A Witch's Quest

by Leigh Ann Edwards

  Alainn turned her eyes away in defeat knowing Killian was most astute in his assumption Margaret would certainly wish for her to remain here to save her son without question.

  “Aye, you’re correct,” she quietly replied in resignation.

  “Now rest for a while, Lainna. I’ll see to procuring a meal for you when you awaken. Danhoul and I will watch over Mac and Cookson for a time, and I’ll see to your grandfather and Riley at morning’s first light.”

  She wearily placed her head on her pillow and was surely asleep before Killian had tenderly pulled the bedclothes over her shoulders.

  Alainn was much relieved to see the small boy appeared to be filled with life once more. Young Kale had been completely lethargic for many days, and his fever had been relentless. Alainn had felt certain he would be claimed by the unmerciful sickness. Thankfully Eireen had been far too ill and in a fevered state nearing delirium herself, so she hadn’t been aware how grave the child’s condition had become. There had been several children in the village who had succumbed to the illness, and that wore greatly at Alainn’s heart. It had been the children and the elderly who had been the ones to suffer the greatest loss of life which was often the way of many a wide spread illness or ravaging disease.

  Alainn had sat by Kale’s bedside, held his chubby wee hand and tenderly placed her hands on his tiny back willing his labored breathing to improve. Today, finally his fever had broken, and he had eaten both some broth and a tiny portion of a sweet cake she had procured from the kitchen. His brown eyes had begun to sparkle with life once more, and now that Eireen was also showing some improvement, Alainn dared to hope they both might recover. Even Eireen’s husband Fergus, whom she’d originally believed was beyond saving, was slowly returning to health.

  Alainn briefly pondered wherever Ciara might be, if she hadn’t been killed by the dragon’s fire, if she ever thought of her small boy. She wondered if she knew a terrible sickness raged across the land, and that he had very nearly lost his life to the fever. Perhaps the devious woman had simply closed her mind entirely to her previous life. If she was in another realm or perhaps in another time with the demon or with the dark coven of witches, then possibly she was encompassed in such darkness, her precious wee son was not ever a consideration any longer.

  She had even pondered whether the demon or Odhran might be responsible for this horrid illness that scourged the land, for many were living in debilitating fear and all-encompassing grief, both known to attract darkness. Surely they would gain power from the heavy level of fearfulness and sadness that had overtaken the land with the wide-spread sickness. At times she had attempted to detect the presence of the demon, but thankfully she had not sensed him near. She shuddered at the thought of needing to contend with him now when her time was already stretched from dawn till darkness and beyond in dealing with those who had fallen ill.

  Alainn decided to dwell on happier thoughts, for her dismal notions would only feed the demon and have him gain more power should he be near or able to distinguish what filled her mind. She inhaled and purposely set her mind on grasping the tiny snippets of joy and gratitude at the small victories and accomplishments. She’d been to Castle O’Rorke yesterday. Her grandfather, although undoubtedly weakened, had been without fever for days now, and he was finally taking sustenance once more. Riley had become undoubtedly irritable and cantankerous which surely meant he, too, was on the mend. He had also been asking Alainn when Mary would return to the castle. Alainn had told Riley it was best Mary stay put till they knew the threat of further illness was averted.

  Alainn had stopped by the round tower to find Mary remained in good health and unaffected by the fever. Diadra appeared to be most pleased to be sharing her tower with Mary even though Mary wasn’t able to see her. Alainn was aware Conner and Mary had grown closer in her time apart from Riley. She doubted Mary desired to return to Castle O’Rorke or to Riley any time soon, and that if she had her way she would remain forever parted from Riley.

  She wasn’t certain on how to advise Mary, for clearly she and Conner were falling more deeply in love and when she watched the two of them together, she couldn’t help but long for them to be allowed a happy future together. Conner doted on Mary and pampered her as though the child she carried was his own. Yet with Riley’s possessiveness and unruly temperament, Alainn believed this would surely not end well for any of them.

