Chapter 17 #2
Maighread’s latest visit to the dungeon had turned the tide for the men to get out and help with the harvest. Some of the men were getting sick from being confined below, and Ailsa worried that if reports reached Sutherland of them being ill or dying, it would either spark the battle everyone feared or prolong the siege.
Maighread had ruled that fresh air and sunshine, exercise and something to look at besides each other and stone walls would help them all.
Tomorrow, Raghnall would allow another six to continue the work, and so on until everything that could be picked had been, or until they were forced to await the ripening of the remainder of the fruit, or weather prevented the work.
Then they would start again until everything was harvested.
Even frost and freeze damaged fruit could be pared down and baked into pies or stewed, so little or nothing would go to waste.
Anders was not among the men outside today.
Nor was his twin, Stellan. She saw Tomas on the ground taking fruit from another man’s hands and placing it carefully in the baskets each pair had.
They could have tossed around what they picked, bruising and damaging it.
She was pleased to see them paying heed to what would feed them as well as the Sinclairs.
Her mother joined her at the gate and stood silent, watching the work progress. “They pay us respect I’m no’ sure we deserve,” she said after a few minutes. “Being so attentive with their work and our food. Others might have destroyed most of what they handled.”
“They’re good people, Mother. Hasna Anders shown ye that often enough?”
“Aye, well, ’tis no’ me he must convince.”
“I ken that. But we’re running out of time, are we nay?”
“We are. I ken it. Yer brother has yer da’s ear of late. I like it no’ at all.”
“Nor do I. These men dinna deserve what Boden proposes.”
“Do ye deserve what ye propose? To be wed into Sutherland and leave us?”
“I’ll leave eventually to be married somewhere.
Anders suits me, and I him. ’Tis what we both want, and it gives Da an honorable way to end this,” she added, sweeping a hand toward the orchard and the Sutherlands at work there alongside Sinclairs.
“Why would he choose war over an alliance that could benefit both?”
Ailsa’s mother straightened her back and lifted her chin. “Let’s go ask him, shall we? He’s listened to yer brother long enough.”
Ailsa wanted to applaud. She knew that look and that posture. Mother was ready to fight to win. “Let’s.”
They entered through the kitchen and made their way from there through the great hall to the laird’s solar.
“Husband, we need to talk,” her mother said as she strode into the solar. Raghnall was standing before the laird’s desk looking chastened, head down, while the laird frowned at him.
“Ye are excused,” the laird told his head guard.
Raghnall turned. “Milady Sinclair, Ailsa,” he said, acknowledging them as he passed and left them with the laird.
“What is it, Wife?”
“What was that about?” Ailsa’s mother glanced toward the door Raghnall had just exited.
“I suppose the idea of using the Sutherlands to help pick the orchard was yer idea?” He turned a frown on Ailsa.
“Aye, and ye should go see them, Da. They’re being most careful with their work. Ye would find naught to question or complain.”
“Indeed?” He didn’t look mollified.
“Yer daughter speaks the truth. I watched them myself for several long minutes. They take even more care than our Sinclair workers. Ye have misjudged those men, Husband. Ye canna listen to Boden and his warmongering. They dinna deserve what he proposes. Ye must continue to negotiate. Send a betrothal agreement between Ailsa and Anders to the Sutherland, and this siege will be over in hours.”
“And the Norse king’s offer?”
“He will find another bride for his son. Yer daughter loves Anders, and he loves her. This willna matter to Erik. Ye have the other agreements ye hammered out with him on our latest visit north. A wedding with a Norse prince doesna help us as much as ye think. An alliance with a powerful Scottish clan, one that already has many alliances of its own, will do us much more good. Let Ailsa and Anders wed and end this without bloodshed.”
Ailsa held her breath, waiting for her father to respond. He held her mother’s gaze for a moment, then shook his head. Ailsa’s heart plummeted.
“’Twillna do,” he said. “Ye women dinna understand what is at stake.”
“We understand all too well, Husband. We are the ones who bind the wounds and sit with the fevered, and wash the dead for burial. Dinna try to tell me we have nay stake in this. We do, and ye’d be wise to listen to me.”
“I can let the invaders sit until everything freezes. They’ll be eager to leave Sinclair by then.”
“Nay, Da. By then they will have built a village. And even if they dinna, letting men from every northern clan die of exposure willna help Sinclair now or in the future. Do ye ken why they came to be here on our land?”
Sinclair looked at her steadily for the first time since her mother had started this confrontation. “They never admitted their purpose in coming here. What could it be, save to spy on us? To cause trouble? They’ve certainly done that.”
Ailsa shook her head. “Ye dinna ken the story.” She explained about the mission of mercy to help a bairn at MacKay.
The race, the storm, the search for Anders, all of it.
“They were never here to cause trouble, Da. They truly sought our help. And look what we’ve done to them.
Other than tending Anders’ injuries, we’ve done naught that would make us worthy allies to a clan willing to go to such great efforts to help another clan, a recent ally, mind ye, to save a wee bairn. ”
“Anders was going to risk the Pentland Firth in a race with his twin to get to MacKay? What a daft idea.”
“Perhaps, but their intentions were good. No one save Anders has been hurt, nay lives have been lost. Dinna make Sinclair the villain by listening to Boden. Better an alliance, even a weak one, with the powerful Sutherland clan and its allies. There is nay honor in letting people—good or bad—freeze to death, and these are good people.”
“Nor is there honor in letting our people starve. Winter is coming, Husband,” her mother said, speaking up at last. “I want this over and that army gone so our men can hunt and refill the larder before the snow comes. Before long, the summer garden will be exhausted and the cold weather crops willna be in yet. The damage the rats did to our store of grain is significant. We may need to appeal to allies—if we have any—before the next harvest comes in. And the men in the dungeon are getting ill. How do ye think Sutherland will feel about that when this standoff is over? This canna go on much longer.”
He huffed out a breath, and she went in for the kill.
“Ye do recall the battle ye fought to win my hand, Husband, and what it cost. We owe our daughter the same chance at happiness, without what we went through.”
Sinclair shook his head again. “Leave me.”
“Da!” Ailsa couldn’t help her cry, even knowing it would annoy him.
“Out,” he said.
She traded a heartbroken glance with her mother, turned and left. Still in the hall, she heard her mother berate him.
“Ye are an old fool. Ye ken that, aye? Ye are willing to turn down the opportunity to make yer daughter happy and save yer clan the pain and bloodshed a clan war will bring them, and for what? Neither a siege nor a war would be happening if ye hadna demanded a ransom. All of this could have been avoided and an alliance made if ye had just sent the visitors on their way once they found their man. I’ve never been so disappointed in ye in my life. ”
“Out, woman!” Her father bellowed.
Ailsa slipped away from the door and down the hallway. What was she going to do now?
She felt reassured that the hunters captured by Sutherland weren’t killed outright. Their Sutherland captors recognized they had value to Sinclair that the laird would honor.
She hoped.
Though worried, she knew all she could do for now was to be vigilant, and to continue to honor whatever was growing between her and Anders. If they could get through this, perhaps she was right to be falling in love with him.