“I said, where were you?” Silvan repeated.
Drustan frowned. Aye, Silvan was definitely out of sorts. “Sleeping. And you?”
He plucked an unidentifiable from his plate and offered it to one of the hounds beneath the table. Curling its lip, the animal growled and backed away. Drustan frowned dubiously at the pie before glancing back at his father. Silvan looked his age this morning, and that depressed and irritated Drustan.
Depressed him because Silvan was his age, all of three score and two. Irritated him because recently his father had taken to wearing his hair loose around his shoulders, which, in Drustan’s opinion, made him look even older, and he didn’t like to be reminded of his father’s mortality. He wanted his children to have their grandfather around for a very long time. Silvan’s hair was no longer the thick black of his prime, but shoulder length, snowy white, and possessed of a personality of its own. Coupled with the flowing blue robe he favored, he projected an unkempt, mad-philosopher look.
Tugging the leather thong from his hair, he tossed it at his father and was relieved to see his da was still spry enough to catch it with a hand above his head.
“What?” Silvan asked peevishly, glancing at it. “What would I be wanting with this?”
“Tie it back. Your hair is making me mad.”
Silvan arched a white brow. “I like it this way. For your information, the priest’s mother quite likes my hair. She told me so just last week.”
“Da, stay away from Nevin’s mother,” Drustan said, making no attempt to conceal his distaste. “I vow, that woman tries to read my fortune every time I see her. Ever creeping about, spouting gloom and doom. She’s daft, Besseta is. Even Nevin thinks so.” He shook his head and popped a crust of bread in his mouth, then washed it down with a swig of ale. The pork pie had defeated him. He shoved the platter away, refusing to look at it.
“Speaking of women, son, what have you to tell me about the wee one that appeared here last eve?”
Drustan lowered his mug to the table with a thump, in no mood for one of his father’s cryptic conversations. He slid the pork pie down the table toward his father. “Care for some pie, Da?” he offered. Silvan probably wouldn’t even notice anything wrong with it. To him, food was food, necessary to keep the body toting the head around. “And I doona know what lass you’re talking about.”
“The one who collapsed on our steps yestreen, wearing naught but her skin and your plaid,” Silvan said, ignoring the pie. “The chieftain’s plaid, the only one that’s woven with silver threads.”
Drustan stopped brooding over his measly breakfast, his attention fully engaged. “Collapsed? Indeed?”
“Indeed. An English lass.”
“I’ve seen no English lass this morning. Nor last eve.” Mayhap the lass Silvan was going on about was the reason he’d gotten the offensive pork pie. Nell had a soft heart, and he’d bet one of his prized Damascus daggers that if an abused lass had appeared on the doorstep, she was the one dining on golden kippers and tatties and soft poached eggs. Mayhap even Clootie dumplings, oatcakes, and orange marmalade. On more than one occasion women from other clans had sought refuge at the castle, seeking employment or the chance to start life anew with people who didn’t know them. Nell herself had found such refuge there.
“What does the lass say happened to her?” Drustan asked.
“She was in no condition to answer questions when she appeared, and Nell says she hasn’t yet awakened.”
Drustan eyed his father a moment, his eyes narrowing. “Are you insinuating that I’m responsible for her presence?” When Silvan made no move to deny it, Drustan snorted. “Och, Da, she may have found one of my old plaids anywhere. It was like as not threadbare and had been tossed in the stables to be cut up into birthing rags for the sheep.”
Silvan sighed. “I helped carry her to her chamber, son. She had the blood of her maidenhead on her thighs. And she was naked, and she had your plaid wrapped around her. A crisp new one, not an old one. Can you see how I might be perplexed?”
“So that’s why Nell served me week-old fare.” Drustan pushed back his chair and rose, bristling with indignation. “Surely you doona believe I had aught to do with it, do you?”
Silvan rubbed his jaw wearily. “I’m merely trying to understand, son. She said your name before she swooned. And last week Besseta said—”
“Doona even think of telling me what some twig-reading fortune-teller—”