Chapter 17
Brother Damian stood at the bar in the tavern, slowly sipping ale, listening to the farmers and sheep and cattle herders gossip and speculate in whispers as they sat at the various planked tables about the tavern.
Some ate the mutton stew offered by the tavern’s kitchens for lunch, others drank ale, seeking not nourishment, but companionship.
“If y’be askin’ me, ’tis simply more of the same,” one old-timer said quietly, his head bowed low so that his voice might be heard just by the comrades at his table.
The old man was leathered, his hair and thick beard more white than gray.
He had bright blue eyes, and despite his seventy-odd years, he remained straight and sturdy as an oak.
He was a Menzies, Ioin Menzies, father of Mark Menzies, the foreman of the miners.
“There’s strange things brewing in the castle on the hill, and that’s a fact. ”
“Since before the old Laird Douglas died,” protested a handsome younger man in his twenties, Hamell, one of the Anderson lads. He looked carefully around the room.
Brother Damian, standing with his ale, thought that the lad might be looking about to see if his father was in the tavern.
Hamell Anderson leaned forward, barely mouthing the words to old Ioin. “It began the night of the Fire.”
“D’ye think it’s the witches?” Ioin demanded.
“Are y’ serious, man?” Hamell demanded.
“The American lass is gone, isn’t she?”
“Aye.”
“The Night of the Moon Maiden comes tomorrow. Perhaps the lass is intended to die on the altar.”
“Ach, old man! Ye’ve lost your mind, surely!”
“Strange things been brewin’.”
“Aye, like the lad.”
“The lad?” Old Ioin looked puzzled. “Ah, y’mean your brother, Danny, the wee thing caught in the mines?”
“Aye. I mean Danny,” Hamell said quietly. He looked down at the table, not meeting old Ioin’s eyes. “Danny…came out of the mines with the help of a beastie.”
“Things do indeed haunt the mines. My boy has told me so,” Ioin said grimly.
“Well, no one will be slaying a lass on the Druid Stone. We’ll all be about to see that it not happen,” Hamell said harshly.
“And don’t you go ruinin’ the holiday for us all!
I’ve my costume and mask set. The servants at the castle have been setting out the kegs of wine and ale all morning in preparations for tomorrow night.
I’ve worked on me caber throw for the contests, and I’ve a lass to meet for the dancing!
Don’t go making something eerie of the fun we’ve planned on havin’! ”
“It’s the lass you’re planning on havin’, eh, boy?”
“I intend to ask her to wed,” Hamell said indignantly.
“After the…er, festivities?” Ioin suggested.
“Now, Ioin—”
“I’d not spoil a celebration, and that’s a fact. I’m not the trouble. ’Tis the witches,” Ioin said.
“The witches?”
“Aye, Edwina and her lot, talking Mother Nature, making their herbal cures and potions and all! You look to it, boy—’twill end that the witches have some shenanigans and say in all this!”
“Don’t you be talking such rubbish!” came a sharp, feminine cry from the door.
Brother Damian, who had been deeply involved in the men’s conversation, turned in surprise to see that Edwina had come into the tavern. She wore a cloak against the chill of the November day, yet as he watched her, Brother Damian’s eyes narrowed.
“Ah, now, Edwina—” Ioin protested, his cheeks flushing.
“I’ve done nothing but good for you, Ioin Menzies!” Edwina said, coming straight to the table. “My herbs have cured those carbuncles upon your back many a time, and my remedies have soothed your old feet many a night as well.”
“Now, Edwina—”
“Don’t you ‘now, Edwina’ me, Mister Menzies!” Edwina said angrily, and sweeping off her cloak, she went back behind the bar, drawing a pitcher of ale for a farmer who hailed her across the tavern.
Brother Damian took his chances and slid into the seat alongside Ioin Menzies. Menzies looked up at him, surprised and wary. Brother Damian smiled reassuringly. He’d been a bit of a fixture at the tavern for several days, coming and going, and building up something of a trust among the people here.
“She’s worried, you know. About Laird Douglas’s sister-in-law. And we must still find the lass.”
“Aye!” Ioin said, looking at the table.
“In truth,” he said quietly, “you know, Menzies, that I’ve come on pilgrimage to do a bit of studying on the lore hereabouts, and quite honestly, the ancient sacrifices were associated with Druid practices, and not with the Wiccans.”
“She’ll be mad at me, now,” Ioin said, sniffing toward where Edwina worked at the bar. “She’ll let my old body rot before she gives me aid again.”
Brother Damian drank deeply from his ale, then looked across the table at Hamell Anderson. “There’s been no clue here in the village as to the missing girl, eh?”
Hamell shook his head and sipped foam from his ale.
