by Aileen Adams
Beitris frowned and leaned her head closer to that of her companion. “What’s wrong?”
Before Elspeth could answer, heavy footsteps trod the aisle between the pews. She heard the gasps, the nervous clearing of throats, the whimpers of children.
“What’s the matter with the children?” she whispered to her friend.
“They’re hiding.”
“From whom?”
“From Alasdair.”
“But why?”
“His face…”
What was the matter with his face? What was the trouble? As whispers of startled dismay rushed over the small gathering, the heavy, booted footsteps paused by the bench upon which she sat. She turned toward the sound while Elspeth’s hand tightened its grip on her forearm. All she could see was a vague shadow of a figure, blocking what little grayish light made its way into the church from the open doorway and the three windows, left open in warmer weather.
“Beitris.”
The deep, gruff voice prompted a chill to run down her spine. She swallowed thickly as the blood drained from her face. She felt it as a cold sensation took root in her body. She didn’t have to be told to whom the voice belonged. She hoped her face did not display untoward emotion. “Alasdair Macintyre.”
“Aye.”
Surely, he knew about the betrothal by now. Was that displeasure she heard in his tone? Anger? What if he…
Nay, his father lay in the box only a short distance away. Now was not the time for him to bring up anything about a marriage, willing or not. It was his time to grieve for his father. “I’m sorry for yer loss, Alasdair.” She meant it.
“Thank ye. After the burial, we will talk.”
She nodded, her heart beating faster now, uncertainty and more than a little frustration and despair prompting the accelerated pulse. Why had her father done this to her? Alasdair dinna want her. No man wanted her. How was she supposed to—
“I will come to yer father’s house later this afternoon.”
She opened her mouth, but no words came out. She closed it and offered a small nod. His footsteps continued up the aisle. She heard the rustle of cloth, and through the wavering gloominess of her eyes, Alasdair’s shadow shortened. What was he doing? Then she realized that he had knelt in front of his father’s coffin. Then, to her dismay, he stood and returned down the aisle, his boots resonating loudly in the now silent sanctuary as he retreated from the church. She frowned.
“Where’s he going?” she asked Elspeth.
“He’s left,” Elspeth whispered, a tinge of excitement in her voice. “The preacher is staring after him, mouth dropped open. Everyone is surprised, the littlest children peeking out from behind their parents. He’s… he’s not staying for the funeral service!”
As if to emphasize Elspeth’s comment, Beitris heard the sound of a horse’s hooves pounding away—away from the church, away from the village. Away from everything.
6
“Ye will be nice to him, do ye understand?”
Beitris sat in her chair in the main room of their home, listening to her father pace nervously, awaiting Alasdair’s arrival. She wasn’t happy that he spoke to her as if she were a child, and an ill-behaved child at that. She’d done nothing to deserve this lecture.
“We’re fortunate that this arrangement has been successful—”
Maybe he was fortunate, so anxious to get rid of her, but did he care one bit how she felt? Obviously not. She knew that her father had tried a couple of times to marry her off, without success. He wasn’t about to let this arrangement—
“I’m not getting any younger. Look at Sean. Two weeks ago, still healthy enough to get out there and work his fields, get them ready for planting, and the next lying in bed, choking on fluid in his lungs. Did ye ever think of that? That I won’t be around forever? Who’s going to take care of ye when I die?”
Beitris said nothing. This wasn’t about her father’s concern for her after he died. At least she dinna believe so. Her father was nearly a decade younger than Sean’s father and in good health. “Papa, yer not going to die,” she said, her tone a bit on the impatient side.
“I will, someday, and then what are ye going to do?”
“Papa, I can take care of myself. I do most of the housework, and the gardening, and—”
His pacing ceased, and she felt his gaze on her.
“And can ye hunt yer own food? Can ye skin the animals, prepare and cure the meat? Who’s going to fix the roof when the thatch needs replacing, or the walls need patching?”
“I’ll get by,” she said quietly, although his pointed questions did elicit a sense of insecurity within her. Who indeed? Well, she could probably live off potatoes and vegetables if it came to that. She wouldn’t starve. She sagged deeper into her chair, inwardly bemoaning her fate.
