by Barbara Bard
Stopping, Catrin examined it closely. It appeared red around the edges of the wound, and swollen. Touching it briefly, she discovered it hotter than his flesh around it. “If you are willing to take a suggestion, Ranulf?”
“’O coorse. Ye be me nurse maid and all.”
“That fresh water spring behind the castle,” she said. “It is icy cold. Before your bath, go soak it in the cold water for as long as you can stand it. It will bring down the swelling. It may ease your pain in the long run.”
“Aye, lass.” Ranulf smiled and brushed his knuckles down her cheek. “Splendid idea. I wi’ dae it.”
Leaving her, he reversed direction and went back across the bailey toward the drawbridge. Catrin watched him go, then headed toward her chambers. She, too, needed a bath before supper after spending her afternoon on a horse.
“Yes, I do like him,” she murmured to herself. “God help me, he should be my bitter enemy. But he is not.”
***
“Why should I trust you?”
Catrin and Ranulf sat in the vast dining hall, virtually alone save for a few servants, standing just out of earshot. Rush lights and candles illuminated just the area where they sat, though a large number of tables and benches for guests filled the chamber. A few hounds nosed among the rushes, searching for any scraps they may have missed on earlier ventures.
Ranulf eyed her curiously, a leg of chicken in his hand. “Why dae ye ask that noo, lassie? I hae ne’er harmed ye since ye came tae me castle.”
“That is why I am asking,” she replied. “We are enemies, you and I, Ranulf. Your brother murdered mine. You kidnapped me for revenge. Had our families both been Scots, we no doubt would have entered a blood feud by now. I am alive only because you have not killed me yet.”
He nodded slowly, setting his food back down on his plate. “I see where ye be goin’ wi’ this.”
“Are you going to kill me, Ranulf?” she asked. “Perhaps this is your revenge – you get me to like you, you kiss me, you treat me as an honored guest, then you execute me and send my head to my father.”
Catrin had seen him angry before, had witnessed the heights of his rage. But never before had it been directed at her. “Is that how ye think ‘o me, Catrin?” he demanded. “That I hae less honor than a lowly thief who would steal from his maw? I hae nae need tae kill ye tae get me revenge. I hae but tae marry ye and settle ye wi’ babes to hae me revenge o’er yer da. But I ne’er dae that withoot yer consent. C’mon, ye think I could kill ye after ye cared fer me the way ye did?”
Catrin felt her face heat with chagrin as she looked away from his furious expression, and yes, the hurt she glimpsed in his eyes. “I did not mean to question your honor, Ranulf. But please think of the situation from my point of view. I am your hostage, alive only because you say so. If you were not going to kill me, then why did you take me in the first place?”
Taking a deep breath, Ranulf folded his fingers together. “I confess I let me grief o’er Kyle’s death rule me actions. I did intend tae kill ye, slit yer throat and send ye back tae yer da. But once I had ye in me hands – I couldn’ae.”
Unable to halt it, Catrin smiled over her wine cup. “I see.”
“Yer charm did catch me by me throat, lass,” he said, his anger deflated. He grinned, a sad sort of expression in her opinion. “Noo I hae nae idea what tae dae wi’ ye.”
“Well,” Catrin said, amused. “I suppose I can say I trust you now. At least I know you are not toying with me until such time as you want to cut off my head.”
“Nay, ne’er that. I will tell ye, however, I sent a coupla lads tae Linfield, in England.”
“Oh? Why?”
“Tae find yer brother’s friens and ask them who he argued wi’ the night he be slain.”
Catrin sat up straighter, leaning forward eagerly. “To clear your brother’s name?”
“Aye. If I can find the true murderer, then perchance I can make peace wi’ yer da.”
“Have they come back yet? Did they find his companions?”
Ranulf shook his head. “Nay. Aswin and Duncan hae nae returned.”
“Finding the true killer would be an honorable way to create an avenue of concord between you and my father,” Catrin said thoughtfully. “Neither of you would lose face, nor honor, and I can be returned home. Is there any way I can help?”
“Nae right now,” he answered, chewing on his chicken leg again. “But I wi’ let ye ken.”
***
Growing as fond of the amiable chestnut stallion as she was of her grey gelding, Catrin rode out of the castle for her usual afternoon sojourn on horseback. Smooth of gait and soft in his mouth, the stallion carried her at a swift canter over the Highland moors. Though the misty clouds hung low over the rolling hills, the day was mild, and she felt no need for her warm cloak. Her guard of five armed clansmen in their steel bonnets and brigandines followed, often tossing jests back and forth, but kept their voices down out of respect for her.
The light breeze through her hair brought with it the scent of heather, and Catrin breathed deep of it, feeling content. I am falling in love with him. Remembering his mouth on hers, his gentleness in the face of his strength, she sighed. I want more of them. I want more of him. Daring to let herself daydream of a marriage borne of love, not politics, she wondered if marrying Ranulf could ever be possible. Father will never permit it. Even if Ranulf proves his brother did not murder Henry.
