The crone sat beside a small fire, its smoke curling up through a natural chimney in the rock. She looked impossibly old, skin like weathered leather, eyes clouded with age. Yet those eyes saw everything. Her body was tiny, frail, swallowed up by the voluminous blanket she’d wrapped around her.
“Hamish Macquarie.” Her voice quavered slightly, even as her thin lips twisted into a goading smile. “I wondered when ye’d come back.”
“Is yer advice the same?” He didn’t bother with pleasantries. It vexed him that he had to visit this woman, that heneededher counsel. But that didn’t mean he had to be polite to her.
“Aye.” She stirred something in a clay pot that sat at the fire’s edge. The smell was pungent, rank. It made his bile rise. “The past ye buried still breathes. The seed ye planted still grows.”
His hands bunched into fists at his sides. “Not this again, witch.”
“I told ye last time. A sin from yer past will come back to haunt ye.” She looked up at him then, those opaque eyes somehow piercing. “A fruit from yer loins lives amongst the Macleans of Mull.” Her smile widened. “A woman who will ruin yer ambitions.”
The cave seemed to press in around him. “But that’s impossible,” he wheezed. “I sent men out looking for her. The bairn died. We found the midwife. She swore it.”
“Did she?” The crone shrugged her frail shoulders. “Or did she take pity on a mewling infant? Did she perhaps spirit the child away, claim it died, and give it to someone else to raise?”
Hamish’s heart hammered against his ribs. The bitch was taunting him. If he hadn’t feared she’d curse him, he’d have struck her across the face for her impertinence.
Yet, the crone’s words were a reminder of the past. Thirty-two years ago. The raid on Lochbuie. The woman he’d forced in the chaos. She’d been comely, and he’d wanted her—and so he’d taken her.
He’d thought nothing of it afterward. Such things happened in raids.
But then, recently, the dreams had begun. They were always the same. He was always tumbling into a dark chasm. The crone told him that he had an illegitimate daughter living amongst the Macleans of Moy who’d be his downfall, and so he’d sent his men out to ask a few questions. They’d discovered the identity of the woman he’d raped, and learned that she’d died in childbirth, taking her bairn with her.
And he’d believed the tale. Why wouldn’t he?
Archie had been adamant upon his return from Lochbuie. Both mother and bairn had perished.
“Where is she?” His voice came out rough. His anger was rising like a kelpie from the depths.
“Close.” The crone stirred her pot. “Living quietly. Keeping to herself. But not for much longer. The threads are tightening, Hamish Macquarie. Soon they’ll draw together, and when they do, yer carefully laid plans will unravel.”
Shite.His pulse started to hammer in his ears. He had to find that midwife—and beat the truth out of her, if necessary.
“I’ve worked too hard.” He stepped closer to the fire, fists still clenched. “This alliance with the Macleans will finally give my clan the recognition we deserve. The status. The power. I won’t let some bastard daughter destroy what I’ve built.”
“Then find her.” The crone’s voice was implacable. “And do what must be done before she ruins everything.”
“Where?”he demanded, taking a threatening step toward her. He loomed over the old woman now, yet she didn’t appear the least bit intimidated. “Give me a name, hag! A place!”
“I can’t. But ye already know that Lochbuie is where ye should be searching.Seek the woman with black hair and blue eyes who carries yer blood, whether she knows it or not.” The crone held his gaze fast. “But be quick, Hamish Macquarie. Time grows short.”
8: SEARCHING FOR THE MIDWIFE
Moy Castle
The Isle of Mull
“THAT’S MY BOAT, and ye know it!” The fisherman jabbed a gnarled finger at the man standing opposite. “Ye stole her from where I moored her at Craignure!”
“I did no such thing!” His rival shot back, his already florid face flushing deep red. “I found her adrift. She’d broken loose from her moorings. If ye’d tied her properly, she’d still be yers!”
“Thief!”
Craeg listened from where he sat in the laird’s chair—hischair now—at the head of Moy’s hall, his jaw clenched so tight his teeth ached. The two fishermen’s argument was escalating. Dougal and Tavish’s voices echoed off the stone walls, grating on his nerves. Behind them, a handful of witnesses shifted uncomfortably, clearly wishing they were anywhere else.
He wished he were too.
Actually, what he wanted to do was bash the skulls of these two clodheads together. Hopefully, it would knock some sense into them.
