Chapter 18
“Quiet night?” Edward called out as he crossed the yard.
One of the sentries leaned into the mist. “Quiet enough, me Laird. Naught but this soup to complain of.”
Edward grunted and kept walking. The mist hung low and thick, swallowing the far curtain wall until the granite went gray and indistinct.
The heavy thud of his leather boots on the cobblestones echoed back to him, muffled by the damp air.
The castle was not yet fully awake. A kitchen maid crossed the far end of the yard, her head tucked low against the mist, carrying a covered wicker basket.
Up on the ramparts, two sentinels moved around.
He did this every morning. The stables came first, then the outer yard, then the granary stores, if the locks needed checking.
The heavy stable doors stood open, spilling a warm, yellow line of lantern light across the damp earth. He stepped through the threshold.
The scent of dry hay and oiled leather hit his nostrils.
Six stalls lined each side of the aisle, the horses shifting in the shadows and blowing soft breath into the early quiet.
He moved down the left row without hurrying.
He checked the water troughs. He checked their hocks.
His thick palm slid down a warm neck here, along a sleek flank there.
The animals knew his scent. They stilled at his approach, their ears turning toward him, refusing to shy from his calloused hands.
He squatted to check the near foreleg of the gray gelding at the far end when the scraping sound started. Small boots hit the flagstones, moving fast.
“Laird O’Brien.”
Edward straightened his spine.
The boy was perhaps nine, slight and dark-eyed. He skidded to a halt two feet away and tilted his chin back, looking up at Edward.
“Lionel,” Edward said, his voice flat in the rafters.
“Aye.” The boy fell into step beside him as Edward moved to the next stall, entirely uninvited. “Is it true ye fought at Glen Moriston? Alasdair from the kitchens says ye killed four men in the same hour, but Cook says Alasdair exaggerates everythin’, so I didnae ken whether to believe it.”
“Alasdair exaggerates,” Edward said, his fingers examining the wooden latch.
The boy paused, tracking him. “So it wasnae four.”
Edward stepped to the next horse. “It wasnae the same hour.”
Lionel absorbed the words, his face tightening. “Was it frightenin’?”
“Aye.”
The boy’s eyes went sharp, as though he had not expected that specific word from a mouth like Edward’s. “Lairds get frightened?”
“Everyone gets frightened.” Edward slid his open palm along the mare’s sleek shoulder, tracking the muscle line. “The ones who tell ye otherwise are either lyin’ or they havenae been in enough trouble yet to ken the difference.”
Lionel went dead quiet for three seconds, which Edward was beginning to realize was the boy’s absolute limit.
“How do ye ken when a horse is frightened?” Lionel asked, his voice bouncing off the wood.
“Her ears.”
“What about them?”
Edward cast a sideways glance down at him. The boy’s head was tilted to one side, his small face fixed on the mare with real focus. Edward looked back at the beast.
“Flat back means fear or anger,” Edward said.
“Forward means she’s listenin’. Loose and sideways, she’s relaxed.
” He moved toward the mare’s muzzle, his steps slow, calculated, and even.
“Watch her eyes as well. Wide and showin’ white, she’s about to do somethin’ ye willnae like. Soft and half-lidded, she’s content.”
Lionel studied the animal with immense seriousness. “What is she doin’ now?”
“Listenin’,” Edward muttered. “She hears somethin’ out in the yard. Rain comin’, likely.”
The boy’s eyes went wide. “How do ye ken she hears rain?”
“Because I hear it too.” Edward turned on his heel toward the next stall. “Pay attention to what the animals ken before ye decide what ye ken yerself. They’re usually ahead of ye.”
Lionel scrambled after him, dropping two paces behind now, his boots slightly more careful on the stone. He tucked his small hands behind his back, locking them together in a direct, unconscious imitation of Edward’s posture, entirely unaware of the mirror.
Edward looked down, his throat tightening, finding it difficult to look at the boy directly for reasons he could not have named.
“Tyler says ye were the best swordsman in three clans when ye were young,” the boy offered to the shadows.
“Tyler says a great many things,” Edward replied.
“Was it true?”
“I was fast,” Edward said. “Fast matters more than strength. Strength runs out on a long hill. Speed is a habit.”
“I want to be in yer guard,” Lionel said. The words came out simple and flat.
“Ye are nine.”
“I will be ten in the spring.” He paused, his small chin hardening. “Duncan says he’s nearly ready, and he’s only fifteen.”
“Duncan has been nearly ready for two years.”
