Demon Laird (Legacy of the Mist Clans) (9 page)

His body relaxed slightly. Aidan was right. Whenever he became enraged it seemed that his attacks struck more suddenly and more powerfully.

Aidan stepped back and moved to the bottle at the table. Pouring two cups of wine, he motioned for his brother to sit. Then his gaze fell on the smashed cup on the floor.

“
What happened this morn?”

Ronan
flinched and took the cup his brother offered. “I didna attack the lass.”

Aidan sat with him. “I ne’er thought ye did.”

“Ye are the only one.” He paused and gestured to the loophole. “I saw the villagers. I was coming below stairs tae help, damn their fear of the Demon Laird tae hell.”

Aidan took a drink and studied his brother a long moment. “She saw ye and panicked.”

“Aye.”

“That’s why she fell.”

“Aye.”

“Ronan, the fault
doesna lie with ye.”

“It
doesna?” He paused and shook his head. “I kenned better, I kenned I shouldna leave the solar. At least no’ during the day.”

Again Aidan fell silent, studying him.
“Ronan, as tae the healer, I ken ye dinna want her here, but we need her.”

“She is a
Sassenach,” Ronan growled. His intense rage faded to simmering frustration.

“She is a healer,” Aidan countered.
He paused and drew a deep breath. “She doesna ken what this is yet, but it seems tae be some sort of plague.”

“How do ye ken she
isna trying tae kill every Scot she touches? How do ye ken she didna bring this plague with her?”

“Because I’ve watched her, Ronan. I’ve seen how she treats our people. I’ve seen her caring and compassion.”

Ronan waivered. Aidan’s powers of observation were unparalleled, and there was no one Ronan trusted more.

Aidan took a drink then sat his cup on the table with a
thunk
. “Come with me,” he growled. He rose and stepped for the door.

Ronan hesitated.

“Ye will be able tae observe from the foot of the stairs,” Aidan said. “They willna see ye.”

Ronan placed his cup next
to his brother’s on the table, rose, and followed him out the door.

At the base of the stairs, he stopped in horror.
The sick and infirm filled the great hall, many on pallets on the floor, still others huddled against the walls. The Sassenach had taken control of Ronan’s high table and used it to mix medicants.

“Milady,” Alba called, kneeling beside
the unconscious maid who had fallen this morning. The Sassenach dropped her mortar and pestle and sprinted to the girl’s side. She checked for a life-beat against the girl’s throat, then her hazel eyes filled with tears. “Blessed Mary, nay,” she whispered and shook her head.

Ronan’s throat constricted and he swallowed against the sorrow rising within him.

“I am sorry,” the Sassenach whispered. She stroked the girl’s hair from her brow with such compassion Ronan felt tears burning in his eyes. She then took a blanket and pulled it over the maid’s head.

Alba
covered her face and started to sob. The Sassenach motioned to two braw young lads. They silently approached, their expressions grim. The Sassenach helped Alba to her feet and pulled her out of the way while she cried bitterly. The lads picked up the maid’s body and carried her out.

Ronan
choked softly then turned away. Sorrow and guilt nearly brought him to his knees. It was his fault the girl was dead.

“Ronan,” Aidan said
, gently gripping his shoulder. “Watch.”

Unwillingly, Ronan returned his gaze
to the hall.

The Sass
enach guided Alba to a chair, fetched a cup from the table, and handed it to her. As Alba drank, the Sassenach crouched before the maid and took her hand. She spoke to Alba, but Ronan could not make out her words.

Aidan inclined his
head slightly. “Alba, I am sorry,” he whispered, relating the healer’s words. Ronan watched him for a moment. His brother had learned to glean what a person said by just watching their lips as they spoke. “I know she was your friend.”

“Why did the Demon Laird kill her? She was a kind soul
; she ne’er hurt anyone.”

The Sass
enach’s expression grew stern. “Alba, cease. We do not know what happened. ’Tis not our place to judge. He may have simply startled her and she fell. I suspect it was an accident, nothing more.”

Ronan looked at his brother in surprise
, but Aidan’s concentration was focused on the healer.

“Alba, I know this hurts your heart
, but I need your help. These people, they need your help.”

Ronan watched the gradual change come over Alba. She drained her cup, straightened
her shoulders, and rose from the chair.

“What can I do, milady?”

The Sassenach smiled and rose with her, gripping her hands. “That’s my girl. The medicant cups—I have made barley water in hopes it might ease the stomach pains.”

“I
will see tae it, milady.”

“Thank you, Alba.”

Alba walked away and Aidan fell silent. But Ronan’s attention remained locked on the Sassenach as she too became a different woman. Tears filled her eyes as she looked over the great hall, and for the first time, her hands shook. She turned away, her shoulders bowed as if under a great weight. She cleaned her hands in a bowl of water, bowing her head.

Ronan swallowed hard
, unable to understand the sudden longing that roared to life within him. He wanted nothing more than to comfort and encourage her as she waged her war against death. He gritted his teeth against the impulse.

The
Sassenach drew in a couple of deep breaths, and as soon as she turned around, servants helped another sick villager into the great hall, moving straight for her. Again Ronan recognized him. Nay! The man was Connell’s younger brother. He was not married yet but lived on the outskirts of the village as a leather tanner. Ronan’s gaze returned to the healer. The strength that he had witnessed before returned, and she began a new battle to save a life. Ronan turned away, unable to help, unable to watch any longer.

“Well?” his brother asked.

Ronan took a step toward the stairs but hesitated. “She stays,” he growled. For some reason, he could not look at his brother. “Until this is over. After that, I want her gone.”

