Chapter 17
The stables had become the only place in the castle where Emma could be herself without thinking too hard about it.
She walked in late that morning with her head held high, the air smelling of hay and animals and soft leather. While she couldn’t exactly do anything about the silence in the Great Hall, here, she could help it.
Her little group of animals greeted her in their own way.
The cat lifted its head from a hay bale and narrowed its eyes, as if judging how interesting she was going to be today.
The goat stamped once, its tether tight around the stump.
The calf, which was still her favorite, let out a soft, uncertain sound.
Even the dog thumped its tail once on the floor.
“Well,” Emma said, “if we are all to live together, this is simply not going to do. We need some order.” She started walking the length of the building, gesturing as she went.
“Pens there. A proper gate here. Space for the calf to move without being trampled. Somewhere to keep that one from mounting another rebellion,” she added, nodding at the goat.
Two stable hands who were watching her from the minute she had walked in paused with forks in their hands. A guard on inside duty straightened, hand going to his sword as if she had ordered an attack.
“You,” she said, pointing at him. “What is your name?”
He blinked. “Robbie, me Lady.”
“Robbie,” she said. “I need that corner cleared and those old crates moved. We are building pens.”
He looked at the crates, then at her. “Are we… allowed to do that?”
“It is necessary. Do you expect the animals to sleep on their heads?”
He opened his mouth, then closed it. “Nay, me Lady.”
“Good. Then help them.”
He obeyed. It was easier than arguing.
Within minutes, she had men hauling spare planks from the logs already chopped in the backyard and dragging old fencing out into the light. She watched as they untied coils of rope from the laundry line as well. All she had to do was point, and they would go there and lift whatever needed lifting.
The animals, all except the cat, milled about, confused but curious. The dog trotted after one guard as if he had just earned a promotion, while the cat sat in a high corner and watched everything with bored interest.
Emma was in the middle of directing two men to shift a plank higher when David walked in and stopped dead.
For a moment, he did not speak. He took in the guards building makeshift pens, the tangle of rope at their feet, the animals everywhere, and Emma in the center of it all, her sleeves pushed up, pointing like a general.
“I daenae ken if I should ask,” he rumbled.
“Anyone would,” Emma said, without looking at him. “Lift that one a little higher, please. The goat will jump if you leave it there.”
The men obeyed.
David came closer, shaking his head. “Do ye truly ken what ye are doing, me Lady?” he asked.
She turned to him then, eyes bright. “I have never been surer of anything in my life.”
He stared at the scene again. A guard tripped over a bucket as the chicken darted between two boots. The calf tried to chew on a rope end and was gently pushed away. It was chaos.
A giant chaos.
“The castle is being run by animals,” he muttered. “I cannae imagine what the Laird will say when he returns and finds a cow where his men should be.”
Emma laughed, delighted. “I cannot either.”
Before he could answer, the goat made a sudden bid for freedom, darting toward an opening where the fence had not yet been secured. Emma spun.
“David,” she said sharply. “Help keep that goat in its pen. I cannot have it wandering about. It will eat someone’s boots.”
He gave her a long-suffering look. “I am a man-at-arms, me Lady, nae a goat herd.”
“Today, you are both,” she said. “Please.”
He sighed, long and soulful. Then he moved, catching the goat by its tether before it broke through. The animal kicked, nearly taking his shin.
“Careful,” Emma warned. “They say he is unpredictable and stubborn.”
David cut her a sideways glance that said he heard the words landing on two targets at once. “Aye, I have noticed that.”
She laughed again, and this time some of the men smiled. One even chuckled, before he stifled it.
Once the rough shapes of the pens stood, she turned to the more important work. “Right,” she said. “They all need names.”
The stable boy looked horrified. “Names, me Lady?”
“Of course.” She pointed at the cat perched above them like an indifferent king. “Can you believe their previous owners did not even bother doing that?”
The stable boy nodded. “I can, me Lady. They seem like a lot of work.”
“Yes.” Emma gestured to the cat. “That one is Lord Whiskerfield.”
Jenny, who had slipped in and was hovering near the door, clapped a hand over her mouth.
Emma nodded toward the chicken. “We will call her Theresa, until I find something more suitable.”
One of the younger men at the far end made a strangled sound and ducked behind a post.
“The calf,” Emma went on, returning to stroke the calf’s warm neck. “Let us call her Margaret. I knew one back in London, and they both carry themselves the exact same way.”
The stable boy looked both sick and proud at the same time.
“And the goat,” Emma said, watching as it glared at David and tugged on the tether, “is Sir Trouble. I have chosen to retain the name from the owner, and I will hear no argument.”
David rolled his eyes. “He will live up to it, I promise ye.”
Emma wasn’t oblivious to the fact that servants had begun to gather outside the stables, pretending to be on errands that somehow led them all to this exact spot. Some leaned against the doorframe, and others peered over doors and shoulders.
All of them watched.
Emma drew herself up a little and spoke in the tone she had used years ago when reciting long passages for tutors who cared more for diction than for meaning.
“Lord Whiskerfield may go where he pleases, and I will not have him be disturbed. The same goes for the rest of them. Except for the chicken, of course. We cannot have the cook boiling her by accident.”
A few laughs broke free.
One of the older maids cleared her throat. “Just a question, me Lady,” she began. “What do ye plan to do when the Laird comes home and finds half a farm in his yard?”
Emma met her eyes. “He will survive. The animals will not eat him. I hope.”
That earned her a real laugh, swift and bright.
By dusk, the news had spread through the castle. People found reasons to pass by the stables. The cook marched out to complain that the chicken had strutted near the kitchen door and terrified a boy carrying soup.
“She stared at him like he was the one going into the pot,” she said.
Emma listened gravely, then promised to assign Jenny to keep the chicken away from the kitchen at mealtimes.
An hour later, a maid came to inform her that the cat had stolen a ribbon from her worktable.
“I apologize, but you have to understand that the castle has a cat now. Things are not to be left lying around,” Emma responded.
“Understood, me Lady,” the maid said.
Emma handled each small uproar like a judge hearing cases. Tiny disputes about feathers and fur and paws, but each one ended with people walking away shaking their heads and smiling. Someone leaned against a stall and loudly said that it felt like a farm party more than a fortress.
“It is exactly that,” Emma whispered, almost to herself. “If the castle is going to watch me like entertainment, I will give them something worth watching.”
By the end of the day, things almost resembled order. The animals had pens and stalls, and the men knew where to walk if they did not want to stumble upon a goat. Children from the village had begun to slip near the gate to look in and giggle before their mothers pulled them away.
The next morning, when Emma came down again, she noticed that one of the usual guards was missing. She glanced around and asked the nearest man where he was.
“David sent him on an errand,” the man replied. “He asked me to take his place while he is away.”
Emma felt her mouth curl before she could stop it. “Did he?”
“Aye, me Lady.”
She turned back to the calf, smoothing a hand down her side to hide the satisfaction that flared in her chest. Of course, word would travel. Of course, David would send a tidy, careful report to his Laird.
Good.
Let Logan hear that his castle was full of animals. She could almost imagine him picturing guards building pens and a lady who refused to sit still in an empty hall.
If that did not bring him back home, she did not know what would.