Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
She heard him cross the garden behind her, his boots quiet on the damp stones. She expected the wooden gate to open, followed by the fading sound of his footsteps on the path. It did not.
“Donaldina.” His voice settled over her more warmly than the afternoon sun.
She busied herself replacing the wooden cover upon the hive, though it had already been fitted correctly. “Aye?”
“I would ask something of ye.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“I would like tae see Lachlan’s records.”
Her hands stopped upon the lid. The bees continued their low humming beneath it, undisturbed by the name that altered everything within her.
Donaldina straightened slowly. Roy stood near the rosemary hedge, with the empty honey spoon still held between two fingers.
The wind moved through his dark hair and pressed his linen shirt against the fresh bandage beneath it.
He should have been resting. Instead, he watched her with that grave patience which made refusal feel less like defense and more like confession.
“Which records?” she asked.
“Stores, rents, boundaries, agreements with neighboring clans. Anything that might show where Dun Ard is strongest or where Cormac may find weakness.”
“But… they were Lachlan’s.”
“I ken.”
“They are private,” she whispered.
Roy’s expression did not change. “Then say nae, and I willnae ask again.”
That should have reassured her. Instead, it unsettled her further.
Most men would have reminded her of the royal accord. They would have spoken of necessity, authority, or the obligations of a woman whose brother no longer occupied his chair. Cormac would already have entered the solar and called the intrusion protection. Roy merely waited.
Donaldina looked toward the sea. Sunlight broke weakly through the clouds and scattered upon the water like fragments of tarnished silver. The sweetness of honey remained upon the air between them, mingling with salt, smoke and the crushed rosemary beneath Roy’s boots.
She had been guarding Lachlan’s records since the day he left for war.
At first, she had done so because he had asked her to keep the accounts in order until his return.
He stood in the solar doorway fastening his sword belt while promising that he would be home before the winter storms began.
She laughed at him for trusting kings and weather with equal foolishness.
Later, she guarded the ledgers because there was no one else she trusted to understand them.
Each book held the evidence of years spent preserving Dun Ard while men praised Lachlan for governing from a battlefield hundreds of miles away.
Each page bore the small decisions upon which survival depended: which household could endure a levy, which roof had to be mended before winter, and which widow required grain though she had no coin with which to pay.
To show Roy those pages was to show him more than the clan’s stores. It was to reveal how much of Lachlan’s rule had quietly passed through her hands.
Donaldina covered the bowl of honey.
“Come,” she urged softly.
Lachlan’s solar retained his absence too well.
The room smelled of leather bindings, dust and peat smoke long settled into the stone.
Afternoon light entered through the western window and fell across the great table where maps lay weighted beneath carved stones.
His chair remained behind it, broad-backed and worn smooth at the arms where his hands rested during long councils.
Donaldina never sat there. She moved around it instead and unlocked the cabinet built into the wall.
Roy closed the door behind them. The latch settled with a soft click that seemed unnaturally loud within the stillness.
His gaze traveled over the shelves, the rolled parchments, the neat stacks of correspondence and the ledgers arranged by year. He did not touch anything.
She expected him to enter as a laird entered any room, certain that whatever lay within would eventually answer to him. Yet, Roy stood just inside the door as though he understood that this place had not become his merely because Lachlan was gone.
“This one contains the stores,” she told him, setting a thick volume upon the table. “Grain, salted meat, lamp oil and winter fodder. The rents are there. Coastal holdings there. Fishing agreements in the smaller chest.”
Roy approached. “Lachlan kept thorough accounts.”
Donaldina opened the ledger. “He disliked figures.”
Roy looked at her.
“He once claimed arithmetic was an English punishment inflicted upon honest Highlanders,” she smiled.
A faint amusement touched his eyes. “Yet the accounts are exact.”
Donaldina turned a page. “Because I kept them.”
The admission entered the room more sharply than she intended. Roy’s gaze dropped to the writing.
Her writing.
Neat columns crossed the page, with additions pressed into the margins wherever a storm, failed harvest, or unexpected birth altered the distribution of stores.
Some entries had been written by candlelight, the ink fading where exhaustion caused her hand to drag.
Others had been corrected repeatedly until every measure balanced.
