Chapter Sixteen #2
Teagan tugged lightly on the reins to bring Bonnie Bride in front of the young guard. “I am looking for William MacDougal and was told he was here with your chieftain. Can ye bring me to the man?”
The guard’s face darkened under his hood. “What have ye to do with that bratach salach?”
Och, well, perchance the bruise was courtesy of William if the guard had been angry and foolish enough to call him a dirty bastard. Teagan had to hope William’s encounters inside the wall were better than what seemed to have occurred with this guard.
“I have news of his wife. Please,” she added, trying to sound as wretched as possible.
The guard’s thin lips pursed, then he turned and banged the hilt of his sword against the reinforced wooden gate.
“We’ve a late-night visitor for one of the MacDougals. A lass. Let her in!”
An ear-piercing screech broke through the night as the heavy gate opened and the guard waved her through. He shouted at the guard inside the gate to bring her to William.
The entire tower was dark and asleep. The new guard instructed her to wait in the main hall, thankfully out of the rain, as he retrieved William. She wiped at her wet eyes to clear her vision and waited by the banked hearth.
When William entered the main hall, he was frantic and disheveled, with a second man right on his heels. She noticed the powerful blond MacDougal limped slightly and wondered if that had anything to do with the bruise on the young guard’s cheek.
“Teagan! What are ye doing here? Has something happened to Ailith?”
She nodded tersely. “Aye! William, ye must come now! The Grants have taken her and accused her of being a witch!”
William froze where he stood, his confusion contorting his sleepy face. He rubbed his hand across his eyes.
“Grants? That does no’ make sense. We have close kin with the Grants. Ye must be mistaken.”
“I wish I were, but nay! She was taken no’ far from my house, by a man she called Eoghan.”
The name meant something to William because he stiffened, and like every muscle in his body tightened at once.
“See, lass? Ye must be mistaken. Eoghan is a cousin of mine.”
Teagan shook her damp curls again. “Oh, but that I was. I heard her ask ‘Eoghan, what are ye doing?’ Something must have happened to change his heart to ye or Ailith, because ‘twas the name Ailith spoke.”
The man behind William, who must have been a close cousin as he was of similar coloring and near William’s tall height, leaned into William’s ear and spoke too low for Teagan to hear him. William’s lips thinned as he nodded.
“Aye,” he answered the man, shifting his head slightly toward him. “Robb and my father must stay here. Ye and I will ride to the Grants and resolve this mistake.” William cut a chilling glare at Teagan. “Because it must be a mistake.”
Teagan’s brow furrowed at his tone. What the heck? She wasn’t the one who kidnapped Ailith! Why was he angry at her?
Then again, he had been asleep, roused by a stranger, and now told that his wife might be endangered by someone he believed to be a friend. Mayhap he was angry in general. She would be.
“Wait here,” he instructed Teagan. “Let me grab my belongings, and we’ll be off. If we ride quickly, we might be there before daybreak.”
More riding. And William and his man were sure to ride at a faster pace than Teagan could sustain. She groaned, but William did not see her reaction. He was already striding off into the darkness of the tower.
Though she dreaded the ride to the Grants, her muscles and fevered mind were rejuvenated now that she had located William, and there might be a chance to save Ailith from a jail sentence. Or worse.
Please don’t let us be too late! Teagan thought, sending her private plea into the universe. Please.
Ailith’s teeth chattered incessantly.
She shivered in her léine and delicate woolen kirtle that seemed even thinner in this damp, dark pit. The chill of the earth seeped through her clothes and skin to her bones, and she doubted she would ever be warm again.
The mucky sides of the pit dripped with misty rainwater.
Ailith tried to ignore the cold mud and did everything she could think of to calm herself.
She had walked herself through her options, considered her opponents' weaknesses, and made sure her knife was still tucked into her stocking.
Useless, though, as she was still trapped in this pit, facing a judgment of witchcraft in the morning. She had yet much to figure out.
The night had drawn out long, each second like a minute, and each minute an hour.
This was going to be the longest night of her life.
Ailith rubbed at her still-sore wrists. For a while, she’d heard sounds above – low chatter, the whinny of a horse – then as night fully enclosed the land, the village went to sleep.
