Chapter Two

Tessa kept her eyes forward as they walked along the dark, winding path through the village. Raucous singing ebbed and flowed from the meadow off to the right, where two bonfires were lit for Samhain. The Scottish accents sounded harsh to her ears, so different from the flow of French, the sound of her true home.

Even after a year of living with the wild wind and sea around her, she didn't belong.

She never would.

The slicing edge of the coming winter cut along her cheeks with the wind, and she clutched her shawl closed. Tessa's heart thrummed in her chest, a cadence to the music and singing and the light fall of her thin boots on the crushed shells and pebbles making up the road.

The young woman who'd introduced herself as Meg Maclean talked continuously between sucking in gulps of air. The tethered panic in her voice made Tessa's feet move faster until she felt almost like she was floating. Grissell said it was one of her better qualities, how silently she could move. There was safety in being silent.

"Her waters came this morn, and…the bairn is not…breaching," Meg said. "Cecilia is strong, but she's growing tired." Meg broke into a jog to keep up. "Aunt Grace thought Grissell would come."

"I have all her knowledge," Tessa said, her voice even. And some of my own. She was no longer an apprentice, not after helping her mother for twenty years before she died.

The man who'd rowed them across kept up easily on her other side, remaining slightly ahead to lead the way. Light-colored hair hung to his even cheekbones, sometimes covering his eyes. His beard was trimmed and neat, and his clothes draped him in the Highland style. Was Cecilia his wife? He was like a dutiful sentry, watching for anything that would slow their hastening. He was tall and broad across the back and shoulders. How he'd rowed proved no padding was needed to fill out his jacket. He was a warrior, not a courtier.

He'd looked at her with intensity on the boat, and she'd met his gaze. Tessa wasn't one to look away first when being pierced by sharp eyes. Her mother had said she reminded her of her father when she stared so intently.

"If you're the father, you may be of use inside the cottage," Tessa said.

"I'm no relation to Cecilia Maclean."

"You aren't a Maclean?" she asked. Candlelight from a few windows splashed dim light onto the dark path.

"I'm Eagan Macquarie, and I happened to be available to row Meg across."

Her heart quavered. A Macquarie. Eagan Macquarie. Grissell had kept her hidden from the Macquaries for the last year, teaching her in secret about her cures and meditations and how to run the orphanage and women's home. 'Twas as if she was protecting Tessa from them, but Eagan Macquarie didn't look like a monster. Grissell had seen him at the rowboat but had beckoned Tessa forward anyway. Was the birthing woman and her babe worth letting the Macquaries know Tessa was on their isle?

Meg ran ahead, rapping on a door before throwing it open. The loud keening of a woman in labor cracked out into the night. Tessa glanced at Eagan before entering. "Relation or not, I may need you to lift her, so don't go anywhere."

"Lift her? Where?" His eyes grew large as if she expected him to carry the woman all the way to Paris. Mon Dieu.

"Up toward the rafters," Tessa said.

"I don't th—"

"If I had your strength, I wouldn't ask. Stay here."

Tessa ducked around the door into the dimly lit room. The birthing scene was organized. The windows across the cottage were open just enough to allow air to move, but the hearth kept the temperature warm. Two middle-aged women stood on either side of the dark-haired woman on the bed. Sweat and tears wet her pinched face.

"Grissell sent Tessa," Meg said, gesturing toward her. "Tessa Ainsworth, who has been learning from Grissell over the last year."

"Good that old crone didn't come." The mother-to-be spat. "I don't want a witch touching my bairn."

Tessa's brows rose. Witch? Anger rose in her, but she pushed aside her want to defend her benefactress. The babe needed a calm world, and she wouldn't add to the angst swelling in the room.

A handsome older woman with a large bosom smiled at her, tilting her head, which held a bun of twisted braids. "A year. And we haven't met?"

"Perhaps witches are keeping my bairn from coming into the world," the straining woman said, her face flushed and splotchy.

"Hush now," soothed the woman with a long braid. "There are no witches about. Tessa has come to help." The woman looked at Tessa. "I'm Ava Maclean, lady of Aros Castle. This is my sister, Grace Mackinnon." Ava nodded to Meg. "You've met my daughter, Meg."

Grace walked closer to Tessa, lowering her voice. "Grissell sensed this birth would be difficult and said she would help."

Tessa met Grace's sharp stare. "She is helping by sending me. I know everything she knows, and I apprenticed for twenty years with a midwife in France." Even though her words were firm, Tessa's stomach tightened. She'd helped her mother and she'd seen much, but childbirth was dangerous. Both mother and bébé could die even with the best care.

