Jacqueline spied grazing stock, sheep and the occasional cow, and noted that they were plump beasts and numerous. In the distance a trio of men tilled another field with a pair of oxen. Half a dozen boys cavorted around the plough while marauding birds swooped low, hopeful of seed.
It seemed that Airdfinnan was incomparably wealthy, that it reaped the gains of its sheltered locale. Perhaps Angus’ intent to reclaim it was not entirely born of noble impulse. Any man would covet such a holding as this. She wondered anew at his motivation and stole a sidelong glance.
He ignored her, undoubtedly disinclined to confess his secrets.
Within the keep’s walls, Jacqueline could see little of interest. One square abode was there, as well as a chapel marked by a cross upon its roof, and a variety of leaning wooden structures. There were many sentries, at the gate, on the bridge, on the top of the walls, inside the courtyard.
Curiosity had the better of her before Jacqueline knew it. “Airdfinnan is most heavily guarded. Is it frequently assaulted for its wealth?”
“’Tis prosperous, indeed, but that is not all its merit.”
“What then?”
Angus braced his chin on one hand, seemingly fascinated by the men pacing below. He pointed to the right, to a deep cleft in the surrounding hills. “There is an easy course there to the east, one of the only easy courses from east to west in this land and thus one of the only weaknesses in the defense of the Kingdom of the Isles.”
“From there—” he pointed to the left, Jacqueline seeing that the keep perched in the middle of a glen in truth “—an army might ride to Skye.
“And from there—” he pointed harder to their right, back the way they had come, and she saw another breach in the surrounding mountains “—that army might ride to Mull and the very court of the King of the Isles. Of course, the King of Scotland sees Airdfinnan as a means of his western rival reaching his lands. Airdfinnan sits at the crossroads, as it were, positioned to halt an assault in either direction.”
“Your family must have been trusted by the King of the Isles to win such a responsibility.”
“My father saved the hide of Somerled once in battle and that king never forgot his debt. Airdfinnan was his payment, though a cynical man might perceive that the richness of the gift was his assurance of my father’s continued loyalty.”
“And Cormac of clan MacQuarrie?”
“Believed that he too had served the king loyally, perhaps more loyally than my father. He desired Airdfinnan as his own reward, though he was granted Ceinn-beithe, a site held to have great import for his clan.”
“Did he protest to the king?”
“He did not dare. But when Somerled died, Cormac made his intention clear. He marched once on Airdfinnan, though was repulsed and was consequently chided by Somerled’s son and heir Dugall.”
“Somerled had died in an assault on the Scottish king’s defenses.”
“Aye, and his son was disinclined to tolerate dissent within the ranks of his supporters, poised as they might be for war. Cormac made his threat to my father, though, and there was not a one among us who did not doubt that he would only bide his time for a short while. A chieftain’s pledge of vengeance is not so readily forgotten.”
They stared in silence for a moment, Jacqueline trying to determine how she might make the most of Angus’ rare talkative mood. He seemed inclined to speak of his family and their holding with more enthusiasm than he ever spoke of himself or his ambitions.
Jacqueline clung to a winning theme. “Airdfinnan seems most formidably defended,” she said, hoping he would expound upon military matters at least. She was interested in the keep that he so desired, though she knew ‘twas because she hoped to learn more of him in his recounting.
Aye, when he was not angered with her, ’twas difficult to remain angered with him. Jacqueline decided ’twas because Angus never spoke to her as though she was a witless fool.
“’Tis indeed,” he agreed. “The obstruction of the river was my father’s pride. He maintained that Airdfinnan could never be taken by force, but that ’twould fall only by treachery from within.”
“Yet ’tis in the hands of another.”
Angus said naught to that, his gaze slipping restlessly over the property that should have been his legacy in his brother’s stead. Jacqueline wondered whether that meant he believed there was treachery from within, or whether he believed his father had been wrong.
