“See! Here are some.”
She gathered the half-dozen hard little berries, carefully pouring them into an apron pocket. There were two raspberry-shaped yellow berries beside them. They were yellowberries. Poisonous but useful in things like rat poison. She gathered them too, slipping them into a red pocket near her ankle.
“Oh, I saw a place with lots of those berries!” Astrid exclaimed. “All hid under leaves like that. There must have beenhundreds.”
Emma sucked in a breath. Hundreds of brass berries would last them for months, and theyweredifficult to find. It would be just her luck to spend hours searching for the berries only to find that Astrid had stumbled on a great crop by accident.
“All right,” she said reluctantly. “Ye can show me.”
Astrid beamed and skipped away, leaving Emma to follow.
They didn’t follow the proper paths through the forest. Astrid stepped confidently into the undergrowth, and Emma hesitantly followed. They walked for five minutes, ten, fifteen, then half an hour, and Emma was beginning to panic. She was used to crisscrossing the forest for hours in search of various herbs and berries, but this didn’t feel right somehow.
“Is it much further?” she asked, a feeling of foreboding churning in her gut. “We might get lost.”
“I know the way,” Astrid assured her, glancing over her shoulder to flash her a grin.
“I… I think we should turn back now.”
“I’m afraid it’s far too late for that, lassie.”
Lachlan stepped out from behind a grove of trees. Astrid came to a halt, turning around to face Emma with a grin. Emma stopped dead, fear coursing through her veins like ice. She heard the snapping of twigs behind her and didn’t need to turn around to know that Gregor was there, grinning evilly at her back.
“This was a trap,” she said, feeling like a fool.
“Aye, and ye waltzed right into it.” Astrid tittered. “I must say, I’ve never coaxed someone into doing what I wanted by promising themberries.”
“Since ye will not help, and Flora has disappeared, damn her, I’ve had to take matters into my own hands,” Lachlan said shortly. “Fortunately, sweet Astrid here offered to help. She’s no friend of yours, lass. I can tell ye that.”
Emma swallowed hard, lifting her chin. “If ye are going to kill me, I’d rather ye just get it over with. Hearing ye rabbit on like this is boring.”
If they were going to kill her quickly, fine. However, if Lachlan intended to make her suffer, Emma briefly thought of the two yellowberries in her apron pocket. They would kill relatively quickly. She swallowed hard and banished the thought.
Ye are not beaten yet, lassie.
Lachlan chuckled. “Kill ye? No, no, that would defeat the purpose. Not yet, at least. See, we need dear Laird MacPherson to dance to our tune. He’ll not do that of course, not unless we have something valuable of his.”
Realization seeped in, and Emma felt sick.
“If ye are thinking of using me as blackmail, ye can think again,” she said, her voice weak and unconvincing. “Laird MacPherson doesn’t care for me. He doesn’t!”
Lachlan turned away, already bored. “Bind her, Gregor. We have work to do.”
Emma barely had time to turn and face the approaching Gregor before something heavy crashed against her head. There was an explosion of pain, and everything went dark.
The last thing she saw was Astrid’s beautiful, grinning face, upside down, and crunchy leaves beneath her cheek as she crumbled to the ground.
19
Thomas stared down at the collection of maps, documents, and assorted papers that his councilors had laid down before him. Not only did he not have the energy to look at any of these documents—let alone absorb their contents—but he was fighting a powerful urge to fling all of the papers onto the floor.
He didn’t, of course.
“Good day to ye, Me Laird,” the councilors said one by one as they shuffled towards the exit of the meeting room. Thomas was vaguely aware that there had been a meeting, and now it was over, but that was all. He had no idea what it had been about. At least Tabitha was here, though, so he wouldn’t have inadvertently agreed to something stupid.
The woman herself paused in front of Thomas, looming over him.
“Good day to ye, Tabitha,” he said listlessly.
