Chapter 4

Padraig watched from the tower as his brothers rode off towards the northeast with the emissary and the king’s guard. He clenched his jaw and scowled as they disappeared over the rise. Worry and guilt were starting to eat away at him as he began to focus in on what this meant for Griogair.

He himself finally had all he had ever wanted. Lia was his legally wedded wife, and the MacInnis clan was his to run. Alasdair and Mairead would be happy as well. If word had been sent that her husband had died, Dair probably would have gone to her before the man had been put in the ground. With this contract the two clans were roughly the same size, so Dair would do well. Gair however... If the clan was a poor one or the Sinclair lass was not to his liking, Paddy didn’t know how he and Dair could ever repay their brother for this risk he had taken to ensure they were happy.

With the entire group out of sight, Paddy went back into the tower and took the stairs down to his chambers where he had left Lia to wait for him. He was surprised to find the door barred.

“Eliana?”

“Coming!”

He heard the bar slide from the rack and thump against the floor. The moment she opened it he pushed passed her and scanned the room. “Why was the door barred,”

“Is it not safest for me to bar the door when you are not with me?” Paddy scowled. Why would she not feel safe in their room?

“Did you bar your door in your father’s keep?”

“It had a lock with a key. It would not open for anyone who did not have the proper key.”

“Like a prison cell?”

He heard her quick intake of breath as she blinked up at him. Why did she look so tense and almost nauseous all of a sudden?

“It’s most fashionable.” Her voice was quiet and she wrapped her arms around her middle. “All the doors in the Stewart’s castle lock with a key. My mother told me I should keep it locked at all times so I could control who entered. I never considered it being like a prison cell, but it ended up being exactly that, didn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Will you hold me, Paddy? I’m cold.”

He scowled at her refusal to answer but pulled her in close. When he felt her trembling he picked her up and walked t the bed. He sat with his back against the headboard and held her on his lap with her head under his chin.

“What is wrong, Lia?”

“Do the three of you really think this game of yours can work?”

“We had not the time to think on it nor even to discuss it when the emissary put the papers in front of us we just acted. It will work out. All three of us have the same name, so it will be legal even if the emissary finds out.”

“The first page of the missive says which of you is to wed each woman. You are choosing to do something other than what the king decreed.”

“The page that seals each proxy marriage has only our full name, with no particular nickname singled out in any way.”

“Now you’re being naive. The king's wishes were clear on the first page.”

“If anything, Charles was careless. Technically, all three of us are married to all three women.”

“Now you’re being ridiculous.”

“Three brothers with identical names is indeed ridiculous. Even if we have more than one child at a time I will not do that to them.”

“And I will not let them switch places. It is a cruel trick.”

“Cruel?”

“Yes. I was devastated when I found out it was Dair who had kissed me.”

“You were six!”

“Yes. And it was my first kiss! I had wanted your kiss to be my fist. I was furious with you.”

“At me?”

“Yes. You just watched. You knew I wanted to kiss you, but you let him take your place.”

“Then I punched him for it.” He felt her face smile against his chest.

“I did rather like that part. I think it might have been the only reason I forgave you. I was on the lookout for it after that though, and angry again whenever I knew you were swapping nicknames.”

“Father always encouraged us to do it regularly so nobody knew who was who. We thought it a great prank when we were small and did it so often that even now if we are called by the wrong name we simply answer anyways and never let on. Really it's only since our father died that we have not switched on purpose. Even still, only those who know us well can tell us apart easily. Charles certainly never did know which of us he was talking to. Besides nicknames are not legal names, Lia. The marriages used our full name so are legal for whichever one of us signs.”

“Can you change the name you are called by forever as easily as that? Will you not miss it? Or feel that it is not truly you?”

“I don’t expect I will have to. Most of the staff and clan simply call us all Laird MacDonald anyways and never use any nickname. Those who call me Paddy will continue to do so if the emissary is not around. If Charles ever comes up it isn’t likely he’ll remember what he said in the first place so once the Emissary returns to London it won’t matter.”

“What of Dair and Gair? They will be introduced to their clans with the wrong name. They will forever be someone else.”

“It’s just a nickname. It isn’t who we are.”

“Perhaps I should call you Gair then.” Paddy flipped Lia onto her back and pinned her beneath him.

“You wish to marry my brother?”

“Don’t be foolish. I’m proving my point. It would bother you to hear me call out his name when you are inside me. The name you go by does matter. What of Gair? Won’t his wife be calling him by another name? I’m certain it will bother him.”

