Chapter 8 #2
He scowled. “Yer stubbornness could rival Faye’s, ye know that?”
She turned to him with a triumphant grin. “Flattery will get you nowhere.”
Ronan shook his head but his scowl kept trying to turn into a smile.
They worked together steadily. Thatch came away in great handfuls and the pile below quickly grew. Occasionally Ronan’s hands brushed hers as they reached for the same section of thatch and each touch sent a jolt right through him.
The morning sun climbed higher and they repositioned their ladders to tackle another section of roof.
Villagers moved about beneath them carrying timber and tools.
Someone started singing a bawdy song about a magpie and the baker’s wife.
Ronan found himself relaxing. No, more than that. He found that he was enjoying himself.
He glanced at Elodie. She was humming to herself as she worked and laughed raucously when the magpie song reached its crescendo. She’d only been here a matter of days and yet since her coming, the whole village felt different.
And he found himself wondering what it would be like when she was gone.
ELODIE brUSHED A STRAND of straw out of her face and sighed.
Her dress was filthy, there was dirt beneath her fingernails, and straw clung stubbornly to her sleeves.
She was sweaty, tired, and aching in muscles she hadn’t known existed.
And yet she couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this good.
She was standing behind the barn, taking a breather and watching the villagers scurry around the site like industrious ants. The roof was stripped bare now. Where rotten thatch had once sagged between collapsing timbers, fresh beams were already being hoisted into place.
One team of people had been busy hauling timber from the nearby woods, while another group of skilled men cut and shaped it into the desired dimensions.
Now several men were up on the roof itself fitting new joists under Ronan’s supervision.
Nearby, a group of women sat in the sunshine bundling fresh thatch.
Children darted between the workers carrying tools and messages.
The air rang with good-natured banter, less good-natured arguments, and bellowed instructions.
There was squabbling, certainly, plenty of it.
Nobody seemed to agree on the best way to do anything, yet somehow they managed to get it done all the same.
There were no committees required. No feasibility studies or shareholder approval.
Just action. It was primitive and inefficient in a hundred different ways. And yet somehow it worked.
Bran and Skye, who’d been dozing in the sunshine suddenly snapped awake, and spun to stare in the direction of the Steading’s southern entrance.
“Chief!” a voice yelled in the distance. “Ronan!”
A figure came into view, stumbling between the houses. It was Eamon, and he was half-carrying, half-dragging a younger man whose feet seemed barely capable of supporting him.
Ronan cursed and ran down the path towards the struggling duo.
Elodie hurried after him, reaching the group just as Eamon eased the injured man down onto the grass.
Elodie recognized him as one of the villagers, a quiet young man, although his name escaped her.
Right now, his face was a mess. One eye had swollen nearly shut and blood dripped from his nose and chin.
Ronan bellowed for somebody to fetch Faye, then dropped to his knees in front of the young man. “What happened?”
Eamon wiped sweat from his forehead. “I was just doing a circuit and I found him staggering back to the Steading like this.”
Ronan’s nostrils flared, anger flashing across his features. He laid one of his big hands on the young man’s shoulder. “Thomas,” he said gently. “Can ye tell us what happened to ye?”
The young man swallowed a few times. “I...I was gathering mushrooms when they found me.”
“When who found ye?”
Thomas’s good eye flickered nervously across the crowd that was gathering around him. “There were four of them. They just appeared out of nowhere. They didnae say anything. Didnae try to rob me or anything. They just went for me.”
The words landed like a stone dropped into still water. A murmur swept through the gathered villagers.
“Do ye know who they were?” Ronan asked.
“No.”
“Where did this happen?”
Thomas described a place—a pocket of damp woodland around three miles from the Steading. Ronan opened his mouth to ask more questions but Faye suddenly came pushing through the crowd with all the determination of a charging bull.
“Move! Out of my way!”
The healer knelt beside Thomas. “Let’s have a look at ye.”
She began examining him while muttering under her breath about reckless young men getting themselves into fights.
