Page 39 of Connal

She yawned, and then grimaced. “Excuse me. I know how that goes, too. Dale’s best friend kept calling and asking if I wanted him to stay the night. My co-workers all suddenly mentioned single brothers and cousins and nephews in desperate need of a date. Even my next-door neighbor, who had just gone through a terrible divorce, kept bringing sympathy food to me, and inviting me over for dinner.” Her lips curved, and she rolled onto her back. “I didn’t stop him from delivering, either. He was a great cook.”

He almost laughed. “My chamber, ’tis never been cleaner.”

Valerie closed her eyes and rubbed her thumb against the side of his finger. “They mean well, I know, but no one understands what it’s like to lose the person you love most in the world. A marriage, it becomes so much a part of your life, and then it’s gone. Maybe Dale thought killing himself was the only way to escape our problems, but did he really want to hurt me this much? I tried to be a good wife and partner. Why would he do this to me? What did I do to deserve it? I think the worst part is that I’ll never know.”

Connal squeezed her hand. “’Twas my only thought after I lost Joana. I reckon ’twas that I couldnae give her bairns, nor permit her live near her kin. Yet if she’d even once told me how much she suffered, I ken I’d release her from her vows. So why didnae she tell me? Why wait until ’twas so wretched she reckoned ending herself the only answer?”

Valerie made no sound, and when he turned his head to look at her he discovered she’d fallen asleep again. Slumber smoothed away the faint line between her brows, and emptied her expression of all but calm. Like him, Valerie might never make peace with losing the one she had loved, but at least in sleep she could escape the constant grinding weight of the burdens her husband had left behind for her to carry.

He put a protective arm over her, and she shifted, rolling toward him until she lay partly on top of him. She moved her head until she found a spot between his neck and shoulder to her liking, and then relaxed again.

Savoring the softness of her against him seemed harmless, Connal thought. If he breathed in her scent deeply it was only because it warmed him like a spring morning. Everything about Valerie put him at ease, and made the world seem right again, even when he knew it never could be.

The sun glared in his eyes, so he closed them, and slowly he drifted off. He didn’t dream of Joana, the tension with the Finfolk, or any of the other thousand matters that would never cease plaguing him. Instead he seemed cocooned, as if swaddled in soft wool on a cold winter night, and filled with an ease he had never known. If he could choose his fate, he thought he would never awake again.

A cold splash on Connal’s face startled him awake, and he looked up at heavy, dark storm clouds. From the splinter of sunlight still visible he realized he had been sleeping for hours. When he looked down he saw Valerie frowning back at him. As more fat raindrops fell she pushed herself upright and tilted her head to regard the sky.

“We’re in trouble.” She held onto him as they both stood and a rush of wind blew around them. “Do we run for the village?”

Connal shook his head, and recalled a shelter nearby that shepherds often used during storms. “This way. Hurry.”

Once the deluge began Fletcher sent his steward and the available menservants to watch for leaks in the old roofs, and to cover any open windows. He stopped by the kitchens to assure all the hearths had been banked and the dampers closed. Cook had already secured the fires, and now had his maids and sculleries fetching breads, cheeses and smoked meats from the cold pantry to prepare for the evening meal.

“’Tis a miserable facking day, Seneschal,” Brochan MacMar said as he thumped a platter of spiced pears on his work table. “Jamma, ’tisnae enough, go and bring more loaves. Worth, I said slice that ham, no’ hack the thing to bits.”

Fletcher knew the storm had put the cook in a mood, as did anything that disrupted his work and staff, but the amount of rain and its potential to cause a flood would have him on edge. “Leave the work for your lassies and lads, and take a turn at watch in the high tower.”

The big bald man let out a sour laugh. “Ever the one fretting over my damned curse.” As he moved something splashed, and he glanced down and sighed. “Och, fack me.”

He glanced down to see a puddle had already collected around the cook’s boots, and more was trickling into the kitchen from the window corners and beneath the door to stream toward him. Brochan’s mortal weakness made bodies of water of any size near him flow in his direction, which was why he worked in the driest place in the stronghold.

“’Tisnae much,” Fletcher told him. “’Tis been at least ten year or more since you last flooded the stronghold.”

“I’m off, I’m off. Jamma, you’re in charge. Worth, tell Mingas slice the rest of the meats. And for the love of Mar dinnae light any fires until the storm’s passed.” He trudged out, his boots making squishing sounds as he went.

Fletcher told the head kitchen maid to summon him if she needed aid, and then went to the infirmary, where Duncan stood watching the storm rolling in over the bay.

“Connal and Mistress Baker havenae yet returned from their trek to the village,” he said to the healer. “I must take searchers to look for them.”

“In this weather?” Duncan made a scathing sound. “The laird shall seek shelter. Wait until the rain clears.” A bright flash and loud boom made him step back from the window, peer out, and then hurriedly grab his bag and tartan. “That struck the curtain wall. Come.”

Through the whipping wind and stinging rain they ran from the stronghold to the wall walk that stretched from the tower loft to the curtain wall, where four sentinels crouched around a fallen figure. As they drew close Fletcher saw the injured man’s tunic and trews had been shredded as if torn from within, revealing strange pink wounds on his flesh in the shape of ferns.

“Take him inside,” Duncan shouted to be heard above the howling winds, and with the other sentinels carried the injured man over the walk and inside the tower.

Once safely indoors Duncan went down on his knees and pulled back the tartan covering the injured man’s face. Nyall stared up at him, his expression one of exasperation.

“These dolts wouldnae lay down their weapons nor take shelter.” He sat up and tossed the blackened spear he held away from him before he dragged a hand over his head. Fragments of scorched hair scattered on the floor.

“You reckoned seizing that, ’twouldnae harm you?” Fletcher saw something crackling like miniature lightning in the captain’s dark eyes. “Duncan.”

“I’m only startled,” Nyall told the healer, and got to his feet. “Eejits.” He slapped the head of one dismayed-looking sentinel, and then stalked away.

“’Twas any other man hurt?” Duncan asked.

“No, Healer. Only our captain,” The chief sentinel glared at the other men, who suddenly didn’t want to look him in the eye. “I ordered both shifts on the walls come down as soon as the strikes began, but these three fools didnae. Nyall saw them and rushed over, and ’twas struck instead of them.”

“The laird, he’s no’ returned,” one of them muttered.