"Vengeance?" I must have looked startled at the idea, for he smiled faintly, though without humor.
"Aye. The lass was wed six months ago, to Hugh MacKenzie of Muldaur, one of my tacksmen. He'll do with her as I say, and ye want her punished. What will ye have me do?"
I blinked, taken aback by his offer. He appeared in no hurry for an answer; he sat quietly, sipping the fresh glass of brandy that Angus Mhor poured for him. He wasn't staring at me, but I got up and moved away toward the windows, wanting to be alone for a moment.
The walls here were five feet thick; by leaning forward into the deep window embrasure I could assure myself of privacy. The bright sun illuminated the fine blond hairs on my forearms as I rested them on the sill. It made me think of the thieves' hole, that damp, reeking pit, and the single bar of sunlight that had shone through an opening above, making the dark hole below seem that much more like a grave by contrast.
I had spent my first day there in cold and dirt, full of stunned disbelief; the second in shivering misery and growing fear as I discovered the full extent of Geillis Duncan's treachery and Colum's measures against it. And on the third day, they had taken me to trial. And I had stood, filled with shame and terror, under the clouds of a lowering autumn sky, feeling the jaws of Colum's trap close round me, sprung by a word from the girl Laoghaire.
Laoghaire. Fair-skinned and blue-eyed, with a round, pretty face, but nothing much to distinguish her from the other girls at Leoch. I had thought about her—in the pit with Geillis Duncan, I had had time to think of a lot of things. But furious and terrified as I had been, furious as I remained, I couldn't, either then or now, bring myself to see her as intrinsically evil.
"She was only sixteen, for God's sake!"
"Old enough to marry," said a sardonic voice behind me, and I realized that I had spoken aloud.
"Yes, she wanted Jamie," I said, turning around. Colum was still sitting on the sofa, stumpy legs covered with a rug. Angus Mhor stood silent behind him, heavy-lidded eyes fixed on his master. "Perhaps she thought she loved him."
Men were drilling in the courtyard, amid shouts and clashing of arms. The sun glanced off the metal of swords and muskets, the brass studding of targes—and off the red-gold of Jamie's hair, flying in the breeze as he wiped a hand across his face, flushed and sweating from the exercise, laughing at one of Murtagh's deadpan remarks.
I had perhaps done Laoghaire an injustice, after all, in assuming her feelings to be less than my own. Whether she had acted from immature spite or from a true passion, I could never know. In either case, she had failed. I had survived. And Jamie was mine. As I watched, he rucked up his kilt and casually scratched his bottom, the sunlight catching the reddish-gold fuzz that softened the iron-hard curve of his thigh. I smiled, and went back to my seat near Colum.
"I'll take the apology," I said.
He nodded, gray eyes thoughtful.
"You've a belief in mercy, then, Mistress?"
"More in justice," I said. "Speaking of which, I don't imagine you traveled all the way from Leoch to Edinburgh merely to apologize to me. It must have been a hellish journey."
"Aye, it was." The huge, silent bulk of Angus Mhor shifted an inch or two behind him, and the massive head bent toward his laird in eloquent witness. Colum sensed the movement and raised a hand briefly—it's all right, the gesture said, I'm all right for the present.
"No," Colum went on. "I did not know ye were in Edinburgh, in fact, until His Highness mentioned Jamie Fraser, and I asked." A sudden smile grew on his face. "His Highness isn't over fond of you, Mistress Claire. But I suppose ye knew that?"
I ignored this. "So you really are considering joining Prince Charles?"
Colum, Dougal, and Jamie all had the capacity for hiding what they were thinking when they chose to, but of the three, Colum was undoubtedly best at it. You'd get more from one of the carved heads on the fountain in the front courtyard, if he was feeling uncommunicative.
"I've come to see him" was all he said.
I sat a moment, wondering what, if anything, I could—or should—say in Charles's behalf. Perhaps I would do better to leave it to Jamie. After all, the fact that Colum felt regret over nearly killing me by accident didn't mean he was necessarily inclined to trust me. And while the fact that I was here, part of Charles's entourage, surely argued against my being an English spy, it wasn't impossible that I was.
I was still debating with myself when Colum suddenly put down his glass of brandy and looked straight at me.
"D'ye know how much of this I've had since morning?"