Though she felt lost in her thoughts, Catrin did not fail to hear the swift hiss through the air, and the thunk of an arrow striking flesh. Her stallion stumbled, trying to keep his feet, staggering. She caught a rapid glimpse of the feathered shaft sticking out from his neck right in front of her saddle. She kicked her feet free of the stirrups and threw herself from his back the same instant he went down.
Chapter 14
Landing hard on her back and shoulders, the wind knocked from her lungs, Catrin barely avoided the big horse rolling over her. Ambushed! As the stallion thrashed, struggling to rise, blood gushing from his wound, Catrin saw her clansmen guard under attack. Arrows flew in a cloud from the surrounding thickets and hills. Three of her guard fell, stricken, yelling, from their saddles as their horses shrieked, rearing, wooden shafts protruding from necks, chests, flanks.
“No!” Catrin screamed, staggering to her feet.
Horsemen surged from behind their cover, men afoot still shooting arrows at the last survivors of her guard. Swords in their hands, struck in their chests and bellies, the last two alive valiantly tried to save her and charged their attackers. Crying aloud, Catrin watched as they, too, fell from their saddles, their mounts dying along with them. Surrounded, she spun in circles as at least six men on horses trotted their mounts around her.
Their leader stared down at her from atop his tall rangy bay. Catrin glared as she recognized him – the cloaked man with the dark hair and beard who fought Ranulf. The outlaw. The coward who struck from ambush. Pushing his hood back, he smiled, and bowed from his saddle. “Greetings, Lady Catrin,” he said. “I am called Black Charlie and I have been hired to take you back to England.”
“I will go nowhere with you, you stinking coward,” Catrin snarled. “You murdered those men.”
He glanced at the dead clansmen as he swung down from his saddle. “It is not murder to kill animals.”
To her horror, his men dismounted and looted the corpses for weapons and valuables, even taking one pair of boots from a body. They also yanked arrows from the bodies, inspecting them before returning them to quivers if they were not too badly damaged. With their swords, they cut the throats of the horses still alive, including her cherished stallion.
“You are filth,” she snapped, unable to take her eyes from the disgusting scene before her. She liked those Scots who rode with her, guarding her back faithfully and well. Grief for their useless deaths rose to choke her. This is my fault. If I did not insist on riding every day, they would still be alive.
Black Charlie
put his hand on her shoulder. “Your insults mean little to me.”
Catrin tried to jerk away from him. “Do not touch me.”
No match for his strength, Catrin struggled as he tied her hands with a short length of heavy rope. She tried kicking him, but only succeeded in making him chuckle. “You are a feisty one, eh?” he said. “Mount up,” he called to his men, dragging her toward a saddled horse whose reins trailed to the ground. “She will be missed, and we need to be leagues away before Thorburn discovers she did not ride back.”
“He will be on you before you can even look over your shoulder,” she shrieked, struggling as he lifted her to the horse’s saddle. “I will laugh as he rips your guts from your belly with a hook.”
“Please do not tell me you have grown fond of that Scottish beast,” Black Charlie said dryly as he deftly avoided her kick to his face. “Though you two did appear rather cozy together that day I tried to take you.”
Ignoring Catrin’s cries and insults, the outlaw tied her feet together under the horse’s belly. “Just in case you think to throw yourself off,” he said, grinning.
“And I will be killed should the horse fall.”
“I will make sure he does not,” the outlaw replied. “I do not get paid unless you are breathing.”
“Who paid you?”
All around them, Black Charlie’s men mounted their horses, talking and laughing over their easy kill, the booty they claimed. Feeling sick, Catrin gazed at the dead men and horses, at the stallion Ranulf gave her. “Who paid you to do this?” she screamed, spittle flying from her mouth.
“Your father.”
Choking on her grief and rage, Catrin stared as Black Charlie mounted his bay and pulled her horse in next to his knee. “He would not,” she gasped. “Not men like you.”
He shrugged lazily. “Believe it or not,” he replied amiably. “He did hire me to bring you back. However, there is one who is paying me more to bring you to him.”
“What? Who?”
Spurring his horse into a trot, dragging hers alongside him, Black Charlie glanced over his shoulder as his men gathered in a loose bunch to ride behind them. “Oh, I think I will leave that a surprise,” he replied, grinning. “I would not want to spoil it for you.”
***
It took them two days of hard riding to cross the border into England. With every hour that passed, Catrin expected to get attacked and raped by these brutal men. Black Charlie, in front of her, told his men she was not to be touched, and what man dared try would have his guts staked to the ground and left behind, alive, for the wolves. Despite his orders and his protection, Catrin recognized the expressions of lust on the faces of his men. When they thought he could not hear, she heard their murmurs of how they would rape her. They would tie her spread eagle on the soil and take turns despoiling her.
Never before had she felt such fear, such dread. Even in the immediate hours and days after Ranulf kidnapped her, Catrin never truly feared he or his men would strip her naked and assault her. His clansmen did not look at her the way these men did. She knew only the respect, or perhaps terror, these men had for Black Charlie stayed their hands. And as he was but one man against seven, she still worried they would overwhelm him and come for her.
