“Do we know what happened?” “All slaughtered.”
“And did you find the Butler’s arrows?” Murrough nodded.
“It’s too messy and just too convenient to be Fingham’s calling card. Send word to Father Fiach. I would like him to check into a few things in the Pale.”
“I will see to it.”
Chapter 21
Aislinn dressed then headed down the winding steps to the lower level of the keep. Her nostrils flared when she took in the smell of sweaty men, dogs and cattle all mixed into one. She could hear men snoring as they slept off the remains of the tankards of drink that they had consumed last night. She moved silently with every step, stopping once when she thought that she heard someone following her. She turned to look behind her, but saw no one lingering in the murky shadows. She continued on, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was behind her. As soon as she made it outside, she threw herself against the wall and waited. Just as she thought, a man emerged a few moments later traveling at a fast pace, until he realized his quarry was not ahead of him.
“Are you looking for someone?” The man jumped at the sound of her voice. He slowly turned to face her, his shoulders slumped in obvious embarrassment that he had been so easily discovered.
She moved out of the shadows to view her would-be follower. She raised a brow in amusement. The man was barely a man at all. He had long golden brown hair, blue eyes and a face as smooth as a baby’s bottom. He was built though. She would have to give him that. His arms alone showed that he must know how to yield the heavy broadsword he had sheathed at his side.
The young man was well aware that she was assessing him and his face turned beat red. “Milady.” He bowed. “I mean ye no harm.”
“No? Then why are you following me like you are some common criminal ready to snatch a purse?”
“I would not stoop so low to commit such a contemptible act. I have been assigned to protect ye.”
“Protect me? Is there reason that I should be in danger?” “Nay….”
“No, but you are assigned to follow me.”
“Aye….” He was flustered making Aislinn take pity on him. She decided that maybe she should go easy on the guy since it wasn’t his fault that he was ordered to guard her.
“What’s your name?”
“Teige, milady.” He bowed again.
“Well, Teige, let’s get one thing straight. I don’t like being followed.” She saw that he was about to protest and she held up her hand to halt him. “Let me finish. I also do not wish to have you in trouble for not obeying orders. You may go with me if you must, but at my side.”
“If that is what ye wish, milady.”
Aislinn nodded and moved forward with Teige keeping pace. “And Teige.” He looked at her with his blue-lit eyes. “Call me A.J., okay? Milady makes me sound like an old woman and I am far from that.” She picked up her pace. “Make sure you keep up, Teige,” she called over her shoulder. The young man had to jog a few paces before he began to match her stride. He chanced a glance at the woman that carried herself with a commanding air of self-confidence. He couldn’t help but be intrigued.
“I saw what ye did yesterday,” Teige began and she looked at him as he continued, “Ye know, when ye took care of the bully Regan.”
“I guess that you would have noticed since you were spying on me.”
The young man blushed again. “I wasn’t really spying. I was sent to make sure that no harm was to come to ye, but I fear I have only angered ye.”
She sighed. “I’m sorry, Teige. My annoyance is not directed at you.”
He was silent for a while, before he attempted a conversation again. “I have never seen Regan run with his tail between his legs before. He is usually the one making the other children cringe.”
“Had it coming to him, did he? I kind of figured. A bully is a bully no matter where you find them. They all have the same traits. I can usually spot one a mile away.”
He nodded in agreement. “Ye are meeting someone now? The cripple?” That made Aislinn stop in her tracks. Teige immediately halted too, his hand on the hilt of his sword, as his eyes darted around expecting trouble. “Oh relax,” she snapped and Teige gazed at her questionably. “I want you to get something straight. The boy that you call cripple has a name, and from now on, I wish you to use it. Do we understand each other?”
Teige just nodded.
She started walking again with him at her heels. “A.J.?” He said her name timidly.
She looked at him, again thinking how very young he looked. He was an inch or so shorter than she was with long golden lustrous hair that was almost too lovely to be on a man’s head. “Yes, Teige.”
“What is the lad’s name? I fear that I do not know. He has been called cripple, hey boy, or limpy for so long, that his real name has slipped away.”
Aislinn shook her head. “Hamish. The boy’s name is Hamish and don’t go forgetting it again.”
“Nay. I will remember it.”
Hamish was already there, waiting for Aislinn, and when he saw her approach, he stood to greet her. He recognized Teige as one of the kern and looked hesitantly at him, wondering if he would tease him like all the others, but when he looked to Aislinn, she gave him a reassuring smile. He knew then that everything would be all right.
“Hamish, I would like you to meet Teige.” She looked at Teige. “And Teige, let me introduce Hamish.”
The two just nodded, obviously not sure how they should act toward each other. Aislinn chose to ignore their awkward greeting and immediately started in on business. “Today we will work on the upper body. I want you to follow my every move.” She looked back at Teige. “Feel free to join in, if you wish.” She didn’t wait for her bodyguard to answer, but immediately turned and addressed her pupil. “Now let’s begin.”
