Chapter Seventeen #2
William rode through the crowd, ignoring the abbot shouting at him, and slid off his horse in front of her. The Lukenbooth sparkled like the hope in her chest. Ailith’s breath caught at what the meaning of his wearing her brooch meant, her gift with a gem as crimson as her hair.
It meant he had never turned away from her. Never doubted her. Never betrayed her. He was announcing to her that he came there for her, and always would be.
Had he carried it with him to the Moray meeting? He must have brought it to keep her love token close, though she had not known he had done so.
Oh, William. No one deserves such love and loyalty.
Yet here he was. He had come for her.
Her body wracked with heady breaths at the sight of him.
As he moved toward her, he seemed to be limping. Was he favoring his right leg?
Giving Eoghan a hard shove away, William stepped close, pressed his finger under her chin, and lifted her watery, tear-filled eyes to his burning gaze. His eyes were chips of ice, as sharp and deadly as his knife as he studied her dirty face and mud-crusted hair.
Ailith blinked back fiery tears. She couldn’t cry in front of him. She wouldn’t. However, she so needed to believe that he had come here for her, that his obvious fury was because of this situation she was forced into, not a result of her actions.
“What are ye doing here?” she asked in a wavering whisper.
“What do ye mean?” His voice was harsh and full of wrath. “Ye are my wife.”
He held Ailith’s gaze with his to ensure that she saw the truth of it, boring past her eyes to the depths of her soul. Her insides quivered and she wanted to avert her gaze. Yet if she was to confront him, she had to look him in the eyes.
“I was told ye had a hand in accusing me. That my behaviors drove ye to the brink and ye wanted no more to do with me.”
His chest heaved as his breathing huffed sharply from his tensed body. The muscle under his jaw twitched.
“Who has abused ye like this, lass? Who has told ye such a foul lie, and told it with such certainty that the reason for my existence, the reason my heart beats and keeps me alive, would believe that I’d betray mo ruaidh?”
Ailith shuddered in relief – William loved her just as much in this moment as he ever had. He had not betrayed her. The brooch shining between them reinforced and reminded her of his vow that he spoke again in this perilous moment. Burning tears slipped from her eyes.
She did not answer aloud but flicked her gaze to Eoghan.
“Ye feckin’ bratach!” William spun and his long arm shot out to Eoghan.
He grabbed the man by his neck, and his eyes bulged from their sockets.
William’s expression was deadly enough to kill Eoghan where he stood.
“Ye are one of her accusers? And ye claimed I did the same? And ye treat her this roughly? Ye are supposed to be my kin! My friend!”
Eoghan slapped William’s hand away as he trampled backward, panting. “I will no’ deny it. Look at all she has done! So many dead and so much destruction by her word and deed!”
A shadow of scalding fury passed over William’s face.
“Ye dinna know of what ye speak. She is no witch, no heretic, this I can promise ye –”
Eoghan ignored him and continued his volatile sermonizing.
“Ye are my dearest friend, and this one lass has so charmed ye that ye cannae see her for what she is! Your very soul is at stake and ye cannae see it! If ye turn her away, ye can save yourself. Please, William. Dinna continue on this path to hell with this woman.”
William’s hands curled into fists and his jaw clenched.
“William,” Eoghan’s voice lowered so William barely heard him.
“I know ye care for her, but I care for ye and for your everlasting soul. Cast her from ye, turn from her wickedness before she leads ye to the Devil’s cloven feet.
I beg ye, William. Dinna force my hand to save your soul.
I dinna want to sacrifice ye, but I will if it saves ye from the pits of Hell. Please.”
The last word was little more than a breath. The muscles in his back and chest shifted hard. Then Seocan called out, likely saving Eoghan’s throat from another grab.
“Brother, dinna give the man the pleasure of your anger. We are paying the fine and taking Ailith home.”
“Nay!” the abbot shouted as Eoghan sidled closer to him. “She will be imprisoned for the rest of her days!”
“She will no’ suffer to die in your fecking dungeon or anyone else’s!” Seocan pushed forward, his face mere inches from the balding abbot. “Now remove yourself –”
“Nay!” the abbot shouted again, thrusting his beakish nose until it nearly touched Seocan’s. “She is guilty –”
William pulled his shoulders back, bearing his weight on his left leg and towering over her accusers.
“’Tis a weak man who abuses women in such a way, who lords his power over a lass with his hands and his actions,” he proclaimed loud enough for all those gathered to hear.
