Page 80 of Blood of the Thistle

“The servants, the kitchens, the stores, the stables—though the stablemaster answers for the horses themselves. Fearchar sees that there is grain enough, meat and fish salted for winter, malt for ale, peat and wood laid by. He keeps account of what is used and what must be bought or traded for.” She paused, clearly thinking, and then added, “He collects rents and dues from Bram’s tenants and sees that what is owed to Craig na Coille is delivered when it ought to be.”

Anna’s brows rose, but Etta was plainly nowhere near finished.

“He keeps the household accounts and pays what Craig na Coille owes. If a roof needs mending or a wall repaired, Fearchar sees men are put to it. He settles quarrels among the servants, assigns work when there is need of more hands, arranges lodging when guests come, and sees that everyone is seated where they ought to be when Bram entertains.”

“Holy sheesh,” Anna said, imagining it might have been easier to ask what the steward didn’t do.

“When Bram is away,” Etta went on, “folk bring lesser disputes to Fearchar as well. A disagreement over rents or grazing, a boundary between holdings, someone claiming another has failed to give what is owed. Anything he can settle without Bram, he generally does. Anything he cannae, he brings before him.”

Anna finally did ask, “Is there anything he doesn’t do?”

Etta frowned thoughtfully. “He doesnae command Bram’s fighting men. That is Harsain.”

“Okay, good. I was beginning to wonder when he slept.”

Etta laughed. “Fearchar says he’ll sleep when he dead.” She tossed a small chunk of bread into her mouth and said, “In truth, Mam manages just as much, right alongside him, certainly all the household stores. She kens every grain of oats that enters the keep, and she has more direct authority over the household staff.”

Anna was amazed and began to imagine that she might understand more as days went by, and she witnessed each or any of those parts in action.

“And where ye come from?”

Anna turned and looked at Bram, who’d spoken. He sat two chairs away from her this morning.

He had finished eating and sat with one forearm resting beside his trencher, watching her with an attentiveness that caused a blush to rise in her cheeks.

“What about where I come from?” she asked. He had said where, not when, she realized.

“Would a household be managed in much the same fashion?”

“No,” she answered. “Not really.”

Etta immediately asked, “Who keeps the stores, then?”

“We don’t really have stores like this, not as you’ve described. Not in an ordinary home, anyway. People buy what they need.”

“From a market?”

“Basically, yes.”

Etta frowned. “And if the market has naught?”

“That doesn’t happen very often.”

“But in winter?”

“We still have food in winter.”

“How?”

“Oh, um,” she stalled, and managed only, “that’s a much longer conversation.”

Etta laughed. “I have naewhere to be.”

She explained as simply as she could that most people where she came from did not grow or preserve the majority of their own food, that enormous numbers of people were involved in producing and transporting it, and that ordinary families generally bought what they required rather than storing enough grain or meat to survive an entire winter.

“So ye dinna keep a garden?” Etta asked. “Chickens?”

“No.”