Epilogue
The bloodline of the Isle must prevail beyond quietus.
’Twas the perfect winter afternoon, bright and fresh with the crisp promise of snow in the air, and Roisin breathed in deeply as she and her sisters strolled in the courtyard while the bairns screamed in delight and the dogs barked with excitement as they chased each other.
She smiled as she watched her six-year-old son, Symon, haul his two-year-old sister Innis to her feet before, hand in hand, they raced after their cousins. As if wanting to join in, her babe kicked strongly, and she stroked her swollen belly.
Not long now, my wee yin.
Just another two months until she and Hugh welcomed their longed-for third bairn.
Although they spent most of the year at their manor, they often visited Balfour Castle to see Hugh’s father, and each of their bairns had been born in his childhood home.
And, as much as she loved the home they’d made together in the manor, she was always happy at Balfour, not least because the castle was closer to both Isolde and Freyja.
“Are ye all right?” Freyja, always the healer, sounded concerned. “Do ye wish to return inside and sit with Amma?”
“I’m fine,” she assured her sister. Amma had arrived at Balfour a week ago for her usual winter stay with them when they all gathered together to welcome the new year, and she and Hugh’s father, who was now quite frail, enjoyed each other’s company.
“Ye’re doing better than me then.” Isolde pressed her hand to the small of her back and sighed. “This rascal is giving me more grief than all of my first three put together. Thank God I told William from the start that four bairns was my limit.”
“Maybe ye should go inside, then.” Freyja gave her an anxious glance, and Isolde laughed.
“’Tis nothing, Frey. Without fail, this babe wakes when I want to sleep so I’m constantly exhausted, and I never had that with any of the others. But ’tis scarcely a cause for alarm. Even if I do have another three months of it.”
“I think I should examine ye again, just to make sure all is well.”
Isolde sighed. “I’m quite certain I am not expecting twins.”
“Aye, well, that notion never crossed my mind either when I was pregnant, did it?” Freyja looked across the courtyard, where her boisterous twins, Ranulph and Archie, were goading each other to climb up the wall of the castle. “Oh, great Eir preserve us.”
Freyja marched across the court to her offspring, and Isolde took Roisin’s arm. “Do ye think Frey is quite well? She’s been quite agitated ever since she arrived a couple of days ago.”
Roisin considered her sister, as she wagged her finger at her sons and gesticulated at the castle wall. “Ye do not suppose she might be with child?”
Isolde sniffed. “Are ye brave enough to ask her?”
“I am not,” Roisin confirmed. After the shock of the twins’ birth eight years ago, Freyja had been adamant her family was complete. “Doubtless she’ll tell us if she is.”
Little Helga collided into Isolde’s legs, and with an indulgent smile, she scooped her three-year-old daughter into her arms. “What is it, my wee bairn?”
“Ingrid won’t let me play.” Indignation quivered through her voice as she sent a tear-filled look at her seven-year-old sister. “She says I’m a babe.”
Roisin retied her niece’s hood and dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose. “Why don’t ye play with Innis, then?”
Helga gave her a solemn look. “Innis is a wee babe, Auntie.”
Roisin and Isolde exchanged glances over Helga’s head, both trying not to laugh, before Isolde placed Helga back on the ground. “Supper won’t be long. Go tell Ingrid to behave herself and as for ye, be kind to wee Innis.”
Helga gave a loud, long-suffering sigh before she trotted off and Freyja returned. “Those lads have no sense of danger. I swear to God they must lay awake at night thinking up new ways to terrify me. Why can’t they be more like yer Will, Izzie?”
Isolde scoffed. “Will has his moments, let me tell ye.” She sent an affectionate glance at her eldest, where he was on the ground with the dogs sprawled on top of him and a bittersweet pang squeezed Roisin’s heart.
Sweet Ecne, like his littermates, had lived to a great age but even now, six years after he had joined his brothers, she still missed him.
Although she had to admit she dearly loved the hound littermates she and her sisters had been given four years ago by their paternal grandfather’s greatest friend and steward, Miles.
Not least because the pups were descendants of their beloved Afi’s favorite dog, Ban.
“’Tis a pity Laoise could not join us this year.” Freyja sighed, before she sent a fond smile in the direction of her wayward sons. “Her lasses always bring out the best in Ranulph and Archie.”
