He was wiry and sun-weathered, with the energy of a man who had been holding a grudge for a week and finally spotted his target.
"Laird MacKenzie." The man planted himself in Fergus's path with the energy of someone who had been rehearsing this moment. "A word, if ye will."
Fergus stopped. He gave the man his attention, not warmly, but fully.
"It's MacPhail's goats," the man said, and then he was off.
He described a boundary fence in three different states of disrepair, a vegetable garden raided across five separate occasions, and he spoke of his cabbages with grief.
Fergus listened without interrupting. Margaret became very interested in a display of iron hinges nearby.
"So MacPhail's goats are crossin' the boundary," Fergus said, when the man finished. "And the fence between yer land and his isnae holdin' them."
"Aye, me Laird. That's the heart of it."
"Whose fence is it to maintain?"
The man's mouth pressed flat. "He says it's mine, bein' it's on me boundary. I say it's his, bein' it's his animals it's meant to hold."
Fergus was quiet for a moment. Margaret watched him from the corner of her eye, the set of his shoulders, the way his hand went still at his side. He was not impatient. He was thinking, properly, as a man who understood that resolving this correctly once was worth more than resolving it quickly.
"What was lost?" he asked.
"Seven cabbages. The turnip seedlings. And me wife's temper, which I'd value above both."
Something shifted in Fergus's expression, not quite a smile, but the territory just before one. It was gone before it arrived.
"I'll speak to MacPhail," he said. "The fence will be assessed and the question of whose it is will be settled properly, nae by either of ye alone. Ye'll have yer answer within the week, and if the fault is his, ye'll have recompense for what was lost."
The man blinked as if he had expected more argument and didn't know what to do without it. Then he nodded, a genuine nod, a satisfied one.
"That's all I'm askin', me Laird. A fair hearin'." He stepped back, and the crowd absorbed him.
Fergus did not move for a moment. He looked at the muddy ground.
Margaret stepped closer. "Seven cabbages," she said softly. "And the turnip seedlings," she added. Her lips twitched. "Grievous, Fergus. Truly."
Something flickered in his dark eyes. It did not turn into a smile, but it was close. The tension between them shifted briefly into something that felt almost like a shared secret.
Then it was gone. He turned back toward the horses.
"We should get back," he said. "The light's goin'."
She gathered her parcels and followed him.
Chapter Seven
"The shoulder or the head?" Fergus asked from the doorway.
Iseabail did not look up from a shepherd stretched out on the table before her. The room was low-ceilinged and sweltering, with the air thick enough to taste. It smelled of dried yarrow, pungent woodsmoke, and the sharp, medicinal bite of camphor.
"The shoulder," the healer replied, her hands moving with a quick, practiced certainty that reminded Fergus of a weaver at a loom. "He thought he could lift a roof-beam alone." A pause, her dark eyes flickering toward her patient. "Ye can see the result of that foolishness."
The shepherd, a broad, barrel-chested man in his perhaps forties who looked notably less intimidating laying down than he did standing up, stared at the soot-stained ceiling. He wore the expression of someone suffering both the pain of a dislocatedjoint and the sharp, embarrassing humiliation of having been proven wrong in front of his Laird.
"Will he keep it?" Fergus asked, stepping further into the shadows of the hut.
Bundles of dried plants hung from every beam like shriveled ghosts. Clay pots lined the shelves in an order that appeared random but was almost certainly dictated by a logic Fergus didn't yet ken.
