Leith felt like a bastard, a rotten dirty one for abandoning his friend when he needed him. Taking the goblet, he said, “Denwen, I swear to ye that if I havenae this problem with me Faither I’d be by yer side through this tragedy. The moment I have this fixed, I’ll come back.”
“I ken,” Theodor said tiredly. He tried to smile but his motion dropped short. “I ken ye’ve had it hard, running around seeking help for yer Faither. I ken ye’ve had it hard too. Ye have me blessing, Young Lenichton, just dinnae be a stranger.”
After Theodor gave the order to fetch Magrath, and speaking a little more, the man came into the room, Magrath greeted them then asked Leith, “What’s wrong, Sir?”
“I’ll fill ye in on the way,” Leith said as he finished the wine. “Thank ye, Denwen. I’ll be in contact soon.”
As they headed out, Leith said, “I need ye back, Magrath, me Faither has gotten worse and I’m scared that this time, he’ll never come back.”
28
The evening had come again and Mary was feeling beyond hungry and somewhat ill again. She pressed a hand to her chest now and again, massaging the pain away and beating it to get the air circling inside her to come up and out.
She could not count how many times she slipped into a doze and out of it. When she did come back, she looked at the tiny window to see the sun sinking and felt her heart sink.
Her soul began to sink in despair. Did she even have days to live or was it mere hours instead? Hours or days, she did not know, what she did know was that her time was limited.
At one point she began to hum a hymn just to pass the time. She prayed too, for Leith mostly. If her fortune had run out, she prayed his had not. It got to evening and she had not moved from her spot as her strength was gone. The room went dim, a cloud had probably covered the sun or perhaps rain was coming in.
This late in the year, the winter rains were coming in just like the day before. A moment later she was proven right, the rumbling sound of thunder was in the air. She smelled rain but it did not fall yet.
The rumbles were getting louder when the door was opened and the guard from yesterday morning came in. In his hand were pewter cups, one of tea and another one of porridge. Her eyes went wide. “This is all I can get for ye. Miss Rinalda took it from the kitchens in secret. Nay one can ken about this.”
Relief and appreciation flooded Mary’s heart after a day of starvation. She reached up and took both cups, “Please tell her my thanks. Do you know if…” Leith, “Young Lenichton has found the healer? Is he here?” She wanted to take those words back the moment she had said them. If he was here, he would have come from me already.
“Nay Miss, I have nay word of Sir’s movements,” he said before backing out, “I’ll come for those soon.”
He nodded and left but she could hear him lingering behind the door. She sipped the tea first, happy that something warm was in her stomach. Little by little the hollow feeling inside her lessened. When she was done with the porridge, a portion of herself had returned.
Setting the cup in the bowl she moved it aside and sighed, looking up she uttered, “Lord, I beg of your abundant mercies, please let it be well with Leith. Let him come back and clear me of this crime I have not committed.”
She sagged back on the wall and sighed, moments before a terrible, ear-splitting thunderclap literally shook the walls and had her launching away from it. A torrent of rain begun to pelt the ground and she found a corner to huddle in. Leith, please, rescue me.
“This goddamn rain willnae stop!” Leith snarled. He paced from his spot near the window in the room that Theodor had given them when the rains had started again.
They had set out just past noon that day and the sudden torrent had forced them to turn back. Now it was heading to dusk and the rains had not held up, even a little. It was still a continuous white sheet of showers. He spun and strode the other way. His worry for his father was eating him from the inside out.
“It seems to be getting worse,” Magrath said soberly. As if on cue, a bolt of lightning carved the sky in two, followed by an earsplitting clap of thunder.
Leith paced even more with his hands running through his hair, rubbing over his face and even picking at his clothes. He kept worrying about his father, his mother, Mary, and the whole village.
“Sir, please sit,” Magrath said. “Ye’ll tire yerself out by pacing, and I need ye to tell me what happened with yer faither.”
Huffing under his breath, Leith pulled out a chair and sat. His mind went back to the moment his pride for his father had shattered in splinters.
“Everyone was joyful, celebrating, music was in the air and food was coming out of the kitchens quickly…” he began. “I kept looking at me Faither and me Mother, hoping all would be right with them. Out of the corner of me eye, I saw me Faither drinking a lot. I dinnae ken much of it until I saw him muttering to himself. We were eating and foolish me kent he was praying, but when he began muttering nonsense, I began to worry.”
Leith folded his fisted fingers under his chin, “To be honest, I should have felt something was off, I went to see him last night and he was sleeping but he wasnae moving. I havenae seen anyone sleep without moving.”
His mind flashed back to the moment when things had begun to get bad. The moment his father had teetered on his breakout, was akin to the raw electric charge that preceded a lightning storm. His father had gotten still and the veins on his neck were pulsing. A heartbeat later, Aaron was flinging platters and goblets east and west.
