Page 11 of Connal

This woman came wearing that facking woman’s ring on her finger––the same bauble he and Shaw and Nyall had watched Connal throw into the sea a year past. How could she have the thing? Why would she come to Caladh? Did Merrick find the ring, and place it on the woman after abducting her? Was this some bizarre Finfolk scheme to force the laird out of his melancholy?

Nyall crouched down to peer into her face. Now he could see the faint shadows of sleeplessness under her eyes, and a small wound on her bottom lip. Crescent marks from her nails scored the palms of her hands, and she had faint but darkening abrasions and bruises on her chin, jaw and throat. Hollows beneath her cheekbones and the very slenderness of her body suggested she had been starved or neglected proper meals. Her wrists seemed thin enough to snap between two of his fingers.

Her fairness did not stir him, but the obvious signs of her fragility added to his concerns.

The woman suddenly stirred, and her golden lashes parted as she squinted at him. A shaft of sunlight from the window slit gilded her face as if to erase the marks of harm done to her, and turn her innocent prettiness into majestic beauty. Nyall could see now how easily the laird had become enthralled by her.

“Please don’t cut out my tongue,” she murmured.

Of everything she might have said, that completely disarmed him. For the first time since he’d seen her he imagined what this ordeal must be like for her, a woman from a distant future time who had no knowledge of where she was or the people around her. That notion stirred something in him, an old and almost forgotten protectiveness.

“Never shall I harm you, Mistress.” He hoped rather than knew that to be truth.

“Good boy.” She reached out and patted his shoulder, and then shifted away from him and went back to sleep.

Nyall slowly rose and back away from her. The woman could only be considered an intruder, and interloper, he reminded himself, and yet that didn’t matter anymore. He had a sudden, fierce desire to stand guard over her. Since his unhappy boyhood he’d stopped coddling females, more so since Joana MacMar had so selfishly ended her life. They caused nothing but trouble, and yet still this strange creature had touched something inside him. Something that reminded him of his own màthair. She even looked a little like Tiree.

How may I love a thing like you? his mother’s crazed voice shrieked from a distant corner of his memory. You’re as much a horror as your sire.

As Nyall left the chamber he remained so befuddled by the encounter that he nearly walked into Fletcher, who eyed him as if he’d caught him beating the woman.

“I didnae touch her,” he assured the seneschal.

“Then I shallnae end you, lad,” Fletcher said, his expression darkening until his gaze shifted to the red Fae crystals studding Nyall’s sword hilt, and he sighed. “Apologies, Captain. ’Tis been a trying day.”

Everyone at Dun Ard knew of the seneschal’s rare mortal weakness, which blinded him to the faces of others. Fletcher had no choice but to address everyone from the laird to the lowest scullery as “lad” or “lass” unless he recognized something that he knew only they possessed, such as Nyall’s blade.

“I came but to assure she’s well.” A half-lie seemed better than the truth. “Shall I send guards to stand watch?”

The seneschal grimaced. “I reckoned I’d ask Meg sit with her until the evening meal. She was Lady Joana’s maid, and lassies tend to trust and confide in each other more so than men.”

Nyall had once thought Fletcher too soft-hearted to be an effective warrior, but over time he realized his ways were simply different––and sometimes far more effective than brute force. “Mayhap choose another maid. Meg’s too sharp with other females.”

“Aye, you’re right. You’ve a moment to spare?” When he nodded the seneschal gestured for him to follow.

Fletcher led him down to the room off the great hall where he kept his scrolls and tallies. Once they were inside he closed the door, and lit a few candles before placing a small, black case with a long strap on his work table.

“Mistress Baker left her satchel in the hall earlier,” the seneschal said. “I cannae figure how to open the thing.”

Nyall picked up the case, which had been fashioned from gleaming hide somehow polished to a glassy finish. Although damp and sporting some salt stains, it appeared as finely-made as the lady’s slippers. He turned it over as he looked on all sides before finding and tugging up the edge of a flap, which revealed a long row of tiny, gritted teeth set in black cloth along the top.

“Watch out.” Fletcher quickly knocked it out of his hands. “’Twill bite you.”

“’Tisnae alive, Seneschal.” Nyall picked up the case, and studied the teeth, which appeared to be forged from metal. He saw a peculiar miniature latch on one end and tugged on it, and the teeth parted with a tinny, slithering sound. That revealed a pouch filled with several slim books and small, inexplicable items, which he began removing and placing on the table.

“A vial of jam,” Fletcher said, holding up a finger-size bottle filled with yellow preserves. As he fiddled with the top a tiny flap popped, and the strong smell of spirits and flowers spread in the air. “Or no’.”

Once he’d emptied the case Nyall surveyed the contents, none of which he recognized. A flat, thin rectangle of black glass without any bubbles had some tiny inlaid buttons, as if it were a garment. A capped tube revolved to produce a pink stick with a slanted end. Wood-encased sticks of charcoal and smoother, glassy sticks with inner mechanisms he guessed to be ritual wands of some sort. Two of the slim books contained something like Roman lettering in such fine, perfectly-rendered script it seem impossible anyone could pen such. The third book held equally neat hand script in a glorious blue ink.

“She carries no weapons, at least.” Fletcher picked up a small, long case and cautiously opened the toothy top, and extracted a white tube wrapped in very fine labelled paper. “What ’tis a t-a-m-p-o-n? Something Roman?”

“I’ve no facking clue.” Nyall surveyed the confusing collection. “Leave everything to dry, and then return the case to Mistress Baker.” Something fell out of the hand-written book, and he picked up a miniature portrait on glassy paper. It had not been painted, he guessed, as he saw no brush strokes. The man depicted had a bald head, large eyes and a knowing smirk. “The lady wore a second ring, didnae she?”

“Aye. A plain gold band on her left hand,” the seneschal said, and peered at the portrait. “You reckon ’tis her sire?”

The man looked nothing like Valerie, and something about him set Nyall’s nerves on edge. “No.”

The sky had turned black by the time Merrick attended to his last duty of the day. He held the thin, trembling hand of the venerable Ysal as he waded through the shallows with him onto the only islet in the bay that he hated. He could not look upon the ancient Selseus’s visage without launching into another tirade at the elder net-maker, who had decided this day to part ways with life.