“She’s a witch, I say!”
The king blew an impatient sigh. “Simply because minstrels sing it does not make it so. She is skilled in the simples, so what?”
“Nay, Your Grace, I myself have witnessed miraculous recoveries by her hand. Last fall, she passed a maid’s bairn through a wreath made from woodbine and the boy’s fever vanished.”
The King’s answering expression was full of mockery. “A wreath, ye say?” A guffaw erupted from the depths of his belly. “Art certain it wasn’t a halo instead? Perchance the girl’s a saint?”
Quiet laughter sliced through the tension in the hall.
“Saint Lìleas,” one advisor quipped, leaping at the opportunity to earn the king’s favor.
From the far end of the table came a crude jest. “Not with tatties like those, I'll warrant. If she came tae my sickbed, all I’d be wailin’ for are those sweet nipples ’twixt my lips!”
The chamber erupted with nervous cackles.
But despite the levity of the moment, the discussion at hand was a sober one. Held in the most private of quarters, with doors closed and guards posted outside, King David of Scotia had gathered his most trusted advisors, along with a discreet group of influential chieftains. Each mulled over the dilemma he had presented—how to quell the most rebellious of Highland tribes—and how to do so without bringing the clans to further bloodshed. Boorish and weary, the council had been ensconced now for long hours. The chamber reeked of sweat, greed and fear. After so many hours of keeping counsel, the billowing black smoke that crept up from the pitch torches had embedded new layers of soot into the ceiling. Flies had begun to swarm the picked-clean carcass of a hog that sat in the center of the table. No one had allowed the serving wenches to enter to clear the leftovers for fear of being overheard. The ewers were long empty now, and so were the goblets, save for a swallow of backwashed spit from their mouths.
As for the mood prior to the meeting, the empty seats at table were a reminder that not every chieftain held the same influence in David's court. There were a few whose absence was conspicuous—in particular the MacKinnon laird, who was perhaps the greatest thorn in David’s side. In fact, were it not for the MacKinnon’s interference, they might already have had a valuable pawn on their board.
But it was not the MacKinnon they discussed at length today. At the moment, the subject of the discussion was likely the second greatest threat to David’s throne—a Highland rebel, who, while he held no obvious design to plant his arse upon the Stone at Scone, could do much to rouse the clans against David mac Mhaoil Chaluim. These were uneasy times and David had spent far too much of his youth in England. There were many who did not welcome his rule.
The King cleared his throat. “Being cursed is not the same as cursing others—nor do I believe in witches. But for the sake of argument, how would the lass be of use to me?”
“Ach, but dinna ye see, Your Grace? Everyone who loves her dies!”
David rolled his eyes. Grunting in discomfort, he shifted in a chair that was made for lesser men. “As far as I know only one man has ever kicked up his toes.”
“Aye, though precisely as foretold,” the man argued.
David remained unconvinced. “By an auld woman’s angry curse? The same auld crone, might I add, who plays nursemaid to the dún Scoti clan. Nay, the plan is ill fated from its conception. The dún Scoti would never allow the girl within a league of the Mounth. Aidan would kill her himself, I am certain.”
“Respectfully, Your Grace, I dinna believe that is true,” interjected another of his counselors. “There are some who say the dún Scoti would see his clan return to the old ways, when their womenfolk whipped them about by their willies. He indulges his sisters as though they were men. I say he would never harm a hair on the lass’ head.”
The laird of Teviotdale spoke up now. “He’s a milksop like his father.”
David raised a brow at Teviotdale. In his considerable opinion, Teviotdale had too little respect for women when he could send his own daughter, unwed, to share a man’s bed for the sake of greed. On the other hand, the dún Scoti would die for any one of his sisters. He had recognized that look in the man’s eyes. “Would ye say that to the mon's face?”
They both realized, just to prove a point, David would send him north sooner than the serving wenches could clear the table. There wasn’t a man among them who would defy the dún Scoti. And now that David had crossed Aidan, he himself would not face the man again. If anyone here thought himself braver than the King of Scotia, David would like to see him face the high chief of Dubhtolargg.
As David expected, Teviotdale gave a nervous shake of his head, and David was appeased.
“Bah!” exclaimed Padruig Caimbeul, who had the most to lose. It was his daughter whose fate they were discussing here today—a fate that might well end in her death at the blade of Aidan dún Scoti. “These are savage mountain folk,” he contended. “’Tis like as not they all shared the womb with a blade.” He shook his head with conviction. “And yet if there is a chance my Lìleas may bring them to heel, it is a sacrifice I am willing to make.”
“Aye, but even if she could win him over,” argued another. “Who can guarantee the curse is real? The dún Scoti’s death is hardly guaranteed.”
“Her first husband is dead,” Caimbeul argued as though that in itself were evidence enough. He went on to say, “What manner of man dies by his own arrow through his pate save an idiot who is cursed? Nay, of a certain my daughter is marked by a witch, and any mon who loves her will hear Caoineag’s weeping within a fortnight of losing his heart.”
“So it was proclaimed... so it has already come to pass,” offered one of Caimbeul’s banner men.
Caoineag the Weeper, was the banshee spirit who haunted the lochs and waterfalls. It was said she could be heard wailing before a death within a clan—faerie tales, all of it, but David was growing desperate.
In the silence that ensued, the guttering torches began to hiss. The smoky room took a toll on David’s eyes and lungs. “Caimbeul, she is your only daughter. Are you willing to risk it?”
