Fate be changed, p.22
Fate Be Changed, page 22
Merida was still troubled by the potential threat that lingered over the kingdom, but she was even more concerned about the princess’s attempting to uncover it on her own.
They had made their way back to the castle, and Merida went straight to the kitchens. She had been directed to return to her old post by order of the king himself. Except this time, instead of Duncan, Aileen was put in charge of Merida’s permanent assignment. And, of course, she had chosen the scullery.
Based on the gossip Merida had heard being passed about—which had not been whispered, but instead spoken loud enough for the entire kitchen to hear—the only reason she had not been thrown out of the castle was that King Douglass had found it somewhere in his heart to let her remain. But Sorcha had given her the full story. She’d shared that one of the king’s advisers had cautioned him that it was too close to the start of the Highland Games for him to release a young girl to the forest on her own.
Several of the clans at the southern tip of the kingdom were already making their way toward MacCameron Castle. While she would not have to worry so much about a fellow Scot from this kingdom harming her, she would be vulnerable to the vagabonds and thieves who lurked around the forest during this time of the year, seeking to rob those heading to the games. Merida had no idea which adviser had spoken to the king on her behalf, but she was grateful. It had bought her more time at MacCameron Castle.
During their previous trip to the village, Freya had assured her that she needed only a few more days to work on the spell that would send Merida back home. But what home would she be returning to?
Merida thought about the despondency in Elinor’s voice that morning. I will never be free if I am someone’s wife.
It was the entire reason Merida and her mother had butted heads: because others wanted to make the decision about her future.
Why had she automatically assumed that her own mother had willingly walked into her union with her father? Maybe Elinor had felt forced to do so. Even if it had been love at first sight, or if she had grown to love Fergus over time, Merida now realized that Elinor never really had a say in her future.
But maybe she could now.
A heavy weight settled in the pit of Merida’s stomach.
She needed to speak to Freya, although she suspected she already knew what the witch would tell her if she asked the question that had been niggling at her all day.
“What are you doing just standing around?”
Merida whipped around to find one of the scullery maids, Elspeth, waltzing into the room with an armful of dirty bowls. The girl had not liked Merida from the very first day she had arrived to work in the larder, and her disdain had only seemed to grow now that Merida was working in the scullery.
She walked past Merida, clipping her with her elbow.
“Sorry. I did not see you,” Elspeth said over her shoulder.
Merida ignored her apology and reached for another clay pot. A second later, Elspeth bumped her in the middle of her back, causing her to drop the pot in the basin and splash water across her frock.
“Hey!” Merida yelled. Her limbs tensed and a flash of heat flushed through her body.
“Oh! Did you move, lass? I did not see you there again,” Elspeth said.
“What ails you?” Merida ground out.
“You ail me,” the girl spat, all pretense of innocence gone.
Merida just stared at her for a moment, dumbfounded by her admission. She clenched her fists, struggling to maintain her calm.
“What did I ever do to you?” she asked.
The girl set the bowls on the table next to the basin and then plopped her hands on her hips. The malevolence in her expression made Merida’s blood run cold.
“Wanna know why I don’t like you, lass? ’Tis because I don’t trust you. No one does. You show up here from outta nowhere, walking around like you’re better than everybody else. You chum up to the princess and have her treating you all special-like. But now look at you.” She huffed and peered down her pointy nose at Merida. “You’re no different than any of us. Covered in dirty, smelly dishwater.”
It took everything Merida had within her not to declare herself the princess of the kingdom of DunBroch. She knew if she did, Elspeth would only laugh at her, and that made the rage within her flare to life.
The intensity of her fury frightened her; the tenuous hold she had on her emotions was both confusing and disturbing. She did not understand what was happening to her.
“You know nothing about me,” Merida told her.
The girl looked her up and down. “You’re right about that, lass. No one seems to know anything about you. Except that you came here on a fancy horse and that you’ve got some sort of sorcery up your sleeve.”
“Sorcery?” Merida scoffed. “That is ridiculous.”
“Why else would Princess Elinor pick you to be her new maid when everybody knows it should have been Bridget? You must have put a spell on her.”
Merida turned away from the girl. Her words were too close to what Merida had originally intended for her mother. When she thought about that first time she’d met Freya, and how she had willingly traded her necklace for a spell to change the queen, it made Merida sick to her stomach. She would have given anything to have that day back.
“Why are you still here?” Elspeth asked. “That bump on your head is healed. You should be gone back to where you came from.”
If everything went according to what Merida and Freya had devised, Elspeth would get her wish. But she would not give the girl the satisfaction of knowing that.
“Apparently, King Douglass would like me to remain in his employ,” she said instead. “I shall stay on at MacCameron Castle for as long as the king and queen would like me to be here.”
The look the girl leveled at her could have scorched the fur growing on Merida’s skin. Elspeth pointed to the waning fire underneath the pot of water that was constantly boiled for cleaning.
“Do your job and get more peat for the fire,” Elspeth said before stomping out of the room.
