Chapter 10 #2
Ailith’s lips quivered with mirth as she sat back. “Um, ‘tis a way of saying that ye can accomplish two tasks with one act. The full phrase is killing two birds with one stone. A hunting saying, I think.”
Muire and Sine exchanged a brief glance. “’Tis an odd phrase,” Sine said with a crinkled brow. “Yet, ‘tis accurate. Many a hunter would prefer to get two birds for one.”
“And Uncle Cormag is as canny as any hunter. Aye. With this visit, he hopes to achieve much.”
Ailith noted that Uncle Cormag had a lot of control over the lives of his nieces. “What does your father have to say about it?”
Muire shrugged one shoulder. “He’s Cormag’s man. Since mother died, he’s been devoted to his brother.”
“Aye,” Sine agreed. “Like he had to turn that devotion for mother to something else. To us and the rest of his family. But Uncle Cormag and the whole of the clan are like that. Close, aye?” Sine threaded her fingers together as she spoke.
Her explanation made sense, especially given what Ailith knew of the early clan history of the Highlands. Kin, clan, alliances, those were sacrosanct. Loyalty above all else.
No wonder the mad King Donald had been killed. The clans would not risk any division to that loyalty.
“So while I would love to dig in the mud with ye,” Muire said as she stood and patted down her gray skirts, “ye will have to go without me. I leave first thing on the morrow. We ride out with Eoghan and his sister and the rest of the remaining wedding guests.”
Ailith rose and hugged her sister-in-law.
She had been a devout friend, and Ailith was going to miss her the week she was gone.
And she did not care to think about Muire leaving permanently if a match was made between her and Daric MacIntosh.
The prospect of losing someone who understood her made her chest hollow.
“I shall miss ye while ye are gone,” she said as Muire hugged her back.
“I’ll go with ye on the morrow,” Sine said to Ailith. “Ye can show me how to plant these wee stools if they are so important to ye. And mayhap ye can show me how to use them once they are grown.”
Oh, no, I can’t. That thought flashed through Ailith's head. She hadn’t thought that far ahead.
What would happen when someone did ask her how to use them?
To justify their importance? She didn’t know if they could even be drunk as a tea without causing harm!
Perhaps Teagan would know. She’d have to ask next time she saw the woman.
Ailith gave her a flat smile, one designed to hold back her appreciative tears at Sine and her kindness. “Aye. I’d love to have ye help me. I’m trying to plant them all over the Highlands. For ease of access,” she added quickly.
Oh, Teagan, help me figure out something with these mushrooms!
Sine strode to the desk and grabbed the ink, quill, and a fresh parchment, then handed them to Ailith. “Come with me. We’ll go to Caitir’s solar. She has fresh ink and wine, so we can thin this down and ye can write.”
As Sine and Ailith parted ways with Muire and made their way to Caitir’s solar, they did not notice Betris, who lingered in the shadows, watching them.
She did not mean to be hiding – she was trying to find a moment of peace away from Eoghan, who took his role as her older brother seriously and hadn’t left her side for the past sennight. ‘Twas important to have a chaperone, but his overbearing attention was driving her to the brink of lunacy.
The seat in the arched window offered the perfect place to enjoy a bit of dappled sunlight and time alone. The entire keep had been overrun with people, events, and crowding, and while she had enjoyed her time with Mairi, once she had left, it was just her and Eoghan.
And Ailith, the odd Gordon daughter. Betris had always thought her wild and willful, but, as of late, with the gossip, rumors, and peculiar behaviors, she had seemed even more odd.
What was going on with her?
One rumor that did not sit well with Betris was the suggestion that Ailith had something to do with the clans’ successful attack on Dunnottar Castle and the mad king.
While Betris knew the death of the king was beneficial for the clans, so many lives had been lost in that battle – Grant and MacIntosh lives in particular.
One MacIntosh that Betris had lost her heart to, Kendrick MacIntosh, had perished at Dunottar, and that pained her the most. How much did Ailith have to do with his death?
Betris tapped her chin and turned her face to the cut glass window. Odd.
