Page 44 of Highland Storm

His sister accurately read his expression. “Ye dinna mess around, brother dear,” she said, and then she laughed softly as she shook her head.

Squeezing his eyes shut, Keane knocked his head once against the cold, hard steel. “What else di’ ye hear?”

“Not much,” his sister confessed. “Even despite that I kept my gob shut—for once—they tossed me out.”

“Jaime?”

“Nay.” She shook her head. “It was David. But I, for one, have never seen him so furious, and Jaime daren’t defy him over this. Nor would I.”

Lael shivered yet again, and this time Keane understood it was probably not from the cold. The look in her eyes was full of agony and for the first time since his arrest, he fully realized the severity of his position.

This was not a simple matter. Not only had he abetted a woman who would flee her given duty—by the king’s writ—it was Lianae’s brothers who had been suspected of rousing the rebels. It was their men his mesnie had been sent to ferret out from the northern woodlands.

While Lael was once held here and somehow escaped the gallows, she was not proof against Keane meeting the same fate. With the kingdom so much at odds, it would be an easy enough decision for the king to make to simply wipe this frustration off his plate. He had more than enough to deal with in Northumbria, and Keane had never once made his loyalties known. If he were David, he would wish to eliminate all trials in the north before traveling south. Cailleach only knew, where the man stood now—with most of Scotia under his rule—not even Aidan would be a threat. And now—only now—did he understand the true folly in never choosing sides. “What do ye think he will do?”

“It all depends.”

“On what?”

“On what she says to him now.” She eyed Keane meaningfully. “They brought Lianae into the solar as they ushered me out.”

“Una! Una! The babe is come!”

Realizing time was of the essence, Constance shouted at the top of her lungs, tripping over her own two feet as she stumbled up the stone-littered hill. There was just enough snow on the ground that she couldn’t see the smaller stones and she didn’t know precisely where to go. Alas, but everyone else was far too busy, boiling water and preparing for the birth of the laird’s new child.

Someday, she and Kellen would be expectin’ their own.

The very thought renewed her pace—past the guards on the hillside. Like stone effigies, they seemed completely oblivious to the falling snow, and she marveled that they could remain, night and day, guarding the vale, come what may. She had never witnessed such steadfast loyalty as she did in these men, not even with her uncle Iain, who claimed a blood lineage to Kenneth MacAilpín!

Forsooth, but it was cold, despite that the sun was shining brightly. Still, Constance was pleased to help with this small task and she wished desperately to prove herself useful. It was a wonderful feeling to belong somewhere, at long last.

Although Chreagach Mhor was the only home she had ever known, and she knew well that her kinfolk loved her, she had never had a true sense of belonging living in Chreagach Mhor, particularly after her cousin Broc left. Thereafter, she had lived mostly alone, in a small cottage, cooking for no one. Her brother Cameron was never around for long, and even when he came to visit, he was most often distracted by one thing or another. Constance had always been an afterthought, a forgotten child.

But now, now she was a wife—duly wed—and she intended to be the very best wife Kellen could ever hope for. If Constance would have her way, her sweet husband would want for naught and he would never have cause to regret the moment he took her as his bride. That night, up in the loft, he had been such a sweet, sweet soul. He had only kissed her all night long. But in the morning, faced with Iain’s wrath, he’d stood up for Constance and offered to wed her, then and there, even despite that her virginity was still intact. Later, once the vows were spoken, they had discovered the pleasures of the flesh together. Smiling, she patted her flat belly now beneath her cloak and prayed she would find herself growing a wee bairn very, very soon.

Life was good today!

Picking up her pace, Constance thought of the house Aidan and Lìli had gifted them with—a small but well-kept hut—and she vowed to fill it with all the love in her heart. She would cook and clean as a good wife must do, and she would mend all her husband’s clothes. Already, she had them neatly piled into a coffer, with those that still needed mending sitting on top. She would learn to make soup that was never bitter to the tongue, and she looked forward to the day when she could sew for her wee bairns as well. Praying Lìli’s babe would only wait until she could retrieve the midwife, she called for Una again.

It was curious the old woman would live in a cave on the hill, but certainly not unheard of. Constance once knew a woman back in Chreagach Mhor who’d lived in a cave in the faerie woods with her da until the day she’d wed. Seana was her name. Her uisge was both a scourge and a blessing to men, depending on the time of day one dared to ask. And yet as soon as Seana had been given a choice, she abandoned that cave in the blink of an eye. To Constance’s way of thought, there was little reason to live in a cave, but to each his own.

She found the opening easily enough and passed through, noting the crates that were filled to brimming with supplies. Curious as she was to their contents, she was in far too much of a hurry today to stop and explore. She found the ladder Sorcha spoke of, went down quickly, but to her dismay, she found Una’s grotto empty.

Mist rose from an opening beneath the old woman’s table. Puzzled, but too excited about the babe to consider where the hole might lead, Constance hopped down from the ladder, and went to see what she could see. She peered down the hole, and found another ladder made of rope. “Una?” she called hesitantly.

A frisson of something like fear raced down her spine. For a moment, she considered going back, but Lìli needed the auld woman, and Constance would not fail her new mother by law. She was well aware that Lìli did not wholly approve of their marriage, and so she must prove herself worthy here today.

Clearly, there would not be a rope here if it was dangerous. What a ninny she was being. For the good of her marriage, for the betterment of her relationship with Kellen’s mother, she climbed down into the darkness below.

“Una?”

Still, there was no response, though now she heard something odd—a strange rumbling, like the sound of a hungry belly. Shining through the darkness, she spied a bit of virescent light coming through a crack in the wall, a fissure through which she might squeeze through. Making her way quickly over, she pushed her way through to the other side.

There, in a cavernous room, lit by a strange pale light, the old woman lay upon the ground, next to an altar bearing a very large stone. Horrified because Una looked as though she might be dead, Constance ran to her. Her skin was a little blue, and her white hair stood straight on end as though she’d rubbed a palm across the entirety of her head and made the strands rise up. Her lips were blue as well—darker yet—and the one eye that was not covered by a patch, remained closed.

“Una?” she called softly, shaking the old woman gently by the shoulder. Her body was still warm, as though she were merely sleeping.

Despite the mist that had coalesced outside the room and up into Una’s grotto, inside this chamber the air was perfectly clear and still, filled with a strange energy that seemed to hum. It made Constance feel as though bugs were loose and crawling across her scalp and that her teeth were rattling in her skull.