by Kira Morgan
“Do it!” Mavis shrieked suddenly. “Do it now! Hang him!”
“But m’lady—” the executioner said.
“Ye heard me!” she screamed. “Make haste!”
But the executioner didn’t seem in a hurry at all. He dropped the shackle key twice in the mud. He couldn’t find the rope and, when he finally did, had trouble winding the knots properly.
All the while, Mavis was near hysteria, popping her head out of the litter to curse his stupidity and nag him to hurry.
By the time the men-at-arms managed to move Rane, position the cart beneath the hanging limb, throw the rope over, and secure the loop about Rane’s neck, he began to hear the rumble of horse hooves coming closer.
“Ye dolt!” Mavis screeched at the executioner. “Do I have to do it myself?”
“Sorry, m’lady,” the executioner mumbled.
But the man had trouble controlling the cart horse well enough to command it forward. Indeed, were it not a mortal sin, Rane might consider jumping off of the cart himself, just to end the suspense.
The downpour ceased abruptly, as if Thor’s wine barrel had been tapped to the dregs. Yet the stormy slosh and rumble continued as the riders advanced. Mavis’s shrill squalling was a constant barrage now, and Rane thought ’twas a shame that hers would be the voice he took to his grave.
He swallowed once beneath the rough knot under his chin and closed his eyes, trying to drown the sounds of her clamoring beneath his own silent prayer of last rites.
“Cease!” Lord Gilbert’s voice came like a boom of thunder.
Rane squeezed his eyes more tightly shut. He didn’t want the lord’s interference. Damn Lord Gilbert! Rane wanted to die. He wanted to die.
“Take him down!”
Nae, he thought in desperation. He couldn’t live. Not without Florie. He opened his eyes to slits. The edge of the cart beckoned. ’Twould take but one step into air to end it. One step. And then he’d join his beloved. Then he’d be with Florie… forever.
He leaned toward the edge of the cart.
One… short… step…
“Rane!”
He faltered then, jerking back. He silently cursed his cowardice, his brow crumpling in distress. Ah, God, his mind deceived him. He could hear her calling him. If he could just find the willpower to take that step…
“Rane! Nae!” she screamed. “Nae!”
She sounded so painfully real… so close…
Then he turned his head.
The hoarse cry came from the depths of his soul. “Florie!”
She was alive! Alive and beautiful. Even ashen and soaked and muddy, her lips blue with cold, tears and rain streaking her face, her hands clinging to a pathetically singed creature that might be Methuselah, come through hell. God, she was the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen.
Somewhere in the distance he could hear Mavis’s petulant whining, but ’twas submerged beneath a loud tumult as everyone—men-at-arms, Gilbert’s guard, Father Conan, Florie—cheered. Even the executioner, his mission thwarted, let go of the horse’s bridle to applaud.
Then the mare, startled by the sudden noise, bolted forward, taking the cart with her.
Chapter 22
Rane felt the knot jerk and tighten around his neck as he dropped off the cart. For a nightmarish moment, the strangling tension about his throat was intense, unbearable.
But an instant later, his feet hit the ground.
Stunned, he simply stood there in disbelief, choking. No one moved. Or spoke. Or breathed. Then someone prodded the executioner, and he rushed forward, grabbing the rope.
Someone snickered.
As the executioner loosened the knot about his throat, Rane coughed reflexively.
A few onlookers giggled.
Rane glanced dazedly down at his feet, planted solidly on the earth, then up at the oak branch.
Soon the entire assemblage was roaring with laughter. He glanced at the executioner.
“Ye’re a tall one,” the man said with a sheepish shrug. “I must have measured wrong.” He winked, sending everyone into gales of helpless mirth.
Only Florie wasn’t laughing. She was as white as alabaster, and her eyes pooled with unspilled tears. With a decisive sniff and wiping at her nose with the back of her hand, she passed Methuselah to Father Conan. She opened the satchel at her hip, and Rane knew, without ever seeing it, what was inside. And what she intended.
Florie licked the raindrops from her lips, looking pensively at the girdle of gold links, her heirloom, her legacy. She took a quavery breath. The very meaning of her existence resided in that girdle.
