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bright, laughing glances, nodded at shouted greetings, smiled and raised his cup to answer or initiate repeated salutes to victory over the Campbells, and to MacIain via his son. They were most of them fou , drunk on liquor and sheer elation, which promised fast friendships and a fight or two.
    “Alasdair!” He was never Dair to his father. “I’ll have your ears, if ye please—have ye no’ heard a word I said?”
    The MacDonald clansmen clustered behind his father fell silent one by one. Dair, abruptly the focus of MacIain’s fierce attention, was preternaturally aware of their movements: they elbowed one another carefully, arched anticipatory eyebrows, doffed or resettled bonnets, scratched heads and beards, rearranged plaid folds, smiled sideways into smothering hands, into mugs and cups.
    “Well?” MacIain thundered.
    “D’ye want them?” Dair was not in the least embarrassed; in fact, his spirits sang with the same elation that infected others. Archibald Campbell was dead. His power was ended. The greatest threat to such men as MacDonalds, Macleans, and Stewarts was disarmed. This night, he could meet his father on common ground.
    The hedgerow of white eyebrows lowered over piercing eyes. “Want what?”
    “My ears.” Dair swept off his bonnet, ruffling tangled hair. “You bred them, aye?—they’re yours.”
    The hedgerow swept up in astonishment. “By God, I should snatch them off your head, you whelp!”
    Dair tugged an earlobe in elaborate acknowledgment. “I heard that. A good pair of ears, then; d’ye want them, or no?”
    MacIain clapped a huge hand across one of the offending ears, though he took care not to break the eardrum. “You deserve a skelping for that! Aye, I bred them—I bred more than ears, ye glaikit boy!” MacIain caught Dair’s bonnet out of slack fingers and threw it back at him. “Did ye hear naught o’ it?”
    “Enough.” Dair grinned and let the bonnet fall free; his ears, for the moment, were safe. “We’re reivers to go a’raiding.”
    “And where is that?”
    “Campbell lands. Argyllshire.” Dair could not help himself; his attention was snared by a distracting glint of lamplight off a piece of metal in a far corner. A man was moving, taking a seat given up by another clansman, and the badge on his bonnet sparkled silver. “As for where specifically —”
    The huge hand swung again. Dair ducked part of the blow, but the remainder of it was nonetheless powerful; MacIain clouted him hard enough across the side of his head to rock him on his stool. “I did say so, you ken! Specifically!”
    “Christ—” Wine looped out of Dair’s carefully warded cup and splashed in an arc across his shirtfront. His plaid shed most of it; beneath the wool, the saffron-dyed shirt took on the color of old blood.
    John MacDonald, nursing whisky, laughed. “Aye, you appear to have worked a day after all. A man too clean after battle has no’ done his share!” He plucked at a stained sleeve. His own small wounds were healing cleanly, but the shirt needed washing.
    Dair reached down and scooped his bonnet off the floor. “I am clean because I bathe . . . and because I’m quicker than you”—laughing, he ducked John’s swooping hand—“but if ye want honest blood, I’ll let you bloody my nose—providing you can reach it!”
    John shoved aside his cup and leaned to rise, but MacIain’s huge hand imprisoned his nearest wrist. “Not now. Leave his nose be; he needs it for the women, who like a pretty lad.” A glint in the giant’s eye belied the harsh derision in his tone. “Argyllshire,” he said heavily. “I’ve portioned it out. D’ye care which you get?”
    “ I get?” Dair was startled. “You’re giving Argyllshire to me?”
    “‘ Specifically ’ ”—MacIain’s eyes were bright—“Kilbride. D’ye ken where it is?”
    Dair grinned briefly. “I ken.”
    “Go home, then,” MacIain ordered. “Through Kilbride. And bring its cows to