Page 14 of Highlander’s False Identity

From outside the door, the servants peered in nosily, gawping at the spectacle of a lass, dressed as a lad, with golden hair tumbling down her sides, imparting such a scandalous tale.

Immediately, Wallace nodded, and a guard closed the hallway door.

“Well,” said Edme taking another sip of the caudle that had been placed in front of her. “I overheard him talking to one of the English commanders who launched the raid on the keep… although I didn’t catch every word, it was the tone of the conversation. It was friendly. Dughall was patting Cavendish on the shoulder and laughing. That’s hardly how ye would react to the man who has just killed yer father, is it?”

The words spilled out of the young girl’s mouth at such a rate that it seemed she was almost winded. Taking a couple of sips of the tepid caudle, Edme refueled.

“An’ so I decided to go looking for more. I climbed into Dughall’s room in the keep an’ had a look about. Sure enough, I found some writing, a letter, from the leader of the English platoon…. But then Dughall caught me an’ I had to run…. What I found damned him, an’ he kent that… It concerned a plot – to ransack and take over the clans of all the Highlands, starting with the Craig keep!”

A silence descended upon the room; every eye trained directly upon Edme.

“An’ have ye got this writing?” Freya asked her.

Edme looked flustered for a moment. Then she looked downcast. “Nae,” she said softly.

Beathan felt instinctively that she was telling the truth, but it hardly looked convincing. His parents must be thinking the same thing, from the look on their faces.

“But yer father passed away in his bed, that’s what we heard, wasnae it?” his mother continued, confused, she glanced over to her husband, who nodded.

“Aye, we never heard that he’d been killed in battle,” Wallace mused softly. Beathan could tell that he was still mulling things over in his head.

“He wasnae killed in battle!” spat out Edme, unable to contain her disgust. “He was murdered in his bed! No one could prove it, but I am sure Dughall was behind it somehow! He went to bed hale and hearty, and the next morning he was dead!

There was a pause while the young woman’s words had time to sink in. Beathan’s mind was racing, and by the look of it, so too was his father’s.

He looked urgently over to where the laird sat to garner his reaction. Beathan racked his brains for some clear memory of Dughall, the man who was now laird of McKinley. Would he do something like this?

“How did ye get away, lassie?” Beathan asked her.

Edme replied simply. “Fergus helped me, my father’s trusted counselor. He believed Dughall at first, but in time, I convinced him of the plot. He helped me get out before they could burn me or throw me in the dungeon!”

“H’mm,” murmured the laird. “I ken Fergus well; he’s a good man.”

“The best,” agreed Edme.

Wallace stepped forwards to where she was sitting.

“Alright,” he said after what seemed like a hundred years. “Say we believe yer story…,” his eyes connected with Freya’s, whose flashed pertinently. Beathan knew that look; she was seething but had been tamed by the laird, for the moment at least, to say nothing.

“An’ so what has this got to do wi’ ye being on the run for witchcraft?” the laird asked her.

Edme scoffed vehemently. “Dughall set that up, of course! To move the attention off him!”

There was another pause where the lady and laird looked at each other. “Why would he invent something like that, of all things?” Freya asked. Then she pulled her delicate brows together, unfolding the parchment once more.

The question emanated across the room, the servants at the back looking at one and another in surprise.

Edme looked exasperated as if the question was obvious.

“Because it was the only way to get me out the way!” she exploded. “He’s in league with the English, an’ probably the devil as well!” she said, her impetuousness getting the better of her.

A low murmuring echoed around the room. There was much consternation at this maid who spoke her mind and wasn’t constrained by the usual good manners.

He could see something had needled Edme and briefly wondered what it was. The laird was about to open his mouth, to scold Edme, when she butted in again.

“Och, please forgive me, sire, for talking out of turn, but I’ve been out in the wilds for three nights now an’ without a bite to eat. It’s making me forget myself!” Edme said softly, her pale cheeks coloring red.

She curtseyed a little, bowing her head before the laird and lady.