I unclasped my cloak, flecked brown with battle-blood, and draped it across his legs. “Is Muriel your wife?”
“Daughter. My wife, she died last year.” A tear squeezed from his good eye, blue as the winter sky, and streaked its way down his dirty cheek, leaving a jagged white trail. “My son, too. He was only three months old.”
“I’m sorry to hear it. Children should never die so young. Nor wives.” A wave of grief crashed inside my chest. My first wife, Isabella of Mar, had died in childbirth at not yet eighteen. Too young, too beautiful, and too much a part of me. Lately, every time I had looked at my daughter, who now tottered on the precipice of womanhood, it had sent a knife of sorrow through my heart because I saw so much of her mother in her: the sweeping, dark lashes that contrasted sharply with her corn-gold hair, the peculiar way she thrust her chin forward when determined to have her way, the dimples that creased her cheeks when she smiled. The pain of memories does not so much as fade, as it hides and waits in unexpected places. Even in the innocent face of a child. But Marjorie was not a child anymore.
A yellow dung-fly circled my head sluggishly, its annoyance yanking me back into the present. I swatted it away. “Tell me your name.”
He laughed – a dry, raspy cackle, which quickly deteriorated into a hacking cough. Another violent shiver rattled his body, so that his words came out in broken bits. “N-never had a... k-king ask my name before. It’s Col–Colin. ”
“What happened to them, Colin?” I squatted down to hear him better. He had little strength left, even for words, but he told me his story, perhaps because he thought it was the last thing he would ever do.
“I was in the hills with Muriel. May. The hawthorn was in bloom – clouds and clouds of it. How my lass loved to watch the lambs play king of the cairn. She laughed until her belly ached.” The vaguest of smiles curved his mouth, but soon the corners trembled and slipped downward. “And then, I saw the smoke above the hills. I knew, knew it was my home burning. I snatched her up and ran like the devil. But he was... they were already there. I was...” Colin paused, his disfigured face contorting even more with the agony of the memory. Several breaths passed before he whispered, “Too late.”
No need to ask who ‘they’ was. It had been happening as long as anyone could remember – the English marching imperiously north every year when the days lengthened, plundering and murdering, striking terror wherever they went like the Hounds of Hell unleashed. Ever since Longshanks had cozened our nobles into signing the Ragman’s Roll at Norham.
“Must have been twenty of the damned Englishmen,” Colin said, little wheezes now leaking out in between strained breaths. “Maybe more, I don’t know. There was so much smoke. Merciful Father, it was everywhere. The thatch was burning. Flames bursting from the door. When the roof fell in… I thought they were dead.” His trembling stopped as he winced at a pain and drew his maimed arm tighter to his chest. Gulping, he struggled to pull in another ragged breath, before continuing. “Then… I heard my son cry. He was alive! But they’d heard him, too, and they went to the haystack where the sound had come from. One of them plunged his sword into it. Then another threw a torch on it. My wife jumped up and ran, holding the boy, but it was for naught. They were all around her. Everywhere, everywhere. They... they ripped my son from her arms and flung him to the ground. He stopped crying. Stopped moving.” A long silence followed as he steeled himself to go on. “I knew if I went down there, I would die, too, and so would Muriel. So I hid. Like a coward, I hid in the hawthorns, my hand over Muriel’s mouth so they wouldn’t hear her whimpering. One after another, they raped my wife. Raped her, until she was bloody from her hips to her heels. I thought they would let her go, but... oh, sweet Jesus, they –” He tilted his head back, his mouth hanging open as he let out a sob. When he spoke again, his words were hollow with loss. “They c-cut her throat. Left her there to bleed like a butchered pig.”
I laid a hand on his shoulder in comfort. Even through the cloth of his shirt, crusted with the dried blood from his missing ear, his flesh was ice cold. “Where’s your daughter now?”
“In Aberdeen, with my sister. Her husband died at Methven. She has six children to raise on her own. Seven now.” He swallowed hard, my cloak wadded in a shaking hand against his stomach. “Whoring bastards. I’ll slice their bollocks off and shove them down their gullets, then strangle them with their own entrails.” Bruised lips twisting in a sneer, he gazed down at his useless stump.
When they’ve killed your family and burnt your home to the ground, what is there left to do but dream of revenge?
If only a short while ago, I had wondered if the struggle was worth such sacrifices, I wondered no longer. Enough of suffering, enough of fear. No more.
About the Author
N. Gemini Sasson holds a M.S. in Biology from Wright State University where she ran cross country on athletic scholarship. She has worked as an aquatic toxicologist, an environmental engineer, a teacher and a cross country coach. A longtime breeder of Australian Shepherds, her articles on bobtail genetics have been translated into seven languages. She lives in rural Ohio with her husband, two nearly grown children and an ever-changing number of sheep and dogs.
Long after writing about Robert the Bruce and Queen Isabella, Sasson learned she is a descendent of both historical figures.
You may contact the author with comments or questions via her web site at:
www.ngeminisasson.com
Or become a ‘fan’ on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/NGeminiSasson
Books by N. Gemini Sasson
The Crown in the Heather
(The Bruce Trilogy: Book I)
Worth Dying For
(The Bruce Trilogy: Book II)
The Honor Due a King
(The Bruce Trilogy: Book III)
Isabeau, A Novel of Queen Isabella and Sir Roger Mortimer
The King Must Die, A Novel of Edward III
Uneasy Lies the Crown, A Novel of Owain Glyndwr
The Crown in the Heather (The Bruce Trilogy) Page 27
