Arsenic and Old Armor (3 page)

“
And the prioress allows
her to roam all over Skye?”

“
To be honest, that is the
one thing that drives the prioress to distraction. She doesn’t care
to have her charges out on their own…particularly Lady
Marion.”

“
But she allows it
nonetheless.”

“
Skye is far safer since
the laird Alec Macpherson took young Malcolm MacLeod under his
wing. They watch over us, to be sure, but the truth is, m’lord,
there are still some rogues that pass through every now and
again.”

“
So when did this regular
daily schedule of Lady Marion’s begin?” Iain asked. “Monday no
travel, Tuesday fasting…and the rest of it.”

“
I’d say just about a month
ago. About the time yer messenger first arrived to let her ladyship
know she’d be traveling south.”

The man stopped dead, going red in the face.
Brother Luke figured the porter was smart enough to recognize his
error in telling the truth. He looked up at the laird.

“
I shouldn’t have said as
much.”

“
You told me what I needed
to hear.” Iain gave him another coin. “Where can I find Lady
Marion?”

“
She’s a good lass, m’lord.
She’s got a heart as good as gold. I shouldn’t have
said…”

“
Where is she?” he asked
sharply.

“
I’m sure I don’t know,
m’lord. I’ve been at the gate…minding my duties…not hardly running
my mouth to guests.” The porter visibly cringed under Iain’s hard
glare. “The convent is little more than what ye see. You ask any of
the nuns, and they’ll be sure to tell you where she might be…or
which way she was heading.”

“
Perhaps we should
introduce ourselves to the prioress first,” Brother Luke
interjected, hoping to calm his nephew before he met with young
Marion.

“
You’ll do that,” the laird
replied. “Give her my regards. And inform her that I intend to
leave with my betrothed today.”

***

Only a mean and tightfisted master would
starve his people, Marion thought, watching the servers head off
for the third time to the dining hall. Each time they’d gone,
they’d been carrying heaping trenchers of food. The way everything
was disappearing, it looked like the men had barely eaten in a
fortnight.

Marion and Sister Beatrice moved to one of
the tables near the back door of the kitchen. The two women had
been working in the kitchen since dawn. They’d baked all the bread
they had rising. Since the onset of the feeding frenzy, they had
been measuring flour, mixing and kneading dough, preparing more
batches for tomorrow’s baking. But at the rate food was being
consumed right now, Marion figured the men would be eating the
uncooked dough in another hour.

“
You cannot avoid him
forever, child.”

“
Forever might only be one
or two days. Perhaps a week,” Marion answered, adding more flour to
the huge bowl she was using to mix the dough. “I can avoid him for
that long.”

“
Do you really think the
laird would give up and leave without you?” Sister Beatrice asked
gently.

“
Of
course
I do. He doesn’t care a straw
about me. Twelve years he’s left me here. It might as well be a
hundred twelve. The only reason why he’s here now is to complete
the business of a contract made between our kin when I was but a
child.”

“
You are his
betrothed.”

“
He can find another wife,”
she said stubbornly. “The McCalls and the Armstrongs have been
trying to find a way to combine their land for nearly a century.
But the timing has never worked out to the satisfaction of the
families, and it will not work now, either. I will make sure of
it.”

“
But you’re saying it
yourself. If it has taken a century to match a lass of your place
and an Armstrong laird, he is not about to meddle with such an
arrangement.”

“
Indeed, he will,” she said
confidently. “He doesn’t care anything at all about me, and when he
realizes I don’t want him, either, he’ll go right back to the
Borders.”

“
But Marion, what about the
land your family--”

“
That’s no issue at all. He
has been controlling it for twelve years. He can keep it, so far as
I care. He can have the whole of Scotland, for that matter, down to
the last sheep and pig. I give it all to him and my blessing with
it. But he
shan’t
have me in the bargain.”

“
But he’s come all this way
for you. He must want you to be his—”

“
No, he doesn’t. He doesn’t
care for me, and he doesn’t care for my family. He
doesn’t
want me, I tell
you.”

“
But what makes you say
that?”

Marion stood with her hands on her hips and
faced the nun. “Because he thinks there is madness in my
blood.”

“
Madness?” The wrinkled
face of Sister Beatrice creased into a smile. “Are you talking of
the little peculiarities you’ve occasionally mentioned about your
uncle? About him acting as if he was William Wallace?”

Marion nodded, thinking about Uncle
William’s ‘little peculiarities.’ No one at Fleet Tower thought
anything of it, but Iain Armstrong had used it to sent her to
Skye.

“
My ‘betrothed’ has no
respect for my family. My uncle is loud and talks and acts
strangely at times, but the important thing is that he is quite
kindhearted. Sir William is very sweet. Funny, even.”

The nun motioned to one of the kitchen
helpers to bring them more water. “An uncle who acts peculiar at
times. That is certainly not enough reason to think your entire
family is mad. I believe you are imagining the worst about Sir
Iain.”

“
No, I’m not. You don’t
know the man,” Marion argued. “He is very serious. Twelve years ago
he was old before his time. Withered in spirit. He sees people as
he wishes to see them, no matter how innocent that person’s actions
might be. He thinks even worse of the rest of my family,
too.”

Sister Beatrice straightened gingerly and
wiped her hands on a rag. “But how could he? Your father is dead.
Your two aunts are gentle old ladies, and from the letters you have
been reading to me that they regularly send, they love you like
their own child.”

“
I agree. But Iain twists
things to suit himself. He finds something wrong with everyone,”
Marion explained. “Starting with my father. John McCall never
imagined he was William Wallace like Uncle William. But in bravery
he was no less than that great hero. After all these years, I still
remember him so vividly. He was fearless, bold, a giant of a man
who was a master in wielding a sword. He died in Flodden Field
beside King Jamie.”

