Chapter 61
Sixty-One
Neal
Two nights later Ansel, Sorcha, and I docked at the quay on Islay’s eastern shores.
Da and my cousin Cavan were waiting there to meet us.
Da was nearly as old as Ansel, with my same dark curly hair, but cropped short, and a solid build honed by centuries working the land around Sorcha’s father’s estates.
It wasn’t any part of his official duties, but Da had an iron constitution, near infinite energy, and a deep intolerance for boredom.
Cormac’s agricultural success—first in berry wine in Scotland then in cattle out in Santa Fe—was largely Da’s doing.
Cavan was young by Elven standards—forty-something if I remembered correctly—and had taken after his father, all black hair and blue eyes and freckles sprinkled across his nose.
Da wasted no time pulling me and Sorcha into an embrace as Ansel helped the boatman unload our bags.
“Oh I’ve worried,” Da said, kissing both our heads. “I’ve worried every damn minute.”
“We’re here now, Da,” I replied. “We’re here. We’re safe.”
“And I think,” Da said, hands going to Sorcha’s belly as he pulled away, “that given this one is yours, Neal, you’ll also be needing a new Steward for the Court?”
“We certainly will,” I agreed.
“Cavan’s just the boy for you,” Da said immediately. “He’s young of course. He’s only trained, what, twenty years now? Thirty, Cavan?”
“Right about thirty, Uncle Glen,” the young man replied.
“But he’s good,” Da continued, leading us up the stone pathway and to his waiting horse and cart, “and I’ll keep an eye.”
“Thank you, Da,” I said earnestly, letting him help Sorcha up into the wagon.
“And you keep an eye on her,” Da instructed. “Hear me, boy?”
“She’s my wife, Da,” I replied. “I hardly need reminding.”
We reached Da’s cottage after a drive filled with benign but charming anecdotes and absolutely no talk of the portals, the demons, or the perils of the journey.
Sorcha relaxed into my side, cheeks flushed in the cold sea air, as she watched the roving flocks of sheep.
The utter quiet and stillness of the place was a revelation after months on end filled with chaos and struggle.
The cottage was small, only two rooms and a loft, with deep grey stone walls and a blue slate roof.
A cheery glow emanated from the windows, but when I helped Sorcha down from her seat and we hurried inside against the growing night wind, the welcome was anything but comforting.
A woman with chestnut-brown, wavy hair and weathered-but-fair skin stood stirring something at the open hearth, scowling into the pot—Aunt Irene.
We’d never gotten on particularly well, but I still greeted her warmly. “It’s been too long, Aunt Irene.”
A long moment passed in silence.
“Sorcha, this is my Aunt Irene Doherty,” I continued, hoping to somehow break through the odd stillness hanging like a fog in the cottage’s interior. “And, Aunt Irene, this is my wife, Sorcha Wilson MacCairn. You remember Cormac?”
Irene just scowled and slammed a platter of bread down onto the wood-plank table.
“Don’t get water on the carpets,” she snapped.
“I’ve missed you too,” I muttered, shrugging off my wet coat and helping Sorcha to do the same, then sitting her down to take off her boots.
“Irene,” Da said as he carried in our bags, “be hospitable. They’ve come all the way from New Mexico. You remember what a trek it was when I made it. And she’s got a bun in the oven too!”
Irene turned her back and didn’t reply. Sorcha shot me a worried glance.
“Did I do something wrong?” she whispered as I leaned in to help her up.
“You’re perfect,” I assured her. “It’s fine.”
“So this is where we set up shop?” Ansel asked as he walked in with the last of our things—Ironmoot-made, demon-killing pistol wrapped in canvas and tucked under one arm.
“This is where you set up shop for now,” Da replied.
“We’ve got a bigger, nicer cottage up the hill.
Once Lady Sorcha sees it and approves it we’ll finish papers with the landlord and get you all ensconced up there.