But because of it, she’d almost lost Rane. She’d almost lost the chance at a future filled with love. And what could possibly be as meaningful as that? Certainly not a piece of gold that had never been hers to begin with, the relic of a love that was no more and a bloodline that made no difference.
Aye, she would cast away the promise of prosperity and wager her fate upon this untamed son of Vikings. For love.
Giving Rane a tremulous smile, she turned toward Mavis’s litter and knelt in the mud.
“Nae,” he called hoarsely to her, knowing all that she was about to sacrifice.
She glanced back at him, smiling again. “I want to, Rane. I want this.”
Then, bowing her head before Lady Mavis, who was near apoplectic with dismay at her foiled spectacle, she offered up the gold girdle in both hands. “My lady, I wish to buy the life o’ your prisoner.”
* * *
Mavis didn’t think twice. Her eyes wide with alarm, she reached out, planning to snatch the prize before anyone could see it.
“Wait!” Gilbert barked.
A panicked whimper escaped her as he gestured angrily toward the girdle. “Ye’d kill a man over this trinket?” he demanded. “Ye’d execute my best huntsman to put another bauble about your hips?”
Mavis, her eyes fixed on the pomander, her fingers itching to seize it, answered him as calmly as she could. “Nae, Gilly. I’d execute the thievin’ wench who stole it from me. But he let her escape and—”
“Escape! Escape? Ye mean from the fire ye set?”
The crowd gasped, and Mavis felt fear clog her throat. Her mind whirring, she tried to think of something, anything, that would distract Gilbert from the pomander long enough for her to wrest it from the wench.
“Ach, Gilly,” she said on a feigned sob, pressing a hand to her bosom, “how could ye think such a thing? I’d never set fire to a church.”
“Nae!” he spat. Then, so softly that only she could hear, he bit out, “Ye likely left that task to one o’ your English friends.”
“Wha—?” Her heart plummeted.
With one hand, Gilbert tore the curtain from her litter, and Mavis recoiled with a squeak, feeling as if he’d ripped the clothing from her body.
“Free my huntsman,” Gilbert commanded the executioner over his shoulder, his cold stare never leaving Mavis. “Lady, ye’ve been nothin’ but trouble from the time I brought ye home to wife.”
Mavis glanced about at the gawking peasants, wishing she could banish them with a wave of her hand, the way King Henry always had. “Gilly,” she said between her teeth, “this is hardly the proper time and—”
“I indulged ye, knowin’ ye weren’t happy here. I allowed ye to spend your coin freely, hopin’ to keep ye entertained. I gave ye servants to order about, prize falcons for your amusement, gold for ye to squander at the fair. I see now, however, that ye’re no happier. I’ve only let ye become an even more spoiled child.”
“I’m not a child,” Mavis protested, unfortunately sounding just like a child.
He hauled her swiftly up against him, burying her face in his doublet, holding her there in the crook of his arm. To onlookers, it likely appeared to be a lover’s embrace. To Mavis, ’twas suffocating.
“And now,” he whispered in her ear with deadly calm, “I’ve proof ye’ve been consortin’ with the enemy.”
Mavis
stiffened. She’d feared Gilbert might discover the truth about the lass and her trinket. She’d never expected he’d discover the truth about her.
“Ye’ve been passin’ messages to the English,” he hissed, “tellin’ them the whereabouts o’ the Scots soldiers. Givin’ them information about my comin’ and goin’.”
“Nae,” Mavis breathed.
“The queen feared ye were disloyal. She’d hoped to curb your spyin’ by sendin’ ye away to the Borders. But it didn’t cure ye, did it?” He lowered his voice to a deadly growl. “Ye told the English that the princess was bein’ moved to Musselburgh.”
Mavis swallowed, her thoughts racing. What had happened? Had the ambush worked? Had Hertford’s men found Princess Mary? Had they finally brought the stubborn Scots queen to her knees?
Gilbert chuckled humorlessly. “There’s just one problem. I lied to ye. The princess isn’t there. Ye sent the English into a trap this time.”
