Chapter 5 #2
“And do you go anywhere else?” Hew asked.
“Think hard,” the prior suggested.
While the physician was thinking, a furtive movement from the courtyard below caught Hew’s eye. It was her. The angel. The vision. Carenza.
She had slipped behind the wall of the stable and was hunkered down in the shadows beside a small animal. He couldn’t make out what it was. A kitten? A pup?
“The refectory,” Peris said, “if I’m there for more than half a day.”
“To take your meals,” the prior explained.
“Aye, and the garderobe,” he said, “in case I…ye know.”
What was that creature? It was very small but quick and reddish in color. She seemed to be feeding it.
“The library.”
That caught Hew’s ear. “The library?”
The prior explained. “The monastery has a few medical texts.”
“That’s right,” Peris said.
“Where else?” Hew said.
“The cloister.”
“The cloister. Why?”
“To fetch water from the well.”
Hew nodded. “Go on.”
Peris continued trying to recall all the places he’d gone.
Meanwhile, the creature Carenza was feeding scampered onto her lap. He could see now it was a squirrel. How she’d convinced the wild thing to let her feed it by hand he couldn’t fathom. But she was playing a dangerous game. If it bit her…
“I think that’s all,” Peris concluded.
Hew hadn’t really been listening. But it was clear Peris basically had access to the entire monastery. After all, a monk could fall ill in any quarter of Kildunan.
“Do you know on which days you’ve come to the monastery?” Hew asked.
“The days?” Peris chewed at his lip.
“’Tis all right if ye don’t remember exactly,” the prior said. “Ye’ve been comin’ to the monastery for a long while now.”
“Aye,” Peris said. “Nigh a year.”
Hew frowned. A year wasn’t that long. And the thefts had taken place within the last year. “What days do you remember?”
“I remember the first time was a few days after Candlemas. I was there just before Beltane and sometime in midsummer…”
The prior finished, “The last time ye came was on Michaelmas. I remember that.”
“Aye, for Sir Patric,” Peris recalled. “That was a big one.”
The prior gave him a sharp look. “His…size…is no doubt what led to his demise.”
“Och.” The physician nodded. “Aye.”
Hew would have to compare the dates of the physician’s visits with the dates of the objects’ disappearances.
He glanced down toward the stable. The lady was gone now. He saw the trailing hem of her gown disappear between two holly bushes. The squirrel, its belly full, was skittering across the stable roof, probably on its way back to the forest.
He furrowed his brows. The lass shouldn’t have fed the creature. Now it would return, expecting more. And one of these days, if she didn’t have a morsel to give it, it would likely take a bite out of her hand.
“Is that all?” Peris asked.
He looked over at the physician, who was sweating as if he thought Hew might grab his axe and behead him at any moment.
“For now.” He didn’t have anything else to ask the physician. Not yet.
He might return if the dates seemed to coincide. But he felt like Brother Cathal or Father James were more likely suspects. Their visits were scheduled. They had plenty of time to plan a robbery. They didn’t have to rely on someone falling ill.
“Carenza! There ye are.”
Carenza nearly jumped out of her skin. She hastily nudged the squirrel away from her. It skittered under the holly bush. Then she rose to greet her father, dusting the dirt from her skirts.
“We should have plenty o’ holly boughs for Yuletide,” she proclaimed, as if she’d been inspecting the holly and not feeding a wee wild beast a few oatcake crumbs out of the palm of her hand.
“Ah. Good.” Then he sighed. It was a sigh of mild disappointment. “I wish I’d found ye earlier.”
She hated disappointing him. “Why? What’s happened?”
“Ye missed our guest.”
“Guest? What guest?” She’d been too busy feeding her squirrels to notice anyone’s arrival.
He gave her a smug grin. “None other than a warrior o’ Rivenloch.”
Rivenloch. She thought she knew the name. But not as well as her father apparently did. She pretended to be impressed. “Rivenloch? Really? Here?”
“I know,” her father said, his eyes gleaming. “And he’s stayin’ at the monastery.”
“Ah.” Why a warrior would be staying at a monastery, she couldn’t guess.
