Chapter 13 #2
Then she saw him, kneeling beside her bed, his face in his hands. He had a shag of brown hair and wore a dirty and torn plaid. Gillian’s arms and legs were leaden. She wanted to speak, to ask what was the matter, but she couldn’t move her lips.
He looked up as if she’d spoken. Tears tracked his dirty face. He was so young, no more than sixteen. His large, dark eyes were as soft and luminous as a doe’s. “I’m so sorry, my lady. Forgive me. He made me do it.”
He buried his face on the bed and wept brokenly.
He lifted his head again and turned, looking at something behind him.
The grief that etched his face transformed to exultation.
His body began to waver and fade, the furniture behind him faintly visible, then growing sharper until he was gone. A dream. Effects of the theriac.
She didn’t like this dream, but the room wouldn’t go away, and she couldn’t leave.
Slowly she became aware of movement across the room.
Someone worked busily and silently near the fireplace.
Gillian tried to call her maid’s name, but it was too hard, her lips were too stiff.
She tilted her head on the pillow, squinting across the room.
Someone swept out her fireplace . . . through the fire.
Gillian blinked, watching as the maid stuck her hand right into the fire, sweeping through it as if it wasn’t there.
Then the maid turned, picking up a goblet on the floor beside the chair and downing it in one swallow.
She stood, rinsed the goblet in the basin, dried it, and returned it to the silver tray. Then disappeared.
Gillian gasped, only to sense the movement again. She forced her head up. The maid was back at the fireplace, sweeping and sweeping, right through the fire. And then she drank the wine again. And washed the goblet again. Then she was at the fireplace again. And again. And again.
Gillian dropped her head back on the pillow and closed her eyes tightly, willing the nightmarish maid to go away. Nicholas. Where was he? She wanted her husband.
When she woke again, she was able to raise her hand to her head. It throbbed sickeningly, and Gillian vowed never again to let anyone give her that nasty medicine. The candle showed she’d only slept two hours. It had seemed much longer. A glance at the shutters showed no light peeping through.
With great effort she dragged herself out of bed.
Her body felt as if it had been trampled, every muscle sore and heavy.
Her neck ached, too. That’s when she remembered what had happened.
The cannonball. The cold, the pain in her head.
It was all very strange. She wished desperately for her sisters.
Had something protected her from harm? A twenty-pound ball of iron should have done her significant damage, dropped from that height.
She’d felt something, just before the blow, something cold and strange, wrapping itself around her.
With sudden resolve she went to her desk and lit more candles. She took out her quill and began composing a letter to Rose.
She started violently, as if waking from a falling dream.
The room was freezing. Her hand ached. The candles on her desk were gutted.
Wax spilled onto the surface, hardening already at the edges.
Gillian looked down and saw the top of her desk littered with parchments, words scrawled across them in an unfamiliar hand, written so deep and violently at times that they tore through the parchment.
She gripped the quill, white-fingered, hand cramped.
Gillian released it as if it were a firebrand, pushing away from the desk and staring at the pile of ruined parchments as if they dripped blood.
It took her a moment to catch her breath, but when she did, she moved hesitantly back to the desk.
She couldn’t read the words. They were strange, another language that she didn’t recognize.
Over and over the same words were written—a hundred times or more.
Gillian’s breath wheezed in her chest. What was happening to her?
She snatched all the papers up and threw them in the fireplace.
With shaking hands, she started a fire and watched them burn.
At the last moment she snatched one out of the fire and slapped at it.
She must show it to Rose. Her sister would understand it.
She sat on the hearth, hands over her mouth.
Why would she write such things? She’d been writing to her sister, and then she didn’t remember anything.
The theriac. The cold. The aching throb in her temples, making her stomach churn.
What had Stephen said? If you took some poppy juice, mayhap you’d not only be able to bear the pain . . . but be able to step away from it.
She lowered her hands and stared at the burning parchment, the edges glowing red and curling.
Was it a message? A spirit trying to contact her?
She looked down at the partially burned parchment on her lap, willing herself to understand the letters, but they meant nothing to her.
Only one word was familiar. Nave. But in context with the rest, she could only suppose it meant something else in some strange language.
What of her dream? Had it been a dream, or a premonition of things to come?
That she might end up haunting the cliffs, just like Catriona?