“But Ioin may have a point. If witches were out for a sacrifice, they’d want the likes of an important young maid, don’t y’ think, Brother Damian?
” Anderson’s eyes lit seriously upon him.
“But then again, wouldn’t they be seeking the likes of someone even more important perhaps?
Like Lady MacGinnis herself? Unless of course… ”
“Aye, and of course, what?” Brother Damian demanded.
Hamell Anderson shrugged uncomfortably. “Well, if someone deeply believed in his or her religion—not minding what that belief be—he or she would follow it faithfully.”
“Aye, a passionate man follows his religion with great faith,” Brother Damian agreed.
“I don’t ken what you’re off about, boy!” Ioin said, exasperated.
“Perhaps the Lady MacGinnis is not all that she seems.”
Ioin took exception to that as well. His glass hit hard upon the wooden table.
“Don’t y’be sayin’ a word against the likes of Shawna MacGinnis.
She’s proved herself as fine in spirit as any man in taking to the likes of watching over us all.
Why, she is using her own income to see to the welfare of your grandfather, young Hamell.
She’s sending him to that special hospital, soon as the arrangements are made.
And didn’t she just take your wee brother into the castle? ”
“Aye, me brother,” Hamell muttered bitterly.
Old Ioin stared at him. “Then your nephew—if young Danny is your sister’s illegitimate issue.”
“The lad is not me sister’s—”
“Be that as it may, Lady MacGinnis has cared for you and yours,” Ioin insisted.
“Oh, aye, the great lady, that she be!” Hamell agreed, and he hesitated, still looking unhappy.
“Son, just what are you trying to say?” Brother Damian persisted.
Hamell shook his head. “Just that, well, we’re not always what we appear to be, and that’s that, I’ll say no more—”
“Ye’ve said nothing!” Ioin snapped in total exasperation.
“Fine, I’ll say this, then! One would assume Miss Sabrina Connor to be an innocent maid.
And if strange things have been happening, well, aye, they’ve been happening since the Fire, since David Douglas died.
Lady MacGinnis was with David Douglas that night, and it’s my belief that Lady MacGinnis was with the laird’s heir that night in the carnal sense—begging your pardon, Brother Damian.
So, if some practitioner of the black arts seeks a sacrifice—an innocent sacrifice—then Sabrina Connor would certainly be a fair choice. ”
Brother Damian arched a brow, wondering if the truth regarding Sabrina Connor’s condition might save her life.
“What if Miss Connor is not so innocent a lass?” he suggested. “She had scarcely arrived here before she disappeared. What could any man know of her past?”
“Indeed!” old Ioin exclaimed. And he stared at Brother Damian, then at Hamell. He sniffed once, very quietly. Then he sniffed loudly and rose, walking away from the table to the bar.
Most probably, Brother Damian determined, to make his peace with Edwina. It might be one thing to rue the practice of witchcraft, but it was quite another to suffer through the pain of carbuncles.
“Ah!” Hamell Anderson murmured unhappily.
“I should have kept my mouth shut. I’ve offended the old goat.
He does truly love Lady MacGinnis!” He glanced at Brother Damian.
“I don’t mean offense to Lady MacGinnis.
I don’t. God’s blood—sorry, Brother—but all I say is that she and David Douglas were like sparks flying together.
Not a civil word, yet they couldn’t keep apart.
I suppose to you, good friar, ’tis sin, but then, like as not y’don’t quite ken what it is between a man and woman that draws them together. ”
“I do my best,” Brother Damian said dryly. “As I assume you do yourself.”
“Wait, now there, are you tryin’ to imply that young Danny might be me own lad?”
“I wasn’t implying anything of the like,” Brother Damian assured him. “I just suggested that—”
“I took no innocent maid and gave her issue!” he said, then lowered his voice, looking around.
He was terrified of his father, Brother Damian thought.
“Look at the lad, and look at the MacGinnises, will you!” he said and quickly stood.
He started to leave, then hesitated and added quickly, “If you seek answers here, Brother Damian, look to the lady herself!”
Alistair stood in the chapel, inhaling, exhaling, staring at the crucifix.
There was no help for it. He was going to have to go down to the crypt.
Because things were beginning to happen. The past was tormenting the living and beginning to eclipse what there might have been of a future.
He didn’t want to go to the crypts. He had to.
Yet even in the daylight, he despised going there.
He shuddered fiercely.
Then the sound of the chapel door opening off the great hall sounded, and he spun around.
Hawk Douglas had come.
“Alistair!” Hawk greeted him, his hands on his hips as he stared up at the crucifix as well. Then he glanced Alistair’s way, his green eyes sparkling. “I hadn’t thought you so religious as to spend time in the chapel.”