Page 20 of A Highland Healer Captured (Scottish Daddies #3)

“I see… where are they?” Zander asked, gazing around the courtyard.

“They’re in the great hall.”

“I see,” he said quickly, and both men strode back into the keep.

Zander had learned long ago that a laird’s work was half steel and half listening. Today, Kirn a week off, it felt like three-quarters listening and the rest holding the hall together with the weight of his patience.

They’d barely stepped through the great hall when the first knot of petitioners surged up from the long tables—folk from Balmachrie by their plaid and badges—talking over one another with the frantic speed of people who’d rehearsed their complaints on the road.

Behind them waited a line from Glen Caillich, and further back he saw faces he knew from the scattered hamlets that clung to Strathcairn like moss to rock: Achnadarroch, Knocklea, Little Corrie, and the tiny clutch of crofts at Burnfoot.

Mason lifted two fingers. The room hushed on reflex. “One at a time,” Zander said, taking the dais step and planting his boots wide. “Balmachrie first. Speak plain.”

A wiry crofter with windburned cheeks shoved his cap in his hands. “Laird, the Glen Caillich men turned their ewes onto our stubble after cutting, and the beasts made straight for the kale. We posted boys to beat them off with switches, but Robbie MacRaw’s lad swung back at mine —”

A lad with Caillich braids blurted, “We only took the stubble as is right by the old accord, and if the kale was next door to it, well, kale’s a temptin’ sin for a hungry ewe, nay?”

Snickers from the benches, a few aye, kale’s a temptin’ sin mutters.

Zander held up a hand. “Accord stands,” he said.

“But accord doesnae include kale. It never has, and I willnae be the laird who writes that kind of foolishness into law. Balmachrie keeps the kale. Caillich keeps the stubble. If an ewe strays, the owner owes two hands’ replanting in the kale-bed and a day on Balmachrie’s ditch. Done.”

Both men nodded, grumbling in harmony—the surest sign of a fair ruling.

Zander gaze a sideways glance at Mason, who was fighting for his life trying to stay composed.

The memory of losing his breath, pressed against Skylar in his study flashed across his vision, and he immediately waved over the next case to distract.

Next came a woman from Achnadarroch with a baby tied to her front, the bairn glaring at the world like it owed him rent. “The footbridge by the burn’s gone,” she said. “Rot took the joists. Old Elrig fell halfway through last night and swore a curse so strong the sheep stopped chewing.”

“The sheep did stop,” a man put in. “I was there.”

Zander eyed Mason. “We’ve spare timber?”

“From the south wood,” Mason said. “Short lengths.”

“Good enough. Send two men to Achnadarroch—Tamhas can oversee—and put a plankway in by sundown. After Kirn we’ll cut proper beams. Elrig gets first crossing rights for a week if he agrees to keep his curses to under a dozen words.”

Laughter loosened the room’s shoulders. The baby hiccupped triumphantly.

Easy. He thought, and noticed Mason’s slow nod next to him. They were thinking the same thing. Which was good. Especially since he and Mason but heads where Skylar was concerned. But it was always good to show alignment in front of the villagers. Zander was grateful for his man’s concurrence.

A pair of fishermen from Glen Caillich shouldered forward next, smelling of nets and salt though the sea was a day’s walk away.

“Laird, the miller’s taking too much toll,” the elder said.

“Says the gears are grinding rough since the spring flood and we owe him extra grain to mend them. We’ve naught left for bannocks, never mind Kirn cakes. ”

Zander looked toward the far table where the miller of Burnfoot, a barrel-chested man with flour clinging to his beard, tried to make himself smaller. “Gears grinding rough?”

“They are,” the miller said, almost apologetic. “The big wheel’s teeth chewed to splinters on one side. I’ve patched what I can with pins and prayer.”

“Ye’ll get oak pegs from the store,” Zander said.

“And wages for two lads to help turn the wheel and lift the axle—Mason, here, will choose men with backs that havenae forgotten their youth. Ye’ll nae raise toll in a harvest year without the laird’s word.

Toll returns to what it was. The keep shoulders the repair.

Bring me one of the broken teeth for me table.

I want to see what passed for oak the last time they fitted it. ”

“Aye, laird,” the miller said, relief softening him like warm water.

“All else fails, ye’ll use the keep’s wheel for the festival, and we’ll go from there with repairs.”

“Aye, thank ye, me Laird,” the miller said again, tipping his hat and backing away.

Zander leaned over to Mason then, “I’ll need ye to see to that one, especially, as a priority.”