They worked long and hard, first with simple stretches then graduating to extensions. She worked each muscle until Hamish cried for release, but still she commanded that he do more. Only when the sun had risen well over them did she call for a break. They sat down all three of them. Aislinn had filled her water bottle before she had left in the morning and offered it to the young boy. He gratefully took it from her. He turned the object in his hand, completely amazed at how light it was. He had thought that it was glass, but when he touched it, he knew that it was something else entirely.
Aislinn chuckled. “It’s made of plastic.” The boy looked at her, still bewildered. Even Teige was intrigued. “Where I come from, there a many things that are different. Drink.” She nodded that it was all right. The boy drank thirstily and when he was finished, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He sat there with his gangly legs stretched before him, and Aislinn’s eyes wondered down the length of him. Hamish had noticed her open curiosity and tried to hide his shorter member behind the good one. Aislinn put a hand on his making him look at her. “Never hide who you are, Hamish.” She moved in front of him sitting down on her haunches. Her hands moved over each leg. She bent the foot forward and then the other just to see how much of difference there was. “Maybe a half an inch,” she said out loud. She looked at him then. “We need to make you a pair of shoes.”
“Shoes? I have never owned a pair of shoes.” “It’s about time that you did then.”
Teige had thought that Aislinn would never return to her room, but finally she had called it a day. He was exhausted and ready to hit the sack and yet he knew that milady still possessed energy to do more.
Murrough stood when he saw Teige enter the Great Hall. Teige went straight over to him, and was offered a tankard. He gladly downed the honey wine before he began his report.
“Well?” Murrough was beginning to grow impatient. “She’s gone to her room now.”
“What did she do all day? Ye looked haggard.”
“Ye would too if ye were being dragged to this place and that. She awakened before the first light. I had to follow her out of the keep.”
Murroug
h’s brows furrowed. “Where would she go? She knows not a soul here.”
“She has made friends and I can see why. Her openness is contagious. She is like no other woman that I have ever come across. She has a way of making ye think that ye are the only one that matters. Why she took young Hamish and….”
“Hamish?” Murrough interrupted.
“Aye. Ye know the lad. The cripple that they call limpy.” Murrough nodded. “Hamish, I remember now. Go on.”
“She has Hamish doing all kinds of exercise that she claims will build up the muscles. I tried a few myself and I tell ye it was not an easy task.” He rolled his shoulder. “I can still feel the ache, but it is a good ache mind ye. Like when ye yield a sword for longer than ye should have.”
“Why on earth would the woman want Hamish to do these things?” “Why she is going to make him a warrior.”
Murrough just sat there for a moment thinking that he had not heard him correctly. “A warrior?”
“Aye.” He emptied the rest of the liquid in his cup.
Murrough started laughing. When he saw that Teige was not sharing in his mirth, he quieted down a bit but still there was amusement in his voice. “Whoever heard of a cripple becoming a warrior? It is not done, I tell ye.”
“With all do respects, A.J. does not like….” “A.J.?”
“Aye, that is what she wants to be called. Anyway she wishes that the lad not be called cripple. She said that it gave him…now what did she call it?
Well whatever the word be, it meant that he would lack pride in himself. If ye think ye are nothing, than ye are nothing,” he quoted her.
“Maybe so, but I like to call things as I see them. A dog is a dog, even if it wishes it were a cat. A man is either a warrior or he is not. And Hamish is not. She does more harm than good by telling the lad otherwise.”
Teige shrugged. “I don’t know. There was something more I saw in Hamish today. He walked a little taller.” “Ye must be joking.”
“Nay, as I am sitting here, the lad actually carried on a conversation. Now when have ye heard Hamish say more than a handful of words, hey?”
As hard as Murrough tried, he could not think of a time that he had heard the boy speak. He was an outcast and no one took the time. “Hamish seems happy with this arrangement?”
“Aye. Come tomorrow A.J. is going to have Padrig make him a pair of shoes.”
“Shoes? What for?”
Teige just shrugged. “I fear that I will have to tell ye tomorrow, but it seemed that it was important in some way.”
Murrough nodded. Aislinn Hennessy was indeed becoming quite interesting. “Ye did fine, Teige. Ye may go. See that Cormac takes up the post for tonight. It looks like ye need some rest.”
“Aye.”
Chapter 22
Cormac and Teige were inseparable friends, but both could not have been more different in personalities. They were as opposite as night is to day. Where Teige was quiet and reserved, Cormac was boisterous, and oh so charming that women, noble or not, swarmed to him like a bee to honey. His confidence was tenfold now that he had Fiona comforting his nights. So when
he encountered Aislinn, which to him she seemed intriguingly exotic, he decided it was his duty to offer his assistance to see if she needed any personal comforting. Encountering numerous other ladies of standing and how they pretended to be coy, he was not put off by Aislinn profusely denying that she didn’t want his attention.
“Come on, sweet, just a little kiss. I am a grand lover.”
For the last time, Aislinn peeled the man’s arm from her. She was getting to be a little annoyed. One more time and she would…he did it again and she came unglued. With a yell, she took her elbow and jabbed the man in the ribs. Then taking hold of his arm, she flipped him over her right side where he landed flat on his back. Cormac was so surprised that he remained there on the ground with his mouth wide open not sure of what exactly had happened. “Now, my sweet,” Aislinn imitated in a droll speech. “If ye so much as tap my shoulder, I am going to break yer hands. Do I make myself clear?
