Chapter 35

The morning after his wedding, Nhaimeth came down to the Great Hall feeling like a leaf in autumn that never touched the ground. Ach, he had heard men talk about sex but never paid them any heed, since he had naught to add to the conversation. What he had shared with Rowena wasnae up for discussion. All he kenned for certain was that he was glad they had waited for one another.

Rob was already at the board breaking his fast and looking pretty bleary-eyed when Nhaimeth took a seat next to him. Since he had never kenned Rob to drink over much, he said, “Ye look as if ye have had trouble sleeping last night, and hardly surprising considering the day La Mont put us all through.”

With a noncommittal shrug, his friend merely told him, “And the day’s not likely get any better once they bring La Mont up to the Hall for questioning.”

“It’ll be harder on Melinda,” he began.

Afore he could finish the sentence Rob burst out with, “What do ye mean by that?”

“Nae matter what we think of him, Henry La Mont is her father and, worse still, he’s Rowena’s father as well. How would ye like it if ye discovered that instead of being unaware ye existed, Euan had abandoned ye in the forest for the wolves to hide any trace ye had ever existed.”

Elbow on the board, Rob rested his head on his hand; the rocking movement didnae appear as if it was helping to clear his foggy brain. “Aye, sorry, Nhaimeth. I wasnae thinking, I have a lot on my mind, a lot to contemplate.”

Clearing his throat, Nhaimeth excused Rob’s lack of interest, “Aye, well, I have nae doubt of that. We both have after yesterday’s upheaval. Tell me, has it been decided whom he’ll have to answer to? For myself, I’d have thought the McArthur and Gavyn Farquhar, folk with the same standing as the Baron. There’s Ruthven, but as yet he’s most likely unaware of all that has gone afore—the relationship betwixt Rowena and Melinda for one—yet that is bound to come out during the questioning. As for Jamie, it seems highly unlikely that he told anyone about him and Brodwyn. Ruthven may have caught wind of their carry-on, but as for him telling Evie, I wouldn’t imagine him confessing to her that there was anyone afore they met who was more than one of his casual seductions.”

Rob appeared to take a moment to pull his thoughts back together and lose his surliness. “I would say ye have the right of it, my friend. I’ve never taken ye for a fool, not even when ye still wore bells on yer tunic and cap. We have come through a lot together since we were but young lads getting into mischief about the stables.”

“Ach, I was ne’er young,” Nhaimeth quipped.

“Aye, but ye were always wise, and now we’re both married, and to sisters nae less, it would be best if we kept some secrets to ourselves, especially about our wives. Ye ken how they can be, at least ye soon will, my guid friend.” Rob laughed and his demeanour changed in an instant.

Enough said, decided Nhaimeth, and brought their talk back to the commonplace, like the burgeoning spring weather and the latest reports on Donald Bane’s whereabouts. So far, King Donald’s followers had bided clear of Cragenlaw and Dun Bhuird, nae doubt intimidated by the size of the fortifications at both. They were still speaking along yon lines when St Clair joined them. Hard to believe someone so young—younger than they—was already a knight.

“I give ye both good morrow,” he began, then looked up quizzically as a portion of hot thick porridge was placed on the board afore him. The spoon was already sticking out of the staple breakfast, which showed it had been left cooking over night.

Nhaimeth couldn’t help but laugh at the young Norman’s face as he picked up the spoon. “It’s called porridge,” he told him, “A bowl of that every morning will put hair on yer chest and marrow in yer bones,” he said, jauntily quoting an auld fallacy.

“I’ll have to take yer word on that little man,” St Clair answered, but not unkindly, “and since my chest as yet is remarkably free of hair and I am hungry, I will risk it.”

Rob added his might to the jollity, “Nae to worry, St Clair, one day of breaking yer fast the Scot’s way willnae bring out the wolf in ye.”

St Clair merely smiled as if Rob’s play on words were because of both their connections to Wolfsdale. “And what if I’m of a mind to stay longer than one day?” he inquired.

Nhaimeth left Rob to deal with that question and doubted that even he would speak for his father. “I thought ye were one of La Mont’s men, and I imagine the Chieftains will give him short shift.”

“Not so, Nhaimeth. I’m my own man. La Mont invited me to Wolfsdale after Alnwick. Before that, I was intending to stay a while at Alnwick castle. I have valuable skills, as I’m sure do many Scots—though mayhap mine are worth a little more to the McArthur clan at this time with the state Scotland is in, what with King Donald’s unlawful claim for the throne.”

