Devil of Kilmartin (19 page)

“Aye. I will not go back on my word.”

“Fine. If you think ’tis safe enough, I would like to return to the stillroom. I had not finished examining the contents yet. There may be something there that will be of use in neutralizing your poison. At the very least I promised wee Fia’s mum I’d bring her a tea of nettle to ease her swollen ankles. There was some there, though I don’t know if ’tis fresh enough to do much good. I need to find some wood-rasp to ease her way when the bairn comes, too.” Elena rattled off this list, more to distract herself from the large man looming over her than because she needed to tell him.

He huffed out a breath, then turned and opened the door, waiting there for her to accompany him. She did, leading the way down the stairs and out into the pale early morning light. A few people watched their progress across the bailey to the undercroft that kept the wine.

At the dark entrance to the chamber Symon stopped Elena and stepped in front of her. “Wait here a moment.”

He did not have to tell her twice. Her heart was hammering, and the last place she wished to go was into the dark maw of this chamber. Yet she did not know what else to do. The auld stillroom was not well stocked, but then, she had no stores at all. Given a little time she could determine what was most needed, then perhaps Murdoch would go in search of the herbs for her. For she could not set foot outside the gates. It did not matter if Symon accompanied her or not. She could not take the chance of falling into Dougal’s hands again.

“Come,” she heard from the depths of the darkness. She stepped out of the sun and let her eyes adjust. Symon stood at the back of the chamber, a lamp in his hand. Elena jumped when she realized he was flanked by four Highlanders, two on either side. “We will be well guarded here. Come.”

Elena moved deeper into the dank space. With each step she trembled more, until Symon held out his hand to her and she lightly placed hers upon it. His large hand curled around hers, and she felt much safer for the contact. “We have much to do,” he said to her, ushering her into the stillroom.

Elena stood perfectly still as Symon moved about the room, lighting the oil lamps as he had done yesterday. When they were burning brightly, she moved past the shelves and cupboards she had searched already, stopping at the corner cupboard she had opened just as Dougal arrived. The cannister at the back bothered her, though she couldn’t figure out why. She lifted a lamp, lighting the space, and noticed a lack of dust. Everything else was covered with a thick coat of dust, even inside the cupboards. Yet this one looked as if someone had dusted it yesterday. She ran a finger over the clean wood. Someone had cleaned this recently, but only this cupboard, stuck in a dark corner of a room no one used anymore.

She reached for the pottery jar, lifting it gingerly, the hair on the back of her neck standing up.

“What have you found?” Symon asked as he helped her lift the heavy jar to the worktable in the middle of the room.

“I do not know for sure, but I think maybe one of the answers you are looking for.”

Symon lifted the lid for her, and they both peered inside. A woodsy, moldy aroma drifted out of the jar. Elena motioned for Symon to draw a lamp closer. Carefully she tipped the jar, spilling a little onto the table. A small puddle of brown liquid rested there, spreading out slowly.

Elena leaned down until her nose was almost in it, then took a long sniff, inhaling the aroma, trying to match the scents she discerned to her experience with herbs. When she could not, she dabbed her pinky in the puddle and tapped a drop of the mixture on her tongue. She waited. No burning, no numbing. She drew her tongue in and breathed through her open mouth, intensifying the flavors and scents by the flow of air over her tongue.

“Cinnamon,” she said at last, “cloves.” She considered the flavor another moment. “Thyme . . .”

Symon leaned down to sniff the open jar again. He began to chuckle. “ ’Tisn’t poison there, lass.”

She looked at him, waiting for an explanation.

“I think you’ve found Ranald’s hiding place for his secret recipe.”

“Secret recipe?”

“Aye. He makes the finest spiced wine this side of Loch Awe, but he will not share the recipe. He makes his mixture up, then hides it, mixing it only with the proper wines and in precise amounts, or so he says. We could hide the jar somewhere else.”

