A Sword Upon The Rose (21 page)

Godfrey dropped his hands. “What?”

“I am sorry,” she whispered.

“What?” he roared.

Angus seized his arm.

“Bruce has given me my home,” she said. “The home that was my mother’s. It is to be my dowry.... I am mistress of Brodie now.”

“Bitch!” He screamed. “You have gone over to Bruce? Bitch!”

Angus began to drag him away. “Ye’ll sleep below tonight, my English lord.”

Godfrey struggled uselessly against the larger man. “I am not English, you savage ass! What did you do, Alana? And why? Why?” He was screaming, tears running down his face.

“Bruce will be king,” she gasped, and she realized she was crying, too. “Please, Angus, unhand him, we are only talking!”

“Iain said he is to go to the dungeons if he causes trouble,” Angus spat.

“He is not causing me harm,” Alana said. Godfrey laughed again, without mirth.

“And what will your lover think when he learns the truth about you?”

He meant to tell Iain about her sight? A weight dropped within Alana’s chest. “Godfrey!” She rushed to him. “There is no reason to say anything!”

“No reason? You have stabbed me in the back! You have stolen Brodie from me!”

“Don’t do this,” she begged. “We are friends.”

“Friends? Friends do not betray one another! Friends do not steal from one another!”

“Brodie was stolen from me!” Alana cried. “From me!”

Iain stepped back into the hall, saying, “The whole castle can hear ye screaming at one another.” He was dark. He looked back and forth between them, with suspicion.

Alana stared silently at Godfrey, begging him with her eyes to keep her secret.

His gaze filled with tears, Godfrey stared back. Then he turned to Iain. “Do you not want to know the truth about her?”

Iain glanced at Alana. She felt her gaze becoming moist, and she turned away, sinking back down onto the bench. Eleanor sat beside her and took her hand.

“What is he speaking of, Alana?” Iain asked, very quietly.

Alana made a helpless gesture. “There is something,” she began. She choked. How could she tell him? Images flashed in her mind, of times when he had looked at her with warmth, with affection, with lust or with admiration...and too many images then followed, rapidly, of other men, staring at her with horror, in fear, repulsed.

“She is a witch,” Godfrey said.

Iain started, glancing at Godfrey.

“Your lover is a witch. Everyone knows. Ask anyone.”

Iain seemed amused. He turned to Alana, who trembled, sick with desperation, her gaze glued to his. His amusement vanished. Puzzled, he said, “Alana? What does he speak of?”

She hugged herself. “He is telling you the truth.”

“What?”

“I have the sight, Iain. I am a witch.”

He stared at her for a long moment. Then he said, “Everyone leave us.”

* * *

A
N
ETERNITY
SEEMED
to go by then, as everyone left the hall, Angus pulling Godfrey with him, Eleanor shooting Alana a worried glance, as she, too, got up and left. When they were all gone, Alana remained seated on the bench at the table, alone. Iain stood before her, his stance braced, one hand on the hilt of one sword. The only sound to be heard in the chamber was the hiss and crackle of the fire and Alana’s heavy breathing.

“I dinna understand,” Iain finally said.

How calm he sounded. Alana bit her lip, fighting tears. She had dreaded this day since meeting him. “I can see,” she whispered.

“If ye were not so frightened, I’d think this a jest.”

She shook her head.

“What do ye mean, exactly, that ye have the sight?” His knuckles turned white.

“I have visions...of the future...sometimes.”

He made a disparaging sound, his gaze fixated upon her. “No one can see the future.”

“I can.”

Another silence fell. A log fell in the fire, popping and hissing. “Ye only think ye can see, Alana.” He was firm. “’Tis impossible.”

He did not want to believe her. She was almost relieved. She was so tempted to let him continue to think as he was doing—but they were at Brodie, and everyone knew of her visions. “My father gave me a small dowry when I was fifteen. But everyone here in Buchan knows the truth, and the real reason I am not wed is because of my power,” she said hoarsely. “No one would have me, not even with my dower lands.”

He continued to stare, his eyes wide and hard, his expression becoming aggrieved. “I dinna believe ye,” he finally said. “No one can
see.
”

She shrugged helplessly. “I have had visions since I was a child of five or six.”

