by Barbara Bard
“I understand, but…”
“But, what?”
“I just worry. I worry that because I represent the crown that it will come back to haunt me in some way.”
She shook her head. “Dinnae worry, Christian. All will be well.” She shifted her weight. “Tell me—where did Sir Jessup take Lord Torstein and Glenn?”
Christian pointed off in the distance. “The castle,” he said, “is in that direction. About two days ride.”
“Heavily fortified?”
He nodded. “Again, as I said before, there is no chance in taking it without at least a small army.”
Gavina jutted her chin. “Then we shall hae tae find one.”
“It is a perilous and daunting task, Gavina.”
“So be it. Sir Jessup took one of our own. That cannot stand.”
“I can tell you what I know of the location and what numbers they have on hand. But Gavina, I must insist that the mission you would be embarking on is one that is tantamount to suicide…”
She drew a deep breath. “So be it…” Then she looked at Christian, concern growing inside of her for the Sassenach knight she was close to calling a friend…and perhaps more. “Christian,” she said.
Christian looked at her and waited for the rest.
“If ye wish,” Gavina continued, “ye can depart from us noo. I mean, I would like tae ken mair about the location of the castle. But perhaps it is nae a necessity fer ye tae continue riding with us.”
Christian looked confused. “I do not understand.”
She shrugged. “I ken that what ye hae done will be regarded as treason with yer people. I imagine that ye are a marked man noo.”
Christian hung his head, the weight of his recent decisions to help the Highlanders weighing heavy on his shoulders.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I suppose this is true…Are you worried that this will affect you and your people?”
“We are already at war with Sir Jessup and the others. I dinnae imagine that yer presence will provide us with any mair trouble than we hae already accumulated.”
Christian was unsure. He could not tell if Gavina was merely trying to be rid of him. “If you wish,” he said, “I can leave. I do not want to burden you.”
“It is nae that ye burden me. That is nae it.”
“Then what?”
Gavina thought of a way to phrase it. “I just…” she choked on her words. “I am concerned fer yer safety. Ye…Ye stood in the way of an arrow that was meant fer me. I worry that whatever retribution ye are facing will be increased ten-fold noo that ye are in our company.”
Christian wanted to smile but hid it. He could sense that Gavina cared for him, though he was not sure why.
“If you wish,” he said. “I will leave. No questions asked.”
Gavina took a moment to reply, leaning in and looking into Christian’s eyes longingly. “I dinnae want ye tae leave.”
Christian scooted in closer, the two of them only feet apart now, like lovers sharing a midday meal in the glory of the Highlands.
“You wish me to stay?” he inquired.
Gavina flashed the subtlest of smiles and nodded. “Aye,” she said, her voice coated with honey. “Aye, I wish ye tae stay, Christian.”
The two of them held gazes, Christian mustering the courage to say something bold—but then Ava began hollering off in the distance: “Riders!”
Christian, Gavina, and Lachlan shot up and reached for their weapons as Ava and Tessa appeared over the hill.
“What is it?” Gavina called out.
“Riders!” Ava said again. “I think they are rogues!”
Christian looked to Gavina. “Rogues?”
She nodded. “Highlander criminals,” she said, her face now pensive as she drew her sword and moved toward her horse. “They only seek tae pillage and destroy. The kind of men that give Highlanders a bad name.”
“There!” Lachlan said as he mounted his horse and pointed. “Four of them! Over there! Just over the hill!”
Christian and Gavina got on their saddles as Ava and Tessa joined them in a straight-line formation.
Just off in the distance, four riders, all dressed in black, rode with fury directly towards them. They hollered out drunken war cries as they drew their weapons, Gavina answering in kind by pointing her sword and saying: “Naw prisoners…”
The Bairdsmen prepared to stand their ground, Tessa removing her bow and arrow and lining up a shot at the center rider.
“Whenever ye say the word, Gavina,” she said, biting her lip and ready to release her first shot.
“Ava and Tessa,” Gavina said hectically, the riders now only a hundred yards away. “Flank them. The rest of us will gae through the middle.”
They waited, the riders now sixty yards out.
“Noo!” Gavina hollered out.
Tessa released her bow, the arrow flying through the air at high speeds and landing straight in the chest of the center rider and dropping him instantly. The rest of the Bairdsmen charged toward the last three members of the rogues.
Gavina, on top of her horse, engaged the man on the right. They exchanged several blows, Gavina ducking under a scything swipe from the man before she stood back up and buried her blade into his sternum—Two men left, she counted in her head.