Not even a torch nearby to provide her with a thin slit of light, and between the clouds obscuring the moon and the darkness in the pit, she couldn’t see her hand when she held it before her face.
So dark.
Time passed. Minutes? Hours? Not hours, that was impossible, wasn’t it?
Over the clacking of her teeth, Ailith thought she heard someone above. A drunkard taking a piss? A villager taking pity on her? Her heart rushed to her throat. Perchance William –?
Then she caught herself. Eoghan had said William was a part of this nastiness, though she didn’t want to believe that, not for a minute.
The longer she remained in this pit, however, the stronger that belief infected her mind.
She struggled to shove those harrowing thoughts away, but the questions arose, nonetheless.
Had William given up on her? Had her strange behaviors and wild stories pushed him away? Was an earful of gossip enough to turn him from her?
William would no’ betray me that way, she told herself unconvincingly.
But what if he had betrayed her and sided with his cousin?
She sighed and dropped her head into her hands.
The noise came again. A jingling sound. A horse’s harness?
Then enough light filtered down so that her eyes made out the outline of her knees against the soft, earthen wall, a lighter dark against a darker black. And the light brightened even more.
Someone was coming. Someone with a torch.
William - ?
Nay, she caught herself and cursed his betrayal. Someone else.
Ailith squinted at the iron grate above her head. The light brightened a bit, then the silhouette of two heads appeared above the grate. Her heart leaped – two familiar heads.
“Seocan?” she asked in a disbelieving tone as she sat upright. The mucky earth made a sucking sound as she moved.
“Aye, lass. We’re here.” The sound of her brother’s voice warmed her shivering bones.
“What have ye managed to get yourself into this time?” the other voice asked.
Daniel.
She blew out a relieved breath.
So she wasn’t as alone as she had thought. Ailith did not have the faintest idea what they might do to help her, but having them there, knowing her brother and his second were in her corner, made her feel better.
“How did ye find me?”
“A MacIntosh kin saw what was happening and did no’ care for the feel of it. He rode hard for Glenbervie.”
“Did anyone try to stop ye when ye arrived?”
What if Eoghan or the abbot had tried to pour their poison into Seocan’s ears? In addition to Mairi's comments, which Ailith was certain Seocan had heard her speak, their accusations might have carried some weight.
“A sleepy Grant. He does no’ seem overly concerned with ye, but argued that some in the clan are no’ too happy. The clan is already in upheaval over the loss of their men and tanist and trying to lay all the blame at the feet of the MacDougals or Gordons for the role they believed we played.”
Daniel grumbled loud enough for Ailith to hear him, so she could easily imagine how well that conversation went over.
“I pointed out the MacDougals lost their tanist, Brian, too, at Dunnottar,” Daniel commented. Ailith was sure that his pointing out was accompanied by the broad man grabbing the hilt of his sword for emphasis.
“I’ve sent a man to Drumoak, so William will soon be on his way.”
Her floating heart dropped to her belly. Not only was he not at Drumoak, from what Eoghan implied, William wouldn’t be coming to her rescue anyway.
“Dinna be too certain of that,” she muttered.
“Ye are chilled and confused,” Seocan replied. “William should be here before the village awakens.”
“Nay. I have the sense that he will no’ be burdened with this.”
“Burdened!” Daniel shouted. “Have ye gone mad on top of everything else? He’s your husband! He should know –”
“His cousin claims William is behind this,” she interrupted. “That he’s in agreement with the accusation and ‘tis why he hasn’t returned.”
“Returned? Where is he?” Seocan demanded to know. “I’ll retrieve him myself.”
Ailith shook her head. “Nay. I canna look him in the face if there is even a trace of truth to that.”
“I’ll no’ leave ye.” He glanced at Daniel. “We will no’ leave ye. But we will await him or the messenger here and send another missive anywhere it needs to go. If naught else, William should know what is happening and what others are saying about him. About ye.”
Ailith didn’t mention William’s whereabouts. He was still at the meeting with the Morays, as far as she knew. It would take hours to go from Drumoak to the Morays to the Grants. She sat back into the pit.
“Nay. Eoghan said William is in agreement with the Grants. That he has decided my . . .peculiar nature is too much for him.”