Leila’s Legacy

by Madeline Martin

  If his hands weren’t bound behind his back, if his feet weren’t chained, he would have been able to fight back despite his wounds. Except that they’d left him at such a disadvantage, he was at their mercy.

  He was forced through the dungeon, up the stairs and through the castle with those heavy chains at his ankles. The villagers waited outside, just past the bailey, their expressions somber as he walked by, chains clanking. He had always been well-liked among them, just as Alban had been feared and despised.

  Though they did not throw mud and food at him, he remembered Leila and how she had handled her torturous walk with pride and strength. She hadn’t even faulted the people for their wrath.

  A drum began, low and ominous as it reverberated down his spine and thundered through his veins. His death was rapidly approaching.

  The people followed him as he made his way through the streets, past the dead who lay waiting for removal, past the many homes now vacated.

  The reivers stood a distance from the villagers, keeping a good amount of space between them to reduce their exposure to the great pestilence.

  Niall was stopped at the stairs to the gallows and the chains at his ankles removed. He’d noted the shortness of the rope when he approached. A short rope, removing the extra weight from his person by taking off the chains… They didn’t want his neck to snap when the floor of the gallows dropped. They wanted him to slowly strangle, for it to be a long, painful death.

  The wind picked up and billowed the sleeves of his shirt as he climbed the stairs. A shiver wound through him and his insides quivered: with cold, with exhaustion, with fear.

  Leila.

  Was this what she had gone through as she had been the focus of everyone’s attention? Their rapacious bloodlust made sharp and hungry by her impending death.

  “Ye killed my son,” Lord Armstrong said. “And now ye will die for yer crimes. May yer soul rot in hell.”

  Niall tried to talk, but his words were muffled by the binding at his mouth. Damn Lord Armstrong. He’d made certain Niall couldn’t accuse him publicly of what he’d done. The truth of Niall’s father’s death would die with Niall.

  The drumbeat became louder, faster, and made his heart quicken. It was time.

  He was shoved to the center of the platform where lines of a trap door were visible in the wood. There would be someone beneath to pull a beam and make the door fall.

  The crowd of onlookers stared back at him. Peasants with dirty faces, their eyes wide and vacant. Leila was right. They were scared. All they wanted was a cure for their families, to make the pestilence and death stop. The drum pounded faster still and left his heart racing with a frantic beat.

  Thump, thump, thump.

  The noose was slipped around his neck, the rope rough where it touched his skin. An icy wind blew, and he closed his eyes to savor it as the last feeling he would have in his life. He wished instead it could be the gentle caress of Leila’s hand on his jaw or the brush of her sweet lips over his.

  Thump, thump, thump.

  Cold wind may be his last feeling, but she would be his last thought.

  Forgive me, mo chridhe.

  Thump, thump, thump.

  The noose was drawn tight around his neck and the drum fell silent. The platform dropped from underneath him and the noose around Niall’s neck went taut.

  26

  Leila’s heart caught in her throat as Niall’s body dangled from the rope. “Don’t miss,” she whispered.

  Catriona didn’t say a word as the arrow flew from her bow and zipped through the air. Leila followed its path from where they hid behind one of the cottages. No doubt everyone in their party watched from their various places through the village as they all lay in wait to attack.

  For this very moment.

  The arrow sailed through the air, toward the rope. It slammed into the braided twine and snapped it in half.

  Leila charged forward with Cat and Geordie at her side, as the rest of their party all ran into the village center to attack. The villagers fled at once for the relative safety of their homes, in as much as the waddle and dab offered protection when the walls could be so easily shoved in. Not that it mattered: the peasants were not the subject of their attack.

  Her family rushed at the reivers from all angles, holding them back from the gallows as Leila ducked under its raised platform. She crouched low and launched her dagger at the man who pulled at Niall. Her dagger slammed into the man’s throat and sent him reeling backward in a spurt of blood.

  Leila rushed to where Niall pushed himself to his feet. Patches of cloudy sunlight shone in, casting a gray pallor within.

