by Amy Jarecki
Isaac stood on the Edinburgh Castle battlements beside Lord Percy while the king’s procession made its way up the winding cobbled road to the gaol. A cold wind blew in off the firth and cut to the bone. It didn’t seem to matter how many layers he piled on—in Scotland, Isaac always felt cold.
Percy pointed. “There he is. He’s not looking so cocky now his hands are bound.” He smirked. “They chose a fine ass for him to ride, as well.”
Isaac watched the figure of Lord Glenorchy ride a mule—not an ass—along the path to the taunts and jibes of the crowd. The large man wore no cloak and clutched his elbows to his sides, hunched over against the gale.
“Burn him!” screeched a woman across the path.
The Lord of Glenorchy’s jaw hardened. Looking straight ahead, he raised his chin and straightened in the saddle, as if he were carrying the pennant for the once great king, Robert the Bruce. Then the baronet turned his head. Isaac’s heart slammed against his chest. At first he thought Duncan Campbell looked directly at him, but it was the man standing beside him who was the recipient of a glare filled with alarm. While the horse neared, the man didn’t avert his gaze—rather, he narrowed his eyes and set his jaw. By the time the mule walked past, Lord Glenorchy’s stare had darkened to unmistakable hatred.
Lord Percy examined his fingernails. “I daresay, that man is capable of anything, undoubtedly murder. We’re doing Scotland a service by delivering him to her gallows.”
Heat rushed up the back of Isaac’s neck in concert with the tightening in his chest. “You mean to tell me you feel no sense of guilt?”
“Why ever should I?”
Isaac clenched his fists at his sides. “The man is innocent.”
“That same man stole into my home, kidnapped my prisoner and killed three of my guards. He may not be hanged for his crimes against me, but he will receive his just punishment.”
Isaac fidgeted with his sword belt. The damned thing seemed to have become ill-fitting overnight. When he closed his eyes, he saw the back of the Earl of Mar’s head. The man had been peaceful, ladling water over himself in the bath, and then Isaac had run the blade across his neck—killing in the name of the Earl of Northumberland. Would he meet a similar end?
“Come,” Lord Percy said. “I’ve important emissary work to attend.”
Isaac watched the rear of the procession disappear behind St. Margaret’s Chapel. The thickness in his throat refused to ease. “I shall be along shortly.”
He had no place to go, but presently the thought of following the Earl of Northumberland anywhere sickened him. Needing to think, to clear his mind and seek absolution for committing murder, Isaac strode along the battlements that overlooked the firth. If only he could leave this hellacious place and return to his family, one day he might forget his wretched past and the abominable deeds he’d committed in the name of the Lord of Northumberland.
Duncan had been chained to the wall for three days. He only knew this because a ray of light shone through a crack in the mortar near the ceiling of the dungeon. Aside from a filthy scrapper bringing around a cup of water once a day, he’d had no sustenance.
His arms hung from manacles, and two days ago his hands had gone numb. At first he tried to move his fingers to revive the feeling, but now he no longer cared. His mind was a blur, unable to focus on anything except his raging hunger. Even his vision blurred. Worse, he’d heard naught except the moans from the prisoner alongside him. None of his men had made contact.
Duncan shifted his weight, and the trembling resumed in his thighs. If he hadn’t been chained to the wall, his legs would have given out by now. He moved every now and again to redistribute his weight, but he’d lost control of his muscles. He’d even tried to hang from his arms, but that only served to worsen the pins and needles driving through his fingertips.
When the iron door creaked open, Duncan opened his eyes and forced himself to raise his head. A man dressed in the black robes of a headsman, ushered in two guards. The executioner sucked in his gaunt cheeks, making his cadaverous face appear even more skeletal.
The man sauntered forward. “I’m surprised you’re still conscious.”
Duncan’s arid tongue tapped the roof of his mouth, but he said nothing.
“You must know why I’m here.” The man’s breath stank of rotting teeth.
