Claire Delacroix (35 page)

“This is a tale, composed for the entertainment of all!” Alasdair argued, but I could see the fear in his expression.

Adaira barely paused for breath. “And so, when the boar plunged into the woods, the dogs fast at its heels, Fergus spurred his horse to pursue it. He rode with folly, anxious to prove his virility, desperate to assert his courage by the killing of a boar. Instead, you separated him from the boar and killed him.”

Alasdair asserted. “A boar is not so readily diverted as that, old woman.”

“I have no doubt that you had aid,” Adaira said with resolve, then turned her milky gaze upon Ranald and Dubhglas. The boy fidgeted, but Ranald stoically stared at the blind woman.

She held up her hand and counted off the crimes. “Fergus killed Gilchrist to claim Inverfyre with a lie; you killed your own brother to claim Inverfyre in your turn; and on this day, you killed my son, Niall of Glenfannon, to ensure that he did not contest your claim. Your ambition to see yourself made laird cannot be swayed, for you do not care how many you must kill.”

To my surprise, Alasdair shrugged. “You have no evidence to support your accusations. Why would Fergus kill a man who favored him, and concoct some tale of what he would have rightfully been granted at any rate? You see tales where there are none!”

“Do I?”

“What if I do wish to see Inverfyre more competently ruled? I am not alone in this desire - there have been many to argue with Fergus of late, including the man whose corpse you bring this day. I did not kill my brother, but I am content to repair the holding he ruled.”

Alasdair turned to the assembly, appealing for their support with a confidence unexpected. “Who among you can yearn for more of poverty and illness? Who can imagine that the state of Inverfyre is a good one? Who among you is not tired of an empty belly every night and cold feet every winter?”

The assembly rumbled at this truth, and nodded to each other.

Alasdair took strength from their uncertainty. “Who can argue that Inverfyre has need of strong leadership? Who can argue that it is time to put aside what does not work and begin anew?”

Gawain pursed his lips. “Perhaps only those responsible for Inverfyre’s current state.”

Alasdair turned upon him. “Thieves, perhaps?”

Gawain smiled. “Yes, thieves. Thieves of an unexpected kind.” He turned to me with easy confidence. “Tell me, what fare was offered in the hall this morn?”

I struggled to recall. “A custard, wrought with raisins on account of the day’s festivities.”

Gawain’s smile broadened. “Wrought, too, with eggs.”

I was puzzled. “Of course. It was a custard.”

Gawain turned to the assembly. “And how many of you ate heartily of this treat?”

Most of the people gathered there nodded, many smiling in recollection of the rich fare they had enjoyed.

“Every one of you who ate of this dish contributed to the poverty of Inverfyre,” Gawain asserted. Confusion crossed many a face, then anger. “All know that Fergus brought chickens to your gates when Inverfyre starved for lack of eyasses and for lack of trade. But who knows how long Fergus lingered in Inverfyre’s forests, ensuring that those eyasses did not come to be?”

Adaira drove her thumb into her own chest. “I knew! I knew there was malice in my woods. I knew he lurked there, though I knew not why. Not then.”

“But how?” I demanded. “No man can affect the mating of wild birds.”

Gawain smiled. “Not their mating, but how many of their eggs are hatched. What a fancy the court of Inverfyre has for eggs.”

A horrific conclusion came to me. “No!” I cried in dismay. I lunged to the steps again and seized Gawain’s sleeve. “Tell me that there were not falcon eggs mixed with those of the chickens!” I saw from his expression that he would not do so, that I had glimpsed the depth of Fergus’ deception too late.

“I saw this morning a most interesting sight.” Gawain indicated Dubhglas and the boy’s face turned even more red. “I saw this boy steal four falcon eggs from a nest. He did not see me, thus I know that you all need evidence of this deed.”

“Four eggs does not fifteen years of impotency make,” Alasdair sneered.

Gawain smiled coolly. “If there are but four egg shells to be found outside the kitchens, then you have naught to fear.”

