Page 48 of So Close To Heaven
His jaw flexed, a muscle jumping as he stared down at her. “Ivy,” he growled, low, dangerous, “dinna start this nonsense again.”
“I’m serious,” she hissed, shaking the clothing in her hands as evidence. “I know you think it’s all hogwash, but trust me, you guys aren’t making riveted jeans in this century. Look at this blouse. Everything she was wearing is straight out of the twenty-first century. Alaric, she’s...like me.”
Though he did glance down, considering the garments, his lips thinned.
Ivy pressed on. “And what’s more, Alaric—I think Ciaran recognized her. He was visibly shaken by the sight of her. He acted like he saw a ghost. And when I asked him if he knew her, he saidaye, and thennae—like, what does that mean?”
She didn’t feel as if she were betraying Ciaran—her first allegiance would always be to Alaric, she knew. But when she searched his face, willing him to understand, his expression only hardened further. He looked at her strangely, as if he pitied her, as though he wished she weren’t crazy, and that hurt more than outright dismissal.
But the dismissal came as well.
He took one step backward. “It’s simply nae possible,” he growled, his tone suggesting he wishedshewould believethat.
Without another word, he left.
Abandoned in the silence, Ivy’s shoulders slumped. She pressed a hand to her eyes, despair creeping in. Would he ever believe her?
***
A gray mist clung tenaciously to the forest floor, curling low around the hooves of their mounts as the hunting party moved in measured silence. The chuffing and sniffing of hounds echoed faintly ahead, trying to catch the scent of either deer or boar.
Ciaran rode stiffly at Alaric’s side, nearly unmoving, his bow slung lazily across his lap as if he had no intention of using it, even if the hounds did alert them to prey nearby. Alaric’s gaze drifted on and off his friend, recalling Ivy’s words of yesterday afternoon, in regard to Ciaran—visibly shaken. Alaric chewed on this.
He acted like he saw a ghost,Ivy had said.
Meaning to know if there was any truth to Ivy’s suspicion, Alaric maneuvered his steed a wee bit closer to Ciaran and pitched his voice low so the others would not hear. “The lass in yer hall,” he said. “The flaxen one found in the tinker’s cart. Ye ken her?”
Ciaran did not turn his head, only adjusted the reins with a careful hand. “Nae. I dinna.”
It was too smooth. Too quick. Ciaran hadn’t turned to Alaric with any hint of surprise, wondering why he might have posed the question.
Alaric studied him. “Strange, then, for a man who claimed nae knowledge to look as though he’d seen a ghost. Ivy said as much.”
Ciaran’s jaw hardened, a muscle jumping there. “I said I dinna ken her.” His tone was flat, but the silence that followedwas heavy. He tempered it with, “She... she merely reminded me of someone.”
Alaric let the matter hang, though the seed of suspicion dug its roots deeper. Ciaran’s manner had been protective, as though he guarded a secret. Ivy had not imagined it, Alaric decided; he too now sensed something amiss, something carefully hidden.
The crack of brush ahead drew their attention; one of the younger men loosed an arrow, and a stag bounded through the trees, wounded but swift. Shouts rose, the chase overtook them, and for a time there was only the thundering pursuit of prey.
By the time the hunters returned to Caeravorn with the carcass across a packhorse, the day had waned into a dim, gold-dappled afternoon. Alaric strode into the hall alongside Ciaran, sweat cooling against his neck, thinking of a quick bath in the loch.
The steward appeared in the hall doorway, face drawn, his cloak dusted as if he’d come at a dead run. The man bowed hurriedly.
“Word from the south, my lairds.” His voice carried, steady but tight with strain. “A rider has come—straight from Strathaven. He bears word of an English host pressing north. The truce keeps them from burning as they march,” the steward added, “but there has been blood—a clash near Airdrie the day before last, the entire village burned.”
Murmurs rippled among the men who’d followed them inside. Ciaran cursed, and reached for the missive, scanning the contents with a heavily furrowed brow.
“How many?” Alaric demanded of the steward. The man was normally calm, but there was a tightness to his voice that lent weight to his words; if such a rock of a soul looked grim, then every man in the hall knew the tidings were grave indeed.
The steward answered steadily. “Three thousand strong.”
“How near?” Alaric asked next.
“Two days’ march from here, mayhap less,” answered the steward while Ciaran continued to read. “Scouts say their banners stretch near a mile on the road.”
Alaric’s mind worked swiftly, weighing numbers, routes, the stretch of land between Caeravorn and where the English force might have advanced to since Airdrie. “Three thousand is nae small host,” Alaric muttered, brow furrowed.
Ciaran lifted his eyes from the parchment, handing it off to Alaric. “We canna sit idle while Edward’s dogs trample our soil.”
