The Chieftain Needs an Heir - a Highland ménage novella (Clan MacKrannan's Secret Traditions) (14 page)

The Bard noticed the uncomfortable shifting
of arses upon seats at the telling of the tale, and quickly called for Ayes.

"Aye,"
said Sorcha immediately, absolutely ignorant of any other explanation, and still feeling a bit guilty for her bad thoughts.  Mirren had been ill, and that was why she'd said such horrid things in the Chamber.  But she'd been so nice afterwards, and came to see her every day, and didn't seem inclined to gossip anymore when she had so many ailments to tell of.  She'd looked very sickly, poor soul.

Sorcha was
still on the strict diet of the Wisewomen's devising, and still drank the honeywater instead of wine, yet Mirren kept bringing baskets of cakes until the day she left MacKrannan Castle and the cakes no longer needed to go down the garderobe to save hurt feelings.

Such a pity there had been no chance
for Sorcha to say farewell, her being sent on urgent clan business by Niall that day.

"Aye,"
said Niall.

The truth must be kept from Sorcha for a long time yet.  Besides, i
t would no' be right to record more of it until Mirren and Ruaridh's two young bairns were full grown.  The details had been contained thus far.  Best leave it at that.  Hector and him had sorted it before he even had the chance to send the Wisewomen on a spying mission.

The one thing mystifying
Niall yet was Oona's reaction to the news of the carrotseeds. 
'Fancy that'
was all she'd said.  The Sight would explain much, but still…  See, if Oona had even the tiniest flicker of suspicion aforehand, and it was a big If, well then, the Bard and the three Wisewomen would no' have bothered bringing out the Green Book of Fertility Traditions and putting everybody through that.  Would they…? 

H
owever it had unfolded, he could no' be sorry at all that transpired regardless.  Life had been much changed after the Remedy.  He trusted them to do the right thing.  They were no' called Wisewomen for nothing.

"Aye," said Ruaridh.

If the Clootie Well story was sufficient for Niall, it would do fine for him too.  For now.  When his bairns grew, they must know the full detail of their mother's treachery, and be wary of such flaws in their own characters.  And his new wife Hilde was no' called a Wisewoman for nothing – she'd keep them on the right paths always, and their wee half-sister now, and all bairns yet to come.

The first sight of Hilde naked
at his rousing stayed with him yet, and he'd repaid her in honey many times since.  Lives had been changed that night.  Ruaridh's heart was brimming full, and his father the Chief well-pleased at the outcome.

"Aye," said Hilde.

She was right glad that Sorcha had no' been told about Mirren's cakes.  The early signs of the ripening goddess were upon that Tall Wife even the day after the Remedy, and the cakes would have caused her to slip what she carried.  The upset of the whole truth was best left for many years yet.  Maybe when Ruaridh's bairns were grown enough to be told.

He'd never looked her way once after the
circle was dissolved.  Mirren was banished soon after, but she was still his wife.

The
Wisewomen told her to take heart that he was no' treating her like some wench just for tupping.  And then the messenger came with news of his bereavement.  Only then did Ruaridh seek her out and take her to his father.

Ruaridh had
treated her like a princess at their wedding day Coupling.  And he told her often what blithesome company she was.  Their daughter was his image, born no' a moon ago, and Hilde felt blessed by the Chamber of the Green Man and the spirits who dwelled there.

"Aye," said Hector.

He had met with Niall in the mountain cove the morn after the Remedy and voiced his suspicions of Mirren trying to keep the Heir's Cradle empty.  Niall voiced the same suspicions, and shared the circumstantial evidence that Mirren had visited Sorcha daily.  The men started tracking Mirren's movements for a couple of days and discovered she was taking seedcakes to Sorcha again.

The Chief was
informed, and the entrapment set.  Capture had taken place with only a minor scuffle in the bedchamber that Mirren thought to contain Sorcha, but in fact contained Niall the chieftain and Hector the Captain of the Queen's Bodyguard.  They'd taken Mirren to the Chief who opened her basket of cakes and picked out the incriminating seeds right in front of her, and Ruaridh said naught as she was banished home to her own family under a cover story of recuperation from illness.

Hector had learned the value of diplomacy whe
n solving intrigues at the royal court, and had heartily agreed with Niall's assessment that none could have known of Mirren's treachery before she gave herself away in the Chamber.  He knew fine well that Niall did no' believe the sequence, but what the hell, better to forget the working out of who knew what, and when did they find it out, because no further good would come of it.

Cecily
had known.  She'd tried her Blank Face when he'd asked her, and that's how he figured it out.  All she'd confide was that she'd seen Mirren's face change and what kind of evidence was that to go accusing folks with?  And it would have taken thumbscrews to get anything more out of her.

Ach, well, a bit of mystery between a couple was a good thing.  And how long would it have taken him to woo her, had it no' been for
their both participating in the Remedy for Wives Too Tall?  Courting was overrated compared to a thorough rousing with honey to make a man get on wi' things.

He'd wasted no time
at all.  Straight after the circle was dissolved, the four of them dressed again and the arch put back around the fireplace, he'd called them all to the middle.  Two witnesses were needed for a handfast, six were available – Mirren didna count, her lying asleep on her star.  And he'd yet to live it down that he'd asked for witnesses even afore he'd asked Cecily if she'd have him…

"Aye," said Cecily
.

She s
moothed out her new fancy skirts a bit wider lest anyone see what Hector's hand was doing underneath them.  This was their first anniversary.  A visit home was a nice reminder of their sudden handfast in the room right next to this one.

