CHAPTER 36
Sìleas’s eyes widened when she saw the woman leaning against the wall by the stairs that led down to the kitchens.
“Dina,” she whispered. “What are ye doing here?”
“One of the MacKinnon men took a liking to me,” Dina said. “I had nowhere else to go.”
“I’m sorry for it.” Though Sìleas had reason to wish the worst for Dina, she was unhappy to see any woman living in this hellhole.
“I am sorry to see ye here as well,” Dina said.
“Will ye help me then?”
“I can’t get ye out,” Dina said. “They’re keeping guards at the gate.”
“Then I need to find a way to divert them until Ian comes for me,” she said.
“You’re that sure he’ll come for ye?” Dina asked.
“I am.”
“I wouldn’t have done what I did if I knew ye wanted Ian,” Dina said. “Since ye weren’t giving him what he wanted, I saw no harm in it.”
They were interrupted by Murdoc’s bellow from across the hall. “Where’s our dinner?”
When his metal cup hit the wall by Sìleas’s head, she and Dina started down. It was dark on the stairs, but there was light and the sound of voices and pans coming from the kitchen below.
“I have some poison,” Dina said close to Sìleas’s ear.
“Poison?” Sìleas halted and turned to stare at Dina. “How did ye get poison?”
“Teàrlag gave it to me,” Dina said. “I went to see her to ask for a charm before I came here. I didn’t tell her where I was going, but she said, ‘A lass as foolish as you is likely to need something stronger than a good luck charm.’ ”
Dina leaned down and reached into the side of her boot. “That’s when she gave me this wee vial. We can pour it in the ale, aye?”
“I don’t want to murder them all,” Sìleas said.
“Teàrlag said a drop or two will make a man ill.” Dina handed her the vial. “The pitchers of ale will be on a tray by the door. I’ll distract the men in the kitchen while ye do it.”
“How will ye do that?”
Dina laughed. “You’ll see. Nothing could be easier.”
Sìleas followed Dina under the low vaulted ceiling of the undercroft into the noisy kitchen. She stayed by the door while Dina crossed the kitchen, hips swaying, toward a beefy man who had a cleaver in his hand and was shouting orders to the other kitchen servants.
He stopped shouting midsentence when he saw Dina coming.
“I’m starving, Donald,” she said with a purr in her voice. She laid her hand on the cook’s shoulder. “Do ye have something… special… for a hungry lass?”
Everyone else in the kitchen paused in the midst of their tasks to watch Dina as she leaned closer to the cook and spoke to him in a low, suggestive voice.
Sìleas saw a half-dozen pitchers of ale on the table next to her, ready to be taken into the hall.
Turning her back to the room, she pulled the tiny stopper from the vial.
How many drops should she put in each? It was hard to guess how much each man would drink from the shared pitchers. Her hands shook as she poured a few drops into each.
“What are ye doing there?” The harsh voice behind her startled Sìleas, and she spilled the rest of the poison into the last pitcher.
“Murdoc told her to bring more ale to the table,” Dina said, “so you’d best let her go.”
Sìleas lifted the tray and hurried out of the kitchen, sloshing ale. At the bottom of the stairs, she paused to draw in a deep breath to steady herself. It would do no good to poison the ale if she spilled it all on the floor.
Before she could get to the table, men started snatching pitchers from her tray.
“Stop it, ye animals!” she shouted and lifted her tray higher, fearful they would take it all.
She had only one pitcher left when she reached the table—but it was the one with the extra poison. She tried to hide her smile as she set it between Murdoc and Angus.
Another man shoved her aside and grabbed the last pitcher. Fury burned in her chest as she watched ale drip off his chin while he gulped the ale straight from the pitcher.
“Take my ale, will ye?” Angus punched the man in the belly and jerked the pitcher from his hands.
Hope rose in her heart as Angus lifted the pitcher to his mouth—and sank again when nothing came out of the pitcher. Angus threw it against the hearth and commenced to beat the man who took it about the head.
“Get more,” Murdoc said and slapped her behind hard enough to sting through the layers of her gown. “And tell that worthless cook I’ll take my dirk to him if he doesn’t get food up here now.”
She had made a grave error. What she should have done was saved all the poison for Murdoc and killed him. Without him, the other men would run around confused, like a chicken with its ugly head cut off.
