Page 27 of The Splendor of Fire
She nodded her head, then ran an imaginary sword through her left shoulder and mimicked blood gushing from her wound.
Lady MacLean’s eyebrows shot up. “We thought Léo was run through at the chest, but it could’ve been the shoulder.”
Moira walked up to the Beithir and took an imaginary knife to his shoulder, patted it, flipped maggots into it, and wound an invisible bandage around it.
Understanding smoothed the great giant’s features. “You cared for his wounds when he got to prison?”
Finally.They were getting somewhere.
The Beithir gave her a skeptical look. “He isn’t one who easily trusts. How did you gain his trust?”
He wasn’t? That was news to her. They had only met thrice, and he was comfortable enough to kiss her the first time, insult her the second, and give her a missive the third. A memory of his heated kiss upon her lips made her stomach flutter, but she refused to let herself blush and be thought a woman of loose morals. That was Léo’s idea, not hers.
She took the bag from her back and opened it, taking her charcoal and paper out.
Hector read her words as she wrote them. “My father is the prison priest. He looks after the more important prisoners of the MacKinnon family. Once a week, he visits Léo in prison and brings him benevolence gifts from the holy church. I helped him when Léo was brought in near death. Then, we became...”
She paused. What were they? The Beithir’s ice blue eyes squinted. “Friends. I sketched a picture of Gabriel based on his description…”
What else did she know? Nothing, really. Why was she here? The question reformed in her mind and she pushed it away. Because it was the right thing to do. Because of Gabriel.
Moira wrote the only other detail that she knew. “His wife’s name is Taya.” Hector paused, something protective in his voice. “Théa.” Hispronunciation of the name matched Léo’s. “T-h-e-a, short for Théodora.” Their aqua eyes met. “I knew her.”
Moira put her charcoal to the paper. “That’s all I know.”
“Is he well?”
She scrawled an answer and Hector read it. “His wound is healed but he’s rapidly losing weight. The change in his appearance is shocking. And he is languishing without his boy. I’m…worried for him.”
Sniffing began across the room as Lady MacLean looked down into her baby’s face and wiped tears away.
The Beithir’s eyebrows drew together. “And the conditions?” He paused while she wrote. “His, better than most…but not good. No windows. No fresh air. Almost seven months.”
He growled and paced the room, his hands balling into fists. “And there is no possibility of breaking him out as we did with my wife?”
Moira looked to the ceiling, considering how best to explain, then flipped the paper over and sketched her answer. He watched as she drew the shoreline of Skye, the sound, Pabay, and the great prison, its walls, towers, and seven stories. Beside the tower she sketched a century?1 of soldiers, and on the neighboring island of Scalpay she sketched two more centuries.
The blond man eyed the map and the sketch of Cràdh and traced the shore with an ink-darkened finger. “Look at the accuracy of the coastline. It’s better than our map.”
Moira swatted his hands away and filled in the Kyle Akin and the village, and the hills surrounding it, then Loch Alsh and Kyle Rhea. On the shores of Scotland she sketched five more centuries spread out along the coast. Beside it she sketched a wolf howling.
“These are the Wolf’s forces?”
She flipped the paper over. “Part of them.”
She flipped back to the map and sketched a bìrlinn, then pointed to it and made corresponding rectangles in the water. Sixty.
“By the saints.” Moira wasn’t prepared to hear the heartbreak in the Beithir’s voice and she put a hand to his muscled forearm. He looked down at her. She flipped to the back of the paper.
The Beithir spoke her written words. “‘There’s something you don’t know.’ What?”
She motioned the dark man and the light man to come farther into the room and got up and closed the door. Drawing a deep breath, she wrote the information she had resolved not to share unless they could be trusted. “Léo is Chief of the MacKinnons.” The Beithir looked at the sentence and then to his wife. “What do you mean?”
Her charcoal flew over the paper. “He was named chief on his father’s deathbed and confirmed by his father’s chieftains before they were killed. Mowbray MacKinnon confirms the story to my father.”
The Beithir’s face drew tight. “How do you know Mowbray? ‘He’s the new keeper of Cràdh Prison along with half a century of MacKinnon guard loyal to the King of the Isles forced to prison assignment. Mowbray has a plan’—a plan for what?”
Moira took a deep breath praying to God her father would be protected. “To restore Léo as rightful chief and to overthrow Niall. Mowbray believes it was Niall’s plan all along to kill or capture Léo. I believe his sister Elspeth may have tried?”
