Dreams of Scotland, Part 8
And so the following Saturday, after making confession, Breannan and Agnes went down to the stables, which were located a little distance from the castle, on a natural terrace that had been scooped from the side of the plateau on which were located the castle and its grounds. It wasn’t so far that they couldn’t walk, and while it was cold, it was one of those rare winter days when the sky, a brilliant turquoise blue, was clear and the Sun radiated warmth and light. So after rounding up two of Breannan’s men to go with them, they headed for the stables, their boots crunching on days-old snow. (Caitlin, to whom Breannan had turned to supply Agnes with proper winter footwear, had had to hunt to find boots small enough to fit the girl’s feet, but finally remembered the pair she’d salvaged when one of their younger scullions had died of the fever two years before. Caitlin had put the pair of boots into a box full of odds and ends she’d been putting away in case there was need for them - and then had stowed them at the back of the great closet back of the front-room stairs and promptly forgotten them. Brilliant, Kate - next time that happens, you’ll be ready for a stool in the corner, babbling to yourself all day long and unable to care for yourself at all! she’d thought morosely. But the boots were there, and she was able to root them out without too much trouble or making too much of a mess, and they fit Agnes perfectly (well, with two pairs of socks).)
“Do you still want a pony?” Breannan asked Agnes when they reached the stables and went inside.
“I -” Agnes stopped in her tracks. Two hostlers were exercising the beasts, taking out two at a time to walk them around the roomy stables, then taking them back to their stalls and leading out another pair. One of the hostlers had a dark bay pony on a lead, a sturdy, compact beast that seemed utterly calm and cooperative. Its shaggy hair was a perfect winter coat; its hooves were somewhat oversize, just right for tramping the marshes. And its long, thick, straight mane, the length of a woman’s hair, shone warmly under the light from the lit tapers spaced around the central room of the stables in iron wall-sconces, belying the sort of grooming that vain women give to their own hair.
“I see Ailean, there, has caught your eye,” Breannan said to Agenes, grinning.
Agnes looked up at him, hope in her eyes.
“I asked yesterday if the hostlers could groom Ailean and have him ready for inspection today,” Breannan told her, relenting. “Do you like him?”
“Oh, yes, Laird! He is a bonnie thing, his coat is so beautiful! May I actually ride him?” she asked.
“That’s why I’ve had him groomed for you - so we can see if he’s . . . solid enough for you.” Pride, he thought. Don’t offend her pride. Is Ailean competent? Well-behaved? Yes. Gentle? No! “Come, then, Agnes, let me give you an assist, he said, going over to the pony and making a stirrup of his hands close to the animal’s side.
As always, she was quick - quick to understand what he was offering, quick to take advantage of it. Running to the pony, she put her right foot in the cup of his hands and, clutching her skirts close for modesty’s sake, swung her left leg over the pony’s back, with only a minor assist from Breannan. At his direction, she tucked her feet into the stirrups, whose straps one of the hostlers had carefully shortened to accommodate her relatively short legs.
Seated firmly on the thick pad above the pony’s back, as Breannan and his men watched in puzzlement Agnes leaned over and said something in the pony’s right ear, which twitched mildly. Then, straightening up, Agnes said to Breannan and the others, “I just told Ailean, ‘Jesus be with you, and with thy spirit’. He seems to like it, yes?”
Laughing, Breannan said, “Yes, he does.” The pony was standing rock-steady, gently nodding its head up and down as if agreeing with Breannan. “I wonder,” he said, turning to one of the hostlers, “do you think he’ll need to be lead?”
“He’s got a harness on,” said the hostler. “Laird, if she picks up the reins, I’ll wager he’ll do exactly what she wants. He’s an intelligent beast - much more so than some of those pretty A-rab horses than your neighbor Laird McIntyre has! And he’s not half bad looking, either - his coat is thick and shiny, and many a girl would give her left, ah, arm to have hair like his mane.”
Awed at her good luck, Agnes said, “Laird, will I get to care for him? Groom him and feed him and such?”
“Nay, that is the job of the hostlers,” Breannan told her gently. “But you can give him an occasional treat,” he said at her crestfallen expression. “And you will get to ride him, and learn how to get him to do what you want, and let the hostlers know if he picks up a stone under a shoe, or gets a cut, or other misadventure. And you’ll learn a lot about horses and how to care for them and how their minds work from the hostlers and from me.
