Arsenic and Old Armor Read online

  “Marry me,” she pressed. “Do it now and be done with it. Then let me live my life.”

  His blue eyes were actually filled with amusement when they looked up into hers.

  “I cannot, Marion. And even if I could, I would not. You are going to Skye.”

  “But why?” she said, her anger returning. “Why can you not marry me?”

  “Because, lass, you are only six years old.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Twelve years later, Isle of Skye

  The walls of the Convent of Newabbey rose up in the distance. A huddle of huts formed a neat village at its gates, and the smoke of the morning fires hung like a low cloud about the thatched roofs. A scruffy black dog spotted the man and ran out from a pen beside the closest cottage. His ferocious barking blended with the rhythmic hammering of the smith already hard at work in the forge.

  From the top of his horse, at the head of a group of Armstrong men, Iain growled back at the dog.

  “An excellent way to rid yourself of your disagreeable mood,” Brother Luke advised, spurring his horse up beside his nephew’s. “In fact, why don’t you dismount and wrestle the beast to the ground?”

  His comment drew only a narrow stare. The laird pushed ahead and the group dutifully fell in step.

  The smell of roasting mutton reached Brother Luke, and the stirring in his belly reminded him that he hadn’t anything to eat today. Their group had risen early. The laird had been impatient to be on the road. Twice, Marion had failed to show up where she’d been directed to be. The messengers had been sent over a month ago. She was to meet the laird at Eilean Donan Castle, accompanied by half a dozen escorts that Iain had arranged for.

  When Iain and the rest of his men had arrived there two days ago, an Armstrong warrior was waiting alone, but there was no sign of Lady Marion. She’d sent a message that she’d made a habit of not traveling on Mondays.

  Iain had proceeded to their second meeting place. An inn at the crossing to the mainland at Kyle of Lochalsh. Again, there’d been no Marion. Only the message that she had the custom of fasting on Tuesdays. That made it difficult for travel. Even the dogs had known better than to step in the path of the Armstrong laird that day. He was not pleased. Brother Luke suggested that it was really the weather that was keeping her. It had rained incessantly for the entire week they had been on the road.

  Brother Luke nodded pleasantly at the folk of the village as the laird dismounted from his horse. Everyone else did the same, and they walked along the lane that led to the gates of the priory.

  Nuns were known for occasionally developing peculiar habits, especially when it came to reclusiveness. Brother Luke thought it natural that after Marion’s twelve years of living with them, she could have developed similar tendencies. His nephew, though, didn’t share his thinking. He was laird and a very busy man. Brother Luke knew Iain to be a fair leader, a man who was respected and obeyed. When he made a command, he expected nothing less than total compliance from his people and from his intended. A marriage was going to take place. The English king and the Scottish regent were both sending representatives to Blackthorn Hall within the fortnight to witness it, as the final union of McCall heir and Armstrong laird was a further guarantee to consolidate power after decades of uprisings and clan conflict in the region.

  In short, it was time for Lady Marion to return home.

  The gates that led through the high wall surrounding the buildings and the church comprising the priory were open, and when the group entered, an old porter rushed over.

  “I was told ye might arrive last night. Maybe it was two nights ago, I canna remember. But we knew ye were coming, m’lord.” He motioned for the stable hands to rush over. “The prioress is waiting for ye at the chapter house.”

  Brother Luke looked around at the orderly plan of the priory grounds, at the church directly ahead, and at the stables and guest quarters to the left, with a small orchard rising behind. To the right sat the chapter house, with its business offices and school and what he assumed to be the nun’s quarters beyond. He could see the smoke rising from what must be a kitchen building behind the living quarters, and he guessed there was probably a well-tended garden behind that. Between the nuns’ quarters and the church, paths of white crushed shells crisscrossed a small quadrangle of greensward, cultivated herbs, and flowers. Neat, efficient, and pleasant, Brother Luke thought approvingly. This had been a good place for the wee Marion to grow up.

  “Where do I find Lady Marion?” Iain asked, handing his horse to one of the stable hands. The rest of the horses were taken away, too.

  “She might be in her cell. But I’m not certain, m’lord. Would today be Wednesday, perchance?”

  “What difference does it make what day it is?” Iain asked, his patience obviously wearing thin.

  The porter took his hat off and scratched his balding head. “I’m getting too old to remember everything I’m told, or keep track of what day it is, either. One thing I do know was that the lass told me if ye were to come on a Wednesday, that I was to tell ye that’s her day of…of seclusion. Yer lordship canna know where she is.”

  Seeing the laird’s temper about to boil over, Brother Luke immediately stepped forward and placed a hand on his nephew’s forearm.

  “He’s just a simple messenger,” he whispered.

  Iain did not take his eyes off the old man. “Tell me this,” he said in a low, dangerous voice. “What did she tell you to say if I arrived on Thursday?”

  “Thursday?” The porter scratched his head again. “Ahh…that’s it. That she’d be gone to the lepers' village if ye came on Thursday. Or maybe that was for Friday. And Thursday she’d be ill to her stomach? I know Saturday and Sunday were the prayer days and she could not be disturbed. Ahh, I’ve muddled it all. The prioress shall be able to explain much better, m’lord. She’d be waiting at the chapter house for ye.”

  “You said that before.” Iain handed the man a coin.

  “I’ll show ye the way,” the porter said, relieved.

  Everyone but Luke and the laird headed for the kitchens. At the sound of another growl from his stomach, Brother Luke was tempted to head that way, too. But gauging his nephew’s temper and having heard about the iron fist of Mara Penrith MacLeod, prioress of the Convent of Newabbey, he decided his presence and mediation could be needed. The good Lord only knew what Iain might say in his present mood. The last thing they needed was to leave without the McCall heir.

  “Has Lady Marion always been kept to such a rigorous schedule of daily activities?” Iain asked the porter as they moved toward their destination.

  “This is not the prioress’s doing, if that’s what ye are asking. Lady Marion has never been one to sit still. From the time the wee creature arrived, the lass has always been ready to put her shoulder to the priory wheel,” the old man said with a smile. “The lass likes to work, be it here or at the village, or visiting a sick crofter or even the lepers.”

  “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.