Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The sound tore through the village like a blade through cloth. Colin moved before thought finished forming. His hand caught Elspeth’s wrist and pulled her behind him as his gaze swept the lane. Another scream came, this time from the eastern side of the village, followed by a shout.
“Fire!”
The word changed everything. Men ran, while women cried out from doorways. Children were seized by older hands and pulled back from the lane. Smoke rose above the roofs, black and sudden against the gray sky.
Colin released Elspeth only to point toward the old well. “Stay there.”
Her eyes flashed. “Colin—”
“Now.”
Perhaps something in his voice reached sense before pride could argue. She turned and ran toward the well where two older women gathered the children. Colin did not wait to see if she obeyed fully. He was already running.
The storehouse stood near the edge of the village, a long low building of stone and timber where grain sacks, dried meat, root stores, and winter provisions were kept when households had more than they could safely hold.
Smoke poured from the front. Flames licked greedily along the thatch and through the gaps beneath the roof.
It all happened too quickly, and Colin knew that fire did not take so quickly in damp weather unless invited.
One of the villagers reached him, having come from the far side of the lane with three men at his back.
“The doors are barred from outside,” the man said breathlessly.
Colin’s blood went cold.
“Break them.”
Axes struck, while men shouted for water.
Buckets were passed from the burn in a frantic chain, sloshing uselessly across boots and hems. Someone dragged a ladder toward the side wall.
Another man tried to climb toward the smoking roof, but Colin seized him by the back of his coat and hauled him down.
“Dae ye wish to burn with it?”
“Me stores are in there!”
“Then save yer body tae rebuild them.”
The door cracked beneath the axes. Heat burst outward, fierce enough to drive several men back.
Colin lifted his arm against it and forced himself closer.
Through the smoke, he saw orange swallowing shelves, sacks splitting open, flour bursting pale before blackening, and salted meat curling in the heat.
Gone.
Even if they doused it now, smoke and water would ruin what flame did not. A curse moved through him, low and vicious.
This was not an accident. This was not weather or carelessness. This was a knife at the belly of the village. Alasdair’s murder had been a warning. This was harm.
“Clear the sides!” Colin shouted. “Keep it from spreading. Tear down the thatch where it touches the shed. Move the carts. Get the children back.”
The village obeyed at once and that obedience was not fear.
It was trust, and it weighed more heavily than fear ever had.
Men who lost part of their winter stores turned from the burning building because he ordered it.
Women who wept continued passing buckets because his hand pointed them there.
Even the lads barely old enough to swing an axe went where the elder villagers sent them and did not question why.
Colin worked among them until his lungs burned. Smoke stung his eyes. Heat slapped his face. The eastern wall groaned inward, scattering sparks. He caught one boy by the collar and threw him bodily back a moment before a beam came down where he had stood. The boy hit the mud with a gasp.
“Stay back,” Colin snapped.
The boy nodded, white-faced.
Then, a movement at the corner of the storehouse caught Colin’s eye.
A man slipped from behind the smoke-darkened side wall, half-crouched, with his cap pulled low.
For a moment he was only another frightened villager.
Then he looked over his shoulder, not at the burning stores, but toward the lane beyond the cottages and ran. Colin went after him.
The man was fast, driven by panic, but panic made poor choices. He cut between two cottages, nearly slipped in the mud, recovered, and bolted toward the narrow path that led behind the mill. Colin followed, gaining with each stride.
The man glanced back. That glance cost him.
His foot struck a root. He lurched but did not fall. Colin reached him three steps later and drove him into the side of the mill with enough force to knock the breath from him. The man cried out and swung wildly. Colin caught the fist, twisted, and slammed his forearm against the man’s throat.
“Running somewhere?”
The man wheezed. His eyes were wide and red from smoke. “I did naething.”
“I have nae asked.”
“I didnae—”
Colin turned him and forced his arm up behind his back. The man gasped in pain.
“Then ye are eager tae defend yerself.”
A moment later, three villagers arrived, breathing hard. One of them took one look at the man and his expression blackened.
“Lachlan Kerr.”
Colin’s grip tightened. “Ye ken him?”
