CHAPTER 6 #2
“My Cameron says you have the power to take away pain,” continued the girl conversationally. “He says that on your journey here, you conjured up some spirits and asked them to soothe that scratch on his great thick head. Is that so?”
Gwendolyn stared at her in astonishment. “You’re Cameron’s wife?”
“Aye,” returned the girl, amused by Gwendolyn’s surprise.
“I’m Clarinda. Most people think such a big brute of a man should be married to a giant.
” She chuckled, shaking her head. “I may be small, but I’ve both the temper and the will to match wits with any man, big or scrawny.
Besides, my Cameron may be a great lion of a warrior, but when it comes to his wife, he’s as gentle as a lamb. ”
Gwendolyn thought back to Cameron slashing his way through Robert’s warriors as he fought to rescue her from the MacSweens. At the time she had likened him to a ferocious bear. But Clarinda was right—with that great mane of fiery hair, he was actually closer to a lion.
“So, is it true, then?” Clarinda persisted, clearly intrigued. “Can you take away pain?”
Gwendolyn hesitated. It occurred to her that Clarinda was probably worrying about the delivery of her child. Gwendolyn did not want to mislead her into thinking she could shield her from the suffering inherent to childbirth.
“Sometimes,” she replied carefully. “It depends on how severe the pain is—and my spells don’t work all the time.”
Clarinda pondered this, absently stroking her enormous belly.
“That’s a wonderful power, the ability to ease suffering,” she remarked.
“Especially since some healers seem only capable of inflicting more. I suppose it’s all in God’s hands, really.
When He decides your time has come, He takes you, and that’s that.
” Her voice was matter-of-fact, but Gwendolyn detected a thread of sadness.
“Often that’s true,” she agreed, sympathetic to the girl’s fear. “But sometimes, if you fight really hard, He may change His mind and let you stay awhile longer.”
Clarinda stared silently into space. And then she suddenly blinked and gave herself a small shake, banishing whatever thoughts had induced her melancholy. “Are you hungry yet?”
Gwendolyn glanced suspiciously at the tray. The sight of cold sliced meat, dark bread, cheese, and an artfully arranged flower of apple slices suddenly reminded her of the hollowness of her stomach.
“Lachlan had no chance to slip any of his potion into it,” Clarinda assured her teasingly. “Here,” she said, helping herself to a large chunk of cheese, “I’ll take a bite myself.”
“Wait!”
Clarinda regarded her with surprise.
“Someone may have tainted the food without your knowledge,” Gwendolyn explained anxiously. “You mustn’t eat it.”
Clarinda smiled. “I don’t believe a witch who meant the clan harm would mind having someone drop dead while tasting her food for her,” she observed. “But I prepared this tray myself, Gwendolyn, and I know it’s fine.” With that she popped the chunk of cheese into her mouth.
Gwendolyn watched her worriedly a moment, wondering what she should do if Clarinda suddenly fell ill. But Clarinda just swallowed and helped herself to another piece of cheese and a thick slice of meat, suggesting that her pregnancy gave her a good appetite and the food was uncorrupted.
“I am rather hungry,” Gwendolyn confessed.
She perched herself on the edge of the bed and began to nibble on a slice of apple.
“I’m sorry if I seemed rude when you came in.
It’s just that it was rather a shock to find my gown in the hearth.
Do you have any idea who might have left that note for me? ”
“It could have been any number of people,” Clarinda replied, shrugging. “The MacDunns have a long tradition of fearing witches, fairies, kelpies, and other evil spirits. And, of course, since MacDunn’s wife died, we have had to be particularly careful about keeping evil away.”
The mention of MacDunn’s wife gave Gwendolyn pause. Perhaps her delicate health could lend some clue as to what was wrong with David. “What did MacDunn’s wife die from?”
“Some say she died because she had a weak constitution,” replied Clarinda.
“But she seemed fit enough when MacDunn first brought her here as his bride. ’Twas after David was born that Flora began to fare poorly.
Twice more she grew round with child, and both times the poor bairns died, born far too soon to live even an instant.
” She laid her hands protectively over her swollen stomach.
