona hummed her agreement. “He said they wouldn’t kill women or children, and they’d spared everyone who surrendered.”

“That’s not the story that went out,” Mac rumbled, frowning. 

“No,” Catriona agreed. “Ellar said that, unlike most of the units of kerns in the war, the band that went to Fife was a single clan, and they wouldn’t hold with murder--they’d fight, and gladly, but they weren’t butchers, they said.”

“They spared Ellar because he’s so young,” Mac gathered.

Catriona nodded. “And according to Ellar, most of the staff; I haven’t been back to see--Ellar, Graeme, the boys and I turned north for Ross as soon as the sun was up.”

“And they lied to Rab, said they’d done as he asked and put Fife to the sword.”

“It seems so,” Catriona agreed. 

Mac sat up slowly, feeling the pull in his shoulder and the stretch of muscles after a long nap. “I’m glad,” he said, deeply understated, but Catriona knew what he meant, and shifted to help him stand. 

On the third day, they made a slow journey to Scone for the coronation, and Mac napped in the saddle. The tincture the doctor had given him to counteract the pain in his leg from riding made him sleepy and sluggish. But Catriona rode beside him and would tip him back upright whenever he started to list, and Malcolm rode on his other side, keeping a casual stream of planning and organization with Rory. 

On the fifth day, Mac lay down for a nap in his quarters in the abbey and woke up with all four of his boys draped across him, sleeping too--Malcolm and Keir were curled together like kittens, heads on his side, and Aidan and Niall were all but draped over his chest, both carefully contorted to avoid both his injuries and their brother’s head. 

Catriona, sewing in the window seat, smiled at him and murmured, “It’s just after three, Love; go back to sleep.”

Mac hummed in agreement and obeyed.

On the seventh day, Mac refused the tincture and limped slowly under his own power to the chamber where the ceremony was to take place. He slipped in the back entrance by the pulpit to silently take his usual place at Malcolm’s shoulder. 

Malcolm registered him out of the corner of his eye, but didn’t react beyond freezing. The space had been left open for him in the procession, because Mac should have come later, up the aisle alone, carrying the crown. 

A McAfee had always presented the crown of Scotland to the priests to crown the king--with one notable exception, of course. Mac’s father had presented the crown at Domhnall’s coronation, when Mac was a child. 

At the right moment, Keir, eyes glowing with pride, carried the crown up the aisle for Malcolm. 

Malcolm’s reaction was, again, understated, but his serene smile tilted a little at the corners, his eyes crinkling slightly as Keir, back to the room and face visible to no one but Malcolm, Mac, and the priest, winked at him. 

Crown and cushion handed off, Keir took his place at his father’s side. 

Mac squeezed his shoulder, proud. He hadn’t been sure his leg would hold him for the slow and stately promenade down the aisle, and Keir had been delighted by the opportunity to both surprise Malcolm and participate in the ceremony. 

Keir leaned into him as Malcolm made his oaths in front of them, and Mac finally released the last of the tension in his chest. Everything was going to be all right, now.

Three days later, Catriona kissed Mac goodbye. “Stay with the cub, my love,” she ordered him. “Look after all our boys and I’ll meet you at Forres as soon as I have Fife in hand.”

Mac clung to her tightly, and then let her go, literally and figuratively. She would go, find the truth of the situation in Fife, and make sure their home was settled and in good hands to keep on without them. If they were lucky, Bhaltair had survived whatever battle there had been at Fife, and she could leave everything in his hands; otherwise she would hire a new steward, get everything settled, and then join him at court. 

They had not discussed it, but it was clear to them that neither of them would be leaving their new king’s side for the foreseeable future. Catriona had adopted him just as surely as Mac had, in the days of his squirehood and again in the aftermath of the battle. She left fully intending to return to stay.

Mac and Malcolm and the rest of the court left a few hours later, headed to Malcolm’s ancestral seat at Forres, on the Moray coast. 

Two days after they reached Forres, Mac’s limp much easier to hide but his shoulder still aching from the brutal force of Rab’s strike, the court had settled into a rhythm. 

Mac, Malcolm, Ewan, Rory, and Inness were around a table working their way through crop reports from all the protectorates. Malcolm had dragged chairs around the council table, even though it was easier to stand to look at the map spread across it, because Mac refused to sit if Malcolm was standing. So they were all sitting, and Malcolm’s mouth had a mulish tilt.

