Page 23 of Wolf Heir (Highland Wolves of Old #3)
Aisling was still setting plates of food out on the table to help feed the cooking staff when Nelly grabbed her arm and whispered to her, “Change your plate with Gormelia’s. I’ll create a distraction.”
Desperately wanting to know what was wrong, Aisling didn’t hesitate to follow her friend’s advice.
While the others were getting ale, Aisling grabbed her plate, and Nelly slapped one of Gormelia’s friends across the face.
“I know you’ve been spreading rumors about me shirking my duties because I’m friends with Aisling. ”
The girl, Kenna, grabbed Nelly’s hair, and everyone’s attention was diverted to the ongoing fight.
Kenna and Wilma, Gormelia’s friends, both had unremarkable brown hair, and both were mousy in disposition, so neither stood out among the other pack members.
Aisling was surprised when Kenna fought back.
“You think you’re special because Coinneach’s brother is paying attention to you now?” Kenna tried to scratch Nelly’s face.
Nelly punched her in the stomach. Aisling switched the plates and then came to Nelly’s rescue. Cook, as if suddenly aware of the fight in the kitchen, shouted, “If you want to eat, you will sit down now and eat. If you want to lose your position in the kitchen, then keep fighting.”
Everyone quickly moved around the table to take their seats.
Nelly squeezed Aisling’s hand under the table.
“’Tis accomplished,” Aisling whispered to Nelly. “What had Gormelia done?”
“I saw her add something to the meal and then set it at your place on the table. She never serves you. I suspected foul play.”
“Thank you, Nelly.” Aisling wondered if Gormelia had put something in her food that was meant to sicken Aisling or kill her. If so, Gormelia would get a surprise.
“Aye, once she began threatening you, I’ve been watching her.”
“I’m grateful to you for it. Did Kenna really disparage you to others?” Nelly had never told Aisling that she had, or she would have said something to her.
“Aye, she has. So it felt good to get her back for it and save you at the same time.”
They began to eat their meal, but Aisling noticed Cook was watching Gormelia as she drank her ale before starting to eat. Had Cook caught sight of Aisling switching plates with Gormelia?
Gormelia wasn’t observing Aisling, as if she were trying to pretend that if something bad happened to Aisling while she ate her meal, Gormelia hadn’t had anything to do with it.
But Kenna and Gormelia’s other friend, Wilma, both were watching Aisling, eating their food slowly, waiting for a reaction?
Finally, Gormelia took a bite of her food, chewed it, swallowed it, and within minutes threw up all over the table, splattering her friends sitting on either side of her.
They jumped back in horror, wiping the offending food off their kirtles.
Gormelia left the table and threw up on the floor several more times. Most of the women were aghast and stopped eating, but Cook, Aisling, and Nelly finished their meals.
“Eat up, ladies,” Cook said. “You will be starving by the dinner meal if you dinna.”
“Can we get new plates?” Kenna asked.
“Nay,” Cook said. “Eat around the spit-up food on your plate. You’ll live. The same goes for you, Wilma.”
“What about Gormelia?” Wilma asked, her voice taut with concern.
“It appears she has become ill and willna be able to keep any food down. She can clean up the mess she has made and retire to the women’s chambers. You can help her once you’re done eating.” Cook continued to eat her meal then.
The other women finished their meals and carried their plates from the table to wash. While Aisling, Nelly, and the others cleaned the pots and dishes, Kenna and Wilma brought their half-eaten meals to wash their plates.
“What could have made Gormelia sick?” Cook directly asked Kenna and Wilma.
They both looked back at Gormelia as she threw up some more on the stone floor.
Kenna and Wilma both shook their heads. Kenna grabbed Gormelia’s plate and was going to dump the contents, but Cook stayed her hand. “Leave it on the table there.”
Their eyes widened, and Aisling suspected Cook was planning to learn what had been added to the meal to make Gormelia so violently ill.
Cook motioned to Gormelia. “Aisling, can you get your mother to see to Gormelia? She appears too sick to clean up after herself so Kenna and Wilma will do the task.”
“Aye, Cook.” Aisling hurried off to fetch her mother. She hoped Gormelia didn’t die, but if she did, it served her right because that would have been Aisling’s fate instead. She ran through the great hall and up the stairs to where her mother was seeing to a new mother and her bairn.
As soon as she opened the door, the mother and Aisling’s mother gasped. “Whatever is the matter?” Aisling’s mother asked, and she had to know there was trouble that Blair had to see to as their pack’s healer.
