Deryn and Maddy shared a look and then they both burst out laughing.
Maddy rolled her eyes. “Ah, the joys of parenthood!” She held out her hand. “Come on then, let’s take you to the privy.”
As she led Rory out into the cold farmyard, she frowned to herself. If they were going to be staying here a little while, there were going to have to be some improvements. Starting with an indoor toilet.
Chapter 13
“Stop it!”
Deryn twisted and pulled the end of his plaid from Surly’s mouth. The ram glared at him and made a dive for the bucket of feed. Deryn pulled it away and tapped the bad-tempered ram on the nose.
“Wait yer bloody turn!”
Surly was not pleased that the ewes and newborn lambs were getting all of Deryn’s attention. In Surly’s world, he was king, which meant he got fed first. Deryn ignored him, finished checking the ewes and the lambs, and only when he was satisfied they’d all eaten, did he pour out the remaining feed for Surly. The ram lowered his head and set to with a vengeance.
Deryn set down the bucket and wiped his brow. Several days had passed since the altercation with the MacKay guardsmen and in that time, life had settled back to normal at his farm.
Or as normal as it could be with Madeleine and Rory around. Right now, the pair of them were seated cross-legged in the farmyard, bent over a large piece of parchment that she’d laid on the ground. Maddy’s face was screwed up in concentration as she drew on the parchment with a piece of charcoal, tinkering with the design for her project.
She called it a ‘composting toilet’ and she’d designed it to go in a little cubicle that would be built inside the house which she called a bathroom. It was more hygienic than the privy, sheargued, and would mean that they wouldn’t have to go outside every time nature called. She’d also designed something she referred to as a ‘shower’ which meant heating up water inside a sheep’s bladder, which was then attached to a pipe. As far as he could tell, you then stood underneath the sheep’s bladder and let the hot water run all over you whilst you washed. Why she couldn’t just bathe in the metal tub like everyone else he had no idea. Yet, he was content to let her do whatever she wanted if it made her happy.
Making Madeleine happy was becoming more important to him by the day.
He’d sent a message to Callum Sutherland via some of his merchant contacts two days ago. The message had been coded in case it was intercepted by MacKay’s men but any member of the Order would know how to decipher it. He’d yet to hear anything back but that came as no surprise. Dun Saith was a long way from here so it would likely be weeks before he’d receive a reply.
Weeks in which he could enjoy Madeleine and Rory’s company.
Surly finished his breakfast and trotted off to join the herd. Deryn watched him amble across the fresh green grass into the pasture. In the last few days spring had begun in earnest. Vibrant green leaves were beginning to unfurl on the trees along the valley’s slopes and the air held that clean, fresh scent of new life. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so content. Certainly not since Lizzie...
He stopped that thought before it could derail him and crossed the farmyard to where Madeleine and Rory were sitting.
“So how is yer contraption coming along?”
Madeline glanced up at him and grinned. “I think we’ve just about got it.”
She tapped the parchment. “A large part of my job as an architect was designing carbon-neutral and eco-friendlyhouses,” she explained. “It’s very big in the twenty-first century right now. I don’t have all the tools and materials I need but I’m pretty sure we can knock together a half-decent composting toilet. And after that we can start looking at building a bio-digester to make natural gas for heating and cooking—much more efficient than burning wood. It uses the microbes and bacteria in animal dung and food scraps to produce methane. With the number of animals you have here, it shouldn’t be that hard to—”