  She cried out his name and his head jerked toward her.

  She swallowed down a whimper. His face. His handsome face that she had cradled in her palms and gently kissed. Now mottled in bruising, one eye swollen, his lower lip split around the dirty linen tied against his mouth.

  She set to work immediately drawing away the noose on his neck, freeing the cloth from his mouth.

  “I thought I’d no’ ever see ye again,” Niall said hoarsely.

  “Never.” Leila pressed a kiss to his mouth as her blade sliced through the rope binding his hands behind his back. “We must hasten our leave, my love.”

  Outside the sounds of battle raged on. Grunts and cries, the clanging of weapons striking.

  He nodded in agreement, pulled free the fallen guard’s sword and together they left the underside of the gallows. Outside, her family cut through the clansmen. Each couple fought side-by-side: Anice and James as they guarded one another’s backs, swords glinting in the sun; Ella with her battle axe, her rustic weapon somehow working in sync with Bronson’s stylized fighting as blows were blocked and delivered. Brodie fought with Cat and Geordie, both men guarding her with slashing blades while she nocked one white-fletched arrow at a time and sent it sailing into the melee.

  She only had a glance, but it was enough to see the incredible skill of so many warriors, confident, powerful, capable. Lethal. Leila wanted to be out there with them with a dagger in either hand.

  But her job was the most important of all. The horses they rode in on were hidden in an abandoned cottage nearby. She need only to get there, have Niall on the horse and they would be on their way to Werrick Castle. Safe once more.

  Niall grunted and pitched forward.

  Leila spun around, hands going to her belt for a blade. Lord Armstrong pulled his arm back and slammed something hard across her face. She staggered, momentarily stunned by the stars dancing before her eyes. The dagger slipped from her fingers and clattered to the cobblestone, barely heard in the din of battle. It was those sounds, of fighting and dying and screaming, that had prevented her from hearing Armstrong’s approach.

  She continued to walk backward while she recovered, her fingers skimming her belt until they rested on the hilt of a dagger, which she quickly plucked free.

  “Witch,” Armstrong hissed. “I dinna actually think ye were one until this moment with ye standing before me alive even as I saw ye die.”

  Now armed, Leila lunged toward the older man and slashed at him with her blade. It snagged against his arm before skimming over his gambeson. At least it was a hit. He growled and switched the club he held to his other hand.

  Leila aimed her dagger to throw it when Niall slashed at the older man, catching him in the gut. Lord Armstrong roared in pain and brought his cudgel down as hard as he could on Niall’s thigh. The color drained from Niall’s face and he collapsed to the ground, groaning in agony.

  Lord Armstrong put a hand to his bloody stomach and staggered slightly. “A mortal wound.” He gave a mirthless chuckle. “But I still have time to kill ye both before I die.”

  Leila gripped another dagger and charged again. This time, she caught the rear of his leg with her foot and shoved his torso with her full weight. He pitched backward as intended. However, as he did so, he lashed out with his cudgel.

  Had she not been knocked off-balanc
e slightly after pushing him, she might have easily leaned away and avoided the blow. But in her haste to see him fall, she had been careless. She had assumed he would resist the attack and had put her full weight into it, leaving her unsteady.

  She tried to duck away, but the edge of the club caught her in the throat. Pain exploded like a thousand stars and she could not breathe. The panic of her drowning the day before flooded her. Unable to draw in air, heart racing, water burning in her nose, her throat. More and more water.

  She gasped and clutched at her throat. She fought to drag in a breath but could only pull in a scant amount. Not enough.

  Burning. Her lungs were burning. She was drowning again. Being held under, water rushing into her mouth and nose.

  She pushed off her helm in an attempt to get easier access to the air, gulping in as much as she could. Still not enough.

  Lord Armstrong pushed himself to his feet. She should run. But her head spun with dizziness, lack of air.

  God save her, she was dying all over again.

  Death would claim his victim yet.

