13
“Jaime?” Ailis whispered, certain that she could hear someone approaching her hiding place in the rocks.
She briefly thought of straightening up to peer over the rocks, but firmly resisted the urge. Whispering her companion’s name was risky enough. She did not want to chance revealing herself to her enemies. Ailis just wished it were drier and warmer. For three long days the weather had varied from damp to deluge and back again. Another of far too many shivers rippled through her, and she huddled deeper into her damp cloak, finding little added warmth there. Her back was beginning to ache with a worrisome regularity.
“Jaime?” she whispered again, hating her cowardice, yet terrified of being alone and too pregnant to protect herself.
“Here, mistress.” Jaime crept behind the rocks and sat down beside her. “I didna mean to leave ye here alone for so long.”
“Nay, I beg your forgiveness for being such a weakling that I tremble when left alone.”
“There is no shame in that. Ye ken your own weaknesses. Ye arena in any condition to protect yourself. I shouldna like to be so vulnerable, so unable to fight.” He patted her hands where they lay tightly clenched together in her lap.
“Did ye find anything? Any sign of MacCordys or MacFarlanes?” She had an urge to get moving again, stillness only adding to the discomfort of being damp and cold. “Can we continue on now?”
“Well, there are signs that there is someone behind us, although I canna be certain they are following us. They could be coming this way for other reasons.” He frowned when she sat up straighter and rubbed at her lower back. “Are ye all right?”
“Aye, fair enough. What other reasons?” Ailis began to have a bad feeling about the root cause of all her discomfort.
“They could be MacCordy men riding to warn Malcolm MacCordy,” he murmured.
Ailis tensed, then stared at Jaime. “Sir Malcolm? Sir Malcolm resides near here?”
“He does. If ye sit up more and look to the north, ye can see his peel tower through the mists.”
“Jaime!” She awkwardly turned and raised herself up onto her knees to look out only to discover that he spoke the truth. “Why have we come here, so near to the enemy we are fleeing?”
He grimaced and rubbed a hand over his rain-chafed face. “I had meant to be farther west of here by now, but I changed my mind last evening. I decided that ye needed a place to rest, some place safe to seek shelter.”
“Safe? A MacCordy keep? Are ye mad? And why do ye think I need a place to shelter? I am fine.”
“Nay, ye arena fine. I can see it in your face, in the way you move.”
“Well, mayhaps I am not perfect, but I can make it to Rathmor.”
“Not as ye are now. Ye are weary, cold, wet to the skin, and shudder until your teeth chatter. A good fire would help ye a great deal, but we canna build one out here. It could lead our enemies to us, and ‘tis too wet anyway. Ye need to get in out of this cursed weather for a wee rest.”
“But at Sir Malcolm’s? He is a MacCordy. We canna trust him to help.”
“We can trust him to want to keep ye and the bairn safe. We ken that already.”
“Well, aye, ‘tis why he put himself between me and Donald. However, I wasna trying to flee. In fact, he gave me no aid the one time I might have had a chance to run, to flee with the MacDubhs when they rescued Alexander.”
She watched Jaime frown, and then he stared at her steadily. He was trying to think of an argument that would get her to turn to Malcolm for more help. The thought of even one night indoors—dry and warm and on a soft bed—was intensely alluring, but she had to resist it. One act of kindness and chivalry did not make Malcolm a man that she could wholeheartedly trust. She had a chance to reach Rathmor, and she was not about to put that at risk.
“I am certain there are MacCordy men about looking for us,” said Jaime. “That will mean another night out here—with the damp and the cold. Is this where ye want to bear your child?”
“What do ye mean? I am not ready to give birth,” she insisted, but as she rubbed her lower back, she suddenly knew that she was or would be very soon.
“I think ye are. Even if ye arena there is still the fact that your color isna good, ye clearly have many an ache and pain, and ye are dangerously chilled. Put your fears aside and think on your bairn. This isna good for it.”
She sat down, huddled in her cloak. Jaime was right. The shivers she cursed were more virulent, but she had suffered them for most of the day. One of the biggest reasons to risk herself and her child in an escape was because it had offered her child the best chance of survival. Now she had to make the same choice again.
For a moment she forced herself to concentrate on how she felt—besides cold and wet. Her backache was vaguely dissimilar to the ones she usually got at the end of the day, and she had suffered this all day long. That was a sign she knew she should not ignore. Her child had also ceased to move, something he had done with consistent vigor since the day she had felt the first kick. There were no easily recognizable contractions, but she knew that did not mean that she was not in labor already. One glance around her told her the utter unsuitability of the place for childbearing. There was no real shelter from the cold or the constant damp or from their enemies. She could easily be caught out in the open in the most vulnerable of positions. She needed a dry place to hide, and Jaime was right—if Malcolm would agree to help, it was much better to be inside.
“We could lose all we have gained,” she finally said.
“Aye, we could.” Jaime grimaced as he looked toward Malcolm’s peel tower. “He is a MacCordy after all.”
