Page 90 of Bride of Mist
“Hmm.”
“‘Hmm’ what?”
“They didn’t say anything about the attackers?” she asked. “How many there were? Two? Six? A dozen? Whether they were mounted or not?”
“There wasn’t time.”
“And these are the same men who brought you the mac Giric clan badge?”
“Aye,” he said guardedly.
“Hmm,” she said again.
“What do ye mean, ‘Hmm’?”
She shrugged. “’Tis curious, don’t you think?”
Dougal didn’t think it was curious at all. “Who else could have found the badge but someone who was there?”
She waited a long while to answer. When she finally did, she spoke as if she were placing her words carefully amid broken glass. “Have you ever heard of…a false banner?”
He slammed his brows together. “Impossible,” he muttered.
“What? That one clan would commit a crime and blame another?”
“Not my clan.”
Bloody hell. Was the lass so desperate to vindicate the mac Giric clan, she’d cast aspersions on his own?
“Hmm,” she said for a third irritating time.
Still, doubt began to seep in through the cracks of logic. Was it possible he’d been so concerned about the fire, so worried about the villagers, so devastated by the destruction, he’d never thought to question the brothers’ story?
“False banners are common along the border,” she said. “One clan is always stealing another’s cattle and blaming the English.”
The seeds of suspicion she planted began to take root in Dougal’s brain. Just because no one in the clan had instigated a false banner attack before didn’t mean it was impossible.
Had the Fortanachs been entirely forthcoming? Could they have invented a tale to cover their own malfeasance?
“It might have been an accident,” she suggested. “My brother Gavand once overturned a lantern and set a storeroom on fire. He panicked and blamed my brother Tian.”
“This was no accident,” he said gravely.
Whoever had set the fire had waited until everyone was inside the church for the christening. Then they’d blocked the door and lit a torch.
He felt sick.
If Feiyan’s suspicions were true, if it was an act committed under a false banner… Were Fergus and Morris more than just bearers of bad news? Were they more than witnesses? Could they be the demons who’d perpetrated the massacre?
The Fortanach brothers were the kind of men to lie, cheat, and steal to their advantage. But could they have darker, more ambitious plans? Plans they would kill for?
“I’ve got to get home,” he bit out.
For all he knew, even now they could be poisoning Gaufrid and raiding the villages surrounding Castle Darragh, leaving smoldering embers in their wake.
“Wait!” she said, seizing his arm. “There’s something more.”
“I don’t need to hear more. I need to get to Darragh. Confront them face to face.”
