Annag spent every waking minute in the castle, tending to the laird with the help of Doctor MacRae. Every few hours I would catch the tail end of her powering through the castle halls between the infirmary and the laird's chambers. The gossip amongst the girls in the kitchen was rife as always, mentions of poisoning, contagious illness and supernatural curses floating around.
Maili refused to partake in the 'mindless chatting', but I couldn't help but be interested in it. The laird hadn't looked deathly when I saw him; if anything he looked only a bit under the weather. Yet Annag's frantic stressing had me guessing he was in much worse a condition than he looked.
There was an underlying tone with every comment made about the laird of uncertainty, but also of fear. Fear of change; fear of a new leader; fear of a new era. I heard every theory throughout the days and was thankful for the walk home with Maili to clear my head of it.
With one last knead of pale dough into the floured table top I pressed it into an old tin and placed a thin cloth over it. Wiping my course hands on my apron, I turned to Maili.
'Are you ready to go?'
Maili didn't even look. 'I've got to finish this cake for tonight. Seonag's been at me all day to have it perfect.'
I looked over Maili's shoulder at the bowl of batter she was beating furiously. 'Do you want a hand?'
Maili shook her head with the same force she was moving my hand at. 'I'll be fine. You go on home. You've had a long week,' she said, and I didn't miss the hint of coddling in her words.
As much as I disliked being babied by Maili, I couldn't resist the thought of a quiet walk home by myself. Company was nice, but walking through the tall birch trees in the evening while the birds narrated my thoughts was heaven.
'I'll see you tomorrow then,' I said as I took off my apron. Crìsdean was nowhere to be seen. He had been promoted to a sort of upstairs-downstairs go to boy. Whenever someone needed something he would fetch it, and usually catch a bit of news everywhere he went. I didn't want to bother my auntie by pestering her about the laird, so decided to seek out Crìsdean to see if he'd heard anything new.
With a quick goodbye to some of the other kitchen maids I ventured into the maze of the castle's winding corridors. Footmen and maids rambled past, always looking busy. I envied the maids who got to work upstairs, away from stuffy kitchens, sweaty foreheads and temperamental overseers. I was even jealous of the nicer dresses they got to wear. I stuck out like a sore thumb anywhere that wasn't dirty or busy.
I asked a passing man if he had seen Crìsdean around and he pointed my in the direction of the second floor. Apparently he had been delivering some letters to Alasdair's third cousin, Coinneach Beag. He was a small young man, a few years older than Alasdair, who had lived in the castle for as long as I could remember. People said he lived in the castle because he was kicked out of his own house when he was only a boy.
The evening rush of work was starting, and like a few mornings before I was forced to make way for rushing men getting their work done in the most boisterous way possible. Their green kilts flicked at my skirt with every step they took, their shoes clapping throughout the halls.
I wandered into the south wing of the castle, further and further from the loch. Through great rooms I went, adorned with paintings like a rich women in jewels. Tweed rugs lined these wooden floors, muffling the pad of my feet. This part of the castle was much less busy than the north where the laird and all the other important men in the clan lived upstairs and the kitchen and infirmary lived beneath them.
As I neared Coinneach Beag's chambers and the corridors became deserted. They were pure stone like the oldest castles. The sun was absent here, the halls lit instead by candles that hung periodically along the wall. Murmurs dulled the air further down.
I instantly lightened my steps until they were silent. Whoever was talking was arguing and it was getting heated.
My steps continued quietly so as not to disturb them for my sake.
'...father doesn't control everyone in these lands,' a raspy female voice said.
'Don't be stupid, Ealasaid. I've told you about this already,' a familiar deep voice replied.
Like a deer catching sight of a hunter I realised that the man was Alasdair. I stopped in my tracks and swivelled around, desperate to leave before he saw me, but my heel ground against a stone on the floor and it screeched like a seagull.
Before I had even the time to make an escape the pair appeared from around the corner; Alasdair and the woman he was canoodling with in the forest a week ago. With words dying in my mouth I fled at almost a run down the hall. Alasdair called my name once but was drowned out when I dived into a servant's staircase and shut the door behind me.
The drab servant's passage was filled with tapings of my soles on the worn floor. It twisted and turned, but I knew every inch of the castle like the back of my hand. In a trance I navigated the passageways.
Damn that Ealasaid, I thought. She was even prettier up close. Her brushed-out ginger curls and sea green eyes complimented each other like the ocean did the sky; her silky red dress as enchanting as the hills on fire. There was something I hated about her, though there was nothing about her I knew. One glance at a polar upbringing was all it took to send me into a rage of self-deprecation.
