A Dish of Spurs by Robert Low

A Dish of Spurs by Robert Low

Author:Robert Low
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781788639545
Publisher: Canelo
Published: 2020-02-26T00:00:00+00:00


* * *

The Laird waited for a long time after Batty had slouched out, then called for Sweetmilk Hutchie Elliott; most in the hall thought he was making sure Batty had put distance away from the tower and would not hear him roar some curdle into Sweetmilk, but the truth was that he needed so long to bring his heart and temper under control.

Margaret appeared just before Hutchie did, slipping quietly up to stand at his elbow like a chill wind from the grave; the Laird did not want to look at his Lady, but her words pulled his head round.

‘You would defend this foul wee wen?’ she demanded, flat and heavy as a thrown iron, and he winced at her tone. Cold broth and lumpy porridge from now on, he thought, if I am so lucky; the thought made him waspish with her.

‘It is not about him,’ he replied. ‘It is about Armstrong honour. My father would not have been half as merciful—’

‘Does Armstrong honour permit the violation of women?’ she snapped back. ‘Would your father?’

He knew she was waspish because she had contrived to put Hutchie and Mintie together in the undercroft, but he had no mind for soothing. He rounded on her, savage as a bloody-muzzled dog.

‘No, he would not have stood for it and Armstrong honour does not. Consider yourself fortunate in that, for it also does not permit its chief to be spoken to by anyone – anyone – as if he was a chiel of no account.’

‘You were not always so arrogant,’ she replied, soft and wistful – then put the pepper back in her voice. ‘Like father like son. Mayhap if he had tempered his own hubris, a wee plooky boy-king might have spared him.’

They glared at each other for a long time, then the anger left him like an ebb tide. He waved one dismissive, apologetic hand.

‘My doe,’ he said. ‘This is not worth a quarrel.’

The term made her blink, filled her with sadness for the way it had once rang truer than the false tin it now sounded, for the way it had once thrilled and delighted her as now it did not. She could not speak for the sorrow of it – and then Hutchie Elliott clacked into the centre of her search for words.

He was cautious, for he had heard who had come, so his bow was tolerable, neither too fawning nor too arrogant. His tone, too, was deferential; he was all sweetmilk now.

‘You wished to see me, Lord?’

‘You are a whore-slip who would fuck a haired floor,’ the Laird said and watched the blood rush up into the man’s face, daring him to do something about it. Instead, Hutchie choked it down as if it was another man’s spit and said nothing. Disappointed, the Laird found his goblet and drank, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

‘You brought this on Hollows, this Batty Coalhouse,’ he added, and Hutchie, recovered a little, raised his chin in a pinch of old arrogance and a hint of aloes.



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