Chapter Fourteen #3
Teagan didn’t know whether she needed it or not, but to Ailith, these mushrooms meant everything. She couldn’t have gone too far. Maybe if Teagan ran and yelled out, Ailith would turn around and retrieve it.
Snatching the satchel strap, Teagan raced outside and down the pathway. Her heart pounded in her chest as she pumped her feet. How far could Ailith have gone already?
The white palfrey was a flash through the trees, and Teagan opened her mouth to shout for Ailith when a screech cut through the air.
Teagan froze in the misty rain, which had intensified as she ran. When she reached the bend, in the dim light, she saw more horses and men surrounding Ailith.
Surprise and caution rendered her immobile.
Should she rush in and see what was going on? Or wait and see what happened next? What if they took Ailith? What might Teagan do if she were taken along with her?
Then Ailith called out a name she had mentioned before. Eoghan. Ailith yelled at him, asking him why he was doing this.
Teagan was not familiar with this Eoghan person, but from the sounds of it, Ailith was familiar with him. And if Ailith was, then so was William.
She shifted so she remained hidden by a stout oak and waited to see what these men would do with Ailith. More words that Teagan couldn’t make out, then Ailith was on the other man’s horse, her hands tied, and they were riding off with her.
Oh no.
Teagan swallowed the lump in her throat. Kin at the Grants might try to stop Eoghan and ride for Drumoak. Only, if anyone rode for the MacDougals to find William, they would encounter a problem. William wasn’t at Drumoak.
In fact, Teagan choked on her realization that, at this moment, she was the only person who knew where both Ailith and William were.
Eoghan and his men did not appear the patient type. If she waited for someone to ride to the MacDougals, then ride for Blair Keep farther east, Ailith would never make it.
Because Teagan knew why they were abducting Ailith.
It was the same reason men had arrested Teagan.
They were going to accuse her of something dire, probably witchcraft.
Only Ailith didn’t have anyone to stand with a staff and a knife to fight for her innocence.
Teagan groaned and waited behind the oak, pressing her fingertips into the damp bark as she considered her options.
Once the horses were gone, Teagan picked her way through the trees to where Ailith’s palfrey pawed at the ground and skittered sideways at Teagan’s appearance.
The horse shook its pale white mane and snickered at her.
The reins fell by the horses’ neck. Teagan made gentle clicking sounds with her tongue and managed to grasp the reins.
Ailith did have someone. She had Teagan, and though Teagan couldn’t fight a grown man on her own, she could ride out to Blair Keep and find William.
It would take her all night with how poorly she rode, but Teagan had to hope the Grants wouldn't do anything more than throw Ailith in a cell until morning.
As she continued making the clicking sounds, Teagan led the horse back to her cruck house and tied her off as she packed a small sack of items she might need for this journey, including what she might require to heal anyone if they were injured.
She shook her head as she walked back outside. She was lying to herself.
Items she might need if Ailith were injured, she thought bitterly. God only knew what they were going to do with her.
Though the palfrey still seemed agitated, she calmed as Teagan patted her neck and fed her a piece of dried apple. Then Teagan unhooked the reins and gripped them tightly. She had placed a stool near the horse, something to step on so she could mount the palfrey.
“I hope ye are as patient as Ailith promised,” Teagan cooed in a soft voice to the horse. “I’m a weak rider, and we have a long way to go this night.”
The horse made a huffing noise as Teagan gripped her mane and swung herself into the saddle, clumsy and nearly falling back off the other side. Fortunately, Bonnie Bride was patient as promised and waited as Teagan settled herself in the saddle.
“We canna go too fast, or else I’ll fall right off,” she told the horse. “But if we go at a steady pace, we might make it before daybreak.”
With a shaky hand, Teagan mimicked what she had seen Ailith do and turned the horse around. Then she kicked Bonnie Bride’s sides lightly, and the horse ambled off in an easy gait, steady and slow and unaware of the role she played in saving her mistress.
I hope we both can save her, Teagan told herself as they rode into the darkness.
Ailith fidgeted in her thin léine and kirtle the entire time as they rode to a small village right inside Grant lands, not from the rain and damp chill in the air but from fear and trepidation.
The village was nothing more than a small collection of squat, thatched-roof buildings and farms, and boasted a few torches for light.
A thin crowd of people emerged from the buildings as they arrived.
A bald man in a roughly hewn, ankle-length tunic and rope belt watched over their procession into the village.
Ailith hadn’t missed the stone church near the edge of the houses, and given the way the man was dressed and looked down his nose at her, Ailith understood he must be a priest, the man Eoghan had referred to as Abbot Graham.
She did not see James Grant anywhere, or any other Grant men she had met before. These people who brought her to the village must not be working on his behalf then. Eoghan and this wayward abbot were the ones behind her capture.
Their involvement was noteworthy. How much could they do this without approval by their chieftain? She might have a rough night or two in a cell, but the prospect of the Grant chieftain coming to her aid or sending for her brother or William briefly lifted her spirits.