As Gillian sat there, thinking, she remembered the other dreams she’d had, of the man beside her bed, begging her forgiveness. He made me do it. Of the servant, repeating the same actions over and over, as if caught in some horrible loop.
Gillian put the parchment facedown on her writing table and threw on her heavy velvet dressing gown, hooking it as she hurried to the great hall. Several servants turned toward her, startled. It was late, the wee hours of the morning.
“Where is Sir Evan? I must see him at once.”
Someone pointed toward the courtyard. The enormous double doors to the great hall stood ajar. Gillian ran to them and slid through the opening. Sir Evan stood just outside the door. He turned toward her and stepped back in surprise.
“My lady! What are you doing out here? You should be in bed.”
He grabbed her arm, trying to turn her back toward the doors, but she pushed him off. “I’m fine! I must talk to the man on the gatehouse—the one that dropped the ballast.”
Sir Evan’s face went slack. “I’m afraid that’s impossible—”
“What do you mean, impossible?” Her voice rose in anger and anxiety. She’d not gotten a good look at the man on the tower that the men-at-arms had been fighting with, but as she’d raced through the castle, she’d felt a strong certainty it was the lad who’d come to her bedside to weep.
Sir Evan opened his mouth, then closed it in a thin, flat line.
The muscles of his jaw bulged and hardened.
He stepped aside, giving her full view of the courtyard and gates.
She heard the slow creaking of the rope before she saw the boy.
His limp form hung from the gates, feet swinging lazily in the breeze.
The air rushed out of Gillian, her knees weakening. “You hanged him? Why did you hang him?”
“He tried to kill you, my lady.”
“What evidence have you of that? I am unharmed! It could have been an accident!” But she knew it hadn’t been. Someone had made him do it.
“It wasn’t.”
“Did he confess?”
“Aye, he did.”
“And did he tell you who made him do it?”
Sir Evan started violently. “What?”
“He told me someone made him do it! Who?”
Sir Evan only stared at her, eyes narrowed. “That’s impossible, my lady. You could not have spoken to him. We hanged him immediately after.”
Gillian’s hand went to her mouth, and she sank to the ground. She sat on her knees, staring at the figure on the gate. The courtyard was silent except for the obscene creaking. Sir Evan’s hand was on her arm, lifting her to her feet.
“Come, my lady, you’re distraught. I’ll fetch Gilchrist.”
As he led her through the castle, she noticed several of the servants making the sign of the horns as she passed, warding off evil.
Gilchrist attended her shortly after with his little vial of theriac.
“No,” Gillian said, pushing it away. “I need you to do something for me.”
“Aye?”
“I’m afraid. . . . I can’t write now—please, send word to Glen Laire. I need my sisters. Tell them to come.”
His bushy gray brows drew together, clearly worried the ballast had addled her brain, but he nodded. “Aye, my lady, I will.”
As he turned to leave, she gripped his hand and whispered, “Tell no one.”
Night had just eased into dawn when Nicholas rode into the courtyard in a foul temper. The dead man that greeted him at the gate did nothing for his disposition.
Evan was sleeping when Nicholas burst into his chambers, not bothering to knock. The knight came off the narrow bed, dirk in hand, eyes wild, stark naked.
“What the hell is hanging from my gates?”
Evan exhaled loudly, relieved. He lowered his knife and sat on the bed, scratching at his short brown hair. “Some wee beggar that tried to kill the countess.”
“What?” Nicholas’s heart stuttered. He put a hand out, touching the wall for support.
“Aye, he dropped ballast on her from the gatehouse tower.” Seeing Nicholas’s face, Evan stood abruptly, alarmed. “She’s fine, my lord. Perhaps you should sit down.”
“It missed her?”
“Ah . . . not exactly.”
“Then how . . .?” But he didn’t finish. He strode out of his knight’s quarters. Evan hopped after him, a plaid flung about his loins, blathering on about questioning the lad and then hanging him. Nicholas paused just outside his wife’s chambers.
“And he wouldn’t say who he worked for?”
Evan frowned. “No . . . he didn’t work for anyone. I told you, my lord, I questioned him carefully.”
Nicholas gave his knight a cold stare. “We’ll talk about this later.” He closed the door firmly in Evan’s face.