Chapter 3: Scene 1
The grey light that seeped through the cracks in the shutters was not yet dawn, but close enough. Euphemia Moray pushed off her rough blanket, the chill of the stone floor biting into her bare feet even through the straw strewn across it. She was already in her chemise. Moving by habit in the near-dark, she pulled her brown woolen kirtle over her head, the fabric smelling of peat smoke and her own sleep, then fastened the apron over it. Her fingers traced the tiny, handsome stitches along its edge, a remnant of her mother’s more nimble hands. Woolen hose, a coarse hemp belt, leather shoes worn soft in patches. Finally, the wimple and an off-white linen cap. Her auburn hair, still in a single thick braid from yesterday, was coiled and secured out of sight.
In the main room, the fire was a low crimson heartbeat in the hearth. Her mother, Mary, stood by the table, placing oatcakes and thin slices of cheese with slow, deliberate care. In the dim light, Euphemia saw the swollen red knuckles, the subtle wince with each movement. Age and endless work had gnawed at her.
“You’re up early, mo nighean,” Mary said, her voice a soft rasp.
“The grass calls them sooner these days,” Euphemia replied. She grabbed an oatcake and a piece of the hard cheese, then fetched her hooded cape from its peg. She draped it over her outfit, pulling the hood up over her wimple. Instead of heading straight for the sheep pen, she went back outside into the damp, clinging mist of the moor.
She gathered an armful of split logs from the stack against the cottage wall, the bark damp and rough against her cheek, and carried them inside, stacking them neatly by the hearth. “For later,” she said. Her mother offered a tired smile. Next, she took the two wooden buckets to the burn that chattered behind their cottage, filling them with water so cold it made her wrists ache. She hauled them back, one in each hand, muscles in her shoulders taut, and poured them into the large barrel by the door. The water splashed, a loud sound in the quiet morning.
Her father, Angus, was outside, his back to her as he wrestled with a broken section of the small wattle fence that enclosed their kail yard. He was skinny but strong, a lifetime of leaning into the soil and the wind leaving him with a permanent stoop. His grey hair, long and tied back, escaped its thong in wisps. His mustache and beard, equally long, were neatly braided, the ends threaded with worn strips of leather.
“Stop fighting me, ,” he muttered, then sensed her presence. He turned, his face a network of kindly lines. “Ah, Effie.”
“I will start bring down the sheep next week for the farmlands” she said, gentle
“Aye, let them have their breakfast.” He straightened with a soft groan, wiping his hands on his trews. His eyes, pale and watchful, scanned the mist-shrouded path that led toward the black silhouette of the keep on the ridge. “Young Tam MacGregor came by last eve. Said he saw the new lord riding in yesterday. A Norman. The one the King sent.”
Euphemia finished brushing crumbs from her apron. “What of him?”
“Never laid my own eyes on him. But others did. Said he looks every inch the foreign lord. Hard eyes, sitting tall in the saddle like he owned the sky as well as the land.” Angus spat thoughtfully into the damp grass. “Just you be mindful up on the high field today, Effie. New lords mean new ways. And new ways are rarely kind to old shepherds.”
A flicker of unease, cold and quick, went through her. She pushed it down. “He’ll be concerned with his stone walls and his taxes, Laird Campbell had little time for the sheep if only as payment made. dealt with the priest Clement
“Perhaps but he wasn't a Norman . Go on, then. They’ll be clamoring.”
She nodded, put two fingers to her lips, and blew a short, sharp whistle. From around the side of the cottage, a shaggy, black-and-white border collie appeared, tail whipping the air. “
Effie whistled
With the dog swirling at her heels, she walked the well-trodden path to the community sheep pen. The air was thick with the smell of wool, dung, and damp earth. The pen held two hundred and twelve sheep; sixteen were her family’s own, the rest belonging to other tenants of the Blackthorn Keep. They were Scottish sheep, small and sturdy, most a weather-beaten brown, a few with inky black patches, all covered in thick, double coats against the relentless climate. The rams, heavy-shouldered, watched her with wary amber eyes, their horns curling close to their broad skulls.
She unlatched the gate. TSM, needing no command, dropped into a low, intense crouch, his focus absolute. He began to herd them, a silent, fluid presence, guiding the flow of animals out of the pen and onto the track that led uphill. The dawn finally broke, a weak yolk of light smearing the eastern sky, as the chorus of bleats and the patter of countless hooves filled the air.