“Why would we do that?” she asked, interested in the amusement flashing in his eyes, crinkling around his eyes.

“Ah, you’ve never had a brother, have you, lass?” She shook her head. “Well, you see, brothers take great delight in tormenting one another, playing tricks, getting them in
trouble and the like. Ranald and I may be grown men, but that doesn’t mean we do not still enjoy a bit of horseplay.”

“You and Ranald are close,” she observed.

“We once were; there is more between us now.”

“Are you the only two?” She placed the top on the jar and put it back where she found it, looking quickly through the rest of the empty cupboard, just in case she’d missed something.

She realized he had not answered her, and she glanced over her shoulder. He leaned against the worktable, a brooding look upon his face now, his shoulders squared and tense.

“Symon?”

“What? Oh, aye, we are the only two, though for a time there was another who claimed to be our brother.”

“Is he dead?”

“I don’t know. He was banished from here when I was but seventeen summers.”

“Banished?”

“Aye. He had been amongst us since I was seven and Ranald was six. He was eight.”

“Who was he?”

“He called himself Donal. He appeared at the gate one winter’s day, eight years old, but ordering men about as if he were chief himself. He said his mum had told him he was the son of my father. When she died he made his way here to Kilmartin, demanding to see the chief, demanding to be claimed as the rightful heir.”

“He was eight?”

“Aye. His mother had schooled him well in arrogance and swagger.”

“Was he your brother?”

“My father said no, though whether ’twas to appease my mum or ’twas the truth I never knew. He did let the lad stay, but the fact that he would not claim him as his firstborn son only rankled Donal more as he grew older. When he was eighteen he tried to kill my da. Ranald and I stopped him. We nearly killed him, beating him until he could not stand.”

“But he didn’t die?”

“Nay. Da stopped us, banishing Donal as soon as he was able to drag himself from his bed. Da told him he would learn humility at the hands of the world and sent him out. We never heard of him again.”

“Ten years is a long time to consider someone family, then send them away.”

“Aye, though to be honest I do not think either Ranald nor I ever missed him for a moment. Da spent a long time drunk that summer, but he finally accepted it and we moved forward.”

“How did your mum feel about Donal?”

“She never liked the lad, though I think she tried to hide it, at least at first. She did not have to try for long.” He looked up at Elena. “She died when I was ten.”

“How?”

“I don’t know for sure. ’Twas a stomach complaint. Auld Morag tried to help, but Mum wasted away over a few months. ’Twas a blessing when she died. At the end the pain alone was enough to kill her.”

“Do you miss her?”

“Aye, though I have not thought of her in a long time.” He pushed away from the table and scanned the room. “There are more cupboards over here,” he said, obviously unwilling to dwell on this any longer. He opened another
cupboard and began pulling jars and bottles and cloth sacks out, shoving them willy-nilly on the worktable.

Elena sighed at the jumble, but did not stop him. Sometimes keeping your hands busy was best. She reached for the first bottle and began her investigations.

chapter 12

E
lena worked her
way through the pile of things Symon pulled out of the cupboards, sorting by type of container, then carefully opening each jar, bottle, and sack and identifying the contents. The dried herbs were not difficult, though most of them were so old as to be useless. The ointments were a little more difficult, though only two or three presented a real challenge to her. The glass bottles were the most difficult and had to be approached with the greatest caution. Elena knew that many such things did great good in small quantities, but could cause equally great harm when misused. Those things she could not identify were relegated to the growing pile of refuse. She would carefully pour out the contents, then clean the precious glass vials for other uses.

As she put those few useful items back in one of the
cupboards, organizing them carefully, as she would if this were her own stillroom, she noticed a small cloth bundle. She pulled it forth and noticed immediately that the cloth seemed newer than the other sacks they had found so far, its colors brighter. Very little dust had settled on it. Perhaps this was more of Ranald’s secret recipe, since clearly he was the one using this space.

