She heard someone say.
He paused beside a young maid who'd frozen with a basket of linens pressed to her chest, sniffed once at the hem of her apron, decided she wasn't interesting, and moved on.
The maid let out a small noise somewhere between delight and alarm.
Catriona pressed her lips together.
Anthony noticed. His gaze cut sideways to her face and back so quickly she almost missed it, but she caught the moment. Saw him clock her almost-smile and file it away and return his expression to neutral with practiced efficiency.
She looked away first.
A woman came forward from the keep entrance.
Catriona had not seen her standing there, which meant she'd been still long enough to look like part of the architecture, which meant she was someone who knew how to watch.
Dark wool. Silver-threaded hair pinned tight. Posture like a blade set on its edge. Straight, sharp, not decorative.
"Me Laird." Her eyes went to Anthony first, then, immediately, completely, to Catriona. "Ye've returned."
Not a greeting. A report confirmed. "And this would be the healer."
Not a question either.
"Catriona Campbell," Anthony said before Catriona had drawn breath to speak. She noted that. Filed it.
"Eidith Murray." The woman inclined her head by precisely the amount the situation required and no more. "I keep order here."
It was the kind of statement that contained an entire conversation.
I see ye. I have nae decided about ye. Conduct yerself accordingly.
Catriona met her eyes directly.
"Catriona Campbell," she said again, her own voice this time. "I heal. And before ye ask, the fox stays."
Fox chose that moment to sit down beside her feet, curl his tail neatly around his paws, and look up at Eidith with the patient dignity of someone awaiting a verdict he already knew would go his way.
Eidith looked at him. At Catriona. At Anthony.
Anthony nodded once.
A pause.
"Then he stays."
Behind Eidith, a young maid - round-faced, bright-eyed, the kind of girl whose thoughts moved visibly across her face before she could stop them - was staring at Fox with something approaching reverence.
"He's beautiful," she breathed.
"He steals eggs," a man's voice replied from somewhere to Catriona's left.
The maid gasped. Fox's ear twitched.
"Inside."
Anthony said it to the courtyard generally but meant it for her specifically. He was already moving toward the keep doors.
Catriona looked at the gate behind her. Still open. Guards returning to their posts, relaxed now, the brief excitement settling. She looked at the ridge path through the gap in the gatehouse where the portcullis teeth hung overhead.
