Page 45 of Her Highland Prophecy
A knock on the door came as she pinned the shawl around her shoulders. Expecting it to be Gordain, she moved quickly toward it only to find an older woman waiting for her outside.
“Guid morning, Mistress,” she said. “Master Gordain asked me to take ye to meet his sisters.”
“I thought he would be here himself?” she said. He had told her that he would show her how to get around the Castle today, hadn’t he?
“I dinna ken, Mistress. He is off hunting with his cousin and they will be back in time for supper. They usually are.”
She deflated slightly. She had been anxious about seeing him after the previous evening, but even so, she had had been looking forward to spending time with him.
She would just have to wait until he returned.
“Very well. Will you please take me to meet Mabel and Joan then?” she asked.
“Aye, follow me, lass,” the old woman said and Diana stepped out into the hallway behind her.
Unlike her pace with Gordain the previous evening, the woman seemed to hurry and did not linger.
Even so, Diana noticed the various tapestries lining the walls that it had been too dark to clearly see the night before. Some of them were small, barely a few feet tall, while others seemed to span the entire width and height of the entire corridor. Each of them was embellished with vines and flowers, the scenes they portrayed vivid, even if the choice in colors was often muted in earthy tones.
It was a historian’s paradise. She wanted to stop in front of each one and analyze the patterns in it and try to guess what scene it was portraying. Maybe she could even get more information about the older tapestries. The ones that in her time there was little information to be found.
By the time they reached the kitchens she was giddy with anticipation of exploring everything the Castle had to offer. The blast of heat from the wood burning oven in the corner of the room was less welcome after their brisk walk around the Castle, but she quickly adjusted.
“Diana! Over here!” one of the twins called as soon as they spotted her entering the room. She made her way to them, noticing that they were standing at a table set a little farther away from the main kitchen area, surrounded by a small group of young women.
The twins were dressed similarly to the previous evening, with one of them wearing her hair up and the other wearing it loose. She wondered if it was done purposefully so that people could tell them apart.
“Good morning, Mabel,” she said to the twin who had called her and received a beaming smile in response. She had guessed correctly then.
“Good morning, Joan,” she said more quietly to the other girl. Joan looked at her funny, before responding quietly.
“Good morning, Diana. Are ye ready to help us then?” she asked, pointing to the mountain of berries in front of them.
If she were being honest with herself it looked a little daunting, but she had never been one to back away from a challenge. She pulled up her sleeves and approached the table, exchanging glances with the other women who were already hard at work.
Mabel appeared at her elbow with a small knife in her hand that she handed to Diana.
“We need to clear the leaves off the berries. After that we will soak them in water to take off the soil. Ye can use this knife for the leaves if ye need it,” Mabel explained and she nodded, approaching the table with a bit of trepidation.
She had never assisted in anything like it before. In her house, the cook had presided over the kitchen with an iron fist and they had not been allowed entry, although she was certain that any jam in her house had been purchased from the store, rather than made from scratch.
Determined not to fail, she picked up a strawberry and tried to push the knife through it, up against her finger like the other women were doing. The berry resisted for a moment and then the knife impacted her thumb, causing her to hiss out in pain as a small line of blood pooled on the surface of her finger.
A chorus of muffled giggles echoed around her but when she looked up, everyone was busy with the fruit in front of them except for Joan who was looking at her with a look that was somewhere between surprise and pity.
“Ye have never cut berries before?” she asked. Diana colored slightly. She looked down at her thumb where the bloodflow was already easing from the shallow cut.
“I do not usually help out in the kitchen,” she said softly. “But I want to learn,” she added not wanting to seem like the Sassenach Princess Gordain had deemed her to be.
Joan smiled kindly and then moved over to stand beside her. She pulled the knife from Diana’s had and corrected her grip.
“Ye can hold it like that. It will help ye have more control so ye dinnae cut yerself again.”
“Thank you,” Diana said and picked up another berry to try again. She was much more careful this time. The knife felt awkward in her hand, but the motion that Joan had shown her seemed to do the trick and the green top came off easily.
They settled into a pattern after that, working through the berries in front of them at a slow pace. The other three women with them, who Diana learned were all distant cousins, gradually started chatting more and slowly a camaraderie emerged between them.
“How did ye and Gordain meet then?” a round woman, who Diana had learned was called Isobeail, asked.
