Chapter Fifteen
Beagan MacIntosh had finished his business with his Grant kin and sat atop his horse, leaving the village, when the retinue of Grant men rode past him. He didn’t recognize them, but the woman horseback with her hands bound and crimson hair fighting against the light rain was unmistakable.
It was Ailith MacDougal, recently Ailith Gordon.
Beagan had been to the Gordon tower at Glenbervie for fur trading often enough to recognize the bold, crimson lass.
He paused, thinking to mind his own business as his wife had always cautioned him, but how the woman was bound and the furious expressions on the men’s faces gave him pause.
Something was amiss, and that did not bode well for the fiery, red-haired daughter of the Gordons. He could not leave the lass until he knew what was going on.
Where was her new MacDougal husband?
On his horse and keeping to the rear of the crowd, Beagan watched as the men, upon hearing Eoghan’s accusation that she was a pagan witch, threw the poor lass into a pit.
That brought Beagan up short. He knew Ailith.
He had worked with her brother and conversed with her and seen her by Seocan Gordon’s side.
She was a good woman, even if she was wild, as described by her brother.
But Beagan had traveled the length and breadth of the Highlands and seen many a wild woman, women who might truly be called pagan witches.
Ailith was not one of those. She might be a clever woman who knew her mind and liked to follow her older brother around, as nearly every little sister did. She might be on the willful side, but Beagan was convinced she was no witch. Something more was going on in the Grant lands.
And chieftain James Grant was not present to oversee it. That fact concerned him even more.
Beagan flicked his gaze to the abbot. Though the man was difficult to see in the rain and flickering torchlight, Beagan could make out the look on the abbot’s milky face. Pride. Contempt. Not a proper look for a man of God.
That man had no care if Ailith was a pagan or a witch or not.
He planned to use her as an example, no matter what.
And that pride, Beagan could not abide. As the crowd stepped back, he whipped the reins against his horse’s mane and led his beast to the main road leading toward Glenbervie, which would be quickest. If Ailith had until morning, he could race to Gordon Tower, inform Seocan of what had transpired, and her brother could be here before light sliced the horizon and the village awakened.
When he reached the edge of the village, another man waved him down – Paden MacDougal.
“What’s happened?” he asked as Beagan slowed. Worry lines plagued his face. “I saw the crowd.”
“Ride for Drumoak. Tell William that Ailith Gordon has been taken by the Grants under the guise of witchcraft.”
Paden’s face twisted in his angered confusion. “Witchcraft? Why are the Grants doing that? Where is James?”
They did not have time for this conversation, but Beagan bit back the harsh comment.
“I believe the abbot means to use her as an example of what to do with non-believers. And if these Grants here have some other quarrel with the woman, they are using this as an opportunity. I’m for Glenbervie to inform Seocan.
Now if ye dinna want the lass wounded or worse, ride to Drumoak and retrieve her husband! ”
The man asked no further questions and leaned over his horse’s neck, following Beagan as they raced away from the Grant lands.
Seocan was roused from a dead sleep by a pounding on the door, followed by muffled shouting. Unlike him, Mairi roused quickly, as she often did for the babe, and she shook Seocan until he fully woke.
“Hurry, before he wakes the babe.”
In that second, Seocan realized something was amiss and shot off the bed, grabbed his sword from the sheath hanging next to it before he rushed the door.
Daniel’s voice spoke from the other side.
“Seocan! We have a messenger!”
He looked back to Mairi.
“At this hour?” she whispered in the darkness as her eyes focused on the cradle near the bedframe. Fortunately for them, the babe slept on.
Leaning his sword against the stone wall, Seocan opened the door. Daniel rushed in, his hair disheveled and his tunic crumpled. His own sword, however, was strapped to his hip at the ready, making Seocan second-guess leaving his weapon by the door.
Daniel bowed briefly to Mairi before turning to Seocan.
“What has ye in such a state at this hour?” Seocan asked. Mairi rose and drew a bed robe around her dusky léine. Something dire, Seocan ascertained from Daniel’s appearance and late-night arrival.
Dire enough to yank a man from his bed in the wee hours of the night.
“Beagan MacIntosh. He’s just come from Grant lands, where they have taken Ailith.”
Mairi gasped and clutched her bed robe at her neck. “Taken Ailith? What do ye mean?”
