Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Ailith kissed William goodbye before he mounted Lugh to leave the following morning. His lips were soft and demanding as he drew the kiss out, not caring who might be watching. William was a man who knew how to give a lingering, memorable goodbye kiss. To leave behind that memory.
Before he pulled away, he leaned close to her cheek and whispered in her ear.
“Dinna be surprised if I return with more feathers.”
Ailith could not stop the burning blush that surged over her chest up to her cheeks. She dropped her gaze with a knowing smile and patted her hand against his broad chest.
“I love ye, mo ruaidh,” he whispered and placed a light kiss on her forehead.
“And I, ye,” she responded as he stood upright. He gave her a long, intense look, then turned to his horse.
She was also exiting the palisade gate, with Sine and Wee Brian flanking her. Sine’s sky-blue eyes were bright at the prospect of what she thought of as an exciting adventure. Ailith didn’t have the heart to tell her that planting mushrooms was anything but exciting.
Wee Brian grumbled, but with his hand atop his sword hilt, she had the sense that he was proud to be the protector of their small troupe. Again, she didn’t have the heart to tell him anything different as the cool steel of her own ornate knife pressed against her thigh.
She glanced back as they stepped onto the main pathway leading from the keep for one last look at Willian.
Tall in his saddle, his thick blond hair nearly brushing his shoulders, William’s blue eyes that matched his sister’s never left her form.
His intense gaze followed her as she walked away, as if his gaze alone might keep them safe on their trek.
Huffing out a harsh laugh, Ailith hoped the same, that her insights might keep him safe until he returned from the Moray lands.
His cousins and father were mounting their horses next to him. Nearby, Ailbert was helping Muire onto her small cart. Since she would be at the MacIntoshes for nearly a sennight, they were bringing a trunk’s worth of belongings.
Along with them, the rest of the wedding guests were packing their carts and mounting their horses, including William’s cousin Eoghan and his severe sister Betris.
Ailith didn’t miss the hard look Betris threw at her. She had hoped that she and Betris might become friendly, but Betris kept her distance, and Ailith had no doubt that her conversations with Mairi only poured more poison into her ears, whether Mairi did it intentionally or not.
Ailith sighed. It was probably better that Eoghan and Betris were leaving – best to put space between herself and Betris’s frosty glare. She had more important things to focus on than a jealous woman with a spiteful tongue.
Sine had started chatting as they left the edge of the wall while William and the others fell out of her sight. Ailith turned her head to pay attention to her sister-in-law.
“My apologies, Sine. What were ye saying?”
“What do we need to do with these wee puddock-stools ye are planting?”
Even her voice held notes of excitement.
Och, puir lass! ‘Tis a task of digging and dirt, nothing else!
Then again, Sine was the type of woman who tried to put a positive attitude on everything. If Muire reminded her of Angelina, then Sine reminded her of Ashland. Always positive, always light-hearted.
Ailith’s hand drifted to her satchel. Only a few mushrooms remained.
Then she’d have to venture back to Dunnottar for more if she wanted more plantings.
Deciding to keep one or two behind to ask Teagan how she might prepare these fungi, she mentally counted how many she had left. Two dozen? Maybe less?
William had told her of another mossy, shadowy collection of grass and stones in the woods, a place not far from Drumoak that might work for planting. If it worked, then these mushrooms would have a new home.
Ailith drew one tiny mushroom from its dark place in her bag and held it out to Sine as they headed south. She pointed out the gills under the cap and the thread-like mycelium at the base.
“We can plant both of these. These threads are roots, and if we plant them, they can produce new puddock-stools. And under the caps here?” Ailith delicately brushed her fingertip against the gills in the microscopic spores.
“There are seeds so small, they canna be seen. Yet they are there. We separate the caps into three or four and plant those. With luck, most of them sprout, and from one stool we get four or five more.”
“Why all this work for some toadstools?” Wee Brian chimed in. While his face beamed with pride at the weight of his task as their chaperone, his voice was whiny. Typical post-adolescent boy, Ailith presumed. And a question she had learned to hedge very well.
“These stools can do many things. No’ only can they be used for many healing properties, they can help keep invasive plants out of an area. Weeds out of your turnips or barley stalks, for example.”