The three MacLarens paled and said no more. The villagers cried out in rage, even as the boys who had been dispatched earlier returned. They carried pails, and poured the contents at my feet. One after the other, the pails were emptied of eggshells, some rotted nigh to oblivion, some fresh.

They were speckled eggshells, precisely as peregrines lay, thousands upon thousands of them, dispatched from our own kitchens for fifteen years.

“Malachy and I aided Gawain in his search of the kitchen waste earlier this day, my lady,” Tarsuinn said with a bow.

I fell to my knees with a cry of anguish and lifted broken shells in my hands. I knew the size, I knew the shape, I knew the markings. I knew that Gawain was right.

“It is true,” I said clearly to my people and held up the evidence. “We have been eating our own fortunes, though we have done so in innocence, never guessing the deception in our own hall.” I spun and flung a handful of shells at Alasdair. “We never guessed the treachery of the MacLarens!”

Anger erupted then in the crowd. Furious cries rent the air, fists were shaken and feet stomped.

“We showed them compassion and gave them shelter while they planned our downfall!” Tarsuinn cried. “The MacLaren clan has ensured that your bellies were empty, that we had naught with which to trade, that Inverfyre’s fortunes dwindled to naught - all the better that they might steal Inverfyre.”

Alasdair stepped forward, his manner unexpectedly composed. Indeed, he smiled. “This is all terribly interesting, and truly, I do hope that the falcons prosper in the first year of my lairdship. The treasury of Inverfyre has dire need of the coin.”

“But you will not be laird!” I said, marveling at his audacity.

“Of course I will be.” Alasdair insisted. “Inverfyre will be mine and you will all be the richer for it.” He offered his hand to me. “Here is your last opportunity, Evangeline, to be the Lady of Inverfyre, as you were born to be. Wed me on this day - save yourself and your child.”

“Never!” I shouted, much to the approval of the villagers. They began to stamp their feet and to hoot.

“A most unfortunate choice,” Alasdair said with a sad shake of his head. He stepped back, then lifted his hand as if to beckon to someone. I feared suddenly what preparations he might have made.

His kin had shown, after all, a tendency to prepare for all eventualities. I pivoted in time to see scores of armed men slip from huts and shadows, pour through Inverfyre’s gates, appear seemingly from every corner. They were men I did not know, men garbed for war, men who unsheathed their swords and began to slaughter the peasants who had come to see me wed.

The square of Inverfyre filled with blood as I began to scream.

* * *

I was knocked from behind and fell on the stone steps, barely curving my arm beneath my belly in time. The battle swept over me, spattering me with the blood, then moved on. The wind was knocked from me and I lay there for a moment, watching madness unfurl in my home and powerless to do anything about it. I had solely a small eating knife hung upon my belt, no match for swords and daggers of these men. I had lost track of the people who had stood alongside me, and indeed, it was difficult to pick out individuals in the slaughter that confronted me.

The fallen, however, were almost all the people of Inverfyre. I was sickened. They had been betrayed by surprise as well as a greater arsenal of weapons. As I watched, several of the assailants shoved torches into the huts of Inverfyre and the village began to burn.

Panic rose within me at the ease with which the flames spread. I could not stay here, indeed any soul would be fortunate to escape alive. Just then, one of the monks who sang the offices in our chapel fell heavily before me.

He was dead. Before I could avert my gaze from this travesty, I spied the brass key tied to his belt.

I knew then what I must do. Indeed, the key glinted in the sunlight, daring me to do what I must. If I survived this day and my son survived, he would have need of one item to prove his birthright.

I would not leave without the
Titulus
.

I rolled until I lay against the stone wall of the chapel, beside the dead monk. I surveyed the mayhem through my lashes and saw that I had been momentarily forgotten. I lingered there for a moment, ensuring that I was not observed, then seized the key. I leapt to my feet and lunged through the chapel doors, the key held fast before myself. I bolted them behind me and leaned back against them in relief.

