They were colorful Highlander names that loosely translated into Black-haired Donald, One-eyed Collum, and Handsome Ullium with two wives.
“This column on the right contains an assortment of items, mostly farm animals and grain.” She read them off as she ran her finger down the column. “One pig. Two geese. Thirty pounds of oats. One chicken.”
“It’s the ledger of tenants’ payments to the laird,” Rory said, rubbing his jaw. “I wonder what Brian found amiss. He wouldn’t become upset because a tenant held back a chicken.”
Sybil flipped the book closed to read what was written on the front cover. “It says Eilean Donan.”
“The ledger is supposed to stay at the castle,” Rory said. “Brian wouldn’t have taken it without good reason.”
“Brian could read Latin?” Sybil asked.
“Aye,” Catriona said. “He was good at numbers as well. He should have been a scholar.”
“Let me study these for a while,” Sybil said. “Perhaps I can figure out what is in them that upset your brother.”
She pulled up a stool and opened the first page.
***
Rory watched Sybil pore over the page, feeling irritated that he needed her for this. Though he did not trust her, he could at least be certain she was not in league with Hector. When she bit her lip as she worked, his mind drifted to all the times he had kissed those lips.
But as he watched her, those tantalizing memories were replaced by the image of her the last time he saw her, leaning against the wall after their frenzied passion. It was not her tears that had haunted his days and nights since—he suspected she could turn them on and off at will—but the sadness that had shone in her eyes and weighed down her bright spirit. Now she behaved as if nothing had happened. Which was an act?
She looked up and seemed surprised to find him and Catriona still in the room.
“This could take some time,” she said, making a shooing motion with her hand as she returned her attention to the page. “You two should go eat or…something.”
After an hour, Rory returned, but she did not even look up. Catriona came back with him after supper and brought a platter of food, which Sybil absently munched on as she slowly flipped through the pages. She was working her way through the second ledger now.
The candles were burning low the third time he and Catriona returned. He was going to insist Sybil stop for the night when she looked up with a glint of victory in her eyes, like a warrior who knows he has won the battle.
“Ach, your uncle Hector is a wicked man,” she said. “He robbed your brother blind.”
Rory folded his arms and waited for Sybil to explain.
“Both these ledgers have lists of animals, bags of grain, and coin for each quarter of the year,” Sybil said, then tapped the ledger on her right with her forefinger. “But the quarterly lists in this second ledger have no men’s names, and the lists are short with large quantities—twenty pigs, twelve goats, and such. I had to add it all up to be certain, but the entries in the second ledger are sums of the entries in the first. So, one pig each from five tenants in the first ledger will be listed as five pigs in the second.”
“You’re good with figures as well as reading,” Catriona said.
“My brothers’ tutors thought so,” Sybil said as if this were nothing and opened the second ledger. “Now I’m getting to the interesting part. This second ledger records what was done with all these pigs and fowl and bags of grain.”
Rory saw how confident she was and knew she was onto something, but he still had no notion what it was.
“Some of the stores were kept at Eilean Donan to be consumed at the castle,” she said.
“What else could be done with geese and oats?” Catriona asked.
“All the surplus was taken to Edinburgh and sold,” Sybil said. “The coin from the sales there plus any coin originally collected from the tenants was then taken to your uncle’s estate in Gairloch.”
Rory sat up straight. “To Gairloch? Are ye certain?”
“Aye, ’tis clear as day once I figured out the pattern,” she said. “Your uncle had an arrangement with an Edinburgh merchant who sold the goods on his behalf. Judging by how the money and goods appear to flow smoothly back and forth, my guess is that this was a well-established arrangement.”
“What do ye mean by that?”
She lifted one shoulder in a feminine shrug. “This arrangement has likely gone on for years.”
“What proof do ye have that the coin was taken to my uncle’s own estate in Gairloch?”