"I'm glad he's well." Catriona looked at the boy.
Healthy color, bright eyes, chewing on the edge of his mother's sleeve with great concentration. "Keep him warm through the cold months. If the fever returns, willow bark tea, cool cloth, and send for me."
Agnes nodded. Hesitated.
Her eyes moved briefly to Fergus, standing his careful distance behind Catriona, then back.
"There's talk," she said, quieter. "About ye bein' up at the keep. Folks are sayin' the Dragon brought ye himself." A beat. "The Dragon's keep, is it where ye are now? Are ye, are ye well there?"
It was asked with a particular delicacy, the question underneath the question perfectly clear.
Is he keepin' ye there against yer will and if so what are we to do about it?
"I'm well," Catriona said. Simply. "The boy needs me and I go where I'm needed."
Agnes held her eyes for a moment. Then nodded, something settling in her face.
"Aye," she said. "Good." She shifted the child on her hip, touched Catriona's arm briefly, and moved away.
Fergus appeared at her shoulder. "Friend of yers?"
"Patient." She walked on. "There's a difference."
He huffed quietly. "Is there?"
She didn't answer.
But the exchange had shifted something in the weight of the square around her, she felt it, the slight rebalancing of attention.
Agnes had spoken to her in plain sight of half the market. That carried its own message, whether Agnes had intended it or not.
"Ignore them," Fergus said quietly. He'd moved up beside her without appearing to decide to do it.
"I am."
"Aye." A pause. "Ye're very good at it."
"I've had practice."
He was quiet for a moment. Then, with the measured tone of someone offering something they'd decided to offer, "They fear what they daenae understand. That's all it is."
"I ken." She kept her eyes forward. "I'm accustomed to it."
"Aye." Another pause, longer.
She heard him glance toward the hill, the keep visible from here, sitting dark against the grey sky. "But the Laird doesnae."
She said nothing. Her steps slowed, just fractionally, before she corrected it and continued toward the far side of the square.
She did not examine what that meant. She was here for lungwort.
Iona's stall occupied the sheltered corner where the square met the church wall. A practical position out of the direct wind, with the kind of established permanence that said this woman had been here for years and intended to remain.
Bundles of lavender hung from the frame above. Dried nettle, sorted by grade. Roots wrapped and labelled in a hand that knew what it was doing.
The arrangement had the order of someone who respected their materials.
Catriona looked at the stall before she looked at the woman.
