Chapter 12
Lilidh woke in the darkness to a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.
She’d slept poorly, tossing and turning all night, and thoroughly regretted her decision to accompany Mathe and Fynn. She still didn’t even know why she’d offered. Fynn’s safety was at the forefront, of course, but she’d be lying to herself if that was the only reason. Curse Mathe, and the way he’d spoken of their last visit to the grove, which of course made her remember exactly what they had done there together. She didn’t think too often on those early days of their marriage, as they brought her a most keen pain, and yet she hadn’t been able to help it.
Lilidh sat up in bed and felt tears run down her cheeks. How she wished life could be different; how she wished Mathe had never changed. She had loved the man he was with all her heart, only to have it slowly broken over the years. And now that he was back, she couldn’t seem to make heads or tails of her own emotions. She was still filled with such a deep and terrible anger, and yet over the last few days she had caught glimpses of a Mathe that she barely remembered; a Mathe that spoke softly and considered her feelings and made her feel something that she thought had died long ago.
So out of impulse, she had asked to go with them both.
And now she could only wonder how to tell him she’d changed her mind.
It was too much, too soon, and she was afraid of her own feelings. They’d only been to the grove once before, but it held a special place in Lilidh’s heart; a memory of better times with the man she had once loved. No, it would be better to let the men enjoy themselves, and she could stay behind and… actually, Lilidh had no idea what she would do. She’d never had a day to herself since Fynn was born, and the idea was so strange to her that she frowned.
A noise to her right interrupted her thoughts. It was a scraping sound, and then the clink of wood. “Fynn?” she asked sleepily.
“Aye,” came a reply, although his voice sounded curiously thick.
Lilidh stood and walked to the side window, unlatching it and throwing it open. Early morning light flooded the room, and she turned back to see Fynn sitting at the table eating his porridge with a never-before-seen enthusiasm. He looked up at her with a smile and she could see that he was fully dressed in his only pair of stout boots, and wore a thick coat.
“I packed us some things,” he said as he ate, and nodded down to a burlap sack on the ground.
“I dinnae ken,” she said. “How did ye warm the porridge?”
“I made a fire,” he explained. “Ye must have been tired because ye didnae wake up. Here, I made ye a bowl.”
Lilidh glanced into the fireplace and saw the traces of embers deep inside, before looking back at her son with wonder. He’d risen, gotten himself dressed, packed some supplies and made them both breakfast?
“Oh mama, I’m so excited to go on an adventure with ye and Mathe,” he said, swinging his legs under the chair.
Lilidh pulled the other chair out and sat down, pulling her porridge close, and gave him a warm smile. All at once, any thought of backing out of the journey left her mind, and she couldn’t help but shake her head at his enthusiasm.
“Aye, Fynn,” she said as she began eating her porridge. “So am I.”
* * *
Walking through the forest,Lilidh felt at ease with herself.
She’d always loved being in the trees, hidden under their branches, smelling the leaves and the loam and the life all around. Why hadn’t she brought Fynn down here sooner? The land around Dun Lagaidh was mostly open moorland and the only trees grew down close to the banks of the Dundonnell, or up north by Glen Knapp. Even the crofter’s valley where their farmhouse used to stand was a wide and open scree with nothing taller than a ragged old gorse bush. It wasn’t until one travelled south through the lands of the McPhees that true forests were to be found, and to Lilidh they felt ancient and wrapped in secrets.
“Wait,” Mathe said, coming to a pause. He dropped into a crouch and motioned Fynn over to him.
“What is it?” the boy whispered.
“Through there. See?”
Fynn squinted, then nodded excitedly. “I saw something move. Was it a deer?”
“I dinnae think so, lad,” Mathe said. “A deer would have heard or smelt us long before we saw it. Do ye sometimes feel the wind on yer back as we walk?”
“Aye, it tickles my neck,” Fynn said.
“Well, that means the wind is picking up the smell from yer clothes and then blowing it away out in front of us. Most animals will smell us on the wind and run away.”
