Page 76 of Captured by a Laird
But David was not here.
CHAPTER 30
Alison narrowed her eyes at the monk. “I don’t believe ye told me how ye got inside the castle.”
“A servant feigned a sudden, grave illness in the night and begged the guards to send a request for help to the abbey,” he said. “As ye know, we’re famed for our healing potions and remedies.”
“Which servant did this?” she asked.
“The prior would not wish me to say, but ye needn’t fret, m’lady,” the monk said with a smirk. “I expect the ill servant will have a miraculous recovery. In fact, the servant was already recovered sufficiently to show me your door.”
She did not like the deceit or her servant doing the prior’s bidding. Apparently she would not get an explanation as to why this ruse was necessary until she spoke with her uncle.
“I’m anxious to see my uncle and return,” she said. “I’ll fetch my daughters.”
“We can’t be seen leaving together, m’lady,” he said. “You’re to wait until daybreak,just before the guards on the night watch are relieved,but no longer.”
That would be wiser. Persuading the guards to let her leave at all would be a challenge, but they certainly would not let her go at night.
“I don’t know what I’ll tell the nursemaid,” she said, speaking her thoughts aloud.
“The old woman was given a sleeping potion,” the monk said.
“A potion?” she said, alarm racing through her veins.
“Nothing that will not harm her,” he said. “Now, I must be gone. The household will awaken soon, and the fewer folk who know of my presence, the better.”
Alison felt increasingly uneasy as she paced the floor and watched for the first signs of dawn through the window. The servant who feigned illness, and whoever gave Flora a sleeping potion, had received some sort of message hours before she did. It troubled her that there were spies in the castle, even if they were helping her uncle.
After weeks of dank and dreary winter mornings, the sunrise was glorious, filling the horizon with a glow of pink and gold. Telling herself this was surely a good sign, Alison hurried up the stairs to fetch her daughters.
Flora was snoring loud enough to shake the bed, but she looked no worse than usual. Alison kissed the old woman’s forehead before shaking her daughters awake.
“I don’t want to get up yet,” Beatrix complained, as Alison hurried her sleepy daughters into their clothes and heavy capes.
“Hush,” Alison said. “We must be quick.”
“Why?” Margaret asked, rubbing her eye.
Alison felt guilty for rushing them out of bed, but her uncle’s message sounded urgent—and one did not keep the bishop waiting.
“’Tis a lovely morning,” Alison said. “If we hurry, we can take a ride before breakfast.”
“But David said we’re not to leave the castle while he’s away,” Beatrix said. “He’ll be angry.”
“Let me worry about that,” Alison said. “Now, no more arguing.”
If David found out, he would, indeed, be furious. And he would be even angrier if he remembered that the prior of the abbey was a Blackadder.
Well, she was none too pleased with him either. He refused to tell her where he was going or why. If he could keep his goings and comings secret, then so could she.
***
David’s heart sank as he surveyed the ruins of the village. The blackened stone walls of the cottages and the singed remains of their thatched roofs were stark against the pink dawn sky.
A few villagers were poking through the ruins looking for anything they could salvage. Most of them had fled to Hume Castle, where he and his men had stopped for the night to deliver food. Though Hume Castle had been badly damaged in the fighting between his uncle and Albany’s forces, it offered better protection from rain and marauders than these roofless cottages.
David had stayed up most the night listening to the villagers’ tales of horror. By all accounts, the band of men who rode into the village in broad daylight brandishing swords and torches were Blackadders.
