*
For the better part of two hours, Stefan sat beside Laird Macoran on the landing, watched, listened and talked when called upon to do so. Just as Macoran warned, his wife was standoffish and said nothing. She looked incredibly bored but Stefan suspected there was little she did not notice. Laird Macoran's twin sons, Searc and Sionn, were not in the least standoffish. They behaved when they were with their father but once out of his sight, they peeked around the side of a cottage, decided Stefan was the funniest thing they had ever seen, pointed at him and laughed. Soon they scampered away to find more exciting mischief.
Stefan ignored them and went back to watching the festival now that he had a high perch from which to observe. What he enjoyed most was watching Macoran watch Jirvel and then watching her ignore him. It was a sort of game they played and on the few occasions when Jirvel looked at him, Macoran seemed to perk up because of it. Conversely, he stiffened every time another man approached her and there were several over the course of the afternoon.
What fascinated Stefan even more was how much Kannak looked like her father and he wondered how no one else noticed. But then, many in the clans were related in one way or another and most in the Macoran Clan had red hair and green eyes.
*
True to his word, Macoran had a man see them home safely and left them with a sword, two daggers, a fishing spear and small iron fishing hooks. As soon as they were home and Jirvel was comfortable in her bed with her foot propped up to help the swelling, both she and Kannak would not rest until they knew every word he and Macoran exchanged.
Kannak sat on the bed next to her mother and was especially worried, "Did he ask about yer clan in the north?"
"Aye," was all Stefan was willing to say.
She lowered her head and glared at him through the top of her eyes. "Are ye not to tell us?"
"If ye must know, I told o' a very tall man in the north who is slow o' wit, a plentiful waterfall and land with few trees. I may have mentioned I prefer trees."
"And what else?" asked Kannak.
He winked at Jirvel and headed for the doorway. "I told him the lasses were not as beautiful in the north as they are here." With that, he walked out of the bedchamber, went to the front door and checked to be sure it was bolted. Then he climbed into bed and covered himself. They were still giggling when he fell into a peaceful sleep.