Alainn grew uneasy with this line of questioning, for, as much as she loved and respected the woman, she could hardly relate that her own mother’s curse had caused her many infants to perish. The woman would surely feel only loathing toward her, and however prone she was to want to aid her in her quest to earn Killian’s love, she would clearly change her mind if she knew the actual truth. And, she still didn’t know who had fathered her.
“Do you know that giving away your amulet leaves you unprotected against danger?”
“I have heard as much. But, I had a vision that frightened me so; I needed to ensure Killian was kept safe. I would ask you to find a way to have your sons wear their amulets; the ones you had made for them.”
“How did you know of the amulets?”
“I know you are druid, and I have learned a druid parent has one crafted for their children before they have seen one moon on this earth.”
“Aye, and if you suggest my sons must wear theirs, I am to assume you have seen them in grave danger as well?”
“Aye, I have seen it. But, I have yet to learn when the peril will present itself.”
“You are an apt seer. I have only a small measure of premonition ability. My sister was more gifted in such areas. Though she must not have been alerted to her own danger. She could not have foreseen her death or surely she would have done what she could to prevent it.”
Alainn looked toward the door before the loud rap could be heard. They both turned. It was Rory.
“Mother, you must come. Alainn as well. Grandmother has taken a spell and fallen into a deep sleep. Grandfather is sorely worried. Please come now.”
Lady Siobhan’s already pale face became ashen at the news. She took Alainn’s hand, and they hastened off down the corridor.
The elderly woman lay unconscious upon a table in the great hall. Many lords and ladies were gathered round the ailing woman. An elderly man, who Alainn realized must be Lady Siobhan’s father, held his wife’s hand. Rory did not need to push through the crowd, for it opened as he and the two women made their way to the table. The physician stood by the old woman, his head on her chest. When he saw Alainn, he frowned.
“Milady, you have brought your healer. Do you feel her more skilled in healing your mother?”
“Alainn has proved her abilities to me time and time again, Thomas O’Donaugh. Though I do not question your abilities, I trust Alainn.”
Hugh O’Brien stood with legs wide and arms crossed, a disapproving expression on his face. She was undermining his physician, and she’d come to the hall in the presence of all of their guests wearing her nightclothes. But, the determined expression on her worried face told him he should not challenge her on this. Alainn was surprised to see the physician step back from the matronly lady and gesture her forward. O’Brien’s priest, who was standing next to him, made a sound of contempt and moved off into the crowd.
The old woman was very tiny of stature with snow white hair laying in soft curls about her face. Rory and Riley wore identical expressions of concern on their faces, and Alainn was aware that Killian stood close-by, his hand on the elderly man’s shoulder. She pressed her head to the woman’s chest as Thomas O’Donaugh had done. Her expression turned bleak.
“Her heart is gravely weakened,” she said. “I may be able to administer foxglove, which will cause her heart to beat more evenly for a time. I will attempt to heal her, but I fear it will only be a temporary solution, for regrettably there is no cure. I am most certain.”
“Perhaps if we conduct some bloodletting, it will serve the purpose?” the physician suggested.
“It will serve the purpose of weakening her so that she will possibly never regain consciousness. With the foxglove, she will surely be allowed to speak with her family again, to spend what time she has left with them, and perhaps to live to see her grandsons wed.”
“Get the herbal remedy then, Alainn. Please, hurry, for we must speak with her again! There have been too many deaths without chance of farewell in our family.” Lady Siobhan looked to her father for confirmation, but he only stared at Alainn with such an odd expression, he seemed completely unaware that his daughter had spoken.
“Siobhan, are you certain you won’t let this man attempt his craft, for he has much experience?” She ignored her husband entirely.
“Father, are you in agreement with me, that we allow my healer to proceed with her remedies?”
“Aye, do whatever the girl says. We must listen to what she tells us.”
“Aye, you must allow Alainn to do what she will for our grandmother.” It was Rory who spoke, and Alainn thought that was possibly the first time he had ever dared openly disagree with his father.