“But I want to see one,” Fynn pouted.
“I know, lad, so we’ll wait and see if the wind changes. If we start to feel it on our faces, that means we might get a chance to see a deer. Do ye know why?”
“Because he willnae be able to smell us on the wind,” Fynn said after a moment’s thought. “Our smell will blow behind us.”
Mathe nodded approvingly. “That’s right, Fynn.”
As they walked, Lilidh watched Mathe and Fynn interact. Her husband seemed to be full of small tidbits of knowledge, almost bursting to teach them to the boy. And for his part, Fynn listened to everything the man said, nodding and occasionally asking questions that surprised her. How strange it was to see her husband and son together, and for a moment Lilidh felt like she didn’t know either of them.
Fynn was growing so fast. Not only physically, although he was certainly doing that. It was becoming increasingly clear that he’d inherited more than just Mathe’s green eyes, and her skills with the needle and thread were being sorely tested from the speed at which he was growing. No, he was maturing in other ways that kept catching her out; asking questions beyond his years, seeing through her evasions to the heart of things. She knew it wouldn’t be long until he started asking who Mathe really was, and at that point, Lilidh had no idea what she would say to him.
She spotted a familiar looking wild bush and pointed it out. “Look, Fynn. Blackberries.”
The boy laughed and ran over with Mathe following. “Good spotting,” he said to her. “We can pick some for our lunch.”
“Aye,” Lilidh replied. She loved blackberries, and Mathe had once tried to grow some by the old farmhouse. She’d loved him for trying, but the incessant wind that whistled down the valley made it hard going, and the bushes lasted only a few straggly months. She had better luck with the vegetables, but only just. “Easier to pick them than it is to grow them, wouldnae ye say?”
Mathe chuckled at the memory. “Aye, it most certainly is. I haven’t forgotten the long hours I spent tending those cursed blackberries. Did we even get any from them, in the end?”
“I think we picked enough for one bowl,” Lilidh said. “Dinnae ye remember how tart they were?”
“Aye, that’s right.” He shook his head. “The things I used to do.”
As they resumed their journey, weighed down with blackberries, Lilidh breathed deeply. Fynn was scampering through the trees to their left, and she and Mathe walked side by side alone.
“I love it here,” she said. “I could live in the woods.”
“Ye and the deer?” Mathe asked.
“They could be my friends,” Lilidh said with a small shrug. “We’d eat blackberries together.”
“No” the safest place to live, though.”
“Ye”ve seen my house, Mathe,” Lilidh replied. “It couldnae be much worse than that.”
Mathe nodded and looked as if he would say something, but then looked away. He seemed suddenly uncomfortable, and Lilidh wondered if he truly felt guilt over what her life had become. For one moment, she wondered how things would seem from his perspective; to come home to reunite with his wife, only to learn that his very own actions had made her life more difficult than he could have ever imagined.
“Aye,” Mathe said at last. “It couldnae be much worse than that. Ye deserve better.”
“It doesnae matter what I deserve, Mathe. People dinnae get what they deserve.” Lilidh blew out her breath. “But it’s beside the point. I dinnae deserve a house, Mathe, I need a house. A proper house.”
“For the lad.”
“Aye, for Fynn. Ye”ve seen our house, Mathe, and it’s barely a house at all. One room, nay privacy, sunken into the mud, liable to fall over. Do ye know the whole thing is sitting at such an angle that I cannae even use some of the shelves? Never mind the fact that it’s no” secure or safe. It’s always dirty and I can never get it clean nay matter how hard I scrub. The chimney is too small, so the house fills with smoke and we all stink of it. Fynn is always coughing, and he gets sick more than he should.” Lilidh shook her head, caught somewhere between sadness and anger. “Nay, Mathe, it’s no” a house to raise a child in, and Fynn needs better.”
“Is that why ye work in the castle?” Mathe asked quietly.
“Aye, that’s why. I’m saving my coppers to move us somewhere better.”
“And this means a lot to ye?”
