“Oh yes. It was not long before Garban came and knocked at your chamber door. I prepared the wine and went in, finding the lady Grouch sitting up in bed. You were there also, my noble lord, fast asleep by her side. I don’t think that you had been disturbed at all during the night, for you were deep in sleep and… and snoring with a sound fit to wake the dead.” She grinned provocatively at him.
“How long was it before Garban came to our chamber?” he snapped.
“I went back to bed but could not sleep. Perhaps he came within the hour. I cannot be sure, only that it was not very long.”
The brehon looked troubled. “The Lady Gruoch told you that she could confirm you were by her side all night. Yet now we find that she left the bed, and who is to provide her with an alibi? We must send for her again.”
Lady Gruoch stood before them shortly afterward. She looked guilty but not alarmed. “Yes. I left the chamber. I have already told you that I do not sleep well. That was the reason why I asked the maid Margreg to fetch me mulled wine.”
“But you were seen going down the corridor,” pointed out the brehon. “Where did you go, lady?”
The Lady Gruoch raised her chin defiantly. “If you must know, I came to see my brother.”
MacBeth looked unhappy. He glanced at Cothromanach, who was gazing thoughtfully at her. “This is a sensitive matter, lady. You know of what you might be accused? You know why I need to clarify the matter?”
“I know it well enough, my lord. But I came here for a purpose that I would keep between myself and his soul. All you need to know is that my brother was well and alive when I came here. Furthermore, when I left him, he was still alive and well.”
“That is not all I need to know, madam!” MacBeth almost shouted.
“Softly, noble lord,” intervened the brehon. Then he turned to Lady Gruoch. “But in truth, the noble lord is right, madam. We need to know the reason that you came here like a thief in the night. What intercourse could you have with your brother that needed such secrecy as to be conducted in the blackness of the night, that needed to be kept secret from your own husband?”
The Lady Gruoch was flushed and unhappy. She gazed at MacBeth for several moments and turned back to the brehon. “Very well. You will already have the evidence, so I will confess to you.”
MacBeth groaned helplessly. “Evidence? What are you saying, lady?”
“It is common knowledge that my brother, Malcolm, was going to claim the High Kingship when my husband’s grandfather dies or abdicates the throne at Sgain. It is well known that MacBeths cousin, Duncan, is favored to succeed. Yet he is not the choice of the people, even in Atholl. My brother planned to raise the clans of Moray against Sgain. For that he needed money. I was given many jewels by my husband as wedding gifts when I married him. Much that I owned perished in Gillecomgains castle. So I decided that my brother could make better use of the gifts from MacBeth.”
“You say that you brought these jewels to your brother in the middle of the night?” asked MacBeth doubtfully.
“It was just after midnight, an appointment that I had arranged with my brother last evening so that no one would know of the gift.”
“Was his door secured?”
“Yes. It was bolted, but he opened when he heard my voice call to him.”
“You say that you left him alive?”
“I did so. He secured the door after me.”
“And you went straightaway back to your bedchamber?”
“I did. And that was, as I say, just after midnight.”
“The trouble is that you have no witness that he was alive when you left here,” the brehon sighed.
“I did not think I needed a witness. I understood from Margreg that the servant Segan disturbed the killer and was knocked unconscious by him some hours after I left my brother. That shows that I am innocent of the deed.”
As she had been speaking, the elderly brehon had been examining the room very carefully.
“What is it?” demanded MacBeth curiously. “What do you seek?”
Cothromanach looked at him and smiled thinly. “Why, a bag of jewels, what else?”
Lady Gruoch stared at him in disbelief. “You found no jewels? But that was the evidence that I thought you had and would trace them to my ownership. Why…”
MacBeth, ignoring her, was also searching the room carefully. Finally he stood before her.
“There are no jewels here, madam,” he observed heavily.
“I do not understand it. He would not have given them to anyone else for safekeeping unless…” Her eyes widened as she stared at her husband.
MacBeth turned to the brehon. “Do we not have another motive before us, Cothromanach? The assassin was not solely a murderer but a thief.”
“It would appear so. Yet, let me remind you, noble lord, that the killer, thief or no, was still known to the prince. Why else would the killer be let into the chamber, why else would the prince have turned his back on the hand that then struck him down?”
MacBeth bowed his head in thought. Then he smiled grimly. “I have an idea. Garban!”
The servant came forward.
“Are the gates still secured and my sentinels in place?”
“Not even a mouse could have left this castle without them being aware of it, noble lord.”
“Good. Then we shall search for Lady Gruoch’s jewels. I doubt whether our assassin has had time to dispose of them.”
“Very well, noble lord. Where shall I start?”
MacBeth looked through the opened door into the corridor. “We will start with Segan’s chamber, it being nearest. Proceed, Garban. You, madam, will return to your chamber until I send for you.”
MacBeth and Cothromanach followed the elderly steward into the servants bedchamber. As Garban entered, he seemed to stumble and reached out a hand to steady himself on the wall. He cut short an exclamation and brought his hand away. His fingertips were stained with blood.
MacBeth asked Garban to bring a candle, which he did. There was a small patch of blood on the wall, at shoulder level.
Garban began to make a diligent search, and it was not long before, examining beneath the bed, he emerged with a cry of triumph. He held out a small leather sack. They watched with fascination as he opened it and poured its contents on the bed. The muddle of jewels glittered and sparkled in the candlelight.
“Are they the jewels that you gave to the Lady Gruoch?” demanded the brehon.
“They are, indeed,” replied MacBeth with satisfaction. “Garban, fetch the servant Segan back here, but do not mention this discovery to him.”
“I understand, noble lord,” Garban said with a grim smile.
Cothromanach the brehon looked thoughtfully at MacBeth. “Did you expect to find the jewels here?”
“As soon as I heard my wife’s explanation-yes. I began to understand how and why this foul deed was done.”
“Explain your deduction, my lord.”
“Not hard. This is what I believe happened: Maybe the prince Malcolm told his servant that he would be receiving the jewels from his sister. Maybe Segan saw the Lady Gruoch come to his master’s chamber and observed her entering with the sack. It was not politics that motivated Segan but greed. He waited until the castle was quiet and then he went to rouse his master by tapping at the door. Malcolm let him into the chamber, half- asleep. Seeing only Segan, a servant he trusted, he turned his back on him. That was when Segan struck. Two swift but fatal stabs in the back. He found the sack of jewels and took them back to his own bedchamber and hid them where we have now discovered them.”
“How then did Segan receive his own injuries?”
“Easy to tell. He had his story ready, that the murderer had stood behind the door and had given him a blow on the head which rendered him unconscious so that he could not recognize who it was. But this was the difficult part. Have you ever tried to give yourself a blow on the back of the head? Nevertheless, he needed some visual sign to show that he had been attacked. In fact, I might not have spotted the flaw in his story had not you realized