Mavis, who’d spent a lifetime deceiving men, wasn’t about to confess to a crime for which she might hang. “Gilly, my love,” she said, turning a stricken gaze up to him, “I don’t know what ye’re talkin’ about.”
“I’m not your love,” he snarled. “Ye never cared for me. Ye only hoped to use me.”
“’Tisn’t true, Gilly. I love ye,” she choked out. “I want to give ye sons and grow old with ye.”
“Aye, that ye do. Like that bastard Henry, ye’d do anythin’ to secure your future,” he said, shaking his head, “includin’ stealin’ away the future of another. Do ye even know what ye’re takin’ from this lass, or is it only another costly bauble for your amusement?”
Mavis pressed her lips together to keep them from trembling.
Gilbert released her and gestured toward the wretched girdle, which winked in mockery now as the sun filtered through the clearing clouds. “This piece was never for the sellin’. The lass said it belonged to her father, her noble father, whom she seeks. So ye see, Mavis, the lass may be as highborn as ye are.”
Mavis blinked. Gilbert didn’t know the whole truth yet, then. His words had given her one last slim hope. She sighed in feigned exasperation and fluttered her hands in surrender. “Oh, very well. The lass can have it back, then. Now that I see the piece again, I find I don’t like it all that well anyway.” She placed her palm on Gilbert’s chest and stared sweetly into his eyes, willing him to look at her. “Come, Gilly, let’s just put all this nonsense about spyin’ and fires and hangin’ behind us, and…” She trailed off as she saw she’d failed to gain his attention.
Florie was too busy staring at her beloved Rane to notice that the lord sheriff had grown silent and was studying the girdle in her hands.
Rane’s weary eyes were rimmed with red. His hair hung like wet, charred twine over his face. His neck was raw where the rope had throttled him, and his chest was covered with scrapes and bruises. But faith, he was the most beautiful man in the world. And, thank God, he was alive to hear her say it. Which she intended to do, from this day forward for the rest of her life.
His lips lifted in a grateful smile as he returned her stare, but then he glanced up at Lord Gilbert, and his brow furrowed.
She followed his gaze.
The sun had pierced holes in the gray clouds like arrows shot through silk, and in her hands the gold girdle glittered in the brilliant light. Lord Gilbert’s eyes narrowed upon the pomander, and he spoke so softly that surely only Florie could hear him.
“I know this piece.”
Florie blinked. Maybe he had seen it at the fair. Or one similar. Aye, the pomander was unique in all the world, but in her experience, most men couldn’t discern the difference between rubies and red glass.
He slowly drew his gaze upward to look at Florie’s face, as if he sought something there. “Ye said your mother gave it to ye?”
“Aye, my lord, upon her death,” she said. “She said it belonged to…”
Suddenly ’twas as transparent as the rain-washed air. The same dark hair that, in her mother’s words, seemed nearly black but shimmered like claret in the sun. The same fair skin. The same tilt of the eyes. Why had she not noticed it before?
“My father,” she breathed.
He was still staring at her, but his gaze had gone to another time, another place, maybe to memories he wished he could revisit, sorrows he wished he could repair.
Florie’s thoughts raced and tumbled one over the other as she considered the import of her discovery. Was her search truly over? Had she found her father? ’Twas a most astonishing miracle.
Now that she’d found him, she realized she could begin her life anew. She’d never have to return to Stirling. She could remain in Selkirk and live in a tower house, her father’s tower house. She could have a hundred servants at her beck and call. She could wear the finest silks and have a daily bath if she so desired. Best of all, she could be free of the burden of her foster father, of toiling long hours over a worktable to ensure he was steeped in enough ale to keep him numb.
’Twas such a temptation.
Yet if she stayed, if she revealed that Lord Gilbert was her true father, if she embraced a new life, she’d also inherit the hindrances of that life. Noblewomen didn’t sully their hands on common labor. Could she bear to give up her craft entirely? Would she have to curb her forthright tongue for propriety’s sake? And, God’s wounds, did she truly want Lady Mavis for a foster mother?
Such thoughts gave her pause. But the one that brought her to her senses as swiftly as a splash of cold water, the one that convinced her to hand the pomander to Lord Gilbert without a word and only the slightest indication in the meeting of their eyes that they shared a secret, was the realization that if she chose Gilbert, she would lose Rane.
