St. Kelsi, nay.
But to appease them—and to shut them up—she reached for her lute and began to strum, frantically thinking of rhymes.
“Wee Willie Winkie,
Running through the town.
Up the streets and down the streets,
In his nightgown.”
Mook leaned sideways. “What’s a nightgown?” he whispered over-loud to Pudge, who shook his head.
“Likely a metaphor for something,” he growled. “Who ever heard of a cock running about?”
“Sounds cold,” quipped Weesil.
Giric was grinning, of course. “This is the first recorded use of the word nightgown in human history!”
“Recorded?” murmured Robena.
The handsome man waved airily. “Quick! Someone write it down!”
Thank the saints the conversation devolved into an argument about what to wear at night, and whether it mattered if one was alone in the bed.
Robena did her best to ignore said conversation and strummed lightly on her lute’s strings.
The high spirits lasted through that evening when they stopped to make camp in a clearing not far from the road. As Auld Gommy began to cook, a few of the men disappeared into the trees.
“There’s a small loch a ways in that direction,” the ancient Scot explained, throwing his beard over his shoulder as he stirred. “And bathing sounds nice after so many days in the saddle.”
She hummed in agreement, wondering if she could sneak away after dark to make use of the water herself. “‘Tis likely freezing.”
“No’ as bad as smelling like a horse for the rest of the journey,” growled Pudge, who settled beside her, his back to the same fallen log. “Take some friendly advice, Robbie lad, and go wash yer bits, eh?”
Robena did not sniff her own armpits, but ‘twas a struggle.
“Can I ask a question?” She exhaled as she rested her head against the log, the tension of sitting in the saddle all day draining away. “Why are ye MacBains such a battlesome lot? Who are ye fighting all the time, in these stories?”
Weesil was sitting cross-legged on the other side of the fire, dragging a whetstone along his blades, and looked up in surprise. “Och, the Murrays, of course.”
“The hated Murrays,” Pudge corrected, and Weesil nodded in agreement.
It is time to marry Lady Elspeth Murray and end this feud.
“Ye’re feuding with the Murrays, aye?”
Auld Gommy snorted as he settled himself in front of a stump, where he began to mix oats and water to make bannocks. “‘Tis nae our choice. I’m auld enough to remember when we considered them friends. We fought the Sutherlands then, and the Clynes, but that was just because ‘twas traditional.”
“What happened?” Robena asked quietly. “If ye used to be friends with the Murrays?”
“Laird Ian Murray happened, lad,” barked Pudge. “And Kester’s Meadow.”
Her head snapped up. “Kester’s Meadow?”
Weesil took up the story, his hands never stopping. “Our laird’s mother was Abigail Kester, a bonny lass with bonnier blue eyes. She was a cousin to Ian Murray, who had been newly made laird of his clan. ‘Twas a sort of alliance, to marry Lady Abigail to Kester’s da, the auld laird. As part of the bargain, Murray included a fertile meadow which stands between our lands.”
“Lady Abigail lasted long enough to birth Kester,” Auld Gommy continued somberly, “and name the lad after her people.”