Chapter 17 #2
Nandag stood near the mouth of the lower grain store, a wooden clipboard resting against her forearm, though her eyes rarely shifted to the parchment.
Her wounded shoulder throbbed with a dull, rhythmic ache under its tight linen binding, but she ignored it, focusing instead on the steady hum of activity filling the yard.
The council chamber above had felt like a suffocating tomb of old men arguing over borders and marriage contracts. Down here, among the mud and wood, the truth of Strathglass was plain to see.
The very villagers who had arrived at the gates not long ago—frightened, destitute, their clothes still smelling of the soot from their burned crofts—were no longer cowering in the Great Hall.
They worked alongside Fearchar’s seasoned Chisholm guards, their shared fear transformed into a quiet, stubborn purpose.
Strong-shouldered woodcutters hauled heavy timber up to the eastern ramparts to repair the storm-damaged palisades.
Young men carried iron-tipped stakes toward the outer perimeter, hammering them into the soft earth along the river road.
Nandag stepped toward a heavy wooden wagon loaded with sacks of coarse oats and dried salt fish. Two young mothers were struggling to hoist a grain sack onto a high bench.
"Here, lass," Nandag said softly, stepping in beside them.
"Lady Nandag, nay…yer shoulder!" one of the women gasped, her eyes darting to the stiff posture Nandag maintained.
"I have one good arm and two steady feet," Nandag replied, sliding her right shoulder beneath the burlap weight and heaving it up onto the timber frame alongside them.
She wiped a smudge of flour from her cheek with the back of her wrist, looking the woman in the eye.
"Is yer maither settled in the lower hall?
The draughts near the doorway are sharp this morning. "
"She is, me lady," the young woman whispered, her fingers clutching her apron. "The guards brought her a second blanket. Ye... ye made sure of it."
"I made sure she had what was hers," Nandag corrected gently. She reached out, placing a hand over the young woman’s cold, chapped knuckles. "We will rebuild the lower ford, Morag. The Chisholm and Farquharson steel holds the ridge. Ye have me word."
The woman’s lips trembled, and she gave a deep, formal curtsy—not the superficial nod given to a lord's highborn bride, but a slow, reverent dip of her head. "Bless ye, Lady Chisholm."
Nandag moved through the courtyard, stopping at every wagon, every heap of woolen blankets, every small fire where children huddled for warmth.
She knew their names now. She knew whose brother worked the high pastures, and whose croft had been the first to catch the Cameron torches.
She didn't offer empty promises of wealth or swift vengeance; she listened.
She held their hands, ensured the sick had hot broth, and made sure no family was separated in the crowded lower vaults.
From the high stone archway leading to the armory, Old MacRae and two Farquharson elders stood watching her. Their arms were crossed tight over their tartan plaids, their faces grim and unreadable.
"She plays tae the common folk," she overheard Malcolm’s bitter murmur as she passed a rack of iron pikes. "A handful of oats and kind words dinnae make a ruler of the High Glen. She is still a Farquharson by blood, wed tae a man who holds this castle by force of steel."
Nandag did not pause or look back. She lifted her chin higher, her boots crunching steadily over the gravel as she walked toward the outer well where the older women were washing linen.
An old woman sat on an overturned ale cask near the wellhead.
It was the blacksmith’s aunt, Widow Abigail, a woman whose family had farmed the riverbanks for three generations.
Her home was nothing now but a heap of ash and blackened stone, her life’s belongings lost to the flames.
She sat with a thick woolen shawl wrapped tightly around her thin shoulders, her gnarled, joint-swollen hands resting uselessly in her lap.
Nandag approached quietly, setting down a small wooden basket filled with soft tallow soap and clean strips of cloth.
"Mistress Abigail," Nandag murmured, sinking onto her knees directly in front of the old woman, ignoring the cold dampness of the stones soaking through her skirts. "The healer told me yer hands were stiffened by the cold air."
The old woman looked down at her. Her face was a map of deep, weathered lines, her grey eyes milky with age, yet remarkably clear.
She didn't bow her head. She studied Nandag’s face—the dark circles beneath her eyes, the faint paleness of her skin from the bleeding, and the steady, quiet fire in her gaze.
Slowly, Abigail reached out. Her rough, calloused fingers caught Nandag’s hands, wrapping around them with surprising strength.
"They talk up there in the Great Hall," Elspeth said, nodding her head toward the upper stone tower where the council met. "The elders argue over rights, over bloodlines, over whose mark goes on the parchment. They call ye the Chisholm girl. They say ye wear a title that belongs tae yer sister."
Nandag felt a cold knot tighten in her throat. She missed her sister sorely and thought about her every day, hoping she was being treated kindly. But she didn't pull her hands away.
Elspeth squeezed her fingers tighter, her grey eyes flashing with fierce conviction. "A crown may name a lady, lass. Kindness makes one."
The words struck Nandag, settling deep into her chest, sharp and sweet.
The breath hitched in her throat, her eyes stinging with a sudden, unbidden warmth.
For hours she had carried the crushing weight of the assassin’s blade, the elders’ open scorn, and the fear that she was dragging this clan into a war they didn't want. But in the old woman’s grip, the noise of the castle faded entirely.
"We saw ye last night," Abigail whispered, her voice carrying across the quiet corner of the yard where three other women stopped their washing to listen. "Ye dinnae stand on the dais. Ye knelt in the dirt with our grandbairns. Ye bled in yer own bed chamber because ye brought us inside yer walls."
Abigail released one of Nandag’s hands and gestured broadly toward the men working on the gates.
"Look at them," the old woman commanded softly. "They arenae hauling those timber beams because Laird Fearchar or ye ordered it. They're daeing it because ye gave them a home when the fire took theirs."
A young timber-cutter stepped forward from the well, wiping sweat and sawdust from his forehead with his sleeve. He looked directly at Nandag, his broad chest rising with quiet pride.
"The elders can talk until the winter snows fall, Lady Nandag," the young man said, his voice ringing firm across the cobbles.
"But if Cameron comes back through that glen, he’ll have tae walk over our bodies before he reaches yer door.
Me and the lads from the lower ford have set a watch along the river road.
We ken every deer path and hidden burn between here and the ridge.
Nay stranger steps foot in Strathglass without us kenning it first."
"Aye!" another man called out from the wagon, slapping an iron pike against the wood. "We keep the watch fer our Lady!"
Nandag stood up slowly, her hand resting over her heart. She looked around the busy courtyard—at the women nodding solemnly from the washing tubs, the men standing tall on the ramparts, the children who no longer wept in the shadows.
They were not Fearchar’s soldiers, sworn by oath and silver. They were not the council’s men, bound by political necessity. They were her people, bound to her not by authority but by bloodline, and by the quiet, unbreakable thread of shared devotion.
For the first time since she had been in Castle Strathglass as a bride, Nandag felt the solid ground beneath her feet. She wasn't just a Chisholm living in a Farquharson stronghold. She was the heart of Strathglass, and no elder in the Great Hall could ever take that away from her.