She spent as much time as she could out in the games meadow—which admittedly looked splendid now that Fergus had had all the targets repaired and repainted—shooting arrow after arrow. But her mind never got still.
“You should ask the Ladies of Peace how to improve your sadness,” Leezie said, coming out with a dinner for her at one point (a touching gesture, even if she had snacked on it a bit during the walk there).
“I’m not sad,” Merida said. “I’m cranky! There’s so much noise. I haven’t had a second’s quiet to think over this year since coming back.”
She was a refugee from the noise, which had spread now even to Merida’s tower. Fergus had decided he didn’t care at all for the look of the wooden handrailing on the stairs to her room, and it was all being ripped out and reconstructed. At the same time, he’d gotten a craftsman to come from Keithneil to build Merida a new bed. Carved, like all the spoons on her mantel.
Merida knew she should feel grateful, but she felt haunted and off-kilter. She hid herself away from the sound as best she could and wrote a letter to the Dásachtach explaining that she had visited Kinlochy but it was for naught, because Kinlochy was gone. She walked the letter down to the blackhouse village to Comyn the messenger, and then she returned to the noisy castle. She went back out to shoot some more arrows. She tossed restlessly at night.
It felt like everything was changing so fast, which was what she wanted, but at the same time, she felt like she had never left that collapsing Kinlochy corridor. She couldn’t find solid ground to stand on. She’d returned home and home was gone.
“Ah, but it’s nice to see your father with his purpose again, isn’t?” Elinor remarked. She’d persuaded Merida to come with her, Leezie, and Ila to “take some air” down to the holy well, which was a longish walk from the castle, far enough to be out of the earshot of construction.
It was a lovely day. Generally it rained every day in DunBroch, but not all day, and it had already gotten its misting out of the way that morning. Everything looked bright and blown out in the way things get in late summer. All the grass had gone to seed, all the flowers were tall and weedy, all the tree leaves stretched as far as they could go toward the high, high sky, everything was as green as it could manage before the weather would begin to turn to plunge the world back into the winter dark. As they walked, pheasants flushed from the grass and deer bounded into the woods. It was all very idyllic. Good air to take.
“Can’t he find a quieter purpose?” Merida said. “Or do just one room or tower at a time? It’s madness! He’s bitten off too much! It’ll never be done by the bad weather.”
The harrowing trip had been enough to get Merida speaking to her mother again, but because there had been no proper making up and sorting out, she still felt sour, and all her words came out petulant, no matter how she meant them to sound.
“You’ve not seen your father when he’s got the bit between his teeth,” Elinor said warmly, as if Merida had been pleasant. “When he gets it in his head to motivate people, he can move mountains.”
“And he has,” Leezie said. “Did you see they started paving the courtyard? First stones down today. I’m going to chalk runes on it.”
“Whatever will we do without all that mud tracked in?” Elinor murmured, and Merida could tell that she was happy.
Why couldn’t Merida be happy? Fergus had surely changed. Hamish, too. Merida would have expected the confirmation of his worst fears to make him more afraid, but instead, it was as if now that he’d seen how bad it could be, the shadows of the upstairs halls no longer had the same bite. He stood a little straighter. He crept a little less. He was braver every day, and she knew Feradach would see it when he came to check her work.
She dreaded seeing Feradach again.
She couldn’t stop picturing the image of those arms reaching for freedom as the fire raged, and Feradach doing nothing. The kindness and humanity she thought she’d seen in Keithneil had clearly been just a sham, her projecting what she wanted to see upon him. He might not have chosen his godly duty of meting out ruin, but he didn’t flinch from it, either. He had executed all of Kinlochy without pity or mercy, making sure there was no escape for anyone there.
I am nature.
She had to remember that he would not flinch to do the same to DunBroch. There would be no survivors.
“There’s three rooks for you, Leezie,” Elinor said.
Leezie had been twirling and making a daisy chain, but she gave off twirling at this and looked troubled. “I’m not counting signs anymore. It’s too depressing. I’ve taken up with the Ladies of Peace instead. I’ve been trying to get Merida down there, too.”
Elinor frowned. “Are those the ones down at the village with the cakes?”
“Yes, though they meet at the well sometimes, too, for moaning,” Leezie said.
“I’m glad you’ve found a new interest,” Elinor said. “That reminds me. Did you and your father meet a harper on your trip, Merida?”
“Why?” Merida’s voice came out combative without any effort on her part whatsoever.
“Little Bear asked me today if I thought he could be a harper when he grew up. I asked him why such a thought came into his head and he said the trip had done it, but he didn’t say what on the trip did it.”
Merida said irritably, “I suppose you’re going to say he can’t be a harper.”
Elinor’s voice was thoughtful. “It’s not a very royal profession.”
“But he is the youngest of the three, isn’t he, ma’am?” asked Ila.
“Ha, I suppose so,” Elinor replied. “By a whisker.”
“That means he can do what he likes, right?” asked Ila. She added swiftly and politely, “Ma’am. He won’t be king?”
Once again, Merida suspected Ila was on her side.
“Not as long as luck holds; Hubert and Harris come before him,” said Elinor. “Usually the youngest becomes a priest or a scholar or a soldier, but I suppose a harper…Fergus would probably pitch a table. Och, there’s no one really to teach him, though. Before this, I would’ve said to send him to Kinlochy for apprenticeship, but it doesn’t sound like that’s possible now, is it?”
Merida couldn’t bring herself to answer. Maybe she should see about doing some moaning with Leezie’s Ladies of Peace.
Elinor quickly tidied up the mood by saying, “Look how pretty this looks in this light.”
The holy well was before them. If it hadn’t been marked as special, the place where the water came to the surface, fresh and clean and clear, would have been easily missed. But long ago, someone had built a stone border around it and added a vertical font with a woman’s worn face on it. Water poured from her open mouth into the pool below. Little white moss flowers grew all around it.
A few yards away was a craggy standing stone. The stone was twice as tall as Merida and covered all over with carved spirals. On the first day of spring solstice, the sun lit up a perfect trail of light along the stone as it rose; quite magical. Merida used to ride Angus to the stone when she was first learning all the wilds of DunBroch; it was so impressive that it had taken her several visits to realize that the holy well, not the stone, was the reason this path was kept clear.
Leezie danced around it. She’d brought ribbons, because she was Leezie, and she spun them around her head in a complex pattern. It was hard to say if it was a real ritual or a Leezie-ritual. She said, “The Ladies of Peace talked about the well during the last meeting!”
Elinor looked privately amused. “What did they say?”
“It’s a woman’s well! Holy for all, but suited for affairs of women the most! Women’s minds! Women’s hearts! Put in an offering, food, coin, or your best flower from your garden, and pray to the lady in the well, and she will give you what you ask!”
Ila asked in a sort of sharp voice, “Who do the Ladies of Peace say the lady of the well is, ma’am?”
“Bridget,” said Leezie. “I think. Or Mary.”
“Mm,” said Elinor.
Ila swiveled at this mm. “Whom do you say it belongs to, ma’am?”