He suddenly heard that last bellow, the one that had echoed in the dungeons. There had been more than anger in that sound. There had been a lot of hurt.
“Ye, brother, are an idiot,” said Ruari.
“Why do ye keep prying at me about it?” snapped Simon. “Look at this place. We will be lucky to find clean linen and a blanket for the nights when it is cold.”
“That isnae why ye walked away. Ye think ye might go mad like Henry.”
“And what is wrong with worrying about that?”
“Because he is the only one who went mad. Nay, he was born mad. I am not, neither are Malcolm or Kenneth. Neither are ye. Father was a brutal bastard but he wasnae mad. It doesnae always run in the blood. I think sometimes it is something wrong in the head. It was there in Henry from the moment he first opened his eyes. We all ken the tale of how he butchered a poor cat when he was but four years old. That isnae right. Henry was ne’er right.”
Simon rubbed at his temples. “I ken it, yet, how can one be certain that fault willnae show up again? In a child? In a grandchild?”
“Ye cannae. Just as ye cannae be sure a child ye breed doesnae come out with its breathing wrong and all yellow, barely living long enough to cry the once to say it is alive.”
That made so much sense that Simon felt like punching his youngest brother in the mouth. As the days had passed, filled with dealing with Henry’s trial and execution, and then the ride to Lochancorrie, Simon had mulled over the matter of Henry’s madness so often that he had wondered if he could go mad just from thinking about it so much. He had begun to waver in his fear. It was strong one day, such as when he heard Marion’s story of her ill-fated pony, and then it would fade and he would feel a fool for allowing that fear to rule him.
He was afraid that he would let his need for Ilsabeth make him cast aside all good sense and just reach out for her. He would wake up in the night and reach for her, then groan from the weight of the loss when he found his bed empty. Simon was beginning to think he should have heeded Morainn’s words more carefully, however. He had made the painful choice and it certainly felt as if it was the wrong one.
“I will take some time to work on bettering this place and promise to think on the matter,” he finally said, as much to himself as to his brothers.
“Weel, dinnae ponder it too long. A lass like that doesnae need to sit about waiting for a fool.”
Ilsabeth wiped the sweat from her brow and looked about the bedchamber with a sense of satisfaction. It was finally clean. The soldiers had been swine in their habits and she wondered if she was insulting the swine. Everyone was working day and night to clean up Aigballa. The only good news was that the men had not stolen anything. They had the coin to make up for the loss in supplies and some of the linens and things that would never be good for anything but rags now.
She flopped down on the clean bed and breathed in the crisp scent of clean linen. As always, the moment she stopped working, her thoughts went to Simon. It had been almost two months since she had seen him and there had not been any word from him either. Ilsabeth knew she had to accept the fact that he had left her.
Placing a hand over her still flat belly, she grimaced. Her mother was too busy to notice yet, but Ilsabeth was sure that soon her mother would know that her daughter was with child. The problem she faced now was whether she should tell Simon.
And just how did one do that? she wondered. Send a polite letter? Send her brothers to beat him into the mud and then, while he lay there bleeding and groaning, congratulate him on his upcoming fatherhood? Maybe she should just wait until her belly was huge and then ride out to Lochancorrie. That might be entertaining if only to see his face when he caught sight of her belly.
“Moping again?” asked her sister Finella as she walked in and sat on the bed by Ilsabeth’s feet.
“I am nay moping,” protested Ilsabeth.
“Oh, aye, ye are, Two.”
“Ilsabeth,” she said through tightly gritted teeth. “I was but thinking for a wee while ere I go and start to clean another room.”
“Ye shouldnae do so much heavy work.”
“Why not?” Ilsabeth slowly sat up and eyed her sister with a touch of apprehension.
“Ye could hurt the bairn.” Finella grinned.
“There is no bairn. Ye are just imagining things.”
Finella made a rude noise that would have gotten her soundly rebuked if their mother had been near. “Ye are with bairn. I cannae say how I ken it, but I do. I can see it in women who have only that night conceived. Ye are going to have to tell Maman and Papa soon.”
“Why, are they planning to conceive tonight?” She grinned when Finella blushed for, at sixteen, she still refused to accept that their parents made love.
“Ilsabeth, it was Simon Innes, wasnae it?”
She sighed and flopped back down on the bed. “Aye. I love him although I am trying verra hard to make that Ilovedhim.”
“But, if he wished to bed ye, why didnae he ask ye to marry him?”
“I think it was because his brother was utterly mad, viciously mad, and now he fears that will happen to him. He always said it wasnae something one could catch and he didnae believe it could run in the blood, nay for all madness leastwise, but then he watched Henry rant and rave and a fear set in his heart.”
