Chapter 22
The Ruins
Twelve days after Malcolm's death, Alistair took Diana to the ruins of MacLeod Castle.
The fever had not returned. The wound had finally closed without further bleeding, though Iain still forbade any exertion beyond walking, breathing, and admitting to fatigue. Alistair obeyed two of those instructions when it suited him.
The morning was clear and cold. Alistair's horse moved slowly beside the small cart in which Diana carried cloths, water, and a box of provisions for the men who would begin work on the castle grounds.
He had refused to travel seated. She had refused to allow him to gallop.
The result satisfied neither of them, which perhaps explained why it worked.
"If the bandage is stained again, you will tell Iain it was your idea," Diana said.
"He'll believe it was yours."
"Iain considers me sensible."
"Iain considers a dried root suitable company."
"And yet he demonstrates better judgment than some lairds."
Alistair looked at her. The shadow of a smile touched his mouth and disappeared.
The road climbed between trees burned at the edges. In places, the attack had left marks winter had not managed to cover: a fence reduced to black stakes, wheel ruts hardened in the mud, stones stained with smoke. Farther on, the ground opened.
Diana saw the tower first.
A crack ran down the west wall from the top to a narrow window. Part of the upper wall had collapsed, scattering blocks across the courtyard. Two temporary braces kept men from approaching the base.
Then came the rest.
The great hall stood open to the sky. Most of the roof was gone, leaving only charred beams over two side walls. The main door no longer existed. Fire had blackened the stones above the arch, and the wind entered where families, warriors, and guests had once passed through.
Diana climbed down from the cart.
No one hurried her.
Alistair dismounted with more care than he would have used weeks before. He handed the reins to a boy and remained beside her.
"I imagined..." Diana said.
"Not this."
"No."
The descriptions Graeme and Dugald had given her covered measurements, losses, and dangers. None had explained the silence. The castle still occupied the rise, large enough to command the valley, yet it no longer offered the shelter its shape promised.
Signs of its former life remained among the damage. An iron bracket still clung to the wall of the hall. Worn steps led to a doorway blocked by rubble. Near the inner courtyard, dried herbs grew inside a bed bordered by low stones. Someone had tended it before the fire.
"My mother planted there," Alistair said. "Rosemary, thyme, and a few flowers that served no purpose, according to my father."
"They served to irritate him."
"She said the same."
Diana went to the bed. The frost had killed almost everything, but a small sprig of thyme held on beside a stone.
Behind them, the clan began to arrive.
Graeme drove a cart loaded with tools. Eliza sat beside him with a basket of cloths and utensils in her lap. Dugald followed on foot with four men carrying ropes, shovels, mallets, and baskets.
The cart stopped in the courtyard. Graeme climbed down and began distributing the tools while Eliza handed the cloths and utensils to the women who had come with them.
"We'll begin with the old kitchen," she said. "First we'll clear out what is broken and separate anything that can still be used."
Graeme looked toward the side building.
"No one touches the wall by the hearth until Dugald examines it."
"Then we'll start on the other side."
"Nor the beams."
Eliza looked at the women.
"You heard him. No walls and no beams. Crockery, pots, ashes, and anything that cannot fall on our heads."
One of the women held back a smile.
Dugald marked off an area around the unstable tower. Two men began removing burned timber from the hall. Graeme sorted the stones into three groups: whole, usable after cutting, and ruined by the heat.
In the old kitchen, Eliza divided the work among the women.
Some carried out broken utensils, while others separated pots, boards, and containers that could still be used.
Once Dugald confirmed that the section farthest from the hearth was safe, they spread canvas beneath the roof that still rested on sound walls.
Diana stayed out of the way.
She watched the beams being tested before they were moved and the stones being turned with levers. When a man cut his hand on a hidden nail, she cleaned the wound and wrapped it with a bandage. Then she returned to Alistair.
"The well is behind the hall," he said.
The way was covered with broken tiles and pieces of timber. They reached a circle of stone nearly hidden beneath debris. The upper structure had collapsed inward, taking part of the mechanism with it and blocking the opening.
Diana knelt near the edge without putting her weight on it.
"Is there still water?"
"Graeme dropped a stone yesterday. He heard it strike."
"Then it is not lost."
"It is buried."
"That is different."
Alistair looked at the well. The answer did not comfort him, but he kept it.
Across the courtyard, Dugald called two men over to examine a wall. The sounds of dragging wood and stone against stone began to fill the castle. The silence did not disappear entirely. It receded.
Alistair led Diana to a side building. Two walls remained, along with part of the roof and a stone hearth. The narrow window took in light for most of the morning. The floor needed clearing, but it showed none of the sagging visible elsewhere.
"We kept records and accounts here," he said. "My father called it the most dangerous place in the castle."
"Numbers often have that effect."
Diana stepped inside.
