Page 4 of Highland Guard

“A few.” She hastily took a drink of cider, attempting to ease the dryness of fear from her throat. “David was kenned weel by many in power, and weel liked. He didnae die in battle or”—she smiled just a little, knowing it was mostly bitterness and not humor that curved her lips—“in some monly accident. He died in his bed like a sickly old mon.” She shook her head. “In the end, he bore a likeness to one as weel.”

“A wasting sickness?”

“Who can say? David was ne’er truly robust yet he was ne’er what ye would call sickly.” She pushed aside a sadness that always twisted her heart when she thought of her husband’s slow, painful death. “I cannae say what afflicted him nor could any of the others I sent for in the hope of finding some help, some cure, for him.”

“But nay one of those fools kenned what ailed the laird or how to help him,” said Joan. “Most often they just wanted to purge the poor mon or bleed him. That was the verra last thing our laird needed. He was naught but skin and bone in the end.”

Annys reached out to pat Joan’s hand, clenched tight on top of the table. Joan had grown up with David, the daughter of his mother’s maid. He had been as much a brother to her as he had been her laird and Annys knew the woman grieved for him as deeply as she did.

Harcourt frowned. “It sounds akin to a wasting sickness.”

“And so it may have been, yet I remain too uncertain to name it so,” Annys said.

“What were the signs of his illness?” asked Sir Callum.

“The one most clearly marked were the pains in his belly,” she replied. “He couldnae keep food down. E’en the plainest of broths would have him retching. Then it would pass for a wee while and we would think he was regaining his health, only to have it begin all over again. And, aye, ’tis true that purging and bloodletting were the worst things to do since he was so weak, yet there were times, after a purging, that David recovered for a while.”

“Ne’er after a bleeding though,” said Joan.

“Nay, that ne’er seemed to help him,” agreed Annys.

“What else?” asked Sir Callum. “Was there more?”

The intent way the man watched her as he asked his question made Annys wary even though she could see no hint of condemnation or accusation in his expression. “David would complain about burning pain in his hands and feet, at times e’en in his throat, although all that miserable retching could weel have caused that.”

“He began to lose his beautiful hair,” Joan murmured.

Annys nodded. “And his skin would be covered in a rash and then it would peel away. The most frightening times were when he couldnae move at all, but that, too, would then pass. In the end he had such fits it would take several of us to hold him down and e’en then it wasnae easy. Ye must see how difficult it is for us to put a name to the disease which ended his life. There are too many things it could have been and, just when one thought one kenned what it was, there would be something that didnae fit.”

“There is one ye may nay have considered,” said Sir Callum. “Poison.”

The blood drained from Annys face so quickly that she became dizzy and welcomed Joan’s steadying hand on her arm. “I didnae poison my husband.”

“Of course ye didnae,” said Sir Harcourt. “That isnae what Callum was saying, is it, my friend,” he said to Callum, giving the younger man a hard look.

“Nay,” Callum said quickly and smiled faintly. “I didnae say ye did it, m’lady, or e’en considered that ye had, but I do believe the mon may have been poisoned. ’Tis an old poison, if I am right in what I now believe, and one that has been used before at least once within my own family. It was but a few years ago that a distant MacMillan cousin of mine was poisoned by his wife’s lover. The signs of his illness sound verra much akin to the ones your husband suffered.”

“Did he survive?” Annys asked.

“Aye, though it was a verra long time ere the mon healed. But, with care, he was soon strong enough to see his wife and her lover hanged.”

Annys winced at his hard words but understood. Those people had tried to murder one of his kinsmen. She also agreed with the punishment. It was just one that always made her shudder just a little. She had seen one hanging in her life, stumbled upon it by accident while wandering the streets of a village near her home. It had been a spectacle that had held her horrified attention despite how sick it had made her. It was not an easy way to die.

“How did ye ken that was what was wrong?” she asked.

“Caught the one putting it into his drink. He, too, would seem to become better now and then. Most often after a hard purging. I think that clears out a great deal of the poison thus starting a cure. Then the one with the poison just doses them again.”

“Which means it would be someone close enough to dose his food or drink.”

It was a horrifying thought. That meant that someone in the keep, one of the people they trusted, had murdered David. It was hard to think that anyone at Glencullaich would do so. David had been well loved by his people, respected and honored. She could think of no one who had ever shown any sign of being angry with him or hating him.

“I have no idea how we would e’er discover who may have done it,” she said as she rubbed her forehead. “David was beloved. I cannae e’en think of who could be persuaded by anyone to do it. And, e’er ye ask, Sir Adam was ne’er here in any way that would have given him the opportunity to do it.”

“It is just something one should consider, I think.”

“Aye,” agreed Harcourt. “Sad to say there can be many a reason for someone to turn on their laird, e’en one as weel loved as David. They could simply be someone easily convinced of some lie or given some promise that made them do it e’en if they may have had regrets for their actions afterward.”

Annys studied him for a moment, thinking on how careful he had been with his words. “Ye think it may have been some woman.”