Chapter Three
-ASTRID-
After Lachlann fell asleep and Declan left, I rested my head back against the chair at Lachlann’s bedside, closed my eyes, and silently wept.
My tears weren’t just over seeing Freya for what might have been the final time tonight, but over Lachlann.
Nothing saddened me more than knowing such a good man and friend was going to die an untimely death. It seemed unfair. Wrong somehow.
Yet I knew it was all part of my Wyrd, or “destiny” as these Scots might call it, leading me to the man, however brutish and troubled he may be, foreseen by me and my sisters Freya and Tove, when we were children.
I had known it from the moment my and Declan’s gazes first connected and my talisman warmed.
Now here he was, swearing to his father he would marry me if Lachlann died, which he would, and I could not imagine a more challenging concept.
While yes, we were certainly attracted to each other, it was safe to say the feeling was purely physical.
He was a difficult man with too much anger in his heart, and I could not fathom being able to heal it.
“’Twill be all right, lass,” Lachlann rumbled.
At some point, I must have dozed off because when his words stirred me awake, it was early morning and he gazed at me affectionately, like a father might his daughter.
Blinking, I sat up, surprised I had fallen asleep, and looked around in confusion, expecting one of the servants to be in here tending the fire.
“’Twas you I spoke to, Astrid,” Lachlann said. “You were talking in your sleep, worried about Declan and me.” He shook his head. “I was trying to ease you without waking you.”
“’Tis all right.” I took in his improved color and brighter eyes. “You look better.” Although I knew this would be a temporary improvement, I kept it from my face. Smiling, I squeezed his hand. “’Tis truly good to see.”
“Aye, tea eased me greatly.” He squeezed my hand in return. “I cannae thank you enough.”
“Of course.” I tended to the fire, speaking to him over my shoulder. “I will head belowstairs and have some food brought up, then—”
“Nay, not yet, lass,” he said softly. “Come sit with me a moment first so that we might talk.”
“As you wish.” After the fire crackled invitingly again, I poured pre-boiled water from the pitcher into a cup, added a pinch of therapeutic herbs I had grown outside my cottage, and handed it to him.
Unlike the concoction I had given him earlier, this one would not make him drowsy.
“Drink this down, and we will talk all you like.”
“Aye,” he replied obediently, a bit of the old Lachlann sparkling in his eyes. “As you command, healer.”
“Ja, I do,” I said sternly, saying “yes” in my native tongue as I had when we first met, managing a small smile before voicing what else I had spoken that day. “Might I help ease your pain, m’laird?”
I first met Lachlann when he sat alone in the woodland, gripping his leg, reeling in silent pain lest anyone overhear him.
Such incredible pain that his features were contorted, and he rocked back and forth.
Pain he had been keeping secret from others, due to a condition that would eventually make healing impossible and cripple him.
I recognized it because I had seen it in my village as a youth, so I knew it would also make him more susceptible to illness.
In this case, a plight of the lungs borne by nearly drowning.
“Nay, there is verra little pain right now,” he assured when I asked, again urging me to sit beside him.
“Please, Astrid. ‘Tis important that you ken ‘twill be all right here with Declan. He will be a good husband when the time comes and love you fiercely.” Lachlann shook his head. “Of that I have no doubt.”
What had I said in my sleep? What had I revealed?
While tempted to ask, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
“You worried over that in your dreams,” he went on softly, seeming to feel I needed to know anyway. “You feared he would not return your love. Feared he would hate you for where you came from. For who your people were. What they had done to his countrymen…to his mother, my late wife.”
I spoke of love? What did I know of love with a man like Declan? With any man, for that matter. Yet it seemed my inner seer knew something. A great deal, it appeared.
“What do you mean, his mother?” Not understanding, I frowned. “Did she not die of illness years ago?”
“Nay.” Lachlann's gaze grew haunted for a moment, as if he peered into the past, sharing something that explained so much.
“She died at the hands of a Norseman who came upon her down at the shore. He was alone, rogue, and not in his right mind by the sounds of it.” He inhaled deeply and released a shaky breath.
