“Then you and whoever searched Brodie’s room could continue on to the next hidden door, and the next, ensuring no one slips past ye and no one is in the passage,” Niels said, nodding, and then smiled at Edith and complimented her. “Good idea, wife . . . Only the fifth person will be Alick. You will be safely down at the trestle tables with yer guard.”
Edith’s eyes widened. She’d quite forgotten about poor Alick hiding under the bed in their chamber. The young man must be wondering what the devil was happening at this point. Still, six people were better than one, she thought. But when she opened her mouth to say so, Niels silenced her with a quick kiss.
Lifting his head, he raised a hand to brush his knuckles lightly across her cheek and said, “I need to ken yer safe, wife. Else I’ll be distracted with worry and may make a mistake that could get meself or Tormod, or one o’ me brothers killed. ’Tis a murderer we’re hunting.”
Edith’s brow furrowed, but after a moment, she sighed and gave a reluctant nod. It wasn’t likely she would win this argument anyway. Men could be incredibly stubborn when it came to women treading on their territory, and she had no doubt Niels saw catching the killer as his job.
Besides, she didn’t think they would find anything in the chambers or passages anyway. Effie would hardly be hiding in there when she had so many exits to choose from. Most of which weren’t presently full of the men hunting her.
On top of that though, Edith also wanted a quiet moment to think. A good many things weren’t making sense to her and she felt sure if she could just sort through them slowly and logically, she could untangle this mystery.
Chapter 15
“M’lady?”
Edith stopped pressing on the stones in the wall behind the loo bench and glanced toward the garderobe door with a frown. “Moibeal?”
“Aye, m’lady,” her maid said, her tone wry. “Cameron fetched me over to see that ye were all right. It seems ye’ve been in there awhile and they were beginning to worry.”
“I’m fine. I’ll be out directly,” she called with exasperation and then peered at the wall again and sighed. She’d pressed every stone on the garderobe’s back wall and as far as she could tell nothing had happened. There was no click, not even a breath of sound, and certainly no hidden door slid inward to reveal the entrance to the passage from here. Neither had that happened in the first two garderobes. This was the third and last one she’d checked since leaving her husband and the others to search the bedchambers and passages above as Cameron and Fearghas escorted her below stairs.
Now, she eyed the wall and considered that there was probably more of a trick to the entrance in the garderobe than just pushing a stone. Otherwise, with so many people using it, anyone could accidentally lean against the correct stone and discover the hidden door.
But what would the trick be? she wondered, reaching out to try to turn a stone rather than push it.
“M’lady?”
“I’m coming!” Edith called with exasperation. Stepping down off the bench, she walked to the door and pushed it open. Despite being happy to escape the stench of the garderobes, she scowled at Cameron, Fearghas and Moibeal as she stepped out, and then focused on her maid and asked, “What?”
“I was just going to ask ye if ye wished me to fetch one o’ yer tonics,” Moibeal said patiently. “The men said as how ye’ve stopped at every garderobe since coming below, spending an awful lot o’ time in each, yet were immediately stopping at the next, so I thought mayhap ye had the flux and—”
“Nay, I’m fine,” Edith said, flushing as she realized how her behavior had been interpreted by her guards. Shaking her head, she stepped around the trio and headed for the kitchens, muttering, “I need to have a word with Jaimie.”
She wasn’t at all surprised when all three trailed after her. The men had to, and it wasn’t as if Moibeal had anything better to do at the moment. No doubt the guards had stopped her at the landing and refused to allow her to go clean the bedchamber as she normally would.
“Halt.”
Edith glanced up with surprise and eyed the man who had stepped in front of her as she approached the kitchen door. Two new soldiers were guarding it today, she saw, her gaze sliding from the stern face of the man before her to his wincing partner still by the door.
“Move, Sholto,” Cameron growled before Edith could speak. “Yer lady wants to enter the kitchens to speak to Jaimie.”
“Tormod ordered us no’ to let anyone pass,” the man said firmly.
