Becca St.John (17 page)

“You said you wouldn’t leave.”

Padraig untangled the young boy, knelt down, took him by the shoulders. “Only to do chores. You were sleeping and needed to be after last night. You did good, lad, getting Peregrine here.”

Deian leaned into him. “I would have helped with the chores.”

“Aye, and you will this afternoon.” He tousled the boys hair and rose.

Deian, unlike the self-assured lad he was two days ago, hovered close, tugged at Padraig’s tunic. “I canna’ this afternoon. Lady Alissa is writing an ode and wants my help.”

“She wants your help with an ode?” Deian nodded. “Well, then, I believe her rank is higher than mine. But try to be back by feeding time. The horses are used to you, settle best when you’re there talking to them.”

“I’ll be here!” His eager nod was tinged by desperation.

“I’ll not go anywhere.” Padraig reiterated. The boy’s fear of abandonment was palpable.

He didn’t dare tell him Seonaid would be there, this very evening. Too large a secret for a small boy to hold. It would be even worse if she came in secret, did not show herself to him.

“Jasmine,” Padraig looked about the small croft. “Where’s Angelica?”

“Asleep in the loft.” The girl didn’t look at him, but neither did she cringe in fear. This was good. “I’ll change your bandages before I go out to the people.” She spoke to her herbs.

“The wound’s not troubling me.” That earned him a quick scowl.

Oh, aye, it hurt, ached, but nothing compared to days past or the night before, when Angus and Seonaid did their damage.

“They do it to keep it clean.” Deian bounced around him. “They told me, if I ever get a wound like yours, I have to wash it with clean water gathered far from where the animals drink.”

“Do they now?”

“They do, don’t you, Jasmine?” He rushed over to the table, toppling a small jar the girl quickly grabbed.

“You’re in luck,” she chastised. “That was capped.”

Deian pushed away. The poor lad, caught between too much energy and too little space. “Come on, you, let’s get you up to the keep and see what Lady Allisa wants with you.”

“To write an ode!”

“Aye, well, I’ve yet to see you as a poet.”

“What’s a poet?” Deain asked, putting his hand in Padraig’s.

“A poet is a person who writes odes,” he explained.

“What do you do with an ode?”

“You sing it. To tell a story for all to hear,” Padraig explained.

“Is there an ode about the faerie Seonaidh? The one my ma is named after?”

Padraig stopped, looking down at the earnest little face. “Aye, I’m sure there is. You’d best ask Lady Alissa, she may know.”

Brow furrowed, Deian whispered. “You’d tell me if you saw my mama?”

“We’ll watch for your ma together, Deian.” Padraig squeezed his hand. “She wouldn’t have run it if weren’t for the guards.”

“You called me Deian.”

Padraig tightened his lips. He had forgotten to use the other name. “Eban, then.” Foolish game she played.

“My mama ran when I got there.”

Such a mess, this.
“She wasn’t running from you, lad,” Padraig promised. “You mean the world to her, you do.”

“Then why hasn’t she come for me?”

“I think she did, Deian…I mean, Eban. Last night, only the guards frightened her.”

“You wouldn’t let the guards hurt her.” Deian bobbed his head. “She should know that.” And he let go of Padraig to run ahead, explore nooks and crannies and vendors’ wares, as they headed for the keep.

The hall was quiet when they arrived, except for the plink of an instrument from the gallery above.

“That’s Lady Allisa!” Deian chirped, excited as a nesting bird when a worm is brought.

“A bit early for the ode writing.”

“She won’t mind,” Deian cajoled. “I know she won’t. She will have missed me ’cause I protect her at night.”

“Do you now. Well, then.” Padraig nodded toward the stairs. “Run along, but be sure to bow and ask her permission to sit with her. If she’s busy, you come find me.” He had to call out the last words, as Deian had run across the wide hall and was halfway to the stairs by the time he finished.

There was a loud thrum of what he suspected was a harp, and the scrape of bench or chair being pushed back.

“Eban!” Lady Alissa called out. He saw her running along the balcony, heard the slap of Eban’s shoes as he ran to meet her.

The boy was breathless by the time they met. “I’m early, is that all right? Can we work on the poem? Padraig said an ode is a poem.”

He wished it didn’t, but Seonaid’s plan had merit. Lady Alissa would care for the boy as if he were her own.

