Chapter 8
It was still dark when the dogs started whining to be let out. Ronan turned over in his narrow bed and determinedly ignored the noise. A second later, he heard the scrabble of claws on wood, then a nose shoved into his face. Something hot and wet slurped against his cheek.
“Ugh!” Ronan cried, pushing Bran away. “Stop that!”
Bran thumped his tail against the floor and whined a little louder. Ronan sighed. With an effort, he pushed himself upright and rubbed a hand over his face.
“Ye are both two royal pains in the arse, do ye know that?”
The dogs merely wagged their tails a little harder, heads cocked to one side expectantly.
Ronan yawned, trying to blink the sleep out of his eyes, and glanced around the room.
His home, he knew, was humble by any standards.
Attached to the smithy, it consisted of a single room which held a narrow bed, a table, two stools, a battered chest, and a hearth for cooking.
That was it. Everything he owned could be packed onto Angus’s back within minutes.
His family would be horrified by the life he’d chosen.
His father would have stared at his home in outraged disbelief that one of his sons could fall so low.
His mother would have tried valiantly to hide her concern.
Bryce would have demanded to know where the rest of it was. Rian and the rest of his brothers...
No. Ronan pushed the thoughts away before they could take root.
The cottage might not be much. But it was his. He didn’t have to fight to keep it. Here, there were no carefully hidden knives waiting to be thrust into his back.
He reached for his shirt and pulled it over his head, shivering a little. The morning air carried a chill that spoke of autumn drawing closer, so he lifted his plaid from the peg beside the door and wrapped it around his shoulders before sitting on the edge of the bed to pull on his boots.
“Come on then.”
The dogs leapt to their feet and surged outside as he opened the door.
Ronan followed, cold morning air washing over him as he stepped out into the dark.
The eastern horizon was beginning to lighten but most of the settlement still slept with only a few wisps of smoke rising from chimneys.
He glanced over to the doors of the smithy to check they were still securely fastened—he’d caught several children trying to get inside before—and a memory rose unexpectedly.
He was perhaps ten years old, standing in the estate smithy watching old Padraig hammer a glowing iron bar.
The blacksmith had tolerated Ronan’s constant questions with surprising patience and eventually had shown him how to hold a hammer properly.
The first nail Ronan had made looked more like a bent fishhook but he’d been absurdly proud of it. His father, however, had been less impressed.
“A future commander doesnae spend his days hammering horseshoes.”
Ronan could still remember standing silent while his father lectured him, his twin brother Rian sniggering in the background. Then his mother had intervened as she always seemed to.
“Let the boy learn,” she’d said gently. “It’s good for him to understand how things are made.”
His father had grumbled. His mother had smiled. And somehow she’d won.
He set off walking. This had become his habit—a quiet circuit of the Steading before the day’s demands began.
Moving out into the woods beyond the village, he and the dogs reached the cliffs that marked the valley’s boundary and followed them around to one of the only two entrances into the hidden valley.
A young man stood watch there but straightened immediately when he spotted Ronan.
“Morning, chief.”
“Morning, Alec.”
“It was a quiet night.” The young man grinned. “Unless ye count Tam snoring loud enough to wake the dead.”
Ronan laughed. “I’ll add it to the list of threats.”
“Aye, it would be best if ye did. I swear it might cause a rockfall one of these days.”
Ronan exchanged a few more words with Alec and then continued on. He crossed the path and reached the cliffs on the other side, following them in a broad circle until he came upon the other entrance into the valley.
There he found Tam leaning against a tree. The beefy lad grinned when he spotted Ronan and flicked his mop of yellow hair out of his face.
“Time for breakfast, chief?”
“Aye,” Ronan said. “Off ye go.”
His grin widening, Tam turned and trotted off towards the village, calling for Alec to join him.
Ronan watched them go, then followed more slowly.
By the time he returned to the Steading, the sky had turned pale gold, throwing dappled light over the cottages and gardens, the livestock pens and barns.
He felt a stirring of pride. His people had built this.
Widows. Runaways. Former soldiers. Farmers.
Craftsmen. People who had lost everything but who had come together to forge something new.
They were more his people than Clan Campbell had ever been.
