Having rearranged the house to her liking, she decided to set about the weed-clogged piece of ground outside the back door, intending to turn it into a herb patch, with perhaps a few cabbages and suchlike. The fact that they would not be staying long enough for her to reap the fruits of her labours, as Duncan pointed out, was beside the point. She would at least have made a start. Perhaps someone else would tend the plot while she was absent, and when they returned permanently, as she hoped they would, and soon, they would be thankful for the extra food, which would provide some variety from the staple diet of oatmeal.
She pulled up the lightly rooted weeds, scythed down the rest, and had just resigned herself to making a start on the heavy work of digging, when Rob MacGregor poked his nose round the side of the cottage.
"Would ye be wanting some help with that?" he asked. "It's awfu' heavy work."
She planted the spade in the soil and smiled at him. Fourteen years old, and indolent, with the black hair and grey eyes of his three brothers and deceased sister Jean, he was not one to normally volunteer for anything, although Beth did not know that. She did know that fourteen-year-old males are usually permanently hungry.
"I'll do you a deal," she said. "I've just made a batch of oatcakes. You turn this patch over, and you can eat as many as you want."
In the end the fourteen-year-old had proved himself so hungry that she had to make another batch of oatcakes for the three ravenous men who descended from the mountain that evening, having spent the whole day practising their sword skills. It looked to her as though they had spent the day rolling in the mud and getting as dirty and torn as they possibly could, so she shooed them out to wash in the loch while she tried to remember how Jane had gutted and prepared rabbits for the pot.
She was still trying to remember when they returned, clean, their hair dripping, and while Duncan expertly turned the furry corpses into pot-sized chunks of meat, Beth, Alex and Angus went outside to survey the prospective herb plot.
Angus whistled through his teeth.
"You've done an amazing job," he said, eyeing her with admiration. "I wouldna have expected ye to do half of that in one day."
"Yes, well, Rob helped me," she admitted. "I cleared all the weeds, and moved most of the stones," she pointed to a pile of rocks, "and he did the digging. And ate all the oatcakes I'd made for the four of us."
"Rob?" said Alex incredulously. "Ye dinna mean Robbie Og?"
"Yes," she said. In a group where almost everyone had the same surname, and a great many owned a Christian name in common too, people were usually identified by an additional appropriate adjective. Hence Rob Og, or young, being the youngest of his family. Alex Mòr, or tall, for her husband, Angus Ban, or fair, for her brother-in-law. And so on. She was merely Ealasaid, which was Gaelic for Elizabeth, as there were no others of that name.
"Now that I'd like to have seen," Angus said. "Your oatcakes are good, I'll give ye that, but I still wouldna have thought them good enough to get Robbie Og off his arse."
She thought nothing of it, then. Nor did she think anything amiss the following day when Simon offered to carry the buckets of water back from the river for her. Until later in the day when she noticed Simon's pregnant wife Janet struggling back with two brimming pails while he sat chatting with a couple of other men.
"They think you're frail," Angus said with tactless honesty when she asked him if it was normal for clansmen to treat the chief's wife differently to the other women.
"Frail?" she said. She hadn't expected that.
"Well, look at ye, compared to the other women. Ye are smaller than them."
"Janet's the same size as me," Beth pointed out indignantly. "Or nearly, anyway. And she's pregnant!"
"Aye, but she's wider through the shoulders and hips than you. And she's strong, and used to the life."
"I'm strong, too," she protested. They were walking back from the river together. And he was carrying the water for the evening. He looked down at her and she saw the doubt in his eyes. She stopped walking, and when he would have carried on, she grabbed his arm, causing him to slop some of the water on the grass.
"Does everyone think I'm frail?" she said. "Even you?"
He put the buckets down, and looked uncomfortable.
"Aye, well, I hadna thought much of it before," he said. "But ye are delicate, are ye no'? I ken that ye're a lot stronger than ye look," he added hurriedly, seeing the look on her face that in her husband would presage a physical assault, and attempting, belatedly, to be tactful. "Ye just need to build yourself up, slowly, that's all." He bent down to pick up the buckets, and she slapped his hands away crossly, hoisting them up herself and striding off across the grass.
"I said I'd carry those for ye!" he protested when he caught up with her.
"Yes, well, I won't get to build myself up if everyone insists on doing everything for me, will I?" she said through gritted teeth.
"Beth, there's nae reason to take on so," he said placatingly, snatching at one bucket and succeeding in prising it from her fingers. "Ye canna help it that ye're weak, ye've no' … "
Whatever he'd been about to say was lost in a gasp as the contents of the other pail of water hit him full in the face.
"Thank you for telling me the clan thinks I'm a feeble, exotic flower, about to expire at the slightest exertion," she said. "I can, now you've explained it, understand why they might think so. You, however, have known me for over a year. You've seen me ride for three days at a time with hardly any sleep, drag Sir Anthony's trunks full of clothes up and down stairs, and lug endless buckets of water upstairs for baths, since the only other help we have at home is Maggie. I thought you, at least, would have known better!" She glared at the empty bucket, and turned back to the river. "Leave the water there and go home," she called back over her shoulder. "Make sure the stew doesn't boil dry. I'll be there in a few minutes, when I've calmed down."
He left the water there and went home, dripping, to be greeted by the amused grins of his brothers, which soon disappeared as he told them how he'd come to be drenched.
"Ye could have put it a wee bit better," Duncan said, revealing that he also agreed with Angus with regard to his sister-in-law's physical state.
"Aye, well, I've no' got your gift for tact, man, and I didna think she'd take it so amiss. After all, she is tiny, is she no'?"
Alex rubbed his hands through his hair.
"She is. But she's verra sensitive about it, too."
"I ken that, now," said Angus dryly, dragging his sopping shirt over his head.
"She's spent her whole life no' being taken seriously on account of she's wee, being patted on the head and treated like a bairn by patronising men. She'd no' appreciate thinking that the whole clan feels that way about her," Alex said, not admitting his own doubts. "She wants to be accepted on equal terms."
"Will ye have a word wi' her about it?" Duncan said.
"No, not unless she raises the subject," Alex replied.
He was not being a coward. Now she knew, it would be interesting to see how she dealt with the problem herself.
* * *
Peigi MacGregor paused in her labours, tucking a wayward strand of hair behind her ear before pressing her fingers into the base of her back. She remained like that for all of ten seconds, before diving across the room and out of the door to wrestle a large and wriggling worm from her son's hand before he could succeed in his intention of putting it in his mouth.
"Yeuch!" she cried, then softened her voice as the child's face began to crumple. "Ye dinna want tae eat that, a leannan." She picked the infant up for a moment, swinging him high in the air to take his mind off the tasty treat he'd just been deprived of. His twin, still sitting on the blanket, made a mew of complaint at the attention his brother was receiving and lifted his arms to her to be picked up. Peigi sighed. This was impossible. Normally Alasdair would look after the bairns, or someone else with nothing to do would. But today everyone was busy, and she had, insanely, thought she could make butter and keep an eye on her two normally placid babies, who today had become possessed by some demon and seemed intent on crawling off the blanket she'd placed them on and into as much mischief as possible.
A shadow fell across her, and she squinted up to look into the smiling face of the chieftain's wife.
"Hello, Peigi, isn't it? I was told you're making butter, and I've come to see if I can be of any help."
Peigi put the baby down and admonished him to stay there in her sternest voice. Then she stood, and eyed her helpmate dubiously.
"Aye, well, I was just about to drain off the buttermilk, when this wee loon decided tae eat a worm." She went over to a pail of water and washed her hands briskly. "Ye can keep an eye on they two while I carry on, an ye want."