Claire Delacroix by The Rogue Page B

taken up the lands left vacant near Kinfairlie village.
    The Lammergeier had claimed suzerainty of Ravensmuir, though I did not know what else they had claimed.
    Fitz shrugged, which meant that either he did not know or he would not tell. I supposed any villeins pledged to Ravensmuir would come to the portal in search of that free meal.
    Tynan frowned. “No lord gave us dinner in Kinfairlie.”
    “No, because Kinfairlie keep is burned and gone, and Kinfairlie village is pledged to none in these days. You know that tale,” I chided. “There is a Lord of Kinfairlie no longer.”
    Tynan brightened, his recollection prompted, and began to recount the tale he had heard so many times. It was a favored one of his, for he had a boy’s taste for violent tales of chivalry. “For the keep of Kinfairlie was attacked by wicked men who wished to seize it.”
    Mavella continued. “And when the Lord of Kinfairlie refused to surrender to them, they burned his keep while the Lord and his family was trapped within its walls.”
    “Then they burned his second abode at Ravensmuir!” Tynan said. “They thought to frighten the lord into surrender, but he was too brave to be frightened. Then the wind came from the sea and fanned the flames and the fires burned too heartily to be halted.”
    “That is sufficient...” I said.
    But Tynan continued in his enthusiasm. “And it is said that the twin fires of the burning of Ravensmuir and Kinfairlie keep challenged the very light of the sun. And none escaped the blaze but Mother.”
    Mavella nodded. “Mother, who was in service to the Lady of Kinfairlie and had been dispatched down the treacherous sea cliffs to seek aid from Tantallon or Dunbar.”
    “After Kinfairlie was reduced to ashes, the bad men sowed the fields with salt and left Kinfairlie for all time, their scheme thwarted,” Tynan continued, though he had difficulty with the last word.
    Mavella nodded. “No one remembered their names, for the plague came fast on their heels and killed half the people who had occupied Kinfairlie manor and all who had seen their faces.”
    “And the priests declared that it was reparation for the sins of all those who lived upon Kinfairlie’s lands, and demanded penance of us all,” I concluded.
    “Do you remember?” Tynan asked.
    I bent and tickled his tummy. “No. I was smaller then than you are now.”
    “None of us were not born yet,” Mavella said.
    “That is smaller than me!” Tynan giggled and squirmed away from my tickling finger, then tilted his head to regard me. “But Ravensmuir is here, not burned. We stand inside it. How can that be?”
    “Because Ravensmuir was rebuilt and Kinfairlie was not.”
    “By who?”
    I crouched down beside him. “Ravensmuir was rebuilt by Avery Lammergeier, who sailed across the seas and laid claim to part of the ancient realm of Kinfairlie. After the keep was built, he gave his holding to his eldest son, who was named Merlyn. And when Merlyn died -” I choked unexpectedly here, but cleared my throat and continued beneath Fitz’s bright gaze “- he surrendered Ravensmuir to me.” I forced a smile. “And now, we shall live here.”
    Tynan frowned as he considered information that was new to him. “But why?”
    “Because Merlyn is - was - my husband.”
    Tynan’s brow puckered as he thought about this. “Then why did we live in Kinfairlie and not here?”
    Fitz lifted his brows quizzically, as if he too would be delighted to know the answer. My sister took sudden interest in the stonework.
    “Because Merlyn Lammergeier was a bad man,” I said with as much care as I could muster. “I did not realize his wickedness when I pledged to wed him, because he omitted to tell me much of the truth and lied to me about the rest. But as soon as I learned of his crimes, I left Ravensmuir. That is why we lived in Kinfairlie village.”
    This only fed Tynan’s curiosity. “What did he do?”
    “He was a thief,” I said, unwilling to enumerate all