Chapter 16
B irdi awoke to cool sunshine. She sniffed the air. Winter was on its way. Turning to the light, she saw Angus stretch before the open window.
He’d come up behind her after the healing had been done, but she couldn’t recall more. Had the woman kept their secret? What thoughts and questions now ran through his mind? And how many days had she been lying here? She had only scattered memories of broth, of freezing as Angus scrubbed her with careful hands, of his rocking her back to sleep whenever she woke screaming.
“Has the rain passed?”
Angus turned and smiled. “Aye.” He came closer and knelt beside her. His chest was bare, and she longed to reach out and touch it.
Placing a hand on her forehead, he asked, “How do ye feel?”
“Like a cow sat on my chest.” Seeing his brow furrow, she grinned. “Dinna fash, Angus. I’ll be right as rain come the morrow. Did I miss sup?”
“Aye, several.”
She groaned, suspecting as much, and tried to sit. Angus wrapped an arm about her and swung her legs over the side of the bed.
“Are ye hungry?”
“Aye.” She could eat that cow. “Where is Ian?”
“Downstairs flirting with the help.”
Relief flooded her. If neither Ian nor Angus had run off it meant Angus hadn’t seen any of the healing and the woman she’d helped had kept her word. That she hadn’t spoken to any about what Birdi had done. Her secret was safe.
Wondering how the babe now fared, she raked her hands through the matted hair clinging to her face and her fingers caught. Knots. One of these days she really needed to find herself a good pair of shears. Mayhap Tinker had some…
Kelsea’s missive!
Her gaze raced around the room, looking for her gown. Seeing a huge splash of vivid blue against one wall, she pointed to it. “May I have my gown, please? I’m cold.”
“Of course. I’m afraid it’s a bit wrinkled.”
Wrinkled, sminkled. Who cared, so long as the missive Kelsea had written still remained in the pocket?
When Angus laid the mass of blue on the foot of the bed, she had all she could do to keep her hands in her lap. “Thank ye.”
“Do ye need help?”
“Nay.” She cleared her throat. “I mean nay, thank ye, I can manage on my own.”
He grinned. “Then I’ll leave ye to it and go find us something to eat.”
The moment the door closed, Birdi yanked the gown onto her lap and frantically searched through fold after fold. When one hand slipped into a deep pocket and touched paper, she heaved a relieved sigh. She cautiously pulled the missive out and unfolded it. Within still lay a golden coin, enough Kelsea had told her, to send the missive to Tinker.
She brought the letter close to her eyes and squinted at the inked squiggles. Oh, how she wished she could read.
“Ye have no need to ken such, so stop nagging me.”
“ But the bairns in the village do.” She’d watched them use sticks to write in the earth. Had crawled on her belly out into the open after they’d left to study their marks.
“Aye, and what good has it done them, or me, for that matter?” A hand caught Birdi’s ear. “Now go and fetch more berries or ye’ll have naught come winter. Go.”
Birdi sighed. Someday, she’d learn. How, she wasn’t sure, but someday she would.
She folded the paper around the coin and put it back in her pocket, then donned the gown.
She was struggling with her hair when Angus knocked. “Birdi? May I come in?”
She grinned. He’d seen her naked, bathed her, and now he asked? Men. “Aye, come in.”
The door swung wide. Angus carried a tray so laden with food it had to weigh more than she did. He set it on the bed. “After ye eat, we need to talk.”
Oh dear. “About what?” She suddenly had no appetite.
“About whether or not ye’re ready to ride. I’d like to make Inveraray by gloaming tomorrow…but only if ye feel up to it.” He tore a piece from one loaf and handed it to her. “If ye say nay, I’ll ken.”
Aye, he would, but he’d be none to happy about it. “I’m well enough to ride.”
“Are ye absolutely sure?”
“Aye.” The sooner they left, the less likely she’d be exposed. The woman she’d helped had, after all, worn the sign of the black-cloaked priests. Better to be out of sight and out of mind, as Minnie had once warned.
They ate in silence after that. When Angus had had his fill—two loaves, a mound of sausage, and three fish—he dug into the pouch he wore before his nether region. “Here.”
