Claray and the other women had started their first full day at Deagh Fhortan with splashing the walls and floors of the keep with wine and vinegar from the wine cellar. It had been an effort to kill the moss and mold . . . and hopefully the stench from the animals. While they’d done that the men had first removed the tree inside the keep, and then had used chains and horses to drag the trees out of the ground in the bailey. They’d pulled them out one after the other in quick succession, and stacked them along the wall. As quickly as they’d worked, the men had already had half the trees downed by the time the women finished their work inside and came out at noon.
After a quick repast of oatcakes all around, Claray had led the women out to the orchards behind the keep. They’d spent the afternoon there, pruning the fruit trees in the hopes of improving the harvest when the fruit showed. They hadn’t stopped until the sun was setting. Then Claray and the other women had staggered exhaustedly back around to the front of the castle to find all the trees, but for three Conall wanted to keep, gone from the bailey. It had made for a much more comfortable sleep that night, even if it was out under the stars.
The next morning, Claray and the other women had returned to the keep and started scrubbing down the walls and floors to remove the now dead moss, mold and detritus. That had taken the better part of three days, because the women had had to do it three times to return the stone to its original shine. The women had then moved on to starting the same routine over again in the chapel, though it was a much smaller building and had only taken two days to clean properly. After that, they’d marched on to the gardens, to weed and plant herbs and vegetables.
The men had been just as busy. With the trees down, Conall had set half the men to the task of repairing the curtain wall, while another hundred men had been set to the job of preparing the newly downed trees for use: debarking, riving and hewing them into planks, beams or whatever might be needed for repairs. The last fifty men had been set to the task of building the stables with the wood as it was ready to be used.
It had taken nearly three days to build and roof the horse stables and the connected smaller stables for any creatures she collected, as well as an added room for the stable master to live in. Claray had convinced her husband to add it, thinking it a fair trade for any advice or assistance the man might give her while tending the wee creatures. Allistair had been given the job of stable master and had assured her he’d be happy to help. He’d also thanked her mightily for thinking to give him a room when he’d expected to make do with the loft, or rushing back and forth from the barracks. He was one of the as yet unmarried MacDonald soldiers who had worked with her husband.
Once the stables were done, the men who had worked on them had moved into the now clean keep to remove and replace all the wood damaged by wood rot. That had gone quickly as well and now the keep had two huge, thick entrance doors keeping animals out, doors on the kitchens, the pantry, the buttery and the garderobes, and a fine new wood roof with thatching on it that would later be replaced with lead. They had also been working hard on rebuilding the second floor with bedchambers and stairs leading up to it.
Claray knew it wasn’t done yet, but now that the wagons had come from her father, she wondered if the floor at least might be done so that they could store her bedroom furniture up there rather than in the great hall. She hoped so; there wasn’t enough room for everyone to sleep inside as it was. Half the soldiers were still sleeping in the bailey, and would be until the men finished the keep and could set to work on the barracks roof. She supposed she and the women should start cleaning those buildings next. She would have done already, but food and spices were too important to put off. They would be needed to feed everyone.
“I see Dawy found you,” Lady MacKay said with amusement, coming down the keep stairs as Claray paused by the bottom step to eye the wagons just starting over the drawbridge. There were indeed six of them. The men on the wall must have seen them coming down the hill and informed Conall, who had sent Dawy to her.
“Aye.” Claray couldn’t hold back the grin that spread her lips wide at the thought of having her clothes and things with her. “Did he tell ye they were here too?”
“Aye, I did,” Dawy answered for Conall’s aunt, reminding her of his presence. “I thought ye was in the keep, so’s I went there first looking fer ye, and when I told Lady MacKay why I was hunting ye, she told me where ye was.”
“That I did,” Lady MacKay agreed with amusement, ruffling the boy’s hair.
“Where’s Kenna?” Claray asked, her gaze sliding to the wagons again as they trundled across the bailey toward them.
“She was down in the cellars overseeing the removal of the beer butts and wine casks,” Lady MacKay told her. “I sent one of the other women down to fetch her ere I came out though, so she should be along soon.”
Claray nodded, but mentally struck that chore off her list. They had decided that since they had no idea how the poison had been distributed to the clan twenty-two years ago, it was better to be safe than sorry and get rid of the wooden containers. They needed to purchase more wine and beer anyway to tide them over until they could make their own, and the liquids would come in their own butts and casks that they could then reuse when they were set up to provide for themselves.
That thought made her wonder when Payton and Laird MacKay would return. The two men had ridden out with two dozen men, and a great deal of Conall’s coin, to purchase beer, wine, herbs, cheese, flour, vegetables and livestock for the castle. Now Claray just had to worry about pots, pans, skillets, cauldrons, knives, spoons, ladles, a mortar and pestle, etc.
Oh, and a cook, she thought with a frown.
Unfortunately, while most of what was needed in the kitchens was metal and not prone to wood rot, those items had disappeared over the years that the castle was empty and needed to be replaced. The only reason they hadn’t been added to the list of things for Payton and Laird MacKay to purchase was because Conall had suggested they wait to see what her mother had packed away for her. There was no sense buying it and possibly ending up with duplicates of different objects. Since her things were supposed to arrive soon, she’d agreed.
“Oh, look! Six wagons, Claray! Goodness, I can no’ wait to see what’s in them.”
Claray grinned at that happy cry from Kenna as the other woman rushed down the stairs to join them.
“Do ye ken what all yer da sent?” Kenna asked.
“Nay,” Claray said, and then admitted, “Well, aye. Some. Conall said Da was sending me clothes and the furniture from me bedchamber. He also said me mother packed away linens and such to gift me with when I married, but I’ve no idea what all that includes,” she admitted.
Kenna nodded, and then glanced past her and grinned. “Here comes Conall. He’s looking cranky.”
Claray turned to follow her gaze and bit her lip when she saw her husband’s expression. He was looking exasperated and irritated and the way he kept scowling over his shoulder at the four men following him told her why. He was not taking at all well to being guarded, and if the men trailing after him were his own men, she had no doubt he would have ordered them away from him by now.
Unfortunately for him, the four men on his heels were all MacKays. Laird MacKay had ordered Gilly, Machar and two other MacKay soldiers to not let him out of their sight since the near miss with the arrow by the pond. She understood why. It was the same reason she had Roderick, Hamish, Hendrie and Colban following her. They were trying to protect them. But she also understood her husband’s annoyance. Or should she say frustration? Because that’s what it was. She was extremely frustrated with the situation as well. Not only were they tripping over their own guards all the day long, but sleeping in the great hall every night, surrounded by the entire population of Deagh Fhortan, meant they were never alone. Her husband hadn’t bedded her since the pond, and lying beside him night after night, without getting to enjoy his kisses and caresses, was extremely hard. The longer it went on, the harder it got, and the crankier Conall seemed to get.