Time to stop thinking. He went to find Angus. In the exercise yard, no doubt. Injury or no, Padraig had been abed for days. He needed to do something to rebuild his strength.

He found The Reah by the stables, yelling at a stable hand. “What do you mean, falling asleep? I don’ care if you’ve been awake all night or for the next five nights. You canna’ be fallin’ asleep when the animals need tending!”

“Reah,” one of his guards interrupted.

“Don’t ‘Reah’ me,” Angus said gruffly, but he did stop chewing on the poor lad and stomped off.

“Oye!” Padraid shouted.

Angus glared at him. “Your fault. You brought all this chaos on us, so no one’s sleeping and things aren’t getting done and people are thinking of runnin’ off.”

Somehow, Padraig didn’t think he was referring to Seonaid. “So who’s made you surly as a thwarted troll?”

Angus cut a glance at Padraig’s wounded arm. Padraig stepped back.

Disgusted, Angus snarled. “What do you want?”

“Exercise, man, work out the kinks of too much laying about.”

Angus’ smile might have been a snarl. “You want to get fit, do ya now?” He walked around Padraig. “Well, I’ve just the way.” He gestured for his guard to move in. “Tie me arm behind me back, Padraig MacKay has just challenged me to a fight.”

CHAPTER 18 ~ THE MEETING

Bruises and cuts did nothing to stop the pain of his heart.

Angus Reah, The Reah, looked down the long balcony. Lady Alissa sat at the harp, her head bent over young Eban, seated on a bench beside her. Both too deep in their conversation to notice him, dripping blood on the floor, barely holding the sword in his hand.

Och, he didn’t want to scare them, didn’t mean to bring the sword into the keep. Hardly knew it was in his hand, ready to take down anyone, everyone.

He swallowed a groan as he raised his elbow high enough to slide the weapon into its scabbard. He wasn’t in his right mind. Distracted, he was, thoughts on something, someone, rather than the moment.

Thank God he hadn’t killed Padraig, though he probably set back his mending more than he should have. The minute he’d pulled his sword free, his friend called feign knights. Truce. “We’re having a friendly battle here, Angus. Whatever you’re fightin’, it’s not me.” And he’d limped off the field.

Angus the brute. Aye, a good thing on a battlefield, but not in his home, to his guests.

It was her fault.

He willed anger to suppress yearning, to douse the fierce ache billowing for release. He hadn’t a clue how he kept silent, but he did.

Alissa was to marry a Macleod. He hadn’t even bothered to see which one. It didn’t matter. She was lost to him, to the Reahs. The people would blame him forever. She would be gone, probably never to return. It didn’t help that he liked them all, the Macleods. Good men.

Damn them!

And there she sat, so earnest and focused on the lad, as if he were her own kinder. She’d be a wonderful mother, a good and strong helpmate.

It was no matter to him.

Yet here he was, drawn by the plucking of the harp, the sweet pitch of her voice. Powerless to do anything, but climb the stairs to join her. By the time he pulled his exhausted self halfway down the gallery, she wasn’t playing any more.

He should go back to his chamber, have his page patch him up, dress him in something that wasn’t caked in blood and grime. He turned around, released the hilt of his sword. He’d had it in a death grip, as if it kept him upright. Too tired, too drained to do anything but feel it slip, land with a clunk and a clang on the boards of the floor.

“Angus?” Alissa called, but he couldn’t answer, it took too much out of him just to crouch down and get his sword, chastising himself as he did so. Obviously, he hadn’t slipped it into its scabbard at all.

“Angus!” She was coming to him. Oh Lord, he couldn’t let her see him like this, would die, right on the spot if she tried to help him stand. Especially as he needed the help.

Between his friendly fight, for which he could blame no one but himself, a gut-wrenching hangover—again, his own fault—and his heartbreak, he was not a fit man.

He managed to pivot on the balls of his feet, the only part of him that didn’t hurt, not even daring to try and rise.

“Aye,” he responded.

Closer still. “Are you all right?”

“Aye,” he lied. “What do you want?” She stepped back. He hadn’t meant to snap at her but, well, he wanted her gone.

She stiffened, that feisty spirit of hers kicking in when any other lass would be cringing. “Fine!” She tossed her head as she headed back to the harp.

He took advantage of her turned back to work his way to standing, ignoring the lad who watched him with a critical eye. He’d snap at him, too, but knew the boy wasn’t really his target.

“Good day, then,” he bid them.

