14
As he had for far too many nights since his wounds had healed, Alexander stood upon the battlements of Rathmor, his gaze aimed toward Leargan. He ached to besiege the keep and wrest Ailis from her uncle’s hold. Unfortunately, the late spring weather refused to accommodate his wants. The recent rains and the imminent threat of more made a direct, heavy attack impossible for the moment. A full attack on a well-defended keep was a dangerous, difficult task. In the adverse conditions they faced now it would be nearly suicide.
For himself, Alexander cared little and would have chanced it. But he could not order his men, some still barely recovered from his rescue, on such a foolhardy venture. It would simply be a waste of lives, and no matter what she was suffering, Ailis would not expect that. She would probably be appalled if he spent even one life in an attempt to save her. Necessity and the need to consider others had forced him to wait, made him bow to common sense, but he did not like it.
The thought of all that could be happening to Ailis, and all that had happened, made Alexander clench his fists in helpless rage. Was the child she carried still safe? Had she been forced into MacCordy’s bed despite the fact that she was with child? Had the handfast marriage they had proclaimed in their moment of desperation been honored or had it been ignored despite the fact that several dozen MacCordys had witnessed it? Was Ailis now wed to MacCordy by a priest? Was she even alive?
Alexander shunned that last question almost as it was forming in his mind. Although he usually scorned such things, he could not help but feel that he would know, would somehow sense that Ailis’s life had ended. Despite his efforts to hold her at a distance, they had become intertwined in so many ways that he was certain something would occur inside of him if she died, whether he was there to witness such a tragedy with his own eyes or not. He had fought it tooth and nail, but he had to accept that it was true, that she had somehow become that great a part of him. A light touch on his arm took him out of his dark thoughts, and he looked down into the sweet, solemn face of a nightgowned Sibeal.
“Ye should be abed, lass,” he scolded in a gentle voice, pushing aside his own grief and fear for the child’s sake. He certainly did not want to add to what the little girl already suffered.
“She will come back, Uncle,” Sibeal said as Alexander lifted her up into his arms. “Aunt Ailis will come back to us.”
“I hope ye are right, sweeting.” He headed back inside of the keep, afraid that the damp, cool night air could harm the child.
Sibeal slipped her arms about his neck and said with complete confidence, “I am right. I had one of my dreams, ye ken. It told me she was coming.”
It was not unusual for a child to make up tales or to set too much trust in a dream. Considering what everyone believed about little Sibeal, Alexander knew she was probably more susceptible than most children. He paused in mounting the stairs to her bedchamber. After a moment’s thought, he sat down on the steps with Sibeal in his lap. He felt he ought to talk to the child, for such delusions, if left unchecked, could bring her great harm. He told himself, sternly, not to allow her words to lift his hopes. To prevent the child from nurturing false hope was another reason to talk to her.
“Ye think I am a silly bairn,” Sibeal murmured, staring up at Alexander.
“Mayhaps misled.”
“Aunt said that folk would think me silly or might think bad things about me like I am a witch. So I dinna talk about it much. But I had a bad dream about her yestereve, and this night I had a good one. Do ye want to hear?”
“Aye, all right, Sibeal. I will listen. Yet that doesna mean that I believe in all of this or will think your dream means anything.” He hoped that by listening to her dream he would lessen the importance she had given it and ease his own superstitious fears about her reputed skills.
“The bad dream made me cry even though I kenned that it didna mean Aunt Ailis was dead.”
“What did ye see, child?”
“ ‘Twas all dark. I could see naught but shadows and a wee bit of her face. There was a big shadow bending over her, but it wasna a bad shadow. Aunt Ailis was hurting, but I dinna think anyone was hurting her. ‘Twas a hurt from inside her. She was afraid, but it wasna because of the hurting.”
“What was she afraid of, sweeting?” he pressed when she frowned and grew silent for a moment.
“Something outside.” She frowned even more. “Aye, the bad thing was near, but it wasna there, and the hurt was inside of her.” She shrugged and looked at Alexander. “Aunt Ailis says I will be better at telling as I get bigger and ken more words.”
“ ‘Tis the bairn. Ailis was having the bairn.”
Alexander was startled by Barra’s words, for he had not realized that his brother had approached him. He had been so intent upon what Sibeal was telling him that he suspected an entire army could have come up behind him. It was taking all of his willpower and concentration to fight the allure of belief. The lack of any skepticism in Barra’s expression of interest as he sat next to them forced Alexander to seek some means of protest. He had accepted a great deal since Ailis and Barra’s children had come to Rathmor, but there were some things he could not, and would not, abide. Sibeal’s skill had to be simply a little girl’s fancy.
“Now, Barra,” he said with a frown for his brother, “ye shouldna encourage the child in all of this. And I thought ye had sought your bed hours ago.”
Barra nodded. “Aye, I had, but I woke. I felt the need to go and check on Sibeal. She had sought my bed yestereve, and I had feared that she might suffer another frightening dream. Is that what happened tonight?”
“Nay, Papa.” Sibeal moved to sit on Barra’s lap. “I had a good one tonight. Last night was a bad one. I dinna have bad ones often, but they can scare me when they come.”
Barra touched a kiss to her scarlet curls and murmured, “Ailis had warned me.”
His agitation clear to hear in his voice, Alexander demanded, “Are ye truly believing that these dreams mean something?”
“Ye saw the proof of that with the puppies.”
“I saw luck.”
“Come, ye canna tell me that ye think the dream Sibeal just spoke of is a common one for a wee child.”
There was no answer he could make, so Alexander fell silent. The sight was a skill much believed in. When he was a beardless boy, there had been a few old women who had professed to having it, and one had proved her claim often enough. He had not liked it then, and he liked it even less now. If he did not understand something, he grew very unsettled, and he had little liking for the feeling. It was appalling to have a cause of that detested feeling within the walls of his keep. Despite all of that, he could not discard her words as nonsense. Barra was completely right in saying that it was an unusual dream for a child, and that gave the claim of Sibeal having the sight a credence he did not really wish it to have.
