by Kira Morgan
It took a full hour of beating pillows for Mavis’s fury to subside, and now feathers littered her solar like fallen snow. But at last she’d regained control, enough to command the English bastards who’d bungled the task in the first place to fix their mistake by day’s end.
Why could nothing ever go according to her plans? She’d ordered the imbeciles to trap the wench, not in the blaze, but as she fled the blaze. Their stupidity meant that Mavis’s only hope was to find evidence that the piece had truly been destroyed.
Now, watching the cloudy sky blacken like a bruise as the sun set, Mavis dug her nails into the stone sill. Surely she’d heard wrong.
“What did ye say?” Her voice faltered, and her blood chilled as she turned to face the monk who wasn’t a monk at all.
He shrugged. “Didn’t find nothin’ in the ashes. Not a trace,” the man repeated in his slow English drawl, perusing with suspicion the feathers strewn about the room. “No girdle. No pomander. No gold at all. Not even bones.”
A laugh of hysteria escaped her, startling her visitor, who stepped back a pace. “Not even bones?” His words seemed like a cruel jest.
“Nay, my lady.”
She nodded, feeling the ice in her veins slowly beginning to melt and boil.
He frowned. “Mind you, we still expect to get paid—if not from—”
Mavis screeched at him, her patience at an end, her fury returning in full force. She snagged her fists in the front of his cassock, hauling him roughly toward her. “Paid! Paid? I paid your masters when I told them where to find Princess Mary. And what did ye do for me? Nothin’!”
He straightened, indignant. “We set the fire just like you asked,” he whined.
“Ye doddy-poll!” she spat in his face. “I wanted that girdle. I told ye that!”
Suddenly she felt the sharp point of a dagger beneath her chin, and the monk’s dull eyes turned dangerously dark. “I told you we looked for the thing. We didn’t find it. Now unhand me, and I’ll be out of your way.”
Mavis quivered with rage and fear. While King Henry was alive, no Englishman would dare speak to her like that. But things had changed. And now she had to choose her battles carefully.
Reluctantly, she released the man and stepped back. He gave her an insolent look, wrinkling his nose at the feathers strewn about, then wheeled and made his exit. Only when he was gone did she collapse in tears of frustration.
Dear God, what was she going to do? No gold in the ashes? No bones? Gilbert would return soon, and that cursed wench was apparently still out there somewhere with her prize. Mavis had to find the whelp before her husband did.
But how? She’d just alienated a valuable English ally, and his fellows were on their way to Musselburgh. Like one of Henry’s mistresses, she’d been used and discarded. And now, when she needed aid the most, there was no one left to help her.
She pressed her fingertips to her aching brow and peered through her fingers and her tears past the shutters, toward the gathering clouds.
’Twas truly a miserable place—this patch of land with its stony fields and biting cold and sudden storms. And its people were no better. How could she hope to bend them to her will when they had such a bullheaded will of their own?
A flash of lightning pierced the clouds, casting harsh light across the stark knoll, startling a flock of crows and silhouetting the naked tree on Gallows Hill.
The rain began to pour from the sky like well water from a bucket, drowning the land. But Mavis paid no heed to the drops that drenched her sill, for inspiration had struck as abruptly as the bolt of lightning.
She sniffed back her tears.
She knew what to do now.
She might not be able to hunt down the slippery wench, but she knew how to lure the brat to her.
Night transformed into morning so subtly ’twas almost imperceptible. A faint gray bar of light from the window slit provided the only illumination to the bleak tower room. ’Twas as dark as the woods. As dark as the grave.
Rane would die today. He was sure of it.
’Twould be ugly. He didn’t delude himself. After the insults he’d handed out, Mavis would spare no instrument of torture, he was certain, to make his dying a most slow and painful ordeal.
But he consoled himself with the fact that at the end of it, when his body was broken and he gasped out his last earthly breath, he’d be reunited with his beloved Florie.
He smiled ruefully. She’d told him that she loved him, that she wanted to marry him. And he’d been too afraid to answer her. Too afraid to lose her to another. Now he’d lost her to death. In heaven, he vowed, he’d tell her he loved her with every breath.
