"Ye still cannae recall why ye were in Dubheidland?"
"Nay, that part remains mostly shadowed. Howbeit, since some of it has returned, I must assume the rest will soon follow. I obviously found some clue or had some suspicion which drew me there. 'Tis a pity I didnae think to confide in anyone. I fear I got some notion into my head and simply acted on it."
"And took none of your men with ye. Where could ye have gotten the idea?"
"I dinnae ken. That, too, will undoubtedly come to me in time. I have only had my memory back for four days now, or what there is of it. I cannae think those memories still trapped just beyond my reach willnae break free soon, too.
The healing has begun, so it must surely continue."
Sigimor nodded. "That makes sense. Tait, Nanty, and I were going to go to Dubheidland and find out if anything has been discovered, nay matter how small.
We will wait here another week now. If ye do remember more, it may save us from riding about blindly whilst there. I grow weary of that game."
Diarmot suddenly tensed. "I think I had been reading my wife's journals. The memory isnae clear to me as to when I was doing it, but since one of those still-shadowed memories comes right after this clearer one, it may be that I found some clue there. Jesu, but I dinnae wish to look at them again." He held up his hand to halt the words Sigimor was ready to utter. "I must. I ken it."
"Are they that bad?" asked Nanty.
"There arenae pleasant reading," replied Diarmot. "Tis probably for the best that I didnae discover them until after I had suffered through several accidents that, e'en then, I thought might be attempts upon my life. Despite kenning they might hold important clues, the urge to hurl them into the fire was almost too strong to resist." He finished his ale and stood up. "I believe I will begin now. Viewing a hanging has probably put me in the proper mood." He strode out of the great hall and hurried toward his ledger room where he kept the journals.
"Tait?" Sigimor said as soon as Diarmot was gone.
"Aye?" Tait glanced at his brother, then returned his attention to spreading a thick layer of dark honey on a piece of bread.
"If I e'er cast my eye upon a woman who seems to be e'en faintly akin to Lady Anabelle, I give ye leave to beat some sense into me."
"Twill be my pleasure."
Diarmot groaned, slumped in his seat, and rubbed his hands over his face. He had been studying Anabelle's writings for most of the day, taking a respite only when something else required his attention. Although reluctant to do so, he had returned to the chore soon after the evening meal. Now he felt only sickened by it all, sickened by Anabelle, and sickened by the fact that he could have been so blinded by her beauty when he married her. Worse, it was beginning to look as if he had suffered for naught for he had found nothing.
He had realized a few things about his late wife that he had not seen in the first readings he had done, when his mind and his heart had been clouded by anger and hurt. Anabelle had loathed men. She had seen them as sad, pathetic brutes who could be led around by their privates. The way she wrote about the far-too-numerous sexual romps she had indulged in made them all sound like some battle with her as the victor. In some ways, she sounded akin to the worst of callous seducers, men who used women and found satisfaction in the number of women they could lure into their beds, more than in the women themselves.
The reason he had gone to Dubhleidland, to that area, was in these writings.
Diarmot could not shake the feeling despite the fact that all he had gained so far was a painful headache. That was not quite true, he mused, as he stared at the journals. He had discovered one thing, something that mattered only to him.
It did not hurt anymore.
Anabelle was gone from his heart, her grip on his mind and pride broken. When he read her words, it was as if he read about a stranger. In most ways, she had been a stranger to him. The Anabelle he had married had been only a chimera created by a mind besotted by her beauty and drunk with lust. The scorn she had heaped upon him in her writings no longer stung for he realized it was no more than the scorn she felt for all men. She had not known him any better than he had known her.