“How is married life treating her?” Roisin well remembered Laoise’s late brute of a first husband, back on the Isle of Eigg.
But five years ago, after the death of her mother, she’d accepted Freyja’s invitation to move to Dunochty Castle where she’d continued her education in the medical arts under the keen eye of both Freyja and her dear friend, Jane.
And six months ago, Laoise had wed Alasdair’s steward.
“Very well, indeed. Did I tell ye her sisters who came over from Eigg for the wedding decided to stay in the Highlands? Laoise had been teaching them all those years on the Isle, and their skills are most admirable.”
“That is good for her. Who needs that fancy royal college in London when they can train under ye and Jane?” Isolde looked at Roisin. “And Grear is arriving tomorrow? It’s been so long since I last saw her.”
“Aye, she’s accompanying Mary and Agnes. They should be here before supper tomorrow.”
She was looking forward to seeing Hugh’s sisters again, who were both wed with wee ones of their own.
But most of all she couldn’t wait to see Grear, who had married a trusted confidant of Agnes’s husband four years ago.
She and Grear would always share a special bond, not only because they’d known each other since they were bairns, but because of those weeks they’d shared in the camp.
With a clatter of hooves, Hugh and the rest of the men who had gone hunting entered the courtyard and as the bairns and dogs went wild—except for Will, who at ten and a half considered himself far too old for such displays—she and her sisters strolled over to them.
Servants hurried over to take the catch to the kitchen, and Hugh enveloped Roisin in a hug that warmed her to the tips of her toes.
Even after ten years, he had the power to steal the breath from her lungs with merely a glance.
As they parted, she saw both William and Alasdair with their arms around their wives’ shoulders, and happiness overflowed her heart.
How fortunate they had all been to find each other, and even though sometimes the strangeness of how all three of them had ended up leaving Eigg with their soulmates gnawed in the back of her mind, she tried not to worry about it.
Even Amma had confessed, years ago, that she no longer understood what the Deep Knowing had truly meant.
Roisin doubted that they ever would. And although she and her sisters all agreed they would tell their daughters about it, so far she and Isolde hadn’t.
It seemed vaguely specious, when the three of them had left the Isle that their foremother had been so determined her descendants should remain on forever.
“Look who I found in the forest, on his way to Balfour.” Hugh stepped back, and Douglas bowed his head at her in greeting.
“Douglas, how wonderful to see ye.” She went to him, and they exchanged a formal hug.
For years after she and Hugh had wed, Douglas had kept his distance, and Hugh had struggled with the guilt he harbored for Symon’s death.
But after the birth of their own sweet son, the brothers had slowly forged a bridge between each other and now Douglas turned up at odd times during the year, either here or at the manor.
She was always mindful that Balfour would one day go to Douglas, however many times he assured her he did not want it.
He had his own castle, although they had never been invited there, but nevertheless, she always kept the hope alive that one day Douglas would throw off the dark shackles of his past and find a woman worthy of him.
They all went inside for supper, and the great hall filled with the happy sound of kin and friends who had known each other forever.
Patric, who had left Eigg with Isolde when she had wed William, regaled them with tales of how committed the young village lasses he and Isolde trained in defensive tactics were in honing their skills.
It was something her sister had become passionate about after she had been attacked by Alan MacGregor and so she ensured they could protect themselves against an unwary assault.
Clyde, who had accompanied Freyja from Eigg to Dunochty, was deep in conversation with Amma. He had surprised everyone two years ago by marrying a widow, a gracious gentlewoman, and Clyde was beside himself that, at his advanced time of life, he was to be a father next summer.
After supper they retired to the solar, where a fire burned brightly in the hearth, and many chairs were scattered around. Roisin settled beside the fire and the bairns sat at her feet, even Will, waiting for her to tell them a fine tale of the mystical fae, perhaps.
She never tired of sharing those fantastical stories, and just as she had wished when she’d entertained the bairns in the camp all those years ago, she had managed to persuade the villagers both here, and at the manor, to allow their bairns to spend a couple of hours a week learning their letters under her guidance.
“Which one do ye want?” She cuddled Innis on her lap as Helga snuggled with Amma, her namesake.
“Our fierce Pict queen ancestor,” shouted Archie. The others cheered in agreement. She laughed and glanced at her sisters who were both shaking their heads.