Another terrible silence passed, in which neither moved. “What have you seen?” he finally asked.

She rubbed her cold arms. “I saw you, Iain, before we ever met, in battle at Boath Manor.”

“What?” he exclaimed.

“I saw every detail of the battle days before it happened. I saw your Highlanders battling Duncan’s soldiers, I saw the manor burning, I saw you rescue Mistress MacDuff and her children. I even saw that red-haired Highlander try to stab you in the back.”

“I dinna believe ye,” he said again, but with less certainty.

She could drop the subject, she thought, but the doubt was there, in his eyes, along with confusion and a determination to ferret out the truth. “When Eleanor and I were on our way to Nairn and we came upon the battle, I knew what was going to happen. So yes, I did shout at you in warning.”

“I heard ye,” he said, his mouth turned down. “But why did ye rush to me when I was stabbed? Why?”

“I don’t know why. I had to help you. I was terrified you were hurt, or that you would die!” She started to cry into her hands.

“Do not cry now,” he warned. He started to pace, wildly, with confusion and growing anger. Alana fought her sobs, but it was impossible. Her heart was breaking. He whirled to face her, seizing her wrists, and removing her hands from her face. “Yer tears will not move me, Alana,” he warned. “Why did ye help me? Why? Was there more to yer vision?”

“I don’t know why I helped you! It was as if I loved you already, I was that frightened for you!” she cried.

He shook her once and released her. “Ye couldn’t have loved me then. Were ye looking for me? Were ye sent to look for me?”

He was so suspicious, again! “My uncle sent for me, but no one knew of that vision except for Eleanor.”

He absorbed that. Then, “What other powers do ye have?”

She stiffened. “None.”

“I dinna believe ye! God—or the devil—gave ye but one power?” His blue eyes were wild now. “Have ye cast a spell on me?”

She gasped. “Of course not!”

“Because I have been bewitched, from the time we first met! Did ye cast a spell on Godfrey? He is smitten with ye! On Bruce? Who so easily gave ye Brodie, who so quickly allowed me to march on it?”

Alana staggered to her feet, reaching for him. He swiped her hands away. “Iain, I cannot cast spells! My only power is the sight!”

He stared at her for many moments. “Ye need to go to yer chamber, Alana,” he finally said. “I’ll send for ye when I am ready to speak with ye again.”

“Nothing has changed!”

He sent her a dark look. “Everything has changed.”

* * *

A
LANA
WENT
INTO
Eleanor’s arms as Angus shut the door upon them. She closed her eyes tightly and fought the incessant tears. She had expected Iain’s anger, but she had not expected him to think that she had used witchcraft on him.

“It will be all right, Alana,” Eleanor said.

“Will it? He is furious, and he has sent me away! He thinks I cast a spell on him, to make him want me! And have we been locked up again? Are we Iain’s prisoners?”

Eleanor stroked her hair. “You had to tell him. He was going to find out. And it is who you truly are.”

“But I didn’t tell him, because I have been a coward.” She wiped her eyes and stood, thinking of how Iain had told her she was brave. Now he knew that truth, too! “Godfrey told him—to spite me—and I do not blame him.” Her heart sank with more dismay. Poor Godfrey. Had he come to truly care about her? “I have hurt everyone.”

“You never meant to hurt anyone. You found love when you have been treated like a leper your entire life. You had Brodie returned to you, when it should have never been taken away. You have done nothing wrong, Alana.”

Alana did not believe her. She felt as if she had betrayed everyone, and for what purpose? For the sake of having Brodie returned to her? To spend a few nights in her lover’s arms?

She walked to the door and tested it. To her surprise, it was not bolted, and when she opened it, no guard stood there.

She sighed in relief. At least Iain was not keeping her prisoner...yet.

“I eavesdropped on you,” Eleanor said, patting the place beside her on the bed. Alana returned and sat down at her side, and they held hands. “He is shocked, as he should be. And he is angry. But the shock and the anger will pass.”

“He is filled with suspicion again. He is filled with doubt, when it was so hard to win his trust. And he sent me away.” She trembled, a knife stabbing through her heart.

“I heard an angry, shocked man in the hall tonight, a man trying to sort through his own confusion, a man trying to comprehend you. A man who wanted to understand.”

