Chapter 8 #2
“If ye shoot a few, I’ll ask yer father to pick a chicken for the table and we will use those feathers too.”
At the end of the night, Elayne bid her good night as Mrs. Logan left to walk home with her father.
Hours later, when her father returned home, Elayne still lay awake thinking about Cailean.
She couldn’t wait to discover how his visit to the first clan had concluded.
Travel to clans across the Highlands was inherently dangerous.
Clan wars erupted with little provocation.
Cailean faced fighting bandits and the temptations of many ladies.
Ladies who could capture Cailean’s attention and his heart.
Although she had given her heart to him, he had never been hers.
They were only friends. When he found a wife, that would change. Then she would have nae one.
*
Elayne labored long hours every day, and as the weather grew warmer, it felt more oppressive inside the forge.
The following week, she took a horse from the stables, with the bow and arrows Cailean had given her, and Thomas, a fair- haired groom, accompanied her with his own bow.
He had a fun personality that Elayne enjoyed.
Tethering the horses by the stream, they crept silently in the forest, hunting game.
Thomas shot a rabbit first. Afterward, concentrating on all the lessons she had learned from Cailean, Elayne shot a brace of pheasants, and Thomas shot pheasants too.
They knelt by the river and washed their faces and drank the cool water, refreshing themselves before returning to the keep.
Thomas said, “Thank ye for letting me go hunting with ye. It is more fun than mucking out horse stalls the entire day. I’d be happy to go again with ye.”
“Ye are welcome. I ken what ye mean about going hunting. I find I need a break from working in the forge. To be out in nature is a welcome change. I’m happy we found game to shoot. What will ye do with yers?”
“I’ll give ye my game. I have nae place to cook it. If yer mother makes rabbit stew, mayhap I could have some one night?” he asked hopefully with a lilt to his voice and earnest eyes.
“I will ask Mrs. Logan who cooks for us. She is nae relation to me. “
“Ye said Mrs. Logan sews. It gets cold at night in the winter. If I shot more rabbits, could she make me a blanket? I cannot afford to purchase one and I cannae ask my mother.”
“I will ask her.”
“A warm one will be most welcome. I need to ken how many more rabbits she needs to fashion a blanket.”
His simple request gave Elayne pause. Although she lamented the tediousness of her job, she ken she was more fortunate than many others in the clan. Her heart ached to improve their lives, even if in the simple ways of a new blanket, a shawl, or a tin lantern illuminating the darkness.
William and Elayne invited Thomas to dine with them the next day and shared the rabbit stew and roasted pheasant he had shot.
An active growing boy, he devoured the food, scooping up spoonful after spoonful.
Mrs. Logan appreciated his enjoyment of the dishes and served him a second bowl before William had half of his dinner consumed.
Thomas wolfed down several pieces of bread and butter with his stew and pheasant.
Even William’s eyes widened as he saw how hungry Thomas was and how large an appetite he had.
Thomas’s father had a small farm outside the hills that surrounded the village. The oldest of eight children, Thomas had worked on the farm along with his siblings aside from the youngest, helping their father plant crops and care for the livestock.
Before leaving, Thomas smiled brightly. “Thank ye for the meal. I can’t remember when I have had such a delicious dinner.
Yer cooking reminds me of my mother’s, and her rabbit stew was always my favorite.
” Elayne left Thomas talking to her parents after dinner while she worked on the forge making iron spikes to hold up candles, which she hoped to sell at the fair.
Two days later, Elayne returned to the castle to help Bessie make soap.
A big production, lassies and lads tended the fire and stirred the pots.
In one small batch of soap, Elayne added ground heather flowers she had pulverized inside a cloth on the anvil.
In another batch, she used ground pine needles.
Bessie appreciated the fragrance of each and she ken the ladies of the castle would be delighted to try the scented soaps.
Bessie and Elayne poured the hot soap into molds in the stillroom, where it would cure for the next month.
Elayne ate lunch with the castle staff at Bessie’s insistence and enjoyed talking with lasses of her age.
Bessie planned for Elayne to return the following week to make larger candles.
