The harbor master needed direction, the kitchen required a delicate negotiation over supplies, and three separate guardsapproached him with questions that were little more than thinly veiled nerves.
Ivar moved through the chaos with a cold, sustained efficiency. He handled each piece as it came, refusing to let the crushing weight of the coming week settle on his shoulders until the smaller tasks were buried.
By midday, the preparations had gathered their own momentum. He stood in the outer yard, the wind whipping his hair across his eyes as he considered the guard rotation, when a voice cut through the noise of hammer strikes and shouting men.
"Come riding with me."
He turned. Matilda was standing at the stable entrance. Her cloak was already fastened, the heavy fabric dark against the grey stone. She wore the expression she always wore when she’d already made up her mind. A quiet, absolute certainty that left no room for argument.
"Now?"
"Unless ye've found something more urgent than staring at the yard." Her chin lifted slightly, a flicker of a challenge in her amber eyes.
He looked at the yard. He looked at her. The pull of her was far stronger than duty. "I'll need tae tell Torvald."
"I already did," she said, a ghost of a smile touching her mouth. "He's assigned two guards. They'll stay back far enough nae tae be underfoot." She tilted her head, her gaze searching his. "Or ye can spend the afternoon counting flagstones."
Ivar went to get his horse without answering.
They rode out through the east gate into the thin, pale autumn light. The two guards fell into a loose formation close enough to protect, far enough to grant the illusion of solitude.
The path beyond the walls clung to the cliff edge for a quarter mile before it spilled into the broad, flat ground stretching toward the inland hills. The grass was the color of old straw, dry and brittle, and the wind off the sound sliced across the moor with the first genuine, lethal edge of winter.
Matilda set a measured pace at first.
She sat upright, her posture a perfect, controlled line. The seat of a woman who had been taught to ride with dignity. Ivar matched her stride for stride. They moved in an easy silence, the towers of Duart shrinking behind them into the mist.
Ivar watched the tree line out of habit, his internal compass always tracking the shadows for Callum’s reach. It was something he couldn't switch off. But then, he registered a shift in the woman beside him. A forward tilt of her weight. A tightening of her hands on the leather.
She put her heels in.
Her horse surged from a trot to a full, frantic gallop in the space of three heartbeats. She went with the animal completely, leaning low over its neck, her cloak streaming behind her like a bird’s wing. A sound escaped her then. A sharp, melodic note that Ivar didn't recognize at first because he realized he had never heard it before.
She was laughing.
He was already moving before he could think. His horse felt the sudden electric shift in his weight and went. The ground opened up before them, a blur of pale grass and biting air. Ivar leaned in, feeling the thunder of hooves vibrate through his bones, and he let the beast run.
She was fast. Her horse was lighter, and she rode without the self-consciousness of a lady. She rode like she was outrunning a ghost. He gained on her gradually, the raw power of his mount closing the gap. When he finally pulled alongside her, she turned her head.
The look on her face hit him. She was bright-eyed, her cheeks a vibrant flush, her hair a wild tangle in the gale. There was nothing managed about her. The careful mask she had worn since Kinlochaline was gone, and underneath it was something so unguarded, so vibrantly alive, that it made his throat tighten.
He didn't look away. He couldn't.
They ran the flat ground until the cliff edge loomed ahead, the land dropping into the churning grey of the water. They slowed by unspoken agreement. A jarring trot, then a walk, both horses blowing great plumes of white steam into the cold air.
Matilda sat up, breathless, pushing a stray lock of hair from her damp forehead. Her cheeks were stained a deep rose by the wind. The smile was still there, stubborn and real, and Ivar found himself staring at the curve of her mouth with hunger.
"Ye almost caught me," she said, her voice a soft rasp.
"I caught ye."
"In the last twenty strides. Out of how many?"
"The finish is what counts," he growled, though there was no heat in it.
She laughed again, a shorter, more intimate sound, and turned her horse toward the cliff edge. They dismounted on a flat promontory where the grass was sparse and the rock was slick with salt spray. The guards pulled up well behind, distant silhouettes against the sky.
The wind was sharper there, moving off the water in long, steady heaves that pressed Matilda’s cloak flat against her side, outlining the shape of her waist and the strength of her legs.