“I shall go retrieve the potion. I know where it is kept in your chamber, if you will allow me to touch your remedies,” offered Thomas O’Donaugh.
“Aye, it would be much appreciated.” Alainn felt slightly ashamed at how she had treated the physician. She had childishly drawn a line down the center of the chamber they were to share and told him he was not to enter her half of the room or to touch any of her supplies. She’d said if he felt inclined to use any of her herbs in his efforts to heal anyone, he would need to ask her permission to go near them. She’d also referred to his many instruments, as liken to weapons you would find in a torture chamber. The man had not shown a temper when she’d been so rude to him, he’d simply gone about his business and shown her no disrespect. One day, she would apologize to him for her unbecoming behavior.
Alainn placed her hands to the old woman’s chest and attempted to will the heart to beat strongly and evenly. It responded but with only minimal improvement. Foxglove would be needed. She hoped it would see the woman through the next week. She closed her eyes to concentrate completely on healing the woman’s heart, when the woman beneath her hands gasped loudly.
“My darlin’ wee Shylie, you’ve come home at last! Or have I gone on to the beyond then and been reunited with my youngest babe? I have missed you so!” She grasped Alainn’s hand.
“Mother!” Lady Siobhan cried out in joy at seeing her mother’s eyes open.
“Ah Siobhan, my beautiful girl. I was blessed with such dear lovely daughters and such fine handsome sons.” Lady Siobhan’s eyes filled with tears of joy, for since her mother had arrived at Castle O’Brien, she had not recognized her as her own daughter.
“Mother, I am much relieved you are well,” she whimpered softly as she touched her mother’s cheek.
“Niall, is it not the most wonderful sight to behold, our two beautiful girls together again? And Teige is here as well. Are all my children back, then? Come stand by me, dearest Teige, my youngest son. What a fair and handsome man you have become!” The woman beckoned to Rory. “Your father has grieved most terribly for the sore words he spoke to you. You must embrace, and Niall, you need tell our son how you have missed him.” Her husband obliged her as well and hugged the younger man with a deep affection as though he truly was his son, back from wherever he had been all these years. “And where are Finn, Conan, and Collum?” She spoke the names of her dead sons. Then the old woman had an entirely lucid moment. She closed her eyes, and a tear slid down her wrinkled cheek. “Aye, I remember now, they are gone, killed in battle. They died as warriors, but ’tis little consolation to a mother who is made to lay her children in the ground.” She looked into the sad eyes of her daughter. “And my lovely Siobhan, you have given so many babes back to the earth as well. There’s no greater pain for a mother to bear than to live on while her children are taken from her, one by one.” She noticed Killian.
“Killian O’Brien, my grandsons’ cousin. You were my grandson and I, your grandmother, for all the years when we were too far from our actual kin to keep close touch. You used to steal the sweet cakes when you thought I wasn’t lookin’, but I always purposely left them there for you. And you would tell me your dreams, how you would be a great chieftain one day and marry a girl with lovely yellow hair. Have you found her then?�
�� Killian smiled and nodded so only the woman could see. She reached for her husband’s hand and then only had eyes for him.
“My dearest love.” He embraced his wife, though she remained holding tight to the young girl’s hand. “We have bore the pain together, you and I, Niall. I have been happy to be your wife for all these years, my only love.”
“And I have been honored to be your husband, Katherine. I would not change a day I have spent with you, through the laughter and the tears. For nearly five decades we have shared all, and to me you are as beautiful as the day we first met. You looked as Shylie does now, your hair as lustrous and your skin as clear and youthful.”
She smiled up at him as he bent over to place a tender kiss on her lips, and she patted his cheek affectionately. She glanced at Rory and took his hand. “My son, you are so dear to me. Now that you have returned, you must seek out the woman you loved so desperately. For if you loved her as you claimed, her feelings for you will surely remain unchanged. How could a woman not love you? You are so kind and sensitive. Your father believed you to be dead, but I could never allow myself to think you would be gone from us forever!”
