For her part, Romilly squinted through the bars of her enclosure at her approaching visitors. When she saw who Bryan had with him, several different emotions seemed to wage waracross her face all at once; confusion, relief, happiness, and concern.
“What is this?” Romilly exclaimed. “Did our father send ye as some envoy, tae negotiate peace in exchange for my release? Or are ye captured now, as I have been? Oh, please dinnae tell me they intend tae lock ye in this ghastly place alongside me.”
When Katherine got close enough, she reached through the bars to embrace her sister. Romilly hesitated a moment. She and Katherine had not shared a hug in many years, and Katherine had no doubt that doing so in this place seemed to her to be the height of strangeness and absurdity.
Nevertheless, Romilly relented, allowing herself to be held and putting her own arms through the bars to return the gesture. Bryan looked on with a neutral expression on his face, but Katherine did not care, given how relieved she was to see Romilly alive again.
Even in these horrid surroundings.
“‘Tis rather more complicated than any of that, Sister,” Katherine began hesitantly. “I was riding back from one of the villages when this man swept me off my horse and took me with him.”
“So,” Romilly turned to Bryan and snarled. “Not enough, then, for ye tae serve a hateful tyrant and endlessly torment and berate a woman ye hold captive. No, now ye have become an abductor of innocents. Naught but a loathsome and underhanded kidnapper. This is what the supposed ‘honor’ of the Oliphants has fallen to!”
“Ye are not one tae talk tae me of ‘honor’ or ‘innocents,’ witch,” Bryan shot back. “Not after the depraved scheme ye hatched with yer father, tae butcher a woman who had done nothing tae ye!”
Romilly made a point of ignoring his comment, and returned her full attention to Katherine instead. “So it’s true, then! Ye aretae be a prisoner here. Well, fear not, my sister. I have endured all this time, and I shall do everything in my power to make sure this wretched place does not break ye down any more than it has me.”
“She is not tae be confined tae the dungeon,” Bryan spoke up again. “We do not believe there shall be any need of that, based on her good behavior thus far.”
Romilly scowled at Katherine in disbelief. “Surely, this cannae mean that ye intend tae betray yer own clan? That ye mean tae assist this lot in bringing down the banners of our father, our family, our people?”
“Nothing of the sort, Romilly, I assure ye!” But even as she gave this answer, Katherine’s stomach twisted and clenched. The possibility of doing exactly that had occurred to her more than once since her arrival, and she had not yet settled on the matter one way or the other.
“It is simply that they feel they can trust me with more comfortable accommodations during my stay with them, rather than force me tae exist down here.”
“Ye mean they intend tae keep the daughters of Angus McGregor separate from each other,” Romilly screeched. “Aye, well, that makes terrific sense. Ye wouldn’t want us plotting together or anything so dangerous as that. Nay, better by far tae try tae turn us against each other.”
“No one is attempting tae do any such thing,” Katherine tried to explain in her most rational tone. Inwardly, she was growing more apprehensive by the moment. “They know better than tae try tae drive a wedge between us. Indeed, it is out of respect for our closeness that they have allowed me tae visit ye.”
Romilly shook her head fiercely, and the dirty stands of her hair whipped around her face like a maelstrom.
“Oh, my poor little sister, do ye not see the depths of their scheming, their manipulation and treachery? They have notbrought ye down here as any sort of courtesy, or because they respect our love for each other. Nay, they have allowed ye tae see me so that ye may be warned of what fate shall await ye if ye displease or disobey them. They want ye tae see for yerself the punishment for defying them. Katherine, ‘tis better that ye simply tell them now ye will have no part in their plans against our clan. That ye reject their offers of comfort and clemency, for they will never purchase yer loyalty. That they may as well confine ye here with me and be done with it, for all the good their sugared words and pretty gestures will do in winning ye over.”
“Ye merely wish tae share yer own misery with yer sister, ye spiteful hag,” Bryan spat. “Ye would deprive her of a warm bed and fine surroundings, and ye will do so in the name of yer family’s honor and her loyalty, merely so ye will nae have tae endure down here alone.”
“There, ye see?” Romilly pointed at Bryan through the bars, and it was the first time Katherine noticed that her sister’s fingernails were broken and ragged, as though she had been attempting to claw her way out of her cell through solid stone. “They think they can turn ye against me by saying such things. They believe that they can convince ye I am a madwoman.”
She drew nearer to the bars and gazed at Katherine imploringly. “But ye and I have known each other too well for them tae get away with that, isn’t that so, sister? Surely ye know that I am of sound mind? That I always have been?”
Katherine nodded reflexively, for the last thing she wanted was to add to her poor sibling’s torment.
Inwardly, however, she was deeply conflicted.
Yes, they had spent their childhoods together, but during that time, how close had they truly been? They’d been friends in the early years, but it was not long after that Romilly immersed herself entirely in their father’s tutelage, to the point of neglecting Katherine almost completely—when she wasn’tteasing her for being weak, or refusing to take part in Laird Angus’s mad schemes.
Could Katherine truly say that her sister hadn’t taken leave of her senses? That, indeed, she might not have been a bit of a madwoman all along, having been infected by their father’s unhealthy obsession with the conquest of the Oliphants?
“I do not claim that ye have taken leave of yer sanity,” Katherine assured her quietly. “I merely ask that, now that ye have a bit of distance from our father, ye ask yerself whether his motives have been worthy. Whether a war against the Oliphants has ever been truly necessary or warranted. These people have committed no crime against us. They dinnae attack our villages or set our farms aflame. Can our father make those same claims, or have we seen him carry out unprovoked assaults on neighboring clans in the name of strengthening ours? Can ye not see that it is madness tae continue these hostilities?” Katherine took Romilly’s hand. “All ye need do is reject his dreadful teachings and work with me tae make peace, and ye will no longer be forced tae rot in this awful place. We could go home together!”
Romilly yanked her hand away with a look of disgust, as though she had accidentally shoved it into something revolting. “Listen tae ye! They have already poisoned yer mind; made ye talk like some sort of traitor, eager tae turn on her own kin! But why should I have expected anything else from a soft little weakling like ye, eh, Katherine? Ye, who never showed a scrap of the dedication to our clan that I have. Ye, who rejected our father’s teachings at every turn. Very well! Be a coward and a disloyal whelp, and see where that gets ye.”
Katherine took several steps back from the bars, feeling the blood drain from her face. No, she and her sister had not been nearly as close as she would have liked these past years. But evenso, she had still been under the impression that she trulyknewRomilly.
She saw now, to her abject horror, that she had been mistaken.
For this twisted and grotesque parody of her sister that stood before her confounded and sickened her. There was no reasoning with her, no appealing to her better nature, for all sense and morality seemed to have deserted her entirely.
Still, she could not abandon her to this setting without one final word, in an attempt at reconciliation. “I pray that ye will reconsider, Romilly. And until ye do, I shall continue tae visit ye here, and try tae convince ye that abandoning this hatred for the Oliphants is the right thing tae do.”
