“Aye well, they miss their mother.”
“Hmph. Don’t we all.” Col stomped upstairs, not best pleased to be reminded of the obvious.
The daffodil suite, as Fergus had called it, took its name from the yellow wallpaper and hangings put up by his mother almost thirty years ago. They were faded and dusty now, but the name had stuck. It was still the most elegant room in the house, the furniture being delicate and refined, unlike the heavy dark wood of the rest of the place. He opened the curtains to see and hauled the coverings off the bed, folding them haphazardly. Then he dragged the mattress off and slung it over his shoulder, and with that and the blankets and pillow, headed back down to the kitchen.
Fergus had prepared a tray, and it was sitting on the kitchen table.
“Ye want me to bring it down?” he asked.
“Nae, I’ll fetch it in a moment.”
“Anybody’d think she was a guest, you waiting on her and all.”
“Well, she is of sorts. I daren’t let her out, she’d be off in nothing flat I suspect, or try to attack me again. I’m not surewhich. I mean to find out what she wants. There must be a way to communicate with her.”
“Aye, well good luck with that. By the by, Master Callum’s a mite sore and sorry for hisself this morning.”
“And so he should be. Did ye see what he did to Rory’s buckler?”
Fergus raised a tufty white eyebrow.
“Dug a bluidy great gouge through it!”
“He never!” gasped Fergus. “Well, I hope ye tanned his hide good and proper!”
“I did, much good it will do!”
Col humped the mattress on his shoulder and set off for the cellar. Squeezing through the door with the mattress, he found his prisoner sitting on the floor with her legs crossed in a strange fashion, but she leapt up at sight of him and began jabbering again. He ignored that and unlocked the cell door, shoving the mattress through and effectively blocking the door. He pulled it shut behind him and threw the mattress on the ground, which caused a great cloud of dust to blow up, making both of them cough.
“Sorry,” he wheezed, covering his face. “I’ll bring a broom down. Here this is for you.” He spread the blankets over the mattress and dropped the pillow on top. All the while, she stood watching him with a puzzled frown. He waved at the pile of linens. “All yours, I’ll be back with some food in a wee while. Bide a bit.”
He left the cell, locking it behind him, and tromped upstairs to get a bucket, a broom, and the tray. He brought these down and found her sitting cross-legged again, but this time on the mattress. Like before, she sprang up as soon as he appeared, but this time she watched in silence as he set the tray of food down beside the mattress and set about sweeping with the broom. He set the bucket down in the corner.
“To piss in,” he said, squatting and hoping she got the point.
Sweeping the dust and debris into a pile, and using the head of the broom to get rid of the worst of the cobwebs, he backed out and left her to it. He’d give her a bit of privacy to settle in before he began his interrogation.
He needed a wash and change of clothes; he’d slept in them all night, and he felt seedy. To say nothing of some more water and something to eat.
Chapter Three
Aihan surveyed the things the Mac Sceacháin had brought her, which suggested he intended to keep her locked up for a while. This was not good. She only had two days to find out what happened to her brother and return to the junk, or the captain and his crew would sail without her. She had no doubt he would do it, too.
Panic made her heart race and tightened her belly, which chose that moment to rumble, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten since yesterday. She would eat and consider her options; there must be some way out of this cell.
She sat down on the mattress cross-legged and dragged the tray closer, inspecting what was on it. A large pot of the dark liquor they seemed to favour here. She took a large mouthful, thirsty again. She needed to ask for water. A round loaf of bread and a ball of cheese, this one soft and more like the cheese she was accustomed to at home. She sniffed it and nibbled a bit: salty and mild. And a crumbly mix of some kind of minced meat. She picked up a bit and sniffed and nibbled. Something made from blood and offal, good! She smiled, breaking the loaf open, then piled in the cheese and the offal mixture and, squashing it down,bit into it. The bread was a bit stale, but she was hungry enough not to care.
Chewing thoughtfully, she let her eyes run all over the cell. It was rectangular in shape and took up three quarters of the stone-lined room it was in. Three walls of the cell were of stone, and the fourth was a series of iron bars, somewhat rusted. The lock was a bolt with a padlock to which the Mac Sceacháin had a key. The light was meagre coming through the door from the outside. If the doors were shut, it would be pitch black in here; she hoped her captor meant to bring her a lamp.
The walls were a little dank and the atmosphere cool and a bit musty. She shivered, reminded that she had left her cloak in the stable. Aihan pulled one of the blankets round her shoulders and continued eating.
She considered the rusty bars her best chance of escape. Perhaps a well-placed kick would dislodge one from its moorings? She would test it later. Having made an inventory of her surroundings, she turned her thoughts to her captor.
She had watched him last night through the window of the house as he drank himself into a stupor before the fire. She was ready for him when he emerged from the house, and it was easy to creep up on him once the dogs wandered off, intent on more interesting smells in the woods.
He was big. She hadn’t quite realised how big until he rolled her under him and squashed her flat. He was a mature man, too, not a boy. Not as old as her brother, but certainly more than ten years older than herself. That would mean his reflexes were not as good as hers, which had been obvious from the ease with which she brought him down initially. His hungover condition may have contributed to that. There were muscles under his shirt, and there had been no spare flesh on him.
His sheer size was the biggest problem; she could use that against him if she could get speed and leverage. It was obvioushe’d had no exposure to the kind of fighting she was trained in. She should be able to best him, provided she didn’t let him get too close. His physical strength gave him too much of an advantage in close.