“Speaking of learning, of course, you have a verra important job now - reading all those interesting books in my study,” he told her, smiling. “That and your work with Bláthín leaves little time for much else.” And letting you come down here to the stables by yourself is too dangerous a game, Agnes, he said to himself. I can trust my men when it comes to me - but I am not so sure I can trust them around a young lady like yersel’ who doesn’t have a couple of brawny escorts with her, or me, for that matter. No, we’d better play it safe, even if I do have to tell a white lie to you about the reasons for it. “All right, Agnes,” he asked her aloud, “are you comfortable there?”
“Oh, yes, Laird,” she told him.
“Stirrups aren’t too far down? The saddle-pad not too thin?”
“No, Laird, I’m fine,” she said.
“All right, then. Andrew, Gillis,” he said to the two men he’d asked to escort him and Agnes, “mount up. Rory, Blane, are their horses ready?” he asked the two hostlers.
“Aye, Laird,” the hostlers told him, each bringing forth a horse into the circle of light from the sconces. Both horses were properly dressed, in saddles and bridles more suitable for men who might have to deal with a sudden emergency in the form of trespassers or worse. Andrew got the chestnut and Gillis the dun, each man putting his left foot into the left-hand stirrup and swinging his right leg up and over the saddle to put his right foot into the right-hand stirrup, just as Agnes had done. How did she know? wondered Breannan. My men are trained for it, but how did this wild young girl know to do it? Ah, well, another interesting mystery among the many that come with her.
“All right, then, let’s get going. We don’t want to waste this rare day - the Sun will be over the meridian soon, and we want to be back home before supper.” So saying, he mounted his horse, a magnificent grey gelding, and settled himself into the saddle with long-practiced skill.
“Aye, Laird,” said Gillis, echoed by Andrew.
Soon the four of them, Breannan and Agnes bracketed by Gillis and Andrew, were ambling along a path that led from the stables down the hill to another path crossing the first almost at right angles. This path, too, sloped downward, but not too steeply, and Agnes had little trouble maintaining her seat. After a while the path leveled out, and there Breannan signaled a halt.
“This is it, my friends,” Breannan said. “Gillis and Andrew, I’m sure you remember bringing our prisoners down here last summer.” Andrew acknowledged the statement with a nod. “You mean the three no-goods who -” A sign from Breannan silenced him. Breannan still wasn’t sure just how ready Agnes was to hear the full, ghastly story. He’d told her part, but not all. That must come later, when he was sure.
“Come lads, Agnes, let us go see if the miscreants are still where we left them,” Breannan said, swinging down from the saddle. As their two escorts likewise dismounted, Breannan helped Agnes down from her pony. Then, leading their horses, with Breannan leading, they followed the path, which continued on at a slope beyond the level area, into a small copse of trees.
The first thing Agnes saw were three cylindrical cages each swinging from one of the branches of a tall tree in the middle of the copse. In each was a skeleton dressed in rags and tatters. The birds had been at them - none of them had hair or beard, which had been harvested by birds for their nests.
At the top of a tree a raven uttered a raucous, cawing cry. Looking up at it, she found herself staring into its shiny black eyes. Did it think she was going to take its treasures, those foul things in the cages?
She was startled to find that the caged remains gave off little smell, foul or otherwise. Between the ravens, various other scavengers, and the passing seasons from summer to autumn to winter, everything that wasn’t bone had been stripped from the bodies of the caged men.
For a long moment she stared at the skeletonized bodies in the cages. Then, dropping her pony’s reins, she bent down and scooped rocks into her hands, and began throwing them as hard as she could at the things in the cages, screaming out obscenities at them. “Bastards! May you burn forever in hell, the way you burned my people! God damn you!” was the very mildest of the things she yowled and snarled. Stunned, reflexively Breannan took her pony’s reins along with those of his own horse, so the pony wouldn’t be so likely to become spooked and run off. Great Christ, what a vocabulary the girl had! The escorts looked appalled, but Breannan carefully stifled a grin. Here he’d been worried that she wasn’t ready to take the full accounting of what they’d learned about the depredations of the three whose bones still rotted here in their cages. Agnes was one tough little lady, he thought admiringly.
Finally Agnes ran out of obscenities and the energy needed to hurl them at the remains of the men who’d murdered her family. Murder . . . Uh-oh, here come the rest of the ravens. We’d best leave here before they run us off with those sharp beaks and talons of theirs, Breannan thought. Sure enough, apparently Agnes’s screams had alerted the flock to which the raven in the tree belonged. And it had likely added its own calls to hers, the two uniting to bring the flock to the tree in a hurry. “Come,” he said, taking Agnes, who was shuddering and muttering in the aftermath of her tantrum, by the shoulder. “We must go now - there’s a murder of ravens coming our way. Andrew, Gillis, mount up - they’ll be on us any time!”