  She was deep in thought as she left Eireen and Kale. She wiped her brow with the back of her hand, and brushed her hair from her weary face. She exhaled deeply and then retrieved the heavy chamber pot. With so many of the servants having fallen ill, there were simply not enough hands to take care of the many menial everyday tasks, much less tending to the many grueling needs of the ill.

  As she rounded the corner in the long corridor she stopped briefly by the arched window to catch the cool breeze upon her face. She closed her eyes at the pleasant sensation. When she opened them, she saw Killian walking toward her and he smiled brightly upon seeing her. He lovingly gazed at her and when he approached, he simply stared unblinkingly at her.

  “What is it, Killian?” she questioned with mingled adoration and curiosity in her eyes.

  “Have you any notion how truly lovely you are, Lainna?” he declared without a hint of humor or sarcasm in his voice.

  She narrowed her eyes and looked at him suspiciously as she glanced down observing and assessing her present unattractive state.

  “Aye, even with your hair wispily pulling loose from your plait, your noticeably soiled frock and carryin’ a piss-laden pot, you are surely still the loveliest woman on all the earth.”

  “Now either you’re coming down with the fever yourself, or your words are entirely influenced by physical desire too infrequently sated since this damnable sickness began!” she suggested with mirth in her tone.

  “I assure you I am not fevered in the slightest, and aye, of course as always I am constantly desirous of an intimate time with you. But for now I simply wanted to tell you, you’re uncommonly beautiful, that I love you more than I could ever actually tell you in mere words...and that it gladdens my heart that you are mine, my Lainna.”

  He gently embraced her and tenderly brushed his lips against hers, then turned to leave her, taking the heavy chamber pot from her as he left. She watched him walk away, but then soon followed. She observed as the handsome, noble young chieftain dumped the pungent contents of the chamber pot in the deep pit in the field beyond the castle. He seemed entirely unaware that her eyes followed him as he went to the pond and washed his hands with the gritty sand on the shore. He pulled his tunic over his head and splashed the water down his chest to cool himself on this unusually warm day. His broad chest and shoulders rippled with strength and glistened appealingly in the sunlight. As he learned forward his muscular thighs and buttocks strained against his trews, and she found herself wishing he would simply decide to bathe in the pond so that she could watch him remove those trews. Her blood began to hum with urgent need and her skin tingled at the thought of an intimate time together with him. He threw his tunic over his shoulder and casually strolled back toward the castle. She soon confronted him in a quiet secluded alleyway near the castle’s wall.

  When he saw her standing there staring at his bare chest with an undeniably sensual look upon her face, he surely aptly recognized that expression and her reason for being there became soon apparent, but still she voiced her desire.

  “I need you, Killian. I need to feel your arms around me, and your body within me. I know there is not time for lavish extended love making, but I fully admit I need you to love me now, to capably satisfy my desire as always, for I am in great need of stilling my heated passion.”

  “Aye, Alainn, my need for you is great as well,” he agreed as he went to her straightaway. He took her in his arms and she pulled his head down to hers for a rough and thorough kiss. Her hand caressed his broad chest, and she heard him suck in his breath as she impatiently tugged on his trews a
nd swiftly released his firm manhood.

  He looked deeply into her clear blue eyes so filled with desire as he capably lifted her and held her against the stone wall. His lips claimed hers as his hand pulled open her ties and found her breasts, caressing them with a deep passion needing to be stilled. When he raised her skirts and with his hand caressed her thigh and upward to her womanly treasure, his mouth found her breasts, she cried out with a need far too long denied.

  As she continued to caress him he moaned in appreciation and he sensed she required the joining to be swift as well. He thrust himself within her and she locked her fingers behind his neck and her legs around his waist. They stared into each other’s eyes as they fervently moved together. She felt her body’s appreciative tremble and she cried out in jubilant response. He soon reached his pinnacle and he moaned deeply as well. They briefly stayed there still joined and both nearly breathless. He finally grinned broadly as he kissed her once more and moved from her. He lifted her down from where he had held her and she felt her cheeks flush with heat as she smiled back at him.

  “If I’d known tellin’ you how beautiful you were would cause such a heated passionate response I’d have done it over a week ago when I was already filled with nearly insatiable lust,” he admitted with a smile.

