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Caelan brought his warhorse to a halt near the center of the village. He dismounted smoothly.
Mabel slipped down from her saddle, tying her mare to a post. She followed him at a cautious distance, fully expecting the villagers to shrink away from the terrifying Black Laird. Instead, an elderly man with a pronounced limp walked right up to him.
“Me Laird,” the old man greeted, pulling off his woolen cap, “we dinnae expect ye until Friday.”
“The frost is coming early, Ewan,” Caelan replied. His voice was surprisingly calm. “I wanted to see the progress on the roof before the snow hits. How is yer leg?”
“Aches when it rains, but it holds,” Ewan answered, gesturing toward a half-collapsed barn. “We have the new timber, but the main support beam is too much for the young lads to hoist.”
Caelan didn’t shout for Duncan. He didn’t order the guards to help. He simply took off his heavy leather coat, tossed it over a fence, and walked straight into the mud.
“Is he actually going to lift that?” Mabel whispered to Rowan, who had wandered over to stand beside her.
“He loves showing off,” Rowan muttered though a fond smile touched his lips. “He just wants to get it done quickly, so he can go back to scowling at the horizon.”
Mabel watched as Caelan stepped under the charred crossbeam. He braced his hands against the rough wood. With a low grunt, he drove his legs upward, hoisting the timber single-handedly until it slotted firmly into the iron brackets above. The young boys on the roof quickly hammered the pins into place.
Caelan stepped back, wiped the mud from his hands, and walked back to his horse.
They spent the entire morning repeating the process. In the next village, they found a crowd gathered near the town well. Two farmers were shouting at each other, their faces red with fury, while a single, very confused-looking sheep chewed on a patch of grass between them.
“That is me sheep, Tavish!” the taller farmer bellowed, waving a thick finger. “She has the black spot on her left ear! I would ken her anywhere!”
“Ye painted that spot yesterday, ye thief!” Tavish shouted back, practically jumping up and down. “She is mine! She wanders!”
“She wanders because ye daenae fix yer fences!”
Caelan rode directly into the center of the crowd, silencing the argument instantly. He looked down at the two men then down at the sheep.
He is going to lock them in the dungeons, Mabel thought, bracing herself.
Instead, Caelan let out a long, exhausted sigh. “Angus. Tavish. Ye are grown men.”
“He stole me sheep, Laird!” Angus protested.
“The sheep,” Caelan said dryly, “belongs to the Widow MacFarlane. She has a notch on her right hoof. Ye both kent that perfectly well, and ye are only fighting because Angus owes Tavish two copper coins for ale, and Tavish refuses to let it go.”
Both men froze, suddenly looking everywhere except at their laird.
“Return the sheep to the widow,” Caelan ordered, his tone flat. “Angus, pay yer debt. Tavish, fix yer fence. If I have to ride out here again over a wandering ewe, I will eat the bloody thing for supper. Understood?”
“Aye, Me Laird,” they mumbled in unison.
Mabel quickly turned her head, pressing her hand over her mouth to muffle a laugh. He just threatened to eat a sheep to settle a debt. She looked at him from the corner of her eye.
By midday, they were riding along a high ridge overlooking a vast, dark loch. The awkward tension from the morning had fractured, replaced by a strange, quiet comfort.
Rowan, clearly bored with the lack of conversation, trotted his horse up to Duncan’s.
“Duncan,” Rowan announced loudly, “I believe I see a very suspicious, politically motivated squirrel in the trees ahead. We must investigate the vanguard immediately.”
Duncan shot him a flat look. “A squirrel.”
“A highly dangerous one,” Rowan insisted, spurring his horse into a canter. “Come along, Captain! Leave the Laird to his brooding!”
Duncan sighed, but he kicked his horse forward, and the two men quickly disappeared around the bend leaving Mabel and Caelan completely alone on the dirt road.
The silence returned, but it no longer felt hostile.
