Chapter 13
Ailsa felt as if she was walking through a heavy fog when it came to Will Fearguson.
One moment he was trying to kill his half brother, Laird Callum MacNair, and the next moment, he was patting Wee Willie’s tousled hair as the small boy fell asleep.
It was most perplexing. But she was unsure what to do with the man or how to treat him after the tale she heard him tell Wee Willie.
Ailsa knew the song of the twa magicians well, as did every giggling youth and maiden in the Highlands.
Will had told a highly censored version of the song when, in reality, it was a warm tale about a man’s relentless pursuit of a woman’s maidenhead, interlaced with passionate inferences at how a woman must eventually accept her lover into her bed.
Was the story for her? Was he her lover, her suitor, or was he an extremely dangerous man with a hidden resentment and agenda?
When one of the kitchen maids brought a plate of food up to the nursery, Will fell to eating as if he had not seen sustenance for a long time.
He noticed her raised eyebrows at the way he was shoveling in the food and laughed.
“Och lass, I’m a slovenly glutton, I ken, but I have nae been eatin’ well for a long stretch o’ time.
Me guts felt like they were filled with poison, but now it feels like the bile has been lanced out. ”
“Aye, Will, stocking up on wrath can do that to a person,” Ailsa agreed, picking a few shriveled grapes off the withered stalks; it was still too early in the year for fresh ones.
“But ye must nae expect there no’ to be fearful repercussions about what ye did.
Ye traveled here under false pretenses, ye created the laird’s sword in the mirror image of yer own, an’ then attacked him.
Ye didnae even tell anyone that ye were more of a warrior than ye let on.
How ye can expect this to all flow away like water under the bridge, I dinnae ken. ”
She gave a long sigh and looked over at the sleeping bairn in the cot.
She would often offer to relieve Willie’s nurse of her duties so the woman might eat or walk to the bailey village.
Ailsa had grown to love the little boy and hoped he would take the advent of a sibling in his stride.
He was the apple of his parents’ eyes and was doted on by one and all.
In one fell swoop, Will Fearguson might have killed the child’s father, making him a fatherless orphan.
Sure, Lady Meria would have most probably returned to her clan lands in the south—every Highland lady made plans in the event of her husband’s death; that was the harsh reality of life as a warrior—but Will’s bitter rage had not even considered that, and that made him as bad as a brigand.
And lairds hanged brigands, as they had every right to do.
He pushed himself away from the table, tilting his chair back onto two legs in a precarious way that made Ailsa want to reach out and pull his chair back onto four legs before he fell.
“I will accept what fate me half brither has in store for me, Ailsa, but I doubt no’ that the man is just as confused by recent events as I am.” Will’s eyebrows drew together into a ferocious scowl. “It’s always hard for a man to meet his match outside o’ battle, lass. An’ I’ll tell ye why.”
He had her attention. Ailsa loved to hear about such arcane matters as men’s glory and pride.
“I am the son of a blacksmith and was apprenticed to learn the craft under me faither’s tutelage.”
Will used his hands when he talked, and she was caught up by how descriptive his gestures were. One moment he was spreading his arms wide, and the next moment his fingers were pinching together to show her a measurement. Will knew how to tell a good story.
“It was always going to be that way. Me mither could nae raise a bairn past the age o’ five, so it made sense for me faither, Fingal Fearguson, to become me master an’ show me how to handle meself in the smithy.
I was never apprenticed to him by contract; it was enough for me to ken I was his son and should follow in his footsteps. ”
Ailsa could sense from the way Will was speaking that he had hardened his heart against any memory of his real family and erased the connection from his mind at a very early age. The Feargusons were his clan, and that was the beginning and end of it.
“But it was not enough for me. Sure, I loved to bend and shape metal as it pleased me, but the smithy fires were not enough to satisfy the fire that burned inside me. I wanted to wield a sword, no’ only make them.”
“Are ye sayin’ ye wanted to go to battle?”
This intrigued Ailsa. She could not understand what would possess a man who had steady work, that had the added benefit of keeping him safely away from the wars with which the Highlands were rife, to go searching for a skirmish.
“Not in the way ye think, Ailsa,” Will said.
“I didnae seek out conflict. I only wished to be able to look after meself an’ me family if it chanced that someone attacked us.
Me faither, Fingal, would be able to explain it to ye better, but making swords for other men to use…
well, I have to tell ye, it would stick in me throat to do that if I could nae wield the weapon meself.