“Lives three miles south. Comes tae market sometimes. Nae one of ours.”
Lachlan shook his head frantically. “I was helping. I saw the fire and came tae help.”
“From behind the storehouse?” Colin asked.
“I was looking fer a way in.”
“With singed sleeves and nae bucket?”
The man’s mouth opened. Nothing useful came out.
Colin seized Lachlan’s burned sleeve. The fabric smelled sharply of oil.
“Who sent ye?”
“Nay one.”
Colin leaned closer. “One of me guards is dead. Think carefully before ye decide silence is worth yer tongue.”
The man’s face went gray. Behind them, another section of roof collapsed.
A great cry rose from the village, anger and grief together.
Colin did not turn. If he looked back now, if he saw his people watching their winter security burn, he might do something to Lachlan Kerr that would leave no questions to be asked.
A flash of green appeared at the edge of the lane.
Elspeth.
She stood with one hand pressed to her throat, with smoke drifting behind her. She looked stricken. Her gaze moved from Lachlan to Colin, then past him to the burning storehouse. The sight of her there sharpened his anger into fear.
She came closer than he had ordered. He wanted to drag her back to the horse and put ten walls between her and the world. Instead, because half the village was watching and because she was not a child, he only pointed to the man.
“Take him.”
The villagers seized Lachlan fully, binding his wrists with a strip torn from his own cloak.
“Back tae the castle?” one of the villagers asked.
“Aye. Alive.”
Lachlan started struggling at once. “Nay. Nay, I told ye, I didnae—”
Colin stepped close enough that the man stopped speaking.
“Alive,” Colin repeated softly, “is the mercy ye have received. Dinnae make me regret it.”
The man went still.
Colin turned back toward the village. The fire was dying now, not because they saved the storehouse, but because there was little left for it to eat. The building stood blackened and broken, with smoke pouring through its ruined roof. Men stared at it with blank faces. Women held one another.
Elspeth approached him slowly. He braced for accusation, questions, horror.
“What can be done?” she asked.
It was not the question he expected. For one heartbeat, he only looked at her.
Then he answered. “Stores from the castle. Grain, salted meat, whatever can be spared. We ration until more can be brought in. Nay family here goes hungry.”
She nodded at once, as if the answer mattered more than comfort.
“Then tell me where tae stand,” she said.
Colin’s throat tightened strangely. Behind him, Lachlan was being dragged toward the horses, protesting weakly now. The questioning would come later, in stone walls, under guarded doors, where lies could be peeled back carefully or not carefully at all.
For now, Colin looked at the people gathered before the ruined storehouse.
“Me stores will be opened,” he told them.
The village turned toward him.
“What was lost here will be replaced. Tomorrow, I will send riders.”
The silence that followed was not disbelief. Relief, grief, loyalty, all bound together, all looking at him as if he could stand between them and every darkness that crossed the border.
He would… and God help the men who tried to prove otherwise.
When they reached the courtyard, Colin dismounted and lifted Elspeth down. She did not object.
His hands lingered only long enough to steady her. “Elspeth.”
She looked away. “I am well.”
“I didnae ask.”
“Ye were about tae.”
His gaze searched her face with that unnerving patience he sometimes possessed, the sort that made her feel less observed than read. Elspeth stepped back before he could find too much.
“I wish tae speak with ye,” she whispered.
His brows drew together. “Now?”
“Aye. Before ye disappear intae yer study and begin frightening maps.”
His mouth almost moved. “Maps are difficult tae frighten.”
“Nae fer ye.”
That earned something close to a smile, but it vanished quickly. The weight of the day pressed upon them both.
He led her inside to a smaller chamber near the kitchens. It was warmer there, smelling of bread, beeswax, and the faint bitterness of herbs. Elspeth took off her gloves and looked down at the soot darkening the fingertips.
“I want tae arrange a feast,” she told him.
Colin stared at her. Of all replies, silence was perhaps the least encouraging.
“A small one,” she added quickly. “Fer the village people. Nae some grand display with jewels and peacocks and men pretending poetry excuses bad manners.”
