A Gypsy's Thief

by Titania Ladley

  She shook her head violently, images of John burning at the stake flashing before her eyes. Her stomach ached and churned with dread even though she had been assured of John’s immortal state of being. “He is an Englishmon! The Scots king has nae jurisdiction, nae right.”

  When he merely smirked, she added weakly, “Please, nae.”

  He snorted, continuing to inform her of his cruel plans. “Ye see, capturin’ another witch—the king does not give a fuck about nationality—will further ingratiate me to the king. Nae doubt ‘twill have him rewardin’ me with quite a profitable bonus, in addition to that I had prior been promised for implicatin’ and bringin’ ye and yer Gypsies in, love.”

  She managed mere disdain in lieu of the profanities she longed to hurl at him. “Do not ever call me yer love again! And the truth, ye say? I have yet to hear it from ye, husband—nae, liar. Pray tell, do so enlighten me. How is it that ye accomplished yer own death, yet here ye sit astride before me as one of the king’s puppet soldiers? Mayhap by the verra witchcraft ye claimed to be possessin’ for yerself durin’ our unfortunate marriage, Duncan—or perhaps by a blackguard, coward’s deceit?”

  The sting across her cheek lessened only by the sharp pain that burst in her head. It snapped back, crashing into the tree as stars swam across her vision. She held her cheek and glared up at him. “Ye evil, vile bastard!”

  The wicked gleam that glowed in his eyes when he bellowed made her long to vomit. “Aye, come to think on it, better an evil bastard than a promiscuous harlot, would not ye be sayin’, love?”

  She tried to step away from the tree but he sidled the steed up closer, blocking her escape. “What do ye want, Duncan? Do be gettin’ on with yer maliciousness before I scream and alert the entire keep.”

  “Why, I want ye, dear wife. And might I add that yer screams will bring about me own troops for ye to contend with, as well as the possible death of yer lover’s servants?”

  Her heart sank, for he seemed to have all the answers she did not wish to hear. “Why, Duncan? Why do ye do this terrible thing to me? Ye once claimed to love me. Ye masqueraded as me lovin’ husband—” she quivered in revulsion, “and much as it repulses me now, ye took me to yer bed each night.”

  Sudden lust glittered in his eyes further enhancing her nausea. “Aye, and a delectable piece of meat ye could be at times. But ‘tis simple, me dear. I hunt ye down at the king’s request, of course. Ye are sentenced to die by burnin’ upon return to North Berwick. Yer crimes against the crown cannot go unpunished. And though I have yet to witness them meself, I’ve decided to testify I’ve seen them just to be done with ye…and earn a few extra gold coins, of course.”

  “I did not play a part in the attempted sinkin’ of King James and his wife Anne’s ship, and ye well ken it! ‘Twas a sheer coincidence. And even if it were not so, I still did not participate in the group of witches whom coalesced and wished ill upon the king and his bride. They were not even a part of me people.”

  “Catriona, I have seen many a thing—odd occurrences with yer Gypsy people—since before we married. ‘Twas why I married ye, to be the king’s eyes and ears and further assist in eradicatin’ those who threatened to harm our most royal ruler. I undertook a most noble mission, ye see? The king ordered our union for that verra cause, so that I could witness yer powers—their powers—and bring ye all to justice. Yer supposed ability to communicate with the dead, and their evil spells and hexes whispered about across all of Scotland, are priority issue with James. Ye are all witches who deserve to die for yer tyranny against the crown. So there ye have it, witch Graham.” He shrugged. “‘Tis plain and simple.”

  “Ye stayed with me for months without witnessin’ me…abilities. Ye even claimed to have powers of yer own.”

  “Do not be an idiot! ‘Twas all a front to ensure me place in yer lowly Gypsy band for as long as ‘twould take to witness yer evil and see all ye misfits dead.”

  Shock and anger made her long to reach up and slap the smirk from his mouth, but instead, she dug her nails into her palms. The wind tossed his severely cut auburn hair around his harsh features, and she wondered how she had ever thought him handsome. She had experienced his hurried, almost clumsy touch time and again, and had thought it love, had even talked herself into enjoying it at times just to please him, thinking this was the normal way of man and wife. And all the while, he had been playing her for a fool? He was nothing but a spy sent by the king to seek out and entrap all those suspected of witchcraft in opposition to His Royal Highness?