"No." His hands were steady, calloused and roughened from his disease, but well kept. The reddened lids and slightly bloodshot eyes could as easily be from the rigors of travel as from drink. There was no slurring of speech, and no more than a certain deliberateness of movement to indicate that he wasn't sober as a judge. But I had seen Colum drink before, and had a very respectful idea of his capacity.
He waved away Angus Mhor's hand, hovering above the decanter. "Half a bottle. I'll have finished it by tonight."
"Ah." So that was why I had been asked to bring my medicine box. I reached for it, where I had set it on the floor.
"If you're needing that much brandy, there isn't much that will help you besides some form of opium," I said, flicking through my assortment of vials and jars. "I think I have some laudanum here, but I can get you some—"
"That isn't what I want from you." The tone of authority in his voice stopped me, and I looked up. If he could keep his thoughts to himself, he could also let them show when he chose.
"I could get laudanum easily enough," he said. "I imagine there's an apothecarist in the city who sells it—or poppy syrup, or undiluted opium, for that matter."
I let the lid of the small chest fall shut and rested my hands on top of it. So he didn't mean to waste away in a drugged state, leaving the leadership of the clan uncertain. And if it were not a temporary oblivion he sought from me, what else? A permanent one, perhaps. I knew Colum MacKenzie. And the clear, ruthless mind that had planned Geillis Duncan's destruction would not hesitate over his own.
Now it was clear. He had come to see Charles Stuart, to make the final decision whether to commit the MacKenzies of Leoch to the Jacobite cause. Once committed, it would be Dougal who led the clan. And then…
"I was under the impression that suicide was considered a mortal sin," I said.
"I imagine it is," he said, undisturbed. "A sin of pride, at least, that I should choose a clean death at the time of my own devising, as best suits my purpose. I don't, however, expect to suffer unduly for my sin, having put no credence in the existence of God since I was nineteen or so."
It was quiet in the room, beyond the crackle of the fire and the muffled shouts of mock battle from below. I could hear his breathing, a slow and steady sigh.
"Why ask me?" I said. "You're right, you could get laudanum where you liked, so long as you have money—and you do. Surely you know that enough of it will kill you. It's an easy death, at that."
"Too easy." He shook his head. "I have had little to depend on in life, save my wits. I would keep them, even to meet death. As for ease…" He shifted slightly on the sofa, making no effort to hide his discomfort. "I shall have enough, presently."
He nodded toward my box. "You shared Mrs. Duncan's knowledge of medicines. I thought it possible that you knew what she used to kill her husband. That seemed quick and certain. And appropriate," he added wryly.
"She used witchcraft, according to the verdict of the court." The court that condemned her to death, in accordance with your plan, I thought. "Or do you not believe in witchcraft?" I asked.
He laughed, a pure, carefree sound in the sunlit room. "A man who doesn't believe in God can scarce credit power to Satan, can he?"
I still hesitated, but he was a man who judged others as shrewdly as he did himself. He had asked my pardon before asking my favor, and satisfied himself that I had a sense of justice—or of mercy. And it was, as he said, appropriate. I opened the box and took out the small vial of cyanide that I kept to kill rats.
"I thank ye, Mistress Claire," he said, formal again, though the smile still lingered in his eyes. "Had my nephew not proved your innocence with such flamboyance at Cranesmuir, still I would never believe you a witch. I have no more notion now than I had at our first meeting, as to who you are, or why you are here, but a witch is not one of the possibilities I've ever considered." He paused, one brow raised. "I don't suppose you'd be inclined to tell me who—or what—you are?"
I hesitated for a moment. But a man with belief in neither God nor Devil was not likely to believe the truth of my presence here, either. I squeezed his fingers lightly and released them.
"Better call me a witch," I said. "It's as close as you're likely to get."
On my way out to the courtyard next morning, I met Lord Balmerino on the stairs.
"Oh, Mistress Fraser!" he greeted me jovially. "Just who I was looking for."
I smiled at him; a chubby, cheerful man, he was one of the refreshing features of life in Holyrood.
"If it isn't fever, flux, or French pox," I said, "can it wait for a moment? My husband and his uncle are giving a demonstration of Highland sword-fighting for the benefit of Don Francisco de la Quintana."