Ewan, Rory, and Inness were all trying very hard not to smirk. 

Mac, absurdly grateful and deeply annoyed, scowled at the map.

“Sire?” the page at the door said timidly, and then announced, “Presenting His Royal Highness, Domhnall of Moray and Thane Fintan Abrach of Lochaber.”

Not a single man present would say a word against the breach in protocol that was Malcolm bounding from his seat to hug his brother, nor the rapid inclusion of Fintan into the embrace. 

“You’re all right?” Malcolm asked, pulling back to look them both over, but leaving his arms around their shoulders. 

Domhnall nodded. “We’re fine, Mal. Your Majesty, I guess I mean.”

Malcolm and Domhnall made The Face simultaneously, Mac was amused to see.

Malcolm’s gaze flicked to Fintan in question.

The young Thane of Lochaber nodded gravely. “The Irish were very kind, and very welcoming, sire,” he said, low.

Ewan snorted a laugh. “Complete opposite of our experience here,” he muttered.

“I’m actually supposed to express the King of Ireland’s deepest apologies for the behavior of men who claim his country as their national origin, and wishes me to decry to you kinship, acceptance, nor allowance of their actions,” Domhnall piped up.

Malcolm nodded his acceptance. “I’m glad you’re home,” he told them both warmly, closing the subject neatly without real reply. “Come,” he added, beckoning them over. “Grad a chair and come sit. We’re talking about crop reports.”

Domhnall’s eyebrows twisted wryly. “Riveting,” he said, in a passable imitation of real interest. 

Malcolm rolled his eyes at him dramatically. “Get better at lying,” he ordered his brother. “If I have to do politics, so do you.”

Domhnall groaned theatrically.

Fintan dragged over chairs for them both, wedging them in between Rory and Mac. “Why are we sitting?” he asked, having stood at his father’s shoulder in more than one of these meetings.

Malcolm’s mouth turned mulish again.

Mac looked away.

Rory grinned at Fintan gleefully, knowing the young man would be finding some way to make mischief out of the information. “Mac has a hole in his leg, and His Majesty tried to make him sit.”

“And Mac would never sit when the King was standing,” Ewan continued, mouth controlled but unholy joy in his eyes. “So we’re all sitting.”

Fintan and Domhnall both turned as one to look at Mac, twin expressions of anticipation on their faces. 

Mac scowled at them. “It’s not that bad,” he muttered, a flagrant lie he was determined to sell.

Domhnall looked as if Mac had just given him a gift, and Mac was almost afraid to know why. 

Before any mocking could occur, Malcolm cleared his throat and shifted one of the reports before them pointedly. “Fintan, your steward has been managing Abrach in your absence, quite admirably, I think.”

Fintan nodded, willingly turning his attention to the king. “Aye, sire,” he said easily. “Peter’s always been excellent.”

Malcolm nodded. “I hoped you’d stay at court,” he said. “At least for a while.”

Fintan nodded again, something easing in his posture. “Gladly, sire,” he said, relief in his face and voice. 

The meeting moved onwards, and ended, and Mac found himself, as had become usual over the last few days, taking his dinner in the King’s private receiving room, with Keir and the boys, and now the addition of Domhnall and Fintan. There were now only a handful of years between each of the boys in a step--two from Malcolm to Don and Fintan, three from them to Keir, two from Keir to Aidan, and the biggest gap the four from Aidan to Niall--Mac now felt very deeply the eighteen years between himself and his young king. 

Malcolm, relaxed with his family, was every bit as impish and teasing as his brother, having shed the mantle of king at the door, and Fintan seemed to take to Keir immediately. Domhnall had tucked Niall close to his side and was sharing ‘secrets of being the youngest’. Aidan, the quietest of his brothers, and Malcolm exchanged long-suffering looks. 

When Catriona asked him later, Mac would tell her that he dreaded the mischief this pack of boys would cause, but he would be lying through his teeth, and she would know it. He didn’t really know how he’d wound up with three extra boys--or he did, but it hurt still to think about, so he pretended he didn’t--but he certainly didn’t regret it, and Catriona wouldn’t either.