  She spoke through her teeth. “Tell me, how and when did ye come to be in the king’s employ?”

  “A verra long time ago, well before we met.” He grinned, but the smile did not reach his beady eyes.

  His response did not surprise her, and she no longer cared. Even before this shocking revelation and his return from the dead, she had begun to let go of him…or the love for him she now knew to be false. Thoughts of John gave her strength, and she realized at that moment of great comparison that she truly did love John Lawton.

  Nae, there could not be a comparison between this reprehensible ogre and the lovin’, carin’ mon who saved me life twice now in but a week’s time.

  “I’ll be thinkin’ I’ve gone daft if ye do not enlighten me, beloved husband. If ye please, answer one last question…”

  He sighed theatrically and glanced toward the sky, his tone condescending. “All right, I shall indulge ye just this once before we get this return journey to North Berwick underway.”

  “What went amiss? Who was it that I watched die at the stake there next to me verra own ma—me ma ye had murdered?”

  He grinned, his eyes as cold as the snow around them. “‘Twas me twin brother, Geoffry.”

  Bile rose in her throat. Catriona had not known he had a twin brother, or that she had married such a cruel monster until this day. The reality of her marriage being a farce boiled deep in her soul, along with the anger and hatred that simmered there. God help her, she had gone willingly abed with a man who would see his own brother and her mother burned without batting an eye? Was that why his family had suddenly disowned her, because they blamed her for their son’s death?

  Catriona reached around the tree for leverage as her head spun with maddening speed. Beneath the concealment of her cape, she stepped a foot to the side in preparation to bolt as soon as the horse shifted its weight away from her.

  “Ye murdered yer own flesh and blood? And ye kent yer ‘wife’ and all of the townspeople thought it to be ye, and grieved yer passin’?”

  “Aye. I could not go on pretendin’ to be a sorcerer in yer Gypsy band any longer. Yer ma and I, we argued. She found me out, and in so doin’, implicated herself in the attempt to down the king’s ship by witchcraft and—”

  “Nae, ‘tis a lie! She would not—she did not admit to any such thing!”

  He shrugged. “Matters not now one way or the other. But I could not stand to live with ye and yer filthy people any longer. So I thought to ‘murder’ meself in hopes of bringin’ forth more acts of ye and yer Gypsy peoples’ rebellion and sinful witchcraft out of the woodwork. But instead, ye all withdrew into yerselves as if ye kent somethin’ was amiss. Eventually, after me ‘death’, I received word from me local spies that they had actually witnessed many more acts of defiant witchcraft against The Crown, and had seen ye, as well, performin’ séances…to reach yer ma and meself.” He added a sarcastic chuckle to that.

  “Did they, now?” She forced as much of her own sarcasm into her tone as she could muster.

  He winked, his dark eyes resembling two chips of coal in the pale plane of his face. “That they did, lass. So me brother’s sacrifice proved to be a profitable, justified one, ye see?”

  She clenched the cloak’s opening shut, warding off the chill with one hand. But with the other, she planned for freedom, reaching around the ancient oak in preparation to bolt. “Ah, I see me embarrassment—or rather, me instincts, now that I reflect on i
t—were founded. Had I performed a séance in yer presence, ye would have hauled me—yer verra own wife—off to prison, would ye not have, Duncan?”

  “Aye. Either that or I would have tired of me role and set ye up in some manner in which yer guilt would have been apparent for all to document. Now enough. ‘Tis time for us to be on our way.”

  “Nae, I refuse to go with ye peaceably. As ye can see, I stand upon English soil. Hence, I seek protection and asylum by the crown of the English queen.” She ground her teeth together and shot him her most loathing stare. “Now get the devil out of me way, ye heartless bastard.”

  Duncan’s jaw snapped shut and his sharp-featured face went ashen with ire. She enjoyed the briefest moment of verbal revenge. But brief it proved to be. Catriona sensed his intent to yank her up onto his horse, so she kneed the underbelly of the steed to foil his attempt. The horse neighed and reared up in protest, hooves pummeling the air. The sudden flurry took Duncan by surprise and nearly unseated him. It was the opportunity Catriona had been waiting for. She faltered but for a split second, then tore out across the forest, her pulse booming in her head, her booted feet pounding through the deep snow.