As satisfying as it is to craft a sword, it is far more satisfying to be able to use a weapon in such a way that ye have naught to fear from any man! ”
“An’ yet ye came here to the castle, where ye had every reason to expect that the laird was yer half brither, to seek out conflict…”
Ailsa did not shy away from putting Will on the spot.
He did not answer but bit his lower lip in a mood of intense concentration.
She continued, wanting to needle him, to see if he was a bad-tempered man who had a light control over his anger or an even-tempered man who had been swept away by his emotions.
“Ye attacked a man who thought ye had made him a gift, a man celebrating what his wife believes to be the true date o’ his rebirth. A man whose bairn is so young he must still have his hand held when he climbs down the stairs.”
Will did not move or react to her words. He sat there and regarded her with a neutral expression on his face before picking up a mug and taking a long pull of light ale.
“I’ve had many years to think on it, Ailsa.
I went to train as a soldier so I could render the neighboring lairds assistance in times o’ trouble.
But ever since I was a youth, I have been torn between livin’ the life of a blacksmith or choosing a life where I move from castle to castle, battle to battle, as a mercenary.
At the feast today, the mercenary part o’ me pushed through.
That, plus the sorrowful memories of a forgotten child… ”
Will glanced over at the little cot with a look of regret.
The child’s fair eyelashes fluttered as he dreamed.
Ailsa could not reconcile the fierce beast of a man from the banquet hall with the one sitting beside her now.
What Will had told her was right: his soul must be torn asunder from what had happened to him in the past.
“I find it interesting how the two o’ ye turned out with such similar ambitions and skills,” Ailsa said. “Out o’ all the dozens of posts and trades ye two brithers might have been drawn to, ye both went for training as a warrior.”
Will opened his mouth to disagree with her, but Ailsa held up her hand.
“Nay, hear me out, Will. Ye could have stuck to being a blacksmith or moved to crafting jewelry or enamelware if that did not hold yer fancy. Callum’s interest could have lighted upon any of the positions open to him at the castle, except he didnae.
He could have stayed turning the spits in the kitchen or running errands for the laird, but nay.
He asked Laird Gray if he could join his men at arms and train as a soldier.
Can ye no’ see the similarities? Both o’ ye were nae only driven by circumstances an’ a thirst for revenge to learn how to fight… it was in yer nature all along.”
She knew she had caught his interest with her idea. Even though he was excited, Will kept his voice lowered so he did not wake up the sleeping child in the cot.
“How can that be? Cal an’ I were together for a few years before we were separated.”
Ailsa shrugged. “It’s a mystery the same as the standing stones on yon hills. From up close, they are only a handful of tall monoliths scattered amongst the grass, but when ye keek them from far away, they make up a complex pattern on the hillside.”
“It’s no’ as if we even have the same faither,” Will mused out loud. “My mither—our mither, I should say—was forced to work as a slave wench an’ never kent who me faither was.”
“Or she did ken who yer faither was an’ never told ye.
” Ailsa had never had such an interesting conversation with a man before in her life.
“It seems to be very unusual for two half brithers to have sought out the same path in life without the one being aware of the other. Are ye no’ curious to discover Callum’s story, the one he tells ye face-to-face without any lies or exaggerations gettin’ in the way? ”
Will had to give her question a bit of thought. He took another pull of ale and picked at the food on his plate; she could see his mind was busy.
Eventually, Will replied, “Why would Mither no’ tell me if she kent who was m’faither?”
Ailsa patted his hand. “Will…ye were only a few years older than Wee Willie lying in the cot there when ye were taken from yer mither. Ye would nae have been able to remember anything that she told ye about yer past, nor remember the events after her death with much clarity. All of these memories of yers, ye have them in the same way the traditional poets ken the words to the sagas they recite: from saying the same thing in their heads over an’ over again until it sets in.
Ye were a small bairn, an’ nay one was there to tell ye if ye got the memories wrong.
So…ye could have been rememberin’ things a wee bit different to how they actually happened.
Ye an’ Callum both. I think it’s time for yer brither an’ ye to have a bit o’ a sit-down with Laird MacNair an’ ask him about his clan. ”
Will just sat on the chair, still as stone, absorbing the words she was saying to him with the dawning realization that he might have had the wrong end of the stick for years.
Ailsa pulled Will out of the chair and pushed him out the door saying, “Off ye go, back to Mither’s house.
She will probably stay at the castle hall tonight, so go help Logan Galbraith if he wants to pack an’ leave.
I think we should seek out Callum on the morrow an’ pump him for information.
He, being the elder, might remember more about the circumstances surrounding yer origins, Will, because I have nay doubt that they will prove to be just as interesting as Laird Callum’s! ”