Euphemia walked at the rear, her shepherd’s staff in hand, her eyes constantly counting, noting. The world shrank to the moving woolen river and the ever-widening vista of moor and mist as they climbed. She led them to the higher field, a plateau where the grass was sweeter and the heather gave way to greener forage. From here, she could see the dark vein of the River Awe, and the stark, imposing outline of the keep itself, its turrets like stone fangs against the brightening sky. The place where the new lord, the man with the hard eyes, now sat in her own clan’s ancient hall.
She settled on a sun-warmed rock, Tam curling at her feet, and watched her charges spread and graze. The peace was deep, familiar.
But her father’s words echoed, mingling uneasily with the endless sigh of the wind. She shoved a piece of the hard cheese into her mouth, the act deliberate, grounding. The taste was sharp and familiar.
The rhythm of the morning held, a steady beat of watchfulness and small adjustments. Tam would occasionally slink off to turn a wanderer back toward the flock, his movements all efficient tension. She tracked a ewe with a slight limp, making a mental note to check its hoof The sun climbed, burning off the mist to reveal the harsh, beautiful sprawl of land she knew in her Bones the. sound was wrong before she saw its source. It wasn't the brittle chatter of a grouse or the skirl of a hawk. It was the distinct, metallic jingle of harnesses and the crunch of purposeful hooves on stone.
The sound pulled her gaze downhill. Euphemia stood slowly, her hand falling to Tam’s head. The dog had gone still, a low growl vibrating in his throat. Down on the road way a mile distant, a line of six riders emerged from the birch scrub. Five wore dun-colored tunics over links of mail, their helmets catching the flat midday light. The sixth rider wore no helmet. His hair was the short, light color of dried barley. His tunic was a deep, muted green, but his hose were a brilliant, impossible blue.
She had never seen such a blue. It was like a piece of the summer sky had been ripped down and woven into wool. What could go into a dye to turn it that way? Woad, certainly, but mixed with what? Madder? Something precious. How long till it faded under this relentless wind and rain? The thought was purely practical, a barrier against the sudden chill in her chest. The man with the barley-colored hair was now looking at the flock, his head tilted in assessment.
“Easy, Tam,” she murmured, her voice barely audible. The riders had stopped. They were just watching. Her father’s warning about new ways being unkind to shepherds echoed, not as words now, but as a cold weight in her gut. She needed to move, to not be a static thing observed from a distance. Action was a form of shield.
She turned from the distant specter of power and color, forcing her attention back to the task that had occupied her before the jingle of harness. The ewe with the limp stood nearby, favoring its left foreleg. “Right then, you,” she said, her tone deliberately normal. She approached the animal slowly, talking nonsense in a soft, steady stream. With Tam’s help, they gently guided the skittish animal towards a dry, flat rock, using their bodies to block its retreat.
She knelt in the damp grass, the cool moisture seeping through her kirtle. The sheep bleated in protest as she lifted the hoof. The problem was clear: the edges were swollen, the flesh between the clefts soft and foul-smelling. Hoof rot. Only diligent cleaning and dry footing would be of aid. She released the hoof, letting the animal scramble away. It was a mundane problem, a shepherd’s problem, and its familiarity was an anchor.
But the anchor couldn’t hold. Her eyes were drawn back down the slope. The riders hadn’t moved. The man in blue was still watching. A direct, unblinking focus that seemed to bridge the mile between them. It wasn’t curiosity. It was calculation. The sun was overhead, time to lead them to water. The thought was a lifesaving impulse. Euphemia motioned to Tam to start rounding in the sheep. Her hand closed and went towards her chest a signal to Tam
Tam was already a blur of motion, streaking out in a wide, low arc. The flock, sensing the the routine, began to draw together, their bleats rising in a confused chorus. She did not look back at the road. She turned and started walking down hill away from the track, towards the sheltered burn that cut through the northern edge of the plateau. Tam led the sheep after her, the flow of wool and sound following the dog’s insistent, silent pressure.
Her back felt exposed, a broad target for that distant blue gaze. Each step was an effort of will. The mundane rhythm of the day was shattered, replaced by the palpable pressure of being watched, assessed, and found simply… part of the landscape. She kept walking, the brilliant, impractical blue burning in her mind’s eye, a splash of foreign power against the muted heather and stone.
