“Pah! A good chieftain ne’er sleeps, lassie.” Archie turned to Grim and gave him another poke with his walking stick. It was a hard jab that belied his yammers about being achy and frail. Leaning forward, he waggled his brows. “What did I just see here, eh? Kissing the maid, were you?”
“So I was, aye.” Grim discreetly stepped before the Cailleach Nollaigh, hoping to avoid a confrontation about the Old Christmas Wife’s transformation into Greer MacGregor. “There is a ball of mistletoe hanging o’er our heads.”
“Is there now?” Archie tut-tutted but didn’t look up.
“Indeed, and a very fine ball it is.” Grim glanced at the heavy black ceiling rafter and the sacred plant dangling at the end of a bright red ribbon.
Archie harrumphed. “Kissing unsuspecting lassies…” He let the words trail off, shaking his head disapprovingly.
“I didn’t mind, sir.” The breathlessness of Breena’s tone confirmed her admission.
“No good comes of such foolery.” Archie remained grumpy.
“It was my festive duty to kiss her as we passed beneath the mistletoe.” Grim held out his hand to display a white mistletoe berry. “I claimed a berry before my lips touched hers, as the old gods demand.”
“Humph! I dinnae care about the ancient ones and their auld, moldy customs.” Archie glowered at the berry before turning a fierce scowl on Grim. “Belike there’s folk beneath my roof who cannae remember a man’s simplest wishes. That fashes me more than tradition.
“There’ll be no Yuletide at Duncreag. No roaring fires, no feasting. To be sure, no merrymaking.” He looked from Grim to Breena and then back to Grim, shaking a finger at them both. “No’ this year or e’er again.
“Men should spend their nights patrolling the battlements and keeping their eyes on the shadows, no’ dancing jigs and reaching for mead horns.” His bushy brows drew together. “Such frivol can cost a man, dinnae forget.”
“Everyone respects your wishes.” Breena went over to him, her soft voice soothing. “Indeed, it would seem the gods agree with you.” She flashed a warning look at Grim as the night wind howled past the windows. A strong gust, it rattled shutters and even lifted the edges of the leather curtains that kept the worst chill from the hall’s raised dais where Archie’s high table stood empty.
“See?” Breena gave the old man a fond smile. “Haven’t they sent a cold north wind to blow into the hall and carry away every bit of greenery?
“I shouldn’t have decorated.” She patted his arm. “We’ll have the mistletoe removed as well, I promise.”
“Aye, then!” Archie swelled his chest, importantly. “I wouldnae ken who dared affix such foolery to my great hall’s rafters, but”—he shot a narrow-eyed look at Grim—“I’m having none of it.”
Grim folded his arms and said nothing, knowing when to keep his peace.
An empty linen sack was tied around the crook-head of Archie’s walking stick. And Grim had a good idea what the old laird had intended to fill it with: the last of Breena’s decorations.
Apparently she agreed, because she lifted a corner of the sack, questioningly.
“Sir,” she began, gentle reproach in her voice, “you weren’t going to try to collect the mistletoe yourself?”
“Me? Did you no’ hear what I said?” Archie spluttered, giving a good show of looking offended. “I didnae ken there was any hanging about! Though I’ll no’ say I’m no’ glad the winds be ridding my hall of such frippery.”
He slipped the sack from his crummock and shook it out, demonstratively. “This was to hold a bit of late-night victuals, is all. ’Twas the hunger that woke me, it was. I’ve a fierce appetite, see you?”
As if to prove his words, he gave a stiff little bow and then shuffled past them to a nearby trestle table, still laden with a few rounds of cheese and several platters of leftover roasted meats. Clearly dismissing Grim and Breena, he started thrusting food into his sack. First an entire head of ripe green cheese and then a large wedge of barley bread along with a small pot of butter and another of honey. He finished with more beef ribs than even Grim could eat.
When he turned away from the table, his eyes glittered with defiance.
“I’m hungry,” he declared, patting his middle.
Grim and Breena exchanged glances.
“The mistletoe should remain.” Grim spoke first, not wanting to offend, but aware others at Duncreag needed Yule as much as Archie, even if the old man was loath to admit it. “Some of the men traipsed far into the snowbound glen to fetch the greenery and mistletoe,” he added, ignoring Breena’s foot lowering over his toes. “The garrison men and the serving lasses deserve a bit of merriment.