Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Rowan’s voice called out through the rain, “Lift!”
Two clansmen buckled under the weight of the beam, struggling as the rain made the wood slick. Rowan stooped, bracing himself under its center, his own legs protesting as the wood pressed down on his shoulders.
It had been two days since he arrived at the eastern border. He and the men he had brought had been working nonstop to rebuild what had been lost in the fire.
Despite everything they had accomplished, he knew that it would be weeks, perhaps even months, before these ruins felt whole again.
“Hold!” he barked when the timbers hovered in place.
A young man’s boot slipped in the mud, sending him careening toward the ground. Rowan adjusted his footing, catching the beam before the man lost his grip entirely.
“Plant yer feet, lad,” he ordered. “Next time, ye could be crushed.”
“Aye, me Laird,” the young man panted, his eyes wide with embarrassment.
They continued their work without another incident, and by midday, they had managed to shore up three walls and hoist fresh crossbeams over the worst of the wreckage.
Rowan caught sight of Ewan as he strode across the yard, equally covered in mud and soot and rain.
“We’ve managed to raise the southern storehouse enough to cover what grain’s left,” Ewan said, glancing toward the half-framed structure. “It’ll hold for now, if the wind doesnae take it first. The rain isnae makin’ this easy.”
Rowan didn’t look. “It doesnae need to be easy. It needs to stand.”
Ewan huffed, dragging a hand through his wet hair. “Aye, and it might stand better if we waited a day or two. Let the ground settle. Let the men breathe.”
“And leave what’s left to rot?” Rowan shot back.
Ewan’s jaw tightened. “The men are nearly spent.”
Rowan turned then, fixing him with a hard look. “So are the people who lost their homes.”
Ewan held his gaze a moment longer, then gave a short nod. “Aye, I ken.” He jerked his chin toward the half-raised frame. “We’ve got the worst of it standing. Another few days, and the men can see the rest through.”
Rowan didn’t answer. He already knew where this was going.
Ewan glanced at him, his voice dropping slightly. “Ye could ride back tomorrow. Nay one would think less of it.”
Of course, they wouldnae. The work is steady now, the worst of it done. The men can carry the rest without me, but that’s nae the point.
Rowan’s body tensed, his eyes fixed on the half-raised frame ahead.
The keep waited. And maybe Sorcha waited too.
He shut down that unwelcome thought as soon as it entered his mind.
“This is what matters,” he replied too quickly.
A shout suddenly rose from the far side of the ruins. Rowan straightened, Ewan’s concerned gaze meeting his.
“Aye! Me hand—” The voice broke off.
Rowan strode over with Ewan, finding a man kneeling in the mud. His fingers had been trapped beneath a splintered ridge of oak. His sleeve was torn back, the base of his thumb an angry red beneath scraped skin.
Rowan knelt beside him. “Sit.”
“Me hand’s fine, me Laird.” The man struggled to smile, trying to hide his pain behind pride.
“Aye. And ye’re a dobber.” Rowan caught his wrist and turned it over. The base of his thumb had already swollen to an alarming red. “Move it.”
The man winced as he flexed his fingers.
Rowan released him. “Take him to the healer,” he ordered the nearest clansman. “And if ye come back before she says ye can, I’ll break yer other hand meself.”
A ripple of hushed laughter followed as the wounded man was half-carried, half-dragged away.
Ewan watched with his arms crossed and a smug smirk on his face.
Rowan met his gaze. “Say it.”
“I said nothin’.”
“Ye were about to.”
Ewan shrugged, shaking his head. “The men would follow ye into hell.”
“They may yet.”
The smirk vanished from Ewan’s face.
The rain stopped, but the ground remained slick as the sky above settled into a calm grey.
“Did ye find anythin’ worth the trouble?” Rowan asked, his eyes lifting to the sky.
The men continued their work around them, taking advantage of the reprieve.
Ewan exhaled through his nose in frustration. “Nothin’ that leads anywhere. Nay tracks that hold. Ground’s too churned. What should we do now?”
Rowan’s gaze didn’t move from the clouds above. “We wait for them to try again.”
He continued to work all afternoon until his shoulders burned and his palms were raw. Another beam. Another brace. Another burned wall was dragged aside to make way for something stronger.
By the time the structure stood again, dark streaks of dried mud marked his arms. The men began to disperse towards the village, eager for food and ale. He, however, drifted from the crowd, walking alone as the sun began to dip low in the sky.
It was only in the silence that memories of Sorcha flashed through his mind.
The taste of her lingered on his tongue, the memory of her warm body pressed against him leaving his own feeling empty and cold.
I shouldnae even be thinkin’ of that. It was a mistake, nothin’ more than a moment of poor judgment.
Yet the memory refused to go away. Instead, it lingered in the small moments of silence when he could not keep himself busy.
As he rounded the bend in the road, he caught sight of a boy. He sat by a low stone wall, beyond the skeletal remains of a byre, his knees drawn up to his chest. The dirt smudging his face could not entirely hide the tear-tracks he clearly considered unmanly.
Rowan slowed down, and the boy looked up and wiped his face with the back of his hand, as if that could somehow erase the evidence of his shame.
Rowan stopped before him. “How old are ye?”
“Nine.”
He grunted and looked toward the collapsed byre. “Yer family’s?”
The boy hesitated. “Aye,” he responded, his voice meek.
“Anyone hurt?”
“Me da.”
He recognized the boy’s expression—deeper than grief. He had felt it before. Not as a man, but as a boy who had come home too late.
His brother had not even been there when he got back from battle. He had been sent away in the hope he would be spared the disease that had taken the rest.
Rowan had believed that would be enough. It had not been.
His jaw tightened, the memory cut short before it could settle.
“Me ma says that we were lucky,” the boy whispered, his eyes trained on the ground. “That the house didnae catch fire too.”
He looked, seeming surprised as Rowan took a seat beside him against the wall.
“Yer ma is right.”
“It doesnae feel lucky.”
“Nay.” Rowan leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “Most things daenae. Nae when they’ve just happened.”
The boy studied the scorched earth. “What if they come again?”
Rowan followed his gaze. “They willnae touch this place again.”
“How can ye ken?”
Because I’ll tear this land apart before I let them. Because nay child under me protection will bury half his life for another man’s quarrel.
Rowan kept those thoughts to himself and looked out toward the distant hills. “Because I’ll be waitin’ for them.”
The boy was silent for a moment, then he nodded.
Rowan pulled out a small knife with a bone handle from the leather pouch at his belt and held it out to the boy.
The boy stared at it, bewildered. “Me Laird, I cannae—”
“Aye, ye can.” Rowan closed the boy’s fingers around the hilt. “Use it well.”
The boy looked from the knife to Rowan, his eyes wide. “Thank ye.”
Rowan gave a short nod, but the simple words moved something inside him. For a moment, he saw a different boy, smaller, thinner, and with the same wide-eyed hope and far too much fear. A boy who had once been handed a blade and told the same thing.
He was reminded of himself.
He was reminded of how easily a child’s world could shatter and never right itself again.
He looked away first, his jaw tightening as he forced the memory back into the shadows where it belonged. The last thing he needed was to let the past bleed into the present.
“Keep it hidden until ye need it,” he added gruffly, turning away.