Page 39 of The Splendor of Fire
Fisting her hands, Moira seethed, then pointed her right index finger, mouthing,YOU.
She swept the finger in an arc and froze.TOLD.
She pointed the finger in her own face.ME.
Sweeping her arms wide she looked around the room, holding them aloft.TO DO THAT.
Ardis crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t understand what you’re saying. Do you think you can handle everything I just told you to do?”
Defeated, she nodded.
Ardis rolled her eyes and turned on her heel. “Good.”
Moira began sweeping up the rushes and piling them in the corner of the room. For two months she had put up with Ardis, a fellow chambermaid in no way senior to her. Rather than telling Moira prior to a task how Lady MacKinnon preferred to have things done, Ardis seemed to wait until Moira was finished to tell her it was wrong and needed to be done again. For weeks she’d endured comments like…is there a reason you did it that way?And,that may be the way you do things, but we do it this way.If the result was a cleaned room, Moira failed to understand why it mattered how she did things.
Specks of dust floated through early morning light as she swept up the rushes she had scattered over the servant’s hall only yesterday, and she hacked and hurried over to the window to open the shutters.
Outside, clouds blanketed over Loch Slapin and she paused for a moment in the misty cold, taking a deep breath of fresh air, and watching a sea eagle make a lazy swoop over the harbor, circling the rippling gray water.
The graceful hunter patrolled its territory with a discerning eye, then suddenly picked up speed and bore down on a sparrow, snatching it within its talons and swooping up into the mist, to a place the sparrow would meet its death. She thought of Niall. Was she the eagle or the sparrow?Lord, what do I do?
Filled with evil, Niall had brought her to his chamber that wretched night Father was murdered. She’d fought him with all she had, and managed to connect her elbow with his wounded mouth and her knee with his groin. If he expected she would meekly accept her fate like all the other lemans of Dun Ringill, he had another thing coming. She would rather die.
Angry, but pragmatic, Niall had locked her in the auld dungeon ofDun Ringill to break her will, and there she’d stayed for two days, happy to be away from him.
On the third day, when she still rejected his advances and attacked like a crazed cat every time he came near he’d decided to change his tack and made her a scullery in the kitchen, intending for her to come willingly to him if he made her life miserable enough. He hadn’t been expecting flies in his dinner, scorched porridge in the morning, vinegar in his wine. Outsmarted, he turned her over to his mother. An effective punishment indeed.
Malvina MacKinnon was a domineering woman permanently imbued with her power as lady of the clan though her husband was long dead. Within the walls of Dun Ringill there had been no passage of time, and though her son was now the leader of the MacKinnons in name, everyone continued to bend to Malvina’s will. And so, by Malvina’s will Moira was made a chambermaid.
Unafraid and unimpressed by her new mistress’ icy resolve, Moira persisted with her revolt and washed Malvina’s hand mirror with a mixture of flour and water. The woman’s cold black eyes took in Moira’s handiwork without a flicker of emotion and then, without warning, she’d nearly beaten Moira unconscious with the heavy silver. Bloodied and senseless, the housekeeper helped Moira to her bed, where she was forced to recover for more than a week. In the end, Malvina had achieved what Niall had not—a compliant servant.
Moira pressed her lips together and sucked in a strengthening breath of harvest wind. Refocusing on the task at hand, she swept the rushes into a neat pile and began to bundle them.
Isobel stuck her head in the hall. “What are you doing, Moira?”
She gestured to the bare stone floor and motioned a scrub brush with her hand.
“Didn’t you change the rushes yesterday?”
A beat of suspicion stilled her. She nodded.
“Why are you washing them, then?”
Exasperated, she dropped her broom and formed her sign for Ardis.
Isobel brought a hand to her wrinkled cheek. “Oh dearie, no. We only scrub the floors in the great hall because no rushes cover the floor in that room. The servants’ hall has rushes changed every otherweek, and we scrub twice a year. They were scrubbed last in June. No need for a scrub for two months’ time.”
That cat.
Isobel’s fading blue eyes studied Moira’s sign for Malvina. “I will discuss it with Lady Malvina, but willnae mention your name. If she gets it in her head that you’ll be the one performing the task, you’ll be scrubbing every floor in the keep.”
As the longest-serving member of the Dun Ringill staff, Isobel had earned the unquestioning respect of both the servants and the family as housekeeper. Conscientious and kind, it was difficult for even the crooked MacKinnons to find a fault in the auld woman. A near-impossible feat, as far as Moira could tell.
Isobel waddled over and took the broom from the floor. “I was about to go upstairs and see to the pots. I’ll fix this before Malvina comes down, you make yourself scarce and get them collected.”
Moira blew her a kiss and made the few signs Isobel knew.Thank you, Isobel.
“No trouble. And lass?”
