Chapter 5
Ada went to the poor scribe’s assistance immediately.
She hefted his body to one side so she could pat his back to make sure the spit fell onto the floor and not down the man’s throat to make him choke.
As a healer’s daughter, Ada had seen this affliction before.
It sometimes happened to those who ran a hot fever or experienced some other bodily distress.
The man’s eyes had rolled back into his head, and the whites of his eyes stared out sightlessly into the room. She felt his forehead; no fever.
“Stand back, gentlemen,” she ordered. “Bring me a cloak so that he does nae bang his head on the flagstones.”
Ada pushed a mass of thresh under the scribe’s torso to keep him propped up. The laird’s grandson was by her side holding out a bundle of white linen. When she glanced up at him, she saw he had taken off his shirt for it to be used as a pillow.
“It will be ruined,” she told him without looking at him, all of her concentration on the sick man. He shook his head and proffered her the shirt again.
A young woman pushed forward through the diners. “He’s chokin’. Stick yer hand down his throat to pull out the meat.”
Ada ignored her, so the young woman bent down and made to open the scribe’s mouth, but before she could do so, Lachlan pulled her back. “Cousin Morag! Use yer sense. The man did no’ gag once before fallin’ down. Hardly the actions of someone who was chokin’ on a lump o’ meat, d’ye no’ agree?”
Cousin Morag clutched at his hand. “Lachlan! We must do something! We cannae just stand here an’ watch him die!”
Lachlan, who had seen many men die as a lad when his father had taken him on forays into enemy territory, found it easier to be sanguine about what was happening to the clerk.
“Belike he will bite off yer fingers, Cousin. I have known that to happen when someone interferes with those who fall into these strange fits.”
“This is nay fit,” Ada said in a solemn voice. “This is a deadly affliction. He will no’ reach his bed to die in comfort.”
He could see with his own eyes that the healer’s daughter spoke the truth. The scrivener’s gurgling was becoming fainter. His face was losing its color, and his movements were slowing down, the jerks growing less spasmodic until he went still. A sigh came out of the man’s mouth as his eyes closed.
Ada sat back on her folded legs. “His soul is lately gone to heaven.”
It was the way a death was announced in the clan.
Concerned murmurs became outraged bellowing in an instant.
Lachlan pivoted on his heel and went to fetch one of the sentries standing at the doors to help him carry away the body.
He did not want to leave the hall at such a crucial juncture, but one sentry must keep his post at the door to make sure no one left until the laird bid them to do so.
The Castle was spread out over two levels above the ground and one below it.
They carried the body down to the cellar set aside for such grim occasions.
It was far away from the kitchens and doubled as a prison for malefactors who must wait for the assizes that were held in the local town once a month.
After laying the deceased scrivener on the hard stone bench cut into the wall, Lachlan told the sentry to run and fetch more men.
He had a feeling the outrage at the poor clerk’s sudden death might boil out of control.
By the time he reentered the hall, he was proven right. The clamoring shouts and high-pitched chatter of the women had reached a crescendo of indignation, and it was all being directed at Ada.
“I say yer spell was set in the wrong direction and hit the scribe instead o’ the laird’s grandson! That’s what I think!”
“True words, sir! I agree! The maiden was cursin’ Lachlan an’ then the poor scribe dies a horrid death!
’Tis too much of a coincidence for it no’ to be related!
” Cousin Morag was pointing an accusing finger at Ada and pulling her friends’ sleeves, urging them to take her part in laying the blame at Ada’s door.
“If someone were to die every time Apprentice Ada called me uncouth names, Cousin, there would be no one left alive within the Castle walls,” Lachlan said, stepping forward and taking Ada by the elbow.
“Now, when everyone has finished casting aspersions on the maiden who was only tryin’ to assist the man during the last moments of his life, we will take the physician down to have a look at the body. ”
He looked over at his grandfather, who nodded his head in agreement but only after giving Lachlan a warning look. He did not want his grandson to take sides until more was known about the circumstances surrounding the scribe’s death.
While leading Ada and the physician down to the cellars, Lachlan pulled one of the soldiers entering the hall aside.
“Let me know what is said in our absence and come report to me afterward. Also, send someone to Aidan the forester’s hut and make sure the healer is carried back here in comfort. She must be told what has happened here.”
The soldier agreed; Lachlan was the laird’s grandson and heir. His commands must be obeyed.
He observed Ada closely as they walked down the steps leading to the cold stone room where the body was laid out.
She was cool and unflustered. Either she must have had a lot of experience with such occurrences before, or she possessed one of those temperaments that did not feel the sufferings of others the way other women usually did.
“Tell the servants to bring in a board and trestles, if ye will be so kind, sir?” the physician asked him politely. “Impress upon them the importance that the board be an auld one but still sturdy enough to hold a corpse’s weight. And it must be chopped up for kindling afterward…”
“Aye, Master Wilson, it shall be done.”
Lachlan was confident enough in his own skin to know this was not the time to be taking umbrage at suddenly being reduced to the status of an errand boy.
