Aileen hurried to the table, set the ewer aside and brought the bowl over to the bed.
“Go ahead,” Rory said after taking the bowl from her sister. When Dwyn immediately plugged her nose, he offered the mug. Theywere all silent as she gulped the liquid down, and Geordie took the opportunity to look her over. Her face was pale, and therewere tracks on her cheeks. Tears had obviously escaped her eyes as she’d purged. He wasn’t surprised. Even muffled throughthe door, her retching had sounded violent. But she was still beautiful to him, Geordie thought, and then quickly took themug from her when Dwyn suddenly froze, her eyes widening with horror.
Even as he set the mug on the bedside table, Rory was moving forward with the bowl Aileen had brought over. Geordie turnedback just in time to support her shoulders and hold her hair back as she brought up the liquid she’d just taken in.
“How is she?”
Geordie lowered the hand he’d been rubbing the back of his neck with and glanced up wearily at that question from Jetta ashe reached the trestle tables. “She’s finally asleep, but ’twas a long night,” he said quietly, and then shifted his gazeover the people at the table. It was morning, and the entire inhabitants of the castle appeared to be breaking their fastexcept for Dwyn and her sisters. Dwyn was sleeping. Her sisters were watching her while he came below to break his fast andfind out what they’d discovered about who had poisoned Dwyn. His gaze stopping on Rory, he asked grimly, “What the devil wasit she was poisoned with? She was retching all night.”
Rory opened his mouth to answer, paused and then sighed tiredly. “I am too weary to recall the name o’ the plant at the moment,but its only effect is to upset a person’s stomach and set them vomiting.”
“From what Alick said, it sounded like ye recognized the smell o’ it in her mug,” Geordie said quietly.
“Aye,” Rory said dryly. “It has a very recognizable, sickly sweet smell that ye do no’ forget once ye smell it, and with allthe liquid gone, some o’ the crushed leaves were in the bottom o’ the mug, the smell faint, but there.” He grimaced and added,“The taste is no’ one ye’re likely to forget either, but it can be covered with a drink that has a strong flavor o’ its own.”
“But it would not have killed her?” Jetta asked solemnly. “So someone just wanted to make Dwyn sick?”
“I guess cutting her feet was no’ misery enough fer her attacker,” Geordie said grimly.
“What?” Rory said with surprise. “I thought that was an accident?”
“Nay,” Jetta said sadly. “The glass was not there when Dwyn entered the garderobe and Aulay and Geordie think it was spreadon the floor deliberately so that she would cut herself on the way out.”
“The glass was evenly spread wall to wall rather than in any kind of circular or star-shaped pattern,” Geordie explained,not surprised Aulay had shared what they suspected with his wife. “And the torch by the garderobe was out.”
Everyone was silent for a minute, and then Alick said, “Well, Geordie, the good news is that ye’ve picked a bride someonejust wishes to torment and no’ kill like the rest o’ our sisters-in-law. That makes a nice change.” When everyone turned tolook at him, he said defensively, “Well, it is.”
Geordie shook his head, and rubbed his tired eyes. He’d been awake all night with Dwyn. While she’d had moments where herstomach had seemed to settle briefly, as it had before he’d carried her out of the garderobe, those moments had been few,short and far apart. She’d spent the rest of the time retching, doing so long after there was anything to bring up. But theprotracted retching had given her a headache, and begun to cause spasms in her stomach muscles. The additional symptoms hadmerely added to Dwyn’s misery.
It had been terribly difficult to watch her suffer so and not be able to do anything but hold her, rub her back and keep herhair back from her face. Geordie had been more than relieved when she’d finally fallen asleep as the sun rose. He suspectedit was simple exhaustion that had allowed her to drift off, but when she’d slept for an hour without waking to retch again,and her sisters had insisted he should break his fast first, he’d judged it might be over and safe for him to come below briefly.He’d known the lasses had wanted to refresh themselves and change before leaving the room anyway, and his absence would givethem the chance to do that. Besides, Una and Aileen had gone for dinner the night before while he hadn’t, and had managedto drift off to sleep on pallets Aulay had ordered brought into the room for them. With nothing to bring back up, and withDwyn growing weaker as each hour passed, her retching had become much quieter. Even so, he didn’t think he could have sleptthrough it and didn’t know how they had.
Running his hands through his hair now, he muttered, “I gather ye have no idea who poisoned her?”
“Nay,” Aulay admitted with a scowl. “Everyone was entering the great hall then, and there were a lot of servants coming outwith drinks. No one noticed the mug being set beside Dwyn.” He was silent for a minute, and then added, “We have been thinkingperhaps we should put the wedding and feast off at least until tomorrow night.”
“Dwyn will no doubt sleep through the day,” Jetta pointed out gently when Geordie opened his mouth to protest. “She will bein no shape for a wedding, let alone a wedding feast and the bedding tonight.”
Geordie
