“Wild bird eggs?” she said excitedly. “Let me see.”
Reluctantly, he pulled forth a cloth from inside his long leine, or tunic, that now had speckles of his blood around the neckline. He tried to be careful about opening up the folded cloth, but the lass threw it back in her excitement to see the tiny, speckled eggs.
In fact, the entire group of children leaned over him curiously, nearly crowding him out, and he looked up nervously into the pale, dirty faces. Ten or more of them. Enough to beat his arse and steal his little eggs, at the very least.
“Look at the eggs!” the red-haired lass exclaimed. “What are ye tae do with them?”
Lor folded up the cloth again quickly, tucking it back into his leine to keep the eggs warm. “Give them tae my grandfather,” he said. “He has a birdhouse where he keeps them.”
“Tame birds?”
“Aye.”
It was a rather foreign concept, considering the only birds these children knew were the ones they stoned and ate. The red-haired lass was looking at him very curiously.
“Do they stay tae the birdhouse?” she wanted to know.
“Aye.”
“Are they friendly?”
“If ye feed them well.”
That was enough for her. “I want tame birds,” she said. “Give me yer eggs.”
Lor frowned. “Nay. Ye can find yer own.”
It was the lass’s turn to frown. She balled a fist and put it right in his face. “I’ll fight ye for them.”
“I dunna know how tae fight.”
She blinked, as if startled by the answer. “Ye dunna know?” she repeated. “But…but everyone knows.”
“Not I.”
“Then I’ll take them!”
With that, she grabbed at his leine as she tried to get to the eggs, but Lor rolled away from her, trying to escape. He rolled into the legs of the children that were standing around him and that was as far as he could go.
“Dunna do that,” he said, a flash of something intimidating in his eyes. “These eggs are for my granda. I will bring ye some eggs of yer own the next time I go looking.”
Something in the way he said it conveyed sincerity, the softly uttered vow of an honorable young man. More than that, there was something powerful about him as he stood up to her.
“Promise ye’ll bring me more, or ye’ll not leave the vale,” she said.
Lor looked around at the rough-looking children. They probably would keep him here, too, tied to a tree. When he didn’t return home, his grandfather would find his rotting corpse, an ignoble ending to the short life of Lor Careston.
With that thought, his answer was the obvious one.
“I promise,” he said reluctantly. “Can I go now?”
The red-haired lass was studying him again. It seemed that all she did was stare at him when she wasn’t making demands. She had eyes the color of a cat’s-eye stone, a shade of brown that was both warm and mysterious.
But there was a great deal of curiosity there.
“Ye say ye canna fight?” she asked. “Why not?”
He shook his head. “I’m a smithy, like my grandfather. Not a warrior.”
The lass had a hint of humor in her eyes. “Ye’re big enough tae fight,” she said. “Ye must learn.”
“Why?”
“What if the Sassenachs attack yer village? What then?”
His brow furrowed as he thought on that. “Then I would take my grandfather tae the hills and we would hide,” he said. “I wouldna fight them. ’Twould be foolish.”
“Why?”
“Because they have swords and I dunna. They would kill me.”
The lass marched over to him, through the smashed foliage, and poked at his arms. They were muscular arms, even at his young age. He was not a boy any longer, but not quite a man. He was big and handsome. Crouching down, she looked him in the eyes.
“All gàidheal should fight,” she said frankly. “’Tis in yer blood. I’ve heard my da say so. Are there no men in Careston tae teach ye?”
He shrugged. “Who? Farmers?”
The lass cocked her head. “What of yer laird?”
Suspecting these children were of a rival clan, Lor couldn’t be sure that she wasn’t testing him so he wisely kept his loyalties to himself.
“There is no one,” he reiterated. “If the Sassenachs come, then I shall take my grandfather and hide.”
That wasn’t good enough for the lass. “There are places that will teach ye tae fight,” she said. “A fight guild, mayhap.”
Lor looked at her strangely. “A fight guild? What is that?”
“I told ye—where they teach ye tae fight. I’ve heard my father speak of one that