  She smirked as she spoke.

  “If you must know, in truth it was seeing my irresistible young husband, an important, yet unassuming chieftain hauling the chamber pot with no hint of resentment or displeasure at the lowly task that filled me with desire,” she taunted.

  He chuckled at that. “Well though that seems an odd admission, whatever the reason, I am well pleased to have had this time with you, brief as it may well have been.”

  “Aye, well perhaps seeing your marvelously muscular chest without cover of your tunic may have contributed to my need for a primal torrid time with you.”

  He smiled again.

  “When this sickness has finally left the castle and the village, we will spend an entire day within our chambers beneath the bedcovers, and rest assured, it will not be one swift encounter on that day, Killian O’Brien,” she whispered suggestively as she straightened her skirts, fastened her ties, and then kissed his lips once more. He responded with enthusiastic lasciviousness, and soon they were in the throes of passion in another brief, but exhilarating joining.

  Mac drifted in and out of consciousness with his continued high fever, and Alainn listened as he often spoke in a thicker Scottish brogue and sometimes entirely in Scottish Gaelic. Although it was similar to the Irish Gaelic that she mostly understood, they were not entirely alike. Mac seemed to be conversing perhaps with his parents and then with his wife, Pierce’s mother. Although his voice was raspy and his fever high, his deep coughing had lessened considerably which was not always an indication of improvement for Alainn well knew that the coughing kept the purulence moving so it did not settle entirely within the lungs.

  Cookson remained undoubtedly weakened, but he was now sitting up and Lily was lovingly feeding him broth. Alainn was much relieved to see they were both improving. In truth, Lily seemed nearly recovered. She’d had no fever for two days now and the coughing was much less violent. Today her cheeks appeared to have regained color, but not the ruddy unnatural colored cheeks of fever. Cookson, too, was less riddled with fever this day.

  “Will he live through this?” she heard Cookson’s words in an unusually enfeebled voice, and from somewhere within the far reaches of her mind she remembered those very words. She recalled her aunt Siobhan had spoken those words to Morag regarding Killian’s condition so many years ago when she had healed him when they were only children.

  “I am not certain, Cookson,” she said without holding back the truth. “He was the first to come down with the fever of those who remain fevered, or who have not gone to the beyond,” she added quietly. “He is a strong man and in sturdy health, and I am much distressed to see there has been no noticeable improvement in these past weeks. Fevers do not usually tarry so. I fear in his weakened state from the initial sickness he is now suffering from a perilous condition of the lungs that is most often fatal.”

  “Have you had any further word on my parents and on Pierce?” Cookson asked in a sober voice when he learned Mac’s condition was uncertain.

  “Not this day,” Alainn admitted. She hadn’t been entirely in agreement that Cookson should be told of their condition in the first place, but Killian felt it was best he know.

  As Alainn dwelled on employing her magic to learn the state of those at Castle O’Brien, she was immediately overcome with a clear and disturbing vision of Margaret difficultly laboring with her unborn child. She saw Molly sitting with her, her face ghastly pale and filled with due concern. Both the village midwife and Alainn’s mother, Mara sat with her, and Margaret’s pain and exhaustion were evident. She saw Mara and the midwife exchange a sullen glance and the midwife shook her head. With that Molly began to weep.

  Alainn placed another cool cloth on Mac’s head, and hurriedly went to see to Eireen and Kale’s condition to find they were improving. She knew what she must do, and she immediately went to find Killian and Danhoul.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “I must go, Killian. I will never be able to forgive myself if I do not attempt to save the child. Even if I am not able to save Margaret, I cannot see the child doomed to the same fate. I sense she does not possess the strength to deliver the babe and something prevents the boy-child from being born. If Margaret dies now, the child is most certainly lost.”

  Killian’s eyes filled with uncertainty surely knowing she would be made to encounter sadness and heartache if she went to Margaret only to see her die, and certain endless guilt if she did not.

  “You’re confident you will be able to magically send yourself to Margaret and then simply come back by way of magic as well?”

