Page 16 of Steel & Surrender

She was getting ahead of herself though. The ring still needed a bit of work before it could be worn.

Sighing, Brìghde massaged a stiff muscle in her shoulder.

She’d worked long, the day vanishing around her, but had left time for a personal project. She was secretive about the iron ring she was making—a little shy of showing it to anyone. She wasn’t even sure why she’d started it, only that she couldn’t seem to stop. She’d even picked up some finer tools from Craignure a few days earlier for the engraving.

“Supper’s ready!” Eòghan bellowed through the open doorway, yanking Brìghde from her task.

“I’ll be right there,” she called back, picking up the ring and placing it on a high shelf, out of sight. She looked forward to working on it again, a respite from the mountain of paid jobs that kept piling up. Something creative that fed her soul.

A short while later, she stepped outdoors and heaved in a lungful of damp, fresh air.

It was still light, as, at this time of year, darkness fell late. Supper had come and gone for most folk, and a group of local children raced by, chasing each other, their squeals piercing the gloaming.

Watching them go, Brìghde’s lips curved. There was something about the joy of bairns that always lightened her heart.

She lingered there, breathing deeply, her gaze sweeping across the cloudy sky, before she eventually closed the door to her forge. She then made her way around to the bothy she shared with her family. As always, a tub of warm water, a cake of rough lye soap, and a drying sheet sat on a table outside the door. Her mother liked her to clean up instead of bringing a trail of soot indoors, and Brìghde didn’t blame her. Hers was a dirty profession.

She’d stripped off her apron in the forge and hung it by the door before leaving. She brushed herself down now, making sure there was no ash or soot on her clothing. Her kirtle and the lèine she wore underneath it were always permanently stained grey.

Then, picking up the soap, she lathered her bare arms and hands, sluiced them off, and then washed her face. The drying sheet came away black.

She then poured the cooling water into the sprawling growth of rosemary nearby and brought the bowl and other items indoors with her, heeling her boots off just inside.

The aroma of frying bannocks hit her then, the nutty, oaty smell making her belly rumble. It was a usual supper for them: a vegetable pottage, bannock, and hard goat cheese. Like the rising and setting of the sun and the turn of the seasons, it was something she could always rely upon.

Her mother was there, bustling around the hearth and adding final seasonings to the pottage. Her brother and father were already perched on stools around the hearth, waiting for Ada to serve up.

“There ye are,” her brother greeted her. “Finally. What kept ye?”

“I was just enjoying some fresh air after the smoky forge,” she replied. “Sometimes, I forget there’s a whole world out there. I get so engrossed in my work that I lose time.”

Her father huffed, sightless eyes moving in her direction. A wry smile then curved his lips.

“It was often like that for me, too, lass,” he sighed. “There is a magic to forging iron. Sometimes, I used to feel like a druid of old.”

His wife muttered something under her breath at this before making the sign of the cross. “What nonsense, Breac,” she said, although her voice held little force. “Don’t go putting such strange ideas in yer daughter’s head … or yer son’s.”

Brìghde smiled, crossing to the hearth and lowering herself down onto a stool. “It is magic, though,” she added, before catching Eòghan’s eye across the fire, “and one ye’ll master one day too.”

“Aye, if that lad ever stops idling,” Ada replied, ruffling Eòghan’s hair.

The boy made an annoyed sound and ducked his head away. He hated it when his mother did that. “I don’t idle,” he said sourly.

“Oh?” his mother challenged, a glint in her grey eyes now. She was a pale-skinned woman with white-blonde hair coiled into a neat bun at the nape of her neck. Both her children had inherited her coloring, although they’d taken after their father in build.

Breac Boyd was a massive man, even now that he didn’t work at the forge. Years of hammering iron had left his neck, shoulders, and arms powerful. He dwarfed the fire that he sat beside. Eòghan was having a growth spurt and would soon fill out, one day equaling his father in strength.

And although Brìghde was a woman, she had the same muscular frame—something she had been teased mercilessly for over the years, until she’d become the village smiddy.

“I asked ye to get me some eggs earlier today, and ye were gone so long, I thought ye were laying them yerself,” Ada said, fixing Eòghan with a knowing look.

“The lad needs to start learning our trade,” Breac said, his gaze moving around the fire. He couldn’t see any of them, but he knew from their voices where they sat. “Ye must start instructing him properly, Brì.”

“I am,” she replied, taking the bowl of steaming pottage her mother had just passed her and helping herself to a warm bannock.

“All I do is sweep the floor and fill the slack tub,” her brother grumbled, flashing Brìghde a frown. “She won’t let me wield a hammer.”

Irritation sliced through Brìghde. “That’s not true,” she countered. “Just yesterday—”