The guard’s thin lips pursed, then he turned and banged the hilt of his sword against the reinforced wooden gate.
“We’ve a late-night visitor for one of the MacDougals.A lass.Let her in!”
An ear-piercing screech broke through the night as the heavy gate opened and the guard waved her through.He shouted at the guard inside the gate to bring her to William.
The entire tower was dark and asleep.The new guard instructed her to wait in the main hall, thankfully out of the rain, as he retrieved William.She wiped at her wet eyes to clear her vision and waited by the banked hearth.
When William entered the main hall, he was frantic and disheveled, with a second man right on his heels.She noticed the powerful blond MacDougal limped slightly and wondered if that had anything to do with the bruise on the young guard’s cheek.
“Teagan!What are ye doing here?Has something happened to Ailith?”
She nodded tersely.“Aye!William, ye must come now!The Grants have taken her and accused her of being a witch!”
William froze where he stood, his confusion contorting his sleepy face.He rubbed his hand across his eyes.
“Grants?That does no’ make sense.We have close kin with the Grants.Ye must be mistaken.”
“I wish I were, but nay!She was taken no’ far from my house, by a man she called Eoghan.”
The name meant something to William because he stiffened, and like every muscle in his body tightened at once.
“See, lass?Ye must be mistaken.Eoghan is a cousin of mine.”
Teagan shook her damp curls again.“Oh, but that I was.I heard her ask ‘Eoghan, what are ye doing?’Something must have happened to change his heart to ye or Ailith, because ‘twas the name Ailith spoke.”
The man behind William, who must have been a close cousin as he was of similar coloring and near William’s tall height, leaned into William’s ear and spoke too low for Teagan to hear him.William’s lips thinned as he nodded.
“Aye,” he answered the man, shifting his head slightly toward him.“Robb and my father must stay here.Ye and I will ride to the Grants and resolve this mistake.”William cut a chilling glare at Teagan.“Because it must be a mistake.”
Teagan’s brow furrowed at his tone.What the heck?She wasn’t the one who kidnapped Ailith!Why was he angry at her?
Then again, he had been asleep, roused by a stranger, and now told that his wife might be endangered by someone he believed to be a friend.Mayhap he was angry in general.She would be.
“Wait here,” he instructed Teagan.“Let me grab my belongings, and we’ll be off.If we ride quickly, we might be there before daybreak.”
More riding.And William and his man were sure to ride at a faster pace than Teagan could sustain.She groaned, but William did not see her reaction.He was already striding off into the darkness of the tower.
Though she dreaded the ride to the Grants, her muscles and fevered mind were rejuvenated now that she had located William, and there might be a chance to save Ailith from a jail sentence.Or worse.
Please don’t let us be too late!Teagan thought, sending her private plea into the universe.Please.
Ailith’s teeth chattered incessantly.
She shivered in her léine and delicate woolen kirtle that seemed even thinner in this damp, dark pit.The chill of the earth seeped through her clothes and skin to her bones, and she doubted she would ever be warm again.
The mucky sides of the pit dripped with misty rainwater.Ailith tried to ignore the cold mud and did everything she could think of to calm herself.She had walked herself through her options, considered her opponents' weaknesses, and made sure her knife was still tucked into her stocking.Useless, though, as she was still trapped in this pit, facing a judgment of witchcraft in the morning.She had yet much to figure out.
The night had drawn out long, each second like a minute, and each minute an hour.
This was going to be the longest night of her life.
Ailith rubbed at her still-sore wrists.For a while, she’d heard sounds above – low chatter, the whinny of a horse – then as night fully enclosed the land, the village went to sleep.Not even a torch nearby to provide her with a thin slit of light, and between the clouds obscuring the moon and the darkness in the pit, she couldn’t see her hand when she held it before her face.
So dark.
Time passed.Minutes?Hours?Not hours, that was impossible, wasn’t it?
Over the clacking of her teeth, Ailith thought she heard someone above.A drunkard taking a piss?A villager taking pity on her?Her heart rushed to her throat.Perchance William –?
