17. Chapter Seventeen
Chapter seventeen
The rain began as a fine, stubborn mist and became a hard silver fall before the morning count was finished.
Aingeal was in the lower yard with Tomas, Seamus, and three very unhappy farmers when the first sack split open at her feet. Spoiled barley spilled across the stones in a damp, sour heap.
For one breath, no one moved.
Then the eldest farmer crossed himself as if the grain were a body. “That is winter,” he said hoarsely. “That is half a month of winter.”
Aingeal looked toward the old granary. The north seam of the roof had failed again in the night.
Water ran in a narrow, steady line from the thatch and down the rear wall, darkening the stone, soaking whatever had been stored too close to it.
Even from the yard, she could smell the damage: wet grain, old wood, and the first sour warning of rot.
Tomas held the ledger against his chest as if parchment could keep the numbers from worsening. “Six sacks ruined. Nine more damp. Possibly more if the lower row took water.”
“Possibly,” one of the farmers snapped. “That is a word men use when they are not the ones going hungry.”
Seamus stepped forward. “Watch your tongue.”
“No,” Aingeal said.
Seamus stopped.
The farmer looked at her, anger and fear hardening his face. “We paid levy in good barley.”
“You did.”
“We sent carts when your men asked. We brought grain in before the ridge road froze. And now it sits here under your roof and spoils.”
“My roof failed,” she said. “Not yours.”
That silenced him more effectively than rebuke.
Aingeal turned toward the open granary door. Men stood just inside, shifting uneasily. Boys waited with empty baskets, looking for orders that had not yet come. The rain thickened, striking the yard stones with a soft, relentless hiss.
She had decisions to make, and every one would cost something.
Open the northern stores too soon, and the castle might run thin before spring. Refuse the farmers, and resentment would take root faster than mold. Delay, and the damp sacks would be lost by evening.
“Bring the rest out,” she said. “Not into the rain. Under the cart shed. Open every damp sack. Tomas, mark what is lost and what may yet be saved.”
The oldest farmer gave a bitter laugh. “Saved where? Shall we spread it over the stones and pray the rain grows kinder?”
Before Aingeal could answer, Donal stepped from the archway.
He had been there long enough to hear. She knew it from the way his gaze moved not to her first, but to the roof, the wall, the angle of the yard, the slope of water running. He wore no cloak, only a dark tunic and leather bracers, rain coated his hair and shoulders.
The sight of him should not have steadied her, but it did.
“The brewhouse,” he said.
Tomas blinked. “What?”
“The old brewhouse has a stone floor, a broad hearth, and high shutters. It is being used for broken barrels and tools. Clear it. Spread the grain there. Keep the fire low and turn the barley often.”
Aingeal looked at him. “You have been in the brewhouse?”
“I notice neglected buildings.”
“Because you expect to need them?”
“Because neglected buildings become problems.”
Despite the rain and the ruined grain and the watching farmers, the corner of her mouth almost shifted.
Tomas was already thinking. “The hearth will smoke if we build it too high.”
“Then do not build it high,” Donal said. “Heat will save less than air. Open the upper shutters. Spread the grain thin. Turn it every half hour.”
Seamus grunted. “With whose hands?”
Aingeal answered before Donal could. “The three older boys from the yard. Nessa from the kitchens to oversee them.”
Tomas nodded. “Nessa will terrify them into diligence.”
“She will terrify the grain dry if necessary,” Aingeal said.
One of the farmers made a reluctant sound that might have become a laugh in kinder weather.
Donal looked toward the roof again. “The seam needs covering before the next hour passes.”
“With what?” Seamus asked.
“Spare hide. Pitch. Rope weight along the edge. Temporary only, but it will hold until a proper thatcher can work.”
Seamus’s mouth tightened. “Hide over grain stores?”
“Hide over rot,” Donal said. “Choose which offends you more.”
This time the farmer did laugh, rough and brief.
Aingeal felt the yard shift. Not toward ease.
But toward motion, and motion was often the first mercy panic allowed.
She lifted her voice. “You heard him. Tomas, mark losses. Seamus, take two men to the roof and do as Donal says. The farmers whose grain was lost will receive replacement from the lower stores, measured against levy already paid, not debt owed.”
Tomas looked up sharply. “Aingeal --”
She met his eyes. “Not debt owed.”
The old farmer’s face changed.
Aingeal turned to him. “Your children will not eat less because my roof failed.”
For a moment, the rain was the only sound.
Then the man bowed his head. “My lady.”
Work began at once.
Men carried sacks beneath the cart shed. Boys ran for baskets. Tomas knelt beside the spilled barley and began counting losses with grim care. Seamus barked orders and sent two guards for hides from the stable stores.
Aingeal stepped under the cart shed to examine the next opened sack. Donal followed, close enough to be useful, far enough not to crowd her.
“This one can be saved,” he said.
She pushed her hand into the grain and felt the dampness. “The top, perhaps. The bottom smells wrong.”
“Then split it. Save the upper measure. Feed the rest to pigs before it spoils further.”
“You have strong opinions about barley.”
“I have slept beside worse provisions than this.”
“That is not a comfort.”