Carefully she unwrapped the leather cord and spread the cloth out so she could see the contents.

“What is that, Elena-mine?” Symon peered over her shoulder at the small bundle spread open before her.

Slowly she lifted a dried mushroom from the cloth, raising it to see it more clearly. She sniffed it, then put it down and poked through the other mushrooms there. “I don’t know,” she said quietly while she racked her memory for the use of such things. Mushrooms were dangerous, causing illness and danger and bad luck. These looked like the red-capped ones that grew in fairy rings, fly-bane some called it, for it seemed to kill any fly who flew about it. But why would someone store them here? True, they should not be near the kitchen, but perhaps scattered about the privy pits. She turned one over, grasping for understanding.

“Are they poisonous?” Symon said, right in her ear, his warm breath fluttering over her neck.

She picked one up and meant to touch it to her tongue when Symon stopped her hand. “What are you doing?” he demanded. She turned her head and found herself eye to eye with him. Concern etched his features, and she found her heart melting.

“ ’Tis only a test, as I’ve done so many times already this morn.”

“But if ’tis poison?”

She shrugged, slowly slipping her wrist from his grasp. “I will be careful.” She stuck out her tongue again and ever so slightly touched the mushroom to it. She waited, her eyes closed, her attention turned inward, assessing, testing. Was that a tingling she felt on her tongue? Aye, and it seemed her mouth watered overmuch. She searched deeper, alert to even the tiniest warning signal. She had nearly decided that it was benign when a surge of blackness pressed into her. She dropped the mushroom and quickly turned her gift upon herself, stopping the blackness even as she had stopped it in Symon.

“ ’Tis the poison,” she said before she opened her eyes.

Symon spun her toward him. “Are you all right? Are you, lass?”

She nodded, concentrating on the last of the tingling in her tongue and lips. “Aye. But this is what you have been poisoned with, though I think it must be in a weaker form than this.”

Symon wrapped the mushrooms up quickly and stuffed the small bundle into a fold of his plaid. “At least now we have the source.”

“We have but one source. Those mushrooms grow throughout the wood. ’Twon’t be hard for whoever put it here to come by more. We need to find out how you are getting it. Then you will be safe. Only then.”

Symon was thoughtful. “If we leave the lads outside guarding Dougal’s bolt-hole, whoever left this here will not be able to retrieve it without being seen.”

“Aye, but it’s bound to be someone who has business in the wine cellar, else he would not have stored it here in the first place. Your own brother uses this room. I do not think you will easily learn the culprit’s identity that way.”

“You may be right, but at least ’tis another bit of information.”

She agreed, and that was more than they had known before. Her stomach growled and Symon chuckled. “Let us finish up in here and get you something warm to fill your empty belly.” He reached for the remaining jars and placed them in the cupboard, closing the doors with a bit more of a bang than was necessary. “I’ll have Murdoch ask who has been in and out since the lads took up their vigil. They would not tell me, but they’ll tell him easily enough.”

They blew out the oil lamps, and Symon led the way out the way they had entered. Before they had reached the sun-filled arch that separated the wine cellar from the bailey, they smelled smoke and heard the shouts.

Fire leapt from the thatch roof of the stable. Horses whinnied their fear, and men ran to release them from the burning building. Symon sprinted across to the well and began pulling up the bucket. Elena watched, not knowing how to help, as a line of men and women formed, passing buckets of water as fast as Symon and another man could pull them up from the well. Another group took long hooks and pulled the burning thatch off the building onto the ground, where others beat at the flames with wet cloths.

Almost as fast as it had begun, the fire was tamed and then the last ember was extinguished. Elena watched as Symon entered the now roofless building, then was astonished when he quickly returned carrying a young lad. She could see from clear across the bailey that he had been badly burned. One sleeve of his tunic hung in blackened shreds and the arm hung just as limply, the skin an angry red. His head lolled back, and she found herself rushing forward, needing to know if it was too late for him.