Arsenic and Old Armor (24 page)

“
You are against him,”
Judith said accusingly.

“
I am
not
against him,” Marion replied.
“Sir William has killed a man.”

The silence in the great hall was complete.
Only the sound of the fire in the hearth disturbed it.

“
Killed a man?” Judith was
the first to speak.

“
He couldn’t do such a
thing,” Margaret said passionately.

“
Never.” Judith shook her
head.

There was no end to their denials. Marion
walked over to the window seat and started removing the
pillows.

“
Aunt Margaret. Aunt
Judith.” She lifted the top. “There is a body in this window
seat.”

Again, silence reigned for a long
moment.

“
Is that all?” Margaret
asked. She was obviously relieved!

“
That’s no reason to send
William away,” Judith said, waving her hand dismissively. “We know
about the man in there.”

The pillows dropped out of Marion’s hands
and the top of the window seat slammed shut. She wasn’t sure she
heard her aunt correctly. “What did you just say?”

“
You are too young to be
getting hard of hearing like me.” Margaret smiled. “What Judith
said is that we know there is a man in there.”

“
You do?”

“
Of course! And that has
nothing to do with William.”

“
Nothing,” Judith said
pleasantly, turning back to the table. “I’m glad that’s
settled.”

“
Yes, indeed.”

Judith tapped her plump cheeks with one
finger. “We still need to find the table settings.”

The entire room seemed to tilt suddenly, and
Marion’s mind tipped with it.

“
You
know
?” she asked vaguely.

“
Of course. Now dear, just
forget about it,” Margaret advised. “Forget you ever saw the
Englishman in the window seat.”

“
Just forget it,” Judith
said over her shoulder.

“
Forget
I saw a dead man? A dead
Englishman
? In my family’s great
hall?” Marion asked.

“
We never dreamed you’d
look in there,” Margaret said gently.

“
Never.” Judith shook her
head.

“
Who is he? How did he die?
I didn’t see any blood. If William had nothing to do with it, then
how did he get there?” Marion realized she was asking too many
questions at once. Her aunts weren’t listening anyway. Their
attention was back to the table.

“
Who is he?” she repeated
more forcefully.

The two older women exchanged a look. There
was a slight whispering, and then Judith answered.

“
If you must know, his name
is Harington. Sir George Harington. He’s an Englishman who was sent
here to the Borders to attend your wedding.” Judith shrugged.
“That’s all I really know about him.”

Marion remembered the name. This was
definitely the Englishman Iain’s men were searching for. She’d
heard that much from John and Tom.

“
What is he doing here?”
she asked.

“
He liked our cooking,”
Margaret answered. “He dropped by for a visit.”

“
Your aunt Margaret’s fruit
tarts were his favorite,” Judith said with a smile.

“
What happened to him?”
Marion asked, praying that there was a sane explanation for this.
He could have died naturally, she thought hopefully.

“
He died,” Margaret
said.

“
Just…died,” Judith
repeated.

“
While he was
visiting?”

“
Of course, dear. You don’t
think we’d go out
looking
for him!”

“
So he died while you
were…eating?” Marion asked, still hopeful.

“
Just afterward, dear,”
Margaret answered.

“
After,” Judith
agreed.

“
Did he just climb into
that window seat and die?”

Margaret and Judith exchanged a look again,
and there was some more whispering.

Marion had no patience left. “Well, who is
going to answer me?” she asked sharply.

“
He drank some wine and
died,” Margaret said in a matter-of-fact manner.

“
Drank some wine.” Judith
nodded as this should have explained it all.

“
And he choked on the
wine?”

“
Well, no, dear. Not
exactly.” Margaret paused. “Actually, the wine had a touch of
poison in it.”

Judith made a motion with her hand showing
how much a touch was.

Marion looked at the table and the pitcher
sitting next to the cups. She remembered Iain taking a drink before
going out. She moved frantically toward the table. “Does this have
poison in it?”

“
No, dear. Don’t be silly!”
Margaret said as if speaking to a child.

“
Of course not.” Judith
shook her head. “We keep the
special
wine in the
cupboard.”

“
For special guests.” Both
women pointed to the cabinet. Marion looked over her shoulder at a
pitcher and cups, sitting on the shelf.

“
May I ask another
question?” Marion asked.

“
Certainly!” Margaret
replied brightly.

“
Ask.” Judith nodded
happily.

“
How did the poison get
into the wine?” she asked.

“
We put it in the wine,”
Margaret said proudly.

“
We
did it,” Judith agreed.

“
You…two…poisoned the
wine?” Marion stared at her aunts in disbelief.

They both nodded happily.

“
We tried it with cider and
ale, but it didn’t taste right,” Margaret explained.

“
Wine works perfectly,”
Judith continued. “Margaret wasn’t here when I offered a cup of it
to Sir George. He liked it immensely.”

He liked it so immensely that he died,
Marion thought. She looked at Judith, her murderous aunt. But
Margaret knew about it, too, and clearly thought nothing wrong with
killing a visitor.

Marion hoped someone would slap her right
now and wake her up. She glanced toward the window seat.

“
I put Sir George in there
when I heard the noise in the courtyard,” Judith said cheerfully.
“Brother Luke was arriving for a visit, too.”

“
I was at the village,”
Margaret said, obviously disappointed. “I missed it.”

Marion told herself she had to deal with one
of them at a time. She faced Judith. “You knew what you did was
wrong, isn’t that right? That’s why you decided to hide the
body.”