“No. But it is useful.”
She looked at him then. Rain ran down the side of his face. His expression held no expectation of gratitude. He had seen a problem and put his hands to it. “You did not take command from me,” she said.
His eyes lifted to hers. “It was not mine to take.”
The words landed softly, more dangerous for being plain.
A shout came from the roof.
Seamus had slipped on the wet ladder and caught himself with one arm hooked hard over the beam. Donal moved before anyone else had fully reacted, crossing the yard at a run, catching the ladder and bracing it with his shoulder.
“Hold,” he called.
“I am holding, damn you,” Seamus grunted.
“Then climb, not curse.”
Even Seamus obeyed.
Aingeal found herself smiling despite the rain.
Tomas came to her side, ledger clutched close beneath his cloak. His voice was pitched low. “He knew the brewhouse.”
“Yes.”
“He knew the pitch stores too.”
“He walks the grounds.”
“He walks them as if he expects to defend them.”
Aingeal looked at him. “That troubles you?”
“It reassures me and troubles me in equal measure.”
She followed his gaze. Donal stood beneath the roofline, one hand braced to the ladder, rain darkening his sleeves, his attention fixed upward until Seamus had crossed safely onto the thatch.
Tomas said, “He is useful.”
“So you have said.”
“Useful men are often the most dangerous to question.”
Aingeal did not answer.
Below the cart shed, the old farmer had begun helping the boys carry sacks. His anger had not vanished, but it had been given work. That mattered. The grain would not all be saved. That mattered too.
Yet the morning had not collapsed into blame because Donal had acted. Because she had trusted the action enough to use it.
And because, standing in a rain-soaked yard with ruined barley at her feet, Aingeal had felt for one clear, startling moment that they had met a crisis as two hands of the same body.
That was the danger.
By late afternoon, the brewhouse glowed red with banked fire and hard labor.
Steam rose from the spread grain in thin, ghostly veils.
Nessa moved among the boys with a wooden spoon in one hand and the authority of a queen.
Every half hour she ordered the grain turned, and every half hour the boys obeyed as if disobedience might bring ruin upon their immortal souls.
Aingeal stood in the doorway with Donal beside her. “Do you think it will hold?” she asked.
“The grain or Nessa’s temper?”
She glanced at him.
For once, he looked almost innocent.
“The grain,” she said.
“Some of it.”
“You are a poor liar when the matter is barley.”
His mouth curved faintly. “I save my skill for grander subjects.”
The words were light enough to pass as humor, but both of them felt the shadow beneath them.
Aingeal’s smile faded.
Donal saw it happen and looked away first.
A boy darted past with an empty basket. Nessa shouted after him to slow down before he scattered more grain than he saved. The ordinary noise of work filled the doorway between them.
Aingeal drew in a breath and chose the safer ground of action. “The farmers will remember this.”
“They will remember that you replaced their loss.”
“They will remember that you saw the answer before any of us.”
“No.” His voice was quiet now. “They will remember that when they accused you, you did not punish them for fear.”
Outside, thunder rolled low beyond the ridge.
Tomas appeared at the far end of the passage, moving quickly. His expression had lost all irritation and kept only concern. “Aingeal.”
“What is it?”
“A trader from the south is in the lower hall. Rathmore, he says. He brought wax and salt from the road markets.”
Aingeal felt it before she saw it: the sudden change in Donal, the way breath and body seemed to withdraw without moving. She turned slightly. “Rathmore?”
Tomas’s gaze moved from her to Donal. “So he claims.”
The brewhouse noise continued behind them. Boys turning grain. Nessa scolding. Fire breathing low in the hearth.
“Bring him,” Aingeal said.
The trader was a narrow man with a weather-burned face and three bolts of cheap wool under one arm. He bowed low to Aingeal first. Then he looked at Donal and hesitated. “Lord O’Raida,” he said. “You are far north.”
“I am where duty brings me,” Donal answered.
“Aye.” The trader’s eyes moved to the ring on Donal’s hand. “I dealt more often with your steward than with you, my lord, but your aunt Orla never let a man leave Rathmore without hearing her opinion of the roads. She would have cursed the roads for bringing you through such weather.”
Aingeal felt Tomas go very still beside her.
Donal’s face changed by no more than a breath. “She was fond of cursing roads.”
The trader frowned. “Was, my lord?”
For one terrible instant, silence opened.
Then Donal said, smoothly enough, “I have been away from Rathmore long enough that I speak of many things there as if they belong to the past.”
The trader laughed uncertainly and looked back to Aingeal. “Forgive me. Road weariness makes poor conversation.”
“Sell your goods to Tomas,” Aingeal said. Her voice came even because she forced it so. “If your wool is sound, the castle may have use for it.”
The man bowed again and followed Tomas out of the brewhouse.
Only when he had gone did Aingeal look at Donal.
“You did not know whether Orla lived,” she said.
His gaze met hers. “No.”
He did not explain and she did not ask. Not there, not with the brewhouse workers listening.
For one instant, she saw the man who had braced a ladder in the rain and solved a problem at her side. Then she saw the other one. The man who carried a locked door inside himself.
She still couldn’t trust him fully.