Quickly Breannan helped Agnes to mount her pony, then mounted his horse. With the two escorts following them, he and Agnes rode out of the copse and back up the pathway which had brought them there, heading for home. Agnes seemed a little dazed, but her pony picked up Breannan’s urgency and was quick to follow Breannan’s big grey.
Soon they were back at the stables. Breannan helped Agnes to dismount, then led her back up the hill to the castle. I fear she will have something to confess next week, he thought, chuckling. She could outdo most sailors!
Once back in the castle, Breannan relinquished Agnes to the care of Bláthín, who said nothing at the time but was sure to ask some rather pointed questions of him later. And then, still hiding a grin, he retired to his study, there to wait until supper.
“Do you still want a pony?” Breannan asked Agnes when they reached the stables and went inside.
“I -” Agnes stopped in her tracks. Two hostlers were exercising the beasts, taking out two at a time to walk them around the roomy stables, then taking them back to their stalls and leading out another pair. One of the hostlers had a dark bay pony on a lead, a sturdy, compact beast that seemed utterly calm and cooperative. Its shaggy hair was a perfect winter coat; its hooves were somewhat oversize, just right for tramping the marshes. And its long, thick, straight mane, the length of a woman’s hair, shone warmly under the light from the lit tapers spaced around the central room of the stables in iron wall-sconces, belying the sort of grooming that vain women give to their own hair.
“I see Ailean, there, has caught your eye,” Breannan said to Agenes, grinning.
Agnes looked up at him, hope in her eyes.
“I asked yesterday if the hostlers could groom Ailean and have him ready for inspection today,” Breannan told her, relenting. “Do you like him?”
“Oh, yes, Laird! He is a bonnie thing, his coat is so beautiful! May I actually ride him?” she asked.
“That’s why I’ve had him groomed for you - so we can see if he’s . . . solid enough for you.” Pride, he thought. Don’t offend her pride. Is Ailean competent? Well-behaved? Yes. Gentle? No! “Come, then, Agnes, let me give you an assist, he said, going over to the pony and making a stirrup of his hands close to the animal’s side.
As always, she was quick - quick to understand what he was offering, quick to take advantage of it. Running to the pony, she put her right foot in the cup of his hands and, clutching her skirts close for modesty’s sake, swung her left leg over the pony’s back, with only a minor assist from Breannan. At his direction, she tucked her feet into the stirrups, whose straps one of the hostlers had carefully shortened to accommodate her relatively short legs.
Seated firmly on the thick pad above the pony’s back, as Breannan and his men watched in puzzlement Agnes leaned over and said something in the pony’s right ear, which twitched mildly. Then, straightening up, Agnes said to Breannan and the others, “I just told Ailean, ‘Jesus be with you, and with thy spirit’. He seems to like it, yes?”
Laughing, Breannan said, “Yes, he does.” The pony was standing rock-steady, gently nodding its head up and down as if agreeing with Breannan. “I wonder,” he said, turning to one of the hostlers, “do you think he’ll need to be lead?”
“He’s got a harness on,” said the hostler. “Laird, if she picks up the reins, I’ll wager he’ll do exactly what she wants. He’s an intelligent beast - much more so than some of those pretty A-rab horses than your neighbor Laird McIntyre has! And he’s not half bad looking, either - his coat is thick and shiny, and many a girl would give her left, ah, arm to have hair like his mane.”
Awed at her good luck, Agnes said, “Laird, will I get to care for him? Groom him and feed him and such?”
“Nay, that is the job of the hostlers,” Breannan told her gently. “But you can give him an occasional treat,” he said at her crestfallen expression. “And you will get to ride him, and learn how to get him to do what you want, and let the hostlers know if he picks up a stone under a shoe, or gets a cut, or other misadventure. And you’ll learn a lot about horses and how to care for them and how their minds work from the hostlers and from me.
“Speaking of learning, of course, you have a verra important job now - reading all those interesting books in my study,” he told her, smiling. “That and your work with Bláthín leaves little time for much else.” And letting you come down here to the stables by yourself is too dangerous a game, Agnes, he said to himself. I can trust my men when it comes to me - but I am not so sure I can trust them around a young lady like yersel’ who doesn’t have a couple of brawny escorts with her, or me, for that matter. No, we’d better play it safe, even if I do have to tell a white lie to you about the reasons for it. “All right, Agnes,” he asked her aloud, “are you comfortable there?”
“Oh, yes, Laird,” she told him.
“Stirrups aren’t too far down? The saddle-pad not too thin?”
“No, Laird, I’m fine,” she said.
“All right, then. Andrew, Gillis,” he said to the two men he’d asked to escort him and Agnes, “mount up. Rory, Blane, are their horses ready?” he asked the two hostlers.