The timing was perfect since her father had finished the model they used to create the larger tin lanterns.
In the forge, Elayne worked on horseshoes to sell at the summer fair. Her father as blacksmith for the laird and having made horseshoes for the laird’s horses, his warriors’ horses, and others, it was a testament to the quality of his work.
In addition to what she continually made for the fair, Elayne cunningly bartered with a carpenter at the castle for leftover small pieces of wood she could use to fashion sturdy wooden crates to carry items for the sale.
William and Mrs. Logan were delighted with the crates, as it would make their job easier.
One night, when Thomas came to dinner, Elayne instructed him on how to build the crates with the wood she’d obtained. Thomas followed her directions exactly.
The two later returned to see the carpenter and bartered with eggs she had collected from the hens for more scrap pieces and also blocks of wood.
She asked the carpenter to demonstrate how he sanded and polished wood.
Additionally, Elayne got a piece of rough limestone from him and asked Thomas to carry it.
Back home, she hammered the iron spikes she’d made into the wood blocks to hold candle tapers, but she wanted the wood polished into a satiny soft hue so that the wood gleamed.
With a polished finish on the wood, she could fetch a higher price at the summer fair from those visitors with fatter purses.
Elayne’s father and Duncan had made a new bargain. Thomas would apprentice as a blacksmith. Thrilled to learn the blacksmith trade, Thomas enjoyed dinner occasionally with Elayne and her family. Each evening after closing the forge, Elayne sat with Thomas and taught him how to read and write.
“As a blacksmith, ye need a keen eye for measurements and mathematics. Ye need to be good with yer hands to create weapons and tools. We rely on carpenters to create handles for the tools, so ye need to cultivate respect and good relationships with many other artisans. Ye need to understand weights and measures, since we may charge more for a heavier tool. The time to create a tool is also taken into consideration in pricing items. Ye will be expected to help Papa and Mrs. Logan at the fair. It will help to learn to give the correct change.”
One evening before the fair, she sat with Thomas at the kitchen table after dinner and laid out various items to sell.
She listed the price of each one and made Thomas practice sums in his head.
The next night she tested his recall and taught him how to subtract sums, which he quickly learned.
Thomas had an aptitude for mathematics and was a quick study.
Excited to learn blacksmithing skills, Thomas had remained in awe of Elayne and her father since the first day he came to work at the forge.
Her father named the tools and had Thomas fetch them for him.
William taught him the qualities and characteristics of the heat of the fire, and when a piece of iron should be removed from the fire and beat into shape.
To Thomas, Elayne was an enigma. and the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.
She made the work in the forge look easy, but Thomas soon learned how tiring the work came to be.
He quickly realized blacksmithing was more demanding than working as a groom.
Filled with curiosity, Thomas asked many questions.
He found the blacksmith, although exacting in his work, was a patient man.
Working as hard as ever, Elayne measured the circumference of the inside of the lantern and its height so she could craft pillar candles that provided more light and fit appropriately.
So the candle would not slide, she decided to place a spike on the bottom.
Thomas was like the little brother she could have had, if he had not died with her parents.
Elayne enjoyed his company and desire to please her in his work.
After dinner, she kept Thomas busy learning how to shape nails or polishing wooden blocks with a rough piece of limestone.
When he had finished smoothing and shaping the surface, Elayne used a waxed cloth to polish it to a sheen.
At the fair, she hoped to gain a dogfish skin that could polish and show the grain patterns of wood, which enhanced its beauty.
Elayne measured the molds Bessie used for making pillar candles. Many pillar candles were needed for the large lanterns so that, when hoisted and raised above their heads, the lanterns enhanced illumination in larger spaces. Elayne toiled for two days in a row making pillar candles in molds.
The week before the fair, festive banners were hung in the courtyard, and workers placed tables under canopies and tents for the merchants to sell their wares.
Elayne encouraged her father, with Mrs. Logan’s help, to secure tables where many people passed by, so everyone could see what they had for sale.
Thomas helped her father place items for sale in the crates he’d built.
Elayne helped Mrs. Logan by folding items and putting them in crates for her.