Toby took a swallow from the bottle. He had shown him! He had shown all of them. "How many rounds?" Hard to speak with lips like muffins.
"This was twenty-nine."
"Twenty-nine? Needed one more. Scum cheated us!"
"Not really," Rory said.
He peered around the circle. Meg, chalky pale… Lady Lora… Others… smiling, but not happy.
Here was Stringer, with a face long as a carrot, and Randal's second and bottleholder, come to congratulate the victor. Tears? They had tears in their eyes! Where was the loser? Toby rose on his toes and looked over the crowd. Randal still lay on the grass. They had given him a plaid, too. They had covered him with a plaid.
Stringer babbling: "Well fought, Master Longdirk! Jolly great fight! Best fight I've seen in years."
Ignoring him, Toby tried to grab Rory with bloody fists, almost fell as Rory shied away from them.
"Where's the loser?"
Rory shrugged sadly.
Toby choked. Nobody covered an injured man's face!
He turned to look for Meg, but Meg was walking away with Lady Lora.
CHAPTER TWO
They cleaned him, washed his cuts with whisky, dressed him. They fed him copious amounts of broth. Above all, they congratulated him and wished him well in his career. They said they'd never seen anything like it, and wasn't it amazing how long that Sassenach stood up to him at the end there, meaning why did it take you so long to kill him? He hurt.
They left him sitting at a table in the mess hall with Hamish. He was blurry and sleepy, dazed by all the whisky he'd drunk, all the blows to the head, sheer exhaustion, but he hurt too much to sleep. In any case, the sun shone and the tide was full. Master Stringer would be sending for him soon. The pain did not bother him; he deserved it for not winning faster.
Hamish was counting the collection, dividing out a share for Gavin and himself, as tradition demanded. He was also inspecting every coin carefully before placing it on its correct pile. Whatever he was looking for, he hadn't found it yet. Whatever he thought he was doing was beyond the understanding of a stupid punch-drunk pug like Longdirk of the Hills. Hamish wasn't talking about it. Either he wasn't sure, or he felt it wasn't a safe matter to discuss in Inverary Castle.
"How long does it take to sail to Dumbarton?"
Hamish glanced up from the groat he was examining. "Depends on the wind." He laid the coin on one of the heaps. "Day, at least, I'd think."
Toby was too restless to stay silent, although every word hurt. He seemed to have exchanged roles with Hamish, who was not saying much at all.
"When's the ebb?"
"Soon. Ah!" He had found it. No, he hadn't — he peered closely at the coin, then added it to a pile.
Toby mumbled, "Be going then, I expect. You coming with me? Coming to find Eric?" Even through the fog in his eyes, he saw the kid's face twist in indecision.
"The master says I can stay here for over the winter and catalogue the library. Says his father's been wanting it done — all the old written books, and all the new printed ones, too."
"Take it! You'll end up as the earl's private secretary."
Hamish nodded glumly. "Pa'll approve." He sighed and went back to his coin inspection. "Ma'll dance on Beinn Odhar." He said, "Ah!" again, louder than before, then again decided it wasn't what he wanted. "Toby?"
"Mmph?"
"Er…" The kid hesitated, as if his verbal horse had balked at a fence. "Does Master Stringer remind you of anyone?"
"A grass snake, lives near the hob's grotto. Has the same chin."
Hamish did not smile. "You're waiting for him to send for you?"
"He wants a prizefighter, I'm his man." Toby spoke with much satisfaction. Being Master Stringer's man would not be the same as being, say, the earl's man. He wouldn't be one of a warband, or a vassal sharecropper. He would just be a servant, earning his living by winning fights as he had today — and free to leave anytime.
"But does he?"
"Huh?"
"Toby, doesn't it seem odd to you that the master's houseguest should suddenly turn out to be exactly what you wanted, one of the Fancy, a sponsor of pugilists? Funny coincidence?"
A small person had come into the mess and was running their way.
Toby squirmed uneasily. "Wha'd'juh mean?"
Hamish stared at him, chewing his lip. "Randal was a sailor. Oh, I'm sure he'd boxed before, but I think Rory just went and found a man on one of the ships here who would fight for money. I don't think Stringer cares a spit about prizefighting."
A battered brain full of whisky didn't think very well. "Why? Why would they do that?"
"I think Stringer wanted to take you with him to Dumbarton — maybe even to England, although I doubt that. I think he and Rory dreamed this up as a plausible way of explaining why he might do that."
"Why not just offer me a job carrying sacks? Why would he want me anyway, if not to fight for him? Why be so devious?"
"Maybe so as not to let you know… I don't know."
"Then why are you staring at all those coins?"
Hamish looked down at the copper groat in his fingers. "I'm trying to find one minted just after Fergan came back from England and was crowned king — before his first rebellion. There aren't many of them around anymore. They get kept as mementoes."
The runner arrived, a puffing blur of carroty hair and freckles and fishing-pole limbs protruding from a plaid.
In shrill soprano, the page said, "The master wants to see you in the hall, Master Longdirk."
Toby rose carefully. "You can look for mementoes later. This library of yours… is it near the minstrel gallery?"
Hamish looked up, startled. "No. Why?"
"It's time to get back to work." Toby turned to the tiny page. "Lead on, chief."
Hamish began madly scooping the coins back in the bag.
CHAPTER THREE
The hall was brighter than it had been the one other time Toby had seen it. Sunbeams angled down from the slit windows in the south wall, full of dancing dust motes, but the crackling fire in the great hearth still gave more light. He tramped over the rushes, past the long table, approaching the two men standing by the fireplace. They were drinking. The pain in his back made him limp; his face had been beaten to raw haggis; his arms and chest were discolored and swollen. Rory must be watching his approach with considerable satisfaction.
Toby bowed to Maxim Stringer first, then made a lesser bow to the master. Bowing hurt, and he couldn't straighten up properly.
The two men exchanged glances. Stringer produced his piece of glass and inserted it in his eye to study the champion.
"You don't look as bad as I feared, young man. Sit down if you wish."
Toby shook his head, which made the hall spin briefly.
"Well, Killer," Rory said. "Master Stringer agrees that you have displayed considerable promise as a pugilist. However, he has regretfully decided not to take you on. Sorry."
Toby twitched in sudden dismay, sending a blade of fire into his back. "I'd do my best to win for you, sir! I'm sorry I killed your man today."
The gangling Sassenach took a drink. "That isn't the problem. Deaths in the ring don't happen very often, you know. It should never happen, and certainly should not have happened this time. I'll be honest. I'm not a patron of the Manly Art. He wasn't my man, just a sailor we hired to test you. He was supposed to try you out, let you show your paces, and then take a dive."
Hamish had been right, as usual.
"Then… Well, why didn't he? Why'd he make a real fight of it?"
Rory drained his goblet. "I suppose he couldn't bear to be beaten by a boy. Another dram for the road, Max?"