The room was not fit to live in. Wind came through the opening in the roof, and the back wall had a crack near the corner. Still, the hearth remained sound. It opened onto the courtyard without crossing the hall and stood far enough from the tower.
She measured the room with her eyes.
"One day, after the wall has been assessed and there is a roof, this room could be used to treat the wounded."
Alistair rested one hand on the arch of the entrance.
"Because it was near the accounts?"
"Because it has light, a hearth, and would allow a wounded man to be brought in without carrying him through the whole castle."
"Iain will be jealous."
"Iain will want shelves for his plants. Jealousy will come if I choose the wrong side of the hearth."
Alistair studied the room again.
"Then we'll reserve it."
"You do not need to decide now."
"You have already decided it will serve."
"I identified a possibility. There are people assessing the structure. They will say whether the wall can support a roof."
Diana went out before the conversation could become a rebuilding order issued from an observation. That belonged to the men and women who knew the castle, to hands that could judge stone, timber, and weight.
In the courtyard, a charred beam was lifted out of the hall. Beneath it they found part of a bench. An older man ran his hand over the blackened wood and went quiet. Then he separated one leg that was still whole and placed it with the material that could be used.
Nothing was removed before someone recognized what it had been.
Diana turned to Alistair.
"When do you intend to bring the families back?"
"I don't. Not yet."
The answer came firmly.
"The small area by the kitchen can house men during the work, if Dugald confirms the roof. The others will remain in the shelters. The tower may come down in the first thaw."
"And the hall?"
"It will need new beams. We won't find enough timber this winter."
He crossed to the center of the courtyard and stopped where the old passage into the hall remained visible.
"I don't know how long it will take."
Diana stayed beside him.
"Years, perhaps."
"Perhaps."
"And some parts may not be rebuilt in the same way."
Alistair's expression tightened.
"I know."
The acceptance was recent. Malcolm had used those ruins to wound him because he knew Alistair had long confused the castle with proof that the clan would survive. Now the clan worked around them without waiting for every wall to stand again.
Graeme shouted an order near the cart. Men hauled on a rope, and another burned beam rose from the ground. It split in the middle before reaching the pile. No one stopped. They gathered the two pieces and continued.
Diana indicated the sorted stones.
"You begin with what can still bear weight."
Alistair looked at her.
"Is that how you treat a wounded man?"
"Sometimes. First I find what is still working. Then I try to keep the rest from getting worse."
"A remarkably unromantic description."
"I did not know we were discussing romance."
"Not yet."
Wind crossed the open hall and lifted old ash from between the stones. Alistair waited for it to settle.
"During those six days at the shelter, I told myself you needed to stay because you had saved my life."
Diana folded her arms against the cold.
"That was true."
"Then I told myself the clan needed your hands."
"That was also true."
"When you went back to Penelope, I tried to treat your decision as part of a strategy I could control."
"That was less true."
"It was a mistake."
The admission came without defense.
Diana did not make it easy for him.
"One among several."
"Do you intend to list them?"
"I did not bring enough paper."
He accepted the blow with a brief inclination of his head.
"At the river, you said you owed me a life."
"I was eight."
"You carried that debt all the way to the road."
"I did."
Alistair stepped closer.
"I do not want you to stay because of it."
Diana felt the cold stiffening her fingers.
"Nor because I am useful?"
"You are useful."
"A moving declaration."
"And irritating. Precise. Brave past the point of good sense. None of those things obliges you."
Work continued around them. Mallets struck wood. Wheels crossed stone. A woman called for more rope near the kitchen. The castle offered no privacy, only enough distance for no one to admit to listening.
Alistair continued.
"I want you to stay because I want to wake knowing you are near. I want to argue with you about my wound, the treatment room, and every decision you believe I have made badly."
"That will occupy many years."
"I'm counting on it."
Diana looked at the roofless hall.
"I have no fortune to bring to a marriage."
"I have ruins."
"You are offering remarkably poor terms."
"There is also a buried well."
"That improves matters considerably."
Alistair smiled.
Then his expression changed.
"Stay as Diana Fraser. Without hiding your name. Without having to justify every choice by the work you can do. Stay with me."
Diana had spent years occupying the space other people allowed her. In Penelope's house, her safety had depended on being discreet, necessary, and easy to keep. Among the MacLeods, she was respected first for her hands and for the courage to return.
Alistair was asking for something different.
He was asking for the woman who would still be there when the wounds closed.
"Are you asking me to marry you?" she asked.
"I am."
"Without an order?"
"I can rephrase it, if you miss one."
"Do not risk it."
He held out his hand.
Diana looked at the scars on his fingers, at the mark beneath the léine where the river had wounded him, and at the wall standing behind him.
The debt had brought her back.
It was not what kept her there.
Diana placed her hand in his.
"I choose to stay."