The shadow in front of her crouched down, and she felt her father’s hands clasping hers in his. Rough hands with calloused fingers, worn from decades of working the land. Her anger softened. Her father had tried to take care of her the best he could after her mother died. She couldn’t expect a man to be supportive in an emotional way. Not like her mother had been. She supposed that wasn’t his fault. Men just dinna think the same way as women did.
“I’ll be nice to him, Papa,” she said. What choice did she have? Elspeth had described Alasdair to her after the church service as the small congregation walked behind the casket carried out by two of the village men toward the cemetery for burial.
“He’s tall now, Beitris,” she’d said, her voice soft and low. “I think ye’d come up to his chest. With such broad shoulders, he cuts a fine figure. He’s strong. His hair is a very dark brown now, lightened on the ends by the sun, hanging past his shoulders. His eyes are dark gray, like half-burned coal.”
He dinna sound horrible. “What frightened the children so? What caused the gasps?” She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Maybe it was just as well she couldn’t see. Nay, she shouldn’t say that. Never say that.
“He took a sword slash to his face, Beitris. From the top of this scalp, just above the hairline—his hair is white there now—the gash continues down his cheek and slices along his jaw underneath his mouth.” She paused, her voice lower. “The wound still looks raw and puffy at the edges. And deep. It’s healing, but the scarring will be horrible.” She paused and then continued. “It doesn’t look like his eye is affected, why, but the scar, I’ve never seen the like.”
“What do ye mean?”
“It’s about the width of yer finger,” Elspeth described, clasping Beitris’s ring finger. “It’s like a shallow trough, and the scar tissue that’s forming is white and thick. The edges are slightly raised, still red and angry looking. It must not have happened very long ago.”
Beitris tried to picture the injury in her mind’s eye but couldn’t. “Anything else?”
“He walks with a slight limp, maybe another injury, but not enough to slow him down. He walks tall and proud, and he dinna have any trouble mounting his horse.”
She now waited in her chair inside her home, waited for her future, her fate, for her betrothed to arrive, the first time they would meet face-to-face since she was a young girl. She dinna understand this. Any of it.
“It actually looks like it’s going to work out quite well, all things considered.”
She jolted out of her thoughts and looked toward the shadowy figure of her father. She only saw the blob of a shape, no distinct features, just different shades of black and gray. “What do ye mean?”
“I saw him the day he returned, riding through town on a beast of a horse, not looking at a single soul, riding to his farm without a word to anyone.”
It was not surprising to Beitris. Even back when they were children, Alasdair was not exactly… social.
“Not to mention the fright he gave the children, that ugly, raw scar marring his face… Maybe it’s just as well ye can’t see it.”
Beitris swallowed a gasp. How could her father say such
a thing? It must be bad. Violent wounds and scars were nothing new to the people in this region, where Highland clans and lowlanders lived in tenuous times, when clans fought with one another still, and where outlaws and brigands roamed the land. His wound must be awful indeed to elicit such a horrified response. Her father continued, leaving Beitris wordless.
“His chances of finding a lovely young bride are nonexistent as well. So, it’s actually turned out quite nicely. He’s so ugly no beautiful young woman would want to have anything to do with him, and yer blind, so ye can’t see how terrible his face looks—”
“Papa! How can ye say that? How can ye talk about—” She closed her eyes, blocked out the few shadows she could see, striving for patience. Sometimes her father could be so unfeeling, if not unkind. “I am not to blame for my blindness, and neither is he for his wounds. He’s still a man, and I’m a woman. Everyone has faults, Papa, even ye. Even Mama—”
A quick rush of movement, footsteps moving away from her, quick and angry.
“Don’t ye dare speak ill of yer mother! She was a wonderful—”
“I know, Papa!” Beitris said, leaning forward into the darkness. “I loved her! More than anything in the world. All I’m saying is that no one is perfect. No one is without some fault, either physically or inside. Ye know that as well as I!”
