Suddenly Adair spoke up. “Can you fish, sir?”
Murdoc grinned. “Aye. ’Tis only after the noon hour.
I’ll go and catch a few trout. Can you make do with some fish, Mistress Elsbeth?”
“I can,” she told him, and with a wave he was gone, taking the two boys with him.
“Go into the kitchen garden and see what you can find to put in the pot, child,” Elsbeth told her mistress.
“And then you’ll have to find something to serve the food on, as we have no trenchers. And utensils.”
Adair went into the pantry and found a hanging basket. Taking it outside with her, she searched the little garden. She found carrots and some small cabbages, and dug a few more onions. She also picked some parsley and dill. Someone had obviously kept the garden for a time after the death of the laird’s mother or else there would have been no vegetables. She had spotted both spinach and lettuce among the weeds. Taking her finds back into the kitchen, she prepared them at Elsbeth’s direction. Adair wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with cooking. Stanton had not been an overly formal household. She had finally finished paring and cutting the vegetables, and then dusted off a stack of wooden plates she had discovered on a high shelf in the pantry by the time Murdoc returned carrying a goodly string of fish. And while he cleaned the fish for Elsbeth, Adair took a cloth and small bucket of water and crept up the stairs into the hall. To her relief it was empty. Hurryingto the high board, she scrubbed it down as best she could.
When the laird of Cleit sat down to his table that night he was very surprised to discover the meal set before him. There was a goose roasted and stuffed with bread, apples, and pears; a broiled trout sprinkled with dill; a potage of vegetables, bread, butter, cheese, and baked apples with heavy golden cream. His men at the trestles below were oddly silent, and he wondered why.
“What are they eating?” he asked Murdoc.
“Elsbeth made them a savory stew of vegetables and fish; and there is bread and cheese, and stewed apples,”
Murdoc said. “She says she would like to speak with you after the meal in the kitchens, if it would please you.”
“Why were you in the kitchens?” the laird wanted to know. “You are not to go sniffing around either of those two women. I’ll not have it!”
Murdoc burst out laughing. “You need not worry, big brother,” he said. “Elsbeth is more maternal than seductive. As for her companion, I saw the way you looked at her, though I cannot see what you find so alluring about the wench. She’s sharp-tongued, short-tempered, and smells like a cesspit. But part of your good dinner is thanks to me. I brought the wood and started the fire in the hearth again. It had been allowed to go out.AndI caught the fish you so enjoyed, and that our men enjoyed.”
“Oh,” Conal Bruce said.
Duncan Armstrong chuckled as he spooned the
baked apples and cream up from his plate. “I think we have a treasure in this Elsbeth,” he said.
“Aye,” the laird admitted. “Perhaps she was worth the half groat Willie Douglas wanted, though I should never tell him that.”
In the kitchens Elsbeth and Adair ate a supper of vegetable potage and toasted cheese and bread. They were tired, not just from their long day, but from the last few days. Adair had wept for several hours after theyleft Stanton, but since then she had hardened herself to whatever was going to come. Finally Elsbeth stood up.
“I’ll go up to the hall and collect the plates and spoons,” she said. “You get some hot water in that stone sink.” She bustled off up the stairs. When she returned some minutes later carrying a pile of plates she was followed by young Murdoc, who was aiding her, and had an armful of goblets and spoons. “Thank you, dearie,”
Elsbeth said to him. “Now run along back upstairs, and join the rest of the men. I do thank you for all the good help you have given us today.”
“Your dinner was the best we’ve had in months!”
Murdoc said enthusiastically as he left the kitchens.
Elsbeth chuckled, pleased.
“The water is hot for washing,” Adair said.
“I’ll wash; you dry,” the older woman replied. “You don’t want your hands all roughened and unladylike.”
“It would appear I’m hardly a lady anymore,” Adair remarked softly.
“You was born a lady, you’ve been raised a lady.
You’ll always be a lady!” Elsbeth said sharply. “You’ve fallen on hard times, my chick, but times change.”
“I’ve discovered where we will sleep,” Adair said.
“There’s an alcove off the pantry with two bed spaces in the stone walls. The pallets seem clean and free of vermin, but I took them outside and shook them out nonetheless, and I’ve scrubbed the stone spaces. But there are no coverlets. We’ll have to use our cloaks tonight.”