“So there’s a precedent,” Lionel said. Edward was nearly certain the boy had practiced the word in the mirror.
They reached the last stall on the right aisle. Occupying it was a black colt, young, raw, and difficult. Edward had spent six slow weeks being patient with him. The colt was finally beginning to come around.
Edward unlatched the iron gate. The colt’s head snapped up instantly, its ears pinned back flat against its skull, its weight shifting onto its haunches.
Lionel moved toward the opening. He moved with a child’s sudden speed, without calculation, drawn blindly by the sleek animal in front of him, his hand already reaching through the gap.
Edward’s arm shot out. He grabbed the boy’s wool shoulder and yanked him back in one swift, smooth motion, driving his massive frame between Lionel and the gate, his body physically blocking the space the boy had just taken.
The colt’s head lunged downward and snapped sideways, its teeth bared, the violent motion it had been winding up completing itself against thin air.
Lionel had not made a sound. He was suddenly just a small weight behind Edward’s hip, his fingers white from gripping the thick wool of Edward’s jacket.
Edward did not flinch. He stood square, his weight balanced, his breathing deep and forced into a slow rhythm as he faced the colt, waiting until the animal’s ears flicked forward, until its tight jaw unclenched, and the ugly, rigid tension drained from its neck.
Only then did the Laird exhale.
“Ye daenae approach a horse from the front when ye daenae ken him,” Edward said, his voice dropping an octave without turning around. “Ye come to the shoulder. Always. Come alongside where they can see ye without feelin’ trapped.”
Behind his back, a tiny voice cracked. “Aye, me Laird.”
The sound was softer than anything Lionel had said in the last twenty minutes. Edward glanced over his shoulder at him. The boy was pale but standing straight, his jaw clenched.
Edward turned back to the black colt. He slowly raised his right hand, keeping his palm low and unthreatening, and waited. The colt’s nostrils flared, drawing in scent. It stretched its neck forward, inch by inch, until its wet muzzle touched Edward’s open palm. It stood there. It breathed.
“There,” Edward murmured.
After a heavy beat, Lionel’s ragged breathing evened out behind him.
“Can I try?” the boy whispered.
“Another day.” Edward let his hand drop to his side. “When ye’ve watched him longer. Ye cannae rush an animal that’s learnin’ to trust. Push too fast, and ye lose every single thing ye’ve built.” He slammed the iron latch into place. “That’s true of most things.”
Lionel fell silent once more. When Edward looked down at him, the boy was looking at the colt.
“I will learn everythin’,” Lionel said, “Whatever I need to. For the guard.”
“Ye have time,” Edward muttered.
“But I will learn it.” He snapped his eyes up to meet the Laird’s. “Willnae I?”
It was not quite a question; it was a demand for the truth. Edward studied the small face for a long moment. The hard, set jaw, the wide dark eyes, the small hands still clenched tightly behind his back in that painful, unconscious echo.
“Aye,” Edward said, his chest tight. “Ye will.”
Lionel’s face broke open into a grin so raw and unguarded it was nearly difficult to look at directly.
He parted his lips to launch into another speech, but Edward turned sharply toward the stable doors, which was perhaps cowardice but was also survival.
The boy did not miss a beat; he scrambled right back into step beside the Laird’s heavy stride.
They walked out through the high stable doors into the open yard.
The thick mist had lifted by a fraction, revealing the dark stones of the castle walls.
The sky above hung like flat, beaten pewter, waiting for the morning light to decide what it was going to do.
Edward looked up out of pure habit to check the clouds, and in doing so, his gaze crossed the upper face of the stone keep.
The window of the guest chamber. The narrow glass that had belonged to Chloe since the hour she arrived.
She was there.
Her hand was raised against the wood frame, her fingers pale. She stood in her thin white nightgown, her dark hair completely loose and unbound, spilling wild across her bare shoulders.
Something clamped shut inside his chest, fast and violent and completely involuntary. The sudden heat of it burned through his throat. He snapped his head down, looking away. His jaw locked into a hard line. His massive shoulders rose by a fraction.
“Go to yer ma, lad.” He muttered to Lionel
He began to stride across the flagstones toward the keep. There was nothing casual about his pace; it was rapid, hard, and fleeing.
Behind his back, the boy shouted something after him. Edward did not catch a single word over the sudden, heavy rushing of the blood in his own ears. He kept walking, his boots hammering the stone.
Beathag, the healer, came at the hour she’d promised. Three days, she’d said when she’d last bound the ankle, and three days it had been.