He loped out of the prison room, happy enough to be able to stand up straight again.
The cellar ceilings were too low for his great height.
He located two men and sent the servants ahead of him, carrying the board, and then helped the men lay the late scrivener on top of it.
Master Wilson looked at Ada briefly. “I ken ye have experience with the nakedness of those who are sick and lately passed, Miss Ada, but d’ye really want to stay?
We must undress the man so that we might inspect the body more closely.
” Then he whispered into Lachlan’s ear, “I ken ye want the girl’s opinion, sir, but I have some things I must say to ye in private if ye will do me the favor of bidding the apprentice to leave. ”
Lachlan did not hesitate or wait for Ada to reply.
He went and flung the door open, waiting for her to leave through it.
She opened her mouth to protest but changed her mind when she saw the expression on his face.
Now was not the time for her to show herself spirited against his orders.
She left, but not before shooting him daggers out of her eyes as she passed by.
Lachlan, resigning himself to a crooked neck for the time being, went to help the physician remove the scribe’s clothes. He watched closely as the man checked the body.
“The clerk shows the usual signs of someone who sat at his desk from sunrise to sunset,” Master Wilson said in a conversational tone, “but other than that, the body is sound.”
“And yet the man is dead.” Lachlan was trying hard to keep the exasperation out of his voice. “Can ye be more specific? A man died only two chairs away from me grandfaither. He died under mysterious circumstances, too, and I want to ken why.”
The physician stepped back, allowing the body to fall back onto the board after inspecting its underside.
“It’s a bad business, sir. I’ll nae lie to ye. The man died immediately after the healer’s daughter cursed ye for a second time! Folks will want to ken why just as much as ye do.”
Lachlan closed his eyes and sighed. He was struggling to keep a hold of his temper.
He was a warrior and did not concern himself with old housewives’ superstitions.
Come to think of it, he did not even worry himself over the terrifying tales soldiers told one another around the campfires.
Redcaps, banshees, will o’ the wisps and their like—those ghouls who loitered at battlefields so that they might feast on spilled blood they dip their bonnets in; Lachlan was impervious to any finer feelings when it came to identifying his enemies and had no time for ghosts.
“He died, an’ that’s the end o’ it, Master Wilson! An’ Ada did nae curse me. She was scoldin’ me. There’s a big difference.”
The physician shook his head as he bent over the corpse again, this time concentrating on the head. “Ye dinnae ken the story of how Ada came to live here, do ye, sir?”
“Aye, actually, I do. She was rescued by her mith—”
“Nay, that’s no’ what I meant. There’s more to it than that. An’ I should ken because I was there.”
Lachlan had to admit to feeling curious about what the physician wanted to tell him.
“Look at it from our villagers’ way o’ thinkin’, sir.
A bairn found abandoned in a hayloft… ’Tis a wee bit unnatural for a mither to leave her bairn in such an ungodly place.
Ye don’ have to think too hard about it to imagine the bairn was no bairn at all but a changeling.
We all ken that a bairn is at risk of being swapped out for a changeling if it’s left alone long enough.
Folks here believe that a faerie child was left there by the imps for the Pictish woman to find it.
Everyone kent that Iona is no’ from ’round these parts.
She married into the clan, sure, but she’s Pict, and we all ken those folks are half pixie. ”
Lachlan opened his mouth to scoff at this but then shut it again. His father had told him to never heap scorn on the beliefs of others, no matter how primitive they may seem. Master Wilson saw this, and a satisfied smile spread over his face.
“Aye, I take it ye are beginning to see the problem with this situation. A hayloft is one o’ those between places, similar to a crossroads.
Neither on the ground nor in the air. Faeries love those places that are neither one nor t’other.
An’ the girl’s features: green eyes an’ red hair…
the sign o’ faerie blood! Let’s no’ forget that every single person in Ada’s village died from a mysterious contagion.
In me own opinion as a learned man, it was nae natural for her to survive at all!
The girl is compulsively attractive to men as well, which set all the womenfolk gossiping from the time Ada was auld enough to draw a man’s attention.
She has a glamor, an allure about her that does nae endear her to other females.
They say it is no’ normal for a girl to spurn the advances of an honest man.
They would be happier if she were married an’ hiding that pretty hair of hers under a cap if ye understand me meaning!
Put all o’ those things together, sir, an’ ye will understand me grave concern in this matter. ”
It did not look good at all. Even Lachlan could see that.
He had also fallen under the beautiful girl’s spell but was intelligent enough to know it was because from the moment he laid eyes on her, he could imagine nothing more he wanted in life than to lie in bed with her.
If that was magic, then any tavern wench or bawd might be called a witch.
The physician drew Lachlan’s attention back to the corpse by stating in a firm voice, “This man has been poisoned.” He pointed to the dilated pupils in the eyes and the flecks of foam on the cheeks.
“This was nay an apoplexy. The poor gentleman was fed something toxic. Order the soldiers into the kitchen an’ the hall. No one must be allowed to leave.”