Of course, the largest problem was her worry over her enjoyment of the marriage bed and what that might mean for her soul. Something she certainly wouldn’t discuss with her husband’s aunt. But there were other issues as well, and one popped up now when Lady MacKay said, “Is it anything to do with Bryson?”
“You and me father call Conall Bryson,” she said with a small frown.
“’Tis the name he was given at birth,” Lady MacKay said solemnly.
True enough, Claray supposed, but really the name grated on her nerves every time she heard it and she tried to explain that to Lady MacKay. “I ken ’tis his name by birth, but it sounds odd to me. I ken him as the Wolf, or Conall, and think o’ him as that. Should I be calling him Bryson too?”
Lady MacKay smiled wryly and took a moment before admitting, “I fear after calling him Conall for twenty-two years I find it odd to call him Bryson as well.”
“Ye do?” she asked with surprise.
“Oh, aye,” she assured her. “It took me a good year to remember to call him Conall after his parents died. He had always been Bryson to me, ere that. But it was important. My husband was hoping to keep him safe with the change in name, and eventually I got used to it.” She sighed and shook her head, but then continued. “Now, however, Ross thinks it would be best to address him as Bryson to reassure his people that it is truly him, and I suspect he is right. So, I’m having to call him Bryson again, which feels just as odd to me as calling him Conall did at first.”
She smiled at Claray. “So, I do understand what you mean when you say it feels odd to think of him as Bryson. But mayhap you can avoid the issue by simply calling him husband, or some term of affection instead.”
Claray thought that might work. At least the calling him husband part. Conall had called her wife already a time or two, so should not protest her calling him husband in return. As for a term of affection, she would have to think about that.
“Might I ask you something?” Lady MacKay asked.
“Aye, o’ course,” Claray murmured, glancing to the woman.
“Why did you wish to speak to Father Cameron?”
Claray barely kept herself from groaning aloud at Lady MacKay’s question. This was the very last one she would wish to answer, and she was searching her mind for something to tell the woman that wouldn’t have to do with worrying over her soul because she enjoyed the bedding, when Lady MacKay spoke again.
“I was raised in a convent and was an oblate until my wedding.”
The woman couldn’t have said anything that Claray would have found more shocking. Nothing could have stopped the gasped “Really?” that burst from her lips at this news.
Lady MacKay nodded. “Aye. I only married Ross because my older sister fell in love and ran off with another. My parents then had to withdraw me from the convent to fulfill the marriage contract she’d forsaken. Otherwise, I would now be a nun.”
“I can no’ imagine ye as a nun, m’lady,” Claray admitted solemnly. The woman just did not strike her as someone who would have been happy shut away in such a place.
“Well, I did not say I would have been a good nun,” Lady MacKay said with amusement. “In truth, I do not think I was suited to that life at all, so I was very lucky to marry Ross instead. He has been a wonderful husband. And he’s given me three wonderful children,” she added, smiling affectionately at her daughter.
It made Claray miss her mother terribly in that moment.
“But the reason I bring it up,” Lady MacKay continued, “is that the church’s teachings on the marital bed caused some problems when I was first married, and I wondered if that was what you wished to talk to Father Cameron about? If so, I might be able to be of some assistance,” she added gently.
Claray hesitated and glanced around. Conall, Payton and Laird MacKay were riding a good ten feet in front of them. A glance back showed that Roderick and Hamish were a little closer behind them with the two older MacKay soldiers behind that, but she didn’t think Roderick and Hamish were close enough to hear if she spoke quietly. Deciding it was safe to speak about it, Claray turned toward Lady MacKay.
“Aye, ’tis that I wished to speak to him about,” she acknowledged, and then blurted, “Father Cameron was very clear on the matter o’ the marital bed and that only sinners bound fer hell enjoyed it, and I do no’ want to go to hell, but . . .”
“But ye enjoy Conall’s kisses and touch?” Lady MacKay suggested when Claray paused and flushed with embarrassment.
She nodded miserably, and then scowled and added, “God’s truth, I do no’ ken if ’tis a flaw with me or him, for he does do things I’m sure the church would no’ approve o’, but either way it puts me soul in peril and I do no’ ken what to do.”
“I do not think ’tis a flaw in either of you, dear,” Lady MacKay said gently, and when Claray looked dubious, added, “Did you not vow to obey your husband during the wedding?”
Claray hesitated, and then grimaced and admitted, “I may ha’e, but I fear I was so overset by everything during the ceremony that I was no’ payin’ attention to what I agreed to.”
“Ah.” Her lips twitched with amusement, but she told her solemnly, “Well, I was not overset and I did hear you agree to obey him.”
Claray just nodded. She could hardly argue the fact when she’d just admitted she didn’t recall.
“And that being the case, if your husband is doing things intended to make you enjoy it, then I assure you he wants you to enjoy. Because it is much easier not to make that effort to please you. So, if he wants you to enjoy it, then it behooves you to obey and enjoy it, does it not? Surely your soul is not in danger if you are simply obeying him as you vowed before man and God to do.”
Claray frowned over that. She understood what Lady MacKay was saying, but it was not as if Conall had actually ordered her to enjoy his bedding her. Now, if he were to do that, it would surely salve her conscience, because God would understand that she had to obey her husband. But he hadn’t ordered it. She opened her mouth to say as much, only to pause as she heard a wolf’s howl from somewhere behind and to the right of them.
“Was that a wolf?” Kenna asked, glancing around with surprise.
“Aye. It sounded like it,” Lady MacKay murmured, looking around as well. When a second howl sounded a moment later, seeming closer, she frowned and added, “I have never heard one howl during the day. They are supposed to hunt only at night.”
“Perhaps it has the madness,” Kenna said nervously when the howl came again, sounding closer still.
Claray frowned at the words, knowing the kind of panic they could instill. The madness was an ailment that drove dogs, foxes, wolves and several other animals to a behavior so rabid and violent they would attack without provocation, and they could pass on that madness to anything and anyone they bit.
It was a most unpleasant ailment to suffer, one of the worst that she knew of. It often started mildly enough in people who had caught it, with some general malaise, an achy head and no desire to eat. But that was followed by a strange sensitivity to sight, sound, smell and even touch. She’d heard tales where the person who had been bitten couldn’t bear the feel of their own hair brushing against their skin, or the wind on their cheek. Where even a small candle made their eyes burn and sunlight was blinding to them. Where the slightest sound was like a drumming in their head, loud and unbearable. It was around that point that victims also became seemingly terrified of liquids, and if forced to drink would retch violently, and even vomit until their throat ruptured and they spewed blood. And then the madness would set in. They would be calm one moment, their mind and thoughts seemingly fine, and then would suddenly erupt in a mad fury, becoming wildly agitated and uncontrollable, scratching and biting those around them until they suddenly calmed again. She’d heard that oftentimes toward the end they seemed to be sunk deep in terror, screaming endlessly and carrying on as if suffering hell’s torments. It was supposed to be monstrous to see and worse to suffer, and so when they finally fell into a deep sleep and died, all were relieved that their suffering had ended.