Chapter 46

As the sky began to lighten with the morning sun, Gair sat in his favourite niche on the topmost tower of the castle. He took out his prize possession, a telescope he’d purchased at the market last fall, and looked around MacInnis land. These were strange days. Stranger than he’d ever imagined and surely stranger than his father could have foreseen. What would become of their land now?

The king was actually gifting women, land, and titles to mercenaries! They had one of his fiercest warriors staying right here in MacInnis keep! Gair focused his lens on where Fann stood by the wall with a few of the men he’d brought with him and Gair wished the lens could hear as well as see. They’d be gone in a few days Paddy said, but it had been a week and Gair saw no sign of them breaking camp. Fann seemed like a reasonable enough man, but the fact that he had yet to leave to claim his own keep had Gair worried. He had set MacInnis men to keep watch over every one of them. None of the mercenaries w