Chapter 18
“Y
e say ye ken who it is, Lachlan?” Laird Calvin clapped his hands together. “Ye might have plans to be a warrior, me lad, but I swear ye will make a great scholar too if ye have managed to discover the source of the poisonings!”
Ada was seated on a stool next to Lachlan’s chair. It was a huge honor to be seated in the laird’s presence. She was deeply touched when Lachlan shook his head, took Ada’s hand, and kissed it.
“Nay, Grandfaither, it was Ada’s brilliance.
I must nae forget to mention Iona, too; she guided us in the right direction all along.
I think she had a very good idea who it was but wanted us to find out for ourselves.
Now what I need to ken is this: What rulin’ did ye make to anger the rat catcher’s daughter so badly?
Ye ken of whom I speak? Gerard Hanson’s daughter? ”
Laird Calvin’s mouth dropped open. “Ye suspect a woman!? Never say so!”
Ada had to say something here. “Nay, Laird. We suspect a spoiled young girl who has never been taught to take nay for an answer. Mither told me that men seek to punish with their fists or their swords. Poison is a woman’s weapon: silent and sneaky, no violence until the victim falls.
It’s a woman’s perfect revenge if ye think about it. ”
Lachlan interjected, “So why were ye so fretful when I was suspicious o’ ye then? I sensed from the start that a woman was behind this!”
Ada was having none of this. “Och, nay ye didnae! Ye were just jumpin’ to conclusions like ye always do, Calvin! I had every right to be angry! Ye suspicious, mean-hearted saucy japes!”
“Hem hem hem!” The laird cleared his throat loudly. “Are ye two quite finished!”
Ada and Lachlan had the grace to blush.
“Never mind us, Grandfaither,” Lachlan said. “We like to argue.”
The laird scoffed, “I ken ye like to bring spice to yer relationship that way, Grandson, but please refrain from doin’ it in front o’ me!
Now, where was I? Och aye, Heather Hanson.
She approached me some months back with two requests…
permission to allow her to wed that fellow who exports our whiskeys to the Continent…
what’s his name? Alasdair Farquharson. But I said nay.
The fellow still has eight months o’ mourning left to do.
His wife took to her bed a while back and then died.
I bade Heather to wait until a full year o’ mourning was finished before allowing them to wed, an’ that she should nae nag her faither anymore on the matter as he told me she was doing. ”
Silence followed this belated observation.
“And the other request?”
The laird shrugged. “She wanted me to find another rat catcher to take the post her faither and herself were fulfillin’.
Her faither has been sick for some time; he took a kick from a mule in his back.
An’ Miss Heather told me baiting rat traps was too menial a task for her.
Told me she had better things to do with her life than to creep around kitchens an’ cellars lookin’ for vermin.
I told the wench she was free to leave her post, but it would mean her faither would be left without his annual pay. ”
Lachlan whistled. “When I hear ye tell me this story, Grandfaither, it makes me realize that ye made quite a mistake yerself! An’ here ye were beratin’ me for fouterin’ the judgment I made for Iona an’ Ada. Meanwhile, ye have taken a few missteps yerself!”
Laird Calvin shot Lachlan a dark look. “Ye try getting it right every time, Lachlan! There’s bound to be a few mistakes made along the way here an’ there!
How was I to ken the girl was wicked through an’ through?
All I saw was a lass who wanted to wed in a hurry an’ spurned takin’ on the work her faither had done quite happily for many years. ”
“The answer should have come to us sooner,” Ada said. “There are so few people who have access to the whiskey and ale cellars, and the kitchen. We have been blinded by the act instead of looking for someone who had the ways and means.”
“And opportunity,” Lachlan added. “I had the ledger where Heather’s rejected complaint was recorded.
It looks so normal on parchment—a young girl told to wait for her swain to finish mourning and advised to keep her posting so that her sick faither could continue to earn his pension.
It’s a perfectly reasonable judgment on the face o’ things. ”
“I wonder how many items she stuck poison into?” was all Ada could think about. “A rat catcher can gain entrance to anywhere in the Castle…”
“The most important thing is to catch the little rat before she can kill someone else!” Laird Calvin growled.
Lachlan shook his head, “Nay, Grandfaither. We must consider everything tainted and throw it away. It will cost us dearly, but it’s too late to risk eating or drinkin’ anything stored on the estate.”
Laird Calvin was sanguine. “I’ll send message to yer faither, Lachlan, bid him deliver as much food an’ drink as he can spare to Calvin Castle.
Thank goodness it is summer an’ we still have the harvestin’ to bring in more food.
Will ye go an’ explain the predicament to him?
It will sound better comin’ from yer mouth. ”
Lachlan stood up so fast his chair tipped back. “Aye, Grandfaither, in good time. In the meanwhile, I have a poisoner to catch!”
He grabbed Ada’s hand and headed for the door. When he got there, it seemed he had changed his mind. He turned to give Laird Calvin a word of advice.
“Grandfaither…I’ll leave ye to tell the clan they have to throw out all their produce an’ buy more then, shall I?”
Ada could not stop laughing. “That was cruel o’ ye, Calvin! Yer poor auld grandfaither. It could be that the whiskey can be saved. I’ll ask mither to tell the brewmaster to check for wax seals that have been tampered with.”
The laird’s grandson scoffed, “Good luck to the brewmaster when it comes to sellin’ the stuff. I ken nay man who would risk his life for a quaff o’ whiskey.”
“Where are we goin’?” Ada asked him.