  Armstrong lifted his cudgel, eyes wild. She lunged at him with the last of her strength, crashing into his gambeson. The hardened fabric was like a wall against her shoulder and face, but he fell forward over her with a savage cry.

  He landed on his side on the ground with a wet gurgle. Curious though the sound was, she could not look now. She braced herself on her knees and willed herself to calm, to carefully breathe, slow and steady.

  More air entered her body this time and the panic began to ebb. The fogging of her mind cleared, and she finally looked down at where Lord Armstrong lay, not moving, eyes vacant as they stared at nothing. A line of blood dribbled from the corner of his mouth and trailed a crooked path over his grizzled jaw to the dark cobblestones below.

  “That was for my da.” Niall limped over, wincing with each step on his injured leg. “And for the woman I love.”

  A dagger jutted from behind the earl’s neck, having plunged through his throat.

  “Your leg,” Leila said.

  “Ach, it was wounded when I killed Alban and this bastard hit the exact spot of the injury.” Niall nudged Lord Armstrong’s corpse with the toe of his bad leg.

  “What in all of England are you still doing here?” an aristocratic English voice intoned.

  Leila turned to see her family coming toward them. Bronson sheathed his blade. “You should have been gone already.”

  “Is it over?” Leila asked, her voice hoarse from the blow she’d received from that wicked club.

  Ella regarded Lord Armstrong lying dead in the mud. “I’d say it is.”

  “Ach, the guards went running off no’ long after we were into it.” James grinned.

  “Why are you still here?” Anice pressed. “Come, Lamb, we must leave this place.”

  Leila did not need to be asked twice. She gripped Niall’s hand and together, they hastened to the horses. Within minutes, they were mounted and fleeing the town of Liddesdale, hopefully to never see it again, as they rode once more to Werrick Castle. With the man she loved.

  The ride to Werrick Castle was far more painful than Niall wanted to admit. His face ached a bit, aye, as well as the blow to his back by Armstrong’s damn club.

  It was his leg that burned like the fires of hell, though. The wound had been sore well before Armstrong hit it again. He kept his face impassive, however, not wanting Leila to see.

  And she would have seen had he shown it, as she continued to pass glances in his direction through the duration of their trek over the English border. At long last, they came to the castle and were quickly escorted into the bailey by a troop of servants.

  Niall leapt from his horse and couldn’t still the grunt of pain as he landed. Leila cast him a suspicious glance.

  “I’d like to take you to Isla,” Leila said. “And I won’t hear any argument about it.”

  “Is this the one who uses piss in all her remedies?” Niall asked. While he’d never met Isla, he felt as though he knew her from the stories Leila had told him in the conversations that they had shared over suppers together in her tower chamber prison.

  Leila grinned and pulled him with her. “I’ll make sure she doesn’t use any in yours.”

  “I’m fine, lass,” he reassured her.

  “Then why are you limping?” She lifted her brows.

  After such an observation, there was hardly any protest he could offer, especially since he lacked the ability to not limp. He knew. He’d tried it. Damn leg.

  He was led into Werrick Castle and saw it exactly as she’d described it. Fresh rushes lent a sweet scent to the air, even in winter. Gold and silver gilt tapestries lined the walls and took the edge off the chill. Servants bustled about this way and that.

  Being here, where she had lived her life, seeing what she had described to him in such perfect detail, gave him the feeling as if it was not just her who had come home, but that he had finally too. It was an odd sensation and not an unpleasant one, especially as he realized he had not felt like he had a home since his father’s death.

  She led him through a complicated maze of halls to where the healer of the castle kept a neat room at the ready. Small vials were neatly lined up on top of a cabinet with many drawers. The room smelled clean and of dried herbs. Like Leila.

  The comfort of that thought relaxed him, even as a withered old woman with white-gray hair approached him. Isla crinkled her amber eyes at him, studying his face. “If this is yer Lion, I hope he’s bonny under all that bruising. Especially since he’s caused ye a lifetime of trouble.” She jerked her head to the side. “Get on the pallet.”

