by Aileen Adams
She stepped toward the small hutch that Alasdair had built for the hens and the rooster that Elspeth had brought from her home, knowing she had exactly twenty-five steps from the front door to the small fenced-in area. She had gone maybe fifteen steps when she paused, her head tilted, a frown marring her brow. Her hand tightened on the handle of the basket, and it took several moments for her to realize what had prompted her to stop.
The birds. They weren’t chattering anymore.
In the stable, she heard the soft shuffling of the horse munching hay, a swish of his tail, the stomp of a hoof. She turned her face toward the wood line, her eyes squinted, as if she tried hard enough, she could see what was out there. Suddenly, she heard a fluster of movement as birds took flight from the trees. Silence.
“Elspeth!” she called softly. Moments later, she heard Elspeth’s footsteps on the wood floor and her voice from the threshold.
“What is it, Beitris?”
“What do ye see out there? Is anybody coming?” Her heart raced. “Do ye see any riders?”
Nothing for several moments, and then Elspeth answered. “Nay,” she said, approaching Beitris. “I don’t see anything. What’s the matter?”
“No birds.”
“What?”
“The birds were chattering, and then they took flight, over there by the wood line.” She started to move in that direction. Elspeth grasped her hand and warned her about clumps of moor grass in her way. They had gone maybe thirty steps away from the house toward the wood line when Elspeth suddenly gasped.
“What is it? What is it, Elspeth?” Beitris asked, swallowing thickly, eyes wide, heart racing.
What if those men had come back? They had no weapons. Nothing. They’d be caught in the middle of a field, nowhere to run, no shelter, no—
“I think… I think it’s a body, Beitris! Wait here!”
Beitris cried out in protest as Elspeth left her side. She heard her friend rushing forward, stopping maybe another twenty steps further on. She heard Elspeth gasp again in surprise and then her voice, tremulous and filled with fear as she muttered something. Before she could speak again, Beitris moved forward, shuffling her feet close to the ground, knowing she needed to move slowly but fighting against it, arms swinging back and forth to make sure she didn’t run into anything. She knew she wouldn’t, but it helped maintain her balance as well.
“What is it?” she asked, having only taken five or six steps. “Elspeth! What is it?” Her fears overcame her, and she knew the answer before Elspeth even replied.
“It’s Alasdair,” Elspeth said, her voice choked. “He’s terribly wounded. He’s alive, Beitris, but he’s in very bad shape!”
Beitris froze, a hand clapped over her mouth in horror, but then she recovered, and as quickly as she dared, she moved forward. Elspeth’s hand reached for her and guided her down onto her knees. Her heart pounding now, her brain refusing to comprehend, she placed her hands down on the ground, felt Alasdair’s broad back and shoulders, and then her hand landed in something wet and sticky. She caught the scent of blood.
A moan erupted from her throat as she tried to assess Alasdair’s injuries. Her hands skimmed his back as she tried to find the origin of all that blood.
“Alasdair,” she groaned. “Alasdair, ye can’t die on me, ye hear me? Ye can’t! I won’t let ye!”
15
Alasdair floated in vague darkness, desperately wanting to slip back into that deep, unfeeling, painless sleep and fight against the voice urging him ever upward into increased consciousness. The more that voice compelled him to wake up, to fight, the more pain surged through his body. Yet it was that very voice that touched the deepest part of him; a voice filled with emotion. He tried to ignore the pain, to focus on that voice, trying to please it, frowning with the effort.
“Alasdair, please, wake up. Ye must wake up!”
He felt something cool placed across his brow and grunted a sigh of relief as it eased the sensation of burning enveloping his body. Coupled with the pain, the heat had grown nearly unbearable. He longed to jump into a cool stream, perhaps even the waters of the lake next to his home—
Home. Everything came back in a flash. He struggled to open his eyes, fighting through the pain throbbing in his body, trying to connect with the voice. Cool hands cradled his cheeks; delicate hands, fingers slim yet sure. Another cool cloth now blotting his cheeks and moistening his lips. He turned his face toward it, greedy and wanting more. A featherlight touch of one of those fingers over his scar, then tracing the outline of his eyebrow, soft as the wings of a butterfly.
