Chapter 10
A s the auld man calmly cleaned his nails with a gleaming sgian dubh, Angus, his gaze locked on the Fraser’s door, paced—six strides right, six strides left. “How long can it possibly take to put a wee laddie to breast?”
Birdi had been inside for well onto an hour now, and something inside Angus’s head had been chafing in warning every minute of it. He never ignored such warning in battle and was hard pressed to keep ignoring it now.
Malcolm Fraiser shrugged. “Kelsea’s breasts were bound after our Brion passed. Mayhap it takes time to get milk flowing again?”
“Aye.” But his gut said ‘twas more than that.
The door latch finally clicked and he heaved a sigh of relief. “Thank God.”
When the door opened, he was startled to see not Birdi but the Fraser woman, her cheeks now touched with a bit of pink and in her arms—sucking contentedly at her breast—Wee Angus.
Alarmed, he said, “Where’s Birdi?”
“Come.” Kelsea stepped aside so they could enter.
Angus came to an abrupt halt just inside the door.
Birdi—so pale he could see the vessels carrying her life’s blood pulsing from across the room—sat on the floor before the chair the Fraiser woman had once occupied, greeting as if her heart would break. ‘Twas as if Birdi and Kelsea had crawled inside each other’s skin, or mayhap exchanged souls, which made nay sense at all. “Merciful Mother of God!”
He rushed to her, scooped her onto his lap, and cradled her to his chest. “What the hell happened to her?”
Instead of answering, the Fraiser woman squatted and took Birdi’s tear-streaked chin in her hand. As they stared at each other, he could almost feel an understanding pass between them. That, he didn’t like.
The widow Kelsea kissed Birdi’s cheek and then rose. As she adjusted the babe in her arms, she murmured, “I dinna ken, sir.” She then sat in the chair, her attention directed toward the babe.
Unaccustomed to being thwarted, he growled and lifted Birdi’s chin with a gentle finger and stared into her tearing eyes. Seeing only desolation and grief, his skin crawled with apprehension. “Lass, what ails ye? What can I do?”
“‘Tis naught ye can do, Angus.”
She shuddered and he pulled her closer. Her answer wasn’t acceptable. Not so long as he drew breath. There had to be something he could do. Spying Malcolm Fraser he said, “Bring her some mulled wine, mead, I dinna care what, so long as it’s warm.”
Brow furrowed, Fraser answered, “Aye, right away.”
As he shuffled off Angus called after him, “And a blanket. She’s freezing.”
Wee Angus gurgled into the ensuing silence, and the Fraser woman lifted him onto her shoulder. Pounding gently on his back, she asked, “Does this precious laddie have a name?”
Before Angus could give it, Birdi’s nails dug deep into his arm with surprising strength. She took a shuddering breath—one he felt clean into his gut as he held her.
“Nay,” Birdi whispered, “ye need choose one for him.”
The corners of Kelsea’s lips lifted ever so slightly. “Aye, but I must think hard.” She put the babe to her other breast and stroked his cheek. “It must be perfect to compensate for all he’s been through.”
Birdi murmured, “Aye,” and pressed her face into Angus’s shoulder, which did naught to muffle her next sob.
He never should have asked about a wet-nurse, and sure as hell shouldn’t have brought Birdi here. Ack! Birdi, lass, I’m so sorry. Had I known…
Fraiser came back into the room bearing steaming tankards, a blanket, and a tin of shortbread. He knelt before Angus. “I brought mead for ye as well.”
“Thank ye.”
Angus wrapped the blanket about Birdi, then held a tankard to her lips. “Lass, drink this.”
She took a sip, choked, and pushed it away. He forced more on her, until he was satisfied she’d consumed a good half pint. ‘Twould make her sleepy, and sleep, he’d decided, might prove the best medicine for whatever ailed her. She certainly hadn’t had much sleep since they’d found the babe.
Fraser cleared his throat. “Since Collin’s death, Kelsea’s been staying here with us. Why don’t ye spend the night in Kelsea’s croft? I’ll take ye, ‘tis only a short walk away, the first one just beyond the kirk. I’ll bring some sup to ye after a wee bit.”
Kelsea murmured, “Aye, please do. There’s peat for a fire by the inglenook and ye’ll find the bed comfortable.” Her gaze shifted from Angus to Birdi, who now appeared to be asleep. “And please, have her choose a gown and whatever else she might need from the wooden chest at the foot of the bed. Anything at all may be hers.”
“‘Tis most generous of ye.”
Kelsea shook her head. “‘Tis yer wife who is generous. I shall never be able to repay her kindness.”