She kept walking, the brilliant, impractical blue burning in her mind’s eye, a splash of foreign power against the muted heather and stone. The sound of the burn grew louder, a welcome, drowning chatter. They reached the stream where it widened over a bed of slick, grey pebbles. The sheep pushed forward, lowering their heads to drink with soft, greedy sounds.
They drank their fill at the stream. Two of the rams, their heavy horns tangled in a stubborn clump of scrub willow, shook their heads in dull frustration, locked together. A third ram simply walked around the obstruction, carrying a trailing vine of it on his horn like some ludicrous crown. She kept an eye on the one with foot rot, trying to keep it on the drier stones as much as possible. They were there a good time. It was as she brought the last of the herd to drink, her boots sinking into the soft mud of the bank, that she saw it.
Under the fresh, blunt crescent of a sheep’s print, pressed deep into the black earth, was another outline. It was larger, with four toe pads and the clear hint of claws. She froze, her breath catching. She scanned the bank up and downstream. There were more, a scattered trail of them, overlapped and following the water’s edge. Wolf prints. They were recent, made after last night’s rain but before her sheep had churned the ground this morning.
TSM, nosing at a clump of grass, made no indication of them being around now. But they had been here. The knowledge settled in her stomach, cold and solid. After the sheep were filled, she directed them down towards the communal pen with a new, sharp urgency. Her earlier unease about the watching lord twisted itself together with this more ancient threat. The new ways from the keep, the old hungers from the wood—both pressed in from different sides.
“Come on then, move,” she said, her voice low and firm. Tam responded, flowing into a wider, tighter pattern, hustling the flock. The pace back was quicker. She no longer looked towards the road where the blue hose had been. Her world narrowed to the backs of her sheep, the tree line now watching with a different intent, and the sure, pressing need to get them behind a fence. The prints meant a scout, possibly a pair. Even a sick wolf who's partner refused to leave The pack would know the herd’s size, its routines.
She crossed the final rise above the village, the thatched roofs and the stone pen a relief in the afternoon light. “Tam, bring them home,” she called. The dog drove them the last stretch towards the open gate of the communal enclosure. As the last ewe stumbled inside, Euphemia swung the heavy gate shut and dropped the oak bar into place with a solid thunk. She leaned against it, the rough wood biting into her palms. The sheep milled, safe for now. She looked from the secure pen to the dark line of the distant wood, then back towards the grim silhouette of the keep on its ridge. One problem required a warning to her neighbors. The other, the source of that watching blue silence, was a mystery she had no idea how to pen.
The other, the source of that watching blue silence, was a mystery she had no idea how to pen. The immediate threat had claws and teeth. She whistled for Tam, who trotted to her side, ears pricked. “Stay,” she commanded, pointing firmly at the closed gate of the sheep pen. The dog understood, settling on his haunches with a resigned sigh, his dark eyes fixed on the flock. She could trust him to bark at anything that came near.
Evening began its slow descent, bleeding the color from the moor as she walked home. The path was a grey ribbon in the fading light, and the first sharp cries of dusk-hunting birds echoed from the wood. Her mind churned with the print’s清晰轮廓, its implicatio—a scout meant the pack was close, weighing the risk. They’d need watchmen tonight.
Her father was still in the kail yard, tying up the last of the mended fence with stripped willow. He saw her face first. “What is it?”
“Wolf sign. At the north burn. Fresh from today.” She kept her voice low, though her mother was inside.
Angus didn’t waste breath. He wiped his hands, his gaze turning toward the scattering of cottage lights down the glen. “I’ll get Alistair and his two sons. They’ve got bows. Old Murdoch will come, for the story if nothing else.” He reached for his heavier cloak hanging on a peg by the door. “We’ll take turns at the pen ‘til dawn. You’ll take the first watch with me.”
Relief, warm and slight, unknotted a fraction of the tension in her shoulders. This, at least, was a known ritual. “I’ll see to the hens,” she said.
She scattered grain for the clucking chickens in their wattle coop, secured the latch, and went inside. The peat fire cast a wavering glow over the single room. Her mother was stirring a thin broth that smelled of onions and the last of the winter kale. “Your father’s gone out in a hurry,” Mary said, not turning from the pot.
