He had watched Alasdair do it. He had stood at his shoulder and observed the particular weight of it. He had thought he understood.
He had not understood.
"I'll call it," he said, without turning from the window. "Give me three days to prepare."
Edward exhaled. Not relief exactly. The sound of a man who had come ready for a longer argument and was adjusting. "Aye, me Laird. Three days."
"And Edward." Fergus turned. "Anyone who comes to that hall with a grievance they havenae first attempted to settle between themselves willnae find me sympathetic."
Edward nodded once. "I'll pass the word."
They filed out. The door closed behind them.
Fergus stood alone in the room, gazing at the yard below and contemplating fairness—specifically, its shape and how it demanded caring enough to create enemies among people he otherwise would not want to oppose.
Three days,he thought.Get it done.
* * *
The loch was hers for exactly twenty minutes before she heard him.
She had not planned for company. She had told Maisie she was walking the east path, had deliberately taken the long way around the birch stand, and had waited until the castle sounds faded behind her before she let herself breathe. The afternoon was warm and close, and the water when she waded in was a relief so immediate it bordered on indecent.
She had been floating on her back, her hair spread around her, staring at the sky, thinking about nothing at all for the first time in weeks, when a branch cracked at the tree line.
She righted herself immediately, water rushing to her shoulders.
Fergus stood at the edge of the birches. He had not looked away and was not pretending he had just arrived. Standing with hisarms at his sides and his jaw clenched, he looked like a man who had made a decision he was not entirely at peace with.
"Fergus." Her voice came out steadier than she felt.
"I saw ye leave," he said. "The path behind the east wall."
"And ye followed me."
"Aye."
The water covered up to her chest where she stood, her arms crossed loosely at the surface. The evening light was low and gold across the loch, the hills darkening behind him. She waited. He had come here with something. She could see it in the set of his shoulders, the way he was still standing at the tree line as though he had not yet decided how far in he was going.
"They want a gatherin'," he said. "Donal came to me this mornin'. Three of them, callin' for a meetin' before I'd finished breakfast."
Margaret said nothing. She waited.
"Every dispute in the clan, they say. Every boundary, every debt, every grievance that's been sittin' since before I took the Lairdship." His jaw tightened. "They want me to stand at the head of the hall and decide all of it. In one sittin'."
"And ye daenae want to."
"What I want doesnae come into it." He looked at the water. "What I want is another month. Two. Long enough that when I stand up there and tell a man he is wrong, he believes I ken his land better than he does." A pause. "Right now, I am still learnin' their names."
"They ken that," Margaret said.
"Aye. That's the problem." He exhaled, slow and controlled.
He turned to look at her, and there it was again, the thing she had been watching for all afternoon, the unguarded face beneath the one he wore for everyone else. "I am still buildin' their trust, Margaret. Every day. Every decision. I cannae afford to get this wrong."
She looked at him steadily. "Then daenae get it wrong."
His expression shifted. "That is nae particularly helpful."