Nhaimeth said, “Ach, I can see how ye would think that. Scottish inheritance laws have been confusing for years with brothers instead of sons coming next in line. Gradually, it will change in line with the Normans. It’s the making of heirs that have been a bone of contention here and at Dun Bhuird. Kings will do what they want and until now the common folk have stood by and let that happen. However, Malcolm was a guid King, fair and revered by those in the south and east, but the Chieftains in the west and up north towards the isles have always been wilful and contentious.”

“Guid grief, Nhaimeth,” Rob jested, swivelling round on the bench they shared. “Ye might have said little over the years, but ye have just proved ye have been listening all the while.”

St Clair shrugged. “It does not sound so bad to me. Normandy and France have been at each other’s throats for years over territory.”

Rob snapped his fingers, “Vexin, aye my uncle Gavyn Farquhar fought there—on the French side.” He remembered with a slight dip of his chin as though in apology.

The young knight wasnae having any of it. “Hah,” he spat out, and happily for the others his mouth was free of porridge. “Name me a country that is free of conflict. I like the countryside here. It has a rough grandeur compared to England and Normandy,” he said, finishing with a chuckle that tangled up his last few words, “Heh, ye might, heh remember, heh-heh, I was here for yer wedding and, huh, found it all very much to my liking,” he finished, digging his spoon into his porridge. And with that they found another friend.

They were still talking when the McArthur and Morag’s brother Gavyn arrived, escorting La Mont. Now the serious business of the day would begin. Nhaimeth only hoped that Rowena arrived in time to hear what was said.

Melinda took the bairns into the special chamber set aside for the wee McArthur heirs and gladly gave them into Becky’s waiting arms. She hadn’t slept a wink since Rob walked out of their own chamber, leaving her feeling guiltier today than she had any day since she was born.

She slowly set off down the winding stairs to the Great Hall, her steps almost as unsteady as her thoughts. Why hadn’t she told him the truth about the seeds Morag had supplied her with. What reason had she for keeping silent?

The steps were worn, hollowed by years of being trodden by McArthur feet—history she felt through her slippers, history she had discovered she wanted to be part of and that her father was doing his best destroy. She wanted to rage at him, to pour the blame on all his lies for the confusion rampaging in her mind.

The last time she found herself able to put all the clamour and cruelty behind her had been when Rob took her in his arms. Now he said he would never hold or love her again. All her fault for keeping a secret that should have belonged to them both. Why hadn’t she trusted him?

She was certain that what he felt for her was love, but he had never said so—not since those heady first days together in Wolfsdale.

The softness in the looks he used to save just for her had disappeared from the instant she’d called him a bastard, and now she had an inkling why, after the speech he had made the night afore—a night that if he had his way would be their last together, the last time they made love.

There was so much she should have said to make it right, but now it was all too late.

When she touched the toe of her slipper to the flagstones of the Great Hall, Rob’s father was already seated in his grandly carved Chieftain’s chair, sitting in the centre of the high board. On either side of the McArthur Chieftain were seated Gavyn Farquhar, and, to her surprise, the head of the Ruthven clan—a more sober man than the Chieftain who had sat by her side one night at dinner and regaled her with stories of a younger Rob, Nhaimeth and Jamie—friends, almost brothers.

Her father stood before them, faced justice for his sins, but at least his judges were of equal stature, making sure he couldn’t complain he had been treated unfairly.

Melinda sealed a small internal burst of laughter behind her lips, for she was jesting. Of course her father would complain, arrogance was always his closest companion. She simply hoped they weren’t driven to execute him simply to keep him quiet.

Standing in the centre of the hall, waiting, she became aware of Rowena standing by her side, and it made her wonder what kind of justice her little sister would like to see done? Rowena more than most had every reason to wish their father dead. Reaching down, Melinda took her sister’s hand in hers and tugged her close to her side, closer to where their husbands stood behind her father. His clothes were creased, soiled. Over night, Henry La Mont’s appearance had lost the almost stately richness he liked to affect.

The McArthur spoke first, imperious as he looked at her father down his long nose, so like Rob’s, like their sons’ would be. “Henry La Mont, ye have come to Cragenlaw without invitation—high-handed after yer part in the death of our King. Ye penetrated the walls of my castle with yer men and wounded a defenceless woman, tried to kill her and a bairn—my grandson. What say ye to these charges?”

