AllFreeNovel
Share Us
First, though, they had to eat.
* * *
Keira had gone to find Adaira, who was having a cooking lesson from Ada Johnstone, the butcher’s wife. She had just shown her how to pluck, skin, and joint a pigeon, and she had discovered that preparing the food that she always received on a porcelain plate was not as easy as eating it. Disemboweling birds was not a task for the faint of heart, but she managed to hang on to the contents of her stomach. However, it took a heroic act of will to do it, and she felt as though she was turning green.
Keira was fortunate in having been given some basic cooking lessons, so she was not quite as helpless as her friend.
“Come, let me help you,” she said fondly. “You will have to accustom yourself to all this because you will not have any servants as a member of the working class!”
Adaira laughed. “No more ceilidhs at the castle, then? No more fine wine and whiskey?”
“Is that bird no’ ready yet?” Dougie’s voice was teasing as he came up behind Adaira and looked over her shoulder. “I heard what ye said, Addie. The laird is dead, an’ he doesnae spread his evil in the castle anymore, so it can be used for more useful things than havin’ parties an’ keepin’ him in fine style. Nay guards will be needed. I will become a crofter and a fisherman.”
He smiled at the two women, but his gaze lingered longer on Adaira, and Keira smiled as she thought of them together.
“When I was leader of the rebels, they stood over my shoulders and forced me to do this!” she laughed. “I cannot tell you how many times I nearly chopped my fingers off slicing turnips! But you must learn to cook. It is a most useful skill, and not just for women.”
Adaira looked up at Dougie as if for his approval, and he nodded. Then he turned and walked away, but Keira did not miss the way Adaira’s eyes followed the tall, broad figure. Then she turned back to Keira, looked at the pigeon, covered her mouth, and ran away to the edge of the forest, where she was violently sick. When she had wiped her mouth, she walked back to Keira’s side, but the sight and smell of the bird made her retch again.
“Are you quite well, Addie?” Keira asked worriedly. “You look very pale. Are you sickening for something?”
“No.” Adaira shook her head firmly. “I am just not used to the sight of raw meat, but I must become used to it if I wish to live amongst ordinary folk, and I really want to do that, Keira. I cannot tell you what a pleasure it is to be with honest, hardworking people who do not care if you always look impeccable, who tell you the truth and accept you for what you are.
“You know what things are like in our world. People say one thing to your face and another behind your back. You never know where you stand. But these folk accept me for what I am and help me to fit into a society which I am still finding a little strange. No one has judged me at all, even though I am a member of a set of people who mostly look down on them, as I am sorry to say that I used to.” She shook her head in disbelief. “I am so happy to be here among ordinary, common people, where I know I belong. I will have to work hard, and perhaps I will not always enjoy it, but I will be better for it.”
“I am so glad!” Keira smiled at her. “I feel that way too.” She looked down at her hands ruefully. “I would hug you, Addie, but my hands are covered in blood.”
“Then I will hug you.”
Adaira threw her arms around her friend, but in doing so, she smelled the pigeon blood again. It was time for another trip to the woods!
