I speared a potato. “Try to keep up, brother. As has been clearly stated, Lord Fitzalan is descended from Lugh.”
Sean’s face turned ashen. “You don’t mean...it can’t be...” He stumbled over the words, only to fall silent when the serving girl returned with a large pitcher of ale.
No one spoke as she refilled the cups of the other men before coming to our table. “Here yeh go,” she said, topping off Tom’s tankard. “Anything else yeh be needing?”
“Two more trenchers,” Cate said to the girl. “And another tankard of ale.”
“Aye, milady. I’ll fetch them at once.”
She turned to leave when I stopped her. “Did my friend get her supper in the kitchen?”
“No, miss. She went straight upstairs after leaving here.”
“Please have a tray brought up to her then. And make it a full helping for I know she’s famished.”
“Famished or not, she’s not there anymore.”
I started at the revelation. Ailish hadn’t seemed keen on a bath earlier, though she could have changed her mind. Or perhaps she needed even more distance from our gathering to enjoy her supper. “Do you know if she went to the tavern to eat?”
“Don’t know, miss. A pale man came for her and they left together.” She shivered and the remaining ale sloshed inside the pitcher. “Gave me the jitters, he did, like the devil himself crossed me shadow.”
For the second time since entering the dining room, I had been rendered speechless.
The girl curtsied. “I’ll be back in two shakes with yehr trenchers, milady.”
Cate turned to me the moment we were alone again. “Is my altar upstairs in your chamber?”
I nodded numbly. Ailish left...with Cailleach’s hound.
She turned her attention to Sean and Marin. “When we’re finished here, everyone is to cross over to replenish their power. No need to change, other than removing your shoes and stockings.”
“But the closest altar is ten miles to the north,” Marin said.
“I assure you, there is one much closer. Go to Selah’s chamber and she’ll show you what I mean.”
Sean glanced at me, his mouth pressed tight. “We’ll do as you ask.”
Henry’s hand tensed on my shoulder as he looked at Cate and Tom. “What do you have planned?”
Tom splayed his fingers on the table and leaned forward, an unsettling smile curling at the corners of his mouth. “Then we go hunt a witch.”
Chapter Nineteen
Through the Dolmen
It was near midnight when Cate and Marin left the inn together as planned, hoods drawn up against the drizzle and with a bottle of wine each tucked beneath their woolen cloaks. They went without a lantern, and from the armchair near the hearth, I imagined them passing like silent specters through the town on their way to the gate tower. Once there, they were to act as hired women and offer their services to keep the guards company on such a cold blustery night. Being two young beauties, I had little doubt of their success, and that the men’s defenses would drop quicker than a drawbridge. Then Cate would plant the necessary ideas to allow the rest of our party to pass from Wexford unnoticed.
Sean stood at the hearth, one hand gripping the mantel and his head hung low in troubled thought. Dark stubble peppered his cheeks, which had paled by several shades when Marin departed with Cate despite Tom’s assurances that no harm would befall either of their wives.
Displeased as I was at being left behind, it allowed me time to speak with my aunt, who had finally arrived at the inn with Lord Stroud and Mr. Roth just as Cate and Marin were leaving. Our relief at being reunited had remained subdued due to the seriousness of the situation, and even now Justine and I spoke in hushed voices while James and Julian nursed tankards of ale at a table with Tom.
Hands folded in her lap, Justine had pursed her mouth to the shape of a rosebud by the time I reached the end of my story. A tea tray sat on the table next to her, untouched.
“I had a bad feeling about Calhoun from the very start, but never in a million years did I think him so brazen as to steal you from under our noses.” Anger radiated from her skin. “It makes my blood boil just thinking what he planned to do.”
Her defensiveness surprised me, as did the complete lack of fear for her own tenuous situation while on board the Sea Witch. “Captain Lynch was hardly a docile lamb. You’re fortunate he didn’t know to stuff wool in his ears before coming within fifty feet of you.”
She arched her fingers, cracking several of the joints. “Fortune has always favored me.”