“Open yer eyes, Alasdair.”
Finally, through a great effort, every part of his body feeling heavy and stubborn, he managed to make his eyelids move. He opened them halfway, everything was blurry, shadowy, and undulating. He blinked once, then again, small movements that nevertheless took effort. One moment he saw a bright, reddish-orange color and then grays wavering in deeper shadows. He heard the rustle of fabric and sensed someone moving just above him. He forced himself to blink again, and each time he did, his surroundings became clearer. Beitris hovered over him, her brow wrinkled, dark circles under her eyes, gently stroking his brow. She stared unblinkingly down at him, as if through sheer will she could make him do her bidding. As her sightless eyes riveted to his own, he had an instantaneous, uncanny feeling that she could see him. Maybe only in her mind’s eye, but she saw him nevertheless. Her lips curved upward in a relieved, gentle smile.
“I knew ye’d wake up.”
She hovered so close that her breath brushed against his cheek. He grew increasingly aware, biting back the pain that continually and steadily throbbed through his body in time to his heartbeat. He realized he lay in a bed, in his bedroom, at the stone house. How had he gotten here? He couldn’t remember…
“Don’t try to move around too much,” Beitris cautioned. “Ye’ll work out the stitching I gave ye. On yer side.”
Stitches? She had given him stitches? How? How could she—
“Ye took a very nasty wound on the back of yer head, and I had to sew that up too. Luckily, the blade glanced off that hard skull of yers, but it left a deep gash. Surely ye have a headache?”
“Aye, lass,” he muttered, his voice hoarse and dry.
“Would ye like some water?”
He nodded, very slowly and carefully, acknowledging the pain in his skull. Her arm snaked under the base of his head, lifting it slightly above the pillow. Her slim though strong arm gently lifted him a bit higher. He marveled that such a dainty-looking woman could be so strong. He had underestimated her. From the moment he’d heard he’d been betrothed to a blind woman, he’d underestimated her.
She reached for a wood bowl as if her fingers knew exactly where to find it. She lifted it and then ever so carefully pressed the edge against his bottom lip. Expertly, she trickled cool water into his mouth. He sipped greedily, his thirst now overwhelming, but before he had satisfied that thirst, she pulled the bowl from his lips, settled his head back on the pillow, and gently placed a hand on his shoulder.
“He is awake?”
He recognized Elspeth’s voice.
“Aye,” Beitris replied. “I just gave him some water. In a wee while, we’ll try some broth.”
He tried to speak, to warn them, to tell Elspeth to take Beitris to her cottage, away from here, away from the group of outlaws that had tried to ambush him. He tried to work his mouth to speak, but once again, the darkness pulled at the edges of consciousness, his pain weakening him, his fever burning through his body, resisting his every effort.
“Ye rest, Alasdair. Do not worry, we are watching for strangers.”
Those riders… He had gone after the men who accosted his wife and Elspeth, his rage high, his desire for retribution pounding through his veins. He had proceeded cautiously, but not cautiously enough. He had ridden an hour or two through the woods, along craggy ravines, between spires of rock looming high above as he made his way along a p
ath that he hadn’t traveled in years. That path that would also eventually take him back to the village from the north but would keep the outlaws or whoever they were well off other well-traveled trails and out of sight.
Despite his caution, his anger and thirst for revenge had distracted him, and he had been ambushed. The moment of the attack, he realized that someone from the village had to be involved because only locals knew the canyons, the gullies, the ravines, and the open moors and marshy grounds that dotted the region.
