When the toast was drunk they fell into companionable silence. Iain gathered himself to broach the next subject. The king eyed his companion shrewdly.
‘There is something else on your mind, I think.’
‘Your Majesty reads my thoughts.’
‘We’ve known each other a long time you and I. We’ve hunted and caroused together and fought side by side in battle. You have watched my back and risked your life to save mine, my friend. So, if it pleases you, will you not tell me?’
Iain explained then about Ashlynn, or at least related the essential facts. Malcolm listened with close attention, his penetrating gaze never leaving the other man’s face. He had not lied when he spoke about friendship. Iain McAlpin was one of the few men he liked and trusted. That liking was mutual and, in consequence, Malcolm had learned something of his friend’s past, a confidence he had never broken. Moreover, kingship had taught him early about the need to read men accurately, and what he saw here surprised him greatly. Had his companion known how much this spare account was revealing to his listener, he might have been much surprised in his turn.
‘A bad business,’ Malcolm commented when the tale ended. ‘The maid is lucky to be alive. She has no kin who could take her in?’
‘None, my liege.’
‘Had she been a commoner I’d have suggested you sell her to the highest bidder. I suppose you still could as she has no kin to pay a ransom for her.’
Iain’s brow drew together. Now that the matter was so baldly stated it seemed strangely unwelcome.
‘Is she fair?’ the king went on.
‘Aye, she is.’
‘Well, that’s something. Of what temperament is she?’
‘Spirited, my liege.’
‘Unfortunate, but it would soon be beaten out of her I have no doubt.’
Iain frowned. That had not occurred to him before but now he admitted the truth of it. The life of a slave was one of drudgery and unquestioning obedience. For a woman it had other connotations too, especially if she was attractive. He remembered the first time he had set eyes on Ashlynn, remembered her torn dress and Fitzurse’s mailed fist pulling the cloth apart. The memory was accompanied by a surge of anger, for it was but a short step to imagining what else would have happened had the brute been allowed to follow his inclination. Could he be responsible for selling the girl into such a fate? It took but a second to know the answer.
‘I’ll not sell her, my liege.’ He hesitated. ‘I wondered if some place might be found for her at court.’
Malcolm shook his head. ‘The court is no place for a girl alone. Nor has she any dowry that would attract a suitor. ’Twould only be a matter of time before she attracted the attentions of a very different kind of protector.’
Again Iain was forced to recognise the truth of that statement and with it a fresh twinge of guilt. Perhaps he should have left the girl in Hexham after all. Yet if he had, what would she have done? Her fate there might have been no different.
‘Since you will not sell her and she cannot go to Dunfermline, there is only one other honourable solution,’ Malcolm continued. ‘You must take her to wife.’
Iain’s cup paused halfway to his lips as the ramifications dawned. Mentally recoiling, he was shocked into temporary silence. Then he shook his head.
‘I have no mind to marry again, my liege.’
‘Your loyalty to your wife’s memory does you much credit, but you cannot live in the past.’
‘I know it. Eloise is gone and there’s naught can change it.’
‘Yet you are a man for all that, and you have a man’s needs.’
‘When I want female company I can find it.’
‘Of course. Nothing wrong with that, but you cannot get heirs thus.’
It was an aspect of the matter that Iain had not chosen to dwell on, but now that the topic had been raised he confronted it. ‘I’ll marry again and breed sons, but not until I have destroyed Fitzurse.’
‘I understand your desire for revenge and know you have good cause, but this quest has dominated your life these last eight years,’ the king replied. ‘A man needs more than hatred to sustain him. He needs the healing touch of a woman. You have been a widower long enough, my friend.’ Tis time to put the past behind you and move on.’
‘I cannot move on knowing that my enemy lives and thrives, and a woman cannot help me there.’
‘Marriage will show you the way as it has shown me.’
The king’s regard for his newly affianced bride was well known and Iain forced a smile. ‘Fortune has favoured your Majesty.’
‘I would that all men might be so blessed.’