Dame Margery issued this disconcerting pronouncement in stentorian tones and with a single breath, leaving her gasping a little by the end. She breathed in deeply, then added sternly:
“The wedding to follow within thirty-five days.”
A sufficient number of people had woken up by now to create a stunned, openmouthed audience for Dame Margery, who seemed well satisfied by the effect of her words. Alasdair sat upright, jostling the black-haired lass who let out a choked snore but remained blissfully asleep. He stared balefully at her and then at Dame Margery as the unpleasant import of her proclamation sank in.
“And if I don’t obey?” he said, losing a little of his earlier politeness.
“Death to you, I fear,” the old crone replied with annoying promptitude. “Hanged and quartered, laird, and your head displayed in the courtyard as a warning to all who leave off their sacred duty to the clan.”
“To be picked clean by crows?” he said sarcastically.
“Nay, laird, according to clan law it’s to remain on a pike for thirty-five days before being buried along with the rest of you. Depending on the weather, the crows might not have time to pick your head clean.”
Thirty-five, thirty-five. It was, evidently, a theme, and Dame Margery seemed to be enjoying her role in this farce a little too much. Alasdair scowled fiercely. To do her justice, however, the old lady had been renowned for decades for her comprehensive knowledge of clan affairs.
If you wanted to secretly find out a person’s birthday, you went to Dame Margery.
If you were grappling with some particularly tangled lines of relationship extending back a decade, a generation, or a century, Dame Margery could likely help you sort it out.
If you were curious about an event in clan history your great-uncle had once described to you but you’d since gotten fuzzy about—like that time a boulder had rolled down Ben Macdui and crushed three cottages, or was it a spring flood that had carried them away?—well, there was a good chance that Dame Margery would recall it.
Still, Alasdair wasn’t about to go under without a fight.
“Bring out the Tome!” he roared, which only made his throbbing headache worse.
Someone scuttled to obey, and in the meantime Alasdair noticed that little Sheila was studying him with that odd wall-eyed way she had. “What?” he snapped.
“A room with a door, a door with a lock,” she said, dreamily. “An egg that won’t hatch, a bird that can’t fly . . .”
“Hush, sweeting, hush,” Dame Margery interrupted. “The laird has a great deal on his mind just now.”
“Oh, but Granny, the laird’s path will be hard for him.”
“Hush now. We each have our own path to follow. You do, I do, the laird does. You’re not to presume about the path of others.”
Sheila nodded, vaguely, and then, seeming to dismiss the subject entirely, began poking about a nearby table for interesting leftovers.
While Alasdair waited, he sent for some ale, dislodged the lass from his chair, found his shoes, and watched with profound irritation as Uncle Duff finally woke up, yawned, stretched his arms, scratched at his beard, and finally, serenely, brought himself to an upright position and glanced around the Hall with the complacent expression of one who has engineered a highly successful party.
When Alasdair enlightened him as to the developments of the last fifteen minutes, Uncle Duff was suitably outraged.
“What, being forced to marry because old Margery says so?” he said scornfully. “Ridiculous, lad! Ah, ale!” he added happily, and snatched the mug from a tray a servant had been carrying toward Alasdair.
“To your health, Uncle,” said Alasdair grimly.
“Thankee, lad!” cheerfully replied Duff, oblivious, his mustache already doused with foam.
By the time a servant returned lugging the enormous old Tome, and blown off most of the dust and cobwebs in which it was encased, Alasdair had managed to safely receive (and down in one long gulp) his own mug of ale, and set in motion general cleanup of the Hall and breakfast to be served. The Tome—the hoary and irrefutable compendium of clan law—was set at the head of the high table and he began leafing through it, with Duff hanging over his shoulder and his beard continually getting in the way, forcing Alasdair to testily bat it aside several times.
After some twenty minutes of fruitless searching, Dame Margery, who had remained standing there, leaning on her stick, issued a noise suspiciously close to a cackle and said, “Page three hundred and twenty-eight, laird.”
Alasdair favored her with a hard glance, then turned to page 328. There it was, in plain black and white.
He was indeed thirty-five and unmarried.