Fiona snorted, stopped pacing, and placed her hands on her hips. “I ken it. I just wanted this done with quickly. They obviously wanted to play with the Frenchmen first. Men. They are all idiots.”
“It does appear so at times.” She and Fiona both grinned briefly, and then Arianna sighed. “I still have nay thought of a real good reason for all of this. Weel, aside from the fact that Amiel has obviously lost his mind.”
“Didnae Brian tell ye what the laddies said?” Fiona asked as she sat on the steps beside Arianna. “The lads told us something the night ye and Brian arrived that might explain it all.”
“Nay, he didnae tell me that he may have finally discovered the why for all of this. He had to know I would have liked the answers to all the questions I have had ever since this began.”
And Arianna was furious about that. Did Brian think her too weak to hear the truth? That thought infuriated her. It was a moment before she calmed down enough to look at Brian’s apparent secrecy with some clarity. Whatever the boys had told him, they had done so only two nights ago. Neither she nor Brian had talked that night, falling asleep the moment they were in bed. The next morning her kin had arrived and the keep had begun readying itself for an attack. He could have said something when he slipped into her bedchamber last night but she could not complain about how they had spent the time together before he had had to creep away. Looking at it all very carefully and calmly, she could see no true crime or affront, just a little negligence.
“What did Michel and Adelar tell him?” she finally asked Fiona.
“All done being angry?”
“Aye. I dinnae think he planned to keep any secrets from me and it was the thought that he had that made me angry.”
“Nay, he was just being a mon.” She grinned when Arianna laughed. “It seems your wee laddies may be kin to the king of France.”
“Why would Michel and Adelar think that?”
“Their mother told them. She said their father was the first cousin to the king.”
A chill of fear for her boys turned Arianna’s insides to ice. “Nay. Marie Anne always boasted that she was sired by a high noble but she ne’er once claimed kinship with the king himself. She could ne’er have kept such a thing a secret. She was the sort of woman who would have heralded that from the highest hill if she had kenned that it was true.”
“Nay if it would cost her in some way, as I suspect it would. Mayhap her mother was given money or this Marie Anne was. Enough coin a year, as a living, to be worth the keeping of such a secret. A good hard threat would be enough to silence her as weel. And we both ken that few nobles support their bastards, let alone one born of some poor village lass.”
“True, curse them.” Arianna thought it over for a moment. “I dinnae think Amiel kens it. Marie Anne must have told Claud, though.”
“If she told him, he would understand the need to keep it secret as weel.”
“I have to wonder now if Amiel does ken it.”
“If he does ken it, he would also ken that the power that noble could wield could prove enough to stop the Lucettes from annulling Claud’s marriage to Marie Anne and making his grandchildren bastards. S’truth, the noble might see all manner of advantages to ensuring that his grandchildren profit weel from it.”
“Jesu, ye are right. I can see it now. Aye, Amiel does ken it. There were a lot of small wounds upon Claud’s body and I thought whoever had killed him had tried to gain more coin than Claud had with him. But it seems Amiel had his own brother tortured, whether for the pleasure of it or to find out something, who can say. But once he kenned that there could be strong opposition to the annulment, he became set upon killing the boys. If Lord Ignace also kens who sired Marie Anne, though, he will nay want the boys dead. He will have some plan to make use of them.”
“In other words, there is a verra good chance that DeVeau has planned to betray Lucette from the verra beginning.”
“I wouldnae be surprised. DeVeau doesnae need the lads dead; he can just force their guardian to sell his family back the land they want for a pittance.”
“That guardian being you.”
“Aye, and trying to capture me to get that makes far more sense than them trying to get me to extract some vengeance upon my family for what happened long ago.”
“DeVeau gets his hands on ye and he could achieve both those things. But, that is nay longer a concern. He will nay leave Scarglas.”
“Killing Lord Ignace could make the DeVeaux seek vengeance against ye and yours.”
Fiona shrugged. “If they do, we will deal with them.”
“They can be a vicious, tenacious enemy.”
“Who live in France. And, e’en if they send someone to take revenge, we can deal with them. I am certain Brian told ye some of his clan’s history, if only to explain this place.” Arianna nodded and Fiona continued, “Weel, my clan the MacEnroys didnae have any better a life. It was one of three clans that fought until little was left but ruins and graves, and all the remnants of the clans who were struggling to rebuild were nearly destroyed by treachery. My own uncle tried to stir up the killing again and had actually had a part in what had nearly killed us all before. So, treachery, enemies determined to kill us, plots, and lies?” Fiona shrugged. “Naught a thing that we have nay faced before and survived.”
“I had heard that my cousin Gillyanne had wed a mon with a dark past. But ...”
“Nay. The men out there wish to drag three innocents into their plots, think naught of killing two wee lads just to gain more coin, more land, or more power. Any right-thinking mon would fight against that.”
There was no arguing that. Arianna had clung to the hope that there would be no battle, that at some point her pursuers would decide they were simply wasting their time and retreat. She knew that, from the beginning, she had ignored that little voice in her head warning her that it was all so much more complicated than just Amiel wanting to be the heir. She looked up at the men lining the walls of Scarglas who still taunted Amiel and Lord Ignace.
