Page 23 of Highland Sword
The villain was dying, Morrigan kept reminding herself. Dying a slow and painful death. She couldn’t think of anything more fitting, even if she herself wasn’t inflicting it.
Maisie put the flyer back down in its ordered place. “I know it’s foolishness, but whenever I think of satirists—and artists in general—I assume they’re progressive andradical. That they have a natural interest in alleviating the suffering of people and use their talents to help their fellow man in some way.”
Morrigan bumped her sister’s shoulder affectionately. “That’s because you have a good heart. A clear conscience. You always see the best in people. And you try to improve the world.”
A year ago, Maisie and Fiona, Niall’s sister, had founded Edinburgh Female Reform Society. True idealists and revolutionaries, their efforts stopped dead and Fiona was arrested when the government used its iron fist to crush all opposition and protest. Since then, here in the Highlands, Maisie had continued her reform work, using the sharp point of her pen. And now, with Fiona again by her side, she was planning to start another chapter of the Female Reform Society in Inverness.
“Artists generally put a signature of some kind on their work.”
“This one is too much of a coward to put his name to them.”
“If we look close enough, however, he might still reveal something about himself.” Her sister ran her fingers around the outside edges of one. “I’ve never known an artist who didn’t ache for some kind of recognition.”
“When Searc or Blair get their hands on him, he’ll learn the real meaning ofache.”
“I suspect he does this work for the money,” Maisie said. “For a Highlander to do this, I have to assume he’s starving. Maybe he has a family he needs to feed. You and I both know who’d be paying for such underhanded disparagement.”
Morrigan knew. They all knew. Sir Rupert Burney had been moved from London to Edinburgh to Glasgow to Inverness this year to crush the reform movement and the threat Cinaed posed in Scotland.
“The artist is also a storyteller, and there’s more than one story being conveyed here.” Maisie traced a circle on one, then the next and next. “Look at this area of each etching. Do you see the similarities? They’re all women.”
“You’re right.” Morrigan looked closely. “Are those crosses on their coats?”
“I believe they are.”
“They’re nuns.” Whether the etchings depicted a mob or not, the figures were repeated, artfully worked in. “Are there any nuns living in the Highlands?”
Maisie shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“Is he saying that Catholics are behind the movement?” Cinaed and the reformers were on the same side, but these etchings cast them as opposites, with the son of Scotland depicted as corrupt, power hungry, and a potential tyrant.
“Perhaps.” Maisie leaned closer. “But look at the smaller faces, mixed in with the nuns. Children are standing with them.”
“School children,” Morrigan suggested. “A Catholic school?”
They both knew that practicing Catholicism had been illegal in Scotland and England for centuries, but the faith had survived in the Highlands by going underground, particularly in the north and in the Western Isles. It had to. The religion had too many ties with the old Jacobite loyalty to the Stuarts.
“Could there be such a school in Inverness?” Maisie asked.
“Blair might know.”
“Searc definitely would.”
A knock on the door had both women hurriedly stacking books on top of the flyers. Despite the fact that Isabella had already seen them, she didn’t need constant visualreminders that the man she loved was at the center of a growing storm.
She was relieved to find Fiona at the door. Sister-in-law to Maisie, the young widow had spent some time in a British prison before being freed. As of last month, she and her two daughters also had found a refuge behind the walls of Dalmigavie Castle.
“Where are the girls?” Maisie asked.
“Terrorizing their grandmother.”
“How is John doing today?”
John Gordon had helped Isabella, Morrigan, and Maisie flee Edinburgh, traveling with them to Inverness. Because of his assistance, the young Edinburgh lawyer was arrested by the dragoons pursuing them and tortured until Cinaed and Blair managed to free him.
“Better than I’ve seen him since I arrived. He joined me and Catriona and Briana on a walk to the village and back.”
“He clearly enjoys your company,” Maisie said.
