Highland Fire (Guardians of the Stone) (35 page)

There was a moment when Aidan had begun to believe in something more—something magic, if one must use that word. But Lìli’s miraculous healing was naught more than hard work on her behalf. Una’s tricks were merely that—an old woman’s trickery. The curse was fantasy, an old woman’s rage put to verse. Men were prone to believe in faerie tales so it was no surprise to Aidan that the bloody curse had become a song for wandering minstrels to carry door to door. Stuart’s death was probably no more than a simple accident—just a clumsy dolt who didn’t know better not to stare up into the sky after sending an arrow into the air. Ach, but he loved the woman madly and here he stood, barely alive but hardly dead, shoveling dirt into a god-forsaken hole in the ground! Their purpose here in this vale seemed a mockery at the moment. All these years they’d held the stone in keeping for a worthy king to arise, and now, because he had gone and wed an outlander bride, their efforts would all come to naught.

Every spade of dirt he tossed into the fissure grew heavier and heavier, until his mood turned as foul as the stains on his clothes.

His men all worked in silence, fearful of his mood—and bloody good for the lot of them! He’d like to smack every last one upon the noggin with his spade, including Keane, who was still recovering, for putting the lives of their kinsmen at risk—all for a crude game of “who could shit the bigger log of bloody rotten shit!”

Peering down into the fissure, Aidan marveled that it seemed never to fill, and his curiosity needled him. He
must
know what Lìli may have seen. He couldn’t see the stone from where he stood, and she
claimed
she hadn’t been down there, but he suspected she had, and there was only one way to appease his curiosity. The only reason he hadn’t gone down as yet was simply because he was a coward. He
wanted
to believe his wife. But he was a fool if he did not!

Hurling his shovel to the ground with the force of his anger and commanding his men to cease their work while he explored, he jumped down into the crevice, finding the hole in the wall and cursing beneath his breath as he slipped through to the other side, straight into the cavern that housed their precious stone. From there, he climbed straight up to Una’s grotto, finding her standing alone, staring blankly at her
keek stane.
When she looked at him, she didn’t appear surprised to see him.

“I suspect Lìli has seen the stone.”

Her head bobbled rather calmly. “I suspect she has.”

To Aidan’s liking, she didn’t react well enough, and he told her, “She has asked me to return Aveline to Keppenach.” By the sins of sluag, he’d yet to tell a bloody soul, and the fact was needling him to the bone!

The old woman merely blinked. “This I know.”

Aidan’s shoulders tensed, his anger rising. “By the gods, Una! What if she has told Aveline of the stone? What if Aveline should lead them here?” he asked, demanding answers, and then he wondered when Lìli might have told Una about her request—and more, why the hell hadn’t Una come to inquire about it?

The old woman merely peered up at him then, leaning on her staff for support. The mist was gone today. It was likely that the caverns had aired out with a second entrance to the caves. But without the curling mist about their feet, the grotto appeared little more than a filthy, dank cave, devoid of any mystery.

And yet Una’s good eye did not lose its sparkle, even if the stone in her staff was gray and dull. “It is our charge to guard the stone, until such time as the rightful heir finds his way to the throne—not to choose who will be the one to find it.”

Aidan willed himself to calm down. He found her rickety old chair and sank into it, feeling weary to his bones. If Lìli were to tell anyone at all—anyone!—David would march upon the vale—and that was if his rivals didn’t beat him to it. By all that was sacred, if they should fight to protect the stone, they would invite bloodshed to their door. Aidan would not allow it! They were simply not strong enough to defend one small vale against the whole of Scotia. He would sooner tie a ribbon around the oversized rock and hand it over to the first to ask.

Una hobbled over to the chair and stood before him, reminding him of her presence. By the light of the fresh candle burning overhead, she looked tired and old, and her voice was gravely and weaker now than it seemed to be yesterday. “Our history is not our destiny, Aidan. I was coming to believe we were approaching the end of our days, though it appears to me now ’tis merely the beginning.”

Aidan gave her an incredulous look, his heart squeezing painfully. “How the bluidy hell can ye say such a thing, Una? The end has never seemed more near. We might as well send Cailin and Sorcha to England to wed, and match Keane to a bluidy Scotswoman. Our Pecht lineage will be no more!”

Una stood before him another moment, shaking her head with disappointment and then she turned away, hobbling back to her worktable. “I suppose it could be true … if ye have no faith in the lass.”

“Why the hell should I?” Aidan roared back. He stood, tossing out his hands as a plea for Una to listen to reason.

“Ach! It seems to me that men will trust their ears far less than their eyes, but they trust their hearts e’en less!” And with that, she huffed and tossed her staff upon the table, abusing the ashwood stick as he had never seen her do before. It rattled noisily over the table and came to a halt beside the grey, dull
keek stane
.

Aidan frowned. His gut began to ache. He stood there looking at Una, disheartened and heartsick over the way he had spoken to her. By god, she might not truly be the Mother of Winter, but in so many ways, she was the mother of them all. “Forgive me,” he allowed, swallowing a whole new lump of grief that appeared. And then he left her, returning to the hillside.

Without another word from anyone, Aidan and his men filled in the entire cave beneath the fissure, moving mountains of dirt into the hillside, until nothing remained to evidence the caverns below.

A
s Aveline’s mood lightened and her smiles increased with thoughts of returning to Keppenach, Aidan’s mood grew darker yet.

Lìli thought mayhap he suspected something but he said not a word. Troubled over his mood, she double-checked her coffers to be certain the ring and vial were still secreted inside. Certainly if her husband had discovered the horrible device by now, he would have questioned her about it. But, nay, there it remained, right where she had left it, and so she could not account for the change in his demeanor.