When the executioner came for him, the skies were raging with unseasonable wind and biting rain. The distant trees thrashed beneath the onslaught, and the ground, already drenched from a spate of spring storms, seemed to bleed the excess water. ’Twas as if Thor himself, angered by the unjust execution of one of his sons, had unleashed the furious maelstrom.
Six men-at-arms, their gold tabards turned the color of clay, slogged across the spongy sod, escorting the blackened cart that would convey Rane to Gallows Hill. Beside the road huddled at least twoscore lasses from the burgh, shivering and sobbing in the rain.
He knew them all by name. ’Twas strange to think he’d never see them again, never kiss them upon the cheeks, never wrap an arm companionably about their shoulders.
An ornate, heavily draped litter borne by eight squires accompanied the procession, and Rane didn’t have to look to know that Mavis sat within it, warm and dry and no doubt contemplating inventive ways to extend his suffering.
When they stopped at the crest of Gallows Hill, Mavis’s beringed hand reached out from the heavily embroidered curtain to summon the executioner. The hooded man hastened to her, listened to her request, and bowed over her hand, then returned to Rane.
“Ye’re to be disgraced,” he grumbled, likely annoyed at anything that made him spend more time in the pouring rain.
Stepping forward, the executioner took hold of the top of Rane’s shirt and tore it down the middle, wrenching the fabric down off his shoulders and arms, baring him to the waist.
If ’twas Mavis’s hope to humiliate him before the lasses of the burgh, she failed. Most of the maidens had glimpsed his naked body at one time or another. Nae, if anything, she invited their sympathy. They wept and moaned as he was lifted into the cart, and as he scanned the faces he saw wee Josselin Ancrum in her guardian’s arms, her wooden claymore drooping in her hand, her sweet child’s face twisted into a mask of uncomprehending sadness.
He frowned. He didn’t want Jossy to see him like this. He didn’t want any of them as witness. ’Twas not a pretty thing, to watch a man die. And they were too kind, too innocent to sully their eyes on such ugliness.
He wanted to send them home, to tell them to remember him as he was. But Mavis had something else in mind.
“Do ye wish to see him live?” she called from within the litter.
The ladies stilled, then answered with a chorus of ayes.
“I’ll spare him on one condition. Surrender the wench with the gold pomander. I know one o’ ye must be harborin’ her.”
Rane knew then that the lady was mad. Florie hadn’t survived the fire. And he’d told Mavis the pomander was destroyed. Yet she still sought it, like a hunter obsessed with a mythical beast.
“Tell her I’m about to hang her lover,” Mavis continued, “and she’ll come to me of her own accord to bargain for his life.”
The ladies of the burgh murmured among themselves in despair, but of course, none of them could do Mavis’s bidding. They knew nothing about the pomander. Most of them had never seen it. And they didn’t know what had become of Florie.
“Nae?” Mavis barked in a fit of pique. “Well, perhaps watchin’ him suffer a bit will change your minds!”
The ladies gasped, and Jossy began to wail.
“Take her away, Will, please,” Rane bade J
ossy’s guardian.
“Nae!” Mavis shrieked. “She’ll stay until I get that pomander. All o’ ye will stay.”
Rane compressed his lips. While the rain dripped off of his nose and made icy rivulets down his chest, he gazed up at the ominous black oak, leafless and solitary and stark against the pale clouds. Few corpses had twisted from its great limb in the last few years. Gilbert ruled with an iron fist, and his reputation for harsh justice had kept most lawbreakers at bay.
He glanced up at the dreary sky. No birds dared fly in such miserable weather. He prayed the storm would pass and the crows would find his body quickly. He didn’t wish to frighten the lasses with his grisly remains.
Chapter 21
Bloody storm!”
True, ’twas the same kind of downpour that had thankfully doused the fire before it could burn the church all the way to the ground, but enough was enough. Now it slowed their progress as Florie rode with the Father along the marshy road, in the company of the most unlikely allies.
