“Aye.” Elspeth immediately helped her out of her dark brown skirts and into her new, more colorful, yet muted skirts.
May wore her own white leine under her new dress. When Elspeth wrapped her in her arisaid, she sighed like a woman in love.
After a moment of sighing with delight, May hurried to a small bag, picked it up, then beckoned Elspeth to come sit beside her.
“I got these from an old merchant passing through the region a few months ago. She stuck her hand into the bag and pulled out a dozen or so hair ribbons, some were silk and some were wool. “We dinna have dyes like these. Have ye ever seen colors so vivid and bold? I know ye appreciate colors because of the skirts and arisaid ye made fer me.”
Elspeth brushed her fingertips over the ribbons and smiled. “The colors are beautiful.”
“I think they would look bonnie around yer head. They are fer ye.”
“Och, nae I couldna take these,” Elspeth said, gently pushing them away. “They are too precious.”
“Nonsense,” May scoffed, waving Elspeth’s concern away. “I would have traded them fer something so much less than my bonnie new clothes.”
Elspeth hadn’t received a gift in a long time. She didn’t know what to say, but before she could stop them, tears welled up in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. She swiped them away with her fingertips and laughed at herself. “I am overwhelmed by the kindness of yer kin. Of ye. I am not normally so weepy.”
May reached out and wiped another escaping tear from Elspeth’s face. “’Tis easy to be kind to someone who makes Logan so happy. I can see why he chose ye. Ye are humble andkind…like him. I heard him call ye fae. It means fairy. I can see it. Ye do resemble something oot of a fable.”
Elspeth smiled and blushed.
They spent the rest of the afternoon together, laughing, eating, and trying on different sized bodices and laughing even more.
Logan found them after his practice in the inner courtyard. Elspeth beamed with pride for him because he practiced with an audience, and he showed them all that he’d gained the use of his arm. He looked happy when he saw her. In fact, he beamed at her.
“This is what I was talking about,” May told her at her side. “I havena seen my brother look so happy in years.”
“I am happy to hear that, May.”
May shared a smile with her before Logan reached them. “We will call each other sister from now on.”
Elspeth nodded. Her smile faded when a man to Logan’s left clutched his belly and promptly fell to his knees.
She slipped her gaze to Logan. He was already looking to where she had looked. When the man vomited, Logan hurried to him. Elspeth followed, but after just a few steps, she felt the pain in her belly. She stopped to look around. Her vision blurred. That meant her pupils were likely dilated. She’d been poisoned.
May fell to the ground a step behind her.
Nae! It could not be! Had they all been poisoned?
She heard Logan shouting her name, his sister’s name. She turned to him just as he reached her. His father raced past them and dropped to his knees to take hold of his daughter.
Logan took Elspeth’s face in his calloused hands and stared into her eyes. A sound escaped him, half growl, half cry. He turned to his sister.
“Logan,” Elspeth managed while she could. “Logan, listen to me. Listen!” She touched his arm to pull his attention off his sister. “’Tis poison. ’Tis poison, my love—”
By now, Logan’s cousins who had been practicing with him realized something was terribly wrong and ran to them.
“Poison?” Steafan asked in a shaky voice.
“Are ye certain, Elspeth?” Logan did his best to sound less affected, but he failed. “What do I do? Tell me, my love.”
She was thinking. She had to think, but it was so difficult. At least she could see that Logan seemed to be fine. His father and cousins seemed fine, as well. They had not been here. They had not eaten or drunk anything. “Tell everyone not to eat or drink anything.” She stopped to watch the lochiel run off to the castle, likely to check on his wife. “’Tis difficult to know what poison was used. There is an antidote that counters the effects of almost everything. ’Tis called Theriac. I dinna have any. Roderick always kept some, but…” she blinked. “Charcoal. We can try raw charcoal.” What else? He was shouting for charcoal and…theriac. Everything was going gray. Logan! “Logan.” Whatever happened, there was something she needed to say to him. “Thank ye fer not dying in that dungeon.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Logan sat besidethe edge of the bed in a chair he’d dragged away from the hearth. After using charcoal, his beloved Elspeth had vomited twice and then went to sleep and had not woken up since he carried her here to his bed. He was told his sister, May, was in the same condition. Logan had sent out twelve men to look for theriac, the cure-all according to Elspeth.
They quickly learned of an apothecary in the village who had the ointment said to draw out poisons from the body. Theriac. Logan had him brought to the castle right away and stayed with him while he administered his mixture of seventy-two ingredients, including viper venom, to Elspeth, May, and any others who had been poisoned.
