Chapter 16
“A
da, the French have an expression for this mystery we’re in.”
It was the following morning, and the laird’s grandson was lying on top of the bedsheets with her, an arm wrapped protectively around her shoulders.
“I have nay doubt they have poisoners in France, too, Calvin,” Ada replied. “Pray tell me what they say about such things.”
“I must collect me thoughts a wee bit first, lass,” he said, jumping up from the mattress and dashing to the washroom.
Ada noticed he was completely recovered from imbibing vast quantities of marjoram in the broth last night.
It had taught them both a lesson: Iona was a loving and tolerant parent, but she would not stand to have her daughter playing the fool with the laird’s grandson until more of an effort was made at a proper courtship.
While the healer was the first to acknowledge that Lachlan’s bedchamber was the safest place for Ada to be with a poisoner on the loose, it was the most undesirable place in the world for a beautiful maiden!
Ada wanted to prove to her mother that William Lachlan MacNair and herself were able to stay in the same room with each other without bickering.
Perhaps that is what they needed to show Iona they were in love.
When he sauntered back into the bedchamber, Lachlan looked spruce and alert.
“The French call it cherchez la femme. I’m sure this is what yer mither was alluding to last night. It means we must look at women too if we want to solve this.”
“I’m a woman, Calvin,” she muttered, “an’ I swear to ye that I have nay wish to boil in lard as a punishment, and I promise ye that all women would feel the same way!”
But he was having none of it.
“Nay, that’s where ye’re out. The punishment for women is hangin’, an’ some women can escape that too if they can plead to havin’ a bairn in the belly. We must find someone angry enough to risk that.”
Ada groaned. “Cal, I cannae spend another day with the books. I cannae!”
He was on the move again, shouting out from the dressing room.
“It’s time to use our heads instead o’ our eyes.”
When he came out, his plaid was belted with his shirt tucked in.
He sat on the edge of the bed to pull on the woolen stockings and tie his boots over them.
Ada got a little hint of what married life would be like with the man she liked to call Calvin and smiled, secretly hoping she would not feel so unfulfilled every morning after she was married.
“Hie-ho, time to end this charade and let everyone ken I’m alive, I suppose,” she said.
He grinned. “I’ll get Father Williams to say a prayer for ye in kirk, an’ then we can tell everyone it was a miracle.”
“It will be a miracle if we ever find out who this beastly poisoner is,” Ada grumbled, but she rose out of the bed and stepped into the petticoat and kirtle her mother had left for her to wear.
The laird’s grandson offered to tie her stays for her, but she shook her head.
“Nay, I remember what happened when ye offered to do that in the alcove, an’ if we set about playing May merry weather with one another again, we’ll never leave this bedchamber.”
“It will come to naught if yer mither slips me another serving of that broth.”
He growled, but he grinned after saying it, so Ada knew he got the jest. Two young lovers hot for each other with their passionate actions brought to an abrupt halt with the simple addition of a few handfuls of herbs to their soup. It was funny in hindsight.
They walked together to the alehouse. Lachlan tried to place her hand on his arm, but she demurred. He looked down sharply at her.
“Are ye ashamed to be seen gettin’ close to me, Ada?”
The scowl when he said this was quite ferocious, but the healer’s daughter shook her head.
“I need us to be seen as allies, Calvin, no’ lovers. I want the poisoner to tremble when she sees us, not look upon us with doting fondness.”
He saw the reasoning behind this, but even so, he thought to reply, “All the more reason to find out who this person is quickly because, Ada Calvin, ye better get used to holdin’ me arm. Ye might need the support when we march down the aisle.”
She blushed, a reaction that made him happy.
He gave her hand a quick squeeze and then let it drop.
The brewmaster’s home was built next to the alehouse as it was in most of the great houses and castles.
There was a separate distillery within the Castle where the housekeeper, cook, or Iona made cordials and fruit essences, but the brewmaster was in charge of making the whiskey and ale.
A brewmaster was an extremely esteemed individual anywhere one chose to travel in the Highlands; a good brewmaster could single-handedly make a laird wealthy if he hit upon a winning ale or whiskey receipt.
“Greetings, Master,” Lachlan MacNair did not remove his bonnet or bow to the brewmaster—he was the laird’s grandson, after all—but his tone was deferential. “Might I have a word with ye?”
The man grunted and nodded at the young couple. “I’m pleased to see ye are recovered, Apprentice Ada. I was greatly concerned when the alehouse keeper told me ye had fallen victim to this cursed evildoer. To think our clan would see the day when we were too scared to break bread with each other.”
The brewmaster made a superstitious sign to ward off the devil. Ada curtsied and thanked the man for his kind words.
“Now, how can I be of help?” the master wanted to know.
“I want to see the bottle of whiskey, Master.” The laird’s grandson wasted no time in getting to the point. “I ken it would be here because I ordered it to be removed an’ no one to touch it.”
The man jerked his head and told them to follow him.
He was so fearful of the poison that he would not have it near his house.
He took them to an old hut at the back; it was where the midden hole was kept.
No one in their right mind would go snooping around there, day or night.
The man opened the hut’s door and came out holding his nose with one hand and the whiskey bottle with the other.
He was wearing gloves. Ada backed away from the bottle, shaking her head when the brewmaster held it out to her.
Lachlan sighed. “Stick in a hopsack, will ye please, Master?”
The man grumbled, saying the bottle was simply hidden in the hut, not in the midden hole itself, but nonetheless, he went to the alehouse and came back with the bottle in a coarsely woven hopsack. Ada thanked him and curtsied again.
“Let’s get the bottle back to Mither’s cottage, Calvin. She will ken what to do.”
Iona was not surprised to see the young couple walk into the cellar, nor was she apologetic for the dosing of marjoram she had secretly administered to them the previous night.
All she did was hold out her hand for the sack and drew the bottle out.
It looked harmless. A normal brown bottle, slightly squat with a small lip for pouring.
The cork had been stuck back inside it, and the dark-red wax seal was broken.
“The alehouse keeper tells me the seal was whole when he cracked the bottle open for ye, Lachlan.”
Iona might be crippled, but she had a good network of messengers she kept busy finding out things around the Castle for her.
“So how on earth did the poison get in there?” Ada wanted to know.
“And who had the opportunity to do it?” the laird’s grandson said.
Iona ignored them as she poured out a measure of the golden liquid into a small tass. She held it up to the lamp that lit the windowless cellar.
“Uisge beatha—the water of life. That’s what we call whiskey. But the person who fiddled with the bottle turned it into the water of death…for a reason. This is the laird’s special batch, is it no’?”
Lachlan nodded, but the scowl on his face was terrifying. “Is me grandfaither the target?”
Iona tutted and shook her head. “Aye an’ nay, Lachlan. This is someone who holds a grudge against those higher up than they are: those dining at the high table; those who can afford to drink the laird’s finest whiskey; anyone who seems blessed an’ content compared to others.”
“A servant?”
Ada was fascinated now, in spite of herself. She knew her mother was a wise woman, but to see her wisdom in action was quite an experience. Ada was so proud as she watched her mother sift through all the evidence.
“Nay, a servant would be too scared to carry out such an evil task. They have access to the laird and would supplicate him directly if they had a problem instead of hiding in the shadows.” She moved toward them and pointed to a cleft in the cork.
“This is where they inserted the spindle and dripped in the poison. Then they must have remelted the wax to make it look whole.”
Ada could not stop herself from grabbing the laird’s grandson’s hand with excitement.
“Spindle?”
Iona smiled. “Aye. A long, thin spindle from a spinning wheel. Yer poisoner is a woman.”