Chapter 6
“Nay, daughter. No light. Damn your callous heart! Ye ken how it pains me when I’m beset with the miseries. Bring me port and leave me be.”
The stifling hot room reeked with the stench of rotting food, rancid wine and an overripe chamber pot. The thick noxious air spread a nasty greasiness throughout the space.
Catriona ignored her father's pleas and yanked the heavy velvet curtain aside. She secured it to one side of the double set of windows, fastening it with a braided rope looped around an iron hook embedded in the stone wall. If not for the winter storm howling outside, she would’ve push the windows open wide for the relief of fresh air.
With her basket balanced on her hip, she busied herself gathering empty bottles and soiled vessels littering the room. She spared a glance back at her sire. “The light of a winter morn is weak enough for your ailing, I reckon, and a bit a sunshine will aid in driving the miseries away.” She paused in her tidying and nodded toward the tray she’d placed on the table beside his bed. “Drink the tea. Elena steeped it extra strong this morn. 'Twill help ease the ache in your head.”
Gordon Neal, chieftain of Clan Neal, shielded his eyes with one shaking hand while he made a weak attempt at pawing his other hand toward the tray. “Nay, ye have set it out of me reach, Catriona. I told ye me ailing is fearsome today. Why must ye test me so? Damned, if ye are no' as malicious as your vile witch of a mother.”
“Verra true, Father. Catriona thinks only of herself. How many times have I told ye of her wickedness?” Calum said as he entered the lavish unkempt chamber. He strode to the side of his father’s bed and moved the tray to rest across the bleary-eyed man’s lap. “There now. Drink your tea and eat your parritch whilst it’s piping hot, aye?”
A slow-burning rage simmered deep within Catriona like a cauldron about to boil over. Even though the ugly bruise along her jaw had faded, her thirst for revenge had not.Bastard.Alexander might have brought Calum to his knees for the unacceptable behavior but she’d yet to have her turn at teaching him a lesson. He had surprised her with the hit. She’d no' allow him that advantage again. He’d best shield his bollocks well. She was no timid maid afraid to fight back.
A grunt escaped her as she hefted the basket filled with empty bottles and whisky skins over to Calum and dropped it square on his extended foot. Hard. With any luck, she’d smashed at least one of his toes. “Here. Take these to the larder when ye leave.”
Calum wouldna dare lose his temper again and nor would he attempt any ill will toward her in front of their father. Father had looked almost fearful when he’d seen her bruise and sworn that Calum would be punished—horse-whipped, in fact. He’d mumbled something about Mother’scurse gaining strength and becoming worse if he didna take proper recourse.“Ye must never be touched,”he’d mumbled to her on more than one occasion. Then he’d always add,“Even though ye’re sorely hated and reviled.”
Father had never attempted to hide the fact he despised her even more than he disliked his four sons. She figured that was the reason Motherhad always bid her to lock her chamber doors. Perhaps Motherfeared Father might try to kill his own children.
Father's threat of a horse-whipping had not only been futile, but ill-timed. Calum had escaped punishment with his absence from the keep for over a fortnight, closer to a month even. But if dear brother lost his temper again, she felt sure Father would remember and react accordingly. Catriona blew out a heavy sigh. So hypocritical since the son had learned his cruel ways from the father. Sober, Gordon Neal was a brutish, indecisive man concerned with appearances and what others thought about him and his clan. He’d grown to depend on Catriona’s judgment regarding the managing and betterment of the clan but wanted everyone to think it was him. Drunk, Gordon Neal became vicious and tyrannical, treating everyone with the hatred and contempt he felt for himself.
“Damn damn damn.” The Neal fretted and coughed, fluttering both hands above his bent shoulders as the entire contents of his breakfast tray dumped across the bed.
“Andthat’swhy ye dinna set the tray across his lap, fool.” Catriona hurried to mop up the spilled tea and parritch before it soaked through every layer of her father’s bedding.
Calum didn’t respond. Just glared at her with contempt simmering in his eyes. He kicked aside the basket of empty bottles, strode over to the chamber door, and bellowed, “Orlie! In here now and tend to your master.” He slammed the door closed and blew out a disgusted breath. “Christ, this room stinks. What the hell do we feed those lazy maids for if they canna tend to their duties?” Facing Catriona, Calum jabbed a finger at her. “And I’m no' thefoolin this room. I have news about your guests.”
A chill stole across Catriona, twisting a knot of dread in her middle and prickling gooseflesh across her arms. Calum looked even more cold and calculating than usual. She hadn’t seen him since Alexander had choked him down to his knees. Where had he been and what in the name of all that was holy had he been doing? Calum had sworn revenge. Pray, what had he set in motion? She kept her brother in her sights as she gathered the upended teapot, bowl, and cup from her father’s bed and stacked them on the tray.