“
Well, we hadn’t seen
Brother Luke for so long. We had a great deal to talk about without
a wee distraction like that,” her aunt explained.

Murder
was only a
wee
distraction? Marion stared at the two women, seeing them for
the first time. William was not the only crazy one in the
family.

Margaret motioned to the food they had
brought out. “You should call in the laird. You two must be
starving. Judith and I will take care of setting the table.”

“
I have no appetite,”
Marion said in confusion. She didn’t know what to do
next.

“
You look pale, dear,”
Margaret noted. “I know this was a lot to share with you. But now
you know it all. So I suggest you just forget about the whole
thing.”

“
Forget about it?” Marion
asked in shock. “There is no way I can forget that my aunt has
murdered a man and put him in with the linens in the window
seat.”

“
So you
did
find the damask table cover?”
Judith asked excitedly, going to where the body was.

Margaret’s frown, though, was stern. “You
really are becoming upset about nothing, Marion. I think Judith and
I have the right to our own little secrets. You have yours, after
all.”

Judith removed the cushions from the window
seat and poked around the body, looking for the tablecloth. “And I
don’t think you should share our little secret with the laird. Sir
George was Lady Elizabeth’s guest, and we don’t want to offend
anyone.” She turned to her sister. “The linens are not here. At
least, I don’t see them.”

“
I told you they’re
upstairs,” Margaret answered. “I’ll go and look.”

“
I’m coming with you,”
Judith said. “There are far too many things stored in the earl’s
bedchamber. You go in there alone, and you might never come out
again.”

The two laughed as they started for the
doorway, one on the heels of the other.

Marion, feeling dazed, looked around the
room. This couldn’t be real. But it was. It had to be. But maybe it
wasn’t. She wandered to the window and threw open the shutters.
Right below her, two of the Armstrong warriors were talking. They
looked up.

Marion smiled weakly and waved at them. They
waved back.

“
We’re at Fleet Tower, are
we not?” she called out to them.

“
That we are, m’lady,” one
of them called back, looking at her oddly.

“
And this is my family,”
she announced, not asking, but desperately hoping they would
correct her.

“
They are your family,” the
second man called up.

Her family was crazy. She was crazy. And now
Iain’s men knew it, too.

“
Damn.” Marion closed the
shutters. She realized she was leaning on the blasted window seat.
She jumped back and moved toward the arched doorway. “Aunt
Margaret. Aunt Judith,” she screamed up the stairwell.

The two aunts could not have been too far up
the stairs, for they bustled back down the steps in an instant.
“What’s wrong?”

“
What is wrong, dear?”
Judith repeated, taking her hand and patting it.

“
What are we going to do?”
Marion asked with a half sob.

“
What are we going to do
about what?” Margaret asked, sitting Marion down on a chair. Her
aunt put a hand on her forehead.

“
Feverish,” she whispered
to her sister.

Judith gave a knowing nod.

Marion motioned with her head toward the
window seat. “What are we going to do with Sir George?”

“
That’s not your worry,
dear,” Margaret said calmly. “We’ll take care of it.”

“
Not your worry.” Judith
continued to pat Marion’s hand.

“
How could I not worry?”
Marion exploded. “There is a dead body in that window seat. The
body happens to belong to an emissary of the King of England. The
poor man was sent to the Borders to witness my wedding. He is not
going to show up because he is dead. Every English soldier north of
York will be sent up here to look for him. They won’t leave a stone
unturned. And where are they going to find Sir George Harington’s
body? Rotting among the linens in my family’s great
hall.”

“
Now, Marion,” Margaret
said sharply. “You are getting hysterical, and for no
reason.”

“
No reason at all,” Judith
agreed, shaking her head. “We told you the linens are not in the
window seat with him.”

Marion suddenly understood Uncle William.
She understood why he was crazy. At that moment, she wished she had
a sword. She wanted to run up the stairs, away from these two
madwomen, and shout, “FREEDOM!” at the top of her lungs.

“
You are worrying too
much,” Margaret said, caressing Marion’s hair.

“
Too, too much,” Judith
agreed.

“
Sir George’s body won’t
stay in the window seat,” Margaret assured her.

“
Not at all.” Judith
nodded.

“
What are you going to do
with him?” Marion asked.

“
I told you before, William
is down in the dungeon making room for him, as we speak,” Margaret
explained.

“
Right now.” Judith pointed
a gnarled finger to the floor, in case Marion didn’t know where the
dungeons were.

She should have guessed. Sir William was in
on it, too. “Is he going to bury him down there?”

“
Not exactly bury,”
Margaret said.

Judith shook her head, agreeing. “Not
bury.”

“
He is going to lay him out
in armor.”

“
With the others,” Aunt
Judith finished.

It took a moment before her words sank
in.

“
Did you say ‘others’?”
Marion asked weakly.

Iain felt much better about the security of
Fleet Tower once he and his three men were done with their
inspection of the walls. Built nearly three hundred years ago, the
tower house had withstood many skirmishes and attacks by small
bands of outlaws and the lairds of the surrounding clans. Iain was
certain his own ancestors had laid siege to the place at least a
dozen times over the centuries. The greatest point of defense for
the house was exactly what his men had referred to. Fleet Tower was
almost inaccessible from every direction but from the main road and
the front entrance. And the portcullis could be closed and that
entrance could be guarded.

“
You should go. Take the
men,” Iain told Alan once they were back where they had started.
“Tom and John will be enough to keep watch for the
night.”