Not kenning what he held, she silently reached out. Finding a firm bone comb in her hand, she squealed, “Bless ye, Angus MacDougall!”
He grinned as she pulled her hair over her shoulder and struggled to run the comb through it.
After a moment Angus patted his lap. “Come here. Let me help.”
Seeing no hope for it, Birdi reluctantly assumed the hair-combing position. She sat between his thighs with her back to him, as she had before her mother. She squeezed her eyes shut and clamped her jaws, readying for the yanking and pulling that would surely follow. If her knots couldn’t be combed out, they’d be yanked out.
“Knots lead to mats and mats to lice, and we’ll have none of that here.”
Angus combed through the lock caught between his thumb and forefinger and smiled as it sprang back into a nice fat curl. He dropped it over her shoulder and gently separated another strand from the tangled mass. “The first time I saw ye, I wished to run my hands through this hair.”
“Ye did? Why?”
Angus grinned. “Simply because.”
“Oh.” She craned her neck and looked up at him, a frown marring her smooth forehead. “Ye are truly an odd one.”
He laughed then. He’d been a bit melancholy all morning, kenning their time together was drawing to an end and it felt good to laugh for a change. Foolish, aye, but there it was.
“I was thinking of cutting it all off,” she told him.
He gave her hair a gentle tug. “Dinna ye dare.”
Birdi craned her neck again to look at him. Something troubling lurked in the deep recesses of her eyes. When she didn’t say anything but turned back around, he shrugged.
A knock sounded and Angus dropped a hand to his dirk. “Enter.”
Ian stepped through the doorway, resplendent in gold and black. “Morn, Lady MacDougall. Good to see you looking so well,” To Angus he said, “The publican needs ken if we’ll be spending another night.”
Ack! Why had Ian taken to calling Birdi Lady MacDougall? It only reinforced their situation’s futility. “Tell the man we’ll be leaving shortly.”
“I’ll fetch the horses.”
A few minutes later Angus ran a hand the length of Birdi’s hair, grabbed a fistful as Wee Angus had, and brought it to his lips. Aye, there couldn’t be any hair finer. He sighed, let it fall, and put his comb back in his sporran. “It’s ready for ye to braid.”
“Thank ye.” Birdi stood, pulled the curling mass over one shoulder, and made quick work of weaving the strands together. He held out the argent cauls and pearl band.
“Nay,” she murmured. “Can ye put them behind yer saddle in the bag?”
“Of course.” He thought cauls a ridiculous affectation, anyway. He helped her don her cape. “Are ye ready?”
“Aye.”
Downstairs, Angus found the publican waiting for him. As he handed over the coins, the fine hairs on the back of his neck stood. He turned to find a rough-looking man staring at Birdi. He couldn’t blame him—she was lovely to behold—but something in the man’s stance made Angus pull Birdi closer. With a hand on his dirk, he made haste out the door.
#
Fegan eased over to the window. Keeping to the shadows, he ruminated over the way the spae was dressed as he watched her and Angus the Blood walk toward the stables. He hadn’t seen the like in his life. Not even Lady Macarthur dressed in such finery. What was the bastard trying to prove? That he could steal anything he liked with impunity and parade it about? And why was he drawing attention to her? Every eye turned as they passed.
He gave himself a shake. It didn’t matter. She wouldn’t be the Blood’s for more than an hour longer anyway.
When his quarry rounded the corner he left the inn and ran across the street. Jogging behind head-high rowan, he made his way to his brother, who hid behind the stable.
#
When the road fronting Loch Fyne narrowed before an outcropping, Angus kicked his mount ahead of Ian’s. “Are ye growing tired, Birdi?”
“Nay.”
“Humph.” Birdi had been too quiet since leaving the inn. He hoped it wasn’t something he’d said, but then women were known to misconstrue a man’s meaning at the oddest times. He’d seen Lady Beth do it often enough. Duncan’s life was regularly at sixes and sevens without his having a hint as to why. Another reason Angus had shied away from wedded bliss for so many years. Women—no matter how loved—could drive sane men wode. Not that he loved Birdi.