She then seemed to notice Riley and called him over, as well. She obviously believed him to be his father, for she spoke to him as such. “O’Brien, you be good to my daughter; she’ll be a good wife to you. Treat her kindly and fairly, and allow her to practice her beliefs, for they are sorely important to her and part of who she is. Though they may not be your beliefs, if you take them from her, she will never allow you into her heart entirely.” She patted his hand as well, then looked up to Alainn. “I’m ready to join you now, Shylie, for sure you’ve come to take me with you, my lovely girl. We will go to meet your brothers!”
“Aye, wee Mama, they’re waitin’ for us,” soothed Alainn. The woman’s husband looked at her sharply.
The old woman smiled tenderly at her husband, her daughter, Rory and Riley. Then, her eyes went back to Alainn. She squeezed her hand as though to never let go, and her eyes slowly closed.
The physician arrived with a vial in his hand but, noticing the somber expressions, lowered his head. The priest stepped forward, but her daughter and husband, both gave a resounding “No!” The woman’s hand was still wrapped around Alainn’s. She was so profoundly affected by all she had seen that she could not move. It was the woman’s husband who finally took the girl’s hand and lifted his wife’s away.
“I give you thanks, from myself and my family,” he said kindly, handing Alainn a handkerchief to wipe the tears spilling down her cheeks.
“But, I could not save her. I could not even give her the days I claimed she might still have.”
The man, whose voice was both gentle and strong, held tight to her hand as his wife had done.
“You gave her far more than life. You brought Shylie back to her if only long enough to believe they would go to the next life together. And you allowed her to remember her grandsons, to know me again. She has not recognized me in months. Do you know what a treasure it was to have her look at me with love in her eyes and recognition of all we have been through together? If she’d lived another decade in the fog she’d come to live in, it would not have been the same as these mere moments you allowed us. I thank you.” Tears were now filling his eyes as well. “If there is ever anything we might do for you to return this great deed, you must tell us. You have only to say the word.”
He gave his son-in-law a stern look, as if to order him to heed his words. Then he smoothed his wife’s hair and gazed at her with love, seeming to see her as he had the first day they’d met.
“If I am taken now,” he murmured, “it would suit me well, for I look forward to the day we will be reunited once again.”
Alainn nodded to him through her tears, embraced his daughter, and offered her hand to the twins with deep condolence. With that, she pushed through the crowd. Hugh O’Brien attempted to take her arm, but she pulled away from him furiously and fled the room. She heard Killian’s voice calling after her, but she kept on running.
Once through the castle door, she expected to see ominous rain clouds to match her shattered heart, but the sky was dark and stars shone brightly. A star streaked across the sky, not downward like a falling star, but upward. Her heart gladdened, for it was a belief that, when a druid left this earth, the path could be seen all the way to the next life. She believed it now with no uncertainty.
Killian caught up to her as she crossed the courtyard, but when he tried to take her in his arms, she pulled from him in objection as surely as she had moved from Hugh O’Brien. He did not attempt to touch her again, but his eyes held a deep sadness.
“That was a great kindness you did for Lady Katherine. I thank you for it, for the O’Rorkes are both dear to me.”
“Allowing the woman to believe I was her dead daughter could hardly be considered a kindness. Anyone would have done the same under the circumstances. And you needn’t look so surprised, I am not the malevolent woman you believe me to me.”
“Alainn, I do not—”
“You are such a kind soul, Alainn!” The words, spoken in a feminine Scottish accent, interrupted them. They turned to see Mary approaching. She took Killian’s arm with a familiarity Alainn did not care to witness. “What you did for that woman and her family was angelic. I am proud to know you, and I hope one day to be considered among your friends.” She reached out and hugged her no less tightly than if she were Cook’s wife, Margaret. Alainn closed her eyes and tried to keep her thoughts kind.