Lilidh twisted to look at him. “Mathe, this means everything to me. I’ve tried to find a job that will get us out of that house for years now. But, of course, nobody will hire the widow MacBrennan, will they?”
She tried to keep the bitterness out of her voice, but knew from Mathe’s silence that she had failed. They walked together without speaking, watching Fynn as he jumped and gambolled with abandon, balancing on fallen logs and picking leaves from the trees overhead.
“I still want to help,” Mathe said. “Let me give ye the money I earn from woodworking.”
“Ye’ll need that for yerself, I’m sure,” Lilidh said. “Eventually Rabby will want ye to pay for yer room.”
“I’ll still have some left over, even at that.”
Lilidh shook her head. “Mathe, I need to do this by myself.”
“But it will take ye years,” he frowned.
“Aye, it likely will,” Lilidh agreed. “Years of hard work scrubbing pots. But ye know what, Mathe? It will be worth it. When I walk down into town with my savings in my hands, and buy Fynn a house with a room of his own, it will all be worth it.”
They fell silent and following the old trail that wound deeper into the forest until Mathe paused. “It’s this way,” he said, gesturing to a smaller path, and then frowned. “I think.”
“It is,” Lilidh replied. “We missed it the first time, remember? I wanted to backtrack -”
“But I insisted we cut through the forest,” Mathe finished with a rueful smile. “And what happened?”
“Ye got yer foot stuck in a log. Serves ye right.”
“I almost lost my boot,” Mathe muttered. “And then ye started swinging my axe around, and I almost lost my foot.”
“I had everything under control,” Lilidh replied archly. “And I got yer foot out, didnae I?” In fact, she remembered the sudden spike of fear when she’d first brought the axe down, hitting far too close to Mathe’s ankle than she intended. But he didn’t need to know that.
“I suppose ye did. Well, after ye.” Mathe gestured to her to go first, and they turned off the main path. Fynn followed behind them, lost in a pretend game, holding a stick as if it were a sword and waving it theatrically.
The path continued onward, and Lilidh felt the first gnawing sense of doubt. Was this the right way? She didn’t remember it being so far, although she was certainly more sprightly back then. Perhaps the grove had been cut down and grown over? Or perhaps the first time they had cut onto a different path altogether? But as they walked, the trail eventually widened and opened out into the familiar sight of oak trees, and she gave a sigh of relief. Mathe heard it and looked over, his eyes sparkling.
“Ye werenae worried, I hope?” he asked with amusement.
“I never doubted ye for a moment,” she replied.
“I’m glad, because I’d never lead ye astray. Fynn? We’re here.”
The boy ran over to them and looked around for the first time, his eyes going wide at the sight of the tall and ancient oaks. They looked the same to Lilidh’s eyes, but everything else had grown up around them, and it seemed more wild than she recalled. The open patch of grassland where she and Mathe had rested was no longer there, and the trees overhead were more dense, throwing the grove into a dappled shade. The sounds of the forest seemed muted and gave the place an eery, almost hallowed feel. She walked around slowly and shivered, rubbing her arms, feeling goose pimples on her skin, and then Mathe’s coat fell over her shoulders. He pulled it tight, then turned her around gently and fastened the top clasp. His eyes were kind and she couldn’t help but smile at him.
“My thanks,” she said.
“Cannae have ye catch a chill. Let’s have a seat and give our legs a rest. Maybe eat a few of those blackberries.”
Lilidh nodded, and they sat on the gnarled roots of an oak tree. Fynn ate a handful of blackberries and returned to his game, fighting off an imaginary horde of invaders, leaping from root to log with his sword held high. They watched him in a silence that seemed strangely companionable, sitting shoulder to shoulder, and she could feel him pressed so very slightly against her. The thought made her shiver again.
“Still cold?” he asked. “I have naught else to give ye, unless ye want me to strip down.”
“I’m quite alright,” she said quickly, before the thought of Mathe’s shirtless body found its way into her thoughts. The idea made her uncomfortable even as she felt her breath quicken.
