Daniel’s level look spoke for itself, but he elaborated anyway. ‘I do not murder beardless lads. Good morrow, Eva.’
With a nod I took the bucket from its hook beside the hearth and slipped between them.
Jack said, ‘Beardless lads who have been shamed in front of Creed may prove more dangerous than you might yet expect.’
I would have liked to have hung about longer to hear what Jack thought Creed’s unsuccessful spy might try to do to seek revenge, but being on thin ice already with Jack I knew it would be best if I kept to the things that a sister of Fergal’s would logically do. And right now, that meant fetching a bucket of water to start cooking breakfast.
The well had a simple design with a winch and a rope and a hook for the bucket, but hauling the bucket up full was more work than I’d thought it would be. I was leaning my weight on the winch in an effort to speed up the process when Jack banged his way out the back door and started across the yard.
Catching sight of me, he changed direction and came over, saying curtly, ‘Stand aside.’ I couldn’t help but think the force he threw against the winch was more from a release of temper than from any real desire to help me. The bucket all but flew up from the darkness of the well, and when he yanked the bucket from its hook it sloshed a wave of water out to protest such rough treatment.
‘There.’ He thrust the bucket in my hands and turned away, strode off four steps and wheeled again to add, ‘If you do have a voice, you might use it to persuade my brother that there is a time when men must act to aid themselves, and not for honour.’
If I could have answered back, I would have told him there’d be no point in my telling Daniel anything. He was the way he was, and there was no force that could change him.
As I’m sure Jack knew already. With a final glare he turned and carried on towards the stables while I slowly lugged the water back across the yard.
Fergal, newly awake and still yawning, met me at the kitchen door and took the bucket from my hands, following my backwards glance with his quick knowing eyes. ‘Don’t you worry at all about Jack, he’s all bluster. He’s only been penned up alone in the house these past days, and he’s wanting a breath of air.’
I didn’t worry about Jack, as it happened. I knew he would live to a good age. It was the other two men that I worried about.
‘Breakfast,’ said Fergal. ‘And then I’ll be leaving you here to take care of the dinner.’
‘Why? Where are you going?’
‘Lostwithiel.’
‘Why?’
‘Not your business. Now, breakfast.’
‘Does it have to do with the guns you brought back?’
Fergal turned then and gave me a look. ‘I do hope that I never go forwards in time, for I’d not long survive in an age filled with women so curious.’ Setting the bucket down hard on the hearth he said, more firmly, ‘Breakfast.’
But I knew that I was right. And when he rode off in his turn an hour later, I wished hard that he would meet with no adventures on the road.
Daniel was busy upstairs with his books.
The pleasant scent of pipe tobacco met me on the landing when I went up with a mind to make my bed. Instead I went the other way along the corridor and found him in his study, deeply absorbed in a book that looked, even for this time, quite old. Glancing up from his seat by the window, he took the pipe from his mouth for a moment and asked, ‘Did you want me?’
A loaded question, I decided, if I’d ever heard one. Resisting the impulse to answer it, I simply told him, ‘I’ll be starting dinner soon. It’s fish – that’s all that Fergal’s left. How do you like it cooked?’
‘However you desire to cook it,’ was his answer, with a smile. ‘Did he gut them first for you, at least, before leaving?’
‘He did, yes.’
‘A good man.’ Setting his pipe on the table beside him, he rounded his shoulders to stretch them.
I looked at the book he held. ‘What are you reading?’
For an answer he turned it round, holding it open at the title page so I could read the words myself. The Sceptical Chymist. The ‘chymist’ had me stumped a moment, then, ‘A book of chemistry?’
‘You know the science?’
‘Only what I learnt in school.’
‘Which was, no doubt, beyond what even the greatest of our current men of science could yet fathom.’ Giving a nod to the book he said, ‘This man, Richard Boyle, had a very great intellect, although he dwelt too much I think on alchemy. But when I was naught but a babe he conducted experiments dealing with fire and combustion, chemical combustion. I had hoped to find them detailed here, but this book was published before that time. Still, it makes for fascinating reading.’
‘What’s got you interested in chemical combustion?’
‘You. Your self-igniting spills.’ He flipped a page and settled back. ‘It does occur to me that phosphorous might have some useful qualities, but as for the other chemical or chemicals that one might need—’
I cut him off in something close to panic. ‘You can’t do that.’ But he could, I knew. It was the way his brain worked, turning everything he could not understand into a puzzle to be solved. A sort of game. Except, ‘You can’t be messing round with self-igniting matches, Daniel. They’re not meant to be invented till the 1800s.’
He turned another page. ‘Then if I do invent them I shall swear to keep the secret in my family until then.’