“They fear me.”
Catrin, sitting beside the fire, her hands bound in front of her, turned her gaze from the men seated around the other two campfires to Black Charlie. He jerked his chin toward them. “They are too afraid of me to touch you.”
“Are they? You are one man, what if they turn on you? What then?”
He smiled, his teeth gleaming red in the firelight. “Shall I make an example of one of them, My Lady? I heard what they are saying, how they want you. Perhaps I should gut the loudest of them, wrap his entrails in the bushes and leave him screaming.”
Her brow rose. “You would do that? Even if they have not disobeyed you?”
“Of course. Without hesitation.” He shrugged lazily, poking the fire with a stick. “It will keep the rest in line by providing an example of just what I will do.”
“That is cold.”
“It is life. Loyalty by fear is still loyalty, and I demand it from them. It will also make them think twice before deciding they outnumber me.”
Catrin shivered at the indifference in his tone, but felt glad Black Charlie’s greed for his payment kept her safe from the danger he himself presented. Had his employer not demanded her return, safe and unspoiled, no doubt he would lead his men in raping her to death. “I do not think you need to go that far,” she murmured. “When will you be turning me over to my surprise captor?”
“The day after tomorrow,” he replied.
Beyond Black Charlie’s shoulder, Catrin saw three of his men watching her, their faces in shadow. At once, she regretted telling him he need not slaughter one of his men as an example. At that moment, she wished he would do it right then and there. Vowing not to sleep that night, Catrin felt exhaustion overwhelm her. She hardly slept the night before, waking at every snap of the fire popping a knot in the wood, and thinking they were coming for her.
“You do not plan on sleeping tonight.”
“No.”
“Well, I do.” Black Charlie wrapped himself into his blankets and lay on his side, facing the fire. “Sleep or not sleep will not help anything,” he said. “You may as well get your rest.”
“I want to see them coming.”
***
Her eyes gritty from lack of sleep, Catrin stood up as the outlaw camp awakened, Black Charlie rising, yawning, from his blankets. As two of his men brought both of them food and ale, leering at Catrin as they did so, she shook her blankets out and rolled them up. Sitting on a rock, she set the tin plate on her lap and ate the cold pork and cheese awkwardly, her hands still bound in front of her. She had little appetite but ate the food anyway to keep her strength up.
“Which one shall it be?”
She glanced across the nearly dead fire at Black Charlie. “Excuse me?”
He jerked his chin at his men, laughing as they jested with one another. “Pick one and I will use him as my example.”
Once again, his lack of emotion frightened her more than the threat of his men. “I cannot do that. And it is not necessary to murder a man just for looking at me.”
“Oh, it is not for looking, My Lady,” he replied. “It is for thinking about disobeying me. I am merely offering you a chance at your revenge.”
“I am not looking for revenge.”
“So be it.”
Black Charlie stood up. His brigands paid him little heed as they ate their cold fare while arming themselves in their chain mail and saddled their horses, still eyeing her sidelong with evident greed and lust. Before Catrin could draw breath to cry a warning, Black Charlie’s sword rang from his sheath. In a lightning fast strike, he slit a man up the middle from his crotch to his chest. The outlaw shrieked, his belly bursting open, purple-blue entrails bulging from the gaping lips of his wound.
Still screaming, the hapless man tried to hold his guts inside him, even as Black Charlie seized a handful of intestines in his hand and yanked them out. Blood curdling cries of pain and terror from the stricken man shocked his men into stillness as Black Charlie coldly, without emotion, entangled them into a nearby thicket. His hands covered in blood, he stripped the mortally wounded man of his sword belt.
Over the man’s shrieks, Black Charlie pointed the sheathed sword at the men standing, gaping in horror, at him and their companion. “Do you think you can hide it from me?” he asked, his voice icy. “Your plans to take the girl from me? I warned you what would happen should you even think about spoiling my prize. Now see the result of my wrath.”
Picking up a waterskin, Black Charlie rinsed the blood from his hands, still as cold and emotionless as before. Catrin thought that aspect the most frightening thing of all. “Get mounted.”
Scrambling, running, his remaining men dashed to obey him, their expressions filled with
horror. None of them tried to aid the wounded man, who screamed for help as he collapsed on the ground, still trying to shove his intestines back into his opened belly. Catrin, sickened by what she had just witnessed, what was still in front of her eyes, what she heard, let Black Charlie put her on the horse and tie her feet again. Squeezing her eyes shut as he mounted his bay and started out could not block the vision of the man’s insides entangled in the bush.
His screams rang in her ears even as they rode out of range of them.
Chapter 15
Dull fury roared through Ranulf as he stared down at his dead clansmen and horses. Stripped of their weapons and what little jewelry or valuables they had owned, the men lay where they had fallen. Their dried blood caked black over time as they had lain there, undiscovered, the obvious arrow wounds in their bodies informed Ranulf what had happened. His eyes roved to the chestnut stallion Catrin had ridden, his throat cut, an arrow sticking insultingly from his neck. Ranulf growled low in his throat.