It was dark and cold in the chapel, quiet as only a sanctuary of worship could be. My gaze trailed over the stones in the floor, stones marking the tombs of my forebears. Magnus Armstrong lay beneath my very feet, his six sons laid head to toe before him. My own father lay closest to the altar, with but one spot left betwixt his stone and the high table itself.

I took a step forward then, reassured by the embrace of silence, then took another and another. I moved more quickly toward the reliquary with every pace until I was nigh running. I fumbled with the brass key, a key brought to the chapel only that the
Titulus
might be lifted high for the celebratory mass of my wedding. I rounded the altar, lifted the key and a gloved hand snapped out of the darkness to seize my wrist.

I gasped even as Alasdair smiled. He unfolded himself from his hiding place behind the draped altar, his grip upon me relentless.

“How accommodating of you to bring me the key,” he whispered, his eyes gleaming. “Unlock the reliquary, Evangeline, and surrender the prize of Inverfyre to me. We shall celebrate our own investiture of the lairdship afore you die.”

I gaped at him, my heart racing. “Then the accusations were all true.”

Alasdair smiled without regret. “Open it.”

My hand was shaking, my thoughts spinning, as I lifted the key to the lock. “But what of the child I bear? You yourself said it was your duty to provide for your brother’s get.”

“That was before his widow was proved a liar, before I knew for certain that the child was a bastard.” Alasdair shook his head at me. “You cannot bargain for your life, Evangeline, not now that you have declined your sole chance to survive. And do not imagine that you can delay the matter - if you take overlong to surrender the
Titulus
, then I shall dispatch you and take it myself.”

I regarded him for a moment, letting him see how I despised him. I then turned the key in the lock with resolve, flung open the door and reached for the
Titulus
within. My hands closed over its familiar shape as Alasdair watched avidly.

“It is oft poor judgment to leave a captive with no hope,” I said quietly.

“I shall take the chance,” he said, not disguising his conviction that he feared nothing a woman might do.

I moved with haste then, hauling the relic from its sanctuary, and jabbing Alasdair hard with my elbow in the same moment. He cried out and tried to grab me, but I darted backward. With the relic in both hands, I brought it down hard on his head.

There was a resounding crack. I hoped for the blink of an eye that I had dealt him a fatal wound, but the
Titulus
fell in two fragments in my hands.

And Alasdair snarled as he snatched at me. “Whore!” he shouted.

I ran, but stumbled over my full skirts. He caught the end of my veil but I let it tear, spinning out of his grasp for a hopeful moment.

But Alasdair was taller than me and faster than I had hoped. He lunged after me and caught the back of my kirtle, his expression cruel as he hauled me back toward him. I struggled and twisted, I tried to escape his relentless grip, but to no avail.

He tore away the last of my headdress and flung it aside, grasping my mother’s crucifix. He coiled the chain around his gloved fist and holding me captive before him, the gold biting into my throat. I panted in my desperation but there was naught I could do, even when he drove his knife into the soft flesh beneath my chin.

“My lady?” came Tarsuinn’s cry from the other side of the chapel doors. I cried out and the son of my father’s falconer tried to force the doors. A hammering began as Tarsuinn was joined by another.

But the lock was doughty, I knew it well.

Alasdair smiled. “What foresight you showed, Evangeline, to ensure that we could not be disturbed.”

I closed my eyes and looked away, heartsick at the fullness of my failure. Here before my slumbering forebears I lost the estate they had labored to build. There could be no greater disappointment to any of our ilk.

They might witness that I was doomed, but they also would see that I fought valiantly to my last breath.

“Do your worst,” I told Alasdair. “I regret nothing. I will never endorse your suzerainty. I would rather be dead than see you on Inverfyre’s high seat.”

“You are almost too proud to kill so secretly,” Alasdair had time to say before the stained glass above the altar shattered into a thousand pieces.