Chapter Twelve
As Cailean stepped into the great hall, he was hit by a wall of warmth and noise.
Voices raised in friendly banter mixed with the scent of wood smoke, damp clothing, and baked bread that assaulted Cailean’s senses.
Steam rose from people’s cloaks as they gathered close to the fire, and, as Cailen stepped inside with Catriona at his side, he paused, feeling like he’d been gut punched.
This was how his hall had been before.
Before the sickness. Before everything went wrong. Full of laughter. Full of life.
Over at one of the tables, his men were waxing lyrical about the repairs that would be needed following the storm and one of them, Lachlan, was boasting about moving a broken roof beam single handedly, while everyone else jibed him for his tall tales.
Cailean couldn’t stop the smile that spread over his face.
Funny how it took a crisis to make everyone pull together.
It was at times like this that his people showed their true worth.
“There’s Maisie!” Catriona cried, spotting one of her friends. She went racing over to join her, Patch at her heels.
Someone handed Cailean a tankard, and he nodded his thanks, though he didn’t drink. It was good to see his people in good spirits again, but there was one person missing, and to be honest, his heart was not here.
It was still out there in the rain, tangled with Rose MacFinnan’s hair, caught between her lips and the soft sound she’d made when he’d pulled her close.
His fingers closed around the tankard as the memory shot through him. What had he been thinking? Not thinking at all, just acting on instinct and oh, by all the hells, it had felt right.
He shook his head and pulled in a slow and deep breath, trying to clear the memory.
But it wouldn’t budge. A burst of heat shot through him as he remembered how her mouth had opened under his, warm and willing, how he’d felt her hands fisting in his tunic, her body arching towards his like she needed him as badly as he needed her.
If Catriona hadn’t come when she had…
He ran a hand through his hair. What in God’s name was he doing? He was laird. He had responsibilities. A daughter. A clan that needed him to be focused and determined, not distracted.
And yet… he didn’t regret it. Couldn’t regret it. The soft feel of her lips on his had made him feel something he hadn’t in a long time. It had made him feel… alive.
“My laird?” said a voice, and he turned to find Cook holding out a platter of food. “Are ye coming to join us? Or are ye going to stand there scowling until ye frighten the bairns?”
He huffed a low laugh, took the platter of food, and made his way to the high table where Catriona and Maisie were busy feeding scraps to Patch. He sat down heavily, his eyes straying to the empty seat where Rose had sat the night she arrived.
Ach. This was no good. He pushed his platter aside, untouched.
“Domnall, Ewan,” he called. “Attend me.”
The men—two of his closest advisors—left their spots where they’d been talking by the fire and seated themselves across from him at the high table.
“Well?” Cailean said, placing his hands flat on the scarred tabletop. “Give me the worst of it.”
Domnall rubbed his stubbled chin. Older than Cailean, he had skin like tanned leather and a shock of gray hair like some unruly bird’s nest. “We’re still waiting for reports to come from the more outlying crofts, but it seems the southern crofts were the worst affected, exposed as they are.
We know of three longhouses completely down.
A lot of livestock has been scattered. I’ve sent a contingent of warriors down there to help, and they’ll do what they can. ”
Cailean nodded. “And here in the village?”
“Got away lightly, all things considered,” Ewan replied, leaning his considerable bulk back in his chair and spreading his arms. “Old Seamus’s house was the worst hit as ye know, but I’m wondering whether it’s even worth trying to repair it since ye and Rose took him to stay with his daughter.
It will only encourage the old complainer to try and move back in when we all know he’s better off with Brina. ”
Cailean nodded. “Are the stores intact?”
“Mostly,” Domnall replied. “We dinna seem to have lost any grain, but the thatch on the outer granary is damaged and will need replacing. The path out to the north road is a mire and will need clearing before any grain deliveries from the crofts in that direction can get through.”
Cailean ran his hand down the side of his face.
“Set any of the unoccupied youths to hauling timber for repairs. I’ll have Beatrice organize the women to inventory what was lost and what’s worth saving.
” He met the eyes of his two advisors. “Make sure the word goes out that any who have lost their homes are to come here. Nobody will go without food and shelter while I sit in this hall.”
They nodded. “Aye, laird.”
Cailean let out a slow breath. It felt strangely grounding, falling back into the routines of duty, of being the laird of his people.
This he could do. This he’d been trained his whole life for.
Give him storms or raiders or poor harvests any day of the week.
This enemy, at least, he knew how to face, unlike the sickness, the faceless, nameless enemy that stalked his people and struck without warning.
He took a swig from his tankard, barely tasting the ale. Ewan and Domnall, perhaps sensing his mood, excused themselves, and he was left alone at the high table, Catriona and Maisie having disappeared elsewhere.
He swirled the ale in its cup, staring down into the depths as though he might find some answers written there.
He was bone weary and longed for nothing more than retiring to his chamber to sleep.
But he knew sleep wouldn’t come. He was too wound up for that.
Thoughts swirled around in his head just like the liquid in his cup, stirring up feelings he’d rather not examine too closely. The storm. The sickness.
Rose MacFinnan.
He sighed, resting his head against the back of his chair. When had he come to rely on her so much? And what would he do if she couldn’t help them?
He closed his eyes. He dared not think about that.
*
Rose sank into the deliciously hot water, letting it lap all the way to her chin.
She sighed in contentment, feeling the heat slowly unknot her tired muscles and chase away the cold that seemed to have settled into her bones.
She ached all over, but it was a pleasant sort of ache, born from the knowledge that she’d done some good today.
And what a day it had been.
First there had been the village and its inhabitants, half wrecked by last night’s storm, but pulling together all the same.
