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far from her own, close to Balerominmore and the beach at Rubha Dubh. Cows had wandered from the byre and munched on the thatching of the roof. The midden heap looked fair overflowing, and, nearby, some dogs fought over a scrap of something. The place showed none of the marks of good order or husbandry that a well-run holding would show. Angus and Alasdair were bachelors, and I felt right at home.
    I approached the door, raised the door-flap, and stuck my head inside. All seemed quiet enough. As my eyes adjusted to the dark I began to see the details—the hearth fire out, the ashes cold, I found, when I went to check. Angus and Alasdair were nowhere to be seen.
    “Angus! Alasdair!”
    Of course they did not answer. Either they had not returned home after visiting Sheena, or they had left again. As I emerged, blinking at the daylight, I heard a noise and got a glimpse of what the dogs were fighting for—a foreleg of a deer. One of the hounds had the hoof in his mouth, and the other, a young puppy, circled, whining, waiting his chance to try and grab it from the larger dog. Or perhaps he just waited for the leavings.
    So it seemed Angus and Alasdair had returned home, and left again—to Scalasaig? I was nothing loathe to look for them there, as I felt more than ready to return home myself, and thought longingly of the fire I could build and what I could drink once I returned home. So I hiked the few miles back to Scalasaig, as the winds blew away all the fine weather and a wet drizzle set in.
    I found Angus and Alasdair at the tavern. It was not a tavern such as you would find in large cities, that I know now, but the wife of Donald Dubh was a fine alewife, and people often gathered there to drink the stuff, and leave some coins in return. As his store of coins had grown, Donald had started to buy claret, and distill uisgebeatha as well, and so Scalasaig had its own tavern, for all that it was little more than a hut. And inside it, sitting close to the turf fire and already far-gone with drink, I found Angus and Alasdair.
    Of course, the talk today was much of the murdered Prior, but the clamor of voices ceased when I walked in the door. I found a seat on a stool by the fire, and asked for some whiskey. Donald’s wife brought a wooden quaich quickly enough, and I settled back to drink it, enjoying the bite of it on my tongue. After a few sips I spoke to Angus and Alasdair, who were sitting not far from me.
    “I was by your house,” I said to them, “and saw your dogs are gnawing away at a fine deer leg. Is that the deer you were lifting from Jura?”
    Alasdair looked at me for a moment, then cursed. “I told you to tie that leg up,” he said to his brother. “And now himself here is telling us that the dogs have got it after all.” He then finished glaring at his brother, who made some reply, and turned to glare at me, instead, his broad face and red hair glinting by the fire light. “And so you were visiting us, Muirteach? What was it you were wanting? And how were you finding out about the deer?”
    “Easy enough to see,” I said, not answering the first question, “with the hide drying on the roof and the dogs gnawing at the hoof there. But your sister was speaking of it, as well.”
    “You went to see Sheena?” asked Angus.
    Well, Angus had good enough reason to be surprised, for I had never been on good terms with his sister, although my father had taken her as mistress long after my own mother had died. Still, I had resented her, as I resented everyone who thought well of my father. Although after seeing the bruise on her cheek, I wondered now how well she had thought of him.
    “So how long was it taking you to hunt that fine stag?” I asked, changing the subject.
    Both men were happy to talk of that, and they insisted that they had indeed been on Jura, tracking and hunting the deer, at the time when my father had been murdered two nights ago. And from the look of the carcass at their house I had to