“The MacDougals are no’ weak men. We are warriors who protect those they love, and those weaker than them. ”
His icy blue glare moved around the crowd to land on the thumb-headed abbot with a hard gaze. Then his eyes moved back to Ailith, holding her heart along with her gaze.
“Trial by combat,” William announced. His gaze remained fixed, his fingers holding her chin to keep her facing him.
Ailith froze under his intense attention.
Nay.
But then, she could not fight for herself – the dream-Eladon had instructed her not to. And Ailith understood why. Fighting again would only make her appear more of the very thing they were accusing her of. Especially when she won.
“I shall do it,” Seocan spoke up. Ailith’s chest expanded at his offer.
Daniel moved right behind Seocan. “I’ll fight for her,” he called out at the same time.
William’s eyes softened. Not much, and not in a way noticeable to anyone else, but Ailith saw it.
His fingertips slid off her chin to her dull, dirt-caked hair, moving the heavy tresses back and around her ears, away from her skin so he could look at her face with nothing, not even her own hair between them.
“I’m her husband,” he announced. “I’ll fight for her in a trial by combat.”
Ailith’s heart thudded painfully in her chest. “Ye are injured,” she whispered. “I saw ye limping. Dinna let pride cause your fall or mine.”
William leaned toward her until his forehead met her dirty one. The pleasant, musky smell of him, so familiar, and the heat of his body enveloped her in a rush. His breath was hot on her face when he spoke.
“’Tis of no’ matter. I swore to always defend ye, and I shall. And I’ll prove that I have God on my side, and thus on yours.” Then his voice dropped. “And then no one will accuse ye of being a changeling or pagan witch ever again.”
Ailith understood his intentions. He knew she was always going to be herself – she would continue to fight and plant and write and appear peculiar, and if he won a battle for her under the guise of doing it with God’s favor, then she’d never face another accusation, no matter how odd others found her or what rumors made the rounds.
Her dream-Romani’s words now made much more sense. The woman recognized the impact of what having someone else fight for her would mean to others.
She closed her eyes and pressed her hand against his tunic, feeling his racing heart under her palm. He was warm, so bloody warm after her cold night. All she wanted to do was melt into his protective warmth.
Though she despised his fighting on her behalf, she knew it must be done.
With a hard kiss to her forehead, William spun and rested his hand on the hilt of his long, double-edged Pictish sword. “Who brought this accusation and arrested her? I will fight him and clear Ailith’s name.”
Though her accuser was presumably the abbot, as he oversaw this mockery of a trial, he was no swordsman.
Not with those thin arms. Ailith’s gaze shifted to Betris in the crowd that had gathered.
Eoghan’s sister had to be the one to convince her brother to go to the abbot, and now the young woman blanched.
Would the abbot make Betris fight a hardened warrior in his stead?
“I accused her, so I’ll fight ye,” Eoghan announced.
Ailith’s insides turned to jelly, and she grabbed at the back of William’s tunic. “Nay, William! Ye canna fight your own cousin!”
His face was still clenched tightly as he looked over his shoulder at her. Eoghan may have been a dear friend and kin, one he would do anything for, but he had overstepped. He had threatened the one person William held above all others. She could tell that by the look on William’s face.
“I swore to defend ye, Ailith. Today and every day. And if Eoghan forces my hand in this, I’ll defend ye even against him. Ye are my heart, and he threatened to remove it from me.”
He swung his severe glare to Eoghan.
“She’s dangerous, and she’s bewitched ye,” Eoghan offered as a paltry excuse for his accusation. “There’s only one way to make sure she canna harm your soul or anyone else’s.”
The idea of fighting his cousin, perchance to the death, was not a welcome thought for William. He tried one last time for reason.
“Why are ye like this, Eoghan? Ye were just celebrating at my wedding a sennight ago! Yield! If ye yield the trial, ‘tis over and I’ll take her home.”
William’s chest heaved. He moved forward as Eoghan did, both stopping short to leave less than an arm’s length of air between them.
“I am doing this for ye. For all the clans in the Highlands.”
Eoghan may have been convinced of that, but his words were hollow to William’s ears.
“Yield, cousin,” William pleaded. “’Tis no’ a game of picks.”
“I know this all too well,” Eoghan replied as his right hand reached across his body to grasp the handle of his sword. “Dinna count on a water bucket to save ye this time. I fear nothing will.”