  Just when she gloried in sweet escape, pain ripped through her scalp. He had her by the hair and jerked her up onto the stallion. Forced to lie stomach-down across his lap, the jolt of the horse’s gait drove her breath from her lungs. The ground flew by in a fog beneath the steed’s wild, galloping hooves. And Catriona knew a terror to rival that of a witch’s burning stake.

  * * * * *

  Lorcan watched from his place behind a towering, snow-dappled elm. “Nay!”

  It tore from his chest and echoed out across the frozen lake, out and away from the walls of John’s keep. He had not counted on the Gypsy woman being quite so stubborn and protective of John at the same time, enough so to flee in order to ensure John’s safety. Pacing back and forth, Lorcan wore a path in the snow clean through to the frozen, dead foliage beneath, his robe and beard fluttering in the bitter-cold winds. Snow clouds churned in the distant sky slowly painting a dull gray over the pristine beauty of a clear winter’s day. And like those storm clouds, his immortal heart roiled with sickening, helpless worry and a sense of forever doom.

  One lone tear trickled over his leathery cheek. Oh, how he despised this skin, this gnarled, heinous body! When would this madness—this hell—ever end? The thirteenth century seemed an eternity ago. Heartache. It would forever be impressed in his essence as the era of heartache. The spell cast upon him for his horrible transgressions now approached nearly four hundred years! God help him, if he could go back in time and undo what malice and mayhem he had caused, he would do it in a second’s time. To be cursed in retaliation with eternal life in a body far from one’s own, oh, but it was the epitome of hell at its absolute worst! Being forced with haphazard wizard’s powers and foresight into the future—foresight that turned out half the time to be misread by the jumbled old mind he had been encumbered with. It was enough to make him give in to the witch who had sought revenge and forced him into this eternal misery.

  A howl tore from his gut as a future vision of Catriona Graham burning at the stake suddenly flashed in his mind.

  “Nay… It cannot be.” He tossed aside his staff and fell to his knees screaming, “Damn you, Desmona!” He clenched his fists and shook them at the oncoming clouds. “I give in. Take my black soul. Tear my heart from this ugly chest you burdened me with. I don’t give a bloody hell anymore.”

  A husky, noxious laughter reverberated around Lorcan, but as usual, he could only hear her, could only sense the venom all around him. The craven witch, he grumbled silently. She had not shown her evil face to him since that fateful day in 1238 A.D. during her odious alliance with King Henry III and the casting of this endless spell upon Lorcan. The king had taken away the rights of those English barons—Lorcan’s father being one of many—who had sought more voice in the king’s state affairs. A bloody feud ensued in which the witch Desmona remained aligned with King Henry, creating mayhem against the barons and their families. Consequently, there had been a huge rift between Desmona and Lorcan that had only fueled the flames of the war.

  “Ah, so you wish to die, to never be given another chance at a normal life?”

  He spoke through the sobs, feeling the tears freeze into crystal droplets on his face. “Aye. Strike me dead this instant! No more. I cannot take this torture anymore.”

  She made a tsking sound. “Such heart-wrenching, almost repenting sadness from one as back-stabbing as yourself.”

  “Now, Goddamn it! Now!” Lorcan lowered his fists to the snow and pressed his face in its relentless cold. He wanted that. He wanted to go numb, to no longer have to search for a spell-breaker, to never have to recall the anguish of lost love again. “Well, if you insist. But have you forgotten… If you request for the spell to be broken suicidally, then you take the lives of your protégés with you. Not to mention breaking the hearts of those they both love, and the many countless followers and unfortunate people who love and respect them.”