He said nothing but lifted her back onto the horse. When he had mounted the saddle behind her, he replied, “I dinnae ken about ye, lass, but I’m all of a sweat to catch this merchant and his dear betrothed.”
He spurred the horse so hard it bolted out of the Castle gates as if someone had lit a fire under its tail.
Ada was quiet. He thought it was because she was concentrating on keeping her seat on the pommel, but eventually she raised her voice to ask him, “Calvin…d’ye think they will boil Heather in oil?
I dinnae ken I fancy that. She’s mean-minded an’ spoiled, but she does nae deserve such a cruel death. ”
The laird’s grandson seemed to give this some thought as he urged his horse to canter toward the town. His mouth was set in a grim line.
“Ada, I plan on being a stern laird, an’ a strict husband an’ faither.
Our bairns will be brought up to respect the hard work of others and cherish those who serve under them.
With that responsibility comes havin’ to make harsh decisions…
an’ when I make those hard decisions, I want ye by me side as I rule so that ye can add yer wisdom to me verdicts.
” He slowed the horse down to a jog. “Ada, will ye make me the happiest man alive an’ agree to be me wife?
I have loved ye from the first moment…in every way a man can love a woman.
I love yer spark, lass, an’ I had nae kent ye for more than one bell toll afore ye gave me a hint o’ that precious fire ye hold inside ye that makes ye so special. ”
Ada was too shy to look at him. She hid her face against his shoulder, saying in a small voice, “Ye must promise to listen to me advice if I wish to temper yer justice with mercy, Calvin. I dinnae want us to have a rigid household where folks are afeared to speak their mind.”
He hugged her to his chest. “That’s why I need ye with me, lass. I never wanted a softer side until I met ye.”
Her voice was muffled. “An’ I don’ like ye as Lachlan…nor as Will. Cannae I keep callin’ ye Calvin? I have never thought o’ ye by any other name.”
She could hear his chest rumbling with his laughter. “Ye mean the name ye cursed me with? How did ye ken me grandfaither wanted me to change me name to Calvin?”
Ada was emboldened to look up at him when she answered. The man she liked to call Calvin was looking at her with such intense passion in his eyes, it awoke an answering love in her heart. She opened the neck of his shirt and kissed his chest.
“Because ye look like a Calvin, Calvin MacNair! An’…I love ye.”
As the horse trotted into the town, the folks were greeted by the sight of the laird’s grandson kissing the healer’s daughter atop their mount.
“Some o’ the laird’s clan are said to be very headstrong and determined,” one housewife whispered to another.
“Belike they will be announcin’ their betrothal, an’ none too soon from what I hear.
The laird is nay gettin’ any younger, an’ he could rest easier if there was a wee great grand-bairn in the crib. ”
Her neighbor sniffed and replied in a prudish tone, “A wedding will come none too soon from the way they are bussing one another, free for all the world to see.”
As much as they enjoyed the break from the days of stress they had been living for the past few days, when they arrived at the merchant’s house, it was time for the harder side of the laird’s grandson to come out. He drew the sword he was wearing in a sheath behind his back.
“Stand behind me, Ada. I don’ trust yon rat catcher’s daughter.”
But when he kicked the door in, the only person waiting for them in the parlor was Gerard Hanson. The old man was not surprised to see Lachlan crash through the door.
“I put two an’ two together, lad, same as ye.
Me back is no’ so sore that I could nae ride here to warn Heather, ye ken.
I got here afore ye, an’ the rats have fled the ship.
Let them be. They are fugitives an’ will never ken another day or night of peace again in their lives.
A life of lookin’ over their shoulders for the heavy hand o’ the law to fall is punishment enough. ”
Lachlan drew his sword back, ready to slay the old man. “The scribe is dead, ye carrion crow! An’ in all likelihood, the merchant’s wife was poisoned too!” He spat out the words. “Me betrothed nearly died! An’ ye deem yerself worthy to proclaim banishment an adequate punishment for them!”
Ada added in a somber tone, “This is serious, Gerard. How could ye be so imprudent? There’s nay doubt in me mind Heather was the Calvin poisoner.”
The old man sighed. “Aye, the merchant would swing for dosing his wife to kill her, but me daughter would plead the bairn in her belly as an excuse. That’s why she took such a pet when the laird told her they could nae marry; she did nae want a bustert bairn.
If yer grandfaither had agreed to let them marry before the mournin’ period was finished, none o’ this would have happened. ”
Ada and the laird’s grandson could see that it was pointless trying to get the old man to see how egregious his daughter's actions had been.
“An’ what about the merchant’s wife? Are we to forget about the poor woman?
Killed because she was in the way of yer daughter gettin’ her own way?
” Lachlan sighed and shook his head. “D’ye think yer daughter will change her ways an’ never do this again, Gerard?
Because if ye do, ye’re a bigger fool than I think ye already.
Now all three o’ ye will sit on the bench awaitin’ the laird’s judgment on ye. ”
With a heavy heart, Ada went to sit next to the crippled rat catcher while Lachlan rode back to the Castle to fetch soldiers and send out hunting parties to seek out Merchant Farquharson and Heather Hanson.
“Why d’ye do such a treacherous thing, Gerard?” she asked the old man. “Why did ye cut off yer nose to spite yer face like this? Ye must ken that Heather will nae thank ye for it. She’s always been happy to drag others down into her troubles with her.”
The old man heaved a shuddering sigh. “When ye have yer own bairns, Ada, then ye will understand…”