Melinda had expected her father to rant, but the tisane he had been given the day before was still having an effect. He stood there, sun shining through the high window onto him as if it knew something they didn’t. “The woman was mine, my possession to do with as I will, and as for my grandson Ralf, he is the younger twin, of nae great importance. It was Harry I came for, my heir,” he stated quite simply, standing feet astride, shoulders square, still proud.

In some ways she admired him for that stubborn streak, that self knowledge that said: I am Baron Wolfsdale. If only the Baron had been a better man.

Aye, she’d had experience of his cold-blooded cruelty, watched him walk away from the birthing chamber with her sons in his arms, leaving her there on the bed to bleed to death—or not—without looking back.

The man she felt most proud of was Rob. He had braved life and limb to rescue them. Her husband stood to one side of Henry La Mont, and on the other side St Clair, as if in a show of fair-mindedness.

“Allow me to disagree. These bairns are my son’s heirs, McArthur heirs both, and ye are mistaken if ye think otherwise.” The McArthur spoke quietly, yet all the more dangerously for the softness of his tone.

Gavyn Farquhar’s comment was more vehement, the scar running from his brow across his cheek adding to the fierceness of his statement. “Ye dinnae own Brodwyn Comlyn. She is cousin to my wife, cousin to my children, and cousin to Nhaimeth Comlyn, who married yer other daughter just yesterday. And her, Rowena, ye attempted to do away with when she was but a bairn.”

For a moment, Melinda could see her father had lost some of his composure. He lifted a hand as if about to protest when Ruthven decided to have his say, “Being that I am not related to any of the folk involved, I think ye can be certain I feel nae bias, but while ye were trying to kill Brodwyn and Ralf, ye were heard to confess to smothering Ester La Mont, yer wife, and afterwards taking yer bairn into the forest and leaving her at the mercy of wild beasts.”

Henry La Mont turned his head in Rowena’s direction, “Yet she did not die; she’s here in proof of that,” he said with a sneer Melinda remembered from the times she had disappointed him; but that too had started with her birth. A daughter had never been what he wanted, would never replace a son.

Hardly had the thought formed, when she heard her father begin his attempt to shift the blame for her mother’s death onto Rowena. “It was her fault, my wife took one look at the monster she had given birth to and began to scream, and she wouldn’t stop. I tried to stop her, she went on and on so I put my hands over her mouth, and suddenly she stopped.” He glared at Rowena, filled Melinda with the need to put an arm around her sister for her protection. “That child killed her.”

Euan McArthur shook his head in response, as if he couldn’t believe that a man would put the blame for his sins on a newborn bairn. He turned to Gavyn and nodded. And Rob’s uncle spoke again, “Doesn’t it seem strange that ye should kill or attempt to kill two women who were related. Both yer wife and Brodwyn are descended frae Thorfinn the Mighty, as is the Jarl of Caithness, Olaf Olafsen, a Norseman and another of my wife’s cousins. We care deeply for our families in Scotland. Our clan system is one of the reasons we have yet to be conquered, be it by Romans or Normans.”

Henry La Mont had nae retort.

“Have ye aught else to say in yer defence?” the McArthur asked, though even Melinda’s ears sensed a note of finality as, obviously, had her father, for he still didn’t speak up.

“Very well, since it appears that most of yer murderous attempts have been less than successful, and because yer bonnie daughter Melinda is married to my son, we’ll let ye live; but we banish ye frae ever entering Scotland again. If ye were listening carefully, ye would have realised that all the folk concerned in today’s hearing have family connections the width and breadth of Scotland. So should ye e’er cross the border again, I give ye fair warning, they will be well within their rights to kill ye.”

Almost before it had begun the trial was over, but at least her father didn’t have to pay for his freedom with hard-won wealth the way the way he had demanded for Rob’s. Glancing down at Rowena, Melinda told her, “I’m sorry for all ye had to endure, but I’m glad to have found a sister.” Then, turning on her heel, she walked away. Leaving the Great Hall, she climbed the winding stairs and closeted herself in the chamber where her sons played. She held them close, kissing the tops of their heads. Yesterday had begun so brightly with the excitement of the wedding, and today she had lost not only her father, but her husband as well.

Her father needed to pay for what he had done. Rob, on the other hand, was paying for her foolishness, and her with him. What was to be done?