"Twenty years?" Grace asked. "You barely look twenty."

"I began with my mother when I was five. I am eight and twenty now."

Grace blinked and then turned toward Cecilia, her skirts flaring with the force. "Mistress Tessa is a renowned midwife, Cecilia," she called over the woman's groan. "She'll bring your bairn into the world and keep you in it."

Lord, please let it be true.

Tessa walked up to the straining lady, removing her shawl. "I will check your progress and devise a plan to help you labor easier."

The woman didn't answer, which indicated she was weakened. Tessa wanted to help her rest as much as she could between pains. She set her satchel near a table and pulled out her supplies, laying them out in an orderly fashion. Tansy root decoction, two knives, string, three clean cloths, a tray, and the Eagle's Stone Grissell had given her. It was a hard nut that rattled when one shook it, but it was known by midwives to ease the pain of childbirth, especially if the woman laboring believed in it. Same with a knife placed under the bed.

Tessa took one knife and the Eagle's Stone to the side of the bed. She held up the knife. "This goes under the bed to cut the pain." She slid it under the bed, hearing it coming to rest on the wooden floorboards. "And here is the Eagle's Stone from Afrika that Grissell is letting you borrow." She slid it over Cecilia's head and lowered it to rest on her chest. "It protects the babe and the mother from death."

"I've heard of this," Grace said, fingering the stone. "It rattles." She shook it gently and looked at Cecilia. "Hear it? 'Tis a real Eagle's Stone."

"I'll check your progress," Tessa said but waited until Cecilia nodded. Tessa slid back the bottom sheet, which was wet with urine and birthing fluids. "We need to change these linens."

Grace hurried to find more in the corner. Tessa looked under for a long moment and came up, keeping her face serene despite the worry coursing through her. The woman's body wasn't opening enough to allow passage.

"Rest," she said, smiling at Cecilia before turning to Ava. "We need a warm bath in here. I want her in it. We must relax the body so it will open farther. Plus, my herbs."

Ava didn't question her but strode to the door, throwing it open as if to charge out. Tessa saw Eagan standing there. "Oh," Ava said. "Good. We need a bath brought here immediately and buckets of water from the caldrons up at Aros. There is a large bathing tub there, too."

Eagan's gaze slid into the room, and Tessa felt it connect with hers. Then he turned and jogged off into the darkness.

Tessa brought Cecilia the tansy root decoction. "Two spoonsful to strengthen you and your babe, Cecilia." The tired woman took it down without hesitation. Good. She had hope. 'Twas the most important contribution to a successful birth.

"We will have a warm bath for you to soak in." Tessa spoke evenly when Cecilia shook her head. "Warm water will keep you and the babe clean of this foulness. My herbs will soothe it and help your body open."

"It will drown," she said.

"No, the babe gets its air from you until I cut the cord that binds you together."

"You've seen this done?" Grace asked. "A birth in water?"

Tessa nodded. "I assisted my mother three times this way." She looked back at Cecilia. "But 'tis up to the mother, of course."

"Bloody foking hell," Cecilia cursed. "I don't know what to do."

Tessa took her hand, which was balled tightly. She stroked the fingers open one by one. "Then trust me." She looked into Cecilia's eyes. The young woman was terrified. Soothe her . Tessa could almost hear her mother's whisper. "Trust me." And then Tessa began to sing.

Her voice flowed out from her middle as if she'd opened an aqueduct, the higher-pitched notes rising and falling with the words of her mother's favorite lullaby about a bird learning to fly. Tessa sang in French, but it wasn't the words that soothed. It was the melody. She closed her eyes, releasing the emotions of worry, hope, and then triumph as the bird joined its mother in a tall oak tree.

"Little bird, little bird, do not fear the ground. Look upon the sky above and soar toward Heaven…"

When Tessa sang, she imagined the sound ribboning out of her to swirl about those nearby. She inhaled, taking the air from her lungs and turning it into beauty, like a mosaic or tapestry of colors. Orderly but beautifully woven.

When the song finished, Tessa opened her eyes to find everyone in the room staring at her. The exhausted woman's face had warmed with color, and she breathed easier.

Meg sat holding Cecilia's hand but stared at Tessa as if in a trance. Ava spoke first. "That was…" She shook her head. "The most beautiful song I've ever heard. A bird struggling to fly."

Tessa looked at her. "You know French?"

"Oui," Ava said and took a breath. "You are most talented, Mistress Tessa."

"'Twas a song my mother taught me." Tessa nodded to Cecilia. "It calms."