#
Fraser held the door open as Angus, with Birdi in arms, angled his way into the one-room croft. Two sturdy chairs, one with rockers, sat before an ingle-side made from smooth river-rock. A pile of aged peat lay on the hearth. A waxed pine table and two cuttie stools stood to the right, and a large pine bed to the left. Alongside the bed stood an empty, polished oak cradle.
Angus laid Birdi on the fine feather mattress, pulled the blanket about her, and turned to find Fraser lighting the fire. “I thank ye for offering yer daughter’s home to us for the night. Birdi would not have been comfortable at the inn.” He’d noticed she’d been anxious earlier when surrounded by strangers and couldn’t imagine how she’d respond in her current state.
Fraser rose and dusted off his hands. “Ack. ‘Tis our pleasure. And ye’re right; the men over yon will be arguing half the night trying to decide what to do about the Gunn and his lot. Yer ladywife would get nay rest.”
As Fraser walked to the door, Angus said, “Ye should take the cradle with ye. Wee…the wee one will need it.”
And Birdi need not see it. She’d likely greet until her generous heart was reduced to the size of a shriveled plum.
Fraser picked up the cradle. Looking from it to Birdi as she lay pale and still, his eyes grew glassy. “Take good care of her. What she did today…” His voice cracked and faltered. Using the heels of his hands he scrubbed the wetness from his eyes. “I’ll come by in a few hours with ye sup.”
After Fraser took his leave, Angus dropped the wooden bar over the door.
Standing bedside the bed, he whispered, “What happened to ye behind that door, lass?”
He’d left her fearful but hale and the Fraser woman looking about to waste away. An hour later he found the reverse, and it frightened him.
He lay down beside her and cradled her in his arms, her head resting on his chest. He brushed a strand of hair from her forehead. Rolling the curly tip between his fingers, he recalled the first time he’d set eyes on her, how he’d imagined burying his fists in her hair.
“Do ye have any idea how much I want ye, Birdalane Shame? And despite ye being a bit willful and painfully proud.” He sighed, examining the bruise in the middle of her forehead. “Ye should have told me about yer wee secret, lass…that ye canna see but a short yard ahead of ye. Aye. It might have saved ye a few bonks on yer beautiful head.”
And just as she wanted Wee Angus and couldn’t keep him, he wanted but couldn’t keep her. And the knowledge made something deep inside his chest ache with regret.
“‘Tis a sorry state we’ve got ourselves in, Birdi, my love. A truly sorry state.”
He’d asked Fraser if he kenned the Shame clan. The man said he’d never heard mention of them. Angus then asked after the location of a sacred well. Fraiser shook his head and suggested Angus those in Cairndow.
If a well wasn’t to be found there, they’d have to ride north, around the northern tip of Loch Fyne, then ride south to Inveraray, all of which would eat up precious time. Ack. Would Birdi be up to such a ride given her current state?
Birdi, mumbling incoherently, stretched. As she pressed against him, he felt the soft compression of a breast against his chest. A second later her left leg fell across his thigh and settled between his legs, her knee close to his groin. Two days ago he’d have killed to get her in the same position. Now, his heart only ached for her. Her brow then furrowed, and he stroked her back as gently as possible. What manner of goblins would dare chase such a lovely lass in her sleep?
#
The darkness parted.
Birdi crept closer to the clatter of wood beating on wood. The village bairns were back playing sword-fight at the edge of the golden field.
She kenned better than to show herself—her mother had warned repeatedly that she’d come to harm if she did—but the lads sounded so happy. What harm could there be in just listening to them? They were, after all, just bairns about her age.
As she ducked behind a tall weed patch one lad shouted, “My da can flatten yer da any time he chooses, Will Macarthur.”
“Nay, ye braggart, my da’s a smitty, the strongest in the realm. He can whip yer da in thrice.”
She heard a scuffle and an “Ooow” before one of the lads, keening, ran away.
“Ack, Robbie,” the other called as he followed, “I dinna mean to bloody yer nose!”
Disappointed—kenning they wouldn’t likely return this day—Birdi turned for home, her mind ablaze with a dozens questions for her mother.
She found her before their croft. “Minnie, who’s my da?”
Grinding a pestle, separating oat from husk, her mother grumbled, “Ye dinna have one.”
Birdi’s heart tripped at her lie. She’d spent enough time spying on the villager’s to ken everyone had one. She stomped a foot. “Tell me about my da.”
Minnie rounded, startling her, fists on hips. “Shame’s yer sire; my shame, his shame, and yours for asking about matters that are none of yer concern and best forgotten.” Minnie’s face loomed large as she clamped a rough hand on Birdi’s shoulder. “Ye’re never to ask again. Do ye ken?”
Quaking, Birdi squeaked, “But—”
The resounding slap caught Birdi off guard. Cheek and eyes stinging, she keened, “Aye, Minnie, never again.”
