Eat yer soup,Lorna had said.Ye need to keep up yer strength.
Anger flared in Caitlin’s stomach. She knew what someone who’d been drugged looked like—heck, she’d seen it enough in her line of work. And it was Lorna who was responsible! She’d brought in a so-called ‘healer’ in order to drug her own father!
Caitlin quickly pressed her fingers to Lord Alasdair’s wrist, measuring his pulse to make sure he was in no immediate danger, and turned to hurry after Lorna, determined to have it out with the woman. If she thought she was going to get away with this, the damned woman had another think coming!
She sped through the corridors in the direction that Lorna had taken and soon spotted the woman ahead in the distance. She gathered a breath to shout but at that moment Lorna pulled open a door and disappeared from view.
Caitlin followed, finding a set of stone steps beyond the door that seemed to lead down into the castle basements. She hesitated. Something didn’t feel right. She ought to find Kai and the others and tell them what she’d discovered. But that would mean leaving Alasdair at Lorna’s mercy whilst she went to look for them.
Carefully, Caitlin made her way down the steps, finding herself in a large, damp undercroft with a low, vaulted ceiling. The place was clearly not often visited if the cobwebs were anything to go by. She looked around, letting her eyes adjust to the gloom, and spotted Lorna hurrying down the passage ahead. She approached a large door at the end and stopped. She knocked twice in a strange staccato rhythm before pushing it open and stepping inside.
Caitlin waited a few heartbeats but when Lorna didn’t emerge, she cautiously crept closer, pressing an ear to the door. From within came the sound of muffled conversation. She bit her lip, indecision warring inside her. She really ought to leave. She ought to find Kai. But she didn’t.
Instead, Caitlin reached out, slowly turned the handle, and pushed the door open a crack, praying that it wouldn’t creak. It didn’t. She pressed her eye to the gap.
The room beyond was dimly lit, but she could make out three people standing at the far end. The room itself seemed to be a storeroom and it was stacked from floor to ceiling with barrels stamped with labels Caitlin couldn’t read in the dim light. The air smelled musty and despite the gloom there were no candles or lamps burning so the only light came from a narrow window set high near the ceiling. It gave enough illumination for Caitlin to make out a table set up near the middle of the room with several chairs around it. Papers were strewn across it; notes written in spidery handwriting along with maps and diagrams.
The conversation had grown in volume and intensity now, with tense voices echoing off the walls of the small chamber.
“How could ye have been so damned stupid!” Lorna’s voice cracked like a whip. “I told ye to come in secret and ye let the bloody servants see ye and now these stories of a strange healer are all over the keep! Yedoknow that Kai and his people have arrived, aye? If they see ye, then all is lost!”
“Give me some credit!” said another voice. It was female and strangely familiar although Caitlin couldn’t quite place it. “Kai Stewart and his men willnae discover I am here. And as for the servants seeing me, that was bad luck, that’s all.”
“Bad luck?” Lorna all but shrieked. “It was bad planning, that’s what! If we are discovered it will ruin everything!”
“Easy, my love,” said another voice, this one male. Caitlin recognized the deep tones of Tobias, Lorna’s husband. “What’s done is done.”
“How can ye be so calm?” Lorna demanded. “Our plans are so close to fruition! We canna have anything going wrong!”
“And it willnae,” Tobias replied calmly. “All is in place. All we have to do now is wait. Leif’s plan will succeed.Wewill succeed.”
Caitlin went cold. Leif? Leif Snarlsson? Lorna and Tobias were involved withhim? What? How? Suddenly, the other woman stepped into the light, and Caitlin gasped.
It was Alice Brewer.
So, Alice Brewer was this mysterious healer that the cooks had mentioned? And she wasn’t brewing healing potions, she was brewing sedatives to keep Alasdair docile and unable to interfere with their plans. Caitlin’s mind raced as she tried to process what she was witnessing. Lorna and Tobias weren’t Snarlsson’s next target—they were his allies.
She’d been suspicious of Lorna from the start, but this? This was worse than she ever could have imagined.
“Kai Stewart is not a problem,” Tobias said firmly, looking straight at Lorna. “You can handle him as you always do.” His gaze was full of meaning. “He cannot withstand your charms, my love. Go to him. Distract him. He has always been so besotted with you that he cannot see what is right under his nose. Keep it that way.”
Lorna gave a small smile and nodded demurely. “As my lord husband commands.”
Tobias barked a laugh. “Good Lord, woman, sometimes you frighten even me!” He turned his attention to Alice. “What news?” he asked. “When will the Order of the Osprey arrive?”
Alice shrugged. “Right when we expected them to. Like ye said: all is in place. Now we just have to wait.” She gestured around the room and the large wooden casks filling it. “The way to our goal lies in these casks,” she said. “Enough gunpowder to destroy the great hall and everyone in it.”
Caitlin’s heart stopped. Gunpowder. Those barrels contained gunpowder? Oh no. Oh, no, no, no!
She had to find Kai. Right now. She slowly backed away from the door, trying to make no noise, but she was sure the others must be able to hear the thundering of her pulse.
She turned, ready to make a run for it, but the door suddenly burst open, and Lorna stood before her with a look of shock on her face.
“I thought I heard something! Seems we have a spy!” Lorna cried, grabbing Caitlin by the arm and yanking her into the room.
Caitlin stumbled, but managed to keep her footing. “I was just...I heard voices and I was curious,” she stammered, trying to come up with a plausible excuse.
Alice raced over, her face a mask of rage. “Ye again! Ye were at the fair. Kai Stewart’s whore!”
