Aileas lifted her double chin and her mouth pulled down into a deeper frown. Without taking her gaze from Trulie, she stomped down the steps. Her dark skirts bounced with a haughty jerk as she flounced to the open door of the carriage. Before she hefted her girth up into it, she paused and pointed a shaking finger at Trulie. After she threw herself up into the seat, she made a slashing sign across her throat before the servant slammed the door shut.
“Bring it, Aileas,” Trulie said as the carriage pulled away.
CHAPTER16
The warmth and bustle of the early-morning kitchen never ceased to amaze Trulie. She had never been a morning person. In her opinion, anyone starting their day with such vigor won her admiration. She stifled a yawn behind her hand and blinked hard against the last dredges of sleep.
“Do ye think Cook kens why we walk through the kitchen each morning?” Coira tugged on Trulie’s sleeve as they paused in front of the widest hearth. Suspended from iron bars over the fire, several round-bellied pots bubbled and hissed.
Karma pushed his way between them, lifted his glistening black nose, and sniffed. His perked ears relaxed as he backed up a step and plopped down on his haunches. Apparently, whatever was in the pots didn’t smell good enough to tempt the dog’s voracious appetite.
Trulie leaned closer and inhaled. No wonder.The bland, sticky smell of boiling grains made her wrinkle her nose. The MacKenna clan loved their parritch.
She glanced at two scullery maids currently elbow deep in two tubs of steaming water, then turned back to Coira. “Have you heard anything?”
Coira glanced around the room, then leaned in close. “They dinna confide in me anymore, mistress. They fear my closeness to ye.”
“Well, I don’t think any of the staff knows why we’re wandering, through.” Trulie hitched in a quick intake of breath with another uncontrollable yawn. “Honestly, I think they are all too busy to even notice we are here.” Rubbing the corners of her eyes, she lowered her voice. “I don’t sense anything different from yesterday. I think it’s still not the right time.”
As they entered the vacant herb-drying room, Coira stole a glance back over her shoulder at Trulie. She started to speak and then stopped, as though she had changed her mind.
“What?”
Coira stared down at her feet, then shook her head. Karma nudged his head up under the silent girl’s hand and whined. His great black tail barely wagged as he leaned against her. Even the dog sensed Coira’s uneasiness.
“What is it, Coira? You know you can ask me anything.” Trulie wrapped an arm around the maid’s shoulders and gave her an affectionate shake. “We’re alone in here. Now tell me. What’s wrong?”
“Granny says yer line can see troublesome things that will happen to those around ye, but ye canna see any ill that might befall those of yer own blood. Why, mistress? Do the Fates not care for ye enough to protect ye?” Coira’s troubled gaze was filled with confusion. “I worry for ye, mistress.”
Trulie had often pondered the very same thing, until the day she had finally asked Granny. “Granny says we can’t see our blood kin’s misfortunes because we wouldn’t be able to bear it if we weren’t able to change it. She says we should be thankful. Knowing one’s own future is a curse, not a blessing. That’s what Granny always told me.”
Trulie hadn’t quite agreed when Granny had shared that particular kernel of wisdom, but the more she saw of the world, the more she understood it to be true—especially if it was a vision of an unalterable event making itself known. Those were always the worst. She drew in a deep breath. A foretelling of apossiblefuture could often be avoided entirely. But a person’s final fate could never be changed. “And sometimes, when Fate sends us visions, they’re warning us about things we won’t be able to change.”
Coira’s voice fell to a hoarse whisper and her face paled. “How long did it take ye to know the difference between a warning to change someone’s path and an omen that canna be altered?”
“Not long,” Trulie said as she hurried them through the archway leading out to the gardens.
Karma trotted ahead. A little way up the path, a scent caught his attention. Ears perked forward and his snuffling nose barely inches above the ground, the dog wove in and out between the clumps of weeds. As he analyzed each and every scent, he occasionally paused, lifted his head, and shook with a violent, snorting sneeze. Granny said Karma was clearing his nose for serious tracking whenever he had a snorting fit.
A disturbing weight settled on Trulie’s heart as she watched the dog vacuum his way around the garden. She despised the visions she knew she could never change. A shudder shook through her at the memory of the last time Fate had revealed someone’s unavoidable end.
Fate shouted whenever it shared the unavoidable. It grabbed your heart with icy fingers and squeezed until you cried out with the pain. They demanded your full and undivided attention. Fate refused to be ignored.
As the warming rays of the early-spring sun topped the wall, the light frost covering every surface sparkled as though lit from within. Trulie rolled her shoulders and forced the dark memories away. Thank heavens the vision of Gray and Colum dying from poison had not been accompanied by pain. She turned to Coira and offered a consoling smile. “At least Fate hasn’t decided to whisper anymore lately. Maybe she will leave me alone for a while.”
“I hope so,” Coira agreed.
Suddenly, Trulie stiffened, halting in the middle of the path. Her senses vibrated like a metal detector closing in on buried treasure. Something at the farthest corner of the garden pulled at her, urging her to come closer. “There is a plant. Over there. It holds the poison that takes the men.”
She forced herself to remain calm as she made her way to the corner. Squatting down closer to the tangled mess of leaves and stems, she scanned the scrubby clumps of new growth. This corner of the garden had been sadly neglected. Weeds lined the inside of the stone fence and the ground looked as though it hadn’t been worked in a while. Trulie bent and pushed aside the tallest of the weeds, searching for plant types she could positively identify. There they were. Several long, narrow leaves pushed their way up through the soil.
She knelt and looked closer at the leaves. The plant was so young and the leaves so tiny, she couldn’t tell for sure. “We need to get Granny. She’s better at identifying plants than I am.”
Coira’s face brightened as Trulie stood. “The men willna be in danger until the plant grows large enough to bloom. I recall ye said ye saw pretty purple flowers that looked like wee sock caps.”
“Wee sock caps,” Trulie repeated under her breath as she tried to bring to mind all the lessons in herbal lore Granny had given her. Sock caps. Purple flowers. Trulie eyed the tiny plant just pushing through the dirt.Dead man’s bells.It had to be foxglove. She shivered with the recognition. Digitalis poisoning was a terrible way to die. Nausea. Vomiting. Wild hallucinations and unbearable headaches. Then, if you survived all that, the beating of your heart gradually slowed until it stopped.
She patted Coira on the shoulder and nodded back toward the keep. “Come on. At least now we have a warning flag. We just need to watch for little purple flowers.”
