“Mairi?” She pushed back a fur hanging and there was her stepmother, sitting up on a straw mattress. Her eyes were rimmed with red, her face pale. Kaetha knelt beside her and took her hand.
“Are you alright?” Mairi asked.
“Me? I came to see how you are.”
Mairi stared at the floor. “Your aunt told you?”
She nodded. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.” She knew she still had no idea, not really. She could only imagine what Mairi must be going through right now. “If I hadn’t led you on this journey in the first place—”
“That was my choice, not yours. Besides, this would have happened anyway.”
Kaetha wondered whether or not that was true. “I . . . You will tell me if there’s anything I can do, won’t you?”
“There is something,” Mairi whispered.
“What? What do you need?”
A shadow passed over Mairi’s face and she cupped Kaetha’s cheek with her hand. “Don’t go off to rescue your father. Stay where you’re safe. I couldn’t bear to lose you.”
She understood. Mairi wanted to protect her. She needed to. But she knew she was not willing to abandon her father, not whilst she still had a grain of hope. She’d promised. But she couldn’t cause Mairi more anxiety after all she’d been through – and was still going through. She didn’t want to lie but her words formed almost involuntarily. “You won’t lose me, Mairi. I won’t go.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
THIRTY THREE
Oathbreaker
Kaetha ducked, edging along the low wall that bordered the vegetable gardens. She had left Mairi to rest and wanted to take advantage of having a snatch of time to herself whilst Donnan and Gwyn were hunting. Beathag and Maura were chatting as they worked, their familiar voices taking Kaetha back to the time when she talked with them every day. She longed to jump over the wall and hug them but knew she could not. She couldn’t afford to draw attention to herself or lead them to suspect that Gwyn still lived nearby. Though she smiled to herself, considering that they probably guessed at that anyway.
Through a crack in the wall, she glimpsed the younger maids working in the poultry yard. Creeping along to the stables, she heard Stroud lecturing the stable boys. She couldn’t see the laird’s white horse. He must be out and the hall should be empty. She scanned the area, took a deep breath, then made a dash for the front door. Opening it a crack, she peered inside, then slipped in.
The familiar smells of woodsmoke, fruit, beeswax candles and rosemary made her smile. On the far wall was the old tapestry map she’d studied as a child, its threads shining in a beam of dusty sunlight. The smoke smudges on the walls, the criss-crossings of beams and rafters, the oddly sized windows, she knew all these shapes and lines as though they were old friends. But the place had a strangeness about it. There were new, dark furs and no painted screens. Less familiar fragrances drifted towards her. The tang of strong cheeses and the rich, berry and oak aroma of Angaulish red wine. She lifted a horn cup from the table. The base and handle were solid silver, as was a spoon which rested by a bowl of raspberries. Silver would work, she thought. Then her eye was caught by a strange tapestry on the wall behind the long table. It took her a minute to work out what it depicted. One of the stones tingled on her arm, though she did not know why.
“Do you like it?”
She jumped. A large man stood behind her. His face was framed with wavy hair and his beard was neatly trimmed. The eyes that studied her face looked intelligent but not unkind. His tunic was of the finest wool, dyed a rich green, and his cloak was fastened with a finely wrought gold clasp.
“Laird MacWallace,” she said with a bow.
“And you are?” A smile pulled at one side of his mouth.
Gwyn trusted him. Was that enough for her to do so too? Tam would say she shouldn’t be so trusting. She felt the awkwardness of her hesitation but, at that moment, his thoughts whispered into her mind and she knew that he’d just been talking with someone from the village, assuring them that he’d had no poachers in the woods behind the hall. He’d been protecting Gwyn, she realised.
“I’m Kaetha.” She couldn’t mistake the look of recognition in his face. “Perhaps you’ve heard my name from – a mutual friend of ours.”
He rested his hands on her shoulders and smiled, then, seeming to think he’d been too familiar, put his hands behind his back. “Indeed I have,” he said, rocking back and forth on his heels. “You returned. I apologise that things are . . . not as you expected.”
“That doesn’t matter,” she said.
A short laugh betrayed his awkwardness. “I often feel like little more than a trespasser.”
She turned to the tapestry.
“So you do like it?” he said.
“Aye. It’s a picture of the Citadel of Ciadrath, isn’t it?”
“That it is.” He stood beside her. “It was completed only last month.”
Kaetha studied the depictions of the many defences, the great walls with their gatehouses, the positions of the barracks, outbuildings, the hall and the king’s tower.
“It reminds me of my roots,” said MacWallace.
“How so?”
“Well, my ancestors helped build it, you know. Hundreds of years ago. The family were all builders and stone masons then. I often wonder what they’d think if they could see a descendant of theirs dining in the great hall they toiled, ached and sweated to create.” While he talked, his gaze fixed on the tapestry, her fingertips
