by Aileen Adams
“I thought the same,” Clyde agreed, his heart pounding wildly. If Rufus thought along the same lines as he, it was not misplaced hope which inspired him, but sound reasoning.
They reached the edge of the village and took to the safety of the woods beyond, where they had waited earlier. “There are woods on two sides,” Clyde murmured. “Where would they take her?”
“Perhaps all we can do is wait to find out,” Rufus mused. Then his eyes widened. “In fact, perhaps we might be able to hide in the open.”
“How so?”
“Aye,” Drew whispered, emerging from behind a thick birch. “How so?”
“Where did ye come from?” Clyde asked, delighted and relieved.
“Where do ye think?” He raised his fingers to his lips and whistled, long and low. From the deeper wood emerged eight men on horseback. “Forgive me, but it was the best I could do with little notice.”
“I did not hope for half as many,” Rufus whispered, grinning.
“I offered to pay them, but they did not seem to care much for the promise of gold. They wish to keep one of our own out of English hands.” He glanced over his shoulder. “I dinna think they mind much the thought of killing a few English while we’re at it.”
It would be another few hours, at least, until the sun rose. The clouds had parted, the sky now clear.
They would be the longest hours of Clyde’s life, he was certain.
23
Ailsa looked up at the small window, where the sky was visible when she sat beneath it. It was growing lighter by the moment.
Soon, it would be time. They would come for her. They would wish to have it over with quickly.
Perhaps that was for the best. No sense in leaving her to wait, to wonder.
To regret.
But she did regret so many things. She might have opened her heart sooner, more freely. She might have been happy with Clyde, might have made him happy.
She might have written a message to her nameless, faceless benefactors and told them to find their own location for a new headquarters. She had already sacrificed enough on behalf of her country.
All of that was in the past now, and there was nothing she could do to change it.
At least he knew she loved him, and she knew he felt the same.
Pressing her palm to her lips, where his had touched, she closed her eyes and imagining it was him she was kissing. How sweet it might have been.
How she prayed he’d escaped and was on his way to the convent by then. Or at least over the border. All she could do was hope, and trust that he’d been protected somehow.
That he would protect their girls. Theirs. His and hers. As if they had raised them together. A family. One which would have to continue on without her. She could not have instructed them better than she did. That, she could go to her grave without doubting. They had what they needed, all of them.
And while it might not have been the turn her thoughts ought to take while so close to the grave, she could not help but hope her girls were successful. Let them lie, poison, steal, collect secrets. Let them be the downfall of the entire country, if possible.
Or at least, let them reclaim Scotland for the Scots.
The sliding of the lock sent a bolt of cold fear to her heart. This was the end.
She rose to her feet. No matter what happened, she would show dignity. She would not allow them to believe they’d hurt her, broken her in any way. Let them carry that with them for the rest of their days, all of them.
Two guards stood outside the door, and along with them, the magistrate, visible once they stepped aside. “A fine morning to you,” he murmured. “Though I suppose that to you, it is not very fine.”
She held her tongue, pretending as if she had not heard a word. The least she could do was be strong one final time.
“I must admit,” he murmured, unmoved by her silence, “I expected to meet your companion. I was certain he would come for you, or at the very least make a plea on your behalf. Yet no one has seen him.”
It was even more difficult to remain silent and still. They had not captured him. She could rest easy knowing it.
She would be with Thomas again, and Clyde would continue her work. This granted her a measure of peace, eased the icy ache in her chest and belly. A sense of calm washed over her.
Which caused no end of frustration for the magistrate, whose glittering eyes hardened. “You still refuse to tell me the truth of your being here? You will not even defend yourself? Does your life mean so little to you? I’ll grant you, I cannot imagine it meaning much. Turning your back upon your people, taking sides with a lesser country. Perhaps you long for the noose. Perhaps it would be greater punishment if I allowed you to live.”
He wanted to give her hope. He wanted to hear her beg for her life, only to watch her crumble once he told her it was not to be. Truly, this was all very tiresome. In fact, she was beginning to wish for it to be over. There were far worse things than death by hanging.
Such as torture, which she was fortunate had not yet been bandied about.
Though she supposed there was time for that to be the case.
He charged into the cell, lifting one hand as if to strike. His thin nostrils flared, cheeks darkening in a flush of rage. She summoned all of her courage and remained still, unblinking. Braced for impact.
It did not come. They stared at each other, both of them frozen in place.
When he saw she would not react, he spat, “Take her away from here immediately. To the woods. Before anyone learns of this.” He stepped aside, smoothing his hands over his dark hair, pulled back at the nape of his neck. Gathering himself.
It took all she had not to smile in triumph in spite of the guards taking her by the arms, one of them binding her hands before her, then leading her from the cell in a rather rough fashion.
The sky had brightened, indeed, leaving mere minutes before the sun showed itself. A thin mist hung about the ground, swirling around her skirts as she stepped out onto the road. The guards pulled her along, barely allowing her to keep up. She stumbled and nearly fell, but they kept her on her feet.