Wee Brian snorted in much the same way she’d heard William snort. Ailith and Sine shared a humorous glance at the resemblance.
“’Tis a fair bit of work for an herbal and weeds,” he intoned dryly as he marched a few steps ahead.
Post-pubescent indeed. Ailith grinned to herself as they reached the stones William had mentioned. From the moss on the north side, she believed the spot would work perfectly.
With only a few stools to plant, they finished before the sun crested the sky and made it back to the keep in time for the midday meal. Afterwards, Ailith returned to her chambers, lonely and too large without William with her, and she set about adding the new mushroom location to her parchment.
That night, she took her evening meal in her chambers and slept alone in the wide bed, empty without her husband’s presence and his large body curled around hers.
How had this man, in so short a time, managed to embed his way so deeply into her heart that when he was gone, it was like a part of her own body was absent from her?
It took her a while to fall asleep, and when she did, she dreamt of William.
Moray lands covered much of the east along the coast, interrupted only by the small pocket of Keith lands surrounding eastern Stonehaven, from south of Dunnottar into huge holdings farther north to the seat of the Mormaer Moray.
They were not traveling that far and meeting the Mormaer – thank God for small favors, William thought.
Rather, they were meeting with the Moray chieftain of the southern holdings, Malcolm Moray of the Aberdeen Morays.
Heading east, they entered Moray lands, and William had the same sensation as he did when he rode across the lands to Dunnottar with Ailith to attack the mad king.
One of wariness and dread.
Under hooded eyes, he glanced at his cousins and father; each of them was erect, focused, and ready for anything.
Evidently, he wasn’t the only one who felt that way.
The battle, only a fortnight past, would make this meeting any easier. William wondered how Malcolm Moray would receive them, even with a letter from the king. Ailith said not to trust the Morays, and William was more than willing to heed her words.
But if she was right, and the Morays were positioning themselves in power, then aligning with the new king would only serve them toward that purpose.
William hoped that Malcolm would see it that way.
The road was clear most of the way to Blair Castle – a reinforced tower surrounded by a foreboding stone wall where Malcolm and his men abided. Yet as they neared the towering palisade wall, that changed. A pair of guards flanked the closed gate.
Closed and unwelcome, William noted.
“Hold!” the guard in chainmail called out, holding up his hand.
They slowed their horses, and Bernard nudged his horse forward.
“I have a missive from King Causantín. Please escort us to your chieftain.”
The other guard stepped in front of the gate and was joined by two more who had been installed farther around the castle wall. They all held swords in front of them, and William had the sense this was going about as well as might be presumed when it came to the Morays.
Something about their posture William did not like. Nay, he did not like any of this at all.
“And who are ye, making claims on behalf of the king?” the guard shouted.
William exchanged a cautious look with Robb.
“Bernard MacDougal of the Drumoak MacDougals.” Bernard’s voice carried an air of authority.
The guard speaking was the shortest of the four. He looked around at his three companions nearby, then gave a derisive snort. He spat on the ground in front of Bernard’s horse in insult. Bernard did not react.
Behind him, William shifted his weight, rising in his left stirrup, ready to swing his right leg over the saddle and dismount.
“William,” Bernard snapped out, without looking back. Bernard had heard the quick creak of leather and knew his son was dismounting, not in the mood for the men’s disrespect.
Bernard didn’t move or speak until he heard the slow creaking of leather, telling him that William was putting his arse back into the saddle.
“Look, lad,” Bernard said slowly with a thin smile as if talking to a child. “I am Bernard MacDougal, and I've a message from the king. Ye will turn around and open that gate and escort us to ye chieftain. Dinna waste my time.”
“I'll no’ take ye past this door until ye dismount and hand over ye weapons,” the short guard said in a mocking tone.
“Father?” Bernard heard William’s voice ask the unspoken question from behind him. Bernard held up his right hand, letting William know to stay where he was.
“We’ll no’ hand over our weapons,” Bernard answered. “And if we dismount these beasts, it’ll be to teach ye some manners. Now honor the request of the king, open that gate, and lead us to ye chieftain.”