Ronan rose to his feet. “Eamon, fetch Tam, Duncan and Alec. We’re going to have a look at where this happened, see what we can discover.”
Elodie looked at him. “I’ll come too.”
Ronan shook his head. “No, lass.”
“I can help.”
“Not with this.”
His tone wasn’t harsh, just final. His eyes burned with anger and Elodie was suddenly reminded of the sight of him swinging his sword like he knew exactly how to use it. He might be a blacksmith but he wasn’t just a blacksmith. Reluctantly, she nodded.
“We’ll be back before nightfall,” Ronan said softly. “Likely this was just bandits that came across Thomas.”
Elodie nodded. “But Ronan? Please be careful?”
He smiled softly, his blue eyes meeting hers. “Always.”
Eamon returned with the others Ronan had named, carrying a load of weapons from the smithy. Ronan took his flintlock pistols from them and stuck them through his belt. Ronan barked a command and Bran and Skye took up positions beside him.
Elodie wrapped her arms around herself. The contentment she’d felt only moments ago had evaporated like a morning mist and now a hard, sharp knot of worry sat in her stomach like a lead ball. Ronan caught her eye and gave her a small nod before he and his men turned and walked away.
The knot in her stomach tightened. What if something happened to him? She had to remember that this place was not some bucolic utopia. It was the seventeenth century and it was dangerous and brutal. How could she let herself forget that?
As she watched Ronan and the others disappearing into the distance, she promised herself she wouldn’t forget it again.
NOBODY SPOKE AS RONAN and his companions left the Steading. The easy camaraderie of the morning had vanished, replaced by a hard-edged focus. Nobody took it lightly when one of their own got hurt. It brought home how precarious their life out here really was.
Ronan led the way while Bran and Skye trotted ahead, noses working constantly. The sky had clouded over again and now a cold breeze swept down the valley, carrying the scent of rain.
They left by a narrow, rocky track that climbed up between the cliffs, impossible to find unless you knew to look for it, and came out onto the uplands above. The wind was stronger here, howling so fierce it all but flattened the heather and sent Ronan’s hair swirling.
The dogs wandered around, sniffing, while Ronan and the others waited. The landscape lay empty in all directions. Bran let out a low bark and Skye’s tail wagged once.
“Found it?” Ronan asked. “Right. Let’s go then.”
The dogs had picked up Thomas’s trail and set off across the moorland confidently, leaving Ronan and his men to follow.
They’d perhaps gone two miles when the landscape began to change.
The ground sloped steeply downwards and became boggy underfoot, squelching beneath Ronan’s boots.
Up ahead, a woodland of twisted birch trees crowded together around a large hollow where water gathered amongst rocks and moss.
The ground beneath the trees remained damp even during dry summers and many of the villagers gathered mushrooms here, Thomas among them.
Ronan held up a hand to signal a halt and went still, studying the trees ahead, hand resting on one of his pistols. He saw nothing out of the ordinary and he could hear nothing against the incessant howling of the wind. But that didn’t reassure him any.
His men gripped their weapons more tightly, determined expressions on their faces.
Nobody needed to be told that they had to be careful.
Carefully, they crept into the woods. Water dripped steadily from branches and moss carpeted every fallen log and stone, deadening all sound.
Ronan slowed his men to a crawl, pausing often to listen.
All he could hear was the sound of dripping water and the sigh of the wind yet the hairs on the back of his neck prickled.
Then the tangled trees suddenly pulled back, revealing a wide clearing. Ronan immediately spotted Thomas’s mushroom basket. It lay overturned beside a fallen tree, the mushrooms scattered across the ground.
Ronan crouched beside it. Nothing had been taken, just as Thomas had said, which didn’t make sense.
Hungry men stole food. Desperate men stole food.
They didn’t just leave it lying strewn on the ground.
That meant he’d been wrong, and this wasn’t the work of desperate outlaws trying to stay alive. No. This was something else.
A faint click sounded behind him. Ronan spun, yanking a pistol from his belt.
But too late.