The Drunk Wolf novel · Chapter 13 of 32

Chapter 13: The Deed

"Then we keep it safe till the full moon," I said. "All of it."

We moved the King's cask that same night.

My tower had two of my uncle's guards on the main door now, and one of them had been in the drain.

I didn't want my wardrobe searched while I slept.

Struan and Ailsa brought it down the priest's stair at midnight, wrapped in a horse blanket, and I walked ahead with the torch.

We rolled it into the bonded warehouse on the burn and dropped the iron bar behind it.

"Strongest room in the glen," Struan said. "I'd know. I tried to claw my way out of it."

Morag hung the warehouse key round her own neck on a bootlace.

"Anybody wants it," she said, "they can come through me."

The castle doctor had Ailsa's brother carried up to the castle at first light, to keep an eye on his ribs.

By eight the malting floor was swept, and the crew were back at work.

I was in the stillhouse doorway with a mug of Morag's tea when the youngest lass came running down the lane.

"Strachans," she said. "At the gate. Loads of them."

The distillery gate is two stone pillars and an iron bar across the burn road.

Murdo stood on the far side of it in his waxed jacket.

Twenty Strachan men stood behind him, with a tractor and an empty barley trailer.

The burn on his arm from the hearth was healing pink under the hair.

He smiled when he saw me.

It was the first time he'd smiled at me since the feast.

"Your Highness," he said. "I've come to inspect my property."

He held up a folded sheet of heavy paper.

I didn't take it.

"Read it to me," I said.

"Happy to." He shook it open. "The Crown distillery on the Carnach burn, its stillhouse, its warehouse, its maltings and every cask on the premises, sold by the Regent of Strathcarn to the Strachan clan. For the sum of one pound."

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