I burst out of a side door into the west of the courtyard, startling a man leaning by the wall. He took one uninterested look at my then got back to shouting commands at two young boys playing with wooden sticks.
The boys didn't notice me as I passed them, so engrossed in their game of duelling that they seldom heeded to a word the man said to them either. I made my way out of the iron castle gates and across the bridge that covered a small moat.
Leave, leave, leave, I chanted in my head, though I wasn't sure why. With disappearing on my mind I decided to take a rarely trodden path that ran parallel, yet out of sight from the road.
The dense trees had enclosed me before I heard Alasdair shouting my name. What on earth was he doing out here? I knew that at this rate his stubborn will would follow my all the way home. With little other choice I ceased my getaway and let him catch up with me.
'Are you alright?' he asked, ever so slightly out of breath. His eyes were glassy and underneath them were the bags of someone who had not slept for days. The usual mess of curls that dominated his head were sticking out in every direction, as if a bird had made my home in them.
I quickly diverted my eyes when I realised I had been staring. 'Aye, I'm fine. I could ask the same of you,' I replied.
He looked almost shocked for a second but reverted back to his usual unreadable expression. 'Aye, I'm well.' I didn't comment. He swallowed thickly and rubbed his neck with a bruised hand. 'I would much appreciate it if you kept what you heard in there to yourself,' he said.
Suddenly filled with a sort of pompous anger that I had never felt before, I said, 'I'll no' tell a soul. But you'd best be more careful next time. I've seen the two of you doing far worse before.'
Alasdair's brow drew and he sucked in a deep breath. 'What is it you've seen?'
I held my head high even though a blush was burning my cheeks. I gulped. 'Last week I was picking berries, and I saw you two...in a compromising position.' Alasdair opened his mouth but I continued. 'I'll no' lie for you, Alasdair. You've landed me in enough trouble as it is. The only-'
'That wasn't me.'
'I saw you with my own eyes!'
'Peigi, I'm telling you, it wasn't me you saw.'
I rolled my eyes. This boy was stubborn as an unbroken horse. 'If all you're going to do is beguile me then I'll be on my way home.'
'You're wrong,' he taunted, eyebrows raising minutely in challenge.
'I am, am I?'
'Yes,' he said. 'It was Calum with Ealasaid. They've been sneaking around for ages.'
'Oh,' was the only word that fell from my lips. My feet itched to run all the way home, anything to avoid the embarrassment of being wrong when Alasdair was right.
His smug smile made my eyes droop.
'You're exactly the same,' he stated, wandering a few feet off the path and taking a seat on a flat rock.
'What do you mean?' I asked. I turned to face him but was warry of sitting next to him.
'When we were younger you had to win every argument, no matter what.' He grinned. 'And you hate when I'm right.'
I scoffed.
'You don't want to admit it either, because that would mean I'm right about something else too.' His toned thigh bounced agitatedly, his kilt swishing with every jerk.
'I suppose I can't win either way,' I said. Defeated, I took a seat beside him.
It hurt to think about the days when they were friends; it made the present all the glummer. We were adults now with responsibilities and expectations that broke our backs. And one of those responsibilities was admitting faults.
'I don't mean to be so cold with you, Ally,' I started. He turned to face me but I was looking straight ahead into the brown and green mosaic of the trees. The use of that old nickname slipped out of my mouth with no thought, but it felt so familiar on my tongue. 'I don't want to act like we're friends and overstep my mark, but I've realised that means I sometimes going too far the other way.'
It was silent for a few seconds except for the birds rustling above.
'It's nothing I don't deserve,' he replied.
I didn't know what to say, so I looked at him. His bark eyes were the same as when I had stared into years ago, filling me with a warmth of comfort. They flickered like a flame between my two eyes and the lowered.
He inched closer to my and like a reflex I mimicked his movements. The sparse freckles that dotted his nose became clearer, the faded scar on his cheekbone more noticeable.
He closed my eyes and I closed mine too. I felt like I should have been more nervous, but a calming sense of excitement rose in me instead.
His breath brushed my lips. I flinched when his rough hand unexpectedly held my cheek, but relaxed not seconds after.
A branch cracked and the haze of the moment was ruptured.
With a sudden intake of breath I jumped back from Alasdair's touch. I stared speechless, my mind only then comprehending the weight of my actions. As if things weren't complicated enough as it was.
Alasdair wasn't faring much better. He sat still, his mouth moving like he was trying to get some words out.
'Sorry, I-,' I blurted.
'Pegs, don't-'
'I need to go,' I burstout with, and left Alasdair sitting on the rock by himself.
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Beag pronounced bake
Gaelic for wee; small
Ealasaid pronounced YA-lah-sitch
Gaelic for Elizabeth