This afternoon he would need to check the waymeets, see if anyone else had come to seek help.
Ye are a long way from home and traveling further every moment. Yet the balance needs ye, Ronan Campbell, more than ye could know.
Thinking of the waymeet made him remember the last time he’d been there and his strange encounter with Irene MacAskill. With the memory came a set of uncomfortable questions. Who was she? And how come Elodie had arrived only a short while later? Coincidence?
Someone will come who will help ye carry the burdens life has given ye, if ye have the courage to let them.
Voices drifted through the crisp morning air, someone shouting about a missing goat and someone answering that the blasted thing had gotten into their turnips again.
The voices banished all thoughts of Irene MacAskill and Ronan smiled faintly. Ah. Normality.
“Let’s go,” he said to Bran and Skye. “It’s first light. Time to start work.”
Indeed, when he returned, he found a dozen or so people gathered by the old barn at the northern end of the village with more arriving carrying tools, baskets and coils of rope.
Elodie stood beside Faye in the middle of a tremendous yawn.
He smiled to himself. The woman could organize an entire settlement before breakfast but apparently waking up early remained a challenge.
He walked over to the group and the questions began.
“Should we start with the timber?”
“Or maybe the roof?”
“When are we repairing the cottages?”
Ronan nodded at Elodie. “Take yer instructions from Elodie. She’s in charge.”
Elodie blinked in surprise. “I...I am?”
“Remember our conversation about common sense? I think we are in need of yer gift for it.”
“Oh. Right. Okay.” She cleared her throat and stepped forward.
“Our first priority is the roof on the barn,” she announced, pointing towards the building.
“It can house four families once it’s repaired and I don’t think it will take too long.
We need teams for repairs to the joists and thatching.
I also want two people checking the walls for structural damage. ”
The villagers glanced at each other uncertainly and then looked at Ronan.
He folded his arms across his chest. “Ye heard her. Do as she says.”
Elodie gave him a grateful nod then began reading out names, assigning them to different tasks as efficiently as any chamberlain in a great house.
It was clear she was used to organizing people.
Faye claimed that her clothing and jewelry marked her out as a noblewoman and the fact that she could read and write and her ability to organize a household supported that assumption.
But Ronan wondered. She was unlike any noblewoman he’d ever met. In fact, she was unlike anyone he’d ever met, noble or not.
Within moments everyone had been given a task and the crowd began to disperse to begin work. Ronan walked over to Elodie. “And what task did ye have in mind for me, oh great leader of mine?”
She looked him up and down critically. “You? Hmm. Let’s see. What talents can you bring to the team?”
He held out his hands. “I’ve been told I’m half decent with a hammer.”
She nodded. “A very valuable skill. But what I really need from you is to keep them all in line.”
He snorted. “Ask for the impossible why dinna ye?”
She laughed and together they went to inspect the old barn. It had clearly seen better days. The roof sagged in several places and patches of missing thatch exposed dark rafters beneath. It had been this way for years, since before Ronan had arrived and had been gradually decaying over the years.
Elodie studied the building critically. “The old thatch needs to come off first. I’ll go up and start removing it.”
“No,” Ronan said.
She looked at him in surprise. “No?”
“Ye stay on the ground. I’ll go up and do it.”
“I’m perfectly capable.”
“I never said ye weren’t.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
Ronan tapped his temple. “The problem is that ye recently hit yer head. Head injuries and ladders are a bad mix.”
“My head is fine.”
“Faye would disagree.”
Elodie planted her hands on her hips. Ronan ignored her furious scowl, leaned a ladder up against the barn, and climbed.
Behind him he heard an extremely unladylike mutter and a string of curses a dockworker would have been proud of.
His smile widened. Aye, definitely unlike any noblewoman he’d ever met.
He reached the level of the roof and began pulling away the old thatch.
Most of it came away easily, years of weather having left it rotten and sagging.
He threw the sodden bundles onto the ground where villagers hauled them away.
He’d been working for only a few minutes when another ladder thumped against the roof beside him.
When he looked down he found Elodie climbing towards him. Of course she was.
“I thought I told ye to stay below.”
She reached the top, grabbed a bundle of thatch, and yanked it free. “You did. But I don’t remember agreeing to do what you said.”