Free The Raven's Wish by Susan King Page B

only smiled before turning away to speak to Hugh.
    She had seen little of him since then, though he spent his days with her cousins, riding with them, walking out over the hills, and discussing the queen's legal document, sometimes with calm dispute, from what she overheard.
    Shoving her fingers through her unruly hair, she followed the lamb. Fine mist dampened her plaid and coaxed her curls into a frothy halo. She loved the washes of mist and rain that rinsed the land, loved cool fresh billows of air, and the soft green and heather tones. Feeling content, aware how much she loved the Highlands, she walked on, singing softly.
    Soon Bethoc's croft lay just below, close against the foot of the hill. Elspeth halted her step, cut her song short in mid-phrase, and frowned. Smoke curled, cosy and dark, from the chimney-hole set in a roof of heather thatch. Vines climbed up a stone wall. A white goat nibbled on a block of turf that also served as an outside bench, and several chickens pecked in erratic circles. The front door stood open, and all was quiet and apparently peaceful.
    Yet a heavy dread gripped Elspeth's insides like a fist. She began to run.
    Reaching the doorway, she peered into the shadowed interior. The open door admitted a wedge of cool daylight. Scant light was provided by a little window in the back wall.
    "Bethoc?" she called, stepping inside. Her brogues shushed over the well-swept dirt floor. In the hearth, a circle of fitted stones in the middle of the floor, a peat fire crackled. The sweet, musty fragrance of dried herbs hanging in bunches from the rafters mingled with the peat smoke. Elspeth turned. "Bethoc?" she called.
    Across the room, behind a woven cloth hung for a curtain, lay a snug box bed. Crossing the room, Elspeth drew aside the curtain, and looked down at Magnus's little daughter.
    Eiric slept soundly, curled on top of the fur covering, a tiny form in a rumpled white shift, her black curls gleaming in the faint light, one thumb disappeared into her little mouth. Though dark as her mother had been, her eyes, when open, had Magnus's deep blue color.
    Eiric's mother, Bethoc's daughter, had happily handfasted with Magnus. But before the year and day of their arrangement drew to an end, the girl had died bearing their daughter. Not even Bethoc's considerable skill could save her.
    Magnus had been making plans to marry her in front of a priest. Instead, he had buried her, and had given his infant daughter Eiric into Bethoc's hands for raising. He knew that Eiric would be cared for with great love here. And Elspeth knew that in the two years since, he had secured his heart against hurt, making no attempt to find another wife.
    Elspeth reached out to tuck a woolen blanket securely around the sleeping child. "Eiric gràdhan , little dear, where is your grandmother?" she murmured. Bethoc, she knew, would not have gone far when the child napped.
    The second room of the house, formed by a half-wall made of a wattle screen, held Bethoc's sturdy, wide loom and little else. She saw that Bethoc was not in the weaving room.
    Leaving the cottage, Elspeth walked around the side of the house, past the turf-bench and the goat, her strides parting the cluster of chickens. The kail-yard, a small garden behind the house, was deserted, its rows of herbs and vegetable plants lush and still in the damp, silent air.
    But a few of the green leaves were trampled and smashed. Elspeth suddenly felt as if a lump of lead sat in her stomach. Her heart beat with quick thumps as she turned away.
    "Bethoc!" she called.
    Nothing but the wandering bog-lamb. She shooed it toward the turf-bench, where the goat moved over without interest. Wondering if Bethoc had gone to fetch some water, Elspeth began to run down a little hill that led to a burn.
    There, beneath the alder trees that lined the burn's banks, she saw Bethoc seated on the ground by the rapid, narrow stream.
    Even from this distance, Elspeth could see the darkening bruises