Chapter Seven
Phillip MacClelland, it turned out, was a difficult man to hunt down.
When she returned to the keep, the first place Elise looked for him was the great hall.
This enormous room, with a high ceiling held up with rafters and a huge fireplace at one end was, she’d been told, where the people of the castle gathered for meals and various other communal things.
Yet when she poked her head in, she found it empty except for Andrea and a couple of household staff wiping down the tables.
All three of them came to attention when she stepped inside and gave her deferential nods of greeting. Elise stifled a groan. Were they ever going to stop doing that?
“How may we help ye, Lady Elise?” Andrea asked.
“I’m looking for Phillip. Have you seen him?”
Andrea waved a hand to indicate the floor above. “He’s likely in the counting room.”
He wasn’t, as it turned out. Nor was he in the council room where they had the meeting earlier, the courtyard, the kitchen, or the stables.
Finally, one of the cooks pointed her in the direction of his personal study, tucked away behind the kitchens and at the end of so many twisting passages that it would be impossible to find without directions.
But by following the cook’s instructions, she finally found her way to a narrow wooden door that stood closed. She could hear no sound from within.
She knocked. “Phillip? Are you there? It’s me. Elise.”
There was no answer. She tried the door handle and was surprised to find the door unlocked. She pushed it open and stuck her head in.
“Phillip?”
There was no sign of the man. She stepped inside.
It was a large room but surprisingly cozy with thick rugs covering the flagstone floor and polished wooden paneling on the walls.
It was clearly a study, with stuffed bookcases along one wall and a large desk against the other.
It was scrupulously tidy. If the state of someone’s surroundings could be said to reflect their character, she wondered what this said about Phillip.
Methodical? Steady? Or uptight and pedantic?
She walked along the bookshelf, perusing the titles. She couldn’t read most of them as they were written in French, Spanish, Italian, and even Latin. Phillip MacClelland was clearly a scholar.
She stopped by the desk and ran her fingertips over its polished surface. It was empty save for a round bowl about the size of her two fists that sat in the exact center and was filled with water.
For some reason, the sight of that bowl set her senses tingling. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end, and a faint ripple of air shivered across her skin. She found herself leaning closer. The water was as still and clear as a mirror. She reached out a hand—
“Can I help ye?”
With a startled yelp, Elise spun around. Phillip MacClelland was standing in the doorway, a stack of papers clasped to his chest.
Elise pressed a hand against her thumping heart. “Jeez! You made me jump!”
“My apologies,” he replied smoothly. “But I didnae expect to find ye in here.” His gaze roved over the room as though checking she hadn’t knocked anything out of place. A faint frown on his forehead showed he wasn’t best pleased by her intrusion.
“Sorry,” she said with a shrug. “The door was unlocked.”
“So it was.” He smiled at her, perhaps trying to put her at ease, but the smile seemed brittle. “How can I help ye?”
“Jamie said I should talk to you about the information I need.”
“Oh? And what information would that be?”
“I’m looking into these pirate attacks. I need to know when they started, where they’ve taken place, any eyewitness accounts of what happened.” She shrugged and gave a rueful smile. “Anything you have actually, because to be honest, I haven’t got a clue where to start.”
Philip sighed and nodded. “Aye. Well. Ye aren’t the only one. I’ll dig out everything I can find and have it brought to yer room. Would that suffice?”
“It would. Thanks.”
Silence fell, and Elise found her gaze returning to the bowl of water on his desk.
Following her gaze, Phillip noticed her interest and waved a dismissive hand.
“Would ye look at that? The maids have forgotten to clear away my washing bowl again. My own fault for hiding down here I suppose. Now, was there anything else?”
“Um. No. Thanks for your help.”
He bowed stiffly. “Ye are welcome, spellweaver.”
Elise left the room. As she walked back through the winding corridors of the castle, her thoughts flittered like butterfly wings.
She felt a strange disquiet, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
Her spellweaver instincts tingled, warning her that something wasn’t quite right.
It rubbed against her senses like a discordant note in an orchestra.
Yet for the life of her, she couldn’t pin down what it was.
She found herself drifting back towards the great hall. Inside, she found Andrea sitting at a table polishing a set of pewter goblets.
“Did ye find Phillip?”
“I did,” Elise answered, taking a seat on the bench opposite Andrea, chewing her lip.
The older woman stopped her cleaning and put down her rag. “Oh dear. That’s a pensive look if ever I saw one. Is there something I can help with?”
Elise blinked and looked up. “What? Oh, no. Although…” She straightened as her thoughts crystallized a little. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table. “Can I ask you something?”
Andrea cocked her head and smiled. “Of course.”
“What do you think of this marriage proposal between Jamie and the king’s niece?”
Andrea picked up the rag and began wiping at one of the goblets again. “It isnae my place to comment on such things. It is the laird’s business, not mine.”
Elise laid her hand over the older woman’s, stopping the movement of the rag. Almost reluctantly, Andrea looked up and met Elise’s gaze. “But I want to know what you think. And I need an honest answer, Andrea. I promise whatever you say will go no further.”
Andrea’s nostrils flared, and a quick expression of anger flashed across her features.
“I dinna think he should do it,” she said, her voice laced with the same anger Elise saw in her eyes.
“The freedom of the Kingdom of the Isles was hard-won. Our ancestors shed their blood and gave their lives so that we might be free. It would be a betrayal to trade that away.”
“What do you mean trade it away?”