Merida yearned to lash out at the sour-faced lass. The urge to do so hummed through her entire being.
Merida sucked in several deep breaths.
Until that point, her transformation had been limited to her body, but now Merida felt it in her soul. She was changing into someone—or something—she no longer recognized. And that was far scarier than the sudden appearance of the fur and claws.
Merida had to speak to Freya. They must find a way to slow the progression of that spell before it was too late.
But that was not the only reason she needed to speak to Freya as soon as possible. She was the only person who could provide the answers Merida sought. At least she hoped Freya held the answers. If the witch did not know the consequences of Elinor’s choosing not to marry, Merida was unsure what she would do.
Another maid, Alesone, came into the washroom. Merida braced herself for another attack, but Alesone’s small smile reminded her that not all those in the kitchen hated her. The girl had never been particularly friendly, but she was not overtly nasty like Elspeth, Aileen, and some of the others.
Alesone used a pail to scoop water into the bucket used for mopping the floors.
“The water is a bit tepid,” the girl said. “You should get more peat.”
“I was just about to,” Merida said.
She noticed the girl looking at her hands and quickly shoved them behind her back. The more she filed down these claws, the faster they seemed to grow.
Goodness, but she hoped Freya would be successful in finding that spell, at least.
She grabbed one of the burlap sacks that was used to haul peat from the storage, then headed for the door that led outside. Because peat was used in all areas of the castle—from the kitchens to the fireplaces in each bedchamber—the room that housed it was centrally located. Merida was grateful she had yet to experience having to haul the heavy bags during the rain. She had been told that one had to carry the peat underneath one’s kirtle to prevent it from getting wet.
Just as she rounded the structure, she noticed shadows stretching across the ground. A second later, she heard voices. Merida stopped short.
It could not be Aileen again, could it?
But she instantly recognized the girl’s nasal tone. Though unlike the previous time she had happened upon Aileen engaged in a whispered conversation with some lad, the other voice did not sound like Elinor’s betrothed. They also were not whispering. Whoever the other voice belonged to was a lad with a brogue even thicker than Merida’s father’s.
“It has to be tonight,” the man with the thick brogue said.
“No. ’Tis too soon.” This from Aileen. “’Tis better to wait until the other clans are here. That has always been the plan.”
“What about the princess?”
Merida’s back went ramrod straight at the sound of a third voice, another she did not recognize.
“Are you sure she was with a DunBroch?” the mysterious new voice asked.
“I saw it myself. The big one they call Fergus. They were at the creek. And there was another lass with her, the one with the bandage on her head.”
Merida barely managed to hold in her gasp.
“Lachlan suspected something was not right,” the man continued. “’Tis why he had me follow the princess after he and the Fraser were here the other night.”
Lachlan. It was the princess’s betrothed who had set a spy on their trails, not King Douglass.
“Sneaking around with a filthy DunBroch,” Aileen said, the word dripping with disgust. “She should be hanged.”
Merida clenched her fists so tightly that her claws nearly pierced her skin. She strived to tamp down the fury bubbling up inside her before it caused her to do something irrational.
“Do not say that, Aileen.”
“It is true,” the girl said.
“I do not understand why you hate the princess so much. You and Elinor used to be the best of friends when you were both wee lasses.”
“Not anymore.”
“What should I tell Lachlan?” the other man asked, his voice anxious.
“Tell him I will take care of it,” Aileen said.
“That is not enough. Lachlan will want to know more.”
“He does not need to know any more,” Aileen countered. “We stick to the original plan. Now get going.”
Merida flattened herself against the castle wall, but the person must have gone in the opposite direction.
“What are you gonna do, Aileen?” the other man asked.
“’Tis no concern of yours. Now go. You need to get back to the stables, Gregory.”
Gregory? Where had she heard that name?
Merida waited with her back against the hard stone for several more minutes before she chanced peeking around the corner. They were gone.
She rolled up the burlap sack and stuffed it behind a stone near the castle wall. She did not have time to worry about the dwindling fire in the scullery. She needed to speak to the princess.
The chieftain of Clan Fraser and his son were due to return to the castle that night for another dinner. Merida could not let Elinor dine with her future betrothed without letting her know that he was the one who had sent someone to follow them.
Merida had suspected Lachlan Fraser was not to be trusted from the moment she had first discovered him with Aileen outside the larder. After this latest revelation, there were no lingering doubts. He and Aileen were embroiled in some sort of dalliance, and he was likely having Elinor followed to make sure she did not find out.
Merida raced up the front stairs, the ones she was not supposed to use as a member of the kitchen staff. She could not be concerned with Queen Catriona’s barbaric rules. She had to reach Elinor.
But when Merida opened the door to her bedchamber, the princess was nowhere to be found. Instead, she faced a young girl who shared Orla’s strong facial features. This must have been Bridget.
“Where might I find the princess?” Merida asked. “I must speak to her.”
She braced herself for more of the nastiness she had encountered from Elspeth in the scullery, but she did not sense any malice coming from Bridget.