“
Nay,” Aidan said, his voice tight. “She stays and that’s all there is tae it.”

Ronan took a breath
to rebuke his brother but then stopped and released it. “What is her name?” he asked softly.

“Lia.”

Ronan nodded and slowly ascended the stairs.

****

That night Lia barely had time to wolf down some food. The great hall was filled to bursting. She was grateful for Aidan giving her leave to use it but also hated the fact it was so full. It seemed villagers streamed into the keep, able to defeat their terror of the Demon Laird in an effort to seek her aid. She didn’t understand—so many people, their symptoms the same, and all at once. Surely it had to be a plague of some sort. But why were none in the castle sick? This illness struck without regard to station, age, or health, except for seemingly avoiding those who lived and worked in the keep.

Although Lia was not given
to superstition, the villagers’ belief in the Demon Laird’s curse made a strange sort of sense. Some aspects of this were very familiar, but she could not place the specifics. She needed to review her journal, but thus far, every time she sat for the barest moment to do so, someone else needing her aid came through the door.

The night aged and the castle finally quieted. Occasionally
, a soft moan of pain would break the silence, but for the most part, the sick rested. The medicant she had developed to soothe their aching stomachs seemed to be working, as long as the person could keep it down.

Lia prepared herself a cup of mulled wine with herbs
to help clear the cobwebs from her head. She knew her work was only beginning, and it would be a long time before she could get any sleep. But things seemed quiet now, and she took the opportunity to fetch her journal and sit at the high table with quill and ink. She quickly made notes on a new piece of vellum.

Lia’s
journal was simply loose sheets of vellum she kept between two sturdy pieces of leather bound with a tie across the quarters. When she removed the tie, she was able to sort through the vellum and organize them in any manner she chose. This time she sorted them by symptoms. Why did this plague seem so familiar? Who had she treated? What had been the result?

She
was poring over the pages when a soft sound behind her caused her to bolt from her chair. She spun, her heart pounding wildly, but she saw nothing. There were two shadowed alcoves behind her, but the blackness they harbored now suddenly seemed foreboding. Her gaze searched each one. She heard another noise, a soft scrape, and then a chill breath of air whispered through the room and pricked the gooseflesh on her arms.

Lia
took an involuntary step back, feeling as if something were watching her, as if the walls themselves had eyes. She desperately searched the shadows for any answer. Surely it was a rat or some other vermin searching for a scrap of food. But the great hall was clean; there did not appear to be anything to draw rats into the keep.

Her heart continued
to race, and she struggled to suck in her breath. But the shadowed alcoves did not reveal the source of the noise. The strange sensation of something watching her faded, and she began to wonder if she had imagined it. Perhaps she was more tired than she realized.

“Milady,” a voice said from behind her.

Lia barely bit back a scream and spun.

Lachlan
stood before her, looking at her curiously. “Milady, forgive me, I dinna mean tae—”

“It’s all right,
Lachlan,” she said, placing her hand on his arm in relief, but it was more to steady herself. She shook like a leaf battered in a storm. “I fear this day has been difficult. My nerves are ready to snap.”

“Und
erstandable, but pray, Connell be worried over his wife.”

Lia’s gaz
e crossed the great hall. Connell sat with his family, worrying himself to distraction. “What’s wrong?”

Lachlan
led her away from the high table and helped her pick her way through the sick.

Lia glanced
back over her shoulder, her gaze again focusing on the shadowed alcove. Something within the darkness moved. She quickly turned away and swallowed hard. It was only her weary imagination. It had to be.

****

Ronan slowly exhaled and wrapped his cloak more firmly around him as he watched the Sassenach cross the room to speak to Connell. So, she was extremely sensitive to the area around her. He would do well to remember that. The blackness of the alcove he stood in, only a few feet behind her, had cloaked his presence better than the garment he wore, but he had been surprised when she had turned around. He had seen the intensity in her gaze as she searched the shadows, and for an instant, he had been certain she would discover him. But now that she had moved away from the high table, he could examine the sheets of vellum she had left there.

He was surprised the Sass
enach could read. Her clothing did not indicate nobility; neither did her bearing nor manner. But as he examined the notes she had made on the vellum, he frowned. He recognized letter groupings: Latin, Common, and French. As laird of his clan, Ronan was fluent in all three, but as he gazed at her writing, he realized none of it made sense. There were also images, simplistic drawings intermixed with the letters. Very strange. Almost like some sort of…

“
Cypher,” he snarled under his breath.

Had the English sent
a spy in the guise of a healer to reside within the walls of Ronan’s keep?

It made more sense than Ronan wanted
to admit. How she stated she could not return, her unwillingness to deny his question of her banishment that first night, and now this strange cypher. The English had sent the healer to bring this plague upon his people and report the results. Just as Aidan’s birds sang their songs, this one wrote hers in nonsensical words and images in order to avoid discovery. Ronan gritted his teeth, fighting the urge to step from the shadows and snap the Sassenach’s neck.

Instead
, he reached out with one long arm, snagged the sheet of vellum she had just been writing on, and tucked it into the folds of his cloak. Silently, he faded back into the darkness and disappeared.

Lia knelt beside Connell’s wife and looked at her in alarm. She appeared so very young. Her eyes were closed and her face was deathly gray. Connell knelt on her other side, gripping her shoulders, and Lia realized her body was convulsing, he was trying to keep her still lest she inadvertently strike her sleeping son next to her. The convulsions were weak, and Lia felt the girl’s forehead, gritting her teeth. It was as if she were on fire.