Murdoc turned and caught her glaring at him. “What are ye doing looking at me?” he said and slammed his fist on the table. “Go!”
Sìleas stood against the wall with Dina, watching the men eat and waiting for them to show some sign of illness. Her time was running out.
She chewed her lip. “Why isn’t the poison working, Dina?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s too soon.”
Sìleas jumped when Murdoc stood and banged his cup on the table. When he had the men’s attention, he shouted, “ ’Tis time for a wedding!”
He scanned the room until he found Sìleas and then motioned her to come forward. When she did not move, he nodded to two burly men.
“I’ve heard Angus can’t perform unless a woman is screaming and crying,” Dina said, squeezing her hand. “So lie still.”
Sìleas looked frantically for a means of escape as the two men came toward her. Despite Dina’s warning, she screamed as they dragged her across the hall to stand before Murdoc and Angus.
“You’ll say your vows now,” Murdoc said.
“I won’t,” Sìleas said, meeting his eyes. “If ye couldn’t make me do it at thirteen, ye must know ye cannot now.”
“Perhaps ye will be more willing after the bedding.” Murdoc shrugged. “But if not, all we truly need is a MacKinnon child by ye.”
“My husband Ian will kill ye if ye let a man touch me,” she said. “And the MacDonalds won’t rest while ye hold Knock Castle.”
“Ye are so na?ve it pains me,” Murdoc said, shaking his head. “Hugh MacDonald and I made an agreement. I get you and Knock Castle in exchange for killing his nephew Connor.”
A well of anger rose up from deep inside her. With it came words she did not know were there.
“In the name of my mother, I curse ye, Murdoc MacKinnon,” she shouted, stretching out her arm and pointing at Murdoc.
Then she turned slowly and swung her arm in a wide circle.
“I curse every one of ye! Ye shall suffer for snatching me from my husband and for taking what belongs to me and my clan. Every one of ye shall suffer!”
The hall went quiet. Every man’s eyes were upon her, and a few crossed themselves.
“Angus!” Murdoc’s deep voice broke the silence, filling the hall and reverberating in her chest. “Take her upstairs.”
Panic flooded through her when Angus picked her up with one arm and tossed her over his shoulder.
With her head hanging down, blood pounded in her ears as she screamed and beat her fists on his back.
The men’s laughter faded as he climbed the enclosed spiral staircase that led to the family’s private rooms above.
When Angus carried her into the bedchamber that had been her mother’s, true hysteria took her.
It blinded her to everything but the image in her mind of her mother lying on the bed with blood soaking her shift and the sheets beneath her.
Sìleas saw the tiny droplets that fell from the bed to the floor as her mother died.
Sìleas clawed and screeched like a wild animal. When she sank her teeth into Angus’s hand, he let go long enough for her to scramble off the bed and sprint for the door.
She ran headlong into Murdoc in the doorway. He held her fast.
“No, not here,” she pleaded, flailing her arms and legs. “Please, not here, not where she died.”
Murdoc did not heed her pleading any more than he had her mother’s.
How many times had she stood on the other side of the door and heard her mother weeping? Her mother had suffered the attentions of two husbands who wanted an heir to this castle and did not care if they killed her in the process.
For years, Sìleas had pushed the memories of her mother’s suffering to the far recesses of her mind.
Her mother had seemed so unlike her—beautiful, frail, compliant.
In truth, Sìleas had blamed her mother for the choices that had led to their misery.
Now she realized her mother must have felt as trapped as she did now.
As Murdoc dragged her back to the bed, she saw her mother’s strawberry blond hair fanned out on the pillow, its beauty a stark contrast to the dark blood on the sheets.
The smell of blood and the sweat of illness filled her nose.
She saw the deathly pale skin and limp arms of a woman too weak to weep anymore.
When Murdoc dropped her on her back on the bed, Sìleas felt her body sink into the mattress, heavy with the weight of her grief.
She saw her mother as she had the very last time, with her eyes open but unseeing, and one thin arm stretched out across the bed, as if she were still hoping someone would take her hand and rescue her from the nightmare that was her life.
In the end, it was God who had mercy and took her to join her dead babes.
Sìleas lay unblinking, her gaze fixed on the beams of the ceiling. She felt immune to the men now, drenched in grief for her mother, grief that she had denied until now.