She knew better than to imagine he would answer her that. “How do you know that your brother was murdered?”
His lips tightened. “I know it.”
“But how? By Edana’s telling, he was ill before you departed, and any man who has fallen ill may surely die. And you cannot have witnessed his death, for you had left for Outremer.”
“Again, you put much credence in the ramblings of an old woman.”
“How do you know?”
He turned to regard her with no less intensity than he had surveyed Airdfinnan. “You have many questions for one pledged to surrender secular life for the cloister.”
Jacqueline smiled. “I am curious.”
“And I am disinclined to entertain you.” He pushed back from the ledge, ensuring that he was in the shadows of the forest before he stood. He offered her his hand. “You are late for your novitiate.”
Jacqueline spurned his assistance, echoing his cautious retreat then rising to her feet unaided. “And I have only had half of the truth. Would you condemn me to never knowing the fullness of your tale?”
“Readily.” He marched back toward his steed.
She resisted the urge to swat him and trudged behind him, holding her skirts up from the undergrowth. “Then you are witless enough to deserve your fate, just as Rodney would maintain,” she charged and won his attention in truth.
He spun to face her so quickly that she nearly ran directly into him. He caught her shoulders in his hands and glared down at her. “You know naught of what you speak!”
“And you clearly know naught of convents. Cloistered women are oft of influential families. Why, the abbess of Inveresbeinn is said to be a widowed cousin of Dugall, King of the Isles, himself. Though nuns surrender contact, all abbesses have correspondence with the world beyond the cloister walls.”
Jacqueline lifted her chin in challenge, liking the rare sense of having surprised him. “Telling me your tale might lead to some aid in seeing Airdfinnan restored to you.”
’Twas a feeble argument. Though the abbess’ relations were a matter of fact, her inclinations were a matter of speculation. Jacqueline held Angus’ gaze, watching him weigh the merit of telling her what he knew.
“You have no reason to aid me.”
“Not if you continue to be so irksome.”
Angus dropped his hands from her shoulders and turned away, and Jacqueline was convinced for a heartbeat that he would tell her naught.
But he began to speak, his words low. “My brother fell ill most suddenly. Ewen was some eighteen summers of age, healthy and hale on one day, and shaking in his bed on the next. ’Twas thought to be an ague that struck him or some nameless illness, though the priest was quick to name it as the vengeance of God.”
“For your father’s failure to depart on crusade.”
Angus nodded. “In two days, Ewen was barely recognizable as the man he had been. My parents were terrified that he might die, and there seemed to be naught any healer could do.”
“So you pledged to crusade.”
“’Twas a thin hope, but the only one we had.” Angus frowned, his gaze flicking to the keep out of sight. “I learned on my return that he had died but two days after my hasty departure.” His voice caught and he bowed his head, grieving for the brother he had not been able to save.
Jacqueline’s heart twisted with a sympathy that she knew he would not welcome. She did not offer it and likely sounded more stern than was her intent as a result. “And your father?”
“Faltered with the loss of his son.
’Twas said he took the same illness within a fortnight.” Angus looked into the forest, away from Jacqueline, his voice low. “He must have been dead before I even reached the shores of France.”
He surely felt that he journeyed for naught. Indeed, it seemed that Angus had had little chance to influence his family’s fate. Jacqueline laid a hand upon his arm, half-certain he would decline her touch but needing to offer solace all the same. He left her fingers there, but ignored them.
“And your mother?”
He swallowed and kept his gaze averted. “’Twas said she was seized by madness and fled Airdfinnan in despair. She was later returned to the keep to be buried, having died of either her madness or her grief.”
“’Tis tragic, but still, I do not understand why you claim they were murdered.”
He slanted a glance her way. “I never guessed it, until I met a man in Outremer. His skill was in assassination and indeed, he earned much coin by his endeavors.”
“But if he was known to be a murderer, then surely he would have been punished for his crimes.”