Hurry, she wanted to scream. Hurry! God knew how long Mavis would wait before she…
Florie squeezed her eyes shut and gripped the reins more tightly as the Father clung to her waist, and the horses’ hooves smacked and slipped in the mud. She couldn’t bear to think of what was happening.
It had nearly killed her to leave Rane. Even now she wondered if she’d done the right thing. ’Twas the Father who had convinced her they should steal away while they could from the smoldering ruins of the church, who’d assured her that Rane was alive and could take care of himself while they sought help, and who’d warned her that even if she surrendered the girdle now, with Gilbert away, ’twas likely Mavis would see both her and Rane hanged just for spite.
She brought a shaky hand to her throat.
The last time she’d seen Rane, he was lying helpless on his back before the steps of the smoking church. Several maids had pulled him from the wreckage. She’d longed to go to him, to see for herself that he yet lived. But Lady Mavis had ridden up just then, and now, knowing he was in that evil shrew’s clutches…
She shuddered. If it weren’t for Florie overhearing the maidens’ plans to fetch Lord Gilbert, they’d still be on their way to the court at Stirling, assuming the royals were in residence there. But Florie knew that Princess Mary had been secretly transported to Dumbarton months ago for her safety.
Still, it had taken two precious days for Florie and a dozen of the most intrepid burgh maids to reach the castle, even with the horses the Fraser men-at-arms lent them. After all, despite their determination, they were for the most part inexperienced riders.
When the motley group rode awkwardly but boldly up to the shores of the firth surrounding Dumbarton Castle, the queen had been so astounded by the sight that she’d released Lord Gilbert from her service at once to see to his affairs.
And when Florie and the Father, exhausted and reeking of smoke, told him the full story—the significance of the gold piece to Florie, the truth about the theft, how Rane had been torn between his obligation to his lord and his protection of Florie, and how Lady Mavis had set fire to the church and taken Rane captive—Gilbert decided ’twas time to take his unruly wife in hand.
Florie pulled her wet hood closer about her head and peered at the lead rider. ’Twas a very different man she saw now in Lord Gilbert. He was stern, aye, but away from the influence of his wife he seemed more civil, more reasonable, more just. Still, he’d set his huntsman as a guard against Florie’s escape, and that she’d never forgive.
Nae, she amended. She’d forgive even that.
If they arrived in time.
If he saved Rane from Lady Mavis.
Like a cruel taunt, thunder cracked overhead, and the rain increased until blinding sheets of it pummeled the earth, hitting with such force that the drops bounced back up to make a mist along the ground.
Florie cursed silently, cradling the miserable, mewling cat closer within her cloak. If only the rain would stop, she wished. If only they could see Gilbert’s tower house over the next rise…
But three more hills obstructed the horizon before they finally spotted the tower. Smoke rose from the various hearths within the house, only to be shredded like sendal as soon as the wind caught it. If Florie shielded her eyes against the storm, she could see the tiny figures of guards manning the wall. But more significantly, she saw a cluster of people gathered along the narrow road leading from the tower house, around what appeared to be a nobleman’s litter. Florie straightened in the saddle.
An eerie shiver that had nothing to do with the storm slid along her spine. She leaned forward, as if ’twould help her discern what she saw. The cat meowed in complaint.
“What ails ye, Florie?” the Father asked, sensing her unquiet.
“Is that…” She forgot that the priest couldn’t see. “Is that a… a black cart?” Black carts were what they used to transport criminals.
Before the Father could reply, Florie, her heart skipping a beat, kicked at the horse’s flanks. It lurched forward, nearly unseating the poor Father. When she was even with Lord Gilbert, she caught at his sleeve.
“My lord! Up ahead, is that not a blackened cart?”
Gilbert frowned in irritation at her impropriety but followed her gaze. Then his eyes narrowed, and he held up a hand, halting the company. “Mavis’s litter,” he said, more to himself than anyone else. “What the devil would she be doing out in a storm like this?”
“Oh, God,” Florie breathed. “She’s hangin’ him. She’s hangin’ Rane.”