He turned in the saddle to ask Ian if he’d won anything at the contest and saw two horsemen coming up on them fast, claymores drawn. He shouted in warning and Ian
spun to look behind them.
Angus kicked Rampage around the boulders at a canter.
Birdi, startled, asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Trouble.” Without explaining further, he lowered Birdi by an arm to the ground. He wrenched his sgian dubh from his leg lacing and pressed it into her hand. “Hide behind these boulders, up and to yer right. Climb as high and as quick as ye can.”
Birdi grabbed his stirrup. “But why? What’s happening?” The answer came by way of Ian shouting and steel clanging on steel.
With no time to explain, he hissed, “Hie, Birdi, now!”
The moment Birdi ran clear he turned Rampage on his hind legs and dug in his spurs.
As he came abreast of the fight, Ian toppled, a scarlet fountain spewing from his right shoulder.
Angus’s battle cry tore from his throat as he swung his claymore at the man who’d felled Ian, then drove Rampage into the other rider. A battle veteran, his charger reared. Hooves flailing, he landed—all one hundred stone of him—on the pony’s haunches. The pony screeched as it collapsed under the weight, unseating its rider. Angus swung his claymore again and caught the rising man on the side of his neck. He felt the resistance of bone as blood arced like a crimson rainbow. The man fell without issuing a sound. The second rider stared wide-eyed at his fallen companion for just a heartbeat then spun and kicked his pony into a gallop, back from whence he’d come. Angus kicked Rampage in turn and followed.
He caught up with the rider at the next bend. Tall to start and better mounted, Angus had little trouble knocking the man off his horse. As the warrior crashed to the roadway, his shaggy mount bolted. Angus reined in and slid to the ground.
The man scrambled to his feet, claymore weaving before him, as Angus approached on foot. Ian was by now dead and this man was the one responsible.
Panting, the man eased to the right as Angus moved left, his blade singing as it swept the air before him in fast arcs. Teeth clenched, Angus growled, “Why?” If the bastard had any sense he’d drop his sword and answer.
The man lunged, feigned left, and swung again. Angus countered, catching him with the tip of his blade. The man jumped back and looked at his torn sleeve. Defiance flashed in the man’s eyes as a smirk curled one side of his mouth. “So ye are as good as they claim.”
Christ’s blood! Had these men killed Ian just so they could brag they’d taken on Angus the Blood?
He saw red.
Sword flailing, his mind went blank. His muscles and experience took over the fight.
When he came to his senses, the man he fought lay in a bloody heap on the roadway, an arm missing, his neck severed.
Angus bowed his head and saw his own chest and legs were covered in blood. His claymore slipped from his bloody hands as his head fell back.
“ Aaaaaahhh !”
#
Birdi’s skin prickled as pure agony echoed off the loch and rebounded off the high hills at her back. Her throat went dry. “Angus!”
She scrambled down shale and onto the roadway. “Please, Goddess, please, please dinna let it be Angus.”
Arms outstretched, she ran, head and heart reeling with the certain knowledge someone had died. “Please Goddess, please, I’ll do anything ye ask. Please, oh please.”
She stumbled, righted herself, and ran on. A moment later she saw something large lying in the road before her. Deep red was everywhere, big splotches of it scattered over the dark earth and lighter gravel of the roadway. Panting, heart threatening to make good its escape through her heaving chest, she dropped to her knees before the man. Blank brown eyes stared back at her. Who was this? ‘Twas not Angus!
Ack! She didn’t care who the man was. Her Angus was out there somewhere, and she had to find him. She scrambled to her feet, took a step, and fell, her foot caught in her hem. Furious, she wrenched her skirts up with both hands, got to her feet, and ran on only to land hard on her hands and knees.
Familiar gold and black filled her limited field of vision. “Ian? Oh, Goddess, Ian!” She crawled beside him through a pool of blood, looking for the wound. She instinctively jerked away when her hand made contact with wet stickiness. His right shoulder was soaked in blood. Leaning over him, she ran hasty fingers along his neck. She found a pulse, but it was only like that of a wee rabbit’s, too fast and weak for a man his size, not strong enough to sustain his life. Should she stay and try to save him or seek Angus? Shaking, she keened, “What to do, what to do?”
