Lashed to the cot with bindings of leather and strips of filthy rags, lay an emaciated Fearghal. Dark stains pooled around him and dripped to the floor. His lower jaw sagged open as his blindfolded head leaned against his bony arm that was chained to an iron grommet jammed into the wall.
“What the hell have ye done to the man?” Gray swung the torch toward Beala where she cowered at Fearghal’s feet.
“Cared for him.” Beala’s face transformed with a tender expression as she pawed at the exposed flesh of Fearghal’s twitching ankle. “As soon as my dear one sees reason, us two will travel the world as man and wife.”
“She is insane,” Trulie whispered. “But she had to have help. How could she get him down here by herself?”
Gray wondered the same thing. Fearghal was not strong by any means, but surely the man could overcome such a slight maid. “Who helped ye get him here?” He blinked against the stench burning his eyes.
“I needed no help bringing my dear, sweet love to my bed.” Beala rose and sat on the edge of the makeshift cot. She rubbed a filthy hand in a circular motion over her slightly distended stomach. “My fine man put a babe in my belly. He loves me. He goes wherever I ask.”
The fool walked into his own death trap. “Ye carryhischild?” Gray said.
Beala’s wild eyes rounded wider as her head bounced up and down. “Aye. The babe’s been planted well over four moons gone now.” She leaned forward and stroked Fearghal’s slack jaw, smiling down into his face. “My lover will soon be a da. I ken it will be a fine braw laddie. I seen it in a dream, so it must be so.” She cupped Fearghal’s face between her hands and cooed over him in a spine-tingling singsong voice. “A son for my fine man. A son to make him love me all the more.”
Fearghal shifted slightly and a faint moan escaped his cracked lips.
“Ye see?” Beala turned to Gray with a beaming smile. “My lover sings along.”
Gray struggled against the rise of vomit churning to be released. He had to get all of them out of here. Now. He raised the torch and maintained eye contact with Beala as he nudged Trulie backward. “Out. Now,” he said. “We can do nothing here. I shall send men to move them both up into the keep.”
“You know she is mad,” Trulie whispered. “You know she doesn’t know what she’s doing.”
“I know.” Gray nodded as he urged Trulie backward. “But that does not mean she can do whatever she wishes.” With a glance back at the deathly squalor and filth, he rasped out a promise more to himself than Trulie. “Justice will be done.”
CHAPTER19
“Open the window,” Trulie suggested. “Maybe some fresh air will help him.”
Coira moved across the room and tied the tapestry back with a rope of braided cloth. “Nothing will help him, mistress. He has the look of death about him.”
Trulie looked at Fearghal’s glassy-eyed stare and silently agreed. It was just a matter of time. The man’s body was shutting down. She and Granny both had tried to heal him several times. But each time they surged the energy into his emaciated form, the power ricocheted right back out. His fate was set. He would soon reach the end of this life’s path.
“Well, then.” Trulie sighed as she pressed a damp cloth against the man’s sallow cheek. “We can at least make sure what time he has left is as free of suffering as possible.” She inhaled deeply of the fresh air wafting in through the window, filling her lungs against the memory of Fearghal’s prison. If she had been imprisoned in that stinking dark hole, she would want all the fresh air she could get.
Coira stood at the end of the bed and frowned down at the wasted man. “It surely had to be terrible trapped down there with such a girl.”
Trulie nodded. There were some things worse than death.
“He is reaping what he sowed,” Granny said from her chair beside the hearth. She lowered her sewing to her lap and peered at the girls over the top of her wire-rimmed glasses. “Coira, didn’t you say Beala was the girl Fearghal bullied into thinking if she didn’t give him what he wanted, he would have her kicked out of the keep?”
Coira nodded and glanced back at the man. She moved to a small stool beside a table filled with dark vials and bundles of dried herbs. The color deepened in her cheeks with the memory. “Aye. Beala was the maid.”
“Be that as it may,” Trulie said. “I think Fearghal has been punished enough. If we treat him badly now, then we are no better than he is.”
Granny scowled off into space for a moment before returning her attention to the embroidery in her lap. She licked the tips of her finger and thumb, then ran them the length of the dark thread. Squinting as she twisted the end into a tiny knot, she finally spoke. “Well said, granddaughter.”
Trulie returned the rag to the bowl of lavender-scented water sitting beside the bed. She started as the chamber door slammed open and bounced against the wall.
“Tamhas! Must you explode into the room? Our nerves are already shot because of the past few days.” She pressed a hand against her chest, willing her pounding heart to calm down.
Tamhas arched a bushy brow and waved away Trulie’s reprimand. “Ready yerselves. Aileas has returned.”
This wasn’t going to be pleasant. Trulie dried her hands on her apron. Gray had sent for Aileas as soon as they had emerged from the tunnels. Who knew how much longer her son would last? A contented feeling of pride warmed Trulie and settled her nerves. Even though Gray despised Aileas, he would never deny her what would most likely be the last visit with her son. Gray was an honorable man.
“Did her carriage just get here or is she actually on her way up?” Trulie nervously glanced around the room. They had done their best to make Fearghal as comfortable as possible. Surely Aileas wouldn’t find fault with the room and make a bad situation even worse.
“What have ye done with my son?” a nasal voice bellowed down the hallway.