And some of the stories Mairi had shared about Ailith, including how she spoke about Dunnottar – also odd. And the shift in behavior Mairi had noted, jokingly calling her a changeling.
Now the rumors of Ailith fighting a Keith to defend a lass from Eire? What woman did such a thing? Was she truly fae?
Mayhap no joke.
Betris had pressed herself into the musty-smelling arched window so she would not be noticed when they walked by, and her narrowed eyes caught the quill and slightly curled parchment in Ailith’s hands.
She bit her lip and tasted something. Blood. Betris had chewed at her lips while she pondered Ailith from her hiding spot. Her gaze followed their swishing skirts as they headed up the curved stairwell.
Something was thorny with the Gordon, now MacDougal, lass.
Betris was sure of it.
She leaned past the window to peer down the hall. William was off with Eoghan, and Ailith left her chambers with Sine. The chambers were empty, yet Betris had not heard a bolt secure the door.
I canna, she thought as her body rose without her permission. I canna snoop.
But what if Ailith was hiding something more? What if she was more dangerous than everyone else realized? What if it was she who was the witch and not her friend whom she fought over at Stonehaven?
What if this witchy fae Ailith had everyone beguiled?
Betris was not foolish enough to fall for her falsely captivating ways.
Her head buzzed, and she was striding to Ailith’s chambers before she realized she was walking.
Sliding her gaze up and down the hall, Betris pushed on the door, and it swung inward easily. With a final glance down the hall to make sure no housemaids approached, she slipped inside the chambers and closed the door.
The chambers were tidy enough, with a wardrobe containing their clothes, a well-worn trunk, a mussed bed with the furs thrown back, comfortably overstuffed chairs, and a table.
A table with a marked-up parchment on it.
Betris stepped quickly to the corner of the room, her eyes fixed on the parchment. Strange markings, splatter-like, lettering that didn’t resemble anything she had ever seen. What type of writing was this?
Suspicious writing.
She might not have spoken to a priest or abbot in over a fortnight, and her last church visit had been before Ailith and William’s wedding, but she knew that the church frowned on anything that smelled of paganism or druidism – things they considered witchcraft.
They might not do a lot about it – their focus was on converting the whole of Alba as far as she knew – but those harmed by any witchcraft were entitled to recompense, especially when endorsed by the church.
And who was more entitled to recompense from all this woman had done than the Grants and MacIntoshes?
Pagan, changeling fae, witch – all of those fit Ailith.
Ailith’s leather satchel hung on the carved chair's back. With a hesitant finger, Betris flipped it open. Flowers inside. Purple bells and tiny, reddish-pink puddock-stools.
Why the plants? Was she planning something with them? To concoct some deadly recipe?
The more she looked, the more uneasy she became about Ailith. Betris's own brother was a dear friend of Ailith’s husband. What if he were somehow harmed by this diabolical woman, as her beloved had been? The thought soured her stomach.
Betris placed her hand on the parchment – the ink was wet, thick – and crushed it in her hand. She’d take it as evidence against the garnet-haired MacDougal. An excusable theft.
Something needed to be done to stop this woman. In that moment, Betris decided to take what she knew and this evidence and seek her own abbot’s counsel back at Ballogie keep. He and her chieftain, James Grant, would know what to do about Ailith.
Otherwise, the woman might hurt everyone around her – William, Mairi, Eoghan.
As she had already hurt Betris.
Something had to be done.
William sat with Eoghan at the rear of the main hall, picking at his midday meal.
A tankard of honeyed mead remained untouched next to his platter.
He was only half-listening to Eoghan’s discussion of the dark-haired MacDougal lass who had caught his attention during the wedding celebrations. His mind was on Ailith.
She had told him her bizarre story of coming back through time to protect her puddock-stools, and while he believed her – on some level, he had to believe her – it wasn’t set in his mind.
He didn’t believe it the same way he believed Ailbert was his brother or his father was a widower.
Nay, he believed it like one who hears of a boat on a sea-borne horizon that he has not seen himself.