“I’ve got it. Ye’ll have the wheel here by sundown today. I’ve already spoken with the miller ahead of this meeting tellin’ him to send a lad ahead of him back home to get started on it.”

Zander nodded, impressed by Mason’s initiative, and then waved forward the next in line.

It was a man from Little Corrie, a knot of five speaking at once in such a tangle of Isles burr and Glen slang that even Zander, who could make sense of the thickest heather on the tongue in his clan, caught only every third word: sheiling…

peat-cut… rights of way… the coo… nae that coo, the other coo… wee bridge…

He cut a look at Mason. Mason leaned, listening, his head cocked like a collie’s. “Translation,” Zander muttered.

“They’ve been cutting peat on the wrong side of a marker stone that rolled downhill in the rains,” Mason said. “Two families. Each is calling the other thieves. Also someone’s coo—na, the other coo—has a habit of sleeping on the track and scaring the ponies.”

“Right.” Zander rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“The marker stone goes back where the charter sets it. I’ll send Fergus with the map and a length of chain.

As for the coo, tie the beast up nights until the Kirn’s done.

If she’s still sleepin’ in the way after that, we’ll move her to the keep’s byre a fortnight and feed her turnips till she forgets the road. ”

Mason nodded, and translated for the man.

All Zander could think about was Skylar getting frustrated by that accent, and it nearly tugged a smile from the corners of his lips, before Mason was stepping back beside him. The two men shared a nod, and Zander quickly called for the next group.

His eyes landed on the window, where the sun was creeping lower, nearly touching the tree line. Supper will be soon, would like to check on Grayson before…

Two men from Knocklea pushed forward arguing about a marriage portion. Zander kept his face as smooth as he could manage and let them pour it all out.

“Enough,” he said finally. “Bring the chest tomorrow so Cora can look at the lining; she’ll see whether the silk lies.

The coo will be led to the kirkyard and walked past three men with eyes in their head.

If all three name her sound, she stands as portion.

If one names her spavined, portion’s cut by half a stone of grain each quarter for a year.

And if either of ye speaks over the other again in me hall, I’ll set ye to counting barley until yer tongues learn to wait their turn! ”

Silence, quick and chastened; then grudging grins. Mason fought a smile and lost.

A woman from Balmachrie asked for ale casks for the singers, and Zander granted two and told her to keep the women’s purse separate from the men’s this year so the arguing didn’t start before the piping.

A boy from Burnfoot’s far croft asked if the keep would buy hare skins to patch a jerkin before the cold, and Zander bought four on the spot with a coin out of his own purse and told him to ask Marcus for an old cloak for his da while he was brave enough to do errands alone.

A shepherd from Glen Caillich in a burr so thick it could cut bread tried to convince the hall that midges were bigger this year and should be taxed like cattle, and even Mason threw up his hands.

Zander leaned forward. “Friend, I caught three words there: midges, doom, and tupp. Try me again in Scots.”

Mason murmured, half-laughing, “He says the midges ate his best tup’s ears and he wants two measures of tar to smear on the flock.”

“Tar he shall have,” Zander said. “And a veil for his own face if he keeps calling doom into me hall before the sun’s set.”

That earned a burst of relieved laughter. The shepherd beamed, showing the gap where a tooth had gone to some earlier doom.

They were down to the last quarrel—a grazing path dispute between Glen Caillich drovers and an old widow from Achnadarroch who swore the track had skirted her plot since before kings had beards—when the great hall door slammed back hard enough to bang the wall.

A boy in the keep’s colors came pelting up the center with terror and speed in equal measure, hair plastered to his brow, breath out in great heaves. He managed a bow that nearly toppled him, then choked out, “Laird— the solar— Mistress Katie— she sent— quickly?—”

Zander was moving before the last word landed, all the easy patience of judgment thrown away. He took the dais steps in two, hit the flagstones at a stride, and the hall opened for him as water opens for a cut keel.

“I’ll handle the rest,” Mason called to his back, already stepping into the space Zander had left, his voice turning brisk and cheerful in the way that calmed folk and made them forget they’d been afraid. “Balmachrie, Glen Caillich, ears are yers till the bell.”

Zander didn’t waste breath on answer. He was already in the passage, already taking the stair three at a time, already tasting the particular metal of fear that belonged only to one room in the world.

The keep had a hundred corners that asked for a laird, but the solar had one small boy that asked for a father. He ran to that answer like a man who knew his whole name was written there.