Angus shook off her grip and paced a distance away. He leaned back against a tree, folded his arms across his chest as he regarded her, his eye glittering. “Only if he were to be caught at his deed, or if his hand could have been proven to be involved. All knew his reputation by name, though few knew which countenance matched the name of his reputation, and truly, a man of such skills was most useful in the complicated alliances of Outremer.”
“How would he know of your brother’s murder?” Jacqueline could not understand the connection between Angus’ family and this man. “Surely he could not have been responsible?”
Angus shook his head. “He knew naught of it, and I never told him what I recalled. ’Twas he who had the need to boast, for he had finally been caught, and he desired to have another respect his cleverness before he was executed for his folly.”
“A man unworthy of attention.”
“But interesting all the same. He told of his favored way of dispatching a man. He was enamored of poison, though it grants a painful passing to whosoever ingests it. By dint of his experience, he had calculated how much of any given poison would make a man ill but not kill him.”
“Truly? But why?”
“There are poisons, he told me, which gather in a man’s innards—the first measure makes a man ill. The second measure adds to the first, and makes him more ill. This man could adjust the portion so that it took six, eight, even a dozen measures for there to be enough within his victim to see him finally dead. In this way, the poison masked the murder, by appearing as an illness which defied treatment and grew increasingly worse.”
Jacqueline, though appalled that any person could be so cruel, was fascinated by this gruesome tale. “But how did he make his victim willingly ingest poison?”
“He was fond of presenting himself as an ambassador of sorts, offering a gift of food from the one who had hired him to the intended victim. Though often a rich gift—some sweet dates, or candied elecampane from France, marzipan from Constantinople, a potion to ensure a man’s vitality, even an unguent for the victim’s skin—it held a hidden barb, for it had been treated with the toxin.”
“And the victim took another measure of it every day,” Jacqueline concluded in horror. “Thinking he adorned himself or indulged himself. ’Tis wicked indeed!”
“Aye. And this killer took delight in the small touches, in the victim, for example, understanding finally the truth of the gift rendered to him when ’twas too late to change the outcome.”
Angus continued. “’Twas in his description of the symptoms of various poisons—supplied for my benefit, that I might recognize such a trick if ’twere ever practiced upon me—that I saw my brother’s symptoms. Indeed, this man was not alone in knowing his craft, for another had done the same to my family.”
“But who? But how?”
Angus smiled coldly. “’Twas only then I realized the import of a gift brought to Airdfinnan shortly before my brother fell ill. ’Twas a basket of figs, a rare treasure in these parts indeed, brought to my father as a peace offering from another chieftain.”
“From Cormac MacQuarrie,” Jacqueline whispered.
“None other. My father loved figs, though my brother also adored them. My father surrendered the gift to Ewen, like the indulgent father he was. Thus the poison stole another victim than the one intended.”
He took the remaining step to Lucifer and offered Jacqueline his hand. He might have been wrought of stone for all the emotion he showed, though Jacqueline now understood that such apparent impassivity was a sign that he was sorely troubled.
“You have had your tale and you have seen Airdfinnan,” he said curtly. “Now, I will take you to the cloister.”
Jacqueline moved reluctantly, disliking how determined he was to see her gone.
Indeed, just as matters became interesting. The prospect of recounting her rosary in silence for years and years seemed somewhat pallid in comparison to murders and blood feuds and vengeance and battles.
And intimacy.
’Twas only her innate dislike of half a tale, Jacqueline was certain. Aye, her inquisitive nature did not sit easily with the fact that she would probably never know what would come of Angus’ quest for justice.
Which only made her doubly determined to learn as much as she could while she yet could. “Why do you surrender me as your hostage?”
Angus fitted his hands around her waist and lifted her to the saddle. “Because I see that capturing you does naught but involve you in a struggle that has naught to do with you.” He granted her a grim look. “My quarrel is with Cormac MacQuarrie and thus with his heir.”