She didn’t respond until he’d taken three steps. “If you can see around your foul mood, Eban and I would like to perform our ode after the meal this evenin’.”

“You have an ode? You and the boy?”

“Aye. An Ode to Wanderers and Warriors.”

The lad sat on the edge of his bench, like he was ready to shoot out on a race. How Alissa managed to keep him sitting there for composing, he hadn’t a clue. “The lad hasn’t been at Eriboll long enough to compose an ode.”

As expected, the boy shot to his feet, toppling the bench. “I didn’t do nothin’,” he rushed to say, “just told stories. Lady Alissa made the ode.”

“I see.” He swallowed. She asked too much, but couldn’t know that. Couldn’t know his heart would take a beating if she sang a dirge, let alone an ode of a boy’s tales. Of all Lady Alissa’s beauty, her voice was the most precious. And her turn of phrase with an ode, well, she never disappointed.

He waved his hand, dismissing his own grief. “Of course you may perform. I would be a poor chief indeed to refuse that. But you don’t need my permission for such things, Alissa. You run the keep, you order such things.”

“I want the healers here and their assistant, as well as Padraig, and, as I will be busy preparing, I thought you might offer those invitations.”

“Orders, you mean. They aren’t to have a choice, which is why you want me to assure their presence.”

“If that’s how you see it.” She plucked at the harp.

“Aye.” He would do that for her. He would do anything for her. “I’ll see you this ev’n.”

vvvvvv

There was no way Seonaid could enter Eriboll keep with the healers, even if they hadn’t already left. But they had. She could see them now, Jasmine and Angelica, Padraig and Deian, even Father Kenneth, making their way to the keep, escorted by The Reah’s own men.

It was The Reah’s men who made her so late. They were everywhere. She’d had to move further and further away to escape notice and take a wide circle back to keep from being detected.

Now, she’d not be able to see Deian. Not now, not tonight. Deian slept at the keep, in the Lady’s chamber. She’d learned that much last night. She’d also learned the layout of the buildings. If it weren’t for Deian, she’d walk straight in, let the guard grab her. She’d done naught wrong. They’d let her go fast enough, but Deian was sure to run to her, identifying who she was in the process.

Like last night.

He would never be free of his birth if she were near.

She should go.

For the second time that day, a voice from behind caught her unaware.

“Seonaid MacKay, is it?” It was The Reah himself, with a blackened eye and swollen lip. “Padraig said I would find you here. Asked me to.”

“He gave you the wrong name if he said I was Seonaid.”

“No, he’d not betray you like that. You’re the one who revealed the truth, by runnin’ when you did. If you hadna’ done that, I’d be none the wiser.” He favored his left leg. “It didna’ take me long to figure it out, or that the lad is yours and his name’s not Eban.”

Bruises, swellings, protecting one leg, the man was all done in. She could probably take him down. He deserved it for what he had said last night.

“You want to see the boy, yours or no.” He sighed, looked toward Eriboll. “But you don’t want to be seen.”

“He’s not my lad.”

“Oh, aye, he is.” The Reah nodded. “I’m no’ so much a fool as to miss that.” He moved up beside her. “He left Lady Alissa’s bed to find you.” He raised his hand to stop her bluster. “He’s only a tyke, but the lad is desperate for a mother’s love. Only his true ma could steal him from his foster mother.”

It’s what she wanted, should not hurt to hear of it. “Will she foster him?”

“She’d rather the boy has his mother, but aye, she’ll take him with her to the Macleods.”

“The Macleods?” Those were her mother’s people. “On the Isle of Lewis?”

“Aye,” he rocked back on his heels, lost his balance, corrected quickly, heading for his mount to hide his misstep. “I’ll tell the guard another healer is coming. Feel free to cloak yourself. We’ll be in the hall.”

“Who’s her man?”

“Lady Alissa’s? One of the Macleods. I’m not certain which one. You’ll have to ask her.”

“They’re good men?”

Angus spit. “Aye, they’re good men, damn them all.” He managed to get up on his mount. “I woudna’ tarry. The lad is performing an ode with Lady Alissa. He helped to write it.”

“Why don’t you like the Macleods?” she called after him.

But he didn’t answer.

vvvvvv

Lady Alissa dipped the cloth into the bowl of water, held Eban steady and managed to wipe his face, even as he squirmed away. “Och, stop that. Do you want to go in front of all the people with your face full of gravy?”