“It worked last time,” he said softly, but Fynn joined them before she could respond. It seemed that the boy had finally tired of his game.
“I wish I had a real sword,” he said. “Like we saw at the blacksmith.”
“And what would ye do with it?” Mathe asked him.
The boy shrugged. “Fight bad people.”
“There are nay bad people here, Fynn. And besides, I thought we agreed a hammer was better.”
“Ye had a sword,” he said, looking at Mathe accusingly.
“Aye, I did,” Mathe conceded.
“And ye told me it was special.”
Lilidh frowned, feeling a sudden tightening in her gut. How did Fynn know about Mathe’s sword? She’d always hated Mèirleach na Beatha, for what it was and for what it meant. It legitimised Mathe’s actions and gave him the voice of the laird, like a sign or a banner, and she remembered how proudly he’d worn it. He’d hid behind that sword. Her husband looked over at her and must have seen the distress on her face, because he put his hand on her knee and gave her a reassuring smile.
“I said it was special once, Fynn,” he said, “but no” anymore.”
“How can something be special and then no” special?” Fynn asked, his face scrunched.
“Things dinnae need to be special forever. Sometimes things that were special once become less so, and other things take their place.”
“Tell me about it,” Fynn asked. “Please?”
Mathe looked up at Lilidh and she stared back, feeling herself gripped with a strange fear. He nodded slowly. “Well, like ye, I didnae have a father when I grew up,” he said. “Or a mother, actually. But by chance I met someone who took me in and gave me a home.”
Lilidh remembered it all too well; she and Mathe had only been seeing each other for a short time when there was an incident up in Glen Knapp. Mathe had finished up for the day in the sawmill and the two of them were enjoying a walk through the forest, when a group of men on horseback appeared. They were hunting, and looked to be important, so the two of them stood back and let them ride past.
Only as they did so, a wild boar burst through the underbrush and charged one of them. The man’s horse reared and threw him, and before she knew it, Mathe had closed the space and put himself between the boar and the man, his small wood blade the only weapon to hand. The boar hit him full in the chest before the other hunters could react. Lilidh remembered her scream as Mathe pitched backwards, limp and ragged, while the others descended on the boar with spears.
The man who was charged turned out to be the old Laird McCaskill, and when he learned of Mathe’s circumstances, had him moved into the castle to recover. In hindsight, Lilidh knew that was the beginning; the start of the long road that wound to this very day.
“I started to work for the man,” Mathe continued, “and over time we became close. He was almost like the father that I never had. He taught me about the world, and of its people, and of power. And on my twentieth birthday, he gave me the sword.”
Mathe looked down and frowned. Lilidh remembered how happy he’d been when the old laird presented it to him. To Mathe, the sword meant more than what the old man intended. To the laird, it was doubtless just a simple tool to exert power and influence over others; to act with his will. But to Mathe, it was a gift from a father to a son. He’d taken the sword from the laird, thanked him, and then walked home with Lilidh in silence.
And it was only when he closed the door that he broke down into tears, clutching the sword to his chest.
“It was important to me for a long time,” Mathe said. “I wore it proudly for what it was and what it meant.”
“I wish I could see it,” Fynn said wistfully.
“Aye, but it’s gone now.”
“Did ye lose it?”
“Nay,” Mathe answered. “But I came to realise that I didnae need it anymore. It was taking me down a path that I didnae want to walk. It’s still important to me, but now it’s because it’s a reminder. When I think of the sword, I dinnae think of what I’ve lost, Fynn, but what I’ve gained.”
The boy frowned. “That doesnae make any sense.”
Mathe smiled. “It will, when ye’re older. And do ye remember what else we talked about at the blacksmith? About hammers?”
“A hammer is better because it creates,” the boy recited, “and a sword only takes away.”
“Aye,” Mathe said, looking up at Lilidh, his hand still on her knee. “That’s right. And it’s a time for building. So what say ye help me gather some of these fallen branches, and we’ll make something wonderful together, ye and I.”
