Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Betris and Eoghan made it back to their family croft north in the Grant lands by midday. Eoghan had noticed that Betris had been quiet for most of the ride home and attributed it to leaving without seeing her dear friend Mairi again.
Yet as soon as they arrived home and unloaded their belongings, Betris’s visage changed, and she tugged at Eoghan’s tunic sleeve before he departed to his own room.
“Please, brother, might I have a word with ye?”
He sucked on the inside of his cheek before answering. “Does it regard your silence on the way home? While usually I would welcome a reprieve from your nonstop chirping, ‘twas peculiar behavior for ye.”
His tone shifted as he spoke, dropping from his typical, lighthearted speech to something laden with concern. Betris was not known for her paucity of speech.
Betris surprised him by snorting as they strode to the side of the rounded croft house, sheltering their conversation between the house and the small barn. He noticed that she had not placed all her items away – she held a small sack in her hands.
What is she about? Eoghan thought with a touch of curiosity, mired in irritation.
“Ye think I have been peculiar? Did ye not recall William’s wife?”
Any mirth lingering in Eoghan evaporated, and he narrowed his eyes at her.
It took much to raise Eoghan’s ire, and Betris and her complaints about Ailith over the past sennight were doing exactly that.
Though he might worry about William and agree with some of her complaints about Ailith’s odd nature, this was still his friend and cousin’s wife she blathered about!
The wife of the chieftain’s nephew! That was treading on dangerous ground.
And Eoghan had the sense that his sister had always been a wee bit envious of Ailith.
“Your jealousy knows no bounds, Betris. William and Ailith are happy. I understand your pain at the loss of –”
“’Tis no’ that!” she shouted, interrupting him.
Then she dropped her gaze, pursing her lips briefly before raising her furious brown eyes to him.
“’Tis no’ that,” she said again. more calmly.
“Aye, mayhap a bit of jealousy when we were younger and a wee bit at her joy in life and the absence of it in mine.
But ye have heard the rumors, I am sure.
Please, listen to me a moment, then decide if ‘tis jealousy alone.”
As much as he did not care to indulge his sister’s flights of fancy, he nodded. Something had her bothered. Better to let her have it out so they might resume their normal lives.
“Mairi had said that Ailith has always been an odd sort, aye. Even ye have mentioned it in regard to your childhood.”
Eoghan nodded, though he had seen Ailith as more of a pest than odd. Truthfully, until this past sennight, he had not seen it as more than that.
“But Mairi also told me that her peculiarities had grown as of late,” Betris continued.
“That Ailith left Glenbervie tower at all hours, gone for a time, searching for some wee plant. Mairi had her own significant concerns about Ailith, so much so that she and Seocan left Drumoak early because of it.”
Irritation unfurled in Eoghan’s belly as his sister spoke. “Truly, Betris, ye must know why Ailith was leaving the tower. She was meeting with William, days before they were to be wed. What do ye think they were doing? Planting was a cover for their pre-marital joinings away from prying eyes.”
He turned to leave his sister and her silly notions when she grabbed his sleeve again.
“Ye spent most of our sennight there half-drunk with William or the other MacDougals, so ye did no’ see what I did.
‘Tis no’ just a cover, Eoghan.” She held out her hand, and a tiny puddock-stool sat in her bloodless palm, the pink caps appearing darker red against her pale skin.
“She had these in her chambers. She was planting, and if William was with her, he was helping.”
Eoghan’s brow furrowed at the toadstools in her hand, mildly insulted at her suggestion that he was in his cups most of the time.
Yet the wee stools, that did pique his interest, as much as he hated to admit it.
He tried to brush his concerns aside. This was his dearest friend, and he was happy. Eoghan wanted to leave it at that.
“So what does that matter? They were planting and fucking. What has your mind so twisted?”
Betris seemed almost crazed with her presumptions about Ailith. And her presumptions only made his concerns grow.
“If ‘tis twisted, then ‘tis Ailith who set me that way. I also found these.”
She shoved purple flowers and a parchment into his hands with the tiny toadstool. The curled paper was stained with inkblots and strange markings.
The parchment made Eoghan freeze.
“What is this?”
“Ailith was writing these things. This is no language I’ve ever seen.
Have ye?” Betris leaned into him, lowering her voice as if she was afraid to speak her next words.