When he groaned, his need ripped through her, and the decision was made. “Ian, can ye hear me?” His head lolled toward her and stunning blue eyes stared back at her. Tears ran down his cheeks. “Tell…him…I’m…sorry.” His eyes then closed and his jaw went slack.
“Nay!” She slapped his cheek and shouted, “Listen to me! Believe. Trust in me.”
To her relief, he opened his eyes once again. They didn’t appear to see, but ‘twas enough. Would have to be.
She rocked back onto her feet and, squatting, pressed her crossed palms firmly to his shoulder, making him groan. Heart racing, she pleaded, “Mother of All, tis I, Birdi. Please, I beg ye come, and give me the strength once again. Please, Mother, please.” She closed her eyes, took a deep, cleansing breath, and waited for the tingling heat to rise, a sure sign the power was again within her.
Feeling it surge through the soles of her feet and up her legs, her heart finally slowed. Aye, ‘twas now time. “Mother of All, I, Birdi, take upon myself this wound so Ian may live.” She then crooned the auld words, the secret words of thanks and praise.
When she sensed the task done, Birdi lifted her hands from Ian’s shoulder, and felt, rather than saw, a shadow over her where none should be.
Battling the mind-bending pain surging through her, she looked up. Angus’s stark white face stared back.
Arms slack at his side, he dropped to his knees beside her. “Nay.”
Her heart breaking, kenning he’d witnessed it all, she whispered, “I feared ye’d hate me. If ye kenned…”
Her world turned black.
Angus, his eyes locked on the scarlet stain blooming across Birdi’s shoulder, barely managed to catch her before her head hit the ground. “Merciful Mother of God, please tell me this isn’t happening.”
He’d never given credence to the tales of cailleaches, brehons and bandrui. Hell, he barely gave credence to Saint Brigid, the patron saint of the Highlands. Yet try as he may he couldn’t deny what his eyes had seen and his ears had heard. And he didn’t want to believe. He wanted Birdi to be normal, just an odd, orphaned beauty. No secrets, no powers, no fears. Normal.
Blood continued to spread across Birdi’s chest as the wind rushed across the loch. He felt cold tracks slide down his cheeks. Was his beautiful Birdi now dying?
Please, God, no.
He looked at his fallen friend still lying in a pool of blood. His jerkin remained slashed and soaked with blood, as was the once snow-white shirt beneath, yet as Ian looked back at him from clear blue eyes, his skin was returning to almost normal color when not a moment ago it had been ashen. His expression was as shocked as Angus suspected his own now was.
“She’s a cailleach.”
Struggling into a sitting position, Ian nodded. “Aye. Now put pressure on her wound.”
Why hadn’t he thought of that? Angus pressed his hand down on Birdi shoulder, feeling wet warmth—Birdi’s life—beneath his palm. His stomach roiled. Oh dear God, his poor wee Birdi. Her being Pagan wasn’t bad enough, God? Ye had to make her a cailleach as well? Ack!
At Angus’s side, Ian wavered a bit and had to use his arms to brace himself. “Are the bastards dead?” Angus nodded. “But it happened again. I saw ye lying here, thinking ye dead, and…”
He didn’t explain further. Ian had seen him lose control—become a berserker—once before; they’d come upon a group of Hessians raping two French women years ago.
Ian nodded in understanding, apparently unfazed, and then looked about. “We need to dress her wounds. Where’s my horse?”
Angus shrugged. If there was any logic left in the world the cattle were together. He whistled. A moment later Rampage thundered up the road with Ian’s black gelding at his back.
Ian staggered to his feet, grabbed his mount’s reins, and tied him to a tree. “He isna as cooperative as yer beast.” Ian routed around in the bag behind his saddle and pulled out a fine silk shirt. As he walked back, he tore it into strips. “Take her cape off, and let’s see what we’re dealing with.”
