Page 30 of The Merciless Laird
"Hold."
The gates were already opening as they rode in, someone having spotted them on the path down, and Ivar brought his horse through at a walk and let the clan look.
They looked.
He'd expected it, of course. News traveled fast on a small island and his people were not ones for pretending they hadn't heard something when they had.
They lined the yard in the way people lined yards when they were trying to appear as though they'd simply been there already.
Stable hands who'd found reasons to be near the gate, kitchen women who'd stepped out for air at a convenient moment, threeof his older council members who were doing an unconvincing impression of a casual conversation near the keep steps.
He dismounted and turned back to the horse.
Matilda was already moving to dismount herself, which he'd expected, and he put his hands at her waist before she'd finished deciding how to manage it. She let him, which meant the crossing had tired her more than she was going to say.
He set her on the ground and stepped back immediately.
She straightened her cloak. Looked at the yard. Looked at the people looking at her.
To his surprise, Matilda didn't shrink. She didn't perform either, no smile, no attempt to win anyone over. She just stood there and let them look back, calm and still and utterly composed.
He watched two of the kitchen women exchange a glance, before he turned to Torvald. "Get them stabled and fed, brither. Council in an hour."
"Aye." Torvald took the reins, then looked at Matilda briefly. He offered a sharp, singular nod of approval, then he moved on.
Sigrid was on the steps.
She'd been his housekeeper for six years, and she had learned how to assess situations quickly. She equally had opinions about them that she kept to herself until they were useful.
She was looking at Matilda now with the focused attention of someone trying to make up her mind.
"Sigrid," he said. "This is Lady Matilda MacInnes. She's had a long night and a longer mornin'. See tae her, please."
"Aye, me laird." Sigrid's eyes moved to him briefly, then back to Matilda. "Chamber's been prepared already, we were expecting ye."
"Good." He lowered his voice by half, making sure Matilda wouldn’t hear him. "Put candles in her chamber, as many as ye have. Keep them lit."
Sigrid didn't ask why. That was one of the things he valued most about her. "All of them?"
"All of them. And dinnae let them burn out without replacin' them."
She nodded once, no questions, no looks, and turned to Matilda with the brisk warmth of a woman who had decided something and intended to act on it.
"Come, me lady. I'll show ye the way. There's hot water waitin' and somethin' tae eat if ye need it."
Matilda glanced back at him once and nodded. It was clearly not a request for permission, but the acknowledgment of a silent bridge that had built between them in the chaos of the yard. Then she followed Sigrid up the steps and through the door and was gone.
He stood in the yard for a moment.
"She held up well," Torvald said, from beside him, not looking at him.
"Aye," Ivar said. "She did."
He turned toward the Great Hall and put it out of his mind. He had an hour.
The council chamber was low-ceilinged and smelled of tallow.
His Council was already there when he arrived. Torvald at his right, Bronn––grey-haired and sharp-eyed, who'd served Ivar's father before him––at the far end with the expression of a man who'd been saving opinions, old Einar with his hands flat on the table and his eyes sharp as always, and two others who filled their chairs without doing much else.
