Free To Kiss A Kilted Warrior by Rowan Keats Page A

age.
    Wulf stopped the cart before a building displaying an iron horseshoe. “The blacksmith will know of a cottager willing to take us in.”
    He ducked inside the barn, leaving Morag in the cart. She glanced about, a tingle of alarm running down her spine. A blind man stood in front of the smithy, his hat in his hand. Two doors down, a woman leaned against a hewed post, her skirts hiked up to display an ankle. And across the wynd another man with a hood pulled over his head was selling a pair of women’s boots that were clearly not his own.
    Heartbeat quickening, Morag clasped the hilt of the knife at her belt and waited for Wulf to return.
    *   *   *
    With arrangements made to board the pony and store the cart, Wulf traded the dim confines of the blacksmith’s barn for the gray chill of an early March afternoon. He immediately spied the empty seat of the cart and halted abruptly, his throat dry.
    “Morag?”
    “Aye.” She popped up on the other side of the cart. In her hands was a cloth doll with one eye missing and a torn arm oozing dried grass stuffing.
    He circled the cart to find a wee lassie at her knee. “Who have we here?”
    “This is Saraid,” Morag said, nodding to her soot-smudged young companion, who looked to be about six years of age. “Her da works for the tanner.”
    “The smithy says the tanner has rooms to let.”
    Morag smiled at the young girl. “That’s what Saraid told me as well.”
    “But the odor in a tannery is near unbearable,” Wulf said. “So we’ll try the candlemaker instead.”
    Wulf unhitched the pony and walked it into the barn. While he gave the creature a good rub and saw it fed, Morag took a needle and thread from her pouch and mended the doll’s sundered limb. Grinning broadly, the lass took the doll. She thanked Morag profusely and then darted off to resume her task of gathering piss pots from neighboring bothies. An unpleasant task, to be sure, but the urine was used by the tanner to finish his leathers.
    “You’ve made a strong ally,” Wulf said as the girl disappeared around the corner.
    “Allies are useful in this part of town, I should imagine.”
    “True enough.” He gathered the bolts of cloth and their sacks of clothing and led the way down the wynd. “Just keep your purse tucked close. Cutpurses learn their trade young.”
    Morag frowned and opened the drawstring on her pouch. “You don’t think . . . ?”
    He chuckled. “Nay, but be wary.”
    The candlemaker was a short man with a puckered scar covering a third of his face. He noted Morag’s quickly disguised curiosity and pointed to his face. “An incident involving hot wax,” he explained. “Happened when I was a wee lad.”
    “Listen not to that man,” called his wife from across the room. “The truth is far more sordid and involves a fool too deep in his cups.”
    The candlemaker grinned.
    He led them to the stairs beyond two great vats of melted wax. “Down the passage to the right. You’ll need to launder your own linens.”
    Wulf nodded.
    “How long will you need the room?”
    “No more than a sennight. We’ve cloth to trade.”
    The candlemaker grunted. “Edinburgh is known for its cloth. You may not have an easy time of it.”
    Morag frowned. “What do you mean?”
    “The weavers’ guild will levy a tax on your goods,” the portly man said. “The price of woolens made in the burgh will likely be more favorable than your own.”
    When Wulf spied the storm brewing in Morag’s eyes, he nudged her up the stairs. “Thank you for the honesty, Master Toulie.”
    “I will not sell my cloth for less than I can at Dunstoras,” she whispered to him as they climbed. “Ruse or no ruse.”
    “Let us see what tomorrow brings,” he replied.
    Morag opened the door to their chamber and groaned. “Why ever did I agree to accompany you on this madcap mission?”
    He peered over her shoulder. The room was tiny, barely bigger than the bed inside. But it was not the narrow