Her father glanced down at the pomander, tracing his fingers over the letters—F and G—and Florie suddenly realized they didn’t stand for Florie Gilder, but Gilbert Fraser.
“Ye’re certain ye wish to give this up?” he murmured.
Though he spoke no further word, his message was clear. If Florie wished him to acknowledge her as his daughter, he would. She could see now why her mother had loved the handsome nobleman. Florie supposed she’d only half believed the tales her mother told, suspecting her real father had used the young, naive, pretty lass to ease his lusts, then cast her aside on a whim. Indeed, she sometimes wondered if in seeking out her father, she wished to punish him in some way by giving a face and a name to his sin.
No more. Now she believed. Now she saw Gilbert’s dilemma. Just as he was caught now in a miserable second marriage to a demanding shrew, a union ordained by the queen, so he’d been caught before. Abandoning her mother hadn’t been a choice. It had been an unavoidable tragedy. She couldn’t blame him for the machinations of royalty.
Nobles, she thought, were like the warriors in hnefatafl. They had no will of their own. Their destiny was controlled by their overlord. They moved about the board of life, advancing and losing ground, making sacrifices, living and marrying and dying according to the wishes of another.
Nae, she decided, she wanted no part of it.
“Ye keep it,” she said, smiling gently, a smile that told him she forgave him for the past.
“Is there…,” he began, pausing to clear his throat, obviously deeply affected by the fact that, unlike his current wife, Florie yearned for neither his land nor his title. “Is there anythin’ else I can do for ye?”
“Aye,” Florie answered, coming to her feet as Gilbert held out his hand. “There is one thing.”
The burgh maids had straggled up now, having scrambled after the racing horses as quickly as they could to see what transpired with their hero on Gallows Hill. Now, gasping and clasping their hands to their pounding hearts, they whispered among themselves, utterly baffled by the curious turn of events.
Rane set his hand upon her shoulder, and Florie covered it with her own, swallowing hard. ’Twas a reckless thing she dared, a petition that went against all her parents’ warnings,
a wager on which she staked everything. ’Twas foolhardy and audacious and ill-considered. But for the first time in her life, she intended to listen to her heart, to close her eyes and step off the cliff of reason.
“I wish to marry your huntsman, my lord,” she said, her heart throbbing. “And I wish for your blessin’.”
Gasps sounded all around them. But Florie held her breath. There was only one response she awaited, and ’twasn’t Gilbert’s. Fortunately, she didn’t wait long. In the next instant Rane’s chuckling sigh of consent blew past her ear, sending a relieved shiver through her.
“’Tis agreeable to ye, Rane?” Gilbert asked.
She could almost feel his grin. “Oh, aye, my lord.”
At once, plaintive feminine weeping filled the air—the burgh maids, Florie realized, mourning their loss. She almost pitied them—almost. But the soft sound was more bittersweet than sad, and soon the enthusiastic cheering of the men-at-arms overshadowed their sniffling. Florie grinned. Later, without a doubt, the men would be more than happy to console the grieving lasses.
After a space, Gilbert held up a hand for silence. “I grant permission for this marriage, then. We’ll have the weddin’ feast at the tower house. May ye both enjoy the blessin’s o’ true love.” His voice was tainted with sadness at the end, and Florie felt sorry for him. Gilbert had had to walk away from his true love, and he knew the price he’d paid.
“Gilly,” Mavis ventured meekly, aware of her tenuous position. “Let them have the piece as a weddin’ gift.”
Gilbert’s jaw tensed, but he turned a grim smile on his wife and said in a deceptively friendly tone, “Nae, I’ve decided to give ye your prize, after all, since ye worked so hard to earn it.” He weighed the piece in his hand. “Only since ye don’t like its design, I’m goin’ to give it to the armorer to melt down into a new one.” He spared a wink at Florie, then thoughtfully stroked his beard. “I’m goin’ to have him fashion it into a collar o’ sorts for ye,” he continued, “the kind the hounds wear, permanently fitted with a leash o’ gold links.”
Mavis’s eyes went as round as her mouth.
