“Naeyet.”
“Nae yet,” Frederick agreed. “We strengthen the northern watch. We keep the women nearer the keep and inner roads. We wait for the hounds. And we learn whether the returned lass remembers more once the draught loosens its hold.”
Lennox nodded. “And if she doesnae?”
“Then we move with what we have.”
He could hear the council room before they reached it. Chairs being set in place. The scratch of wood on stone. A servant murmuring apologies for dust that likely no one else would have seen.
Still nay sign of Iona or Jamie.
His pace did not change, though disappointment arrived with an immediacy that irritated him. He had not truly expected to find them in the corridor just before the meeting. That would have required luck, and Frederick had long ago stopped making plans that depended upon it.
Yet some part of him had still looked.
They entered the council room together. The long table stood ready, papers already stacked at one end, candles unlit in the broad iron holders because there was still enough daylight. The room smelled faintly of ash and old wood, of decisions made badly and then argued over until they sounded wise.
Lennox moved to the sideboard and poured himself watered ale without asking whether Frederick wanted the same. Frederick did not. He stood at the head of the table instead, laying both hands against the carved edge and forcing his thoughts back into order.
Mairead. The draught. The route north. The hounds. The border.
Not Iona’s face when he left. Not the way Jamie had gone very still at the question of hair. Not the possibility that the child had taken his departure as indifference.
The scrape of a cup set down broke through the room.
Lennox looked at him for a moment, then said, “So, ye found out then?”
Frederick’s head turned slightly. “Found out what?”
Lennox’s mouth shifted. “Aye. That is convincing.”
Frederick did not answer.
Lennox lifted one shoulder and laughed under his breath. “Maids talk.”
Not accusation or even surprise. Only the easy certainty of a man who had lived too long inside the same stone walls not to understand how quickly news moved through them.
Frederick let out a quiet breath through his nose. “And what precisely are the maids saying?”
“That the bairn is a lass.” Lennox crossed the room and took his place at the table as though the matter were no more remarkable than rain. “Is that what I interrupted this morning?”
“Nay, it was when the lass was made aware that I kent.”
“Ah,” Lennox said, settling into his seat. “I take blame for that interruption, but ye could have told me to shove of for a bit.”
Frederick looked down at the papers before him, though he was no longer reading them. “There was reason I left without delay.”
“I didnae say otherwise. Just that ye could have bade me meet ye in the courtyard.”
Frederick’s jaw set. He disliked how little explanation it took for Lennox to understand the rest.
The man leaned back in his chair. “If it eases ye any, the child has likely already decided whether ye are a fool. They tend to do it quickly.”
“That is nae particularly easing.”
“It wasnae meant to be.” Lennox folded his arms. “Still, if the lass is anything like her mother, she will make her feelings plain enough in time.”
Frederick rested one hand on the back of the chair before him and said, “I should have said more before I left.”