There was no helping the impulse to look about herself, to see everything one last time. The trees, towering high overhead. Birds and squirrels going about their morning business. A hare venturing out from beneath a hedge, only to dart back inside when it saw her coming.
A man seated in a cart pulled by a pair of workhorses.
A man whose eyes met hers, darting her way just for a moment before staring ahead again.
Her heart leaped with joy and hope, though she fought to contain herself.
Drew. It was Drew! She knew she had not imagined it. But what would he be doing there? Why? Unless Clyde had found him somehow.
That meant Clyde was somewhere nearby. Just as quickly as it had leaped with joy, her heart sank like a rock. No, no, this was all wrong, he simply could not risk himself.
But Drew would not be there without him. This much she knew.
“Come on, then,” one of the pair of guards grumbled. “Before I drag ye by the hair.”
She bit her tongue just in time, or else might have dared him to try it.
Blood rushed in her ears as they led her out of the village and to the edge of the woods, where the sounds of snorting horses and murmuring men grew louder the longer they walked. She looked this way and that, wondering where he was. Where they were. Why they were doing this. Whether they would get themselves killed while in the process of rescuing her.
A half-dozen uniformed men waited there, beside a tree from which a noose hung. None of the men would look at her. In fact, they did all they could to avoid her eyes. As if they were embarrassed to be doing this, as if they saw how wrong it was but were too cowardly to say a word.
Though she suspected they would face grave punishment if they did.
The magistrate stood beside the tree, looking up at the noose. “Lower the rope,” he ordered in a cool voice, sounding nearly as if
the entire affair tired him. “Let us get on with it.”
The guards shoved her, one of them holding her in place while the other untied the rope from where it had been looped around the trunk of the tree. The noose descended until it dangled just before her face.
She gulped.
Now that Drew’s presence had been noted, she could not face the prospect of death with the same calm and peace she had before. If there was a chance of her being saved, it would be best for the rescue to occur quickly.
But no one came to her aid when the second guard fitted the noose around her neck and tightened the knot against the base of her skull. Her body began to tremble of its own accord, her breath coming in sharp gasps no matter how she fought to calm it.
The magistrate smiled. “Ah, there you are. I suspected the knowledge of impending death would be enough to shake your confidence. You could not possibly be as strong as you pretended to be.”
He stepped in front of her, his smile still firmly in place. “You are nothing but a filthy spy who is about to hang for her crimes. Do not pretend to be the injured party here, my dear. Have you any last words?”
She stared at him, hatred now flooding her from head to foot.
He was no longer smiling by the time her spittle hit his cheek.
He reeled back, wiping his cheek with a shaking hand. “Do it!” he ordered. “Raise her!”
The noose tightened further, and she felt herself being lifted off the ground. Her toes skimmed the fallen leaves and dirt, and she felt her air being cut off, pressure immediately building in her head, her lungs crying out for air. Where was Clyde? Where was Drew?
A cry came from deeper in the wood, and from the corner of her eye, she saw a man wearing nothing but a pair of long drawers running barefoot toward them.
And everything happened all at once.
The soldiers standing around them in a circle drew their weapons. Then turned on the magistrate and the guards and attacked.
She fell to the ground when the rope was released and landed in a heap. The noose was still so tight, cutting off her air, and she struggled with bound hands to loosen it, to take in a single breath of air while hell itself broke loose around her.
One guard fell, then another, the sounds of their agony ringing out in the early morning air.
She clawed at the noose, the world turning gray as she began to slip away without precious air to keep her alert. A pair of strong hands caught her, worked at the rope, loosening the noose and allowing her to take a breath before coughing and gagging helplessly.
“Och, lass, come on now. We must go!” Clyde removed the noose and tossed the rope aside, then lifted her in his arms and ran away from the fighting. She could hardly make sense of any of it, or of why her mare was waiting for her. He placed her in the saddle.
“Ye must sit up now, lass,” he ordered, working at the rope around her wrists. “Ye must—”
“Clyde!” she croaked, catching sight of the magistrate when it was already too late. He had drawn a pistol and leveled it at Clyde.
A moment later, he pulled the trigger, and Clyde stiffened, crying out.
“No!” She gasped, but he did not fall. He grabbed for his leg, where he’d been wounded. A bright patch of blood spread around his hand.
“Dinna worry for me.” He grimaced, turning to attack the man who’d just shot him. But it was too late for that, as Rufus and Drew had both descended upon him already.
“You need help,” Ailsa managed to say before coughing again, each word torture for her aching, burning throat. But in spite of her protestations, Clyde mounted his horse while the other men did the same.
“’Tis more important we get away from here, and quickly,” he said, and she saw the point of this. More men would come before long, and they had to get away before this happened.
Drew rode up before them. “Come. This way.” He galloped ahead, leaving the rest of them to follow out of Crookham and north, to the border.
To Scotland.
To freedom.
24
They rode for hours without stopping, finally reaching the place along the border where Drew and his men had crossed during the night by the time the sun was a quarter of the way up in the sky. They drew the horses to a halt, allowing them to breathe for a bit.