Duncan met his sallow gaze. “I do not suppose the king has seen fit to grant me a pardon.” He coughed, barely recognizing his own voice due to the grating rasp. “The last time he asked me to dine, I couldn’t stay.”
“Oh?” The man’s putrid breath hit Duncan in the back of the throat and made him gag. “Why?”
“I had a funeral to attend.”
“Ah.” The bastard chuckled. “Not unlike the one you’ll be attending soon. Except you’ll be the guest of honor.”
“I am innocent of the charges. Dozens of people can vouch for me.”
“Hmm.” The man stroked his pointed beard. “That should not be necessary. My duty is to make you confess.”
Duncan’s gut dropped to his toes. “I’ll die first.”
“That has been known to happen. Confess and I’ll see to it you meet a swift end. Surely you’d prefer a beheading over sennights in irons.”
Duncan met the man’s black stare. “I prefer justice.”
The executioner’s sickening laughter swelled throughout the chamber. “Tell me you murdered your father because you couldn’t wait for his riches to pass to you.”
“Never.”
“Tell me you murdered the Earl of Mar whilst he lingered in a bath, and you staged it to cast a dark shadow over the king.”
“How could I kill someone in Edinburgh when I was in Glen Orchy?”
“Do you deny your brutish handling of the earl whilst he was in your custody?”
Duncan hissed. Christ.
The villain jabbed a finger into Duncan’s sternum. “Why, Sir Preston reported Mar had a black eye when you delivered him to Craigmillar.”
Duncan would admit truths only. “The earl laughed at my father when he was hunched over a horse, close to death—any man would have done the same.”
The man drew back his fist and slammed it into Duncan’s jaw before he had a chance to flinch. Shoving his tongue to the corner of his mouth, the iron taste of blood turned his empty stomach. Still, this was only the beginning.
The black-robed scoundrel gestured to the guards. “Take him to my chamber.”
Duncan tried to rub his arms when they released them from the manacles, but his relief was short lived. Shoved into a chamber equipped with every torture device he’d ever seen, and a few Duncan didn’t recognize, he wished they’d left him chained to the wall.
They stripped away his doublet and shirt, and cast them to the damp, earthen floor. They tied his arms to an iron loop protruding from the wall. With all the contraptions in the room, they planned to whip him?
The black-robed man stepped so close, his woolen mantle scratched Duncan’s flesh. He flinched when the maniac ran his fingernail across an old knife scar at his flank. “You’re not a stranger to pain, I see.”
The bastard dug into another scar, slowly drawing his jagged nail across it. The deliberate, deep scratch brought the memory of every wound to the forefront of Duncan’s mind. Each scar stung and throbbed as if it had been sliced open.
Duncan closed his eyes and conjured a picture of Meg. Those blue eyes that captivated his heart. When they’d first met, all she need do was raise her lids and his heart belonged to Meg Douglas. The porcelain face framed by curls of fire—curls that wouldn’t stop, wild like a lion’s mane.
Rustling came from behind. Duncan didn’t turn his head, but ground his teeth, every muscle clenched taut. He’d been whipped before. He could take it.
Something hissed through the air. Duncan steeled himself for the impact—but it didn’t come. Excruciating pain seared across all his exposed flesh. His gaze shot to his shoulder. Burning droplets of molten lead sizzled o
n his skin, filling the room with the stench of burning flesh.
His head shuddered against the unbearable pain. His eyes watered. Grinding his teeth, he growled and held in his urge to bellow.
“The whip would have been too kind for the likes of you,” the executioner said, holding the handle of a metal sprinkler in his palm. It looked like the one the priest used to scatter holy water, yet this instrument served a far more sinister purpose.
The man then pushed his dirty fingernail under a droplet of the cooling lead and levered it up. “Confess.”
Duncan arched his spine as the blood trickled from his shoulder and down his back. With each blistering tear of the skin, the bastard demanded a confession. Duncan lost track of time, his mind overcome with pain and exhaustion, his extremities trembling out of control. The only things keeping him sane were the moments when he’d close his eyes and focus on Lady Meg.