A breeze blew around them, and Tessa looked at the door, which was open. Eagan Macquarie stood there with a large wooden tub sitting on its end. He cleared his throat. "I brought the tub." Had he heard her sing or was he just shocked to be this close to a birthing woman?

Grace draped Cecilia with a clean sheet, and Eagan brought the tub in. Several other men followed. "Two steaming buckets," a brawny man with graying hair said. "And two boiled and cooled earlier."

"Good, the water is clean," Tessa said, nodding and pointing to a spot near the hearth to set the tub.

The man poured his bucket in the tub and walked to Grace, tipping her chin to bring her eyes up to his. "Usually 'tis I who makes ye dumbfounded by my kisses." He leaned in and kissed her mouth.

When he backed up, Grace's cheeks were stained red. "Her song," Grace said. "'Twas mesmerizing."

As the men filed out, they glanced at Tessa, mild suspicion in their eyes. "I'll stay outside in case ye need me," Eagan said and closed the door behind him.

The men walked off, along with Keir and Tor, toward the bonfires. Eagan knew he could call on them if more help was needed.

"Who is she?"

Eagan turned to the shadows next to the house where he spotted a short, stout man he didn't know. Father Timothy, the traveling priest, stood with him. Were they hiding there?

"A midwife," Eagan said, his instincts making his blood rush. "From Wolf Isle."

The man wore a cape over a tunic and breeches tucked into tall black boots. His tall rectangular hat sat over hair that fell to his shoulders. He carried a staff.

"Her singing mesmerized everyone who walked within hearing," the man said, using his upright staff to indicate a wide circle before the cottage.

Eagan glanced at the silent priest and then back at the man. "Who are ye, and what's yer business here on Mull?"

A cold smile spread over the man's clean-shaven face, giving him a devilish look in the flicker of Father Timothy's lantern. "I am Walter Gleeb, and my business is witches."

Instant dislike licked up inside Eagan. He'd heard how people on the mainland and all throughout Europe were being judged and executed as witches without proof except for their confessions under torture.

"There are no witches on Mull or Wolf Isle, Master Gleeb," Eagan said and nodded to the priest. "As I'm certain Father Timothy has told ye."

"'Tis a fearful business," the young priest said, crossing himself. "The church has asked us to hunt out any heretics worshipping Lucifer and"—he looked at Eagan with widening eyes—"and who cast curses on good Christian peoples."

"Good Christian peoples?" Eagan asked, letting his disregard float on his words. "How about terrible Christian peoples?" He spoke of his ancestor Wilyam Macquarie who brought the curse onto his clan a century ago.

Gleeb frowned, the harsh lines of his face more cutting in the flickering light. "'Tis not humorous, lad."

The term ‘lad' made Eagan's hands ball into fists. As the youngest Macquarie, he'd fought all his life to be seen as older. Now that he was twenty-six and the tallest of his brothers, the term didn't fit him.

"There are witches all over Scotland," Gleeb continued. "And I'm paid by the crown to find and punish them."

"I've seen no evidence of witchcraft, Master Gleeb," Father Timothy said, which was probably true. He'd rarely come to Wolf Isle, and as far as Eagan knew, he'd never actually seen Grissell, who looked very much like the proverbial witch with her long white hair and gnarled features.

Gleeb nodded at the cottage, where the faint melody of another song began. "Open your eyes, Father. Witches are walking amongst you. They're especially active tonight when the veil between the living and dead is thin."

"Samhain is a night to honor our dead," Eagan said. "There's nothing evil about it."

"True, true," Father Timothy said, nodding his head rapidly. "'Tis All Saints Day on the morrow. We celebrate the saints." Pope Gregory renamed the pagan day in the ninth century, making it Christian.

Gleeb pointed at the bonfire on the hill, around which people clasped hands and danced in a circle. They laughed, and several people were passing along bottles of spirits. "I don't think your flock is praying to saints, Father."

Inside the cottage, the singing had stopped. The stilted cries of a newborn bairn trickled out to announce a new life into the world.

And what a dangerous world it had come into.

…

Tessa worked with Cecilia in the warm tub, helping her purge the afterbirth into the now murky water. The bath had worked wonderfully to calm the mother, helping her body to open and pulse the baby down the channel into the warm embrace of water. Water births helped clean the newborn, providing a calm, warm environment not unlike the womb.

"We'll get you out soon," Tessa said. "And give you a bath in clean water." There were still two buckets left and one was being reheated over the hearth flames.

Cecilia nodded, but her head lulled back with her exhaustion. "Sing to me again," she whispered. "'Tis calming."

