Cait and the Devil

Now he had nothing at all.

He groaned under his breath. Connor shifted across from him.

“My lord. The hour grows late—”

He fell silent at the look Duncan gave when he lifted his head.

“Not drunk enough. Not yet.” His head dropped again to the table.

Connor shifted as Henna called from the doorway, announcing a visitor. He nudged his lord.

“Duncan. Someone comes!”

At the tone in his friend’s voice, Duncan rose unsteadily to his feet. He saw her in the doorway, long black curls and pale blue eyes.

Cait.

No, not Cait. Edana. At last.

“I’ve been waiting for you.” He meant to sound angry, frustrated, furious, all the things that he felt as he waited for her. But he didn’t. He sounded weak and forlorn. Hopeless. Defeated. “Where is she, Edana? Please tell me. Please tell me you know.”

“I don’t know.”

“Is she alive?”

“She lives. I feel it. I see her. She’s in Scotland. She isn’t terribly far.”

“My father took her. He...he...harmed her.”

“I told you she was in danger,” the priestess said. She looked so much like Cait, it seared him to his soul. He shook his head.

“I never thought...my own father...my own wife...” He looked at her reproachfully. “I’ve waited for you to come. What took you so long? I’m losing hope. I’ve searched the woods every day. Dead winter comes, and she...she must come home. She is with child.”

Edana sighed. “It was you I felt calling, not her. It is you who drew me here.”

“But she is your daughter. Can’t you go into a trance or something? Divine where she is? Isn’t that within your powers?”

“Sometimes. My powers are a gift of the Goddess. Sometimes She gives the sight. Sometimes She does not.”

Henna came forward with a tray of food and drink for the priestess, but she waved it away.

“No. I will fast. You will help me, woman. You are the healer here?”

Henna nodded.

“Come. Show me the highest, most open vantage point in the keep. I will meditate and fast until dawn. Tell your men to be ready. We will not find her by skulking about here.”

* * * * *

Cait hunched over outside the cottage. She rocked slowly, trailing her fingers through the dirt, remembering him. She couldn’t think of his name. It was too horribly painful to think it, to remember his hands, his warmth, his lips. His gentleness. She kept his name inside her heart, like a treasure, locked away.

Locked away, just as she was.

She’d tried to escape. So many times she’d started walking, started running directionless through the woods. She wasn’t locked away behind any door, any iron bars or windows. She was locked behind a wilderness of endless, impenetrable woods. And so she waited, but everyday she hoped a little less.

Soon enough, she knew, the old earl would understand about the baby. She didn’t know what he would do. She never knew what he would do, only that it would be wicked and violent and painful. It would be impossible to endure if he harmed the baby. Even though it wasn’t Duncan’s, she loved it all the same. It was the only thing that comforted her as the lonely weeks went by. As long as the baby was inside her, he couldn’t harm it. Unless he killed her, which he threatened to do all the time. When I grow tired of you, Princess, I’ll throw you from the tower. So you had best not grow tiresome. You had best do as I say.

And she did do everything he demanded of her. She learned that abject obeisance could sometimes stave off his ire. She groveled, she cowered, she begged and cringed and shrank before him. When he demanded it, she bowed and served his men. More and more he passed her off to them, drowning himself in drink while they used her one after the other. He was growing tired of her. Perhaps the end would come soon.

She had no way of knowing, and thinking about it only troubled her already unquiet mind. She couldn’t think as she used to. Her wits were going hazy. It was a blessing. She lived moment by moment, tried to live outside the atrocities he visited on her. And most of all, for her sanity, she didn’t think of him.

Only once a day, at dusk, while the earl drank with his henchmen, she allowed herself to look up at the sky and think that, perhaps, he too looked up and thought of her. She thought hard, every night. I’m here, Duncan. Wherever here is.

Please come.

* * * * *

“Come!” shrilled Edana. “We are close. I can feel it.”

For a week now, at dusk, she had led Duncan and his men deeper and deeper into the woods outside Dunain, through trees and brush so thick that the horses balked and progress was slow. But Edana pressed forward urgently, as if Caitlyn’s voice herself was calling aloud.

“Stay together!” he barked to his men. He believed that Edana was leading them to Cait, but he also knew his father would not be alone. Duncan had brought an army one hundred strong to bring her home.

Edana paused, closing her eyes. The army of men fell silent as the grave, so silent one could hear the whispering of the wind in the trees. Even the horses seemed to hold their breath, not shifting, not exhaling. For a long moment, she meditated, then opened her eyes and turned to the west.

“She is near.” Duncan’s hair stood on end as it always did when she spoke in that voice. “She is near. She lives. She waits. She calls to you,” she finished in a whisper edged with tears.

He looked at the steadfast woman, her back straight, her chin jutting forward stubbornly even as he heard the tremor in her voice. He’d never even considered her own grief. Cait was her daughter, as well as his wife. Of course this must be difficult for her as well. He thought sometimes that Edana felt and saw things she didn’t tell him. He saw her lips go white, saw her eyes close in pain, but he was too afraid to ask...

“Tonight?” he asked instead, his voice hopeful. “Tonight?” he asked again when she didn’t respond.

“I don’t know.” She waited, shaking her head. “No, I’ve lost her. Tomorrow,” she said with determination. “Tomorrow at dusk, we will search again.”

Duncan’s shoulders slumped in the fading twilight. Another day. It was excruciating when he, too, could feel they were near.

“She is west, you believe? Shall we go west?”

“The light is fading.”

“I cannot wait,” he said through gritted teeth. “God help me, I cannot wait. These nights, these days...I cannot bear them—”

“I hear her only at dusk!” snapped Edana. “I am doing all I can! I do not wish to wander around blind and end up farther away! We wait until dusk tomorrow, to be sure of our direction!”

Duncan sighed and walked away from her. He would walk all night. They could stay where they were, but for himself, he would walk. He would walk until he tripped over the godforsaken hiding place where she was. He could hear the men dismounting, preparing to camp for the night. He turned around, then stood still as stone, looked and listened. There was no fire, no sound, no light that he could see, and yet he knew. She was so near. He could feel her, he could sense her. He could smell her in the air.

He looked up at the darkening sky, then down at his feet. His eyes widened in astonishment and he fell to his knees.

His name was written there in the dirt, his own name in quickly scrawled letters.

DUNCAN

It was his name written in her hand. Her letters, right there. The message was hidden in the shadow of thick brush.

And beside his name, making his blood pound in his veins, an arrow pointed the way.

* * * * *

They uncovered the enclave just before dawn. It was only a small holding, a cottage, some outbuildings, the ruins of a keep. From outside, it looked sleepy and peaceful. A few of his father’s men slept in the open air of the overgrown courtyard. No one kept watch. Edana led Duncan to a small storehouse behind the cottage. It was locked, but Duncan had it open with a silent swipe of his weapon. He motioned Ed

ana to wait but she would not be deterred. They entered the small room together. It was dark, dank. Freezing.

She was there.

She stirred on the pallet on the ground, waking only slightly. She turned away, hunched in a miserable ball.

“She thinks you are him,” whispered Edana.