His call for witnesses afore he'd
even asked her to wed had taken her aback – until she remembered her Wisewoman training that everything coming topsy-turvy to the Chamber of the Green Man would be put right.

Mirren's face had lost all
hope of falseness when she stood in the circle.  The comforting flash of the Sight had shown Cecily what would be.  And it was.  And hell mend her. 

The king
and queen had laughed when Hector told them of her study of faces and its use in detecting crime before it happened.  Their Majesties had wondered if Hector MacKrannan would ever meet his match, and see what had happened in one leave of absence?  And wasn't it grand that the newlyweds had so much in common?

The allocated bedchamber beside the queen's quarters was plush, but
Cecily preferred Hector's cottage.  It was nearly dawn when he'd taken her there twelve moons ago and walked straight past it to the waterfall.  There he cleansed himself of all that had happened, and asked her to forget what she'd seen, for bedsport was no' usually anything like that at all.  And she assured him she knew how different a Fertility Ritual must be from the ordinary, else why go to all the work and bother?

On the path back to the cottage he picked white heather and harebells, wanting her to have a posy on the wedding day she'd missed
.  He carried her over the threshold, and then dried himself, and showed her how gentle he could be, so that even her maidenhead's burst had not been too sore, and she knew the joy of blissing.

W
ithin the sevennight she grabbed hold of the top of an open door and persuaded him that she really did want to know what it felt like holding onto that arch.  And Hector had obliged, under the condition that he would no' be wearing any species of leaves.

"Aye," said Oona.  "That's us all, then.  What's next?"

"Eh?" said the Bard in a momentary lapse of attention.  "Oh… let me see now…  Here it is.  The Outcome.  We must chronicle the results for future generations.  Chieftain, I address ye.  This is your bit.  What say ye that we record also the two marriages, and Hilde's bairn?"

The chieftain pondered a moment only.  "Do that.  The Chamber built by
Coinneach the Chief must take credit there, and the work of the Wisewomen.  And on that note… Bard, I address ye.  Would ye consult with the Wisewomen and see if the Chamber could be put to some use by the clansfolk and no' just the bloodline?  Sorcha and myself think it a shame for such a place to lie dormant."

"
Curious ye should mention that, because Oona was saying just the other day…"  A covert signal from his wife rushed him past the source of the concept and onto the detail.  "But I suggest we prepare a much modified edition of the Green Book for the clansfolk.  Diagrams would be needed, for no' many can read."

"
And we'd need a new bed," said Oona. "The stilts are there for it, in the struts of the wall carvings, and the boltholes set in the floor."

"
Hah!  So there
should
be a bed!" said Sorcha.  "And what Remedy from the Green Book is that used for?"

"
Oh, quite a few.  The Remedy for Wives Too Tall was the first remedy in the book – the one used by Coinneach the Chief who built the Chamber."

"The bed came later, then?"

"Aye, much later, milady.  Ye'll remember the first painting is of an arch, no' a mattress.  And ye would notice that for all the fancy new ways of getting a bairn, it was Coinneach's remedy that was of most value to yerself and the chieftain.  Oh aye, the old-fashioned ways are always the best…"

The
descendent of the old Bard and the Grandam Wisewoman now being grown to a man, his father taught him a generation more of story in the clan's genealogy.

"…And Mirren was wracked with
these ills and troubles and worries of the Clootie Well.  First she had all manner of aches and pains, and as time progressed she was affronted by a severe outbreak of swelling and pustules on her nose, and fretted about her herd of goats when she owned no such thing, and was affeared her wife – aye,
wife
– had another man.  And when Niall and Hector set trap and her carrotseed deception was found, the Chief did banish her and she verra soon died.

"And the Chief assembled the clan in the courtyard and proclaimed that he waived any period of mourning because his son Ruaridh and his bairns needed a Wisewoman's healing the whole days and nights of their lives and without delay, lest any ills from the Clootie Well had been left behind on their
own persons, and he proclaimed that Hilde the Wisewoman had graciously accepted his urgent request to join with his son Ruaridh forthwith, and could the Bard have the arrangements made by the morn.

"
And a great cheer went up in the courtyard, and this despite the clan not even knowing of the carrotseeds until many years thereafter.  And Hilde did bear Ruaridh a daughter within the twelvemonth, and sons thereafter.

"And Hector did wed Cecily the
verra night of the Remedy for Wives Too Tall, soon after he had completed his Pushing In of the Spend, for he had been sweet on her for some years and careless of time's passing, and her rousing of him at this remedy made him even sweeter on her.  And Cecily did rise to great worth as protector of the king and queen alongside Hector, for many were affeared of her abilities.

"
And when the lintel over a door broke and fell in Hector and Cecily's bedchamber, the queen ordered all the lintels of all their doors made higher to accommodate Hector's great height, for Her Majesty worried about him banging his head like that.

"And Oona the Grandam Wisewoman spoke wisely of the
help from the bees in the Remedy for Wives Too Tall, for she said bees were the bringers of order wherever chaos reigned, and that the drinking of honeymead and the humming of the bees' song did work wonders.

"And when the chieftain's son Lachlann
was born just nine moons after the Remedy, into his tiny fist was placed an eagle's feather, and when his brother Ruaridh was born straight after, the chieftain Niall was fair speechless, and both babes laid side by side in the Heir's Cradle to fill it abundantly well.