“Aye, Laird,” the hostlers told him, each bringing forth a horse into the circle of light from the sconces. Both horses were properly dressed, in saddles and bridles more suitable for men who might have to deal with a sudden emergency in the form of trespassers or worse. Andrew got the chestnut and Gillis the dun, each man putting his left foot into the left-hand stirrup and swinging his right leg up and over the saddle to put his right foot into the right-hand stirrup, just as Agnes had done. How did she know? wondered Breannan. My men are trained for it, but how did this wild young girl know to do it? Ah, well, another interesting mystery among the many that come with her.
“All right, then, let’s get going. We don’t want to waste this rare day - the Sun will be over the meridian soon, and we want to be back home before supper.” So saying, he mounted his horse, a magnificent grey gelding, and settled himself into the saddle with long-practiced skill.
“Aye, Laird,” said Gillis, echoed by Andrew.
Soon the four of them, Breannan and Agnes bracketed by Gillis and Andrew, were ambling along a path that led from the stables down the hill to another path crossing the first almost at right angles. This path, too, sloped downward, but not too steeply, and Agnes had little trouble maintaining her seat. After a while the path leveled out, and there Breannan signaled a halt.
“This is it, my friends,” Breannan said. “Gillis and Andrew, I’m sure you remember bringing our prisoners down here last summer.” Andrew acknowledged the statement with a nod. “You mean the three no-goods who -” A sign from Breannan silenced him. Breannan still wasn’t sure just how ready Agnes was to hear the full, ghastly story. He’d told her part, but not all. That must come later, when he was sure.
“Come lads, Agnes, let us go see if the miscreants are still where we left them,” Breannan said, swinging down from the saddle. As their two escorts likewise dismounted, Breannan helped Agnes down from her pony. Then, leading their horses, with Breannan leading, they followed the path, which continued on at a slope beyond the level area, into a small copse of trees.
The first thing Agnes saw were three cylindrical cages each swinging from one of the branches of a tall tree in the middle of the copse. In each was a skeleton dressed in rags and tatters. The birds had been at them - none of them had hair or beard, which had been harvested by birds for their nests.
At the top of a tree a raven uttered a raucous, cawing cry. Looking up at it, she found herself staring into its shiny black eyes. Did it think she was going to take its treasures, those foul things in the cages?
She was startled to find that the caged remains gave off little smell, foul or otherwise. Between the ravens, various other scavengers, and the passing seasons from summer to autumn to winter, everything that wasn’t bone had been stripped from the bodies of the caged men.
For a long moment she stared at the skeletonized bodies in the cages. Then, dropping her pony’s reins, she bent down and scooped rocks into her hands, and began throwing them as hard as she could at the things in the cages, screaming out obscenities at them. “Bastards! May you burn forever in hell, the way you burned my people! God damn you!” was the very mildest of the things she yowled and snarled. Stunned, reflexively Breannan took her pony’s reins along with those of his own horse, so the pony wouldn’t be so likely to become spooked and run off. Great Christ, what a vocabulary the girl had! The escorts looked appalled, but Breannan carefully stifled a grin. Here he’d been worried that she wasn’t ready to take the full accounting of what they’d learned about the depredations of the three whose bones still rotted here in their cages. Agnes was one tough little lady, he thought admiringly.
Finally Agnes ran out of obscenities and the energy needed to hurl them at the remains of the men who’d murdered her family. Murder . . . Uh-oh, here come the rest of the ravens. We’d best leave here before they run us off with those sharp beaks and talons of theirs, Breannan thought. Sure enough, apparently Agnes’s screams had alerted the flock to which the raven in the tree belonged. And it had likely added its own calls to hers, the two uniting to bring the flock to the tree in a hurry. “Come,” he said, taking Agnes, who was shuddering and muttering in the aftermath of her tantrum, by the shoulder. “We must go now - there’s a murder of ravens coming our way. Andrew, Gillis, mount up - they’ll be on us any time!”
Quickly Breannan helped Agnes to mount her pony, then mounted his horse. With the two escorts following them, he and Agnes rode out of the copse and back up the pathway which had brought them there, heading for home. Agnes seemed a little dazed, but her pony picked up Breannan’s urgency and was quick to follow Breannan’s big grey.
Soon they were back at the stables. Breannan helped Agnes to dismount, then led her back up the hill to the castle. I fear she will have something to confess next week, he thought, chuckling. She could outdo most sailors!
Once back in the castle, Breannan relinquished Agnes to the care of Bláthín, who said nothing at the time but was sure to ask some rather pointed questions of him later. And then, still hiding a grin, he retired to his study, there to wait until supper.