Jacqueline frowned and glanced back toward the keep now out of sight. “But there is one thing that I do not understand.”
“What?”
“How is it that clan MacQuarrie does not occupy Airdfinnan? If indeed Cormac was responsible for these two deaths, why did he not claim the keep?”
“How do you know that he did not?”
“I knew naught of Airdfinnan. And we have never visited there.”
“Which does not preclude the estate being held in trust by another. There is naught to say that revenue from Airdfinnan does not flow to Ceinn-beithe, or that missives are not exchanged.”
Jacqueline frowned, for her parents were not secretive people and she could not imagine that she would not have heard of such a thing if ’twere true. But then, she had no evidence to present to this skeptical knight that ’twas not true. “I am not certain...”
“Nay? Think of it,” Angus commanded sharply. “If Cormac had boldly seized the keep, he doubtless would have been reprimanded again by the King of the Isles, perhaps more severely and at greater risk to his own wealth. Perhaps he would have lost Airdfinnan and then Ceinn-beithe as well. By allowing an apparently indifferent trustee to administer the holding, and one who insists that he but awaits my return, Cormac would have control of Airdfinnan without threat of the king fearing his loyalty.”
Angus regarded her with his hands propped upon his hips, challenging her to quarrel with that. “‘’Tis so diabolically clever that ’tis nigh admirable.”
Jacqueline pursed her lips and considered the matter. “But truly, it could have been anyone who sent the poisoned fruit to your father, anyone who wished to see Cormac blamed for the result. ’Twould have been all too easy to blame Cormac, if his oath of vengeance was well known.”
“You have great faith in the honesty of men, a faith that I no longer share.”
“Nonsense. This is not Outremer. Who holds Airdfinnan?”
“The MacQuarrie clan, as I have explained.”
“Nay, who administers it?” Her own words were tinged with impatience, for Angus was being cursedly stubborn. He reached again for the saddle and no incompetent rider, Jacqueline encouraged the steed to step away again. She smiled with feigned innocence. “Who is this apparently indifferent trustee?”
; Angus was not fooled. Nay, he fairly growled his response, even as he snatched at the saddle again. “Father Aloysius.”
Jacqueline blinked. She urged the stallion to trot in a circle around the knight, taking delight in infuriating Angus as he vexed her. “A priest?”
“Aye, a priest and abbot of the local monastery. He took command of Airdfinnan after my father’s demise to ensure that ’twas not lost. Cease your game and bring that steed to a halt here!”
“That explains all!” Jacqueline declared, ignoring his command. “All one must do is explain the truth of the matter to Father Aloysius, for surely a man of God will not uphold any gain made by such deceitful means. You said yourself that he but awaits your return!”
“But...”
“But there is the weakness of your explanation!” Jacqueline declared. “Surely no trustee would willingly hold an estate that had been treacherously won—and no priest would deny you once he knew you returned in truth.”
“Jacqueline, cease this nonsense!”
Jacqueline did not cease. “Nay, I am not convinced that ’twas Cormac MacQuarrie behind this matter, but whoever ’twas can be most readily found once Father Aloysius joins our course.”
“Our course?” Angus glowered at her.
“Aye, our course. All we have to do is have an audience with the man. I am certain that all can be quickly set to rights.”
“We will do no such deed!” Angus jabbed one finger through the air in Jacqueline’s direction. “You are bound for a convent, and I am bound for Ceinn-beithe and thence to the court of the King of the Isles!”
“Nay, I am going to aid you.”
“Nay, you are NOT!”
Angus lunged forward suddenly for the reins but Jacqueline touched her heel to the stallion’s side in the nick of time. Lucifer cantered in a broadening circle and tossed his mane impatiently.
“We shall talk to Father Aloysius!” she insisted.
“We shall not,” Angus raged. “I will not be so foolish as to approach those gates, not without an army at my back!”
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