Bravely(15)

Elinor looked regal and self-contained, as if these men had been invited here rather than barging in. Merida’s mother hadn’t lost her temper since the incident with magic and bears years before, but it didn’t stop Merida from longing for her to shout at these fellows. Tear the Christmas boar away from their dogs. Throw them all out. But she knew that was impossible. DunBroch wasn’t at war, and they had no standing army. The guards here in the Great Hall were probably the most that could be mustered on short notice, and even these were halfway to drunk because of the feast day.

“Lord mac Alpin has been sending requests the civilized way for months,” said Wolftail. “It’s you who’ve forced his hand by not answering.”

Merida whispered to Leezie, “Have you heard anything about this?”

Leezie pouted prettily. Her cheeks were flushed. She looked becoming dressed in disaster, as she looked becoming dressed in anything even a little messy. “I saw a couple of the letters when I was cleaning your mum’s room. He doesn’t sign them ‘the Dásachtach.’ He signs them with his real name, Domnall mac Alpin. Very fancy-like. Domnall is a pretty name, don’t you think?”

“Leezie.”

Leezie went on in a low voice, “All his letters were about something bad coming from the south, a threat, and he’s all about, you know, stopping it. He went on and on about the army he’s building and how he wants everybody, every clan, that is, to prove their loyalty by sending sons for it.”

Merida felt a nervous squeeze in her stomach. “So, the triplets.”

The triplets had received only a very little combat training, just for fun, but on her journeys, Merida had met families who had sent even smaller boys to be trained to fight. She’d run across fully trained soldiers younger than her; boys who had had their skin and bones already replaced with steel and flint. It was bad imagining that for Hubert or Harris, but imagining soft Hamish being so hollowed out turned her stomach even more.

“Right,” Leezie said. “Or you. The letters said daughters, too, I mean. Not for the army, but for marrying into other clans, to make sure all the clans are friendly-like, I guess? United against this bad thing from the south.” Leezie covered her mouth as if it might make her quieter, but it just made her a little harder to understand. “So the letters were asking after the boys, and you, and asking why your mum and dad weren’t answering.”

The voices were still growling back and forth down below. Merida asked, “Is what he said true? That she didn’t answer them?”

“I don’t know. I put them back where I found them, but later I saw them all burnt up in the fireplace.”

Merida had to reluctantly admit to herself that this avoidance-of-unpleasantness was something she already knew about both her parents. Not that they had always been this way. When she was younger, her mother had been sharper: quicker to judge, quicker to act. And her father had been more nuanced: slower to joke, slower to push hurts under the rug. There had been more arguments, but also more action. Back then, the classic DunBroch solution to everything had been to react as quickly and definitively as possible, no matter how many heads one had to crack or hearts one had to break.

But somewhere along the way, a DunBroch solution had shifted to making as little a fuss as possible and hoping the problem went away. In fact, Merida could see a classic DunBroch solution visible from where they were perched: an enormous chest, sat upon a threadbare rug for easier tugging, blockaded the doorway to the armory. There had been a proper door there once, but snowmelt and a roof leak had conspired to absolutely ruin both door and hinges. As it had been a busy planting season and there was no pressing reason for a new door aside from keeping the dogs in the armory overnight, the family DunBroch had simply blocked the doorway with the heavy chest until better timing came along. That had been years ago.

Now, it seemed that even powerful warlords received DunBroch solutions.

Merida was uneasily reminded of Feradach’s accusations the night before.

“Wait,” she said, a thought striking her. “How did you know what the letters said? And you were cleaning Mum’s room?”

“I had Harris read them,” Leezie admitted. “After I sounded out some of the more exciting-looking parts. And I was looking for ink for my drawing.”

So that was why Harris had looked unsurprised about the intruders. In the old days, before Merida left, he would have already told her. This was exactly the kind of thing they used to tackle in their long sibling conversations.

Down below, Fergus’s voice was beginning to rise. “Six men against our kitchen and an already deceased Christmas boar might have been a fair match, but I don’t think you’d care for the mess if you try to press your luck now.”

“We aren’t looking for a fight now,” Wolftail said in his gravelly snarl. “If we leave without satisfaction, more than six of us will return, though.”

“You’ll be leaving without satisfaction, then,” Fergus roared.

Wolftail’s lip curled and now even his face looked like the wolves he wore on his back. “I canna believe that we come peddling peace and loyalty and safety, kinship and companionship with your neighbors, and you don’t have so much as a how do you do for us.”

“Your dogs are eating my Christmas boar and my people’s feast is under your feet, for what? For peace? For ego!” Fergus said.