Which then came crashing down almost immediately. Her brother was married to Mairi, and she was one of the clanswomen spreading rumors about her. And William . . .
Well, he was near Aberdeen, and if even part of what Eoghan said about William was true, she couldn’t count on him, either. He didn’t know she was gone from Drumoak.
All Ailith had was the hope that the Grant chieftain would not listen to those rumors and take pity on her.
Feck, what a mess this is!
Eoghan stopped the horses in front of the priest, and the man on Ailith’s horse dismounted, yanking her off the horse with him.
Ailith found her footing and gathered her wits as she wiped the wet strands of hair off her face.
The mist had become more of a light drizzle, making her shiver all the more.
Just add insult to injury, she thought with a sullen glance around the villagers.
Even if she wasn’t bound, too many people crowded around for her to fight her way out of this. One of the villagers threw back her hood, her thin, toothy smile unmistakable.
Betris. Of course. That vile woman was enjoying this horrifying spectacle.
Why was she taking her hatred this far? What hand did she have in this? It was probably her words that urged Eoghan to action, Ailith thought with bitter realization.
Ailith did not recognize anyone else, but held onto the hope that someone recognized her and would come to her aid.
“The pit is there,” the abbot intoned as he pointed to the dark ground at his side. “Put her in and secure the grate.”
Wait! A pit? Oh, hell no!
“Nay! Eoghan, stop!” she shrieked as she struggled against her bindings and the man dragging her to the dark hole in the ground. She kicked up hard, catching the man in his side. He grunted but ignored it and tightened his grip on her arms.
Then she was shoved in. After stumbling against the wet earth, she landed hard on her backside and looked up as a grate was latched on top of the hole. A black iron grid covered the gray, sunset sky.
What the actual hell?
Pure despair, something harder and more gut-wrenching than any emotion Ailith had experienced before, filled her entire body, hot and panicky and robbing her of all her wits.
She was in a wet pit in the ground, covered by an iron grate.
Her backside sank into the cold, watery earth as sprinkling rain continued to fall on her.
Eoghan’s face, a pale white moon, appeared above the grate, the only visible aspect against the darkening sky. Not even any stars for her to look at, as they were obscured by the drizzling clouds.
“We will come for ye in the morn, and ye can offer up your pathetic confession. Dinna expect much from us, ye pagan witch.”
Then he was gone. The crowd above mumbled and faded away to nothing. She was alone in the dripping pit. She dropped her head against the dirt side of the hole.
Oh, Da! I wish ye were here to help get me out of this! I’m sorry. All that training ye encouraged and paid for was all for nothing.
Jack Gordon would be so disappointed in his daughter.
Her hands scraped across the mucky walls as she sat up. The stench of waste and wet earth beat down on her, and she struggled to breathe.
The pounding of her heart filled her ears as she panted in unsteady breaths. Damp soil and the cold seeped through her thin clothes to her skin. They hadn’t removed the rope from her wrists, and the rough rope rubbed against her already raw, reddened wrists.
Do not panic. Do not panic. Do not panic, she commanded herself.
A panicked mind is a useless thing, Master Park had instructed in her former life.
Her only chance to get through this nightmare was if she kept a level head and maintained control.
The first thing she did was get a grip on her breathing – she’d hyperventilate otherwise. Ailith closed her eyes and began counting. One, two, three, four, five, six, breathing in, the same count breathing out.
Once her breathing no longer came in spastic pants, she focused on the rope tied around her wrists.
That was her starting point – freeing her hands.
The knot was tight, but if she twisted her hands the right way, she could finger the knot.
If she worked it for a while, she might loosen it enough to slip her hand out. That would be something.
Keeping her eyes closed, she picked at the knot with her fingertips, but when she shifted, her cold knife at her thigh pressed into her skin.
My knife!
They hadn’t taken her knife. They hadn’t even searched her for it.
Fools.
Wiggling around to reach under her soiled skirts, she twisted and contorted her fingers until she reached her knife and pushed it from her stocking garter. She yanked off the sheath and slid the knife under the knot, sawing until the knotted rope sprang free from her aching wrists.
The minute anyone peered down into the pit, she’d try to stab them. That was a vow she could keep.
As she rubbed her sore wrists, she let her mind float back to her training with Master Park. Better to have focus and a plan than nothing.
Most people think a fight is all with their hands, or with weapons, but remember, Em, a fight begins, continues, and ends with the mind. If you can’t think, you shouldn’t fight. You will lose.
Thinking. Using her wits. Keeping her mind sharp. It would be what her father wanted and was her only hope of getting out of this pit and this accusation alive.
Despite her latest dream and Dream-Eladon’s dictate about picking her battles, Ailith knew that, when the time came, she would be clear-headed and ready to take up arms, no matter what.
She wasn’t going to let these deluded clansmen and women get her.
And she certainly was not going to die in a wet, muddy pit.
Nay, Ailith, promised herself. She would go down fighting.