In his mind, to make sense of her claims, he yet considered her more of a changeling. That he could understand.
Yet, as of late, more and more of Ailith’s story sank into his mind, as if the implausible story could be true. And he loved her even more for trusting him with this scathing secret.
But how might he hide it if she kept doing things that brought her out of the shadows and to everyone’s attention? Things that made people uncomfortable?
Her knife fight with the Keith man was only the latest event.
His wife. In a knife fight.
William exhaled a hot breath.
If he hadn’t seen her standing over the prone man himself, he would not have believed it.
He flicked his eyes to the heavens. And God help him, he loved her all the more for it.
If that made him a lovesick fool, so be it. He had always been thus with Ailith.
Yet, how was he going to keep her safe, not only from herself, but from the rumors that were surely spiraling out of control? One wrong word could lead to the most dire circumstances.
William wasn’t exactly sure what that circumstance might be, but something in the back of his mind told him it could not end well.
He had made a vow, both to Ailith and to God himself, to keep her safe. And by that same vow, he was going to do just that.
Exactly how, that was another matter, the one keeping him from focusing on Eoghan and his dark-haired lass.
“So what should I do, Will?” Eoghan asked as he nudged William’s arm.
The jostle brought William back to his meal with Eoghan.
“About what?” William asked, sighing inwardly. He should have been paying better attention to his friend.
“About Agnes? Do ye think she might be able to visit Grant lands?”
“Weel, no’ unless her father thinks it sound. And if ye were acting free with his daughter, he might not be very agreeable to that.”
Eoghan nodded, his lips pulling downward.
“Ye were barely listening to my tale of woe. And I would never lay with a woman before the sacrament of marriage.”
William snorted. “I recall ye doing quite a bit along those lines when ye were younger.”
Eoghan tilted his head to the side as he raised his eyes to meet William’s. “I’m a different man now. The Abbot has taught me much. And what have ye heard about myself and the lass?”
William snorted again and stuck a piece of dry bannock between his teeth. “No’ too much, but I dinna have to listen. I saw ye with the lass last night, like a smitten lad ye were. And if I saw it, then her father did, too.”
With a dip of his head, Eoghan groaned lightly to himself. Then he cut his eyes to William.
“Your wife’s actions distracting ye, William?” Eoghan asked with a bit more seriousness than William was used to hearing from the man.
William rubbed the palm of his hand against his stubbled chin. “How bad are the rumors?” he asked, bracing himself for the answer.
Thankfully, Eoghan laughed aloud, some merriment returning to his dear friend. “Ailith was always an odd, wild child. Remember how she tried to ride the sow? And always tried to come with us hunting?”
William nodded, smiling at those memories, Ailith in bare feet and wild, unbound hair cascading behind her like a red banner, taking up a challenge at every turn.
“I guess most hoped she would grow into a proper lady.” Eoghan pointed a finger at William’s nose. “And that, my old friend, has no’ happened. If anything, she’s more wild. ‘Tis something of concern, aye?”
“Aye,” William agreed. “A hard truth, that one.”
Eoghan elbowed William’s ribs. “But if she’s this wild in front of everyone else, I can only imagine how wild she is between the furs.”
“Eoghan!” William socked Eoghan’s shoulder. “Speak respectfully of my wife!”
At least Eoghan had the good sense to look chastised.
“Aye, my apologies. ‘Tis inappropriate, to be sure. Your biggest problem is while we and her family are used to her wild ways,” he said as he flicked his finger back and forth between them, “no one else is.
And she seems more wild than ever, even married.
‘Tis dangerous. Ye dinna want her offending the wrong person and risking either of ye with her actions.”
William pursed his lips, and they fell silent for a moment. He thought the conversation was done when Eoghan spoke again, his voice low.
“’Tis odd, her wild ways. I’m no’ the only one wondering about that, cousin.”
The warning was not lost on William. ‘Twas the same that made his stomach clench and his chest heavy. If her behavior concerned a lighthearted man like Eoghan, then what might others, those with less understanding and more apprehension, be saying in the shadows?