Page 23 of Wolf Heir
“His mother died in childbirth, and I was ordered to get rid of the baby.”
“Who ordered such a thing?”
“I canna say.”
“But you gave him to…no, you didna or you wouldna have been so shocked to see him. You didna know he lived.”
“I was young and was threatened that I would die if I didna do it, but I couldna harm him. He was a beautiful baby. I checked on him the next day, but someone had taken him in. I knew by the footprints in the soil, but I didna know who had.”
“You recognized the wolf on his shoulder.”
“Aye. I was shocked to see that he had grown into a man, that the crofters had taken him in.” Her mother wiped away tears.
“What about his da?”
“That I canna tell you.”
“Magnus and Elspeth dinna know whose baby Coinneach is,” Aisling said, astounded. She didn’t know anyone who didn’t cherish new wolf pups in the pack. How could the person who ordered the bairn to be murdered be so monstrous?
“Nay. They must have found him and taken him in as their own. You say that the boys are twins, Tamhas and Coinneach, but they are no’. I suspected Elspeth had just recently given birth to Tamhas, and they found the baby then. The men appear to be about the same age. Then she would have been able to nurse both.”
“Mayhap they were afraid of mentioning to anyone that they found the bairn.”
“And had they known, it would have been for good reason.”
Aisling pondered the matter, then said, “So why is Coinneach in danger?” She understood her mother’s concern because of the person who had threatened her with death. But how would anyone learn Coinneach wasn’t the crofters’ son? Then she thought of his birthmark.
“If anyone remembers what Hamish looked like at Coinneach’s age and sees the resemblance?”
“And the wolf head on his shoulder.”
“Only a few of us saw it.”
“In the birthing room?” Now Aisling suspected the person who had ordered her mother to get rid of the child had been helping with the birth. A woman, not a man.
But it had to be someone older than her mother at the time, most likely someone in a position of authority.
“If the mother died and had a bairn, but then the bairn disappears, wouldna that have been suspicious?” Aisling couldn’t understand how they could have deceived everyone.
“Another mother had twins and one didna live.”
“Och, so you swapped out bairns!” Aisling couldn’t help but be mortified at the idea. “But you didna give the healthy bairn to the one who had lost a twin.”
“Nay. She knew it had died. There was no sense in taking the bairn to her and saying that he had miraculously lived.”
No. There was more to it than that. The woman lost a bairn, and it would have been easy to swap out the deceased one for the live one instead of abandoning him to suffer what fate could have befallen him. He was just fortunate that Magnus and Elspeth had taken him in.
“The woman in charge of the birthing”—Aisling had no idea how that person could be so cruel so long ago—“must have ordered the bairn disposed of because she wouldn’t allow him to remain in the castle. Am I right?”
Appearing morose, her mother bit her lip and nodded, looking out at the grasses surrounding them.
So, who was the da? Someone of importance? Or someone, the most likely person, the midwife wanted for her own. Once his mate was gone, she saw a way to ingratiate herself with him so that he would become her mate.
Aisling had seen that behavior between a woman and a man before, only no bairns had been involved. The woman wouldhave had to be older than her mother, and the da would have had to be about Tamhas’s dad’s age.
“Who is Coinneach’s real da?”
“I canna say. No’ only would the woman who forced me to take him away—I left him by the river where I knew the crofters gathered to fish—but his own da would want my head. Dinna you see? I did a terrible thing.”