“Now fetch me more water from the pool and be quick about it, or ye’ll not be having yer oats for sup.” She then slapped Birdi’s bottom sending her in the direction of the water bag. Birdi fell. Stars flashed; bright white wee suns in a field of black.
Then total darkness returned.
“Minnie! Where are ye, Minnie?” Birdi—her heart quaking against her ribs, her palms and back sweaty and frigid—moved cautiously within the darkening woods. The sun, having slipped behind the hills, left only unfathomable shadows before her.
Minnie had never been gone this long. Never, in her eight summers.
Feeling her way along the path that led to the road separating her world from that of the villagers’, Birdi called out again. The bushes to her right rattled and she jumped. Hands at her throat, readying to scream, she heard the frantic flapping of wings.
She blew out a breath, scrubbed at the tears clouding her vision only to have more form, and resumed her search. Minnie loathed tears, but Birdi couldn’t help it. The dark terrified her and her feet and ears were already aching with the cold. “Minnie! Where are you?”
Birdi had checked everywhere; the pool, the mushroom patch, the traps, even the edges of the fields, and still no Minnie. Where could she be?
An awful tightening seized her chest. Had Minnie left her? Had she been so angered by Birdi’s questions about her da that she’d up and left?
Birdi stumbled down the path leading to the ancient stump, the only place left to look. “Oh, Goddess, please, I’ll be a good bairn, I promise. Please, please, dinna let it be true. Please, Goddess, please help me find my minnie.”
Birdi heard a sob directly before her and froze in place. “Minnie? Minnie!”
Hands outstretched, she ran toward the dark shape lying before her on a bed of fallen leaves.
Minnie lay curled on her side on the path. Birdi dropped to her knees and pushed her mother’s graying, disheveled hair off her face. “Minnie, what’s wrong?” As her mother groaned, Birdi noticed she knelt in wetness and caught the unmistakable scent of blood, metallic and dry at the back of her throat. “Oh, Minnie…” Squinting, Birdi then saw that her mother’s hands clutched her blood-soaked kirtle at the waist.
In a breathy whisper, Minnie said, “ A boar…help me.”
It took all Birdi’s strength to get Minnie onto her feet. As they wavered and fell, Minnie kept saying, “Dinna…let them…ken I’m gone.”
Birdi struggled under her mother’s weight. “I’ll never, Minnie, but dinna fash. Ye’ll be all better come morn. I promise.”
Knees and hands bleeding from repeated falls, sick to her stomach with apprehension, Birdi got Minnie into their croft and onto her pallet. All she’d learned at her mother’s knee, the herbs and tonics, the poultices she’d pulled from Minnie’s bag, all the prayers she’d been taught, Birdi then put to full use.
As dawn broke on the fourth day, Birdi, bleary eyed from lack of sleep and hours of keening, dropped to her knees. “Come, Goddess, please, and make her well. I canna do this alone. I’m too wee and dinna ken enough. Please come and help me.”
Minnie now took only one breath to Birdi’s six, each sounding like a rattling seed pod. Her lips were so cracked they bled despite the salve Birdi applied, her skin was so hot Birdi feared she’d cook. But the worst was Minnie’s silence. Desperate for one word—even a curse—as the sun turned the room’s whitewashed clay walls a dull pink, Birdi shook her mother’s shoulders. “Minnie, wake up. Wake up!”
To her horror, Minnie took a single rattling breath and went completely silent.
Birdi collapsed onto her mother’s still chest. “Nay! Minnie, wake up! Ye’re scaring me, Minnie, wake up!”
Her mother would be angry. Birdi was taking too long to make her better, but that would be all right. It would. She could shout—even thrash Birdi all she wanted—because she’d be better and that was all that mattered. Aye, that was all that mattered. “Goddess, Mother of All, can ye hear me? Make Minnie talk to me. Now please. Please. Please. Please.”
“I canna…breath…Minnie. I’m so scarred…Minnie,
Minnie…aaaaaah!”
A hand brushed her cheek as strong arms folded about her. “Sssh, love, yer safe. ‘Tis only a dream, Birdi. Hush.”
Birdi fought her way through her throat-seizing blackness in search of the source of the soothing words. The deep, burring voice, the smell, the heat surrounding her meant safety. She took a shuddering breath and finally managed to open her eyes.
Breath hitching, she whispered, “Angus.”
“Aye.” He wiped the wetness from her cheeks. “I dinna mean to wake ye, but ye were deep in a nightmare, and none too happy about it.”
Feeling the fool—her heart still beating at a frantic pace—she struggled to sit. “I’m sorry, I dinna—”
“Sssh, we all have them.” He pulled her into his side, holding her close with an arm. “‘Tis naught to be ashamed of. Are ye better now?”