“The princess just left for dinner,” the girl answered.
No.
“Why?” Bridget asked.
Merida tore out of the room without further explanation. She ran down the corridor, dodging servants left and right. Relief soared through her when she spotted Elinor’s deep brown hair at the end of the long hallway.
“Princess!” Merida called just as Elinor was preparing to descend the staircase.
The princess whipped around. The flash of delight that lit up her eyes quickly turned to concern.
“You should not be here,” Elinor said in a low voice. “I do not care what Father does to me, but I do not want to make you a target of his ire again.”
“Do not worry about me,” Merida said. “I need to tell you about—”
Just then, a loud crash and yell came from the area of the Great Hall.
Merida and Elinor looked at each other, then took off.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Elinor
Elinor’s heart thumped wildly as she hastened down the corridor toward the commotion. A million scenarios traveled through her mind as she realized the threat to the kingdom had come to pass. What was it? An attack by a neighboring clan gone rogue? A bear breaking into the castle? The animals were not normally seen much at this time of the year, but the legend of Mor’du claimed that the beast was notorious for wreaking havoc anytime he saw fit.
But it was neither Mor’du nor a rival clan. And the commotion had not come from the Great Hall. Instead, she saw several servants rushing to her father’s private parlor.
Elinor stopped in the parlor’s entryway to find her father slumped against the side of his second-in-command, Gawin. The king’s most loyal deputy held him up by his arms. A host of servants and men from her father’s council stood nearby, all looking shell-shocked.
Elinor entered the room, trying to make sense of what had taken place.
On the floor lay the suit of armor that usually stood just behind the thick oak table where the king conducted his work. The armor was broken into a half dozen pieces. Its iron legs had scattered several feet away, one on either side of her father’s worktable. The torso had landed closer, near the feet of the men crowded around him. Most frightening, the battle-ax lay exactly where her father’s head would have been if he had been sitting at the table.
Elinor’s blood ran cold at the sight of the sharpened ax wedged firmly in the block of wood. The thought of how close the king had come to possibly being beheaded sent tremors racing along her skin.
“What happened?” she finally asked, looking around at the men who surrounded the king.
“’Tis very peculiar, Princess,” Gawin said. “The armor has been standing here for years with no issue. There is no reason for it to fall like this.”
“Father, have you been harmed?” Elinor asked.
“No, I am fine,” King Douglass said. But then she saw it. He had been injured. There was blood on his sleeve.
“Get the physician,” Elinor said to one of the servants.
She knew her father was shaken when he did not object to her call for the physician, or her taking him by the arm and leading him to a nearby chair.
“And someone call the queen. She’ll want to know what has happened,” Elinor said to no one in particular. She did not look up to see who had gone to fetch her mother.
“’Tis nothing,” King Douglass said.
“’Tis not so,” Elinor replied. “You could have been killed.”
His severe stare told Elinor that she had gone too far in suggesting he could have been felled by an inanimate object.
“I am just concerned, father,” Elinor said. “I never want you to come to any harm.” She looked to Gawin. Her father’s second-in-command had been by his side as long as Elinor had been alive. “Get Helga in here. Find out if someone from the staff disrupted the suit of armor. Maybe it happened when someone was cleaning it.”
That was the only explanation Elinor could come up with. It made no sense that the armor, which had stood in that exact position since she was a little girl, would suddenly come tumbling down.
“We must make sure the other suits of armor around the castle are secure as well,” Elinor finished.
Half the men who had been standing around her father dispersed, while the others began to gather the disjointed pieces of armor. Elinor remained at her father’s side until the physician arrived. Her mother followed soon after.
“Whose doing is this?” Queen Catriona asked the moment she entered the room.
“’Tis no one’s doing,” Elinor said. “It was an accident.”
“How bad is the injury?” the queen directed to the physician.
“You would think it would be worse,” he answered. “King Douglass, you are one lucky man. Once I sew you up, your wound should heal in a matter of days.” The physician winked. “’Tis a good thing you’re not taking part in the games. I believe the DunBroch and the Macpherson would best you at the caber toss this year if you were.”
He bade farewell when no one laughed at his jest.
Elinor put a hand to her head, overcome with relief that her father’s injury was not serious. She would speak to Helga herself about the other suits of armor around the castle. They should inspect the weapons displayed in the Great Hall, as well. There were items all about the castle that were used as adornments but that could prove to be deadly. Maybe they should hang more tapestries and fewer weapons of war on the walls.
Satisfied that her father was being taken care of, Elinor left the study. She found Merida standing just outside the door. The girl’s face was ashen, her expression panic-stricken.
“You look as if you have seen a ghost,” Elinor said. “What is the matter?”
“How…how is the king?” Merida asked.
Elinor expelled a tired but relieved breath. “He shall heal nicely, according to the physician. It could have been much worse had he been sitting behind his desk. The castle staff must inspect every suit of armor on display to make sure they are secure. We cannot allow another accident such as this to come to pass.”
