#DailyLines #MOBY #WRITTENInMYOwnHEARTSBlood #Book8 #OutMARCH25th #preparations #happyvernalequinox !


“Can ye club up my hair for me? I canna be reviewing my troops like this.” His hair was tied back carelessly with a leather thong, damp stray wisps sticking to his face.

“Of course. How many of them are you reviewing? And when?” I sat him down on the stool and set to work with the brush. “Have you been burrowing through the countryside head-first? You have fox-tails and leaves in your hair, and those winged things that elders make. Oo! To say nothing of _this_.” I carefully removed a tiny green caterpillar that had become entangled in his tresses and showed it to him, perched inquisitively on my forefinger.

“[Gaelic – Go with God],” he said to the caterpillar. _Go with God_. And taking it carefully onto his own finger, took it to the tent-flap and loosed it into the grass.

“All of them, Sassenach,” he said, returning and sitting down again. “My last two companies came in this morning; they’ll have been fed now and rested a bit. I meant to ask—“ he added, twisting round to look up at me, “—would ye come with me, Sassenach, and have a look at them? To see if any should be left back from the fighting, or tend any that might need the odd bit o’ repair.”

“Yes, of course. When?”

“Come to the parade ground in an hour, if ye would.” He passed a hand over the neatly gleaming auburn queue, doubled on itself and ribboned in a club at his nape. “Aye, that’s grand. Am I decent otherwise?”

He stood up and brushed bits of discarded leaf from his sleeve. The crown of his head brushed the tent, and he was glowing--with sun, energy and the suppressed excitement of impending action.

“You look like bloody Mars, god of war,” I said dryly, handing him his waistcoat. “Try not to scare your men.”

His mouth quirked as he shrugged into the waistcoat, but he spoke seriously, eyes on mine.

“Oh, I want them frightened of me, Sassenach. It’s the only way I’ll have a chance of bringing them out of it alive.”

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