"That's unlike her," Catriona said.
"She assigned them both to the north wall inventory instead." Mairi's mouth curved. "In the rain." A small, triumphant smile touched her lips.
Catriona said nothing.
She ground the elecampane and listened to the fire and thought about a woman with silver-threaded hair and a spine like a blade set on its edge. Who had looked at her that first morning in the courtyard and said I keep order here and had meant it in more directions than one. She felt a surge of respect, her shoulders straightening as she worked.
"She willnae say it," Mairi said. "Ye ken that. She'd rather eat those boots Seumas is always threatenin' to eat. But she watches for ye." She glanced toward the door and back. "They all do, a bit, now. Seumas. Donal. Even Fergus, and Fergus didnae watch for anyone who hasnae been here at least a decade." Mairi's voice was warm, and she reached out to briefly cover Catriona's hand with her own.
"Mairi."
"Aye?"
"What does elecampane do?"
Mairi looked at the jar. "Strengthens the lungs," she said, without hesitation. "Ye use it in James's second-stage preparation. Ye make it on Tuesdays and Fridays and ye leave it to steep for exactly four hours because ye told me once that anything less is insufficient and anything more turns bitter." The girl spoke with a sudden, sharp confidence that made Catriona stop.
Catriona stopped grinding.
She looked at Mairi. Her eyes were wide with genuine surprise.
Mairi looked back at her. She had not stopped what she was doing. She had not needed to. She met Catriona's gaze with a steady, defiant brightness.
"Ye were listenin'," Catriona said. Her voice was soft, a little breathless.
"I'm always listenin'." Mairi reached forward and straightened the jar of honey she'd brought. "I just talk while I do it." She gave a small, elegant shrug, her eyes dancing with amusement.
Supper that evening had the particular quality it had developed over the past two weeks. Settled, almost routine, the hall filling at the same pace, and the fire going.
The particular arrangement of people that had established itself without anyone deciding on it.
Catriona at the middle of the table beside Mairi.
Donal three seats down, talking without looking up.
Fergus to Anthony's left, working through his supper with his head down, methodical, not pausing between bites.
Eidith moving between the kitchen and the hall. A word here, a look there, never stopping, never rushed, everything running in her wake.
I ken these people now.
The thought arrived quietly, without fanfare, and she let it sit there without examining it too closely.
Fox was under the table. He was always under the table at supper. Catriona had stopped pretending she didn't know this. She felt the brush of his fur against her ankles, a secret, comforting weight.
She was listening to Mairi describe an increasingly elaborate theory about the significance of where Donal's nephew had positioned himself at the table when she felt it. The particular quality of stillness that moved through a room when something had just happened and not everyone had registered it yet.
She looked at Anthony's plate.
The piece of roasted meat that had been occupying the near edge of it was gone.
Not eaten. No motion of fork to mouth, no displacement of the other items on the plate. Simply gone.
Under the table, Fox moved. Nobody heard him do it. No scrape of claw, no thump of flank, nothing.
Oh, ye absolute menace.
She felt it start in her chest before she could stop it. The press of it up through her throat, the absolute inevitability of it.
