Eba ignored her mother's careful training, pressed her cheek against the rough oak grain of the door and was just in time to catch her brother's aggrieved voice.

"Oh, he'll make his name, alright. A handsome young devil who'll get all his own way now he's got the crown of Alba and the strong arm of Thorfinn of Orkney behind him."

"There's more to him than that, and you know it!" That was Leod's voice, with its usual blend of laughter and logic.

"He'd better not shove his nose where it's not wanted," her brother growled.

Eba glanced over her shoulder; even if she behaved like an eavesdropper she didn't want to gain a reputation as one. Sunlight streamed in through the big open doors of the empty hearth-hall, and the serving women laughed and gossiped outside in the yard.

"Perhaps he won't." Eba pressed her ear back to the door when Leod spoke again. "But families up and down the loch will run out of grain soon. We cannot support his visit."

Eba recoiled and glared at the door. She had been told nothing of a king's visit.

Someone's fist, probably her brother's, thumped the table. It was certainly Domnall who said, "We don't need him here."

"But you may as well accept it, Domnall. He has said he will visit every main hall this season." Leod hesitated, and then added, "You know he's going to come eventually."

An older, deeper voice joined the argument. "We'll not have a scrap of food in a week or two and it's our families will suffer. You're our thane, and should speak with the King on our behalf. He'll come, and he'll bring grain from Caithness. He's a fair man. You've but to ask."

Eba bit her lip as other voices clamored to be heard, for she knew her brother's views on thanes who begged grain from the King. Domnall hated to admit any kind of failure, least of all to the new King. In a sudden lull, a quiet voice spoke up. "We should take some cattle one dark night, from up near the Moray lands."

Domnall's "Yes!" clashed with Leod's "No!" and then everyone shouted at once, and stools scraped on the planked floor. Eba retreated, turned and ran across the hall to the ale barrel in the shadowy corner. She lifted the lid as much by feel as by sight, dipped several wooden beakers, dumped them onto a battered tray and stared at them without seeing them.

Raiding livestock was not uncommon in Alba when times were hard, but it was against the law, and punishable by death. Eba took a deep, unsteady breath, and carried the heavy tray back across the hall. She juggled with the door latch and the tray, shoved the door open with her hip and bustled in.

The uproar ceased and the hot reek of fish oil from the fat bellied lamp hit the back of her throat. Her brother jerked round, frowning. Stocky, belligerent and volatile, he seized a beaker of ale from her tray. Eba stared round the ring of angry faces, and her smile faded. No one would meet her eye. She looked again at Leod, who glanced up, blew out his cheeks and winked from behind her brother's back.

Restored by the warmth in Leod's dark eyes, Eba dumped the tray on the table and turned to her brother. "I have brought ale for you and your friends before your throats run dry with all this talk." She smiled, handed out beakers and received brief, awkward nods in return. They were men she had known all her life, who worked the land up and down the loch and out beyond Ardelve but she saw they were not going to let her listen, let alone join in their talk. She looked at Leod, a question in her raised brows.

He shook his head. Eba sighed, abandoned the tray with a clatter and exaggerated the sway of her hips just in case they ignored her altogether as she returned to the door. A soft, high-pitched whistle appreciated her progress, a stool squealed across the floor and she swung round, a relieved smile on her face. For the length of a heartbeat, she thought she might be allowed to stay.

"Go on, out you go!" It was her brother, his shaggy fawn curls bouncing on his brow, who grinned, slapped her rump and rattled the door shut behind her.

"Ohhh!" Eba groaned in vexation, spun round and strode by the empty sleeping alcoves and the long fire pit. At the open doors she hesitated, ignored the servants chattering in the yard and turned towards the open meadows. A group of lambs clustered round the gate sprang apart at the violence of her approach. Jaunty catkin tails bouncing, each lamb fled to the comfort of its mother, and then peered at the intruder from the safety of the ewe's solid bulk.

Eba reached the burn, flopped down on a favorite shelf of rock with her long skirts bunched beneath her and poked a tentative toe into the strong brown current. The water was still shockingly cold, for the mountains behind Bundalloch still held snow in shadowed nooks and crannies. She gritted her teeth, watched her toes turn white in the water and thought about the proposed cattle raid. In all likelihood she would wake one night to find her brother dead somewhere out on the hill and her home in flames around her ears.

A little while later a shadow stretched across the rock and blocked out the sun's warmth. Eba guessed who it would be. She tucked her wet feet beneath her long grey skirts and turned to enjoy the admiration in Leod's brown eyes.

"So this is where you hide." Leod was Domnall's closest friend, and ten years older than Eba; he had been married once already. Folk said his wife had had fair hair and blue eyes, too.

"I come here when I want some peace and quiet." She squinted up at him. "Domnall wants to go raiding?"

"Yes." He sank to his haunches at her side.

"When?"

The smile faded from his lean, sun browned face and his long lashed dark eyes visited her eyes and mouth in turn. "You know I can't tell you. Domnall would never forgive me. You needn't worry; we'll be gone only a day or two at the most."