“I thank you for your caring words, Milady. I must be off, for I am staying at Cook’s cottage and should like to catch him before he leaves for home.”
“You do not stay within the castle? I was under the assumption you lived here. Riley told me so, but perhaps I misunderstood.”
“With the many people here now, I find it far too crowded.”
She curtsied before the couple and, with a formal address to them both, set off for the kitchen through way of the back entrance.
“Killian, did Riley not tell me that the cook and his wife have a large number of children and a small cottage?”
“Aye, they’ve thirteen children.”
“Hmm,” was all the Scottish girl said as they walked back into the castle.
Chapter Fifteen
Alainn lay in the bed she shared with Molly and her sisters, Fiona and wee Eileen. She listened as Cook and three of his sons quietly left the home while the rest of the family slept. It was not yet daybreak and the house dark, but she had slept little through the night. At present, Eileen had her arms wrapped tightly around Alainn’s neck, and she found her warmth and closeness comforting. She’d heard Margaret up through the night with her youngest child, who’d been fussy and discontent. Alainn surmised that new teeth would soon appear.
She felt movement within, and her hand caressed her stomach in growing adoration of the child that grew there. She must soon arise for her need to find a privy was growing more urgent. It was sometimes as bothersome as the nauseous morning stomach. The cottage was tiny with so few divisions, she did not feel comfortable using the chamber pot beneath the bed. She disentangled the wee child’s arms from her neck, fumbled for her warm shawl, and made her way through the maze of beds.
The air outside was cool; the freshness of the early morning, inviting. She found a tree behind which to conceal herself and was thankful for how much more comfortable she felt. When she lifted the latch to open the door, she saw a small candle burning in the kitchen and a kettle upon the hearth. Margaret sat beside the large table, holding her youngest child to her breast. Alainn washed her hands in the basin and pulled up a chair.
“I hope I did not wake you, Margaret.”
“Nay, ’twas the babe. She had another restless night.”
“I shall bring some more ground juniper, for it often fights the pain of new teeth approaching.”
“Aye, ’twas most helpful last time.”
The two women sat in sile
nce for a time, the only sounds were the kettle beginning to heat and the infant suckling at Margaret’s breast.
“Do you not have something you care to say to me, Alainn?”
She looked at the older woman uncertain what she meant, so she broached a subject she had been avoiding.
“Aye, I’ve yet to apologize to you for keeping Cookson so long when he was off to Galway. I have told Cook how sorry I am regarding that matter, but it was very wrong of me to cause you worry, as I’m sure you did fret when Cookson’s return was delayed.”
“Oh, it is a mother’s burden to worry, but I bear no ill feelings toward you for that. Joseph is a grown man and two of his younger brothers are already wed, so I think I should not question him regarding his being away from our home for a time. In truth, though I hoped against it, I thought perhaps he sought out the company of a harlot, for I know that there must be many in the city. However, that was not the topic I’d thought you’d maybe be wantin’ to discuss with me.”
The baby cried at that moment and squirmed in her mother’s arms. Alainn noticed the dark circles beneath the woman’s tired eyes. She held out her arms and Margaret passed the baby to her with some relief, pulling her chemise over her exposed breast. In all the time Alainn had known her, she had been with child or nursing another. As she rose to take the kettle from the hearth, Margaret clutched the small of her back.
The baby grabbed an adequate handful of Alainn’s hair and tugged at it quite steadily as she giggled and talked sweetly to the child. Margaret prepared a pot of herbs and hot apple cider. The child noticed her mother and began to whine. Margaret sat back down, took the baby from Alainn, and put her to her breast once more.
“You are tired, Margaret, and your back is ailing you.”
“Aye, my body feels older than its five and thirty years. Sure ’tis the many babies I’ve carried that have taken a toll. Though I’d not wish any of them away, for I love them all, but I would be most pleased if this wee girl is the last babe I bear.”
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