  “Aye, I have managed it before.”

  Danhoul did not seem entirely pleased by her intentions either.

  “You are weary and fretful and if there is a possibility of watching Margaret and the unborn child lost, your woeful emotional state may hamper your magical abilities. You may not be capable of successfully returning through the use of your powers!” Danhoul warned. This further disturbed Killian.

  “Most everyone here is on the road to recovery, but for Mac. There has been no one fall ill in the past three days. I will surely be capable of returning by way of magic...I know Margaret needs me. How can I not attempt to go to her?”

  “Go if you must, Alainn, for I sense you will be ever-regretful if you do not.”

  “I won’t be long away, Killian, I assure you, but I must speak with Mac before I leave.”

  Mac remained fevered, and his breathing raspy and shallow. The always burly, gruff Scotsman opened his bleary eyes as Alainn sat down next to him. He obviously noticed the regretful expression on her face at being unable to improve his condition.

  “Do you believe I brought this sickness to this castle, lass? I was already ill on our journey, am I the cause of all the many people ailing or dead here at Castle O’Donnel?” he rasped and began coughing.

  She placed her hand to his brow and wiped it gently. When he finally was over his fitful coughing, she responded.

  “No Mac, you must assume no responsibility for the illness here, for several people were already filled with fever when we arrived. It is widespread. It has apparently reached every corner of Ireland.”

  He seemed relieved that he had not been the harbinger of this sickness.

  “You have come to say farewell to me, I can sense that well enough. So where are you off to, lass? You said no farewell the other times when you went to see to your grandfather and your cousin’s well-being. So either you are intending a much longer journey or you fear I wilna be here when you return. Which is it, lass?”

  “I must go to see how Margaret fares, for she is laboring with her child even now.”

  “And you’re not traveling by horseback, by coac
h or by wagon. I ken that well enough. So it’s by magic you go this day?”

  “Aye,” Alainn admitted knowing Mac had witnessed her magic on more than one occasion.

  “Well fare thee well, lass. Pass my good wishes to Margaret and my deepest love to my son...” His deep voice cracked with emotion upon speaking those heart-felt words and he soon fell to wheezing fitfully again.

  “I will Mac. I will most certainly assure Pierce of your love.”

  “And will you tell him a last farewell for me also?”

  With tears in her eyes, she sadly nodded.

  “I will for certain, Mac. Sorry I am, that I have been unable to save you by all methods known to me as a healer or by magic.”

  “A captain cannot ever ensure he can keep his men, his chieftain or his kin safe at all times. I suspect it is the same with a healer, even a magical healer, lass. I am thankful for how you have doted upon me, and I ken how admirably you’ve tried to heal me these weeks. Fate has something else entirely in mind for me, I suppose. You and Killian be happy for the two of you are both verra dear to me. I’ll be sending well wishes from the beyond for many healthy bairns born to the two of you, lass.”

  She bent over and gently kissed his warm forehead. He squeezed her hand and she immediately saw a spectral female figure appear before them. Alainn recognized her from seeing her at Pierce and Molly’s wedding. It was Mac’s wife, Pierce’s mother who had been long departed from the world. She smiled down at her husband and Mac’s eyes filled with warmth and immediate understanding. Alainn saw him gladly reach out to take her hand. With that done, he simply stopped breathing, with no pain, no fear, and entirely no regret. Alainn saw his spirit move from his fever-ridden body, and he nodded, warmly smiled once more at Alainn as the spirits embraced and disappeared together.

  Killian came to the door and saw Alainn weeping as she held tight to his captain’s hand. He also noticed Mac’s eyes stared wide open, but that there was no life left within them. His heart grew heavy at the consideration that Mac was gone. He had been the best swordsman Killian had ever met. He had trained daily with him from the time he had arrived at Castle O’Brien when he was a lad, for Mac had said even back then when Killian was a boy of two and ten that he recognized a man who had a gift with a sword. MacKenzie MacArthur had been a patriotic Scotsman, an able captain and a skilled warrior, but most of all he had been a very good father and a valued friend.