Page 56 of Wolf Heir
“So,” Morag said, the word dropping with the force of a hammer. “What is this all about?” She looked them over, eyes grazing Aisling’s face and then immediately dismissing it, as if the very sight of her was a waste of time. “Is it true, then, that you tried to kill yourself?” The question caught in the air, heavy and raw. “What is this all about?”
Taken aback by the absurdity of the notion that Aisling had tried to kill herself, she was sure Morag had already heard the rumors of what had happened. And it had nothing to do with Aisling trying to kill herself!
“Come into my solar so we can talk privately,” Morag said, softening her stance, as if she realized she might control the scenario better if she hid her anger from any clan members who might walk by.
Morag walked into her solar while the women followed her into the room. She sat high and straight on her embroidered chair, as if she were holding court, and gestured for the others to stand before her. The room smelled faintly of incense. For a moment, Morag said nothing. She allowed the silence to stretch, watched the discomfort flicker across the faces of her courtiers.
Morag was a scrawny woman despite all her bravado. But her rounded eyes could give anyone a chill.
Aisling didn’t want to see her! She wanted to see the chief. She didn’t expect justice at the hands of this woman.
Cook outlined the situation, and Aisling's mother verified that the mushrooms were indeed poisonous. Cook also shared that no one working for her would make a mistake in picking poisonous mushrooms, then preparing them for just one specific person. Nelly then recounted how she had orchestrated a distraction to ensure Gormelia consumed the food she had contaminated.
“Just because Kenna, Wilma, and Gormelia went to the forest to harvest mushrooms, doesna mean theothertwo women were involved,” Morag said. “Further, Gormelia might no’ have realized the mushrooms she had picked were poisonous.”
“All of my assistants know which mushrooms are good and which are no’. They would no’ have made the mistake,” Cook reiterated. “The fact that Gormelia gave Aisling the plate withonly the poisonous mushrooms indicates that she knew just what she was doing.” Cook folded her arms.
The man who had taken Gormelia to her bed returned with one of her muslin herb bags. He held the bag at arm’s length. Then passed the bag to her, his own hands trembling visibly, as if he’d half expected it to bite him. “Are these remnants of the poisonous mushrooms?”
Aisling’s mother took the bundle with an expertise born of decades spent in the company of roots and rot. She pressed it between her fingers, then drew it close and gave it a deep, deliberate sniff.
She opened the cloth, her nails working deftly at the crude stitching, and spilled the contents into her palm: brittle threads of moss-green, a few shriveled caps of brownish fungus, what looked like the fibrous stems of something wild. Her face was an impassive mask while she sorted the contents into little piles in her hand, but her eyes flicked up to the man as if she were weighing him alongside the mushrooms.
“These are not from the market but from the forest.” She pointed at a small clump of mushrooms with a kind of reverence and dread, then selected an individual and held it to the light. “These are deadly.”
The man at her side exhaled, his jaw slackening with relief and apprehension in the same gesture.
“Aye, they are the same found in the dish meant for Aisling that Gormelia ate from,” Blair said.
Morag defended them. “It still doesna mean that Kenna and Wilma were involved.”
The door to the solar slammed back on its hinges with such force that all six women and the guard jumped as if the devil himself had burst into the room. Chief Hamish strode in, his stride clipped and heavy, the ceremonial iron clasp of his plaid catching the firelight.
His face was a mask, the kind highlanders wore at funerals, and his eyes swept the chamber once before settling, cold and merciless, on Morag.
“I’m handling it, Hamish,” Morag said, her tone haughty. Morag drew herself up as only the chief’s wife could do in front of an angry mate. “Rest assured, there’s no need for male interference in the matter. It’s a woman’s matter.”
“’Tis no’ a ‘woman’s matter’ when murder is attempted,” Hamish shot back, his words crisp as the first frost. “Since when do my words constitute interference?”
Morag squirmed a little, seemingly torn between the urge to speak her mind, as she was used to doing with her courtiers, and the wisdom she’d earned by living with Hamish as his mate all these years.
Hamish gave Morag a steely-eyed glower. He planted himself squarely between the hearth and a small table, casting a long shadow over the ladies. “I have had word from Drustan,” he said, in a voice that made the shutters tremble, “that there was an attempt to poison Aisling, and that the poisoner herself has now repented with her own suffering.”
For a moment, Aisling felt a flicker of gratitude toward Hamish. He, at least, would not try to sweep her attempted poisoning under the rushes. She could believe he would mete out justice without regard to the ties of blood or clan since Morag seemed to be defending the ones who had tried to poison her. She was also sure Gormelia wouldn’t have kept her misdeeds secret from her friends.
Morag was not one to yield ground on her turf despite knowing she was on treacherous grounds. Her eyes flared with a mixture of outrage and dread. “You presume too much, my laird. Women’s feuds are the realm of women. Aisling has always been a troublemaker, leading men astray and then casting them aside. It was likely a jest gone awry.”
The laird’s glare hardened. “Serving poisonous mushrooms to another pack member is no’ a jest. If it pleases you, my lady”—he sounded facetious when he spoke the words—"we will have a full reckoning in the great hall. This is not the sort of justice that hides in the shadows. If poison has been used, I will see justice done, and the clan will know why.”
Morag held his gaze steady, even as a violent crimson crept up her neck and cheeks. She was outmaneuvered, and she knew it. “Nay, if you wish to speak here, then we shall.”
“Tell me what happened.” Hamish folded his arms across his chest, looking indomitable.
Cook explained the situation, and Blair, Nelly, and Aisling shared their experiences.
Hamish looked at Kenna and Wilma, who had remained silent through the whole thing. “What say you?” His voice was hard.
Kenna meekly said, “We didna know that Gormelia had collected poisonous mushrooms.”