“Taken her. The abbot there, and William’s kin, Eoghan. They believe her to be a witch or the sort, using her powers against Christians, and Beagan said he believed they intended to make an example of her.”
“An example? Of what? How?”
Daniel shook his head and pursed his lips. “That he did no’ know. But he said the abbot and the small crowd exuded anger and seemed to lay blame for their anger at her feet.”
In that moment, Mairi froze, and the world seemed to drop away.
Her mind went to Eoghan and his sister Betris, to all the unkind words she had said to Betris about Ailith, of how peculiar the woman appeared and how she was doing strange things she had not done in the past, including plotting to dethrone a king.
Only now that she reflected on it did she realize that if Betris, who seemed madly jealous of Ailith and had been since childhood, took her words and twisted them even a bit, then shared them with Eoghan, Mairi’s words might be the reason for their accusations against Ailith.
Her heart slammed in her chest and her head, and she blinked hard, trying to stop the tears from streaming down her face. Mairi’s tongue tasted of ash in her mouth, her lips dry even as she licked them.
Daniel must have noticed her state. “Milady?” he asked.
Seocan swung around. “Mairi? Do ye know something of this accusation?”
She tried to speak, but the words fell silent on her lips. Seocan spoke her name again, reaching for her. She stepped backward, out of his reach.
“’Tis my fault,” she finally whispered. “Ailith. ‘Tis my fault.”
Seocan faced her and gently drew her hands from their grip on her bed robe. Though his eyes were soft and blackish green in the darkness, his jaw was fixed and tense. His broad body loomed larger in the darkness as he neared.
“What do ye mean, your fault? What have ye done, Mairi?”
Her breath raced out of control, and she couldn’t catch it. She shook her head as she spoke. “No’ intentionally, husband. Ye must know that. But I fear I spoke out of turn about your sister, my own sister-by-law.”
“What did ye say? And to whom?” Seocan pressed.
“I’m responsible,” she replied, keeping her gaze lowered.
“I haven’t been treating her well before she married, and afterward, I took offense for the smallest slight.
Her fighting, those plants, how William is around her, and I’ve been letting those rumors grow.
I should have stopped them. Instead, I let them fester like a pus-filled wound! ”
Seocan was both confused and incensed but endeavored to remain calm. Fury and love battled inside him, yet only cool heads would prevail.
Her voice had risen as she spoke, and Seocan hushed her lightly, fearing she might wake their son. While his voice remained tender, the rest of his body was tight.
Why had she behaved this way? What purpose did such poor speech accomplish?
“And I was sharing those words with Betris, Eoghan’s sister. She’s an old friend, and I’ve been so tired. I enjoyed her company. When she complained about Ailith, ‘twas far too easy to feed into those rumors and ignite them all the more. ‘Tis my fault, Seocan. My fault.”
Seocan’s hands still held hers, but his grasp was rigid against her fingers.
His fury radiated off him like heat, and he was doing everything in his power to control his anger and not lay a hand on her.
He had never been violent with his beloved wife, but then she had never betrayed him and his sister this way.
Holding her brittle fingers, he forced himself to remember her breach of trust had been unintentional and the result of a weary body and mind.
“I may have used the word bewitched when speaking of William,” she added, dropping her voice. “I fed that festering wound. But haven’t we all referred to William that way?”
She finally raised her wide, sunken eyes.
Her words held a note of truth – even he had joked at how Ailith had William ensnared in her web.
He could not blame Mairi for those statements.
Added to that, she was bone-thin tired, probably lonely, and trying to raise a son in a time of upheaval.
Her expression broke Seocan’s heart in two.
“I am so sorry for my part in this, husband. My worries regarding Ailith were always about the danger that followed her. She left battles and broken bodies in her wake, and as her brother, ye might fall as well. Her actions might lead to your death. I only wanted her to stop bringing danger to ye.” She dropped her gaze.
“’Tis my greatest fear, that ye dinna return.
That ye leave me, and our wee Morgan. My heart . . . I’d never recover.”
Then she flicked her fretful gaze back to his eyes. “I never meant to bring her any harm. I only wanted to protect ye. I meant it as foolish gossip, my husband. I swear.”
Seocan quieted for a moment as his eyes searched her face. Her words held truth. His death would render her wretched, as hers would do to him. He released a long, low breath.