“He was sleeping without movement, ye say?” Magrath asked while stroking his chin. “That doesnae sound well…”
Leith shot a look at him then went back to his memory, “He kept shouting to a phantasm, daring whatever he saw to kill him. I lurched at him and tried to control him but he had a strength I dinnae ken he would have, based on how weak he was during his illness. I managed to get him under my control and call me men to get him when he just suddenly collapsed in me arms.”
Magrath did not speak and neither did he. “The cleansing herbs I left, are ye sure he took them?”
“As far as I ken, they were boiled and given to him,” Leith said. “The color was deep maroon.”
Magrath’s head snapped to him. “Maroon? Sir, the herbs I left to revive him should have given a light golden brew. Whatever gave that maroon brew wouldnae come from the herbs I left.”
Now, Leith was getting antsy, “Yer telling me someone switched his medicine? What herb could give a maroon brew?”
“Sir,” Magrath said, his face grave. “There are three of four herbs that can give such a color but as the others are cures, only one is harmful and might be the reason for all this—‘tis called belladonna—ye call it nightshade. It is a bush that causes death but in light doses it causes madness.”
His heart nearly stopped, “And how long could these light doses be taken to lead up to madness?”
Magrath was grim, “Sir, it could months, years even….”
With every word Magrath said, fear for his father closed around Leith’s chest into a vice grip. His face hardened into determination as he looked out at the stormy sky, slashed through with another bolt of lightning. He was going to risk his life, going into this storm but he would hate himself if he did not try. Do or die, I will save me Faither.
Mary was jerked out of her sleep by a hand grabbing her head and the blistering pain that came from someone yanking her up to her feet by her hair. She opened her mouth to scream when a hand was slapped over it. Instinctively, she bit down but the hand was yanked away and she was backhanded so fiercely that her vision blacked out for a moment.
She was grabbed again, but she had to fight. Her hands were up and lashing out. The more she lashed out and clawed at her attacker, the more he grabbed at her. He pulled on her hair, yanked her head back and hissed in her ear, “Stop fighting or worse will happen to ye.”
She knew that voice, but the man had not been there in days—Cooper. When she yelped out his name, he yan
ked her head again and pain blasted through her head. “Let me go.”
“I ken I was right,” Cooper snarled. “Ye are a whore, an English one. A spy too. Who sent ye, Sassenach? Who sent ye to kill our Laird?”
Pain was scorching down her neck and back up but Mary said. “I did no such thing. I have nay done a thing to the Laird. How did you get in here! Leith sent you away!”
Cooper’s laugh was scornful, “I’ve lived here for decades, I still have people loyal to me in this castle, and stop yer lying about Me Laird,” Copper snapped. “Ye cannae talk yerself out of this. Me Lady was right about ye.”
Lady Lenichton!
Cooper released for a moment a bare moment before a twist of cloth was forced between her lips and tied around her head so tightly that it doubled her pain. His sinister voice whispered in her ear. “I ken exactly what to do with traitors like ye. Say yer prayers Sassenach, ye will nay live to see another day.”
Mary choked back her fear and struggled to catch her breath around the cloth. A moonbeam suddenly lit upon the man and his eyes, icy with cruelty flickered as they bore into hers. She shuddered. The devil himself was standing before her.
He grabbed her arm and forced her to walk out. The whole dungeon was dark and his pace was frantic. She tripped over her feet time and time again, but he still kept on dragging her along. The stone steps were slippery, and she barely saw the outline of the edges to them so she could step up on them.
Cooper hauled her out of the keep and into the hands of another man who swiftly bound her hands before tossing her up unto the saddle on a horse. She laid on her belly while he bound her feet. The rope was rough and instantly began to abrade her skin. The ground smelled of wet mud and grass. Shadows were dancing over the ground, and if she tilted her head just that much, she could see the light coming from the castle.
Inside were people that could rescue her—that is if they had not been poisoned against her by Lady Lenichton or Fiona. She could not scream for help, the cloth was so tight it was cutting into her cheeks, and even if she had tried, the castle was too far for anyone to hear her.
The only person who could save her was herself. She kicked and heard a guttural cry. She had struck the man that was binding her—where she did not know—but just knowing that she had hurt him felt good.
Her joy did not last long, Cooper came around and grabbed her hair again. He yanked her head up and growled. “Do that again and I’ll slit yer throat right now.” To bookend his statement, he slapped her again.
Mary’s head was beginning to ring but her gut tightened in resolve. I’m going to get out of this, no matter what it takes.
The man behind her mounted the horse where she lay and shifted her so she lay between his belly and the pommel. It was uncomfortable, to say the least, and as they rode off, her back began to strain to keep her head up. Soon enough, she got tired and had to lay her bruised cheek on the side of the trotting horse.
His jolts made her stomach upset and she had to swallow down what was coming up from her belly. She was constantly in fear of it coming out of her nose. Would that kill her? The ride felt long but she did not have the opportunity to rest. Her heart was hammering in her chest and her mind was spinning. There was not much she could she do, trussed up like an animal about to go the slaughter, but she was going to see what she could do when they finally allowed her down.
