‘Mistreated her? You gave her your wealth, home and the Glendenning name. You gave her the child she so wanted. What have you got to punish yourself for?’
‘I did not love her, and she was unhappy at Kransmuir.’
‘She didn’t love you either. Do you think she would have mourned your passing any more than you mourn hers?’
Jasper swallowed his guilt back down, else he retch it into the fire. ‘Do you not understand? I pity her end. Isobel never saw the bairn that she so longed for. ‘Tis a cruel fate.’
‘Fate is cruel, aye, but it acts for a reason. And you should never expect love from marriage, Jasper. That is a fool’s errand.’
‘Aye. You and Father taught me that lesson well.’
‘Isobel’s loss is unfortunate, Jasper, but come the morning, you will see things differently. We will bury Isobel with all honour, and then I will make enquiries as to a suitable replacement.’
‘Enquiries? Have you no grace. Isobel just died.’
She sighed. ‘There is advantage here, if only you would see it – the chance of another alliance to bolster your fortune and holdings.’
Jasper could not look at his mother. Whatever had happened in her youth had shrivelled her heart and blackened her soul. Was he as bad? He turned to her. ‘The bairn?’
‘A wet nurse has been summoned from the village. It remains to be seen whether the bairn will thrive. ‘Tis a shame it is not a boy. A man needs a male heir, not a useless lass. We’ve already enough of those at Kransmuir with your two sisters getting older and only one with a whiff of a match. Now go and find your chamber and your bed as you are exhausted, my son. I ordered a big fire to be lit to chase away the chill.’
As she left the hall, his mother turned around. ‘And Jasper, do not be a hypocrite and pretend to grieve a woman you did not like much, let alone love. Have I not always told you - guilt is for peasants and priests, not for lairds?’
Jasper stepped closer to the fire, but nothing would chase away the chill of his mother’s words. The wind howled down the chimney. Was it Isobel’s ghost railing at him for his callousness?
A scuttling sound came from the shadows in the corner of the hall, raising the hair on the back of his neck. Jasper froze as a figure rose from the shadows and shuffled into the light.
‘Why are you eavesdropping in the dark? Speak before I gut you, woman.’
The seer, Creidne, cowered as she approached. A worm of revulsion uncoiled in Jasper’s belly, for she was skeleton-thin – nought but a bag of bones held together by leathery old flesh. But the bent old woman saw things others did not.
‘I grieve with you, Laird,’ she whispered in a death rattle.
‘Did you lie to me, old crone, and tell me what I wanted to hear?’
‘No. I never lie. I see only what is put before me.’
‘Aye, and you said you had a vision of me holding a son in my arms, with a wife by my side.’
‘I did, clear as day.’
‘Yet my wife is dead, and I have nought but a daughter.’
‘But your child lives. That is a boon, at least.’
‘Not much of one if I have no wife. Isobel suffered.’
‘I know. I heard her screams,’ spat the old woman.
‘Do not speak to me of that,’ he bellowed as all his rage spilt out.
The woman cowered and held her hands before her in supplication, and Jasper’s anger faded to shame.
‘Tell me this,’ he said, his words choking him as he hardly dared ask, ‘what do you see for my future?’
The seer grabbed his hand and stroked it as a child would stroke a doll. Jasper tried to withdraw his hand, but for a frail old woman, Criedne was strong, and she clung on. Her eyelids fluttered. ‘Something comes to me.’
‘What is it? What do you see?’