When they brought in a beast of a man holding a whip with three thick tongues, Duncan’s insides gave way. He retched as thick yellow bile burned his throat and spewed to the ground.
“Confess!” roared the black-robed villain.
A strike of the lash hit Duncan with such force, his head slammed into the post. Stars crossed his vision, and his eyes rolled back while freshly carved welts stung as though his entire back had just been branded.
“Confess!”
Duncan tried to picture Meg, but saw only flashes of light. “I . . .”
Everything faded into blackness.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“A gentleman has come to call, m’lady,” Cassie said from the doorway. The early-morning sun shone through the window, illuminating the lassie’s face.
Meg’s heart skipped more than a beat. She tried to steady her breathing whilst she set her quill in the holder. “Who is this gentleman?”
“He’s an Englishman. He asked to speak to Arthur, but when the guard said he was out, the man demanded to speak to you—said it was a matter of grave importance.”
Meg’s heart went from fluttering with elation to a tremulous palpitation. “Englishman? Is he armed? Did he come with a contingent of soldiers?”
“He’s alone, m’lady. Shall I send him away?”
“Nay.” Meg stood, cradling her hands against her stomach. “Call my guard. See to it this man bears no arms and have him escorted to Arthur’s solar. I shall meet with him there.”
“Yes, m’lady.”
Meg adjusted her wimple. An Englishman calling to see Arthur, and then asks to see me? The man must be completely daft walking through the gates of Tantallon alone.
She met Tormond outside the solar. “Is he within?”
The guard wore a hauberk with a sword strapped to his back and another at his hip, in addition to dirks and daggers lashed to his every extremity. “Aye, m’lady.”
She rubbed the outside of her shoulder. “He is disarmed?”
“Aye, and I shall be beside you the whole time.”
“Very well.”
She reached for the latch, but the guard’s hand grasped it first. “You do not have to meet with him.”
“He said he had a message of dire importance, did he not?”
“Aye.”
“Then I shall hear what he has to say.” She nodded for him to open the door.
She stood in the doorway and gasped. That same scar. “You?”
Isaac shoved back his chair and stood. “My lady, forgive my intrusion, but I have grave news.”
She crossed her arms and stepped inside. “It had best be grave indeed, or you’ll see yourself thrown in the dungeon and left to rot.”
He held up his hands. “Understood, but I must speak to you in private.”
Tormond moved forward, hand on the hilt of his claymore. “You shall never have a private audience with her ladyship.”
Isaac looked to Meg, his brows slanted outward. “I beg of you, Lord Campbell is in dire need of assistance from your house.”
“Lord Campbell? Has he recovered from the arrow wound?”
“Arrow wound?” Isaac’s scar stretched with his confounded stare. “Ah . . . I was referring to Lord Duncan Campbell.”
Meg gaped at him. “The Black Knight has perished?”
“Sennights ago.”
She stumbled forward, grasping the back of a chair for support.
Duncan is in trouble? His father dead? Meg nearly swooned.
Tormond advanced and seized Isaac. Her mind raced—this could be a plot to spirit her back to Alnwick. Isaac’s gaze did not waver. Something in his stricken expression made her trust the man. “Release him.”
“M’lady?”
“Do it, I say, and leave us.”
Tormond’s brows drew together. “I cannot.”
“Remain outside the door. If Sir Isaac should raise a finger, I shall call you in.”
“But—”
“Leave us.” She pointed. “Now.”
The guard stepped away from Isaac. “If you do anything improper, anything at all, you will not leave this chamber alive.”
Meg watched Tormond take his leave, and then turned to Isaac. “Sit.”
He obliged, and folded his hands atop the table in a gesture demonstrating his surrender.
Meg chose to remain standing. “Sir Duncan, I mean Lord Campbell is in peril?”
“Yes. Lord Percy has conspired with King James to accuse him of murdering the Earl of Mar.” Isaac repeated the late earl’s name, as if the man’s ghost sent a cold shiver across his back.