  Leila indicated a raised pallet next to a table full of bottles and Niall obediently climbed onto it. His head ached and his leg thrummed with pain, but at least he knew he’d live. Somehow, some way, he’d figure out a life with Leila where he could support her.

  “I’d like to stay.” Leila folded her hand into Niall’s. “To help.”

  Isla appeared over Niall. Her lips pulled back in a grimace as she looked over him, revealing her brilliantly white, perfect teeth. “Ach, look at this leg.”

  She prodded at him with her bony fingers and brilliant pain seared through his wound. He ground his teeth against one another rather than cry out.

  Isla tsked. “’Tis filthy and angry and will need to be cleaned before I can stitch it.”

  Leila tightened her grip on Niall’s hand. “You know I’m strong enough to stay.”

  “Ye give him some of the resting tonic,” Isla said. “Then be on yer way so I can see to him properly. I’ll no’ have ye fretting about around me.”

  “Resting tonic?” Niall asked.

  Leila left for a moment then returned and pushed a small cup into his hand. “It’ll put you out of your senses, so you don’t feel all the pain. Isla recently concocted it and it appears to be quite effective.”

  Niall sniffed it and wished he hadn’t. “What’s in it?”

  Isla set her fingertips to the underside of the cup and tipped it upward. “A bit o’ this, a bit o’ that.”

  He held his breath and tossed it back. It was a bitter brew indeed. The terrible taste clung to his tongue and stung his eyes. He choked, his body wincing with each flex of his muscles. Dear God, his back ached. “What was in that?” he gasped.

  Leila took the cup from him, looked in it and nodded at Isla.

  “Fine,” Isla conceded. “Hemlock, opium, vinegar and a bit of heifer’s piss.”

  Niall sputtered.

  “I made this last bottle last month,” Leila whispered. “Without the heifer’s piss.”

  “Bah! Ye dinna appreciate the benefits of a fine blending of piss in a tonic.” Isla waved dismissively, clearly having overheard. “Off with ye now. Ye know how nasty tending to a hot wound can be.”

  Leila rested a hand gently on his shoulder. “Please, Isla.”

  “I’m no’ giving ye a choice.” Isla pointed to Niall. “Look at h
im, he doesna care a whit anyway.”

  Leila and Isla both peered at him. Odd that they would do so together like that. Foolish, really. Almost comical. He’d laugh if he had the energy, but he suddenly found he didn’t possess even the amount to lift his lips. Not that it mattered.

  The air rushed into and out of his lungs, a strange sensation when one focused on it. Especially when one was so tired.

  “Off with ye now,” Isla said from the distance. “I’ll summon ye when it’s done.” She approached him and pulled open an eyelid with her cool fingers. Belatedly, he realized it was his bad eye, the one which was nearly swollen shut. “Heifer’s piss would’ve made it work better,” she muttered indignantly. With that, she took a pair of shears and cut away his trews.

  He should stop the old woman. He didn’t have another pair of trews with him. But it was more than that. The space beside him was empty without Leila.

  “Dinna worry, lad, she’ll be there when ye wake.” Isla nodded her head at him. “Close yer eyes now.” She glanced down at his leg. “Ye dinna want to be awake for this.”

  His eyes slipped closed, and he imagined Leila sitting at his side as sleep took him away.

  However, when he opened his eyes, it was not Leila sitting beside him, but Lord Werrick. A quick glance around the room confirmed they were alone.

  Niall shifted on the small pallet and a twinge of discomfort pinched at his thigh. He looked down to find a swath of linen bound over it.

  “I heard it was pretty bad,” Lord Werrick said. “Isla is a strong healer. I am certain you will recover without issue.”

  “Did she wash it out with heifer’s piss?” Niall asked.

  To his surprise, Lord Werrick laughed. “I don’t think Leila would have allowed that, but it wouldn’t surprise me if she’d wanted to.”

  Niall flicked an uneasy glance at the Earl of Werrick, the West March Warden of the English side of the border—a powerful man whose daughter Niall had killed. Even more than that, the father of the woman he loved.