The knights limped away, not looking back.
“Is she all right?” Eddard asked William. “The baby okay?”
Brenda was sitting on the stump outside the house, hands cradling her huge bump. Her eyes were closed.
“She’ll be right enough,” William said. “I thank thee, Eddard. I dinnae ken what I would have done without you here.”
“You’d be strung up at the castle,” Brenda said, her eyes opening. “And I’d be a widow. Help me inside.”
Eddard watched them go. Once the door was closed, he picked up the two swords and examined them. Poor quality work. He bent one of the blades with no effort. The second had an impurity in the metal. One solid blow and it would shatter. The money was clearly running out over at the castle. Either that or Ronald wasn’t bothering to check the work of his blacksmiths. Neither were good signs.
If only the Laird and Lady would emerge from their own exile, the exile so much worse than his own.
He had been banished to Kirren Island more than a decade earlier for killing the steward’s brother.
He hadn’t even wanted to fight. Alexander had badgered him again and again but he would never fight someone so weak. Then Alexander had gotten his attention by beating Eddard’s sister. She never recovered.
He had to fight then but he didn’t intend to kill Alexander. He only had to close his eyes to remember it like it was yesterday. Flicking the sword out of his opponent’s hand and then catching it, nicking him on the cheek with the tip to prove he could have killed him.
Alexander falling to the ground, foaming at the mouth seconds later. The word poison spreading across the crowd.
The trial was perfunctory. Ronald, steward to the Laird and Lady, saw one chance to get rid of Eddard and took it. If he’d thought he could get away with executing him, he would have done. Ronald dared not risk it. The people would have revolted at the idea, Eddard was the most popular lad in the castle. Nonetheless, he was found guilty of poisoning the steward’s brother, exiled to Kirren Island, there to remain for the rest of his life.
What was that exile though compared to that of Cam and Rachel? He knew what happened to his sister, killed at the hand of Alexander. He could only guess at their pain, their daughter missing, never seen again. Alive or dead? No one knew. Their torture would last a lifetime and perhaps into the eternity beyond.
Their pain could be the only reason why they’d listened to the steward. He told them their only remaining child would be safe at the abbey. Why would any couple in their right mind let their son out of their sight after what happens to their daughter? Something about this didn’t add up.
He shrugged. He’d probably never understand.
All he wanted was to get back to the castle where he belonged. He spent years trying to think of a way to achieve that, a way to get the steward thrown out, get things back to the way they should be, stop the clan self-destructing under Ronald’s cruel grip.
The only way he could think of was to find little Morag, though if she were still alive she wouldn’t be so little anymore. She’d be in her early thirties. How would they even know she was their daughter?
What he needed was someone he could use to convince them Morag had returned. Who it was didn’t matter. What mattered was getting the Laird and Lady to come out of their chambers and govern the clan once more, throw out Ronald before he ruined them all.
A small figure came running across the green toward him. “Eddard,” the boy said. “Come, quickly.”
“What now?” Eddard asked, wondering if he’d get a moment to breathe.
“A ghost. At the old abbey.”
“A ghost? Someone’s playing a trick on you, little Thomas.”
“They’re not. I saw it myself, just now.”
“Right, hold on. Tell me this tale from the beginning.”
“I was getting some stone to help father with the back wall. The best stone’s in the cloister, you ken?”
“I dinnae need to ken about the stone, Thomas. Tell me about this ghost.”
“Well, I looked up and there was nothing there, then I heard a door opening and then there was a woman up there. I saw her through the window of the church. She came out of nowhere.”
“But what makes you say she’s a ghost?”
“Because she’s up where there’s no stairs. There’s no way up or down to that window. She has to be a ghost. See for yourself.”
He grabbed Eddard’s hand, pulling him to the edge of the village, pointing all the while at the abbey. “Look, over there, do you see her?”