Andrea glanced around to make sure they were alone.
“Nobody says it aloud, but we all know what the laird’s marriage would mean.
Should he marry the king’s niece, we would become a vassal of the Crown, free in name only.
After that, how long would it be before the king’s troops are stationed here for our ‘protection’?
How long before we pay taxes to the Crown?
How long before we are beholden to the king’s laws?
How long before we are swallowed entirely to become naught but an unimportant backwater of a larger kingdom? ”
Elise blinked, taken aback. She was reminded of how little she knew of this place, this time, these people.
She hadn’t even considered the political ramifications that a union with Scotland would engender.
Oh yes, she was out of her depth all right.
How was she even to begin to pick her way through all of this?
“But wouldn’t it be worth it to be safe?” she pressed. “The king would send his ships and rid you of these pirates. Isn’t that worth the trade-off?”
Andrea didn’t reply for a moment. Then she shook her head and gave an exasperated sigh. “Aye. Mayhap it would. I dinna know. Like I said, these matters are beyond me. Such things are for the laird and his advisors to decide.”
Elise said nothing, but she could see how troubled Andrea was.
The woman was afraid. Afraid of the dire situation that Islay found itself in, afraid of what the pirate attacks meant for the people of the island, afraid of what the future might bring.
Her gaze strayed to the high table where several stoppered bottles sat in the center.
She got up and fetched a couple of them.
Sitting herself back down opposite Andrea, she pulled out the stopper of one with her teeth, took hold of a couple of the goblets the housekeeper had been cleaning, and poured them both a drink.
“What are ye doing?” Andrea asked.
“What’s it look like? It’s been a…challenging…day for both of us. I think we’ve earned a little something to help us relax.” She held one of the goblets out to Andrea.
The housekeeper eyed it, hesitating. “I shouldnae…”
“Yes, you should. That’s an order from a MacFinnan spellweaver.”
With a small smile, Andrea took the goblet. “In that case, I dinna have much choice, do I?”
“No,” Elise grinned. “You don’t.” She held up her own cup. “I propose a toast. To housekeepers everywhere!” She knocked her drink back and the whisky burned down her throat like lava, making Elise cough and splutter. “Whoa! That’s good!”
Andrea laughed and copied Elise, downing her whisky. She didn’t even so much as wince.
“Another!” Elise cried, pouring them both a second round. The whisky left a lovely warm feeling in the pit of her stomach and began to unknot some of the tension that she hadn’t realized she’d been carrying there.
The door to the great hall suddenly swung open, and a burly man entered, dressed in plain, homespun clothes that left his thick arms bare. Elise hadn’t been introduced to him, but she’d spotted him working in the smithy. She waved him over.
“Hello! Come and join us!”
The man started in surprise but did as commanded. As he settled his weight on the bench beside Andrea, Elise poured him a drink and pushed the goblet across the table towards him. “Do either of you know any decent songs?”
When her two drinking buddies looked at each other blankly, she waved a dismissive hand. “It’s fine. Don’t worry. I know plenty.” She held up her goblet and tapped it to each of theirs in turn. “Cheers!”
*
Jamie’s growling stomach told him that he was late for the evening meal.
As he crossed the courtyard towards the keep, the sun was lowering towards the horizon.
He’d spent all afternoon patrolling the coast and now exhaustion made his limbs feel heavy.
All he wanted to do was throw food down his throat and then collapse into bed.
He pushed open the main doors to the keep and strode inside, pausing as he reached the door to the great hall. It stood closed, and a racket was coming from the other side. He heard laughter. Singing. Someone playing a fiddle. What the—?
He eased the door open slightly and slipped into the cavernous room unnoticed.
Not all the torches had been lit, which meant the outer edges of the room were bathed in shadow.
He paused in these shadows and took in the scene before him.
The tables that filled the great hall were crowded with people.
Half-eaten platters of food lay scattered on the tables, and everyone seemed to have a drink in their hands.
And, he noticed, everyone was turned towards one of the tables over by the fireplace—the table where most of the racket was coming from.
Andrea sat at one of the benches, along with Talbot, the blacksmith, and it seemed, half the castle staff. They were singing raucously, a song that Jamie had never heard before but seemed to be something about whisky in a jar. Bryn, one of the stable lads, was accompanying them on the fiddle.
And in the center of it all, sat Elise.
Her cheeks were rosy as she belted out the song, and her eyes sparkled in the candlelight. She looked, Jamie thought, entirely at home, as though she’d always been part of his place, rather than having been here little more than a day.
The song finally came to an end, and everyone broke out into a chorus of laughter and applause. Warmth and light filled the great hall like it hadn’t for a long time. Jamie couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard his people laughing so much or seen so much joy in their faces.
All because of her. Elise MacFinnan. She commanded the center of the room like some actor on a stage, a beacon of light in the gloom. He could see it in the way his people leaned towards her. He could feel it in the way his chest swelled with a sensation he couldn’t quite name.
Was this MacFinnan spellweaving at work? No. It was just her. All her. Elise MacFinann had magic that went far beyond her spellweaving powers.
Part of him longed to go join his people.
To join her. But he held himself back. His presence would only dampen the atmosphere.
He was their laird, their chieftain, and should he join them, the strictures of hierarchy would snap back into place and the easy fellowship that Elise had engendered would be lost.
Let them enjoy themselves. Let them remember what it was to feel alive.
Jamie slipped quietly out of the great hall and made his way up to his chamber alone.