“I have come to realize that. I was slow to see it, but the breasts refused to be ignored.” Annys was not surprised to receive a scowl from Joan that clearly said her maid was not amused.
“No one expects constant strength from a wee lass who has but recently buried her husband,” Joan continued. “Ye are wearing yourself to the bone trying to be the laird and the lady of this keep. Ye dinnae need to be both. All here willingly heed the lady, have always done so, so trying to don Sir David’s boots is unnecessary.”
“And if I dinnae do it, who will?”
“Nicolas.”
Annys thought on that for a moment. The man had arrived almost five years ago. He had claimed that he had spent enough time selling his sword for a living and now wished to settle in one place. David had welcomed the man with open arms, readily training him to lead the other, less well-trained men at Glencullaich. Fortunately, no one had complained or taken offense at how the stranger had so quickly moved into place as David’s right-hand man. In truth, they had all welcomed his skills. She even had to admit that he had been immensely helpful since David’s death.
“Mayhaps he can,” she conceded. “He certainly has been most helpful thus far. Yet, I have always wondered why he ne’er just went home to Wales to settle.”
“A long journey for a mon who says there is no one left there for him.”
“True enough.” Annys shrugged and tossed the little shirt she had yet to finish back into her mending basket. “’Tis nay that I dinnae trust him, for I do. I but puzzle o’er it now and then. I will try to put more of the work into his hands, but nay so much that it hinders his ability to keep the men weel trained. Their training cannae be allowed to lag.”
“Nay, ye are right. It cannae.” Joan nodded. “It is badly needed, sad to say. E’en weel trained as they are now, ’tis a constant battle to keep that bastard from trying to destroy us. If he sniffed out a weakness he would be on us like carrion birds on a fish-ermon’s catch. Have ye heard anything from that Sir Murray yet?”
“Nay. I begin to fear that I have accomplished naught but to send poor young Ian to his death.”
“Och, nay, m’lady, dinnae allow that fear to prey on your mind. Ian kenned the risks and he is a clever lad, one who kens weel how to slip about quietly and hide weel when needed. There are many reasons one can see for why he hasnae returned yet. Many. And a sad fate is but one of them.”
“True.”
And it was true, Annys thought. It was simply a truth she had a difficult time clinging to. Ian had come to the keep as a young boy, orphaned when the rest of his family had died in a fire, frightened, and painfully shy. It had taken a while, but by the time she had come to live permanently at Glencullaich as its lady, he had blossomed. Still sweet, still quick to blush, but settled and happy. He had fallen into the role of Glencullaich’s messenger as if born to it, but he had never been sent on such a long journey before.
“M’lady!”
Annys started as the shout from the door yanked her out of her thoughts and she stared at the tall, too-thin young man who had burst into the solar. “What is it, Gavin? Please dinnae tell me there is more trouble to deal with. It has been so blissfully quiet for days.”
“I dinnae think ’tis trouble, m’lady, for Nicolas isnae bothered.” Gavin scratched at his cheek and frowned. “But there are six big, armed men at the gate. Nicolas was going to open the gates for them and said I was to come and tell ye that.”
“I will be right out then. Thank ye, Gavin.” The moment Gavin left, she looked at Joan. “How are six big, armed men nay trouble?”
“If they come in answer to your message?” Joan hastily tidied Annys’s thick braid. “There, done. Now ye look presentable. Let us go out and greet our guests.”
“Guests dinnae come armed,” Annys said as she started out of the room, Joan right at her side.
“They do if they come in reply to a lady’s note saying ‘help me, help me’.”
“I didnae say ‘help me, help me’.”
“Near enough. No gain in talking on it until we actually see who is here.”
“Fine but I did nay say ‘help me, help me’.”
Annys ignored Joan’s soft grunt even though she knew it meant the woman was not going to change her mind. She stepped out through the heavy oak doors and started down the stone steps to the bailey only to stop short before she reached the bottom. The man dismounting from a huge black gelding was painfully familiar.