“Aye.” He didn’t budge until after she had walked away. Of course, everyone that witnessed the scene couldn’t help but pass it along. Before Aislinn had made it back to the hall, she had picked up a new name, Scathach, the woman warrior.
“Aye, Murrough. It is what I have been telling ye. She is strong, stronger than any woman I have ever come across.” Cormac began reporting his day. “Well trained this Hennessy woman,” Murrough agreed. “May I ask how ye came to find this out?”
Cormac looked abashed, but he explained. “She seemed lonely and I….” Murrough lifted his hand to stop him. “Say no more, Cormac. I’ve got the picture. Ye will get yerself in trouble, if ye continue to let the lower parts of yer body command ye. I advise ye not to try again with this she-wolf, especially if Dougray is around. Do ye want to share the same fate as Dermot?”
Cormac’s gaze wandered over to where the man was sitting on the floor and fighting with the dogs for the scraps of meat that would be his dinner. “Nay, I have no wish to be cast out.”
“Then ye best do what ye were assigned to do, and that is to watch and protect. I do not wish to hear that I have to send someone to protect the Hennessy woman from ye.” He couldn’t help but chuckle. “However the woman warrior seems to be able to handle the situation.”
“Aye.” Cormac rubbed his manly part like he was not sure that it was still attached. “I have no need for an unwilling woman, when I can have me pick.”
“Like Fiona?” He couldn’t help but mention.
Cormac’s face actually glimmered with some personal remembrance. “That one, I’d liked to keep.”
“Again ye tread on dangerous ground, my friend. Dougray has made claims to her.”
“No marriage vows has he sought, Brehon or otherwise. Fiona told me that since his return, he has yet come to her. It is I that has been warming her hides.”
Murrough raised his brows at this interesting piece of news. “Ye don’t say?”
“He has not been to see Fiona.” Murrough made a special visit to Rhiannon’s home. She had been surprised at his visit since it was the middle of the day, when usually he was preoccupied with the business with the keep. “Well this is a good. She was not right for him.”
“Ye never told me this before.” He followed her as she hung clothes out to dry.
“Ye never asked, but even if ye had, I’d probably would not have said much. Milord was a lost soul when his Ella was taken from him. He thought that he had failed her by not protecting her from death.”
“A lost soul? And now what do ye see?”
“There is something that has come alive in his eyes that was not evident before. Purpose, I think.”
“The Scathach?”
Rhiannon threw back her head and laughed. “Is this what they are calling her now?”
“A well befitting name, don’t ye think?”
“I’m sure she would love to hear this.”
“Ye see the way she dresses. She is more a man than a woman.” “Ye know nothing.” Rhiannon shook her head.
“And ye do? Ye have a few conversations with her, while ye make her new attire and ye think ye understand her?”
“Even without speaking with her, I can see how she is. I’ve watched what she has done with Regan and the other bullying followers. Actions, I believe, best tells a person’s true self. She has a good heart and is not afraid to show it. I like her already.”
“I fail to understand ye, Rhiannon.”
“I know this well enough, but I love ye all the same.” She stood up on her tippy toes giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Now ye must be off, so that I may finish me chores, or ye will not be seeing me tonight, I think.” “I’m going. I’m going.”
Chapter 23
Aislinn had about enough of Cormac’s care yesterday. She woke up with a kink in her neck from having to look over her shoulder to see if he was going to attack her again.
<
br /> And he was the one sent to guard her!
He left her no room to breathe. The man was like her shadow, not letting her take a step without him being on her heels.
She wanted to meet with Hamish, but not with Cormac trying his best to be charming, when all he managed to do is be utterly annoying. How she wished that Teige would take up post again. Better yet, she wished that they would just leave her alone. If she could get a hold of Dougray, she’d give him a piece of her mind.
Just who did he think he was, depositing her at the castle then disappearing? She didn’t care that he was a knight, a lord, or whatever. She had not seen nor heard from him for almost five days. She had just about enough of his hospitality.
Yesterday, she had overheard one of the men say that Dougray would be heading out this morning to tend to yet another one of his duties. Whatever they may be. Frankly she didn’t care. She just wanted to make sure that he hadn’t forgotten about finding a way to send her back home. She couldn’t stay here, no matter how much she was beginning to like some of the inhabitants of Dunhaven. She wanted to go home. She missed her parents and Connor and she had her writing career, too. If she was stuck here, what alternatives did she have? To her, it didn’t look like a promising future.
It was nearly dawn by the time that she tied the sheets together in knots, so that they formed a long rope. It would have been so much easier if she could have walked down the winding steps, but Cormac had planted himself right outside her door. He’d never let her by for he had already informed her that Dougray was very busy and was not to be disturbed. Escape was the only way.
Aislinn had written in her journal a list of items that she would have to acquire, if she was to stay here any length of time. Rope was number one on the list.
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