Tessa was tired, too, but not as tired as this woman. She began a lullaby she used to sing to the young Prince Francis II of France, although his father, King Henri, paid her to continue even after his son had fallen asleep each night. The memories tightened her stomach, but the fluid sound of her voice slid through her, untangling the knots wrought by memories of her past.

The babe was surrounded by experienced midwives, so Tessa kept her attention on Cecilia.

"And the nightingale sings to the princess and prince, floating them off to the lake of dreams…" she sang in French.

Meg and Ava came over. "We will help her out if you think 'tis time."

The evidence of the placenta was in the tub, so she nodded. "Then we will change the water and let her bathe again."

"Lady Grace wishes you to see the bairn," Meg whispered near her ear. Tessa frowned, glancing toward the woman as she examined the newborn.

"I want to hold Lydia," Cecilia said.

"Soon," Ava answered, gathering dry linens that were warming by the fire.

Tessa turned to Grace, who held Lydia near the hearth. "Is there an issue?" Tessa whispered.

Grace slid the blanket down to expose the child's left arm, where a one-inch irregular circle of bright red sat. Tessa had seen small bright red birthmarks, but this one was large and raised. She rubbed her thumb over it. "I've seen these before. So has Grissell. She says they fade away."

Grace lifted the babe up to lie across her ample bosom and slid the blanket down. "There's a second mark here."

Tessa touched it. "It doesn't seem to pain her."

Ava came over. "I worry about Cecilia's reaction." She glanced over to the bed where Cecilia was covered in linen, while Meg lifted buckets of water out of the tub, tossing it out the window.

"They'll fade," Tessa said with a confident nod.

"I have ointments that will help," Ava said, sighing. "With varying success."

Ava took the babe from Grace and carried her over to Cecilia, who waited for clean water to be added to the now empty tub. Meg had done all the heavy lifting and stood panting, wiping an arm over her damp forehead.

"Here is Lydia," Ava said, smiling, and laid the babe in Cecilia's open arms.

"She's beautiful." Tears sprang to Cecilia's dark eyes.

Tessa's mother had told her to watch new mothers meet their babes.

'Tis when the mother's heart, which was selfishly inside her all her life, is born into another. It now lives outside her in that little person she will do anything to protect .

"She has a special mark," Ava said. "Two actually. They will fade as she gets—"

"A mark?" Cecilia's eyes widened. "What type of mark?" She began to pull the babe's swaddling loose, and Ava reached to help her pull the arm from the blanket. Cecilia gasped as she saw the bright red circle raised on Lydia's arm.

"I didn't do anything wrong." Cecilia shook her head. It was believed that mothers could inadvertently harm their growing babe by doing random acts of living like seeing a hare, or having intercourse, or even burning their tongues on soup. Tessa thought it was all flim-flam.

Cecilia's wide gaze snapped to Tessa. "You did something," she whispered. "You made me get in the tub, and my bairn has a burn on her."

"'Tis a birthmark that will fade," Tessa assured her. "I've seen both marks before, and they disappeared before the child was grown."

Cecilia shook her head as if not taking in anything Tessa said. "Stay away from me and my Lydia," Cecilia yelled. "Your singing and your touch. You cursed her!"

A wise person knew when to leave, and Tessa had learned to be wise. As Cecilia began to cry, Tessa gathered her herbs and instruments. She fished among the pillows under Cecilia's head to find the Eagle's Stone.

"Stay away from me!" Cecilia yelled, but Tessa wasn't about to leave Grissell's stone.

Her fingers closed around it, and she spun away from the crying woman to grab up her satchel. "Your babe will be hale and hearty," Tessa said. Let the other ladies take care of Cecilia now. Tessa flung open the door, rushing out.

She stopped short, hand flattening against her heart. Eagan Macquarie stood taller than the two other men, one of them a priest and the other with a tall hat and a thin staff. A whirl of dizziness swamped Tessa, and she staggered.

Eagan's hands shot out to support her shoulders. "Tessa?"

"The babe is healthy. A girl." She looked to the priest. "There's no immediate need for christening, Father. She seems hearty."

Eagan guided her to lean onto his outstretched arm. Muscles lay over bone under his tunic, feeling unbreakable no matter her weight. "I will take ye up to Aros to rest," he said. Exhaustion and the warmth of him stopped her from pulling away even though he was a Macquarie.

"Mistress Ainsworth," the tall-hatted man said. Something in his smile sent another shiver through her. Eagan drew her closer as if trying to clothe her in his heat.

"I am Master Gleeb, and I will speak with ye in the morn."

It wasn't a request. It was an order.