The teamwork. The camaraderie, the determination to put right what nature had so casually ransacked.
It had made Rose warm inside to see the way they had all worked together, and she had begun to understand the fierce loyalty these people held to each other and why Cailean loved them so much.
Ah, Cailean. She should not be thinking about him.
Yanking her thoughts away, she rested her arms along the rim of the metal bathtub and leaned her head back, allowing her eyes to slide closed.
She owed Mable a debt of gratitude for arranging this.
Hauling hot water up here was no mean feat, even though she’d roped in some of the stable lads to help her.
As Rose lay back, she listened to the faint sounds of the castle: voices down in the great hall, shouts from the battlements, the clop of a horse’s hooves from the courtyard, the whine of the wind in the roof.
Those sounds were starting to feel normal, which was something she never would have believed possible.
It was startling, she thought, how this place, these people, this time, was losing its strangeness and was starting to feel like… well, not home exactly, but something like it, even if there were no coffee, indoor plumbing, or hair straighteners.
Imagine that. She smiled wryly. Elise would be shocked.
She stretched out her toes, resting them on the far edge of the tub. The water was starting to cool a little, and she should probably have a scrub, wash her hair, and get out before it grew tepid, but she couldn’t bring herself to move.
Just a bit longer.
She found her thoughts skimming over the events of the day. She could still hear Brina’s voice as she asked them if they’d seen the stormlights over the ocean and she’d seen Seamus’s serious expression as he’d told her of the child’s tale of the sea gods.
It was nonsense. Or at least it should have been nonsense. But something inside her, some instinct, suggested that it wasn’t. Old tales, she knew, often held a truth buried deep within them.
And then there was him. Cailean.
The memory of his mouth on hers struck like a match against her skin. The roughness of it. The need. The way their kiss had drowned her in one sudden rush of heat and hunger that she had been powerless to control.
She touched her lips without thinking, her fingers grazing the place where his kiss had lingered.
What was happening to her? Why was she allowing herself to feel these things? She was newly divorced, for pity’s sake! This was the last thing she needed!
But she wasn’t allowing anything. The things she felt in Cailean’s presence were not a conscious choice. They were instinctive, primal almost, and she couldn’t do a damned thing to stop them, no matter how hard she tried.
Damn it all!
Her calm broken, she washed herself and stood up, dripping.
Grabbing one of the large cloths Mable had left as a towel, she wrapped one around her hair, another around her middle, and stepped out onto the cold stone floor.
Shivering a little, she exited the bathing chamber and slumped into a chair in the bedroom that faced the roaring fire.
Chin resting on her hands, she stared into the flames as if she’d find the answers to her conundrum written in the writhing orange tongues.
She was startled from her thoughts by a knock on the door. “Just a moment!” she cried, looking around for where she’d dropped her clothes.
The door swung open. Rose gave a little yelp and pulled the towel tighter around herself.
“Ach, dinna fash, lass,” came Maggie’s voice as she stepped inside, breezing in like the start of a storm. “Ye dinna have aught I havenae seen many times before.”
The woman closed the door behind her and lowered herself into the seat opposite Rose, letting out a groan as she did so.
“Ah, that’s better. My old bones do ache so in this damp weather.” She fixed Rose with her piercing blue gaze. “The laird said ye wished to speak to me. That ye wanted to know about some of the old tales?”
Rose nodded, pulling the towel tighter. “It was something Seamus and his daughter said today in the village. They asked if we’d seen the stormlights out at sea and then told me a story about a sea god and goddess.”
“Ah!” Maggie held up one finger. “Now that is an old tale, older than the stones beneath this keep, almost as old as the bones of the island itself.”
“Could you tell it to me?”
Maggie’s expression shifted. She cocked her head at Rose. “It’s a long time since anyone showed any interest in the old gods. Beatrice’s new god’s hold strengthens and the old ways are slowly being forgotten. Why the interest now?”
“Because I think you might be right,” she said. “I think there is some truth to these old stories and that the sickness is something to do with the old gods, just like you claimed.”
Maggie blinked, studying Rose closely. Then she breathed out slowly. “Then we are in bigger trouble than I thought. The old gods can be as capricious and cruel as they can be generous. Are ye sure ye want to go down this route?”
“I have to. Please. Tell me what you know.”
She listened intently as Maggie began to speak in a low, rhythmic voice, relaying a tale similar to that which Seamus and his daughter had told her that afternoon but different in several aspects.
In Maggie’s story, there was no curse involved.
Instead, when the god became jealous of the goddess’s love for her people and threatened to hurt them, the goddess confined him in a prison beneath the waves.
The stormlights were indeed the god’s rage and grief leaking out from his prison.
When she finished, Rose didn’t speak, and silence reigned in the room, the only sound the crackle and pop of the fire between them. A prison. And a god’s curse leaking out from that prison. Was that what was powering the magic that was bringing the sickness?
“But why now?” Rose asked, looking up at Maggie. “If this tale is as old as you say it is, why has the sickness come into being so recently?”
“I canna answer that question,” Maggie said, shaking her head.
“Although the tale goes on to say that the goddess, saddened by the loss of her love, began to fail. While she lived, the prison stayed strong, but finally, she succumbed to her grief and died. Perhaps that is why the god’s rage and spite now leaks out to curse us. ”
Rose’s mind whirled with possibilities. Could this be it? Could this be the clue she’d been looking for? And if so, what could she do about it? They were talking about the power of a god! How could she hope to counter that?
But it was more to go on than she’d had to go on this time yesterday. Now, at least, she had a place to start.
And it started with finding that prison.