Better view. Bedroom, loft with a door, and there’s an office. Perfect for the Court.”
“We truly appreciate it, Glen,” Ansel said. “Hasn’t been the same without you. And we know it’s an awful imposition.”
“It’s not an imposition at all,” Da assured him.
“It’s my boy and his wife—who I practically raised, need I remind you?
It’s no trouble. No trouble. Besides we should have moved the Court here ages ago, all the peace and quiet of Santa Fe without any of the dust and the proper libraries in Edinburgh only a day away, not weeks or months like back in the desert. Lady Sorcha is onto something.”
“We appreciate it nonetheless. And we’ll see if you still feel as hospitable when I give birth in your kitchen,” Sorcha chuckled.
“It’d be such a good story,” Da enthused. “Don’t fuss about it, Lady Sorcha. Besides, having you here will be good practice for Cavan. He’ll have such a resume after this!”
Irene snorted derisively.
“Excuse me?” Ansel turned on her, eyes narrowing. “Something wrong?”
“Such a resume,” Irene repeated, scowl etching farther into her features.
“We should eat,” Da said, clapping his hands together and pulling out a chair at the head of the table. “Sorcha, come here. Cavan, get her a cushion.”
Irene clicked her tongue and raised an eyebrow—immediately drawing every eye in the room.
“Have I done something to offend you?” Sorcha asked as she sat in the chair Da pulled back, tucking the cushion from Cavan behind her.
“Irene, be polite,” Da prompted.
But she just hurried to serve dinner and refused to respond.
Sorcha tried to eat the stew Irene gave her. She truly tried. But it was heavy—beef and beer with potatoes and turnip. The bread was slathered with tallow.
I watched her eyes glaze as tried to focus on the conversation. But then suddenly she stumbled to her feet and heaved into the coal bin.
“Sorcha.” I was on my feet in an instant, hands on her back, soothing.
“Go fetch her a wet cloth,” Da told Cavan.
Sorcha retched again, then took a deep breath, steadied herself, and started to apologize.
Before she could get a word out Irene snapped, “You ungrateful bitch!”
And suddenly Da, Ansel, and I all had weapons drawn. I angled my body so Sorcha was largely concealed from Irene’s line of sight, pistol in one hand, the other still resting protectively on her lower back.
“I’d reconsider that statement if I were you, Mrs. Doherty,” Ansel said, with that calm, unnatural tone he usually reserved for interrogating prisoners and lying his way into expensive hotels.
“I spent three hours today making that dinner,” Irene replied, tone unrepentant and laced with venom, “and an hour fetching that coal from the village. And what now? Ruined? Because she can’t hold her stomach.”
“She is your sovereign,” Ansel said, drawing the hammer back on his pistol for emphasis, “and she has been fighting tooth and nail to keep the heir to her dynasty safe and well while her body tries to kill them both. So you will show her due respect.”
“Why should I?” Irene spat.
“Irene, surely this isn’t how you want to go about it.” Da’s tone was placating, gentle, but he still had a knife in his hand and looked ready to use it.
“It is,” Irene insisted. “This is absolutely how I want to go about it.”
“Go about what?” Sorcha asked, peering around my shoulder.
“Telling you that you killed my husband,” Irene replied sharply.
“She has done no such thing,” Ansel said.
“Ma, it wasn’t her fault,” Cavan insisted.
“You stay out of it, boy!” Irene snapped.
“Cavan, go into town and book rooms for them at the Port Bar,” Da instructed. “Now.”
Cavan slipped out as the standoff continued. I saw tears well up in Irene’s eyes, leaking out onto her cheeks—a jarring contrast to the fury in her expression.
“Four months ago, he died,” Irene hissed. “He died because you ran away. You wouldn’t listen. You married my bloody nephew instead of anyone suitable. Bratty upstart!”
“Watch your mouth,” I snapped.
“What are you on about, woman?” Ansel asked, anger finally creeping into his tone.