“And these flowers, they are called digitalis, and they are deadly when consumed. What if Ailith has no’ accepted the church and is yet a pagan?
Mairi used the word changeling. Or worse, actively practices fairy magic or witchcraft?
I fear William has been wedded to a woman of questionable character.
She might very well be a changeling or a witch! ”
Betris was bitter and crazed. And while he also might be worried for William, Ailith was not a threat to him or his soul.
Was she?
Eoghan pushed the darker thoughts from his head again, puffed out his chest upright, and barked out a laugh.
“Pagan, mayhap. Most of the eastern clans have Viking kin or blood in their veins, no matter how much the Church or other clans despise it. As for the others – nay, dinna say such a thing. William is wed to a woman, naught more. And if ye continue to spread these rumors …” He shook the paper at her.
“Nay, dinna do that to William, to our kin. He’s my cousin and dear friend.
I’ve known him all my life. His wife is no magical changeling or witch. ”
Betris grabbed his hand.
“I have shown no one but ye. ‘Tis the rub, brother, I’m no’ the one spreading rumors. All I tell ye is based on what others have been saying. Clansmen and women across the Highlands are whispering in the shadows.”
Eoghan stilled. Dark rumors had the potential to destroy any unity the clans sought in the Highlands.
And if others are repeating it, mayhap the accusation held more truth than he cared to admit.
Could Ailith be that significant of a danger to his oldest friend?
Either to his clan or the man himself? Any levity remained fled, and his stomach clenched.
“How many others? What are they saying?”
“I know ye heard of the fight at Stonehaven and what she did with the Keith man. ‘Tis no’ her first time in a fight, aye? And she’s no Norse shieldmaiden to be taking up arms. How did she learn to do this? Then to champion the woman from Eire when she was accused of witchcraft?”
Betris paused to let her words sink in. She knew that Eoghan had heard the rumors and was worried about William. One would have to live under a moss-covered rock to have missed them.
Her fierce grip on his hand loosened. “She is using powers to save other pagans and the fae, Eoghan. What else but witchcraft can have a woman best a man skilled with a sword? And she’s writing, taking notes in an unknown language, and has plants that are designed to kill!
What woman who is no’ a fae witch does such things? ”
He shook his head. As much as he tried to deny it, doubt crept into his thoughts. He had heard all these dark rumors and more. And pagans, at the end of the day, were naught more than heretics. The Abbot had told him that.
Still, Betris sounded irrational.
“Betris –” Eoghan tried to calm her, but it only fueled her ire.
“And look at what happened to our Grant men and the others in the battle with King Donald! Ye heard about how she was the one who told them to attack Dunnottar. If no’ for her, then that battle might no’ have happened, and Kendrick and Ryle and the others would be here!
And what of the MacIntoshes – their very laird as well?
Or the MacDougal’s own second in command, Brian? She leaves death in her wake, Eoghan!”
Eoghan listened to her plotting words, his mind reeling.
Betris had held deep feelings for Kendrick MacIntosh, of that Eoghan and most of the clan were well aware.
She had inquired about marriage to him, but he had hesitated, knowing that Kendrick had tight kinship ties to the unfortunate Morays.
Before the battle, that association had been an issue. Afterwards . . .
Afterward, his hesitation over his sister’s relationship with Kendrick filled him with a wave of regret.
Yet, was Betris so ferocious in her hatred toward Ailith over the death of Kendrick? Or was there more truth to her words than he initially considered? Her words only added to what he had heard, what he kept pushing from his mind.
What he was afraid to admit about William’s beloved wife.
Eoghan tried to keep his wits about him. His cousin and his wife hung in the balance of these accusations.
“She’s no shieldmaiden, aye, but I canna believe–”
“So she must have used magic or witchcraft,” Betris continued, pressing forward again. “Look at all that has happened with us as of late. She must be to blame.”
Betris’s words struck a chord in Eoghan, as he also held sadness in his heart over the loss of his kin.
He had been friendly with Ryle MacIntosh, who had also died at Dunnottar, as did too many Grant men to count – clan and kin.
The sheer loss of men after the mad king’s attacks on their clans had been salt in an already open wound.
Betris’s fury slowly kindled his own, and he despised that he was also finding issue with Ailith. Especially since she was his oldest friend’s wife.