Chapter 3
“Neeps again, mama?” Fynn asked in a resigned voice, looking up from the floor. His face was smudged with dirt, and Lilidh could see the soles of his feet were black.
She nodded. “Aye, neeps again.”
Lilidh was standing at the sink, washing them under cold water, while Fynn played on the floor. He had his favourite toy out; a fishing rod with twine, and was pretending to pull fish up out of the floorboards. Each time, he would jerk back with a whoop, fighting an imaginary salmon that thrashed and jerked in angry protest. Whenever she heard his excited cry, she would pause from her task and congratulate him.
After the turnips were washed, Lilidh set the water to boiling and put in a tiny pinch of salt. She’d been using the same bag for years now. A pinch here, a pinch there, but she couldn’t help but notice how it was running low. She didn’t know if she could afford to buy any more.
“Can we have another meal from the castle?” Fynn asked. “Like last night?”
“Nay, little one,” Lilidh said. “I told ye it was a special meal, and we wouldnae have it again.”
“Never?” he asked in a sad voice.
“Well, maybe one day, but certainly no” for a good long while.”
“I did like the cheese,” he said mournfully. “And those - what do ye call them? Those small things?”
“Some type of nut,” Lilidh explained. “I dinnae know what they were called, but I liked them, too.”
“I liked everything.” He rubbed his stomach at the memory and heaved a rather theatric sigh. Lilidh almost rolled her eyes at him.
“Well, I’m sorry to say that we have neeps again tonight, and they willnae kill ye.”
“Fine,” he grumbled.
Lilidh boiled the turnips while the boy continued to play, and then she set two plates out on their rickety table. Boiled neeps again, without even churned butter to melt onto them. Fynn had a point, but Lilidh simply couldn’t afford anything else. She gave every spare coin back to Margaret to keep in a lock-box in the castle, and that left nothing for indulgences like they”d eaten the night before. Turnips were hearty fare and cheap besides, and would serve them both well.
Fynn packed away his toys, and they washed their hands in cold water, using only a touch of the soap that Lilidh had made from scavenged wood ash and tallow. It was also running low, wiped away to a thin bar despite her attempts to use it sparingly. She wiped her son’s face with a dishrag and they sat together to eat. He picked at his turnips sourly.
“Why dinnae ye tell me about yer day?” Lilidh asked. “Did anything exciting happen?”
Fynn looked up. “A man came to see ye.”
Lilidh frowned. “Are ye sure?”
“Aye, I’m sure. I spoke to him and everything.”
“That’s odd,” she said. “I wasnae expecting anyone.” In fact, Lilidh didn’t think she’d had even one guest in her house in the entire time they’d lived there.
“He said he used to know ye,” Fynn explained.
“What did he look like, this man?”
The boy pursed his lips. “Tall,” he said.
“Tall?” she repeated, feeling a strange stuffiness in the room. Nonsense, she told herself firmly. There were plenty of tall men in Dun Lagaidh.
“Aye, he was like a giant. He lay down on the porch with me and he couldnae even lay flat.”
“What on earth was he doing lying on the porch with ye?”
“Helping me find rocks, of course,” Fynn replied. “He could reach the best ones.”
“Of course. What else?”
“What else what?”
“What else did he look like?” Lilidh asked in exasperation.
“Just tall. Oh, and his hands were all bony. He had a beard, as well.”
“Did he have a name, this tall, bearded, and bony man?”
“Oh, aye. Duine.”
Lilidh felt a queer feeling pass over her. Duine. It was an old word with more than one meaning. Depending on the context it could simply mean man, but at other times could mean person, or even husband. She looked down at her turnips but suddenly found her stomach twisting. Just a coincidence, surely.
“And ye said he used to know me?”
“That’s what he said. I asked him.”
Lilidh didn’t have the faintest idea who the man could be. Nobody spoke to her down here, not even her neighbour, and if it was about castle business, then they would have known she was in the kitchens. Maybe it was a mistake, or someone had the wrong house. She supposed that was likely, and that she would never see or hear of the man again.
“He’s coming back tomorrow,” Fynn said between mouthfuls.
“He is?” Lilidh asked, feeling the sickness surge back at the thought of seeing this mysterious Duine.
“Aye, in the morning. He didnae want to interrupt our tea. I told him we were only having neeps again.”
Lilidh shook her head, almost thankful for the distraction. “We dinnae always eat neeps, Fynn. Sometimes we have carrots and beans and other things.”
Fynn nodded. “Aye. But mostly we have neeps.”
She gestured down to her son’s empty plate. “Are ye complaining, little one?”
“Nay, mama. Actually...”
“Aye?”
Fynn looked over at Lilidh’s own plate. “I’m still so hungry.”
Lilidh sighed. “Of course ye are. Nobody told me a little lad would eat me out of house and home.”
“May I have some of yer neeps, mama?”
