They went into the hall and she saw her uncle. He sat at the head of the table and looked old and haggard. The poison had drained him of vigor. She prayed it had not also drained him of sense.
“What is she doing here?” her uncle bellowed, then fell into a fit of coughing. “Lock her up,” he demanded when he stopped.
Manus released her but stayed close when she moved to hurry to her uncle. When the man looked at her, she hastily stepped back. There was such fury and hatred in his eyes she felt stung by it. This was definitely not going to go as she had hoped, and suddenly she wished with all her heart that she was back at Gormfeurach with Gybbon.
“I have come to plead my innocence of all the sins your son tries to blame me for. To tell ye the truth of what has been happening.”
“Have ye—or have ye come to make sure there is enough left to finish me with your foul poison?”
“How would I have gotten in to do that? To do anything to poison you? Have your men seen me about the place? Have the women or lassies in the kitchens e’er seen me in there? Have ye e’en asked? How did I do it?”
“Old William kenned it, which is why ye killed him.”
“With Robert’s sword. Aye, he told me at the same time he told me he had the blood of my parents on his hands.”
“David and Rona are dead?”
“Aye, Robert killed them as they came home from market. No one told ye?”
“Robert probably felt I was too weak for such sad news.”
Mora doubted that. If Robert had thought it would take his father off sooner than the poison he would have told him immediately. The man did look sad though, so she held her tongue.
“And then ye came and killed William with Robert’s sword. Did ye think he had done it?”
“Nay, not him but Robert. And why does he still have the sword if I stole it?”
“Ye dropped it as ye ran.”
“Ran from where?”
“From the ledger room where ye killed Old William!”
“The room just down the hall? And I ran down this hall yet no one saw me? None heard me drop the sword on the stone? Ye truly think”—she held up her arm—“that this wee bird arm could pick up a mon’s sword and use it with enough strength and skill to kill Old William?” She saw a glimpse of sadness and confusion on his face, but then his expression quickly returned to one of anger.
“Manus, why havenae ye put this lass in the dungeon?”
“Uncle! Listen to me. Think on what I say!” She felt Manus grasp her arm and her heart sank.
“Nay! Ye will just lie. Like your mother! I told David nay to wed her but he wouldnae listen to me. Married the ruined wench and turned his back on me. Fool. Now he is dead, too. Get her out of here, Manus. Get her out.”
“Come along, lass.” Manus tugged her out of the hall, but she noticed the men in the hall would not look at her. She decided they were beginning to see the truth, see at least some of the game Robert was playing. There was also something about her mother and father’s past that was causing her further trouble, because it still gnawed at the sick laird.
A plump woman ran up to walk on her other side as Manus led Mora down to the dungeon. She wondered what Hilda, Manus’s wife, wanted, and then the woman said, “Manus, ye cannae do this.”
“I have to do it and I am going to. And ye are going to see that she has everything she needs.” Manus looked at Mora. “I am sorry, lass, but I am nay going to die for ye and that is just what I will do if I dinnae lock ye up.”
“’Tis all right, Manus. I would ne’er ask it of ye. He is mad, isnae he?”
“A wee bit, I am thinking. Gets lost in bad memories, too. He willnae face the truth about Robert. Ne’er has.”
“Ye think he already kens the truth?”
“Oh, aye,” said Hilda, “but what mon wishes to face the fact that his firstborn son is naught but a killer and a brute or is the verra one trying to kill him? I worry for the other lads now that their da is sunk in his own misery.”
“Do ye think Robert would kill them? What would it gain him?”
“Nary a thing, but I wouldnae be surprised if he plans to kill young Murdoch. Soon after his da goes, too, so he can toss them into the same hole. He was always jealous of the boy because his da kept him close. Mon still had all his wits about him and kenned Robert would harm the child.”
“Hilda!” snapped Manus. “Dinnae forget he will be your laird!”
“Nay mine,” Hilda muttered as she watched Manus put Mora in a cell and slowly lock the door.
“Are your new friends coming for ye, lass?” Manus asked.
“Nay, but I wouldnae tell ye if they were just so ye could prepare all the men to kill them.”
“Ye would let our men die?”
She looked around the cell she was in, then said, “Aye, but I will say this, my friends would try to talk to someone, try to sort it all out and keep blood from being spilt. From what I just saw of my uncle, he willnae care. And, if ye two are right, and he clings to all the lies his son has told just to save face and some long-held false hopes he wants fulfilled, he is near as mad as his foul son.” Out of the corner of her eye she saw Hilda nod.
Manus marched off shaking his head, but Hilda looked at her. “Who are your friends, lass?”
“The Murrays on either side of ye and the Camerons.”
“Oh, my. A handsome lot of friends ye have found. My spit boy is the nephew of the laird’s cook,” said Hilda.
“Oh, that’s nice.” Mora wondered what that had to do with anything.
“It could be, lass, it could be a verra nice thing indeed. I will be down in a few moments with a meal for ye.”
Mora sat on the narrow, hard bed and sighed. It had seemed like a good idea. Come and talk to her uncle, a man she could recall as being nice, funny at times, and welcoming. She suspected it was that memory that had pushed her to come as her uncle was no longer any of those things. She did not think it was all caused by the illness, either. Her uncle had had things go very wrong in his life and had been abed long enough to brood on them.
Why would he think her mother was a liar? Her mother never lied. And what did he mean by calling her mother a ruined woman? Mora clenched her fists and fought the urge to get up and stomp out her fury. He seemed to think matters had been ruined between him and his brother yet, if that was so, why did her mother take all of them to visit him?
She ran her hand over the stone wall behind her, discovered it was surprisingly dry, and leaned back against it. It was not an easy thing to do since it had been an ugly confrontation, but she carefully thought over what her uncle had said. The third time she did so, she abruptly sat up, seeing what was firmly stuck in his memory and tormenting him. It was not that her mother had been ruined but that his brother had married her anyway. It all had little to do with her mother. It had to do with his father, with the brothers’ bond breaking until they were little more than coldly polite strangers.
Her uncle had been the man who had ruined her mother. David was the one who had married her, giving her back the honor his own brother had stolen from her. Mora suspected it had been a rape, harsh and ugly. There was the unworthy man her mother had referred to when she had given Mora the talk about women and men. Mora had to wonder how hard it must have been for her mother to see Tomas, even if the visits had been rare. Then she had an alarming thought. Had her mother been left with child? Was one of her brothers actually her cousin?
“Idiot,” she muttered, and shook her head, trying to push away such thoughts. One thing she was sure of concerning her mother and father was that they had loved each other, had loved all their children. It might have been started by something ugly, but it had become beautiful and stayed that way until the day Robert had killed them.