“After the second one, she complained of a terrible pain and was too sick to rise from her bed. MacDunn was overcome with worry, so he sent for the finest healers in the land, who came from as far away as Scone. Great, conceited brutes they were, assuring MacDunn that there was no illness they had not seen. They bled her and purged her and leeched her, and forced her to drink all kinds of stinking potions. But Flora just grew weaker and weaker.”
Gwendolyn felt a surge of pity for the woman. She had no doubt Flora suffered miserably.
“Of course, Elspeth also tended her during her illness,” Clarinda continued.
“She firmly believed ’twas evil spirits robbing her of her health, and said we all had to help her drive them away.
Poor Flora continued to ail for nearly a year.
And then she finally died. Some say it was her own sadness that destroyed her, because of the two wee bairns she lost.” She circled her palm over her belly.
“I suppose that’s possible,” she conceded.
“But Flora adored MacDunn and the son she already had. I can’t see how any woman with a wee child would let herself die if she had any choice in the matter.
And Flora also worried terribly about what would happen to MacDunn if she died. ”
“What do you mean?”
“There are some men who tolerate their wives well enough,” Clarinda explained, “but they would not be overly tormented if they lost one and had to find another. Life for a woman can be short, especially since the duty of childbearing has been left to us. I think many men realize this and guard their feelings accordingly.”
Gwendolyn considered this. There had been a number of MacSween women who had died either during or shortly following childbirth.
It was not uncommon to find their grieving husbands married again a few months later—especially if the infant had survived.
It was not love that inspired these swift unions, but the simple practicalities of life.
The child needed a mother, the man needed a wife.
“MacDunn’s feelings for Flora ran far deeper than that,” Clarinda continued.
“The longer her illness continued, the more absorbed he became with her, until he could barely attend to his responsibilities as laird. When Flora finally died, MacDunn was devastated. And that,” she finished quietly, “is when the madness claimed him.”
“What happened?” asked Gwendolyn.
“He raged a long while. Screamed at both God and the devil at the top of his lungs, calling them the most hideous names and uttering all kinds of terrible threats. He was taunting them, you see, because he wanted them to take him as well.”
So this was the pain MacDunn carried deep within him.
On several occasions Gwendolyn had glimpsed a raw anguish in his eyes, but she had not understood its source.
And now his precious son, who was his only surviving bond to the memory of his wife, was dying as well.
The cruelty of it was almost unfathomable.
No wonder he had risked himself, his closest warriors, and the security of his clan to steal Gwendolyn and bring her here.
“How long did his rage last?”
“It never went away,” Clarinda replied. “He just learned to control it better, so that we couldn’t see it so well. But then he began to act in a strange manner and we knew our laird was not the same.”
Gwendolyn frowned. “What did he do?”
“For nearly a year he drank himself into a stupor every night. That in itself might not seem extraordinary, but none of us had ever seen MacDunn drunk before. He was a proud man, and intensely aware of his duties. A drunken man is not fit to be a warrior, or a father, or a laird, and MacDunn knew this. He would lock himself up in his chamber, or mount his horse and disappear for days at a time, drinking and completely neglecting his duties to his clan, to say nothing of his son. And then,” she added quietly, “people heard him talking to Flora.”
“His dead wife?”
She nodded. “He would have long conversations with her, at all hours of the day and night. We hoped it was just his grief trying to find a way out and that eventually it would pass. But it didn’t.
Every time someone went to his chamber to consult him on some matter, he would order them away, saying that he was not to be disturbed when he was talking to his wife.
” Her expression grew sober. “We knew then that madness was claiming him. And soon word of it reached other clans, and they began to call him Mad MacDunn.”
“Does the clan still think he is mad?”
Clarinda hesitated. “About a year after Flora’s death, something happened that caused MacDunn to stop drinking to excess.
He continued to talk to Flora, but he was so much better in almost every other way, no one minded.
After all, maybe she really is hovering over him, answering him back.
For a time it seemed MacDunn was practically sound again, although of course he had changed.
But then David fell ill. Once again MacDunn sent for the best healers he could find, and once again they were unable to cure the lad.
Finally he sent them away. We all fear that if the lad dies, it will be more than MacDunn can bear. ”
“And now MacDunn has brought a witch here to heal his son,” Gwendolyn supplied. “And that makes the clan question the stability of his mind even more.”