Page 43 of The Heather Wife
And beside it—Calum.
He straightened as she stepped into the clearing, a faint smile tugging at his mouth.
“I thought ye might find use for a sturdier foe than the poor trees,” he said, his tone easy, almost careful. “I ken ye’ve fine aim enough, but the oaks were beginning to look weary of the fight.”
Her brow lifted, though a reluctant curve tugged at her lips. “They’ve suffered worse from storms than from me.”
“Aye,” he allowed, “but still—they can rest now.”
Her gaze lingered on the new pell, tracing the hammer marks along the leather bindings. For a heartbeat, gratitude stung behind her ribs, though she forced it down. Kindness from him was a strange, unsteady thing; she did not yet know whether to trust it.
He handed her a stave and took another for himself. The air hung crisp between them, breath clouding in soft white puffs as wood met wood in measured strikes. At first, they moved in silence—the kind born of focus, not distance.
Then, between blows, Calum spoke.
“Your training seems to be going well,” he said. “The ones who’ve joined you are showing real progress.” Then he looked up, concern etched in his eyes. “I know they’re grateful for your dedication, but do ye ever rest?”
Her stave came up sharply to meet his. “There’s little time for rest when work’s to be done—and with winter comin’, now’s hardly the time to grow idle.”
He gave a low hum of agreement, eyes tracking her stance. Then he circled her slowly, his voice quiet. “Your discipline runs deep, lass. Where did ye learn it—who taught ye to hold so fast?”
The question caught her off guard. “Why do ye ask that?”
“Because,” he said, lowering his weapon, “I’ve oft wondered what forged the strength I see in ye. My father spoke once of the raid at Glenbrae—of your mother’s death, and what ye did after. But he told me, if ever I wished to ken more, I’d have to ask ye myself. So I’m askin’ now.”
His tone was gentle, not probing. He looked at her not as a laird weighing his lady, but as a man searching for a truth he should have long known. It disarmed her more than any blade could have.
“She’d been teaching me—my mother, I mean,” Sorcha said at last. “Not how to fight, but how to keep a house—how to tally grain and cloth, how to mind the stores and the people both. I’d been restless, complaining that my brothers were learning to wield swords while I counted sacks. God help me, I’d made plain how unfair it was that I couldna train beside them. I told her I wanted to carry the stores as well as tally them, and she laughed—asked if I meant to lift every barrel myself.”
A ghost of a smile flickered across her lips, gone as swiftly as it came.
“I was so angry then. I thought her lessons dull, pointless. I’d tell her so, always claiming I wanted to do something that mattered. She would aye reply, ‘It all matters, lass. Ye’ll see.’”
Her grip tightened on the stave. “The day the raiders came, she sent me to hide. But I ran out when I heard her cry.”
She swallowed hard. “When I found her, she was already on the ground. The man standing over her—he laughed when he saw me. A child, clutching a rusted blade I’d found by the stables days before. He laughed until I ran at him and drove it into his side. I meant only to stop him, but when he fell—”
Her voice caught. The sound of her own pulse roared in her ears, her breath turning harsh. She swung the stave once, twice, striking the pell with rising force.
“I remember thinking she might have been disappointed in me for having the blade—for not holding to the duty she’d tried to teach me. She told me to run, and I disobeyed. I couldnae stay hidden when I heard her cry. I ran out and drove the blade into the man who’d struck her down,” she said softly. “But when she looked at me—” Her voice faltered. “There was wonder in her eyes. I’ve never kenned if she truly saw me… or if she was already too far gone.”
Calum lowered his weapon, watching her in silence.
For a long moment, she said nothing. The only sounds were her ragged breath and the thud of her blows against the new pell—again and again, each one heavier than the last, each one carrying the weight of years unspoken.
“I worked hard after that,” she went on, voice rough. “For Glenbrae. For our folk. When my eldest brother wed—his wife no older than I—I helped her learn the ledgers, where every sack and cask was kept. I told myself it was right. That soon enough I’d have my own keep to tend.”
The stave struck harder against the post, the soundringing through the clearing.
“But when I wed you,” she said, not looking at him, “no one cared. Not a word from home. No letters. No visits. At first, I told myself they were busy—protectin’ their borders. But after you and your warriors returned from aidin’ them in battle, they could have written. They could have sent word. Yet it has been near six months, Calum. Six months.”
Her voice broke with the last word, anger splinterin’ into something rawer.
“I did everything asked of me. I kept to duty, to grace, to silence. I served my clan, and still I was forgotten. Then I came here, and your folk treated me no better. You treated me no better. As though I were an inconvenience rather than a person. You let another stand where I should have stood—take credit for my work, speak in my stead—and your clan followed suit, because they saw it was your will. You and they—no better than my kin at Glenbrae. I was again only seen for what I could give, never for who I was.”
Her arms shook with the effort of holding back the tide. “I thought marriage would give me a place again—a home, a purpose. Instead, I found myself vanishing piece by piece, until there was naught left of the lass I’d hoped to be—free to be both duty and the lady of the keep, and me.”
Her strikes grew faster, harder, until her breath came ragged. “I waited. I waited, and still—nothing.”