“Here,” Drew explained, pointing to a narrow, shallow spot along the River Tweed. “We walked the horses through with no trouble.”
Ailsa looked behind them, where the uniformed men brought up the rear of their party. “You cannot hope to ride in open country while wearing that,” she whispered, still hoarse from her hanging.
They answered by pulling off their coats, revealing their own garments underneath. An ingenious plan, one which he was certain Drew would brag about for years to come.
Though no one deserved it more, and Clyde would certainly never ask him to stop telling it. This was the happiest morning he’d had in years, and all thanks to the friends who would not allow him to venture into England without them.
“Ye had better be on your way,” Rufus advised the men. “Are ye certain there is nothing we can give ye?”
One of the men snorted, laughing. “I had the pleasure of killin’ a filthy Englishman today. There is nothing ye can give me that would match it.”
The strangers crossed the river with no trouble, leaving the four of them to do the same. Clyde thought he might never venture out of Scotland again after the misadventure he’d just suffered.
The relief written all over Ailsa’s face once they were on Scottish soil again told him she shared the sentiment.
She looked over at him, smiling, dazed. Then, her gaze lowering, she gasped in horror. “Your leg! You must dismount so I can tend to it.”
“Aye, man, ye have bled all over England.” Rufus grimaced. And this was not far from the truth, as Clyde’s trouser leg was soaked with blood from just above his knee to his boot, where blood had dripped all along the way.
It took both Drew and Rufus to help him from the saddle. He was a great deal weaker than he’d suspected, likely thanks to the excitement of the moment giving him added strength. Now that they were out of danger, he began to feel the exhaustion of blood loss, to say nothing of the pain of being shot in the leg.
“I wish I had something to give you for the pain,” Ailsa fretted, looking about as if she might find some healing herb or plant nearby.
He grimaced when Rufus tore open his trouser leg, the blood which had dried by then causing the cloth to stick to his skin. Yet he managed to smile if only for her sake. “I suppose I would not mind one of your womanly potions or tonics now.”
She laughed, though his friends appeared confused.
“Davina made certain I brought along a few tinctures and ointments should either of us be ill or injured.” Rufus went to his saddlebag, removing a canvas bundle which Ailsa looked through.
“This will help avoid infection,” she murmured, sniffing at a few of the vials, “and this will aid in cleansing the wound.”
She turned to him with a third vial in hand. “You will want this for the pain,” she predicted.
“I dinna need anything for pain,” he grunted, lying through gritted teeth.
“You will once I dig for the ball,” she promised. “Please. Take it.”
He took it, and she was correct, for he could not have imagined bracing up under the pain without it. No man wished for the woman he loved to hear him squalling like a bairn. Rufus tore strips from a spare tunic and tied them around the wound.
Once he was cared for, Ailsa sat on a rock and looked around. “Tell me. What did you do? How did you manage it?”
“We followed ye,” Drew confessed. “We could not bear the thought of the two of ye marching off to England on your own, no matter what Clyde told us.”
“And good thing,” Rufus added. “Drew knew of a handful of men near the border willing to help us. We waited outside the village until the soldiers walked from the magistrate’s to the woo
ds.”
“And I had the idea to take their uniforms,” Drew reported with no small bit of pride in his voice.
Ailsa laughed as best she could. “You are the cleverest man. I would be dead now if it were not for all of you.”
Then she turned to Clyde, and her smile vanished. “Though I told you, did I not, that you were to leave for Scotland. Why did you not do as I asked?”
Clyde blinked, stunned, certain he’d misheard her. Though from the looks of blank surprise on Drew’s and Rufus’s faces, he supposed he’d heard correctly.
“To spare ye!” he cried out, incensed. “For the love of all that’s holy, woman, how can ye scorn me when I did what I did to save ye?”
“I did not wish for you to put yourself in danger for my sake! None of you! You have children and wives,” she scolded, turning to Drew and Rufus. “They need you. Do you think I could have rested easy knowing I was the reason you were taken from your women?”
He’d never seen the pair of them appear more ashamed than they did just then. Drew even appeared to blush, if only slightly. But it was enough.
They had not seen it that way, of course. None of them had.
Ailsa took a deep breath, letting it out all at once. “I do not wish for you to think me ungrateful. I owe you my life. I cannot thank you enough for it. But truly, you must consider the people who love you and need you now. Your lives have changed.”
“I, for one, have had my fill of adventure,” Clyde announced.
She scoffed. “I am not speaking to you at the moment.”
Rufus winced before turning to Drew. “Perhaps we ought to…do something else,” he suggested. “Anything else. Away from here.”
“Ye have had good ideas in the past, cousin, but that is one of the best,” Drew declared, standing.
“After all, I have been told I got the brains in the family.” Rufus smirked.
“And I received the good looks, and the charm, and the…” The two of them wandered off to leave Ailsa and a wounded Clyde behind.
“Keep in mind,” he warned her in a low voice, “that I am wounded and weak. Ye would not attack a weak, wounded man. Especially one who was wounded in service to ye.”