“There’s no talking to ye, lass!” he snapped. “Always so stubborn, always looking for the best in people. Well, maybe it’s time ye found out that people weren’t as kind, brave, or generous as ye seem to believe. Maybe it’s time that ye grow up, Beitris, and accept life as it is. It’s time that ye made a life for yerself, with a husband, and maybe, if yer lucky enough, with children, but until—”
He broke off abruptly the same moment that Beitris cocked her head to better hear the sound of a horse approaching, far off yet, not quite in the yard.
Alasdair.
She shuddered as a cold chill ran down her spine, and the hair on her neck stood on end. She placed both her hands in her lap, clasped her fingers tightly together, and hoped that her expression looked calm. She felt anything but, her heart racing, her stomach churning.
The moment had come.
7
Alasdair rode up to the home of Bruce and Beitris Boyd, eyeing the farm and land around it. He’d just come from the property Bruce offered as a dowry for the lass, pleasantly surprised. Off to the north, perhaps a half day leisurely ride from the village, very secluded, hidden in a low valley along the border of a small lake, surrounded by rising hills and lush green grass is spreading out all around it.
Of course, though he dreaded the thought, he would honor his father’s contract with Bruce Boyd. Not because he wanted to. Not because he wanted to be saddled with a blind wife, and not because he wanted more land. He would honor the contract because it’s what his father had wanted, and in refusing the contract, he would be dishonoring his father and his memory of him. While he and his father had not always agreed on things or always seen eye to eye, Sean Macintyre was a good man.
He and his father had always led relatively private lives. During his younger years, Alasdair had pushed his father’s patience, no doubt about it. He’d run wild for a while, nothing serious, but enough to give him the reputation as a troublemaker. He fought often, but few took the time to determine exactly what prompted those fights. Few had realized, then or now, that Alasdair had fought so often and so vehemently in order to protect some of the younger children of the village, or those who couldna fend for themselves. Did they realize one of the older boys had been stealing food from an old woman? That one of them, one of the more serious infractions, was the time he’d beaten a boy his own age quite severely because he had said unkind words about his mother?
Alasdair had learned not to count on anyone, not even his few friends, if ye could call them that… the boys like him who ran wild, one an orphan who stole when and where he could, the other just angry. All the time. Alasdair had learned early on not to trust anyone, and he had come and gone as he pleased. He wanted to learn to read and write, so had occasionally gone to school, learned to write his name. He could read the rudiments, do simple math, but that was about it. During planting and harvesting season he stopped going to school to be closer to home to help his father with their crops, but other than that, he was often away, exploring, learning the ways of the forest, and when close enough to the village, simply sitting in a tree and watching people. It was during one of those afternoons of watching people that he had first caught sight of Beitris Boyd.
It had been a warm summer’s day. She’d been maybe ten years old, gangly, all arms and legs, her long hair wild and unkempt, long since worked out of its ribbon. She walked hesitatingly, arms sweeping constantly in front of her. At first he wondered why, then realized she was blind. Out of curiosity, he continued to watch over the next few weeks in between wild forays into the forest, marveling that she even had the courage to step from her home and explore the village, taking what pleasure she could from around her.
Another young girl, Elspeth Warren, had taken Beitris under her wing and often walked through the village with the lass, her arm hooked around that of her blind friend. He noticed that Beitris often walked with her face turned slightly skyward, especially on warm sunny days. While he couldn’t tell the color of her eyes, he saw that they were wide, a smile lifting her lips as she communed with the sky, soaking in its warmth. What kind of thoughts filled her head? Once, while watching from high up in his tree, she had stumbled over a clump of weeds near the trail that led from the village to her home. Elspeth had not been able to catch her in time, and she landed hard, flat on her face. Before Elspeth could even reach her, the lass was up on her knees, laughing, brushing dirt from her bodice, exclaiming how clumsy she was.