“Wolves at the north burn,” Euphemia replied, washing her hands in the basin.
Her mother’s stirring paused for just a second, the only sign of her worry. They ate the broth with bread in a quiet that wasn’t comfortable, but was familiar. The weight of the new laird sat with them at the table, a silent fourth. “That Norman,” Euphemia said finally, pushing her bowl away. “He was watching the flock today. From the road.”
Mary’s worn hands stilled. “What does the Norman want The priest Clement hands it”
“I don’t know how he works,” Euphemia admitted, frustration edging her voice. “Laird Campbell, for all his faults, was a Scot. He let the priest handle the rents, the grievances. You took a cheese to Father Clement, and the message passed. This one… he rides out himself to stare.”
“Then you don’t wait for the priest,” her mother said, her practicality resurfacing. “You ask someone who might know the shape of his mind.”
Euphemia nodded. “Old John.”
The guard John had come over years ago with the first wave of Normans, but he’d stayed when others left or died. He’d married Fia, the Tanners daughter, and his Norman accent had softened into something stranger, a hybrid burr. He was still a man-at-arms at the keep, a link between the old stone and the older community.
She found him at his own cottage near the keep, He looked up, his face broad and friendly, etched with lines from squinting. “Effie Moray. This is about wolves, or about Laird De Hayes?”
News traveled fast. “Both, maybe,” she said, leaning against his fence. “The wolves are ours to handle. My father’s rounding men for the pen tonight. The blue hose the Laird … that’s your world now. What does it mean when he rides out just to look?”
John set down his net, sighing. “It means he’s counting. Aymen de Haye… he’s not a bad man, I think. But he’s a ledger. He sees stone and wants to know if it’s sound. He sees sheep and calculates what they’re worth. He’s trying to understand an asset.” He used the Norman word without thinking. “He’s quiet. Asks more than he tells. The priest, Clement, he’s jumpy as a cat around him.” Never trusted him.
“So if I need to speak to him? About the flock? Do I wait for Sunday and whisper to Clement?”
John shook his head. “No. He’s bypassed Clement already, I hear. If you’ve a thing to say, say it direct. He’s in the keep tomorrow, likely. Just… be clear. He has no time for poetry.”
She thanked him and walked back through the deepening dark, the plan forming. She would go at first light, ask for a moment, state the case for the watchtower on the high field—something Laird Campbell had always promised and never built. It was a practical need, now sharpened by wolf prints. Her father and three other men were already at the pen when she returned, shadows against the greater dark, their low murmurs and the red glow of a pipe the only signs of them. She took her place beside her father, the chill night air settling on her like a damp cloak, and stared into the blackness beyond the wall.
Dawn came, grey and dripping. She had slept a few hours in her clothes. She changed her apron for a cleaner one, retied her wimple, and set off for the keep while the mist still clung to the ground. The path up the ridge was steep, the blackened stones of the outer wall looming suddenly before her. The main gate was open, but a young guard she didn’t know stood there, his hand resting on the pommel of his sword.
“I need to speak with the Laird,” Euphemia said, her voice firmer than she felt. “About the flock. I am Euphemia Moray, a tenant here.”
The guard looked her up and down, not unkindly, but with the blankness of someone following new orders. “The lord is not here. He rode for the monastery at first light with Father Clement.”
A cold splash of frustration. The old laird was gone, the new one was absent, and the priest was with him. The system she knew was null. “Then who holds the keep?”
“The steward, Eadund. You can state your business to him.” The guard gestured her inside the vaulted gate passage. The air within was colder, smelling of damp mortar and old smoke. He led her across a inner courtyard, past a well and a scattering of men milling about, their conversations halting as she passed. They entered the main hall through a side door.
It was not the grand space of song, but a long, high-ceilinged room, surprisingly bare. A few tapestries, faded and fraying, hung on the walls. A fire smoldered in a great hearth. At a trestle table strewn with scrolls and wax tablets sat a man with graying dark hair and a weary, intelligent face. Eadund. He did not look up immediately, his finger tracing a line on a parchment map. The guard announced her and left.
Euphemia stood, feeling the vast space around her, the unfamiliarity of it all pressing in. The man from the road with the blue hose was gone, leaving only this tired-seeming steward in his place. She swallowed, preparing to begin again, to explain about wolves and watchtowers to another foreign face.