In truth, though she had considered many times hiding the offending pouch somewhere out in the fields, it had become quite apparent that the one place it would be safest was right here where she kept it. Aidan’s people spent little enough time indoors, and she could not guarantee someone might not find it out there—no matter how well she hid it. But no one ventured into this room without permission aside from her and Aidan, and unlike Stuart and Rogan, her husband did not seem to feel the need to govern every aspect of her life. He had never once questioned her about her belongings from the moment he had dumped her coffers in his room. And despite his bluster upon her arrival, he had embraced her wholly as his wife, giving her nothing but respect and affection. Not one thing had she asked of him that he had ever denied her, and in fact, she did not have to ask for much. He cared for her in a manner that no man had ever done before him—no man.

With her husband’s help, she scribed a formal request to Rogan—or rather, Aidan wrote the missive himself. Her husband was an accomplished scribe, more so even than Stuart or Rogan. What irony, she thought, that the man they’d hailed as a savage was a great deal more educated than most men she knew. In spite of his seclusion by choice, Aidan knew far more about the designations and positions of the men who ruled this land than she did. His choice to abstain from politics did not mandate that he remain ignorant of their machinations.

Lending the weight of his position to her request, so that Rogan could not deny her, he wrote:

To Rogan, high chief of clan MacLaren, laird of Keppenach and lesser keeps,

In the matter of Aveline of Teviotdale, since the lady is thick with child and too heartsick to remain at Dubhtolargg, I return her forthwith to Keppenach, with apologies to David, though it is the lady’s wish that her child be born under the protection of his father, the laird of Keppenach. In the matter of Kellen MacLaren, son of Stuart MacLaren, grandson of Dougal MacLaren, I would see him returned to his mother Lìleas, the now and future lady of Dubhtolargg …

The now and future lady of Dubhtolargg.

Lìli’s heart swelled over the proclamation, for by it, he declared to one and all that she was his wife in truth and that he would never, ever rebuke her.

However, she noted how carefully he worded his next words so as not to provide an endorsement to David as his king.

… It is acknowledged that because a full year of hand fasting has not yet elapsed, proper dispensation must be received by David mac Maíl Choluim, Prince of the Cumbrians, Earl of Northhampton and Huntingdon, King of the Scots, but not of the Pechts, As I am certain he will be pleased to find this union suits me well, please convey to me at once when the child may be retrieved, at which point I shall send a fully equipped garrison with all due haste in order to amend the current situation and see the boy safely to his mother before the first snows fall.

Subscribed and sealed on this sixth day of October by me, Aidan, High Chief of the dún Scoti, laird of Dubhtolargg, forebear of Kenneth MacAilpín, the Righ Art, the High King and Chief of Chiefs.

Alas, but the true message—the one Lìli dared not scribe on paper—that one, Aveline must deliver herself in secret. Rogan was to bring Kellen to the stone cairn near the Faerie Glen—the ancient ruins that sat before the pathway leading down into the vale. He was to bring her son on the first day of the Blood moon in October. Somehow, Lìli would find a way to slip away in order to exchange the information she had discovered. She must also endeavor to put her guilt aside for she was convinced there was no other way.

Aidan sealed the message and handed it over to one of his men on the day he dispatched the troupe to escort Aveline to Keppenach. Another messenger was sent with a similar letter for David. And thereafter, Lìli resigned herself to wait. There would be no way to know whether Rogan would accept her bargain or nay, but in any case, he could not entirely ignore her husband’s letter. He must send a message back, and in that message she would listen carefully for his answer. And then, no matter how he replied, she would hie herself to that Faerie Glen on the first night of the Blood moon.

However, to Lìli’s dismay, once Aveline was gone, Aidan kept even more to himself, drawing his men into the fields to spar, as though preparing himself for war. Long hours the men spent practicing while Lìli busied herself with designs for a garden come spring, preparing her seeds with a bit of Una’s guidance as there were some she did not know, and the soil up here was far different from the soil to be found below the ben. Despite the fact that the vale sat upon a carpet of green, the layer of good loam was lean, and below it was a table of stone. For some of her plants that needed deeper roots, it might behoove her to raise a bed or two.

Upon her request, her husband had ordered a worktable to be constructed and placed near the window in their chamber so that she might work while enjoying a view of the loch.

But as the first snows fell upon the vale, still with no word from Rogan, Lìli began to worry. Fat flakes danced about the sky, like white butterflies. Lìli watched them, thinking about the mountain path by which they had come only a few short months before … wondering how the ground fared below the rise of the first ben.

So much had happened since that day… she was not the same girl she had been, and it came as little surprise that she no longer considered Keppenach her home. These, in truth, were her people now…

Guilt-ridden for having lied to Aidan, and worried for her son, she took her frustrations out upon mortar and pestle.

Una stood watching while she prepared a measure of white willow bark… and another of valerian. The concoction of white willow bark was the same mixture she had used for Duncan and Keane both, to help them with pain and to reduce their fever. The valerian… well, she hoped Una would not recognize the root. Betimes, Lìli took a small dose during her woman’s curse, but a far more potent mixture could be used to put grown men to sleep. The only drawback was that it had a very bitter taste, but she was not too concerned about that. Their
uisge
was so stout that she could easily hide the taste of the root, and the alcohol would greatly amplify the
drogue’s
effects.

She and Una had developed a strange fellowship. The old woman was hardly affectionate, and yet Lìli sensed the great love she bore her clan. It was for love of them that Una had cursed Lìli in the first place, she realized.