He hadn’t seen her for a while after that, and only occasionally since. Besides, it had been a long time ago. Even grown, as a blind woman, she would be a chain around his neck. He dinna want to get married. He dinna want or need a bride or a wife. He wanted to be left alone, to nurse his wounds and his nightmares, but marry her he must. Not only because it was his duty, but because, for some reason he couldn’t explain and was unwilling to explore at the moment, he dinna want to humiliate the lass by refusing her. While she may very well prove to be a great burden, it wasn’t her fault she was blind. It wasn’t her fault that nobody wanted her. Perhaps his father was right. Perhaps this was meant to be. She was blind, couldna see how ugly he was, and the looks of fear and disgust he saw on the faces of the villagers would never cross her own.
It was because of these thoughts that he had ridden from his father’s small farm—now his—to the land and the house on it that Bruce Boyd had given him in return for marrying his daughter. It was made of stone, easily six times bigger than his father’s house. Surrounded by green fields on three sides, the lake at its rear, a small herd of sheep and a few cattle dotting the grasslands around it. The stone house sat on a slight rise overlooking the lake. A stone wall encompassed the side portion of the house, with a raised area of grass trapped inside it. Perhaps that area had served as a vegetable garden in the past.
The clatter and cluck of chickens disturbed his thoughts, and he jolted himself back to awareness as he rode into the yard of the Boyd farm. His heart thudded in his chest as he rode up to the house and quickly dismounted, ground tying the gelding and dismounting as Bruce Boyd opened the front door and stood in the opening, eyeing him.
“Alasdair, welcome,” Bruce said.
Alasdair nodded, acutely aware that Bruce tried not to stare at his scarred face but couldn’t help it. He waited, allowing Bruce to look his fill before the older man belatedly stepped back from the door, opened it wider, and invited him inside.
With an inward sigh, Alasdair entered. The wedding was set for tomorrow. He’d put off this moment as long as he could, but it was now time to get acquainted with his betrothed. He stepped inside a house similar to his own, a main room with a kitchen on one side, a
small seating area on the other, in front of a fireplace. A short hallway that led to two doorways to two small rooms that he could see from where he stood, one for Bruce, one for Beitris. His eyes grew accustomed to the darker interior, and he turned toward her then, sitting stiff-backed and alert in a wooden chair near an open window.
“Beitris,” he said in greeting.
She stood, gestured for him to sit in the chair closer to the fireplace. She appeared to know exactly where it was. If he hadn’t known she was blind, he wouldn’t have been so surprised.
“Welcome, Alasdair,” she said, her voice soft. “Please sit down. I’ll bring some tea.”
Alasdair watched as the lass made her way to the kitchen, arms at her sides, her footsteps sure. Her father sat down in a chair opposite the one Beitris had just vacated, watching him watch his daughter. He lifted an eyebrow.
“Beitris knows the interior of this house inside and out,” he explained. “As long as I dinna move any of the furniture. She can cook, she can clean, she can bake.” He gestured. “She can also make tea.”
Alasdair watched in fascination as Beitris moved around the small kitchen area, reaching into cupboards for two wooden mugs, placing them carefully on the rough-hewn plank table in the center of the space, then moved toward the stove, where she reached for a cloth, wrapped it around the handle of the pot of warm water there, and placed the pot on the table as well. She reached for a canister nearby, spooned out the tea, dumped it in the pot, and as it steeped, plucked a small sack of sugar from another nearby hutch and set it down beside the pot. She turned toward the sitting area near the fireplace.
“Alasdair, do ye take sugar in yer tea?”
Sugar. Few people had access to sugar. He knew he was being honored with the offer of some. “One spoonful,” he said, pleased by her confident movements.
In a matter of moments, they sat, sipping tea, Bruce and Alasdair making small talk. No discussion about the wedding on the morrow. Alasdair was impressed that Beitris appeared rather independent, finding her way around so well. Not only that, but she had grown into a pretty young woman, her hair tamer now, her features delicate and her slightly tanned skin broken only by a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose and cheekbones. Rosy pink lips and brilliant bluish-gray eyes. She was petite though well-proportioned. Definitely not the gangly child he recalled from the past. Abruptly, Beitris placed her teacup on the small table between herself and her father, then turned to Alasdair.