It was a low voice with a mocking note that Kelpie could never mistake. She whirled. Alex! She could see him now through the brush, nearly invisible against the low winter sun. He sat at the mouth of a small, shallow cave, regarding her quizzically—but with a drawn look about the mouth of him. One foot, badly swollen, was propped up before him.
Och, then, wasn’t it her curse on him that had come at last to bear fruit? Moving thru the juniper, but keeping a safe distance away, Kelpie told him so with considerable relish.
Alex grinned wryly. “It may be so,” he conceded. “Sure it is you’ve cursed me enough. But have I not told you that such things are likely to fly back in the face of the one who curses? And if this is your curse at work, then ’tis not just me you’ve harmed, but Montrose and his army, and yourself as well. For Argyll is about, and I was on my way up the Great Glen to warn Montrose when I fell; and what will you do if Argyll wins and puts his witch-hunters over the whole of the Highlands?”
His tone was still mocking, but Kelpie could hear bitterness and despair in his voice. It made her feel most peculiar, for Alex was usually so infuriatingly self-assured—and much easier to hate that way. His distress was not quite as satisfying as it should have been. For a moment she toyed with the idea of leaving him to his worry, but she could not resist bragging. She gave him a pointed grin.
“You will always be thinking yourself the only clever body in the world,” she observed smugly. “I myself have already sent a messenger to Montrose.”
Alex stared, frankly unbelieving. “You?”
“And why not, whatever? Wasn’t I crossing Campbell land myself with the army, and you away safe out of it? Haven’t I the wits to see I’m not wanting Mac Cailein Mor king in the Highlands? It is I should be doubting you, for if Ian and his father are with Montrose now, I’m thinking you’d not be going near whatever.”
Alex narrowed his hazel eyes at her, and Kelpie prudently moved a step farther away. “And why not?” he inquired lazily.
Kelpie laughed nastily. “I’ve eyes in my head!” she retorted. “Did you think I was not seeing? Aye, and I saw it before, as well, with the Second Sight, last spring.”