“Dinna fill the tray over full next time and that willna happen, ye ken?” The Neal plucked at his linens with an agitated shake of his head. His thin legs worked back and forth beneath the covers, he struggled to scoot his skeletal frame closer to the edge and out of the path of the wet covers. He waved her away with an impatient jerk of his hand. “Leave it, girl, until Orlie comes. The bed be large. This edge be dry and the covers will dry soon enough. I’ll just lie here 'til then.”
“Ye’ll do no such thing,” Catriona said, knowing he’d soon berate her for leaving him to lie in soiled bedclothes if she followed his orders. She turned to Calum where Duff and Hew, two of the devoted miscreants sworn to carry out his every cruel whim, had taken their posts beside him. With a tight hold of one of her father’s thin arms, she motioned toward his other arm. “Help me move him to his chair and one of ye see where Orlie’s gone to and fetch him to change the bedclothes and get our chieftain dressed, aye?”
“I summoned the lazy wretch already. Did ye no' hear me? Where the hell is he?” Jerking a thumb toward the door, Calum sent Duff to find the servant then moved to his father’s other side. A look of disgust screwed his usual scowl even tighter. “Judas! He reeks of piss.”
“I couldna make it to the chamber pot, boy. Dinna disrespect me, aye? I still be chief of this clan and master to ye. Ye will do as I order or rue the day. I’m no' too weak to punish ye, ye insolent bastard.” The frail old man, once tall and hulking, shuffled along between them, bent at the middle, his back humped between his shoulders. They half-led, half-carried him to his prized wingback chair that Calum had brought for him all the way from England. Once they’d settled him in the chair, the balding man hugged and patted his bony arms around his middle with awkward jerking movements. “Stoke the fire and bring me a dram. 'Tis bitter cold in here. Be ye trying to kill me with a deathly chill?”
Catriona fetched a clean wool blanket from the wardrobe, spread it across his knees, and tucked it up around his thin shoulders as she nodded toward the hearth. “The wrap will do ye. If we stoke the fire anymore, the soot will catch and burn down the keep as sure as we’re standing here. 'Tis already hot enough in here to roast a goose.”
She straightened as Duff and Orlie entered the room. Without an attempt to hide her contempt, she clasped her hands at her waist and allowed herself a weary sigh. “Orlie’s here now to tend to him so speak your news, Calum. I can tell ye’re fair bursting at the seams with it.”Better get it in the open and face it head-on.
“I want him to hear this,” Calum said as he pushed Orlie aside and took a stance in front of the Neal’s chair. He pointed at Catriona as he spoke. “Ye ken it was seven men she tricked ye into taking in right in the dead of winter, aye? Seven, mind ye. Extra mouths to feed. And some so injured that our stored herbs and tonics verra likely willna last 'til spring. I grant ye she didna tell ye all of that, did she?”
“Not enough tonics?” the Neal muttered as he shifted his irritated squint-eyed gaze to his daughter. “Be the seven strangers drinking all our whisky and port, too?” The pale old man wet his thin lips and plucked at the folds of his blanket with trembling fingers. His head dipped and shook back and forth, stricken with the same tremors of his hands. “Why would ye trick me into doing such a thing, ye vile, useless girl? Why would ye risk the survival of our clan? We canna survive without our medicines. Be ye certain 'tis wise to house so many guests during the winter?”
It took every ounce of self-control that Catriona possessed to keep a civil tongue in her head. She knew damn well that the keep’s supply of port, whisky, and ale was her father’s primary concern. A plan of reasoning came to her as her gaze lit on a small worn bible, a carved wooden cross, and several unlit candles on a small table in the corner. “I did it for the sake of your soul, Father. Be ye forgetting your scriptures? ‘Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares’ Hebrews 13:2." With his fear of her mother’s dying curse on his life and his diminishing health made all the worse by excessive drink, her father had become a very devout man when sober, fretting about the final destination of his soul with fear-filled obsession.
“There is that,” her father admitted in a weak murmur, his worried gaze dropping to the floor. “But I hope we dinna run out of tonics,” he added.
“Ye havena heard the worst of it,” Calum continued. His voice rang with excitement, so much so that Catriona expected the fool to hop in place at any moment like a schoolboy tattling tales. “The men she took in are allies of the MacDonalds of Glencoe. Are they not, Duff?” Calum waited for Duff’s dutiful nod of his shaggy head before continuing. “And remember we heard old MacIain was late in taking his oath of allegiance to King William. Ye ken what Lord Stair said could happen to clans who didna take the oath.”
“Severe reprisals,” the Neal said in a hypnotic whisper, his bloodshot eyes widening as he stared unblinking at the fire crackling in the hearth. “And Stair has the ear of the Court.”
How could her father know so much about such things? The man stayed drunk and never emerged from his private rooms anymore, much to the relief of all in the keep. She couldna remember the last time he’d taken a meal in the hall. It had to be the elders’ weekly visits to his chambers. They must be keeping him apprised.
I shall speak to them about such. It must stop.