* * *
The stars were out overheadas they passed under the southern gate and back into Dun Lagaidh.
It had been a long day. Fynn had fallen asleep hours ago, and Mathe carried him gently in his arms. Her husband was still deceptively strong and didn’t waver or complain. Lilidh was sure that if she were carrying the boy, her arms would have dropped off miles ago.
The town was nearly empty as they made their way towards the west gate, and lit braziers cast flickering shadows on every wall. Lilidh didn’t often find herself walking the town after sunset and supposed that today had been a day of new experiences. For one brief, beautiful day, Lilidh had forgotten about everything else and just enjoyed the time spent with her family.
She shivered in the cool air at the memory, and once again asked herself the question that had played on her mind all afternoon.
Where did this end?
Mathe had once again reaffirmed his reasons for returning, and he spoke with such quiet determination that it would have been easy - oh, so easy - to believe him. To wrap herself in the comfort of knowing that her husband would take care of her and make things right. Only how did a person like MacBrennan ever make things right? The things he had done, and the person he became, were simply too vast to erase, too ingrained into the collective mind of the town.
And yet he was trying. She saw the way he acted with Fynn, and it made her heart ache. She saw how her son looked at Mathe when he wasn’t looking. She knew what was happening, right before her eyes, and it filled her with such a deep and terrible fear. Please dinnae leave again, she whispered in her mind. But was her silent plea for Fynn, or for herself? He looked at her in such a way that brought back memories of their youth, made her feel both warm and cold from the things unsaid in that gaze. She’d been alone for so long, that now Mathe had returned, she found herself with a growing longing for… something. His touch. His love. His body. Was it so strange for a woman to long for her husband?
“I enjoyed today,” Mathe said quietly to her.
“Aye,” Lilidh replied. “It was good for the lad.”
“Just the lad?”
She looked at him. “I suppose it was good for me, too.”
“Ye always did love the woods,” Mathe said. “I’m glad ye came.”
They stepped off the cobbled street and Mathe followed her across the planks of wood, balancing precariously with Fynn in his arms. They stepped onto the porch and Lilidh opened the front door. Then she turned back to Mathe, feeling suddenly shy. He stood and watched her in the darkness, and the dim light of the moon cut across his face and made shadows under his eyes.
“Ye”re still so frail,” she said, reaching one hand up before she could stop herself. It grazed his cheek, and she felt the strange prickle of his beard. A part of her wanted him to shave, so she could look full upon the face of her husband once more, and yet another part didn’t want to see that man again. This was Mathe, now, not the clean-shaven MacBrennan.
“I’ve changed, aye,” Mathe said softly. “But ye’re still as bonny as the day I met ye.”
“At the butcher shop,” Lilidh replied with a smile.
“Ye made me drop my sausages.”
“I was in a hurry,” Lilidh said with a sniff. “And I helped ye pick them up.”
“Aye, ye did,” Mathe said with a smile. “And helped me eat them later, as I recall.”
Lilidh smiled in return but said nothing, feeling such a strange feeling inside. It was almost pain; a yearning for something that could have never been. A life that they were never able to live.
Mathe passed Fynn across to her, and Lilidh reached her arms out to take him. And as the boy snuggled into her chest and her hands wrapped protectively around his body, Mathe leant down and kissed her.
She wasn’t expecting it, and yet couldn’t fight against it. His lips met hers and for one moment she froze, her mind unable to comprehend what was happening, and then her body took over. She tilted her head and stepped forward towards him, gently, and they kissed under the moonlight with Fynn asleep between them. Mathe’s beard tickled her chin and his arms wrapped around them both, and she felt the combined warmth from their bodies, joined as they were.
And then he pulled away, looking at her intensely. She looked back, her head still tilted and eyes half closed, still able to taste him on her lips. She wanted more, and the thought both scared and excited her beyond reasoning. What was happening to her?
“Goodnight, Lilidh,” he said, and then stepped off the porch and into the night.