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“I’m always careful.”
“You’re lucky.”
“A useful quality.”
“Until it runs out.”
Jamie glanced back at her. She’d been saying some version of that to him for years.
“I’ll keep a wee bit in reserve.”
Morag shook her head. “Go home. Eat. Yer too thin.”
He knew better than to disagree, so he kept his mouth shut as he climbed on his horse.
“Your washing frightened three of the excisemen and one of their horses tonight.”
She stared at him as her chin lifted, eyes sparkling.
“Only three?”
Jamie laughed all the way to Dunarraidh.
The castle rose above the glen where the hill turned rocky, its broken towers black against a sky still heavy with rain.
Dunarraidh had been abandoned long before Jamie was born, although abandoned wasna quite the right word for a place the glen had found many uses for.
Sheep sheltered against the outer walls. Children dared one another to climb the old stairs. Villagers stored things in the drier outbuildings when no one from the Crown was about.
Jamie made his home there, though that last bit was known to fewer people.
One wing still had enough of the roof left to keep a man dry most nights, and over the years he’d made it comfortable by his standards. There was a good bed, a table, shelves for a few books, an iron pot, two chairs that didn’t wobble, and a hearth that only smoked when the wind came from the east.
The rest belonged to the rain, birds, and the ghost of Dunarraidh.
He took care of the mare, rubbing her down and checking her legs. She’d picked up a small stone in one hoof, which explained the uneven step he’d noticed on the last climb.
“That’ll feel better now.”
Bess turned her head toward him, then went back to her oats. He ran his hand once down her neck before carrying the flask to the next chamber.
The fire had burned low, so he added peat, then stripped off his wet coat and set his worn boots near the hearth to dry.
Someone had left bannocks earlier, along with cheese and a piece of smoked meat wrapped in cloth.
Too thin, indeed.
Jamie cut the cheese with his knife, ate half a bannock standing at the table, then remembered the flask.
He poured a little into a horn cup.
The first taste made him frown as he took another. The spirit was good, but something had changed.
The last batch had carried a sweetness beneath the grain that lingered after the heat faded. Tonight that sweetness was thinner, and the finish disappeared too soon.
Jamie sat near the fire with the cup between his hands and tasted it again.
When Ewan arrived sometime later, Jamie was still holding it.