He recalled the rush of movement from the woods, his inward curse as three men emerged from the shadows of the trees, one holding an ax, the other a short sword, and a third a bow and a nocked arrow. He remembered sliding off his horse, slapping its rump, and rushing toward the archer, felling him with the hilt of his sword as he struck it hard against his skull. That one had crumpled without a sound before Alasdair turned to the others. Unfortunately, the one with the sword rushed toward him while the one with the ax maneuvered behind him. Alasdair was unable to get into a defensive position in time. He remembered the stabbing pain of the sword thrust in his side and, almost at the same instant, the glancing blow of the ax against the back of his head as he fell. Something else had happened though, something that had prevented them from dealing the death blow, although maybe they thought he was already dead. It didn’t really matter. One moment they were there, the next they were gone.
He tried to remain conscious long enough to figure it out. Why had they left him for dead rather than taking him to seek their reward? Something… something had stopped them, but he couldn’t recall what happened next. He’d lain for hours, until sometime later, the sun lower in the sky, felt something nudging his leg only to discover that it was his horse, his muzzle nibbling at his tunic. How he got himself onto the back of his horse, he had no idea. He had no recollection of making it back to the stone house.
“Horse?” he muttered, wincing at the dry, gravelly sound of his voice.
“Elspeth hid yer horse in the woods behind the field,” Beitris said, her voice soft and gentle, soothing his worries. “Just in case anybody comes looking for ye.”
Again, Alasdair was impressed at not only the fortitude, but the intelligence of these two women. How had they found him? How had they gotten him inside? Questions that he longed to have answered but at the moment didn’t have the strength to ask. What would happen if—
“Beitris, I see riders approaching. Three of them.”
A quick rustle of fabric, followed by shifting footsteps, one set in the bedroom, the other moving out of the bedroom and into the main room of the house.
He forced his eyes open, reached for Beitris’s hand, and stopped her as she turned to leave his bedside.
“Beitris—”
“We’ll get rid of them, Alasdair. Please, don’t make a sound. They can’t know that yer here.”
The blackness had receded, and his vision cleared. A small fire burned in the stone fireplace in the corner of his room. Beitris left his bedside, arms extended as she moved toward the window, quickly groped for and closed the shutters and latched them. The room darkened, she quickly moved toward the door, closing it softly behind her. A myriad of emotions swept through him. He couldn’t put the women in danger like this. Whoever was after him wouldna likely care who was in the way. If he—
He heard the sound of horse hooves.
Elspeth’s voice came from the main room. “It’s the sheriff, and… yer father, Beitris.”
Alasdair lay helpless in his bed, a shiver taking hold of this body, likely caused by the fever. Darkness again hovered at the edges of consciousness, trying to take hold, but he fought against it and refused to succumb. The sound of horses, the clopping of their hooves as they slowed, closer to the house… He envisioned them stopping at the front of the house and dismounting. His heart pounded. The sheriff and Bruce Boyd. What did they want? Why were they here? A loud knocking on the door. His mouth grew even drier, and he cursed his inability to protect Beitris and Elspeth.
He heard voices in the main room now and strained to hear every word.
“Father! Sheriff Ramsey, come in!” Beitris said, acting the polite hostess, welcoming her father and the sheriff into her home.
She sounded overjoyed to see them.
Alasdair frowned.
“Beitris, are ye all right? What’s that bruise on yer cheek? What happened?”
Beitris offered a small laugh. “I’m still getting used to this house and the property surrounding it, Father. Can ye believe, I actually ran into the door yesterday as I was coming in from gathering eggs.”
“Is that true, Elspeth?”
“Of course it’s true,” Elspeth replied, her tone annoyed. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
Alasdair heard the coolness in Elspeth’s voice and gathered that she didn’t much care for Beitris’s father. Then she spoke to the sheriff.
“Sheriff, what brings ye so far from the village?”
“Elspeth, Beitris, this is Sir Rory Anderson, an English magistrate,” Sheriff Colin Ramsey explained. “He’s come looking for Alasdair.”
“Looking for Alasdair? Why?” Beitris asked.