Copper was going to kill her but he was going to have a hard time trying. She had not come this far to lay down her life when she had finally found a home. Leith had not said anything definitive, but she had begun to entertain the images of her being his wife, them having a lovely wedding, perhaps the look on his face after seeing their first child, and of them living in peace.
I’m going to fight for that. I may not get it, but I’m going to try anyway.
A horse came to her side and she twisted enough to see Cooper there, his head up and his eyes trained ahead. “We have another mile to go, Lachlan, we need to get to the river.”
“River?” the man, Lachlan, said.
“Aye,” Cooper grinned. “Ye ken the one where she had run off to, after the whole castle kent of her murderous actions to the Laird, in shame and fear. Coincidentally, the same one where she stopped to drink water and where she accidentally slipped in and drowned.”
“I kent ye were going to slit her throat,” Lachlan said.
Hearing them, Mary felt as though a cold instrument had carved a hole in her chest. These men were discussing her death as casually as if they were talking about the weather. She did not matter to them as another human being. To them, Cooper especially, she, was just a problem he had to solve.
“I was,” Cooper said casually, “but I kent it easier for the boy to let go of her knowing she was foolish enough to drink from a flooded river.”
She had heard him call Leith ‘boy’ enough times to know who this boy he was referring to was.
When he finds out about this, Leith is going to draw and quarter you.
They kept riding on, and while Cooper and Lachlan were detailing her death, she began to work on the ropes binding her hands.
It was a mere minutes before dawn when Leith and Magrath got back to his home. On their way back, the sky grew from dismal black to angry gray and the sun was a mere pale golden disk in the sky. No warmth came from it, and as he entered the castle, the coldness grew.
The very stones that made up the castle seemed grim but the foreboding sense did not stop him. He took Magrath right up to his father’s room, and hailed Finlay, who sat outside, this time with a scabbarded sword point down between his knees.
“Has anyone been inside?” he asked.
“Nay, Sir,” Finlay said as he nodded to Magrath, “Welcome back, Healer.” His voice dipped, “Sir, I need to say—”
“It can wait,” Leith cut him off. “Has he made any noise since he went in?”
“Nay that I’ve heard, Sir,” Finlay said as he rose to knock on the door.
The slab was yanked in and Dugald shuffled back to let the two men in. Leith looked at his father, laying on the bed on his side, and not moving. Magrath went to check him while Leith went to the table where a tray with the remains of his father’s cleansing concoction lay.
He took the goblet up and sniffed it. Instantly, his nose began to burn. Looking at Magrath, who was feeling his father’s forehead, Leith excused himself and took the goblet with him. It did not take him long to find a balcony where a few potted plants were and upended the cup unto one of them.
The dark liquid, now as thick as sludge based on the time it had been allowed to settle, slid out and dropped on the thin leaf of the plant. As the rest came out and coated it, the leaf began to wilt right before his eyes. Soon the limb turned brown and even the ground under it was black.
This was poison for sure, but how had this happened? Had the person in charge of making it deliberately gone and switched the herbs? Was the killer in the kitchen? He had to make sure.
Heading back up in quickly, he went in to see that Magrath had his father sitting upon his bed. He was relieved though his father looked like he had aged ten years in a day.
“Faither, I’m happy yer back in the land of the living, but before I celebrate with ye, I must ask. Magrath, what herbs did ye leave in the kitchens for the cleanse?”
“Marigold, rhubarb, milk thistle, and dandelion root,” Magrath said as his face took on a curious look. “Not at the same time, but staggered. Each cleanses another part of the body from the blood humors to the heart. Why?”
“I just need to check,” Leith said. “I’ll be back, do what ye can to get him back.”
Heading down to the kitchens, he strode in determined to get to the bottom of this. He went inside to see the cooks manning the firepits and washing women at the tubs. He frowned…Where was Mary? Was she with his mother still?
“Nessa,” he called, “Show me where the herbs Magrath left for faither.”
The cook hopped to his order and said, “A
ye, Sir, this way please.”
He nodded to those he passed by and followed Nessa directly into the storerooms beyond where they housed the herbs for seasoning and soups. Nessa took him to a wall where the herbs dangling on strings, hanging from tacks. Under them were cupboards with empty baskets on top.
These herbs, however, were nothing but dry stalks. The leaves were withered and not one of them showing any marks where something had been plucked from. No one had used them to make anything.
“Nessa,” he asked tightly, “Who was making my Faither’s herbal brews?”
The cook’s cheeks went ruddy with shame, “I left a man named Lachlan in charge. I havenae seen him since yesterday when His Lairdship…fell ill again.” Nessa’s words were laden with regret. “I suppose he ran when he realized he wasnae doing right.”
Mesmerized by a Roguish Highlander: A Steamy Scottish Historical Romance Novel Page 24