Her own plate held barely enough for her, but Lilidh nodded and passed across most of her meal. “Of course, my bhobain. How else will ye get big and strong?”
Fynn smiled and lifted his arms up, showing his muscles proudly. Lilidh laughed and gave them a squeeze, letting her eyes widen in amazement.
“I’ll be able to help ye in the castle soon,” he said proudly.
“Oh Fynn,” Lilidh smiled. “I hope ye dinnae ever need to.”
They finished their dinner and cleaned up, and Lilidh carried her son to his bed. It was nothing more than a mattress stuffed with old straw and sitting on the dirty floor. It lay next to her own mattress, and Fynn climbed over it to snuggle under his thin sheet.
“Good night, mama,” he said drowsily. “Will ye tell me a story?”
“Of course,” she replied, and leant down and stroked his hair and whispered a tale of knights and princesses. It was a world where goodness prevailed and love conquered all; a world as far from her own life as she could have ever imagined. As she neared the happy ending, Lilidh looked down to see Fynn’s eyes were closed. She brushed the hair from his forehead and kissed it gently.
“Good night, my prince,” she murmured, then stood with a soft groan, pulling the dining chair across the room to the fireplace and sitting down. The flames were low, and she considered letting it burn down to save wood, but the heat would be good after another day of heavy lifting.
With a sigh, she picked up a log and placed it in the fireplace, noting how scant her supply was looking, and wondering if life could ever be more than a constant state of mild panic at the idea of spending money on food, heat and the things needed to simply survive. Her back ached, and she shifted and squirmed in her chair to find a comfortable position. It was useless; she hurt all over. Her stomach groaned loudly in hunger, but she did her best to ignore it. Half a meal wouldn’t kill her, and she”d feasted like a Queen the night before, so she wasn’t liable to waste away any time soon. She glanced across to Fynn’s sleeping form, his breath rising and falling steadily, a peaceful look on his small face. No, half a meal certainly wouldn’t kill her, and would benefit him far more.
Lilidh turned back to the fire and reached her hands out. Her fingers were red raw and curled, and she looked down at them with a frown. They were an older woman’s hands, not hers; lined and creased, with rough skin and chipped nails. She straightened them and they resisted at first, almost stuck in their unnatural position, before they slowly uncurled. Sharp pain stabbed through the top of her hands as she opened and closed them against the heat of the fire. One month of scrubbing pots and it felt like her body had aged ten years. Maybe in another month she would have skin as stretched and taut as old leather.
For a long time, Lilidh simply stared into the flames and let the heat of the fire soothe her aching body. Her thoughts drifted to Fynn’s words, and to the man who spoke to him.
Duine; the mysterious stranger.
Lilidh didn’t know who it could be, or what they would want with her. After all, to the men of the town, she would always be the widow of MacBrennan. For half of them, her late husband was a hero of sorts, the hardest man amongst hard men. To the others, Mathe was a monster of a kind best forgotten. But to both groups, each for their own reasons, Lilidh was not a woman to be dallying with. And why would they? There were plenty of eligible young women in the town that didn’t come with the history or the risk of the widow MacBrennan.
She supposed she would find out in the morning, if the man’s claims about returning were true. Lilidh ignored the strange feeling in the pit of her stomach at the idea of seeing him for herself. At the table, when Fynn had first told her, the most ridiculous thought had entered her mind. Her husband used to be tall, and in fact that was his defining feature, together with his green eyes. But he was also broad, beardless, and far from bony.
And, of course, he was six years dead.
So that ruled him out, but the mystery remained. Who was this man who claimed to have known her?
Lilidh rarely allowed herself to think such thoughts, but for one moment, she wondered what life could be like if things were different; if a mysterious stranger knocked on her door to sweep her away to a place where she never needed to scrub pots or swallow the insults of small-minded women. To live in a real house, and have real friends, and a future that wasn’t held back by the ghosts of the past.
Lilidh knew such thoughts were at best useless, and at worst harmful, and yet she felt them all the same.
She often told Fynn that she didn’t need any man in her life apart from her son, and sometimes she even believed it. But tonight, thinking on the mysterious stranger, Lilidh felt suddenly, desperately lonely. She longed to have someone wrap their arms around her and pull her close. To see her and hear her, to lend her a shoulder to cry on, and to look at Lilidh as a woman in her own right and not just the widow of Mathe MacBrennan.
Lilidh felt the tears slip down her cheeks and felt too exhausted to even blink them away. At that point, she would have been happy just to have a friend, let alone a man. She was doing her best, trying so hard, but unable to find either.
Once again she looked over at Fynn and knew that despite her circumstances, she would keep going. She would bury her feelings and get on with things, and walk up to the castle every day until her body finally gave out. After all, what choice did she have? Fynn needed her, and she needed him just as much, and dreaming of tall strangers would not bring her anything but pain.
But why, oh why, did life have to be so hard?