“How long?” he asked.
“Since Lachlan left for war.”
“All of it?”
“He sent instructions when he could.”
“And when he couldnae?”
Donaldina lifted one shoulder. “Decisions still required making.”
She expected doubt. Perhaps a question about which councilor approved her work or whether Father Maol supervised the accounts. Men frequently assumed a woman’s judgment must have been borrowed from some unseen male authority before it could possess value. Roy only pulled the other chair nearer.
“Show me.”
The simple request caught her unprepared.
She sat opposite him and turned the ledger so they could both read it.
The table was broad, yet Roy’s presence seemed to diminish the distance between them.
The faint scent of honey still clung to him, softened now by leather, cold air and the medicinal herbs used upon his wound.
“The western farms paid less grain last autumn,” she began. “The storm ruined part of the barley crop, so I reduced their levy rather than leave the tenants without seed.”
Roy studied the entry. “Cormac approved this?”
Donaldina’s mouth tightened. “Cormac advised taking the full amount.”
“And ye refused.”
“I calculated that a smaller levy for one year was preferable tae empty land the next.”
Roy traced the figures with one finger. “Ye were right.”
Donaldina looked at him. He spoke without reluctance, as though agreeing with her cost him nothing.
“The stores remain lower because of it,” she revealed cautiously.
“But the farms still produce. Had ye taken the grain, half the tenants would have departed or starved before spring.”
“That was me judgment.”
“A sound one.”
Warmth stirred beneath her ribs. She bent over the ledger before he could see how absurdly his approval affected her. She had not known she wanted recognition until he gave it.
They continued. Roy asked about the fishing boats lost in the winter squalls, the grazing rights along the northern ridge, and the two families who paid their rent in wool rather than coin.
His questions were precise, but never designed to expose ignorance.
When she explained, he listened without interrupting.
He truly listened. Donaldina had forgotten how rare that was.
Councilmen often waited for her to finish only so they might repeat her suggestion in deeper voices and receive credit for its wisdom.
Others praised her knowledge of household matters, as though cattle, grain, and winter stores ceased to be matters of governance because a woman understood them.
Roy asked what she thought, not what Lachlan would have thought or what the council advised.
What she thought.
When she explained that the southern fishing families required a second storehouse closer to the shore, Roy did not dismiss the cost.
“How many boats use the inlet?” he asked.
“Eleven at present. Fifteen before the war.”
“And how much of the catch is lost carrying it uphill tae Dun Ard?”
“Nearly a tenth in warm weather.”
He considered the map. “Then the building would repay its cost within two summers.”
Donaldina stared at him.
“What?” he asked.
“Naething.”
His brow lifted.
She looked down at the ledger. “I made the same calculation three years ago.”
“Why was it never built?”
“Cormac said the men would grow lazy if the stores were brought closer tae them.”
Roy’s expression hardened. “Cormac appears tae believe hardship is proof of good governance.”
“He believes hardship endured by others is particularly improving.”
Roy’s mouth shifted. A soft sound escaped Donaldina before she could prevent it. They looked at one another across the table. For an instant, the solar felt less like a chamber preserved around the dead and more like a place in which something living might still be decided.
By late afternoon, ledgers covered the table. Dust clung to Donaldina’s fingertips, and the fire had burned low enough that cold began seeping through the floor. Shadows gathered in the corners, softening the familiar shape of Lachlan’s belongings.
Roy bent over a coastal map.
“Here,” he said, indicating the narrow inlet south of Dun Ard. “Cormac’s family held land near this place before the Gunn holdings were absorbed?”
“Aye. There are ruins above the shore. An old watchtower and several cottages.”
“Could men shelter there?”
“For a little while. The roof of the tower fell years ago, but the lower chambers may remain sound.”
“Is there fresh water?”
Donaldina considered. “A spring north of the ridge. It is hidden beneath the heather unless one kens where tae look.”
“Cormac would ken.”
“He spent much of his childhood there.”
Roy’s finger remained upon the map. “He kens the land.”
“Better than most.”
“And some of the smaller families still consider his faither their rightful chief.”
The truth of it chilled her more than the failing fire.
Donaldina drew the map closer. “Then he may try tae gather them.”
“He will.”