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master’s confidence. Get ye to your bed, Beau, and do no’ be looking at me with those unhappy eyes. There is no need for ye to grieve.’
    ‘But Dide …’
    ‘I shallna say any more, Beau, so there’s no point in asking. I wish I had no’ said anything at all.’
    He walked away from her swiftly and did not look back. Isabeau looked after him, her face troubled,gnawing at her fingernail. If no’ to hate me, then what else is he to do? she thought and, despite herself, gave a little smile.
     
    Lachlan rapped the table and said, ‘Enough! Let us concentrate on the job at hand. Three days we’ve been shut up in this room and I do no’ ken about all o’ ye, but I am heartily sick o’ it. Let us put our strategy in place and ride to war!’
    Talk broke out on all sides. ‘We’ll just have to kill as many Fairgean as possible afore they get to Carraig,’ the Duke of Gleneagles cried.
    The Duke of Lochslain had fought many times against the Fairgean. He leant forward now, his wrinkled face troubled. ‘The thing is,’ he said, ‘the sea-demons be as slippery as eels. Ye can fight and fight against them, to try to stop them landing, and they’ll simply turn and slither back into the sea again and be gone. And if ye try to pursue them by boat, their blaygird sea-serpents are waiting outside the headlands and the boats are crushed and everyone drowned.’
    ‘Could ye no’ kill the sea-serpents?’ Duncan Ironfist said.
    ‘How?’ the duke said simply. ‘Arrows are no good, they just bounce off their hide.’
    ‘All the royal fleet are well armed with cannons now, thanks to the Bright Soldiers,’ Lachlan said, rubbing his tired eyes. ‘Do ye think they’d be any use against sea-serpents?’
    ‘I do no’ rightly ken, Your Highness,’ the duke saiddoubtfully. ‘Their hides be mighty tough. Happen cannonballs would just bounce off.’
    ‘And the sea-serpents would have to come within range, and by that time they’d have the ship in their coils anyway,’ said the captain of the Royal Stag, who had been promoted to Lord High Admiral of the Rìgh’s fleet.
    ‘The trick is to try to kill the sea-serpents afore they come too close to crush the boat,’ Duncan Ironfist said, tugging at his beard.
    ‘Och, that be easy enough,’ the MacBrann said, startling them all, since everyone had thought he was dozing. The old man twinkled at their expressions of astonishment, scrabbled around his huge sporran and drew out a sheaf of crumpled papers. ‘I brought ye my design for a giant mangonel. We found it most useful against the Bright Soldiers when they tried to storm Ravenscraig. We’ve thrown a boulder well over four hundred yards!’
    There was a little murmur of surprise and the MacBrann beamed round at them. ‘Aye, I think ye’ll find that o’ use! Since then I’ve been working on a ballista that can shoot a giant arrow nearly as far. Ye could dip the arrowhead in some sort o’ poison so that all ye need do is pierce the sea-serpent’s hide, ye do no’ need to strike a vital organ to kill it. The poison will do all the work for ye.’
    ‘Dragonbane,’ Meghan cried. ‘Iain, your mother sold Maya some dragonbane when she was trying to wipe out the dragons. Wouldna dragonbane work on sea-serpents too?’
    Iain nodded. ‘I imagine it probably w-w-w-would, Keybearer. I do no’ ken myself how to make it, but there are those who live in the swamps who would k-k-k-ken the recipe. I can try to find out.’
    ‘My father has another invention which he thinks may be o’ some use to ye,’ Dughall MacBrann said then in his indolent drawl. He was lying back in his chair, his eyes half shut as if he were only just managing to stay awake. ‘Tell them, Father, for I’m sure I forget what it is.’
    The MacBrann sat up eagerly, blinking behind his spectacles. ‘Och, yes, I’d forgotten about that. Thank ye, laddie, for reminding me.’ He rummaged about in his sporran and drew out a little glass vial which