“He’s a wanted man, Mistress Macintyre,” a thin-voiced man with a heavy English accent replied. “We know he’s been here, that you married him, and that—”
“I dinna care what ye have heard,” Beitris firmly interrupted. “He’s not here, and quite frankly, I dinna care if he ever comes back!”
“Daughter, what are ye saying?”
“He’s left, Father, gone off up into the Highlands somewhere in the northern region, likely just to get away from me. I told ye this wasn’t going to work, that he was a scoundrel, not worth trusting, but ye wouldn’t listen. Nay, ye wanted—”
“That’s enough, Beitris!” Bruce Boyd snapped.
“What do ye mean, he’s gone off to the Highlands?”
That question came from the sheriff.
Alasdair frowned. He must know that Beitris was lying, for he and Colin had seen each other only a couple of days ago.
“Just what I said,” Beitris said. “He informed me last week that he was going to the Highlands.”
“And for what?” the English magistrate asked.
Again, Beitris’s cool voice answered. “How am I supposed to know? He refused to answer my questions, told me that it was none of my business, that I was nothing but a burden to him.” She paused. “He’s none too happy with ye either, Father, for saddling him with, as he has told me numerous times, a blind, useless wife.”
Alasdair cringed at her words. She couldn’t possibly believe them. Nay, she was doing her best to convince the men that he had left, abandoning her. While it certainly wouldna do his reputation any good, it was a good plan. Another surge of admiration for her quick thinking made him smile.
“This is preposterous!” Bruce grumbled, his voice rising. “I didn’t give away this land, this house, the animals, so that he could abandon ye! If I get my hands on him, I’ll—”
“Enough,” Sheriff Ramsey said, trying to calm Bruce. “I tried to warn ye, Boyd, that Alasdair wasn’t the kind of man to settle down, to be satisfied with tending sheep and farming crops. But did ye listen?”
More grumbling before the English magistrate spoke again.
“Your husband is a wanted man, and as such, I should warn you that if you are caught harboring a fugitive from the law, you can also be charged as an accomplice.”
“How dare ye threaten my daughter,” Bruce came close to shouting. “It’s not her fault that I married her to such a scoundrel. Sheriff, let’s go. We’re done here.”
Moments later, footsteps moved from the main room, and he heard their voices outside as the men mounted, both Beitris and Elspeth now standing outside with them, close to his shuttered window.
“Daughter, perhaps ye should come back home.”
Alasdair heard the tone Bruce used making that suggestion and knew that Bruce didn’t really want his daught
er back, didn’t want to be further burdened with her, but felt obligated to say it. Apparently, based on Beitris’s following comment, she didn’t either.
“Nay, Father, this is my home now, and this is where I will stay.”
“But ye can’t live here alone, so far from the village—”
“Elspeth is with me. We will get by.”
“But why would ye want to stay here? If he’s abandoned ye—”
“I will stay, Father, if for no other reason than to annoy Alasdair, if and when he ever comes back. If he wants me off of his property and out of his house, he’s going to have to physically remove me!”
“And me too!” Elspeth added.
“This is unheard of,” Bruce sputtered. “Sheriff, can’t ye do anything? Can’t they go live at Elspeth’s cottage?”
He heard the women gasp at Bruce’s comment. No doubt now. Bruce didn’t want the responsibility of providing for his daughter any longer.
“Nay,” the sheriff replied, a hint of humor in his voice. “This is between Beitris and Alasdair. Ye agreed to give her in holy matrimony to Alasdair, so ye no longer have the right to say what she does now as a married woman. That is up to Alasdair. If she wants to stay, she can stay.”
Alasdair heard the sound of one horse trotting away from the property, and imagined Bruce Boyd, red-faced with emotion, riding away from the stone house back toward the village. Moments later, the English magistrate spoke.
“Remember what I told you, Mistress Macintyre. If you see Alasdair, it would do you well to tell him to turn himself in.”
“That is yer job, sir, not mine. And given that I have not much to offer any husband, whether he be a rogue or not, I doubt he will return anytime soon.”
