"No wonder ye're late, laddie," he said, digging Jamie in the ribs. "Dinna blame ye a bit."
"Willie!" he called to one of the men outside. "We need some clothes, here. Something suitable for the laird's nephew. See to it, man, and hurry!"
Jamie looked around, thin-lipped, at the men surrounding him. Six clansmen, all in tearing high spirits at the prospect of the oathtaking and brimming over with a fierce MacKenzie pride. The spirits had plainly been assisted by an ample intake from the tub of ale I had seen in the yard. Jamie's eye lighted on me, his expression still grim. This was my doing, his face seemed to say.
He could, of course, announce that he did not mean to swear his oath to Colum, and head back to his warm bed in the stables. If he wanted a serious beating or his throat cut, that is. He raised an eyebrow at me, shrugged, and submitted with a fair show of grace to Willie, who rushed up with a pile of snowy linen in his arms and a hairbrush in one hand. The pile was topped by a flat blue bonnet of velvet, adorned with a metal badge that held a sprig of holly. I picked up the bonnet to examine it, as Jamie fought his way into the clean shirt and brushed his hair with suppressed savagery.
The badge was round and the engraving surprisingly fine. It showed five volcanos in the center, spouting most realistic flames. And on the border was a motto, Luceo non Uro.
"I shine, not burn," I translated aloud.
"Aye, lassie; the MacKenzie motto," said Willie, nodding approvingly at me. He snatched the bonnet from my hands and pushed it into Jamie's, before dashing off in search of further clothing.
"Er… I'm sorry," I said in a low voice, taking advantage of Willie's absence to move closer. "I didn't mean—"
Jamie, who had been viewing the badge on the bonnet with disfavor, glanced down at me, and the grim line of his mouth relaxed.
"Ah, dinna worrit yourself on my account, Sassenach. It would ha' come to it sooner or later." He twisted the badge loose from the bonnet and smiled sourly at it, weighing it speculatively in his hand.
"D'ye ken my own motto, lass?" he asked. "My clan's, I mean?"
"No," I answered, startled. "What is it?"
He flipped the badge once in the air, caught it, and dropped it neatly into his sporran. He looked rather bleakly toward the open archway, where the MacKenzie clansmen were massing in untidy lines.
"Je suis prest," he replied, in surprisingly good French. He glanced back, to see Rupert and another large MacKenzie I didn't know, faces flushed with high spirits and spirits of another kind, advancing with solid purpose. Rupert held a huge length of MacKenzie tartan cloth.
Without preliminaries, the other man reached for the buckle of Jamie's kilt.
"Best leave, Sassenach," Jamie advised briefly. "It's no place for women."
"So I see," I responded dryly, and was rewarded with a wry smile as his hips were swathed in the new kilt, and the old one yanked deftly away beneath it, modesty preserved. Rupert and friend took him firmly by the arms and hustled him toward the archway.
I turned without delay and made my way back toward the stair to the minstrels' gallery, carefully avoiding the eye of any clansman I passed. Once around the corner, I paused, shrinking back against the wall to avoid notice. I waited for a moment, until the corridor was temporarily deserted, then nipped inside the gallery door and pulled it quickly to behind me, before anyone else could come around the corner and see where I had gone. The stairs were dimly lit by the glow from above, and I had no trouble keeping my footing on the worn flags. I climbed toward the noise and light, thinking of that last brief exchange.
"Je suis prest." I am ready. I hoped he was.
The gallery was lit by pine torches, brilliant flares that rose straight up in their sockets, outlined in black by the soot their predecessors had left on the walls. Several faces turned, blinking, to look at me as I came out of the hangings at the back of the gallery; from the looks of it, all the women of the castle were up here. I recognized the girl Laoghaire, Magdalen and some of the other women I had met in the kitchens, and, of course, the stout form of Mrs. FitzGibbons, in a position of honor near the balustrade.
Seeing me, she beckoned in a friendly manner, and the women squeezed against each other to let me pass. When I reached the front, I could see the whole Hall spread out beneath.
The walls were decked with myrtle branches, yew and holly, and the fragrance of the evergreens rose up into the gallery, mingled with the smoke of fires and the harsh reek of men. There were dozens of them, coming, going, standing talking in small groups scattered throughout the hall, and all clad in some version of the clan tartan, be it only a plaid or a tartan bonnet worn above ordinary working shirt and tattered breeches. The actual patterns varied wildly, but the colors were mostly the same—dark greens and white.