“Gormelia ate something that didna agree with her.” Aisling didn’t want to say what had happened in front of the new mother.
“I will return later,” Aisling’s mother said, patting the new mother’s hand as she nursed her bairn.
“What is wrong?” her mother asked Aisling as they headed down the stairs. “I know you wouldna fetch me unless something was terribly wrong.”
“Aye. I dinna know what Gormelia added to the food, but Nelly caught her doing it. Then Gormelia put the plate where I always sit. Nelly had to create a distraction, and I switched plates so Gormelia ended up with the tainted food. Cook wants you to see to her, and mayhap her food to determine what she added to it that made her so sick.”
“Is Cook aware of this?”
“I believe so. I think she saw me switch plates while all the others watched Nelly and Kenna fight.”
Her mother raised her brows.
“That was the distraction.”
“I see. I hope that Cook will remove Gormelia from the kitchen then. She canna allow someone to try to poison anyone else out of spitefulness.”
“I agree.”
When they entered the kitchen, the other women had already cleared out, all except for Cook, Gormelia, her friends, and Nelly. The dishes, pots, table, and floor were clean. Gormelia was sitting at the table, looking pale and unwell.
Instead of checking on Gormelia to see how she fared, Aisling’s mother examined the food. “Who would mistakenly put these mushrooms in the meal?” She looked at Gormelia as if she knew the truth.
“I will tell the chief what has happened here. She will be banished. If her friends, Kenna and Wilma, had anything to do with it, they will be banished as well,” Cook said.
“You saw what had happened?” Aisling asked Cook.
“I saw Gormelia place that plate at your setting, and she has never done so before. I had thought maybe the two of you had reconciled and she was trying to be nice. But when Nelly started the fight and you switched plates with Gormelia’s, I knew something was terribly wrong.
For one thing, Nelly doesn’t start fights. ”
“But you let Gormelia eat the poisonous mushrooms,” Aisling’s mother said.
Aisling was surprised at that also.
“Aye. I had to know if she had added something poisonous to the food. If she hadna, then it was as I thought at first. She was trying to make up to Aisling. But when she got sick from eating the food right away, I knew why Aisling had switched out the plates. How did you know Gormelia had poisoned your plate?” Cook asked Aisling.
“Nelly saw her add something to the food and then serve it to me.” Aisling owed her life to her observant friend, and she would be forever grateful.
Cook nodded. “I’m sure Gormelia’s friends were all in on it.
They left after the morning meal to gather herbs and mushrooms from the forest. All three of them.
They could easily have found the deadly mushrooms then and saved them for Aisling’s food.
Gormelia is lucky she didna eat too much of the food. ”
“She still may die,” Aisling’s mother said. “Someone doesna need to eat much of the mushrooms to kill them, but it can take a while to die a painful death from eating them. Have someone take her to her pallet to lie down. It’s up to her whether she lives or dies. There’s nothing I can do for her.”
Cook left the kitchen and returned with a man who took hold of Gormelia’s arm, but she could barely stand.
“Check her belongings for any hint of the deadly mushrooms or anything else that could have poisoned her,” Cook said.
“Aye, Cook.” He lifted Gormelia in his arms and carried her to the women’s chamber.
“We need to tell the chief what has happened. The word will have already spread, but we must tell him all we know, or the stories will be so exaggerated, he willna know what to think,” Aisling’s mother said.
“Aye. I will have Kenna and Wilma go also so we can learn what they knew of the matter.” Cook left the kitchen again.
“Nelly should be with us, too, since she saw what Gormelia had done.”
“Aye, go find her.” But before Aisling left the kitchen, her mother hugged her. “I canna believe Gormelia would go to such extremes to harm you.”
“Neither can I. I was glad Nelly saw her do it.” Aisling hurried off to find her friend. Nelly loved the herb gardens and would help the gardeners there when she wasn’t cooking meals. Sure enough, as soon as Aisling reached the gardens, Nelly waved at her.
“What news? Is Gormelia going to be all right?”
“Mayhap no’. ‘Tis her own fault for trying to poison me. But we need to see the chief about this.” Aisling took her hand and led her out of the gardens.
“Just you and me?” Nelly’s eyes were huge. She appeared to be afraid she would get into trouble with the chief for some reason.
“Nay, Cook and my mother also. And Kenna and Wilma.”
Then they met up with Aisling’s mother, Cook, with her jaw clamped so tight that her cheek twitched, and Kenna and Wilma, both ashen, both visibly shrinking from the weight of whatever they expected to happen next.