“I wouldna thank Agnes for a thing save, perhaps, for dying.”
“Aye, ye would thank her. Do ye have any idea why, when she was so near to death with that fever, she took herself out of Rathmor and thus caught the chill that killed her so quickly?”
“Nay.” Alexander began to feel uncomfortably tense.
“Well, no doubt this shall lift your dark spirits. Agnes went to a crofter’s hut on the far western side of our lands and murdered all that made me happy, all that could ever make me happy. She cut Mairi MacFarlane’s bonny throat.”
Alexander grabbed Barra by the shoulders, a dread suspicion growing in his mind and making his grip painful. “And why should ye care that Agnes killed a MacFarlane?”
“Why? Because Mairi MacFarlane and I had been lovers for six years.” Barra barely stopped himself from falling when Alexander thrust him away as if he had suddenly contracted the plague. “Mairi was but fifteen and I was nearly twenty, newly wed to dear, vicious Agnes—the lass ye thought would bring heirs to Rathmor. God’s blood, six months wed and I was already in purgatory.”
“So ye went and lay down with the niece of the man who murdered our father?” Alex hissed.
“Aye, lay withand lovedher is just what I did.”
“Nay!”
“Aye! Mairi was the very breath I needed to live, the food that kept my soul from dying, as yours had. Agnes couldna abide it. I couldna speak to ye, for I kenned your hatred for the MacFarlanes.” Barra sighed, his expression and tone of voice becoming maudlin. “Agnes took my Mairi. Aye, and my wee bairns, my sons and my wee bonny lassie.”
All the color fled Alexander’s face as Barra’s final words seared through his mind. “Ye had bairns? Agnes killed your bairns?” He spat out the words through tightly gritted teeth.
“Nay.” Barra awkwardly shook his head. “Nay, she didna kill them, although what happened is much the same. I canna see them, canna even hear how they fare in health and spirit.”
Alexander gave Barra a rough shake. His temper was stretched thin. “Cease bawling like some lass and tell me about your bairns. Tell me everything!”
“I had twin sons. We named them Rath and Manus. They would be seven now.” Barra sniffed as he sought to still his tears and vainly struggled to put some order into his thoughts. “Then there was Sibeal. The lass must be five now. I brought her into this world myself, slapped the breath of life into her with my own hands. My own tiny lass with Mairi’s bonny eyes. All four are lost to me now. So now ye ken why I drink. Agnes not only cut my love dead that black day, but she made certain that I could never see my bairns again.” He shook his head and took a long drink. “Aye, ‘tis as if they, too, have died.” he whispered.
“Ye had bairns—sons, curse ye—and yet ye said naught to me?” The sting of hurt mixed with Alexander’s anger.
“Nay, I didna think ye would care to hear it,” Barra groused. “They are bastards with foul MacFarlane blood in their veins.”
“And MacDubh,” Alexander snapped, and several of the men at the head table growled their agreement.
“My Sibeal has hair just like mine,” Barra sighed. “The laddies have my eyes. In truth, they have the richer blue that ye were blessed with. God’s tears, ‘tis as if the very heart has been torn out of me.”
Alexander grit his teeth and fought against his anger. Maudlin drunks had always infuriated him, but now he had a new understanding of Barra. His own opinion of love and of Barra’s appalling choice of a lover did not matter. The man had lost his children, had spent two long, dark years with no sight or word of them. Alexander was all too aware of how such a loss tore at a man, but he swallowed his own still-raw pain, for he needed to be decisive. He knew that his own loss intensified his fierce need to retrieve Barra’s children. Any MacDubh children belonged at Rathmor. He leaned toward his brother.
“Just where do ye think your bairns are now, Barra?” he asked in a soft, smooth voice as he watched Barra from beneath partly lowered eyelids.
That deceptively gentle question roused Barra from his misery. He looked around the table, his eyes widening as he met looks of sympathy and accusation. As he slowly turned his gaze to Alexander, he swallowed nervously. The drunken haze he had been sheltered in cleared a little, and he knew what caused Alexander’s eyes to shine with rage.
“At Leargan,” he rasped, cringing slightly in anticipation of Alexander’s response.
“Aye, at Leargan—being raised by a man who murdered our father and stole Leargan from us. The heirs to what scraps of wealth we still clutch on to are in the hands of the one who has ever sought to take even that.” When Barra gave an incoherent cry and fled from the great hall, Alexander sighed, sank down into his heavy oaken chair, and rested his head in his callused hands.
“What do ye mean to do?” asked his burly cousin Angus. “Ye canna intend to leave the bairns in Colin MacFarlane’s blood-soaked hands, can ye?”
“Nay,” answered Alexander. “Nay, I willna allow that whoreson to have the raising of them. It sore grieves me that MacFarlane blood flows in their veins, but they are Barra’s for all that. They are MacDubhs. They will be brought here and raised as MacDubhs. Please to God that the poison which is MacFarlane hasna seeped into their hearts as yet. Say naught to Barra, for he is useless as a warrior now, but we ride for Leargan at first light.”