“My husband Finn Doherty served in the Inner Court gardens,” Irene said, voice shaking with grief and rage.
“For more than a hundred and sixty years he served there. Nothing fancy. No title. Just a bloody good groundskeeper. And then when you left? When you wouldn’t listen?
She took it out on him. She killed everyone in her Court who’d ever worked or lived with Glen, with Cormac, with Ansel, with you. ”
I froze. Iksura had killed her own people when Sorcha had rejected the false claims about her Outer Court title.
“Petty, psychotic tyrant,” Ansel muttered.
I nodded immediate agreement, then glanced at Sorcha’s belly. This latest news of Iksura’s brutality only made me even more grateful that Sorcha’d had the fortitude to say resist, to disprove the edict, to move the Court, to keep our baby.
“I didn’t kill your husband,” Sorcha said, pushing past me, voice steady and even.
“Iksura did. And you can blame me all you want. But it’s misplaced.
And misdirected. If you want to be angry, go to Russia.
And leave your tired, sick, pregnant High Lady alone to keep this utterly insane quest for absolute sovereignty that Iksura has undertaken from succeeding and ruining us all. ”
The Port Bar was old—friendly but drafty. The interior was smoke filled and loud. Sorcha balked immediately in the doorway. Cavan was gamely trying to arrange plates for everyone on a tiny, precarious table in the back corner.
“Neal, there’s no way I’m keeping food down with the smoke,” Sorcha murmured.
“We’ll eat in our rooms,” I said as we reached Cavan at the table.
“Barkeep says that’s against policy,” Cavan replied, blue eyes wide and apologetic.
“Barkeep says that’s against policy because you don’t know how to ask,” I replied.
I turned and stalked back to the front host stand, and a few minutes later a harried-looking dishwasher came to gather up our plates and take them upstairs.
“What did you do?” Cavan asked, voice awestruck.
“Extra money, play the pregnancy card and flash the wedding ring, use the words familial crisis,” I said. “You’ll get the hang of it.”
And so the four of us—Cavan, Ansel, Sorcha, and I—sat in our rented room and ate together.
“You got the food right,” Sorcha noted.
“Neal sent a list ahead,” Cavan replied. “Uncle Glen’s had me reciting it like a litany for the last week. I tried to get Ma to cook off it this afternoon, but she wouldn’t listen. I swear she wouldn’t listen.”
“Shouldn’t you be out with some big noble family on the Continent?” Sorcha asked.
“I was,” Cavan said. “In Toulouse with a really lovely seer named Arielle and her husband. They had kids on the estate, grandkids too. They kept goats. Big vineyard. But when we got word you were coming here, Uncle Glen called me back. He said nothing would beat working for the High Lady when she had her first babe.”
“I’m inclined to agree with you,” I said. “Cavan, how do you feel about cats?”
He went to reply, but was interrupted by a knock at the door. A nod from Ansel, and Cavan went to answer it, revealing Irene and Glen standing in the wood-paneled hallway.
Sorcha stiffened, putting down her food and wrapping both arms protectively around her belly.
“If you’re not here to prostrate and apologize, go home,” Ansel called.
“I’m here to make amends,” Irene said through gritted teeth.
“Tone doesn’t sound like it,” Sorcha replied sharply.
“Finn dying wasn’t your fault.” Irene recited the words like they were rehearsed.
“And?” Glen prompted.
“I’m sorry for calling you—” Irene swallowed hard. “A bitch.”
“And?” Glen prompted once more.
“It’ll take a week’s work to settle up the cottage,” Irene said. “If you sign the papers I can do the work for you. Buy the furniture, stock the pantry, find you a kitchen maid if you want one.”
“I’ll go see the property tomorrow, and I expect it ready by Friday night,” Sorcha replied. “You’ll communicate with us only via Glen or Cavan. Understood?”
“Yes, Lady Sorcha.” Irene dipped a curtsy and ducked back down the hall.