Padraig brushed his lips over hers, not wanting to admit she had indeed made her point. He and his brothers had shared women before. At times their lovers had indeed called them by the wrong name and they had never corrected them. But he knew he could not do that with Lia. He settled down between her legs and pressed against her, wanting to be closer to her.

“In all honesty through,” she said as she looked up at him, “I think I should call you Gair until we are certain the emissary is not coming back. He has to pass this way to get back to London and I may accidentally call you the wrong name if I don’t practice.”

Padraig crushed his lips onto hers and pressed her down into the mattress. Why did the idea of her calling him Gair bother him so much? Her hands came up to grip his arms and Padraig was shocked by how cold they felt.

“You’re actually cold, Lia?”

“Yes.”

“How can your flesh be cold when you are fully dressed and underneath me?” She tried to look away but he put a hand under her chin and turned her face back towards his. Her eyes were sad and she was biting her lip.

“The truth, Lia. Are you not well?”

“Our healer says I should be fine in time.”

“What is wrong?” She chewed her lip for a moment before answering.

“I have spent the last two years in my room with as little food and heat as could be provided without risking my death.”

The room seemed to tilt sideways as that information sank in. She had been stuck in one room for nearly two years? Had she been imprisoned for marrying him? The king’s guard had threatened that, but he had not believed Charles would allow it. Certainly not for two whole years. Emotions churned inside him and it was anger that erupted. He yelled, “WHAT!” and then cursed his carelessness when Lia flinched away from him. He closed his eyes and tried to compose himself before he spoke again. “The king’s guard really kept you a prisoner all that time?”

Her eyes searched his and her voice was very quiet when she answered. “No. At first, the guard only insisted on escorting me everywhere, so I couldn’t sneak off again. They were very kind to me, they just didn’t trust me not to run back to you at the first opportunity. One of them took my missive to the king and when he returned a few weeks later my father burned the reply before I could read it and decreed I was to stay in my room at all times. He told the staff I was to be given nothing but cold porridge or bread to eat and he would beat anyone who helped me. When I complained, he made it just onion for a whole week! The maids and even the king’s guards tried to sneak in other things, but they didn’t manage it every day. Cook often baked some fruit or nuts into the bread for me. He had to chop them really fine so as not to be caught but it was nice that it didn’t always taste the same. Father’s own guard would check everything that came up the stairs, so the pieces had to be very small, and very little got in that was not baked into the bread. Sometimes I’d wake up and find some freshly dug carrots or wild berries, though I don’t know how they got there, it was just there in the morning when I woke despite the door being locked from the outside and barred from within. The guards sometimes managed to secret things in their cloaks for me, but they weren’t often allowed above stairs.

One time when one of them came up he suggested I write you a letter to tell you what was happening. I wrote it quickly and gave it to him, but Father intercepted it. He was so mad that I think he was planning to beat me, but the guards intervened. The one with the note went to the dungeon and the others agreed not to leave MacDonald land unless it was decreed by the king. Which meant I had no way to get letters to anyone.”

Still feeling bewildered by this news, Padraig’s hands ran over his wife. “You are not all that much too thin,” he said aloud.

“Nay, I ate enough, just not well, and my only exercise was pacing around the room trying to warm myself when the fire was not enough.”

“Why would Donald do that?” Padraig hadn't really intended to ask the question aloud, but he did. Lia just shrugged in response. “I’ll get the healer -” Lia held his arms tighter when he would have gotten up.

“When the emissary came he had the healer from Stuart come to see me and I have had better food than even the emissary was given for the past two weeks. Meat and eggs at every meal! Though I have to eat it in small portions or it makes my stomach ache for hours. They say it may take a month or two for me to feel myself again. The healers both said two years with very little meat will do that.”

“Do what?”

“Make a body cold, pale, and easily tired.”

“I have never heard of it.”

“Apparently it happens to female slaves and prisoners fairly often,” Lia said. “Mary, our clan healer, says if a woman eats no meat her blood will get low because we shed blood with our courses but don’t get enough from meat to sustain the fluid in our body. She said I must eat plenty of meat, sluberkens or marrow quince and that sort of thing to build up my blood. They say walking about outside or even up and down the stairs to keep the blood moving is a good idea too. The emissary said to use leeches to fix it, but both Mary and the Stuart healer said not to. They said the problem is that my blood is low, not that I have too much of it. I used the one leach in my channel but I must admit it made me colder. Mother always said that no matter what anyone told me to do I should do what makes me feel better and stop anything that makes me feel ill.”