“Well, yer lady trumps Tormod,” Fearghas said impatiently. “So move.”
“Sholto,” the second man said worriedly. “Mayhap ye should—”
“Shut up, Roy. I have this,” Sholto snapped, and then propped his hands on his hips and scowled at the lot of them. “I have me orders and—”
“Sholto,” Edith interrupted pleasantly.
Snapping his mouth shut, he eyed her warily. “Aye?”
“I am lady here. Tormod works fer me. Which means you work fer me. I want ye to move out o’ the way.” When he scowled and looked like he might refuse, Edith added, “And I suggest ye do it now or I’ll tell yer wife ye were messing with the ale wench and I had to treat ye fer the drip.”
“Ye mean the clap?” Moibeal gasped as Sholto paled and jumped to the side.
“Hmm,” Edith muttered, leading the way into the kitchens now that her path was clear. She did hate that name for the ailment. It just reminded her of what often had to be done for it. Quite frequently, the patient’s fiddle got clogged up with the discharge dripping out of it. When that happened, her mother had said one must clap it hard with your hands from both sides to try to unclog it. She’d also said, though, that a hand and a book might be used instead.
Sholto was such an annoying character, however, that Edith had used two books. The man had howled endlessly afterward. She doubted very much if he’d be visiting the ale wench again anytime soon. Come to think of it, he probably wouldn’t come back to Edith with any healing needs either, she acknowledged with a grin as she glanced around the kitchen for the cook.
“He’s no’ here,” Moibeal said with surprise as they surveyed the almost empty kitchen. Honestly, four people were like a drop of water in a bucket in this huge room.
“I’ll ask one o’ the maids where he is,” Fearghas murmured and hurried off to do so.
Edith watched him go, but then found her gaze sliding to the back of the room as a memory of Cawley lying bleeding on the floor flashed through her mind. Her gaze slid over the large rush mat now lying where he had been and it didn’t take a lot of hard thinking to work out that it was covering the stain his blood had left behind. Cleaning it out of the cracks and crevices of the stone would have been impossible.
“M’lady?”
Edith blinked and looked around at Moibeal’s voice, startled to find that in her distracted state she’d crossed the room and now stood staring down at the mat where Cawley’s body had been. “Aye?”
“Fearghas says Jaimie is out in the gardens picking some herbs,” the maid told her gently.
Nodding, Edith peered back at the rush mat, and then at the barrel behind it. That would have been where Cawley had been sitting when he was stabbed, she thought, and then shifted her attention to the door next to it. The pantry. Tormod had told them that there was another hidden entrance in there, she recalled. If the killer had used it, they might not even have had to come out of the room to stab him. Just crack the door open and—
“M’lady?” Moibeal said gently.
“Aye,” Edith sighed, turning away. She would check the pantry later and see if she could find the hidden entrance. Or perhaps she’d just let Tormod show both her and Niels where it was later.
Heading for the back door out of the kitchens, she asked, “Out in the gardens, ye said?”
“Tormod said ye were no’ to leave the keep,” Cameron reminded her as he and Fearghas caught up to them.
“It is only the gardens, Cameron,” she said on a sigh. “There are no windows on this side of the building for anyone to shoot arrows at me from. ’Twill be fine.”
“But—”
“I’ll just step outside the back door,” she said soothingly. “Ye can bring Jaimie to me. ’Tis far too hot in here to stand about waiting fer ye to find him. At least by the back door it will be cooler.”
Whether he would have argued the point or not, she didn’t know. They’d reached the back door and she was already pushing her way out.
“I’ll go fetch Jaimie,” Fearghas said, sounding annoyed as he hurried ahead of her.
“There,” Edith said cheerfully, ignoring the way Cameron was glaring at her. “Is this no’ nice?”
“Nicer than the flogging we’ll take fer letting ye out o’ the keep,” Cameron groused.
“We’ll only be a minute. Tormod will never ken,” she assured him. When he merely eyed her with disbelief, she raised one hand to her chest, the other to the air and said with amusement, “May God strike me down if I’m wrong in this.”