Chapter 5
“And this?” Hunter drew a large black cylinder out of the leather bag and eyed it curiously.
It likely was ill-mannered of him to search through her belongings, but he was hoping for a clue that she wouldn’t give up herself. And he couldn’t have her in his castle or help her to get back to wherever she’d come from if he didn’t know what danger she posed to his people, to his family.
Until he could be certain she wasn’t a spy sent by the enemy, or a thief, or a mercenary, or a cleverly disguised scout from another territory, he wouldn’t be letting her out of the dungeons.
Nancy glowered at him as if she wished she could chop his head off. “It’s a cup. Keeps your coffee hot.” She paused. “Do you know what coffee is?”
“Aye, I’ve heard of it,” he replied with a sniff of displeasure.
It was something they drank all the way down in London. A place he had no desire to ever visit, though merchants had tried to sell that sort of thing often enough in this part of the world. They rarely tried again.
There was some manner of book, unlike any he’d seen before, the pages thin and the cover flimsy. But as he flipped through it, the printing was so uniform, so immaculate that he couldn’t help but feel a little awe.
“A Thistle By Any Other Name?” He looked to Nancy for answers as he read the title, the cover astonishing. It seemed to be a painting, yet the surface was smooth, depicting dramatic mountains and a glittering loch where a lone thistle grew on the shore.
“My friend’s book,” Nancy replied.
He noted the name. “Emily Fox.” His eyebrows flew up. “A lass wrote this?”
“A very talented ‘lass,’ yes.” Nancy’s leg bounced up and down. “Can I have my bag back, please?”
He couldn’t say he’d ever heard of a woman being permitted to publish, but then this did not seem to be an ordinary book, and Nancy didn’t seem to be any ordinary woman, so perhaps her friends were equally strange.
Maybe the Americas were strange… and fairer to the fairer sex.
He had no arguments there, for some of his best archers were women, and when all the men were gone from the castle, riding toward battle, it was the women who fought fiercely to protect their land and its residents from harm.
In his experience, no one fought harder than a mother with children to keep them safe.
“Nae yet.”
He continued to rifle through the bag: a cluster of strange, precisely cut bits of metal that could only be keys; a mirror hidden inside a silver clamshell; long, thin items in a material he had no name for, which left a stripe of something like ink on his skin when he accidentally brushed it; a comb, more familiar, but made of that same unusual material; and a weird orange vial with tiny little pellets inside, alongside another odd tube that was orange at one end and blue at the other.
“Put those back!” she snapped. “I need those.”
“What are they?”
She hunched over and put her head in her hands. “Medicine. Could probably use a dose right now, to be honest. Get my adrenaline going enough to wake me the hell up.”
“Medicine?” He squinted at the pellets and the tube. “What does it heal?”
“The long one stops me from dying, the other shuts my brain up when it’s too loud,” she muttered.
Stops her from dyin’?
Now, that was a peculiarity he could make allowances for. Although it didn’t help his suspicion that she might be something otherworldly.
He carefully put the orange-and-blue-ended tube back in her bag, for that was sorcery he wasn’t keen on messing with. The vial, however, he decided to investigate more thoroughly.
He guessed that the white thing on top was the lid and tried to pull it, but it wouldn’t budge. He twisted it, yanked it, even tried to bite it with his teeth, yet it stayed where it was.
“It’s a child-safe cap,” Nancy remarked, a half-smirk quirking her lips as she raised her head. “Looks to be Laird-safe too. Too difficult for you?”
His annoyance flared. “Open it.”
“I won’t.” She shook her head. “That stuff is prescription only. You might be allergic, and the last thing I need is for a bunch of burly dudes to come running in here while you’re foaming at the mouth, blaming me for it. Then, I’d have to waste good epinephrine on you to save myself.”
“It’s poison?” He looked again at her tempting red lips.
There were witches of old, witches who likely still existed in secluded corners of this country, who stained their lips with berries to mark themselves as powerful vessels of magic and healing.
Her mouth was brighter than any berry, the edges slightly smudged, but it didn’t seem to be the same thing.
She huffed out a breath and closed her eyes. “No. I told you, it’s med—”
Nancy jolted in her seat as the door burst open and a familiar figure barged in, an older woman with thick gray hair braided into a coronet around her head, sharp hazel eyes, and a beautiful face that hadn’t dimmed with age.
Hunter’s aunt, Isla Lawson. She didn’t even need to speak; she just cast a pointed glance at the red-faced baby that wailed in her arms.