“But ye’ll be glad to know I’ve invited him to supper.”
“Tonight?” She was absolutely not glad to know that. First, his timing was awful. She had to finalize her plans tonight. And second, why was it men always expected a woman could whip up a special supper for guests with a snap of her fingers?
“Nay, not tonight,” he said. “Sadly, he had to return to the monastery.”
Sadly for her father. Carenza was relieved. “Another time then.”
“As soon as possible.”
Carenza smiled, but she was doing calculations in her head. She needed to be sure nothing conflicted with her scheme. And a supper guest sounded like a conflict.
“He’s cousin to Sir Gellir, the tournament champion,” he told her.
“Ah.” That name sounded familiar. Her father may have mentioned it before. But he followed tournament contestants. She did not.
“And a nephew o’ the laird.”
Her smile grew brittle. Why was he going on and on about this Rivenloch man? A man who was the cousin of a champion and the nephew of a laird, yet somehow resided at a monastery?
“I think ye’d be quite impressed,” he said with a knowing lift of his brow.
Then she understood. He wanted her to meet him because he thought the man might make a suitable suitor.
Part of her wanted to scream. She had far too much on her mind to feign fascination with a possible future husband.
But part of her felt a tender admiration for her father. It must be difficult for him to consider marrying her off. In vulnerable moments, he’d often said she was all he had. The idea of giving her up to another man couldn’t be easy.
“Ye know,” he continued, “the Rivenlochs are one o’ the oldest border clans in service o’ the king. The oldest and the richest. Plenty o’ land. A formidable keep. And the warriors…well, if ye’d seen this one…” He shook his head in wonder.
A border warrior sounded like the sort of man Carenza despised. Violent. Overbearing. Heartless. That kind of man certainly would have no patience for a maid who rescued spiders and fed squirrels and saved coos.
Her father continued. “Ye could see the Norse in his blood. Tall he was. Golden-haired. And broad o’ shoulder. With a great battle axe that had runes carved into—”
“An axe?” she choked out.
It couldn’t be. Could it? Was this Rivenloch warrior the man she’d seen on the road?
“Aye, just like a Vikin’.”
“What was he doin’ here?”
“He and the prior had some questions for the physician.”
“What kind o’ questions?” She wondered if he’d asked Peris how best to preserve the head he was carrying about in a sack.
He shrugged. “Somethin’ about the death at the monastery last night. But that’s not important. What’s important is he’s stayin’ nearby for a while.”
Carenza could see she wasn’t going to weasel out of hosting the man for supper. It seemed she’d find out what he looked like after all. But there was one way she could both please her father and put her own heart to rest. She could manage the timing.
“I know, Da,” she said, her eyes sparkling with feigned enthusiasm. “Do ye think he’d like to celebrate Samhain with us?”
“Brilliant, lass!” he exclaimed, lighting up. “I daresay Samhain at Dunlop Castle will be a bit more…festive…than All Saints Day at the monastery.”
“Wonderful,” she said, clasping her hands together under her chin. “I look forward to meetin’ him then.”
Her father kissed her brow in farewell.
Good. For a few days at least—until Samhain—she could put her mind at ease. She could banish all thoughts of warriors and marriage and focus on what was truly important.
By nightfall, she had her plans well in hand. She managed to drift off to slumber and dreamed of happier times when Hamish was a wee calf.
Unfortunately, her dreams curdled into nightmares. She woke in the dark, gasping from a horrifying vision of a Viking with an axe chasing after her beloved coo.
She couldn’t get back to sleep after that. So she wrapped her arisaid about her and opened the shutters to stare up into the cold heavens, where stars winked through the threadbare clouds.
She’d make her move tomorrow night when the moon was full.
Once it was dark, she had to escape unnoticed from the castle. Locate the fold of cattle. Lead Hamish to his new home beyond the hills. And return without getting caught.
She sighed. The task seemed impossible.
But she had no choice. She wasn’t going to let her father kill Hamish.
The wind rose, stirring strands of her loose hair. The cold air made her eyes water. The stars, once steadfast, now blurred and shimmered, untethered and unstable, as if to show her her fate was likewise uncertain.