Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Muire and Sine woke shortly after Ailith, stretching and chattering excitedly. Sine wrapped a plaid cape around her slender body and raced out of the chamber, blonde hair standing on end like her brothers often did, for the kitchens. She and Muire had a quiet meal planned for breaking their fast.
Sine returned as Ailith finished wiping her face at the table, balancing an overloaded platter in one hand and a small pitcher in the other.
“Och! The keep is already awake and busy! I had to fight for this!”
“I think ye mean hoard as much of the fruit and honey as ye could!” Muire answered in a tease, rising quickly to take the platter from her sister.
Muire was not wrong. It was mostly summer fruit and berries on the platter, with a bannock buried underneath and two small pots next to a trio of cups. Ailith sniffed the pots – one was honey, the other brambleberry preserves. Sine was a lass after Ailith’s own sweet-toothed heart.
Sine poured honey wine for all three of them while Muire and Ailith selected their food. Ailith should eat more, and she forced a few bannock and honey bites past her lips, but her stomach wouldn’t take any more. It was a cluster of knots.
“Dinna worry, Ailith,” Muire said as she sipped from her cup. “Sine and I will keep a few bites on our person in case ye need to eat throughout the morning.”
It was like she read Ailith’s mind. She turned her face to the muted light filtering through the window by the hearth. It was well past dawn. So much for a daybreak wedding, Ailith thought with a thin smile.
“And William!” Sine added. “He was storming the hall, half-dressed, demanding to know why he wasn’t at the kirk already!”
Ailith had to laugh along with Muire and Sine’s giggles. She could easily imagine William, his defined chest bare and blond-fuzzed, his long legs striding from one hallway to the next, urging guests to wake and head to the kirk.
Muire popped a final berry into her mouth and wiped her hands together.
“Unless we want his bearish person barging in here and wedding ye in my chambers, we should get ready.” She rose and offered a hand to Ailith. “Sine and I have everything for ye ready in Caitir’s salon, our gowns included. A special bridal chamber for ye this day.”
Ailith froze with a smile on her face. She recalled when her family friend had gotten married the summer before, and she had reserved a bridal suite at the venue where she and her bridesmaids dressed and did their hair. They had champagne and strawberries and curling irons and giggles.
Was this the medieval version of that? Maybe not the champagne or curling irons, but berries and giggles, certainly.
Ailith nodded.
Let’s get this show on the road, she thought.
“Aye, let’s get me ready for my wedding.”
“My God, man! Dinna fasten it so tight!” William complained as Ailbert fastened the buttons at the top of the cotehardie.
The rich, dark brown leather was loose at his hips but tightened across his chest and practically choked him at the neck.
“Haut yer wheest!” Ailbert snapped back with a snarky smile.
The man’s enjoying this, William thought with a touch of humor.
“’Tis only for a brief time, lad. Ye should look your best this day,” his father told him in his most authoritative tone from behind Ailbert.
Bernard was not wrong, and William’s brother and father had ensured William’s wedding costume was worthy of nobility. The soft leather coat buttoned from the detailed hem to the neck with shiny silver buttons.
Instead of loose braies, he wore proper trews, fitted and far too clingy at the groin, but complemented the loose cotehardie.
His belt was a silver-studded, wide strip of polished leather, inset with a large emerald at the buckle.
Bernard had lent him the belt and said William should wear it but didn’t exactly say why.
The gift was a treasured one regardless, and despite his agitation and zeal for this moment, William gave his father an appreciative nod. His father always had William’s best intentions in mind, and he would wear the belt knowing Bernard offered it with good reason.
Caitir popped in to brush his wild blondish-brown hair, plaiting small braids at his temples and smoothing the rest back with a bit of thinned beeswax.
“Is she ready?” William asked, grabbing her arm as she tried to slip out the door.
Caitir grinned, her eyes sparkling and teasing.
“Why do ye no’ go to the kirk and find out?”
“Donas!” William cursed under his breath as Caitir closed the door behind her.
Bernard’s head snapped up, his jaw twitching. “William! No’ on your wedding day!”
William brushed his hands over his hair as he gave himself a final glance in the mirror. “Och, definitely on my wedding day. Come on then. I canna wait any longer.”
