“Dhé, and she’ll be confused enough, poor water witch!” The old teasing note in Alex’s voice overlaid a new tenderness. “Just be settling me in a chair by the bed, and then away out, the rest of you, whilst I tell her the end of our adventure.”
Presently the room was silent again, except for Dubh’s purring. Conscious of a presence beside the bed, Kelpie opened a cautious eye again after a minute and found the hazel eyes fixed on her broodingly.
“Och so,” he murmured, shaking his head sadly. “I had thought my cousin Cecily unpredictable and you an open book, with your devious wiles, and so candidly unprincipled. And then—you put a spell on me, with the ringed witch-eyes in your head. You baffled me, you haunted me, you eluded me, leaving me forever two jumps behind and never knowing what to think at all. Aye me, I suppose I shall never understand you at all, and that is my fate and destiny.”
Kelpie slowly progressed from bewilderment to indignation. Only the last words had any meaning whatever, and that was little enough.
“I!” she fumed, causing Dubh to dig in a protesting claw. “It is you who make no sense at all, and I never knowing what to think!”
Alex grinned ruefully. “At least we are even, then. Are you wanting to know what has happened since Argyll’s men put bullets in the both of us?”
Kelpie nodded.
“Well, then, were you hearing the start of the battle, just as our own wee war was getting exciting?” asked Alex. She nodded again, content to lie still and listen. “Well,” he went on, “it was the battle that saved us, for Argyll rushed off to the safety of his galley, and his men left us for dead—and very nearly right they were. And so we lay unknowing while Montrose won a great victory over an army twice his size. It was another Tippermuir, and this time the fighting force of the Campbells is crippled for years to come. Some say as many as fifteen hundred were slain, and the rest taken prisoner or chased back to their own country, and our men on their heels all the way to Lundavra. I think it will be another generation, Kelpie, before Clan Campbell can come raiding other clans again—and a good blow for the King’s cause as well,” he added, almost as an afterthought. Loyal to the king though he was, Alex was a Highlander, and Highland affairs were his closest concern.
Kelpie found herself wondering suddenly about Morag Mhor and Rab, Archie, and the others. “And had we many killed?”