“Declan was a young lad, still only learning to fight, when he came upon them, but by then, there was little hope of saving her.
The damage was done, and the Norseman had fled.
By the time Declan carried his mother back to the castle, ‘twas too late.”
“I’m so sorry.” My heart ached for them both. “That must have been so very hard.”
“’Twas,” Lachlann said. “Harder still when his love for the Norse in our village, people he had grown up around, turned to hate. A festering anger that only grew over time as he fought for the king against Sassenach and Norse alike.”
“Yet you never shared that anger,” I assumed. “When you would have had every right.”
“Why, when those people, friends all, did me no harm?” He looked at me with a furrowed brow, as sad now as I suspected he had been that fateful day.
“That Norseman was a perfect stranger, not those I had known my whole life, nor were they affiliated with him.
He was apprehended later. Justice was served.
‘Twas all that mattered.” He nodded once.
“Justice.” Seeming to truly mean it, he nodded firmly one more time. “I made my peace with it.”
“Yet Declan never did,” I said, biting back emotion, seeing it clearly enough.
He had been young at the time and still lacked the wisdom to put his grief and anger where they should have been.
Add to that growing up in a country constantly fighting for its independence and freedom, and I could understand his hatred, to an extent.
“I’m surprised I didn’t hear about this sooner in the village,” I murmured. “It would have helped me understand him better.”
“I asked my people and those of the village years ago that it not be shared lest it bring trouble to those you try so hard to protect now,” he divulged. “It seems they did, and I couldnae be happier to hear it.”
“It says much about their respect for you,” I said.
“Mayhap,” he conceded. “But I would say it has more to do with their respect for my late wife and what she would have wanted. I said as much, too.” He shook his head.
“Never was there a kinder soul who loved all people under her care, including the Norse. Mayhap they, the most, as they struggled with the growing unrest in Scotland.” He sighed.
“And my Mabel raised Declan to respect them just as much, so he took it far too personally and couldnae separate the lines betwixt friend and foe after her death.”
“’Tis sad,” I murmured, squeezing his hand in support this time, grateful to understand what had made Declan the way he was. “Again, I’m so sorry, Lachlann. For you both. Truly.”
“Many thanks, lass,” he said. “’Twas important you knew…
understood…because he battles his inner demons every time he looks at you.
I dinnae need to ask him to know that much.
He feels guilt for desiring you. Guilt because of her.
Because of me. And now more guilt still for allowing you to heal Soren under our verra roof.
Yet know this, Astrid” —he squeezed my hand in return again and paused before going on—“He might claim ‘twas partially for me and because you saved his life, but ‘twas neither.
Not really. ‘Twas because he cares for you and doesnae know how to make sense of it. How to feel it when his hatred for your kind has burned so brightly in him for so long.”
My chest tightened at the implication that Declan cared that much about me, yet it made sense of my Wyrd. Even so, how could I ever bridge that gap? How could I ever convince him to embrace forgiveness? Find peace within his soul? Could such be done?
“’Twill be all right, my friend,” Lachlann said softly, wisdom in his gaze when he looked at me. “Somehow, some way, the battles betwixt you will end, and you will find peace together.”
Before I could respond that I wasn’t so sure, he thanked me again for caring for him overnight and told me he was ready to bathe and dress for the day, so I had best be off to fetch a servant.
Understanding based on the sadness churning in his eyes after speaking of his late wife, that he needed a few moments alone to gather his emotions, I asked my husky, Oksana, to watch over him, then did as he’d asked and headed downstairs the back way.
If anything happened to him, Oksana would seek me out. She was faithful and more intelligent than most humans, never mind dogs, so I felt comfortable leaving him in someone else's care, however temporarily.
While I knew I should go directly to the chamber they had so recently given me here in the castle, I longed to return to my cottage, clear my head, and see my dear friend, Florie.
So, I fetched a servant for Lachlann and made my way out of the back of the castle, cutting through the trees as the first purplish hues of pre-dawn lit the cool, blustery forest. Fully aware how dangerous things had become for me in these parts, I kept an eye on my surroundings, my footfall light, and a dagger sheathed at my side.