Taking another shuddering breath, deciding there was no harm in taking comfort just this once, she relaxed against him. “Aye, much better.”
He smiled. “Ye had me fashing for a moment.”
“Sorry.”
“Do ye have these terrors often?”
“Nay.” Only when she healed another. She’d then wake so parched and hoarse she’d wonder if she’d screamed the night away.
He stroked her back with a gentle hand. “Would ye like to talk about it? Mayhap it will make them go away for good.”
“‘Tis naught but an old memory.” She yawned, deciding it must be time to feed Wee Angus. Then the day’s events crashed down upon her with the swiftness of a giant tree felled by lightening. A great, racking sob escaped before she could grab hold of it.
Her wee precious babe was gone.
“Ack, lass, sssh.” Angus rolled onto his side and drew her closer. As she buried her face into the massive warm muscles of his chest, he kissed the top of her head. “Have ye ever seen a dolphin, love?”
She shook her head, unable to speak as she tried to cope with the pain squeezing the life out of her.
In a voice barely above a whisper he told her, “They’re wondrous creatures—part fish, part man—according to legend. Gray and white, slick and smooth as polished steel, they roam the seas in herds of tens, leaping and gliding as if they had not a care in the world.
“‘Tis a good omen when they frolic about a man’s boat. They occasionally whistle as they keep pace with ye, their wide mouths smiling. Aye, they’re verra fine, have been known to save drowning men by keeping them afloat with their powerful snouts and fins until help could arrive.
“When I was a lad of eight years—the year my own mam died—a lone mother dolphin and calf came into Drasmoor Bay. Since this had never occurred before it caused quite a stir. Some claimed ‘twas a good omen. Others claimed ‘twas a sign something dreadful had happened or was about to happen at sea. ‘Twas not until a few brave souls rowed out to greet her that the truth was known.
“The babe with her had been attacked, and from the look of the wounds, by a fearsome shark or whale.
“Much fashing then ensued about what to do to help them. Since the fishing was poor within the bay, some men went out to sea each day and hauled back fish for the mother. Women concocted salves made of lanolin so they wouldna dissolve in the salty sea when applied to the babe’s raw wounds. Being a bairn myself, I could do little but go out and watch the elders tend them, pray, and give the pair names. I named the mother Bigly, for she was indeed beautiful, and the wee one Dautie, for all thought of him with great affection. Days passed.
“Then one morn I awoke to the news the babe hadna made it through the night. Lass, I greeted ‘til my heart nearly broke.
Birdi opened her eyes to find tears glistening in Angus’s. So, he’d loved and lost, too—his Minnie and the dolphin all in one year. He understood.
She traced the gentle curves of his lips with a finger. Then to her own surprise she stretched a bit so they were face to face and kissed him. Softly, just as he had kissed her.
As she pulled away he smiled and cleared his throat. “Bigly left and life went on,” he told her. “Then one morn we awoke to a trumpeter’s blast. We all raced out to see what was amiss—we were having our fair share of troubles with the Bruce at the time—and found Auld Brian jumping and shouting on the shore looking fit to be tied.
“To our amazement, there, out in the harbor—bobbing and arching between Castle Blackstone and shore—was Bigly, the mother we’d all come to care about.
“I was simply beside myself with joy and scrambled into the first boat launched. We rowed out to greet her, and discovered she’d come to show us something—her new bonnie calf. He was a lighter gray than the other and bigger, his smiling mouth clicking and clacking at a pace so fast I could barely distinguish one from the other.” Angus brushed the loose strand from her face and kissed her ever so gently. “Ye’ll have another bairn in time, love, as bonnie as yer foundling, but one of yer heart and blood that no one can ever take away.”
He silently studied her, no doubt hoping she would nod in agreement.
He cared that she ached near beyond breathing, but he didn’t—couldn’t—ever know her deepest heartache: that all he’d promised would never come to pass. She was cursed…a near-blind spae.
Wishing she could share her grief, but knowing she never would, she nodded for his sake.
Grinning, he squeezed her a wee bit. “That’s the lass.” He then whispered, “I dinna ken what transpired while ye were alone with Kelsea Fraser, but I do ken ye are beyond any doubt the bravest and most generous woman I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. I’m verra glad I ken ye, Birdalane.” He stroked her cheek. “I mean that sincerely.”
She fell in love with Angus MacDougall at that moment; heart, mind, and essence, she toppled. Seeking the warmth and strength radiating from him, she reached up and placed a hand behind his neck as he had once done to her and drew his mouth to hers.
He groaned into her mouth as she parted her lips. A heartbeat later he took control, his kiss searing a path deep into her being. Heat flashed in her belly, and miraculously, the pain squeezing her chest eased. Light-headed and breathless, she gave in to the heart-warming sensations and need she had no words to describe.