“
Your father, the Earl of
Fleet, was a hero, to be sure. Now, why would your betrothed think
something was wrong with him?”

“
Because of rumors,” Marion
said quietly. “I was young but not deaf. And I never witnessed any
of this. But there were stories of my father…well, liking to roam
around the village at night.”

“
And what’s wrong with
that?”

“
He…” Marion hesitated.
“They said he often walked about at night wearing nothing but his
cap…a tam with a great feather rising from it…and his
sword.”

Despite her advanced age, Beatrice’s face
turned three shades of red.

“
They were surely just ugly
rumors,” Marion said passionately. “No doubt tales invented to
besmirch the man’s name. He was a powerful man. Now that I am
older, I understand it much better. His enemies, our neighbors the
Armstrongs—probably the present laird’s father, in fact—were no
doubt the ones that invented such nonsense.”

Marion picked up a nearby bowl and sprinkled
more flour into her mix. She dug her fingers into the dough and
kneaded furiously. “And then my aunts. They like to talk…sometimes
ceaselessly. But that comes from being so close to each other in
age, in life. They are almost one spirit in two bodies. They have
to think aloud so the other can hear, too. Of course, Aunt Margaret
was getting hard of hearing when I was there. And Aunt Judith liked
to repeat what her sister said. But that can happen to anyone.
There is nothing wrong with that, is there?”

“
And your betrothed does
not think too highly of them, either?”

“
He sent me away, didn’t
he?” she replied shortly. Marion could feel the heat of her anger
rising up her neck into her face. She tried to fight it, but it was
the same burning feeling she felt every time she thought of home.
“And not once, during all these years, did he send for me or
arrange for my family to come and visit me here. I was discarded
and forgotten. Banished.”

“
You were cared for,”
Sister Beatrice said softly. “You still are. Every one of us here
loves you. Things could have been a lot worse.”

Marion blushed, feeling suddenly
embarrassed. “I am sorry. I did not mean to sound ungrateful. For
the past twelve years, you and the rest of the sisters here at the
abbey convent have kept me safe beneath your wings, nurtured me,
made me feel at home.” She straightened, wiping dough off her
fingers. “And this is all the more reason why this marriage should
not take place.”

“
Why would that
be?”

“
I need to stay here.
I
want
to stay
here,” she corrected herself. “I want to take my vows, become a
nun, do for others what you have done for me.”

Beatrice sat down on a three legged stool
beside the table. Her expressive face reflected her distress. “You
haven’t been built for this kind of life, Marion. You are too much
of a free spirit…far too headstrong for the life of a nun. Your
many battles with the prioress over the years should have made you
realize that this cannot be a permanent home for you.”

“
I can change. I can be
what everyone here wants me to be,” the young woman cried
passionately. “The prioress is a compassionate woman. She will not
refuse me shelter if I promise to obey her orders.”

The older nun reached over and took the
young woman’s hand, stopping Marion from battering the dough
lifeless. “Would you want the same thing if marriage were not a
condition for returning home?”

“
Well, I…”

“
Is it possible that you
might be using the convent now as a way of punishing the laird for
sending you here to begin with?”

Marion closed her eyes and threw her head
back in frustration.

“
You miss your family,
lass. You always have,” the old nun said gently. “Your roots are
there in the Borders. You belong with your own folk. The time has
come. You should go to them.”

“
Not with him. Not as the
wife of the Armstrong laird.” Mist gathered in Marion’s eyes when
she looked at her friend again. “And it is not just for myself that
I feel this way. I’m doing this for Iain, too. He has never wanted
this marriage. I’m going to set him free and let him have his land
in the bargain.”

Marion’s heart skipped a beat as she
suddenly saw a giant of a man standing in the doorway behind
Beatrice. The sun was behind him, so she could not see his face.
But she knew him immediately from the tartan, the laird’s broach,
and the long brown hair touching his shoulders. He was larger than
she remembered him, though. Wider in the shoulders. Taller. She
wondered for how long he had been standing there and how much he
might have heard.

Time was of the essence. Escape was
impossible. Marion picked up the wooden bowl of flour sitting
beside the dough and turned it upside down on her head.

A dusting of white powder covered Marion
from head to toe. The old nun jumped up from her seat and stepped
back, gaping in shock at the young woman. Iain masked any reaction
he might have had and strolled into the kitchen. A few of the
workers looked up from their tasks, immediately bowing slightly in
acknowledgment of his presence. As their eyes turned then to the
white statue standing by the kneading table, there were a few gasps
and even hushed chuckles.

The older nun was quick to recover from her
surprise. “You must be Sir Iain. Welcome, m’lord.”

“
And you are?” He took a
step farther into the kitchens.

“
Sister Beatrice.” She
stepped in front of him, effectively blocking his path to Marion.
“You must have lost your way to the chapter house.”

“
No, I have come to the
right place,” Iain answered, watching his future wife. She stood
motionless, still wearing the ridiculous bowl on her head. Beneath
the inane mess she’d created, however, it was impossible to miss
how much she had grown since he’d sent her here. Unlike the rest of
her family, she was tall and slender. Looking at her now, he
realized he was eager to see the rest of her, too. She was going to
be his wife. It would be much better if she did not have her
fathers and her uncle William’s pear-shaped noses or her aunts’
pointy chins. Even with the little he could see of her face,
though, it appeared she lacked both distinctive features. Her face
actually looked well proportioned. He caught himself looking down
at the brown habit that might have doubled for woolsack. The white
veil covering her hair was no finer.

“
Ah, you mean the dining
hall. You must be famished,” the nun said, pretending relief.
“Allow me to take you to the hall where your men are
seated.”