“I said I wasnae to be disturbed, Isla,” Hunter barked.
What was his aunt thinking, bringing his daughter down to the dungeons? And while he was interrogating someone who might mean to do them harm, at that?
“Aye, well, she willnae settle,” Isla retorted as she made her way over to him, “and her cries are makin’ me daughter cry, and I cannae have the both of them wailin’. Me poor ears cannae take it.”
She promptly handed the little girl, Freya, over to him.
“I thought Elsie wanted to practice?” Hunter asked, thinking fondly of his cousin.
She still had a few months to go before she gave birth to her first child, though it seemed that pregnancy was becoming increasingly difficult for her.
When Freya was left at the castle gates by her grandfather, Elsie had been so eager to rehearse motherhood, but perhaps the novelty was wearing off, and reality was setting in.
“She’s just havin’ a bad day,” Isla replied. “And it looks like she’s nae the only one. Who’s this?”
She put her hands on her hips, staring intently at Nancy. Nancy, meanwhile, seemed to be looking everywhere but at Isla.
“The guards said ye were interrogatin’ someone,” Isla continued. “But what reason do ye have to interrogate this lass? She doesnae look dangerous to me. She looks like she could use a good meal and a bit of rest, but nae dangerous. Honestly, sometimes I think ye men are too cautious.”
At that, Nancy slowly turned her gaze toward the woman, her expression softening as if grateful to have an ally. Which was exactly what Hunter didn’t want. He’d be having stern words with whichever guard had informed his aunt of his whereabouts.
“I’m Nancy.”
“What a lovely name,” Isla cooed, stepping closer. “Perhaps ye’ve come to work for us? To help with the wee one?”
“I already asked her that,” Hunter muttered as he rocked Freya gently, her cries becoming more sporadic.
Nancy laughed stiffly. “I’m afraid I’m completely useless when it comes to babies.
I couldn’t tell you the last time I held one, if I have ever held one.
I mean, I must have done it at some point, but…
” She shrugged. “Me and babies don’t mix.
They’re loud, they’re needy, they keep you up at night. I hear they smell good, though.”
Hunter noticed her staring at Freya all of a sudden, as if she’d only just realized there was a baby in the room. Or maybe it was relief that his daughter was getting calmer by the minute. He couldn’t quite tell.
“Ye have seen a baby before, though, aye?” he said curtly.
She blinked behind those strange, dark spectacles of hers, the shape almost like a cat’s eyes, and turned away. Her freckled cheeks pinkened in a way that made his fingertips itch to touch them, to see if they were as warm as they looked.
“Yes, of course I have,” she shot back, crossing her arms over her chest. Lowering her voice, she grumbled, “Haven’t seen anyone hold a baby and a sword with the same ease, though.”
His lip curled as he watched his aunt cover her mouth with her hand, not doing much to hide the grin that had reached her mischievous eyes.
“What did ye say, sweetlin’?” Isla asked, though she clearly knew the answer.
Nancy gave a tight smile. “Nothing, really. I was just curious to know if it’s common for men around here to hold a baby and a blade at the same time. Seems to me like a safety hazard.”
Isla chuckled. “Ye just wait ‘til ye see a baby with a sword in hand. We start ‘em young here.”
Nancy eyed her with a healthy amount of suspicion, clearly trying to figure out if it was a jest or a threat.
“Where’s that accent from then, lass?” Isla continued. “Cannae say it’s familiar. Irish? Welsh, perhaps?”
Nancy leaned back in her chair and rubbed the back of her neck.
She’d done that a lot since their initial meeting, and Hunter was beginning to think it wasn’t a trick, but a very real injury.
Maybe she really didn’t know where she’d come from or how she’d ended up at his gates, if she’d hurt her head.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” she replied. “I don’t even believe it myself.”
Hunter held his daughter closer to his chest and covered her ear with his hand as he hissed, “Auntie, would ye cease talkin’ to me captive? Ye shouldnae be down here at all.”
“Captive?” Nancy and Isla echoed in unison, though it was only the mysterious stranger who suddenly made a run for the door.
I have to get out of here. This is a trap. This is one of those ‘don’t walk into the light’ moments.
Nancy yanked with all of her might on the iron ring that served as a door handle, but she couldn’t get the door to move.
I just have to leave through the gates I came through, and then I’ll wake up, and I’ll be in some hospital, and all the doctors will be so relieved.