He grasped the final pieces of his wedding outfit: his green-and-brown plaid cape and the silver-and-garnet Lukenbooth gifted by Ailith. He fastened the brooch to the cape across his shoulders as he strode from his chambers.
It was time. And by the old gods, he had waited long enough.
The processional and most of the wedding itself went by in a blur for Ailith. She was probably in a state of shock for most of it.
What she did remember was the look on William’s face when she stepped through the kirk door and entered the church.
Sunlight burst through the tall stained-glass window above the altar, casting William into shades of gold and blue.
He resembled a Nordic god, standing tall and ready at the altar, waiting for her.
More ready than she was, to be certain.
His eyes widened when he saw her in the green dress, and she noticed that the belt at his waist was the same deep emerald as her gown.
Once on her body, with her hair braided into a complex crown style and the rest curling down her back, held in place by a pearl-studded circlet and a thin veil, the gown breathed new life into her.
She agreed that she rivaled the goddess Brigid in this gown.
From the gazes and gasps from the guests, Ailith presumed they believed the same.
As for William, his eyes were transfixed, as if he could not move them even if he desired.
The wedding progressed. William drank from the double-handled quaich cup, then offered it to her, and she sipped the sour red wine.
She didn’t recall even saying I do, though she must have, or the wedding would not have continued.
All she remembered was seeing William’s blue eyes, as blue as the stained glass shining above them, and how they never left her face.
After he placed a signet ring on her hand, one with the MacDougal crest etched in miniature, he turned her palm over and placed his palm next to hers.
Before she could question what was happening, William’s brother Ailbert nicked the tip of his sgian-dubh across the fat pad of her palm, then did the same for William.
As she gasped, the priest worked quickly, pressing their palms together and binding them tightly with a wool cloth.
That she remembered.
What –?
But William was grinning at her, and after the priest intoned something about blood of blood and bone of bone, he was celebrating them as man and wife.
What –?
That thought was cut off when William wrapped his free hand around her waist and lifted her off her feet to crush his lips to hers. The crowd cheered and hooted (in a church?), and Oh My God! She was married.
William kept kissing her until Ailbert pulled him away.
“We have a feast to attend first, aye?” he joked.
A high-pitched note resonated from outside, a lone piper, and the notes followed, one crescendo of sound after another as William led her off the altar step, past the wooden pews, and bursting out of the doors into the pale sunshine, their hand still bound, ready to start their new life together.
Oh my God, she thought as she squinted into the sunlight. I did it.
William did not hesitate once outside. Instead of waiting for the rest of the guests, he continued to walk, or rather run-walk, across the inner bailey to the keep. His sense of urgency burned off his skin like a furnace.
“William! Do we no’ wait –” she tried to argue.
“Nay,” he interrupted her. “We have waited long enough.”
The door to the Drumoak kitchens was to the side of the tower, and he directed her there instead of the main hall doors, where their wedding feast awaited.
“Waited long enough?” she asked as he swept her toward the door with their bound hands. “’Tis only been two days –”
At the door, he stopped and faced her, swirling her into his open arms again. “Nay, I have waited long enough to have ye as my wife.” He shifted closer until his breath was hot on her lips. “My wife.”
Then he kissed her, a frenzied kiss full of need. Ripping his lips away, he shoved the door open, surprising the kitchen maids who squealed at their entrance, and moved toward the pantry.
The pantry! What is he doing?
“William, the stairs are –”
“Nay,” he answered again, fairly panting. “‘Tis the first place they will seek us out.”
He thrust her into the darkened pantry that smelled of yeast and spice and butter and closed the door, then pushed a low barrel in front of it, blocking any entry.
“William, the feast –” she tried again.
Then he was there, his body against hers, and he twisted her arm so their bound hands pressed against her backside.
“I have something else in mind for my feast.”
He dropped to his knees and threw her dark green skirts over his head. Ailith squeaked and pressed against his head with her free hand.
His lips found the skin right above the ties on her stockings, licking upward to her feminine lips. She gasped.
“Oh, William! We should no’ see to –”
His warm mouth pressed against her inner thigh right above her stockings, and with a gasp, she practically melted.