Abbot Graham stood at the altar, folding white linens in the dying light of the day.He had come to the eastern hills of Alba as part of the church’s efforts to continue the spread of Christianity, especially in light of the flood of pagan Norse and Danes to the eastern seaboard.
To Eoghan, Abbot Graham assumed the mantle of conversion to personally eliminate the blight of paganism.If anyone, he would be the one to offer a solution to the Ailith problem.
His bald head looked up when the squeaking door announced their entrance.
“Eoghan?Is that ye?What brings ye to the kirk at this hour?Do ye want to join in the liturgy of hours for vespers?”
If it meant sitting quietly for hours with a bowed head in front of the crucifix over the altar, then he was not interested.He shook his head.
“Nay, Abbot.Betris has a concern that we felt we must bring to ye.”
Graham’s eyes narrowed at the shadowy form of Betris behind him.“What concern?Is it regarding the Church?”
Eoghan stepped to the side, but Betris hovered behind him, speaking around his arm.
“It may be, Abbot,” Betris said in a shaky voice.Eoghan doubted the man had heard her, yet he must have heard something because he moved in front of the altar, the hem of his hooded robe dragging on the stone floor.
“What issue do ye bring before God, my child?”
While his words may have been intended to encourage her to speak, his tone of voice did not.
“Go on,” Eoghan urged her.
Betris shifted next to her brother, clinging to him.
“’Tis a problem in the Highlands, Abbot.One that might concern a changeling.”
The abbot lowered his pointed nose toward her.“Ye know that the truly faithful dinna believe in such things.The druids and their old ways have fallen into naught more than stories.The one true God is gaining here in the Highlands has shown that such things dinna exist, and the faithful know this.”
“What of a pagan witch, then?”Betris added with sudden boldness.
Thatinformation grabbed Graham’s attention, and his eyes widened with interest.“Continue, my child.”
“One that seems to alter the actions of those around her and has caused the demise of many?Her name is Ailith MacDougal, wife of the ensorcelled William MacDougal.”
Eoghan stood next to Betris, his hand on her arm for support as she made her claim about Ailith to the church official.Graham rubbed his hands together, and the more she spoke, the more tense the lines of his face became.
“I dinna care for this news.Aye, the Gordons have remained untouched by many of the trials in the Highlands as of late.Yet as a MacDougal, her pagan interests are more problematic,” he told Eoghan.
“Problematic?”he asked.
The abbot nodded, and his hands wrapped around the dangling ends of his rope belt.“Aye.If she is a witch, that will need to be determined, but with the ties to the Vikings?”He clicked his tongue.“The MacDougals, they are close kin to many Vikings, Norse and Dane pagans who deny the perfection of God in favor of their own false idols.Their chieftain is the son of a pagan!They have set the conversion of the Highlands back centuries, and the bishops are none too happy.And neither am I.How am I to keep the Church active in the Grant lands and surrounding towns and clans when these Vikings idolaters harbor witches and deny the glory of Christ at every turn?”The pitch of his voice rose as he lectured.
Eoghan and Betris shared a fretful look as his fingers played along the leather-bound edge of his sword hilt.
The abbot’s eyes narrowed again.“What else?”
“Her husband, William, is a cousin and dear friend of mine.He is a Christian, and he married Ailith in a proper ceremony in a kirk, blessed by a priest.But he, too, is a grandson of the Danes.He has their blood in his veins.”
“And now he is married to this pagan witch.Do ye fear that he might be led astray?Or lead his clan astray?”
With a tight swallow, Eoghan nodded.“I dinna believe ‘twill happen, yet I now worry.Once my dear sister pointed out everything I had been blinded to by the very nature of my friendship with him.”
Graham pursed his lips.“And ye say he isensorcelledby his wife?‘Tis the word ye used?”
Betris lifted her chin as if this final piece of information was the tipping point.“Aye.No’ only others, but her husband himself has said as much.”
Graham fell silent for several moments as he assessed this information.The hold of the church in the Highlands was tenuous at best, and his bishops were not truly interested in any suggestion of witchcraft.Most believed it foolish – that only those who weren’t true believers fell to the old fae stories or the lie of someone being a witch, that God did not permit such things.They demanded that priests and abbots focus on conversion instead.