Meg again clutched the back of the chair. “My God.”
“It gets worse.” Isaac pushed the heels of his hands against his eyes and shook his head. “They’re also accusing Lord Campbell of murdering his father.”
Meg’s stomach turned over with a sickening squelch. “He would never raise a hand against his da. He respected him as much as the king—more so.” Clutching her arms across her stomach, she paced. What could she do . . . and why was Isaac at Tantallon bearing witness against his lord? “Why did you come here, of all places?”
“I thought the Lord of Angus might help, especially considering the fact that Lord Campbell rescued you from the clutches of a tyrant.”
“But you’re loyal to Northumberland. You followed us after Duncan rescued me from Alnwick. I saw you on the pier in Glasgow.” She slammed her hand on the table. “You kidnapped me!” Meg desperately wanted to trust this man, but could she? Was this a ploy to entice her from Tantallon’s fortress?
“I can no longer live under the yoke of lies and tyranny. I’m the one . . .” Isaac swiped a hand across his mouth, as if he’d almost revealed a key confidence.
“You’re the one?”
His face paled, and there was something damning in his eyes she’d not noticed during her stay in England. They expressed something greater than fear. She cocked her head to the side. “Do you know who killed the Earl of Mar?”
Isaac’s jaw dropped, but those eyes remained filled with horror.
Meg suspected he did, but when he looked away, she opted not to push him. At the moment, the more important matter was Duncan. She chose to rephrase. “How do you know Lord Campbell is innocent?”
Isaac’s gaze returned to his folded hands. “Because he was in Glen Orchy when the murder occurred.”
Meg could feign a calm demeanor no longer. Fists clenching, she paced like a caged animal. “Where is he now?”
“In the gaol at Edinburgh Castle.”
Dear Lord, help. Duncan could succumb to any number of heinous deeds. “How can we spirit him out?”
“I was hoping your brother could petition the king. A strong word from the Earl of Angus would be considered with utmost solemnity.”
Meg could scarcely breathe. “Arthur is in France and is not expected to return for a fortnight.”
Isaac’s shoulders dropped. “By then it will be too late.”
Meg placed both her hands on the table and leaned forward. Isaac had seen the claw, and at this po
int, she cared not. “I will go in Arthur’s stead. We must leave immediately.”
“But, my lady, the king will not see you, and the queen is at Dunfirmline.”
“Oh?” She stamped her foot. “Then we shall find another way.”
Meg marched to the door and flung it wide. “Tormond, we ride to Edinburgh within the hour. Ready the guard.”
Isaac sprang from the table. “It will draw suspicion if you ride into Edinburgh with an army of men.”
She raised her chin in defiance. “I will not put myself in a position to be kidnapped by Lord Percy again.”
“Very well—tie my hands if you like, but bring only a few good soldiers. Smart men who know how to blend into the shadows if need be.”
She glanced at Tormond. The fear in Isaac’s eyes had made her trust him. “Do it. I shall meet you in the courtyard in the turn of an hourglass.”
After dashing up to her chamber, the first thing Meg packed in her satchel was her new assortment of herbal remedies, including a vial of avens oil that she’d made under Hubert’s tutelage. She’d already learned that when it came to Duncan Campbell, a woman needed to be close by with a potent remedy.
It was nearly dark when Edinburgh Castle loomed on the horizon. Meg wasted no time and spurred her horse to a brisk canter. Duncan’s soul called to her, needed her. Nothing would stand in her way—not even the iron bars of the castle gaol.
Her guard had no choice but to match her pace. Isaac, too, rode beside her. He’d said little along their journey. Meg suspected he was deep in thought. Lord Percy must have done something abominable indeed to make his loyal man-at-arms turn traitor. And she gave thanks to God that he had.
Meg had visited Edinburgh Castle enough to know exactly where the dungeon was situated. Without slowing her horse, she drove the mare straight up the cobblestones past St. Margaret’s Chapel and to the prison gate. “I shall go in alone.”
