Chapter 14 #2
“Storm’s comin’,” Mrs. McAulay announced, to no one and everyone. “Big one, by the look of the sky. Better get movin’.”
The courtyard, which had held its usual unhurried afternoon rhythm only minutes before, transformed within the space of a breath into a controlled chaos.
Magnus was already crossing toward the stables, calling instructions as he went, his voice carrying flat and clear over the rising wind. “Sheep to the lower barn. Horses first, then the milk cows. Duncan, the west shutters—they’re the ones that stick.”
“I ken which ones stick, Cousin. I’ve fixed them a dozen times.”
“Then fix them a thirteenth.”
Elspeth found herself swept into the current of it before she had properly decided to join.
A stable lad thrust an armful of blankets at her without ceremony, clearly assuming any hands present were hands meant to work.
She took them without complaint and looked around for someone who might tell her where they were needed.
“The east barn,” Magnus said, appearing at her shoulder with two coils of rope over one arm. “For the calves. They’ll want warmth more than the grown stock.”
“Aye.” She was moving before he had finished the sentence. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught what she thought was surprise crossing his face at how readily she had taken the direction.
The wind picked up as she crossed the yard, tugging at her skirts, carrying the first cold spatter of rain against her cheek.
She reached the east barn and found three calves already huddled in the corner, wide-eyed and unsettled by the changing air.
She set about laying the blankets over their backs.
“Ye’ve done this before,” a voice said from the doorway.
She glanced up. Magnus stood there, rain darkening his shoulders, watching her tuck a blanket around the smallest calf.
“I told ye,” she said, “I ken more than sheep and goats.”
The corner of his mouth twitched, close enough to a smile that she counted it as one, and he moved past her to check the latch on the far stall without further comment.
Outside, the yard had grown louder. She could hear Duncan somewhere near the Great Hall, hammering a shutter into place, muttering something about the west side always giving him the most trouble, followed by a burst of laughter from one of the stable lads.
Somewhere closer, Mrs. O’Halloran was directing a chain of servants carrying sacks of grain from the outer store into the dry safety of the kitchens, her voice rising sharp and commanding over the wind.
“Two more trips ought to see it done,” she called. “Move, the lot of ye, before this rain decides to earn its reputation.”
Elspeth left the calves settled and went to help with the firewood, forming an easy chain alongside two of the younger MacKinnon children who had stayed on to help with the harvest, passing logs hand to hand from the woodpile toward the Great Hall doors until a respectable stack had built up beside the hearth.
The children worked with seriousness, and Elspeth found herself matching their pace rather than the reverse, passing logs with exaggerated grunts of effort that made the youngest one giggle each time.
“Faster,” Hamish instructed her solemnly. “The storm willnae wait for ye.”
“I am workin’ as fast as me arms allow, I assure ye.”
Across the yard, a commotion broke out near the kitchen garden, and Elspeth turned in time to see Morag the goat bolt through a gap between two servants carrying baskets, scattering the contents of one basket across the wet cobblestones and setting off a chorus of shouting that accomplished absolutely nothing toward catching her.
“Morag!” Duncan bellowed, abandoning his shutter mid-hammer. “Nae now, ye impossible creature!”
The goat, unmoved by the appeal, bolted straight past him toward the open hall doors, her ears flat.
“She kens it’s warmer indoors,” Elspeth called after Duncan, who was giving chase with considerably more enthusiasm than success.
“She kens everythin’; that’s the trouble with her.”
Magnus emerged from the barn in time to witness the pursuit, saying nothing. Elspeth caught the exact moment his mouth twitched, before he schooled it back into an expression more proper and laird-like, and turned back to directing two men wrestling a stubborn shutter into place.
By the time the last of the sheep had been driven into the lower barn, the wind had risen to a proper howl, rain slanting hard enough to sting where it struck bare skin, and the courtyard had emptied of everyone but the last stragglers hauling in whatever remained.
Elspeth found herself soaked through, her hair loose from its pins, helping an elderly tenant navigate the last slick stretch of cobblestones toward the Great Hall.
“Nearly there,” she said, gripping the woman’s elbow. “Mind the step, it’s uneven.”
“Bless ye, lass,” the woman said, breathless, ducking gratefully through the doors Magnus held open against the wind.
Elspeth crossed the threshold last, then Magnus pulled the heavy door shut behind her and dropped the iron bar across it with a solid thud.
The Great Hall, by contrast, had transformed into a warm, chaotic and thoroughly alive microuniverse.
The fire had been built up high, throwing generous light and heat across a room now crowded with servants, tenants, and the handful of MacKinnons who had stayed behind to help, all of them dripping and disheveled, and completely unbothered.
Mrs. McAulay had somehow, in the midst of the storm’s approach, organized a spread of bread, cheese, and hot cider that now covered the long table, and people were already helping themselves without waiting for any particular ceremony.
“Everyone accounted for?” Magnus asked, his voice carrying over the noise.
“Aye, me Laird,” Duncan called back, arriving with Morag tucked beneath his arm. “Save for this one, who I found halfway up the stairs to yer chamber, if ye can believe it.”
“She’s decided the whole castle is hers,” Elspeth said, wringing rainwater from the hem of her sleeve. “I daenae think she distinguishes between the hearth and yer bed.”
“She’d better learn the distinction quickly,” Magnus muttered.
He made no move to remove the goat from Duncan’s arms.
Duncan, for his part, carried Morag to a corner near the fire and set her down, where she promptly curled into a contented heap.
The children, thoroughly soaked and equally delighted by the whole adventure, had gathered near the hearth to dry off, trading loud accounts of who had done the most important work during the storm preparations, each version growing more heroic than the last.
Someone had produced more blankets and distributed them with cheerful disregard for those they had originally been meant for.
Elspeth found a spot near the fire and sat, feeling the ache in her arms from hauling firewood and blankets and calves’ worth of bedding, and accepted a cup of hot cider from Becky with genuine gratitude.
Magnus settled nearby, not quite beside her, but close enough that she felt the solid warmth of him even through wet wool.
Neither of them said anything at all. They settled there, observing the fire and the noise and the general, contented chaos of a household that had weathered the worst of the storm together and come through it laughing.
“Ye worked hard today,” Magnus said finally, low enough that it did not carry beyond the two of them.
“I told ye I could.”
“Ye did.” He was quiet for a moment, watching the fire rather than her, though she caught, out of the corner of her eye, a trace of consideration crossing his face. “I willnae doubt ye again.”
Outside, the storm beat hard against the shuttered windows, wind howling around the stone walls it could not reach. Inside, the fire crackled, the children argued cheerfully over the last of the bread, and Morag snored contentedly in her corner.
Elspeth wrapped both hands around her cup and let the warmth settle into her, and thought, not for the first time, that this cold, chaotic, animal-crowded castle had begun to feel considerably more like home than she had ever expected it to.