The lord’s scowl deepened, and he clamped his lips together until they were white. “My huntsman? Not while I am lord here.”
A wave of relief rushed over Florie as she glimpsed the determination in Gilbert’s stony eyes. Before she could send up a prayer of thanks, the lord was calling out the names of his best men, commanding them to break away from the company, to follow him and make haste for Gallows Hill.
Florie wasn’t about to be left behind.
“Hold on. Tightly,” she murmured to Father Conan. She didn’t have to warn Methuselah. His claws were already firmly embedded in her kirtle.
As the men urged their horses forward, Florie smacked her mount with the reins and bolted after them. Mud flew everywhere, kicked up by flying hooves, and the cat drew blood from Florie’s throat in its panicked bid for escape. But when her hood fell back, and she felt the cold wind in her hair and the stinging rain upon her cheeks, as the thundering steeds swallowed up the ground at breakneck speed, she at last felt a faint glimmer of hope.
Rane meant to die bravely. And to do that, he had to remove himself from his body. He had to leave behind earthly pleasures, earthly pain, and focus on the heaven that awaited him.
He let the precious images of his life slip through his mind one last time.
He thought of his mother, small and lovely and full of mischief. Of his father, tall and handsome as a Viking prince.
He thought about his first kill—how he’d felt sick at heart when he looked upon the dying stag, until his father showed him the family of hungry peasants its meat would sustain.
He thought about the first lass he’d lain with, how soft and wondrous she’d felt beneath his untried body.
He thought of Father Conan and his long-winded tales. Of a younger Lord Gilbert who boasted tirelessly of his expert huntsman.
He thought of cold winter nights spent drinking ale with his fellows around a roaring hearth. Of hot summer afternoons bathing naked in the pond while giggling lasses spied upon him.
He thought of the glory of a full silver moon hung in a star-shot sky. The vibrancy of the first green shoots springing up through the last season’s leaf-fall. Twilight breezes caressing his hair. Swallows of clear, cold stream water slipping over his tongue. Sunlight warming his face…
And he thought about the burgh maids, etching each face carefully onto his brain. Dimpled Kate. Sweet Miriam. Freckled Alyce. Shy Elizabeth. One by one he kissed th
eir faces farewell, until one shining image remained.
Florie.
He forcefully swallowed the lump that lodged in his gullet. Florie he’d never forget. Indeed, ’twas her face he’d carry with him to sustain him through whatever torment his body endured. For at the end of his suffering, he was certain ’twould be Florie who welcomed him with open arms at the gates of heaven.
Lost in his thoughts, he scarcely noticed when the executioner took his arm to lead him from the cart.
“I’d give ye opium wine,” the man muttered apologetically as he guided Rane to the huge tree, “but m’lady says there’s to be nothin’ to numb the pain.”
Rane nodded. He’d expected as much.
A steel spike had been driven long ago into the wide tree trunk, about seven feet above the ground. One of Rane’s shackles was removed, his arms looped about the rough tree as if in an embrace, then both wrists secured to the spike by the chain.
Despite the chill weather, despite his resolve to be brave, an icy sweat formed at the back of his neck as he rested his brow against the trunk, pondering the sinister possibilities for his torture.
Apparently, making him ponder those possibilities was the first of his tortures, for nothing happened for a long while. He could see from the corner of his eye that the executioner rummaged in the cart, looking for the weapon of Mavis’s choice, but he heard nothing from the lady herself.
Then there was a stirring among the men-at-arms.
“Lord Gilbert!” someone shouted. “Lord Gilbert comes!”
The ladies began chattering excitedly.
Strangely, Rane’s mind resisted comprehension. After all, he had accepted his death. He had accepted that he was beyond help. He was past hope, past pain. He now devoted all his thoughts, all his strength to venturing unafraid into that dark realm. And the men’s interruption was only delaying his journey.
He wished they would cease their prattle. He was ready to go. The sooner he passed, the sooner he’d be reunited with his Florie.
Aye, he wanted to die.