  Lorcan groaned. He rubbed his face deeper into the icy snow. His tired old mind drifted back to the day the spell had begun. It was the day Desmona had spewed her wrath. She had randomly chosen Falcon and John as Lorcan’s charges to be burdened with. At the time, both had been newborn babes Lorcan had not even known at the time. Immortality had been cast upon Falcon and John both at the same time Desmona had put it upon Lorcan so that his responsibilities and commitments would be never-ending. As a person of royal descent suddenly transformed into a drifter and put into the party of Falcon and John’s nomadic families, Lorcan had grudgingly become their vassal seeing them through the death of family, friends, lovers and enemies alike over the years.

  The fateful first day, Desmona briefed Lorcan on his newly acquired, sporadic powers, and gleefully informed him he would be trapped in this old body into endless eternity. Out of some sick sense of delight, she had randomly selected sorcerer powers for John and Falcon, predetermining their unique forces. Each magical ability had emerged and matured as each child had grown into adulthood. Their soul-brother status and need for triad sex in order to keep them together throughout time had eventually come with manhood.

  As the years passed back in that era, Lorcan had watched both John and Falcon grow from adorable bouncing babies into strikingly handsome, strong and righteous men in charge of their own party of avengers. After being murdered by King Henry’s son, Edward, in 1265, Simon De Montfort, leader of the barons in opposition to the king, left behind many loyal followers. Their new twenty-seven-year-old leader, Falcon Montague—eventually known as Robin Hood—and his loyal partner John Lawton, had led the deceased De Montfort’s followers into the forest and formed their legendary outlaw band. Lorcan had remained with his charges, following nomadically along, working on his magic to find that solution to counteract the spell.

  But Lorcan had been unable to give in to Desmona’s hatred and accept his fate. He had worked and worked on his craft until he had finally come up with a possible spell of his own, an antidote to Desmona’s curse. It was a remedy that would undo Desmona’s evil spell, but only after both of his charges—and then Lorcan himself—had found their eternal mates. He had conjured up first the Centaurus medallion. And by God, it had worked, bringing Salena into Falcon’s life and gifting her with immortality. He now struggled to guide John onto the correct path to achieve the Scorpian and search for its corresponding partner whom he had hoped until now was the Scottish lass Catriona Graham. Regardless of the Scropian’s outcome, Falcon and John had both turned out to be “sons” Lorcan could be proud of. He supposed, after running it all through his weary mind again, he had done something right over the centuries.

  But doing one thing correct for once did not give him the right to end their lives, did it? Falcon now had his beloved Salena. John had been struck with the uniqueness of Catriona, though it was looking as if she would not be a part of Desmona’s plan
for John. Still, he could hardly take that hope from John, or strike Falcon from his eternal life with his soul mate—could he?

  “Lorcan, you must speak now or your wish to cancel the spell will be granted whether you intend it or not.”

  “Nay…” he whispered.

  “Nay, as in, you do not desire to go through with the severance of the spell? Or nay as in, you are being defiant as usual?”

  It was no use. He loved Falcon and John too much to go through with suicide for them all. Lorcan dragged himself up and brushed the snow from his robes. He snatched up his staff and jabbed it skyward toward the cloud that now spilled heavy snowflakes upon his numb face. “Go to hell, Desmona. Your cruel spell stays. I will get through this endless torture if ‘tis the last thing I ever do on this earth. And finally, one day I vow, you will be forced to give me back my body, my soul and my life.”

  He turned and strode away as quickly as his old, creaky bones would take him, ignoring the echo of her cackle upon the winter winds. Mentally yanking himself up by the boots, he faded into thin air and directed his mass into John’s castle. He watched from a dark corner of the cave as his ever-strong charges went to work to rescue a woman who no longer seemed to fit the puzzle Lorcan had been so sure of only hours ago.

  * * * * *

  “Blast it to hell, where has she gone to?” John spun to face Falcon, the torch he carried casting shadows upon their faces. The humid walls of the cave’s passageway glittered by the blaze of the fire, each nook and cranny alight. Yet Catriona was nowhere to be seen. Concern for her safety made John’s body tremble and his thoughts jumble. His gut clenched at the thought of losing her, of never again seeing that beautiful face. To be denied the song of that lovely Scottish brogue, it saddened him deeply. It made his eyes dampen, and he could swear his heart did truly break within his chest. Ah, and just when things had begun to turn around, just when he could have sworn he had found the one woman to accept him as he was, possibly the one true love of his life.