“What are you saying, Gran?”

“Was he horrified? Frightened of you?”

She was afraid to have any hope, but she had not seen horror or fear on Iain’s face. “No.”

“You must give him some time, to realize what you truly are—a wonderful woman with a power that is at times a gift, and at other times, a curse.”

Her grandmother was the wisest person she had ever met. “Gran, do you think he might come to accept me as I am?”

“I think he is different from other men, Alana.”

Iain was different. The fourth and youngest son of a Highland lord, he was intelligent, shrewd and ambitious. He was powerful, and not just as a soldier. He was ruthless, but he could be kind. He was, truly, exceptional.

Alana shook herself free of her fanciful thoughts, her fanciful hope. “Even if he could accept me, he will marry someone else. I asked Bruce for Iain as a husband, and I was refused. Bruce has made it clear that Iain will have a great heiress for his loyalty, and Iain has been as clear that he expects as much.”

“There are worse fates than being a beloved mistress.” Eleanor smiled and touched her hair.

“I am not beloved now, Gran.”

“Are you certain?”

Did her grandmother think that Iain loved her? Alana was unable to speak, when a knock sounded on the door. “Enter,” her grandmother said.

The door was pushed open. Iain stood there on the threshold, staring at Alana, unsmiling and grim.

Her heart surged and she slowly stood up.

“Lady Fitzhugh, would you leave us?” Iain asked. But it was not a question, even if his tone was polite.

Eleanor hugged Alana once, and said to Iain, “She is precious to me—and to you, I suspect.” With that thinly veiled warning, she left.

Iain closed the door but did not step any farther into the room. “So ye have had visions since ye were a child,” he said quietly.

Her gaze riveted to his, she nodded. “Yes.”

“Visions, not dreams?”

“Visions,” she said hoarsely. Would they now calmly discuss her ability to see?

“What kind of visions? How often do ye have them?”

Dismay began. Was this an effort on his part to comprehend her—or to avail himself of her power? “I have never had a vision that is pleasing. I only foresee tragedy, bloodshed and death.”

He flinched.

“They happen when I least expect it,” she continued, “and when I am fully awake, and always, when I have glanced into a body of water.”

“When ye look into water?”

“I could look into a puddle of water, or a lake, and suddenly I am dizzy and faint, and then I am inside my own vision, as if it is really happening.” She wrung her hands. “I am always sick afterwards. Why do you ask me this, Iain?”

“We have been sleeping together since December, and suddenly I learn you are a witch, with the power of sight. I am not to ask questions?”

She could not decide what he truly wished to gain. She shrugged, indicating he could ask what he wished.

“How often do ye see the future? Once a month? Once a year?”

“It varies. A few times a year, perhaps.”

“And do the visions always come true?”

She nodded without hesitation. “Yes, Iain—always.”

He stared now, silently, still standing by the closed door.

He finally said, “Ye said ye saw the battle for Boath Manor a few days before it happened. Is it always that way? Do yer visions come true so swiftly?”

“No. It might be weeks or even months before my vision is reality.” She thought of the visions she had so recently had, of the destruction of Buchan’s earldom, of her father’s death, of Iain about to be slain by her uncle.... “It has never been more than a few months,” she whispered.

He was grim, wary even, but he no longer seemed angry. He was thoughtful. She knew Iain well now. He was trying to understand her abilities. If he also meant to use her in this war, it was not clear.

Until he spoke next. “What other visions have ye had, Alana, of the war—of me?”

She hugged herself, dismayed. “Is this why you have sought me out? To ask me about the war?”

He shot her a puzzled glance. “If ye have seen the future of the war, I must know.”

“That is why my uncle locked me up, Iain, the first time. He wanted me to have visions for him. That is why he summoned me to Nairn. And when he learned I cannot whistle a tune and sing a tale of the future upon command, he locked me in the tower—with a large clear bowl of water. I was not to be released until I had a vision.” She knew she sounded bitter. “I cannot see when someone asks me to! I cannot summon up a vision like one orders a maid to the kitchen!”

“I am not surprised yer uncle wanted a vision from ye,” Iain said. “What happened?”

“Do you condone what he did?” she cried, standing. “Will you lock me up with a bowl of water, until I have a vision for you?”