“Peacocks?”
“I am speaking generally.”
“I gathered that.”
She folded her hands before her. “It could be fer the wedding, if people require a reason that sounds happy. The laird has married. His lady has come. That is what they may call it.”
His expression remained unreadable. “And what would ye call it?”
Elspeth’s throat tightened. She looked toward the window, where the last of the afternoon light lay gray against the glass. “They are frightened.”
“Aye.”
“And grieving.”
“Aye.”
“And now they must think of winter, and food, and whether more fires will come, and whether men can cross yer borders whenever they please.” She swallowed. “A feast willnae fix any of that. But people need something that isnae fear.”
Colin said nothing. The quiet pressed at her until the words she had been avoiding forced themselves free.
“It happened because of me.”
His face changed at once. “Nay.”
“Ye cannae ken that.”
“I can.”
“Before the wedding—”
“Before the wedding, Robert Munro hated me family. Before the wedding, me faither made enemies whose poison still sits in the ground. Before the wedding, I bought a bride at a Crown-sanctioned auction and made meself a target in a church full of witnesses.” His voice hardened.
“If blame belongs tae anyone in this room, it belongs tae me.”
Elspeth looked at him then. He did not say it gently. Colin rarely did anything gently unless he had forgotten to guard himself. But the words struck her with more force because he seemed to have dragged them from somewhere deep and unwilling.
“Ye werenae the reason men chose murder,” she heard him say.
Elspeth wanted to believe him. That was the trouble. Belief was not always a matter of being convinced. Sometimes it was a door one stood before, afraid of what might happen if it opened.
Colin stepped closer. “Listen tae me. Men like Munro dinnae need reasons. If it hadnae been the wedding, it would have been land. If nae land, blood. If nae blood, pride. Ye didnae create his hatred by standing at an altar.”
She drew in a slow breath.
“Then let me dae this.”
His eyes narrowed slightly. “The feast?”
“Aye. Let me help give them something else tae speak of. Music, food, games fer the children and competitions fer the men, if men cannae experience joy without trying tae defeat one another.”
“Careful,” he said. “Some women enjoy victory, too.”
Elspeth lifted her chin. “Some women are rarely given a fair opportunity.”
The small exchange loosened something in her chest. Colin turned away, but not in refusal. He looked toward the door, already thinking. She could see it in the shift of his face, as grief became order, and order became action.
“A small feast could help,” he said at last. “If it is done soon.”
Elspeth blinked. “Ye agree?”
“Aye.”
“Ye are becoming alarmingly reasonable.”
“Dinnae grow accustomed tae it.”
She almost smiled.
He continued. “Food from the castle stores, but carefully. Naething wasteful while we replace what burned. Music if we can spare the men. Games fer the bairns. Archery, wrestling, footraces, a hammer throw, perhaps.”
“Of course. Naething soothes the spirit like large men hurling objects.”
“It works surprisingly often.”
“And dancing,” she added.
His gaze returned to her. “Dancing?”
“Aye. People forget grief fer the length of a song if the song is good enough.”
Something unreadable passed through his eyes. “Dae ye dance?”
“Very well.”
“A modest answer.”
“A true one.”
“Then perhaps me people will judge fer themselves.”
Her pulse gave an inconvenient little leap. “Are ye asking me tae dance with ye, Laird MacKenzie?”
“Nay.”
“Nay?”
“I am warning ye that I may.”
The warmth that rose in her face had no right to appear after such a day, but there it was, disobedient as the rest of her.
Elspeth looked down at her soot-marked gloves. “Then I warn ye that I may allow it.”
The room quieted again, but not as before. The smoke still clung to her. The fear had not vanished. But for the first time since she had arrived, Elspeth felt the smallest fragile shape of purpose.
Colin reached for the door.
“Elspeth.”
She looked up.
His voice was low. “It is a good idea.”
The praise settled strangely inside her, warmer than it should have been.
“Careful,” she said softly. “If ye continue tae approve of me, I shall begin tae suspect fever.”
His gaze held hers for a moment.
Then he opened the door. “Then we had best arrange the feast before it passes.”