Chapter Ten
“Here ye go!” Brother Merrick said enthusiastically, thumping down another load of books on Jenna’s table. “I think ye’ll find plenty about the spellweavers in these.”
Jenna stifled a groan and forced a smile. “Thanks, Merrick.”
“Dinna ye worry, lass, there is plenty more where they came from.” He shuffled off, humming to himself.
To be honest, Jenna was beginning to regret asking to see everything that Dun Tabor had on the spellweavers.
There was a lot. Books and scrolls already covered the desk and Brother Merrick had taken it upon himself to dig out every last scrap of information, no matter how obscure.
Jenna had been reading for hours already—using a steady stream of magic to translate the Gaelic, Latin, and Old English they were written in—and so far she’d found nothing useful.
They were all handwritten, some with beautifully decorated pages, but her head was starting to hurt from trying to decipher the tiny, ornate writing that most of the authors seemed to favor.
She thumped shut the latest book and pushed it away with a sigh.
Most of what she’d read was nonsense. So far she’d learned that MacFinnan spellweavers could turn themselves into birds and fly away over the sea, how they regularly slayed giants, and protected Skye by calling up fearsome sea monsters that would swallow ships whole and destroy any fleet intent on attacking the island.
She might not understand the magic that protected the island, but she did know one thing: sea monsters were definitely not it.
Stretching her arms over her head, she yawned hugely. Rosaline, who was sitting opposite her, gave a sympathetic smile.
“Not found aught yet?”
Jenna shook her head. “Not unless you count how one of my ancestors battled a dragon atop Bail Nan Cnoc or punished a wicked lord by turning him into a giant fish. Honestly, this is more folklore than history.”
“Folklore is how we make sense of lives,” Rosaline said. “It’s how we remember where we come from, and how we orient our place in the world.” She smiled ruefully. “Although, I must admit, those stories aren’t much help when ye are trying to conduct serious research.”
Jenna nodded. She’d been surprised when Rosaline had volunteered to help Jenna with her research, and even more surprised when she’d taken to it with almost as much enthusiasm as Brother Merrick. There was more to Arran’s mother than met the eye.
“You sound like you’ve done this kind of thing before.”
“Aye,” she replied. “In my youth I was something of a scholar. These days keeping my errant son out of mischief and running this place leaves little time for aught else.”
Jenna could well imagine. Although Arran was the boss and everyone deferred to his wishes, in the short time she’d been here Jenna had come to learn that it was Rosaline and her army of helpers who actually ran the place.
“Tell me more,” Jenna said, propping her chin on her hand. “What did you study?”
“Oh, anything and everything,” Rosaline replied, waving her hand.
“I was the younger daughter and escaped the rigorous training in how to run a household that my elder sister was subjected to. As a result, I was allowed to indulge my insatiable curiosity. I was tutored in history, philosophy, languages—everything I could get my hands on. I was what ye would call a ‘bookish’ child. While my brother and elder sister rebelled against everything our tutor tried to teach us, I lapped it up. My father even sent me to Paris for a while where I learned scribing and arithmetic. Except for when Arran and his brother were born, it was the happiest time of my life.”
She sighed wistfully, and Jenna had a sudden image of a young, eager Rosaline rubbing shoulders with the scholars and thinkers of Renaissance Paris. It was no wonder she looked a little wistful.
“How come you ended up here?” Jenna asked. “We’re a long way from Paris.”
Rosaline shrugged. “My father arranged a match for me with the heir to the lairdship of Clan MacLeod. So I came here and here I’ve stayed.”
It all sounded rather clinical to Jenna. Rosaline’s father arranged the marriage? What about how Rosaline herself felt about it? “Didn’t you have any say in the matter?”
Rosaline laughed lightly. “No more than a horse at market would have a say in who it’s sold to.
” Jenna was surprised to detect no trace of bitterness in the words, just calm acceptance.
“It is the way of the world,” Rosaline continued.
“And a woman’s lot in life. It wasnae a bad marriage.
My husband was courteous and treated me well and his father had a love of books that matched my own.
He gave over care of this library into my keeping and I’ve been adding to the collection ever since. ”
That explained how the collection had grown so huge. But Rosaline’s words troubled her. The way of the world? A woman’s lot in life?
It was most certainly not the way of Jenna’s world and would most definitely not be her lot in life. She’d already been hurt by one man, and she was never, ever, going to let any man have that kind of power over her again.