“Lia,” he said gently, “did that work well for your mother?”

“It did,” Lia said firmly with her eyes holding his. “She died, but the issue wasn’t with what the healer told her to do. Our healer wasn’t even allowed to see her! The problem was that my father forced her to drink that brew every day, even though it made her shake and foam at the mouth. By the time a healer saw her she was too close to death to be saved.”

Paddy just stared at her. He had no idea what had killed Lia’s mother, they had never talked about it. The woman had been sick on and off for as long as Paddy could remember. Then Lia had walked all the way to his home the day after the funeral and asked him to wed her. He had jumped at the chance and never thought twice about why she had come. Not that they had had much time to talk before the guard had come for her.

“I’m telling the truth, Paddy. On days when father was off hunting, mama would pour the brew down from the window and be fine. She could have a good long visit with me on those days and sometimes even write letters to Ellie. But every time my father made her drink it she would be ill. The maids noticed too and would try to give her less than the measure whenever they could reduce it without him noticing.”

“The king’s guards suspected too,” Paddy said, remembering the threat Lia had made when they’d found her with him. It had been enough of a worry that it gave them pause.

“Yes, they did, and they only saw her take it a few times before the king’s healers refused to let her have even a drop of it. My father ranted about that until the king punched my father in the face!”

“Charles himself? Not a guard?” She nodded.

Putting in that sort of effort did not seem to mesh with what Padraid knew of Charles. His brother James, perhaps, but not Charles. He was more likely to order it done. He must have been very angry.

“Father yelled that the potion was the only thing keeping her alive and that stopping it would kill her. The healers insisted that the one he gave her every morning was poison and the bedtime one contained the cure, but not enough of it to do her much good, it would only prologue her suffering. They tried having her drink the cure all day long, but it didn't work. Father says it was stopping the brew that killed her the healers said they were simply too late. Charles believed them, and so did the guard.”

“Why would Donald do that to his own wife?”

“He married Margaret the next day. She is younger than me. I ran to you when they were... you know.”

Padraig felt his gut sour and bile rise in his throat. His father had been the same way. The younger the lass, the better. “The lass was fewer than six and ten, and her father wed her to a man with five score or more?” Lia bit her lip and nodded.

“He sold much of my mother’s jewelry to buy his wife. I was glad about it though. His distraction with her was the only reason I managed to escape at all. My maid helped me to spike my guards’ drinks and I left when they were sleeping. If it weren’t for my father’s excitement to get his wife to bed and the maids dosing the guard's brew, I would not have been able to run off to be with you. I am so glad I did, Paddy. The memory of those two days we had together was all that kept me from despairing much of the past two years.”

Padraig sat up again and pulled Lia onto his lap. Something wasn’t adding up.

“When did the king take your father’s land and make you his ward?”

“I don’t know exactly, but I don't think it happened until after my mother died. He arrived two days before with some of his own doctors to try to save her. James came with a Catholic priest from Stuart too so she could have last rights when she died.”

“Charles brought doctors and a priest to see to your mother?”

“Yes. He was furious that they could do nothing. On the day of the funeral, the king told me he was leaving guards to watch me and that I was to go nowhere without them, not even if it was my father wanting to take me. He decreed that I be allowed no brew unless it came directly from Mary and no wine that a guard didn’t sample first. He said that he or James would be back to tell me what was going to happen. I knew as much about it as you when the guards caught up with us.” Paddy stared off into the distance trying to figure out what was so special about the MacDonalds that Charles would put so much time and effort into their clan. Charles was not one to run to the aid of a Laird’s ailing wife, let alone to show up with doctors and clergy. Again, James did those things when it struck his fancy, but he had never before known Charles to do so.

“I wish we knew what Charles said when he answered your letter.”

“The guard said he had read it and told me the king had said that I was to stay put until Ellie returned. That he would arrange both our marriages and that he would take my wishes under serious consideration but as I was the only heir on the land I could not leave until Ellie returned. I had thought that meant he would marry me to you since that was what I had asked him for and you were certainly a fit match for a secondborn! I watched from my window every day hoping that either my sister or a message would come saying it was time. I was so relieved to finally see the emissary with that royal banner out in front. Oddly, I'm here now, but Ellie had not yet arrived. The emissary said she is on her way though.”

“I have another question, Lia. One I should have asked long ago. I had been asking you to marry me from the moment I thought you might have come into your womanhood. Every time we met I would ask you to stay and you would not. Was your ailing mother really the only reason you kept refusing me?”