Angus undid the clasp at Birdi’s breast and slipped the cape from her shoulders. Above the gown’s wide scoop neck, he saw the top of the weeping scarlet slash. With his gut feeling like it was full of glass shards, he eased her arms out of the brocade. Ian held Birdi upright and Angus lifted the gown over her slack body. He pushed the sheer cotton shift off her shoulder, exposing the whole oozing gash, and shuddered. It was a good six inches in length. He could see bone.
Ian cleared his throat. “‘Tis not so bad.”
Angus glared at his friend.
Together they cleaned the wound and bound Birdi about the chest and right shoulder. Her shift and gown back in place, Angus cradled her to his chest. As he rocked side to side with her, he said, “We’re only a few miles from Clachan. I know of a kirk there where we can seek shelter for the night.”
“Good. Come morn, ‘tis only a day’s ride to Inveraray. We can seek refuge with the Duke of Argyll until she recoups.” After a minute Ian added, “Ye need to think about riding straight for Blackstone.”
Angus brushed the loose strands from Birdi’s face. Looking at her, wishing with all his heart that she would open her eyes, he said, “We canna. First, it’s an arduous trek and she’s in no condition to make it, and second, Blackstone has a zealot for a priest. He’ll drive her wode in an effort to convert her.” Why his liege hadn’t tossed the fanatic glutton out of Drasmoor years ago was beyond Angus’s understanding. “And if he ever saw her lay on hands…
Ian flexed his injured shoulder. “Listen to me. We can take a boat across Loch Awe at Portsonchan, which will cut off a good two-day’s ride, then head due west. As for Fat John, who says he needs to know what she is.”
“Ye think he’ll not grow suspicious when she doesn’t attend vespers? When she refuses to confess before him? The man isna an idiot.” Fat John had given Lady Beth headaches too numerous to count when she’d first arrived and the woman was Christian and worldly, unlike his Birdi.
“We’ll make excuses for her until we can come up with something else.”
Angus grunted. Birdi didn’t know the Holy Ghost from a kelpie—would nay doubt trip herself up within a week—and God only knew what would happen then. Ack. “How is yer shoulder?”
“Ye’ll not believe it.” He shrugged off his jerkin and opened his shirt lacings for Angus to see.
Ian’s wound—identical to the one Birdi now bore—was miraculously on the mend. Though beyond belief, Angus no longer wondered how Birdi had come by her many scars.
Rising, he growled, “Let’s get out of here.”
#
Their footsteps echoed throughout Clachan kirk’s frigid nave as Angus and Ian walked toward the altar. Ian, dirk in hand, murmured, “‘Tis empty.”
Angus shifted Birdi in his arms. “Thank God.” Birdi had been crying out in her sleep, much as she had after she’d tended Kelsea and the babe she’d found in the mews. There’d be no explaining it to a stranger. “Make a pallet for her there.” He nodded toward the raised dais.
Ian snatched the cloth from the marble altar, hauled down a tapestry hanging to the right of a shallow alcove, and pulled the cushions from three tall, heavily carved chairs stationed to the left of the altar. After he’d laid them out, Angus lowered Birdi and covered her with Ian’s great cloth of plaid. He then sat next to her and took one of her cool hands in his. He turned it over and rubbed a thumb over the calluses dotting her palm.
“Ye’ve not had an easy time of it, have ye, lass?”
And matters were likely to get worse. Ian was right. They needed to make for Blackstone. Castle Blackstone was an isle fortress. Ensconced within its walls, Birdi couldn’t come to harm again. More importantly, she’d never be alone again. The priest he would deal with in some way.
And what of his wager with Duncan, and the lass who waited at Beal? He hissed through clenched teeth. Mayhap, if he looked pathetic enough—if he raised his wager to a full year’s salary—Duncan would concede to giving him another fortnight to bring home a proper chatelaine bride. If Duncan would, he—Angus the Blood—might still be able to gain Donaliegh and his chiefship. And if he failed…hell, he’d already grown accustomed to starving.
He ran a finger along Birdi’s lush lower lip. But to make it all work, he had to prepare her.
“Ian, find me some holy water.”
Birdalane Shame was about to be baptized into the One True Faith.