“So all of this,” she waved vaguely, indicating the space around them. “Is part of Scotland, right? So how come the king hasn’t helped you against the raiders? That’s how things work in this time isn’t it?”
Rosaline laughed softly. “Ye touch on matters of politics that are as tangled as an unwound ball of yarn. Clan allegiances change as quickly as the tide, and Skye has been pulled one way and then the other over the years. But we are closely allied with the Donalds of Islay, and Jamie Donald, the current chief and Lord of the Isles is our liege lord. As for why they dinna help us? I’m sure they would if they had men and resources to spare, but Islay and Barra are as beset by the raiders as we are.
” She shook her head and sighed. “I’m afraid we are on our own. ”
Jenna reached over and clasped the older woman’s hand. “Not on your own. I swear I’ll do everything I can to restore the magic.”
Rosaline squeezed her hand and smiled. “I know ye will, my dear. Ye have a kind heart and a bright soul. Not many people would be willing to do what ye have, to leave behind yer family, yer husband and bairns, to come and help us.”
Jenna blinked. “Actually, I don’t have either,” she said carefully.
Rosaline gave her a strange look. “But ye must be in yer twenties at least! And ye are unmarried?”
“Yep. And I’m not an outlier or anything. It’s perfectly normal where I come from.”
“Oh,” Rosaline said, looking slightly scandalized. “I see. But ye must have other family ye have left behind. A mother? Father?”
Jenna shrugged. “My mom died. I never knew my dad. He left when I was a baby and my mom always said it was for the best. Apparently being with a MacFinnan spellweaver is a little too much for most men.”
Was that the problem with Alex? She’d never shown him her magic and he had no idea about her abilities, but that didn’t mean he might not have subconsciously picked up on it. Might that have been what drove him to cheat on her? Might it have all been her fault after all?
Don’t be stupid! she told herself savagely. How can you blame yourself for what that bastard did? Aunt Elise would kick your ass if she knew you were thinking such things!
“I’m sorry, my dear,” Rosaline said, patting her hand. “Ye must miss yer mother very much.”
“I do. But I have my two aunts, Rose and Elise. They keep me on the straight and narrow.”
“And they are spellweavers like yerself?”
“That’s right. They taught me everything I know.”
Rosaline let out a slow breath. “My. Ye must be quite the formidable trio.”
Formidable? That wasn’t exactly how Jenna would describe her slightly dysfunctional family.
Elise was a free spirit who didn’t give a damn what anyone thought of her, but she drifted from job to job, place to place, never really settling down or finding a direction in life.
Rose was the opposite: house, marriage, career as a nurse.
On the surface she had it sorted, but in reality her marriage was on the rocks and she and Uncle Dennis had been going to couples’ therapy for months.
No, formidable was not the word Jenna would use. Add her own shit-show of a life into the mix and the phrase “barely holding it together” would be a more appropriate way to describe her family.
But she missed them all the same.
“Yeah,” she said. “Something like that.”
With a sigh, Jenna opened the next book in the pile, but she’d barely begun to read when heavy footsteps drummed in the corridor outside. Jenna looked up just as the door was flung open and Arran came bursting in, skidding to a stop on the flagstone floor.
Rosaline’s hand flew to her chest. “Arran! What is it?”
“Where is—?” His gaze fell on Jenna and his shoulders slumped as the tension leaked out of him. “There ye are. Are ye well? Unhurt?”
“Of course I’m unhurt,” Jenna replied, puzzled.
“Good,” he breathed, running a hand through his tousled hair. “That’s good.”
He looked exhausted. There were rips and tears in his clothing and he was spattered with mud. And, as Jenna looked closer, she saw that he was spattered with something else, something rust-colored.
Blood.
Rosaline had seen it too. She rushed around the table, grabbed her son by the arms, and looked up into his weary face.
“By the Saints! What’s happened, Arran?”
*
Arran tore his gaze away from Jenna and concentrated on his mother. “Dinna worry,” he said. “The blood isnae mine.”
“Dinna worry? I worry every time ye step out of the gates of Dun Tabor! Look at ye! Dinna tell me ye are fine, Arran MacLeod, when ye clearly are not!”
Her voice was shrill and wavering and Arran forced a smile. He had to remember that his mother had already lost a husband and son to raiders and what it must be like for her to live under constant threat of losing him as well.