Caimbeul nodded soberly. “What have I to lose? No mon will have her now.”
David pierced him with a dark look. “Be advised... if the dún Scoti doubts her ’tis likely she will die.” He was glad he had never met the lass and could not put a face to her name. It would make his decision all the easier.
Caimbeul shrugged, and the room turned more somber yet. The pitch torches in their braces flickered nervously, awaiting David’s decision.
“The dún Scoti’s death is not guaranteed,” persisted his counselor.
“Accidents happen,” offered Rogan MacLaren, who had remained silent for most of the conversation. MacLaren's brother had been Lìleas’ first victim—apparently, far easier than fratricide. “There are other ways to ensure the end we desire," he suggested. "Mayhap Lìleas could be persuaded? She has a son...”
Every councilman knew what MacLaren was implying—David did not mistake him. They all knew precisely what MacLaren was capable of in the name of ambition. He could, in fact, make Lìleas kill the mountain Scot—if not to save herself, then perhaps to save her boy.
No one spoke to question MacLaren or to temper the dark thoughts.
“Cursed or nay, I can attest to the fact that no man can resist her,” MacLaren continued. “Stuart coveted her even knowing what he might lose.”
Caimbeul nodded. “Her suitors were many, despite the knowing... but that was before,” he confessed. And then he chortled to himself. “Ha! Now perhaps they do not seem so willing to test the hand of fate!” When no one else laughed, he cleared his throat uncomfortably and slid a wary look toward the King.
David eyed MacLaren meaningfully. “And yet you have resisted her, MacLaren, despite that she lives beneath your roof?”
MacLaren smiled, a subtle turn of his lips that never reached his eyes. “I like my willie well enough,” he said, “but I need the head on my shoulders a great deal more.” And then he added somewhat somberly, “I do not look upon her, nor do I speak to the lass. She and her son keep mostly to themselves.”
“Wise man!” the girl’s father declared. “I should have married her to you instead! At least you might have had more wits about you than to lose your heart to a witch!”
David slammed his tankard down upon the table. What manner of man said such things about his own daughter? Even he and his brothers, though they fought bitterly over Scotia's throne, would never have spoken an ill word about their womenfolk. They might have skewered the sons in their beds, but their daughters would never have suffered an instant of scorn. He could not abide a man who did not respect his womenfolk. He scratched his chin, pondering all available solutions. As yet, none with any chance of fruition had presented itself... save this. “What of her son?”
“We keep him, of course... reassurance,” MacLaren suggested.
David’s question was not overt, but could not be misunderstood. “Despite that he is your nephew?”
MacLaren glanced at Caimbeul. Caimbeul nodded almost imperceptibly. MacLaren returned his gaze to the king. “For the good of Scotland… aye, of course.”
“Look at it this way,” someone interjected. “If the curse holds true... the lass will go to the dún Scoti with those bonny violet eyes and he’llna be able to resist her. He’ll love her, plow her belly, then promptly die. And with the bastard out of the way, the mountain folk will succumb, for without their chieftain they are feeble as auld biddies.”
David was certain none of these fools had ever faced one, but he didn’t interrupt.
“And if the curse does not hold true... well, then...” The man looked toward MacLaren and lifted a shoulder.
“Tell dún Scoti you wish an alliance between kings! ’Twill feed his ego,” advised one of his counselors.
David nodded, warming to the scheme, despite a twinge of guilt. It was entirely possible Aidan would accept the lass, although he did not fool himself into believing he would crave the alliance. However, dún Scoti was far too arrogant to believe himself subject to the wiles of any woman, and particularly a woman his own kinfolk had cursed... and there was one thing that would make the girl far more attractive to Aidan than even sacks full of gold: She bore the blood of the man who had killed Aidan’s sire.
David glanced at Padruig Caimbeul. The old man, with his long, dirty gray beard, had once been a fierce warrior. He was still a cold bastard, bargaining away the life of his daughter for his own gain. But that wasn’t David’s concern. Many lives had been sacrificed for the sake of solidarity. Many more would succumb.
Alas, he had hoped that by awarding Aidan’s sister Catrìona to a man of his and Henry of England's choosing that these measures could be avoided. But there seemed no other choice. Aidan’s sister had wed a rebel Highlander, and David’s plans for alliances were all undone. If there was a chance to unite the clans without bloodshed, this was the way it must be done—through carefully planned marriage contracts and alliances—and he must endeavor to ignore even the most insistent of his guilty pangs. At the instant Aidan might not have his eye upon Scotia’s throne, but let him become disgruntled... Nay, the man was too unpredictable. Already, they hailed him as the last mac na h-Alba’—the last true son of Scotia. He sighed deeply, cursing Iain MacKinnon for a meddling fool.
Aye… but giving Lìleas MacLaren to Aidan could work… he might, in fact, accept the girl, if only as a manner to control her father.
Vengeance was a powerful motive.
So was a mother’s love.
He looked toward Rogan MacLaren. The man was hard enough to do what needed to be done when came the time. In truth, he thought MacLaren would relish the duty. David doubted he would even have to issue the command. All would transpire as it should, and David need never again consider his part in this ignoble deed, for everything would be concluded without his knowledge.
Caimbeul sat, looking smug, as certain as he was that he held the only viable answer at hand. The gleam in his eye was a hint of the gold payment he envisioned.
“Very well,” David relented, seeing no other way. “Offer Lìleas MacLaren to Aidan dún Scoti as a bride.”
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