Lachlan, engaging another one of the riders, struck a blow that knocked the sword out of the rogue’s hand. The rogue then leapt from his horse and tackled Lachlan to the ground, both of them wrestling with one another as their horses nearly trampled them to death.
Christian, the final rider attempting to behead, fought with a graceful furry as he parried blow after blow. Tessa, attempting to assist, lined up a shot at the rogue’s head but found that Christian was obstructing her line of sight.
“Sassenach!” she yelled out. “Duck down now!”
Christian complied—and then an arrow found its way into the rogue’s throat, blood seeping from the wound as he clutched his neck and fell from his horse.
Only one rider was left, still wrestling on the ground with Lachlan. Lachlan, grunting and turning a vivid shade of red, eventually got his hands around the man’s throat and squeezed, leaving him unconscious.
All the rogues were now no longer a threat, and the Bairdsmen stood over them and looked upon them with a lecherous set of eyes.
Lachlan laughed. “That was nae such a chore now, was it?”
Gavina huffed, wiped the blood off her blade, and pointed to the dead rogues. “Strip them of their weapons,” she said. “See what supplies they hae that we can use.”
The Bairdsmen set about scouring the pockets of the dead as Gavina looked at Christian. “Are ye all right?” she asked.
He nodded. “I am…Are you?”
She nodded and smiled.
The other Bairdsmen couldn’t help but note the tension brewing between Christian and Gavina and exchanged silent glances to one another in reply.
“Let us move,” Gavina said. “I fear that mair of these savages are somewhere off in the distance.”
The group finished taking what supplies they could from the dead rogues and rode off. Surely enough—ten more of them approached their dead comrades from off in the distance and vowed to take revenge on the Highlanders that killed them.
The Bairdsmen knew that their troubles had increased ten-fold.
Chapter 14
“I grow impatient with this game,” Sir Jessup said to Sir Renly inside of his quarters. “They should have told us the location of the Bairds by now.”
Sir Renly, lingering near the window with his gaze fixating on nothing in particular, replied: “It takes time to break them down. That’s what you said.”
Sir Jessup squinted. “You say that with a tone, Renly.”
Sir Renly turned and faced his friend. “You know who you are dealing with.”
Sir Jessup walked toward. “What do you mean?”
“With Lord Torstein, I mean. And the Highlander.”
�
��Cease speaking in riddles and tell me what you are trying to say.”
Sir Renly let out a sigh. “Both of these men,” he said, “are of the toughest breed. They cannot be broken down. They will be on the cusp of death before they will even entertain the idea of telling us what we need to know.”
Sir Jessup held up a finger to emphasize his words. “If that is what it takes—so be it.”
Sir Renly shook his head and stepped around his friend.
“What?” Sir Jessup said.
“We both know that you are not capable of doing this.”
“I beg that this is your attempt at a jest.”
“It is not. We have been friends for a long time. You may be a killer, yes. But you are not a sadist. You do not kill for pleasure. You are not some erratic, lunatic fool like Lord Henry was. You have killed to survive, nothing more.”
Sir Jessup laughed and moved toward a cart possessing his many flagons of wine. “I was wrong,” he said. “Perhaps you should be a jester.” He poured a drink.
Sir Renly huffed at Sir Jessup—frustrated. “Jonathan.”
“I beg of you not to use my Christian name,” Sir Jessup said with a swig.
“You are a formidable opponent. Lethal. Ruthless—but only, and honestly rarely, have you acted in that way. The face you show your men is not the face I know, the one current soaked with wine on any given occasion to help mask your true emotions.”
“Perhaps I need to change my standard etiquette to appease these banal criticisms of my character.”
Sir Renly took a step toward him. “Or perhaps you need to acknowledge the obvious.”
“And what might that be, James?”
“That you are still reeling from—”
Sir Jessup threw his wine against the wall, the bottle shattering into pieces and leaving a blood-like splotch on the wall. He sighed at himself and took a moment to breath, his face turning red from the stress of memories that had long passed.
“Never,” he said, “speak of that again.”
“You have never spoken of it.”
“Because it does not need to be spoken of. It is the past.”
“It was still people we both cared about…”
Sir Jessup closed his eyes, trying to squeeze away the pain.
“Tell that woman,” he said with a grave tone, “to make sure that our friends are awake.”
He turned and faced his friend, his mind back at the more important and pressing matters at hand for him.
“I will find the location of the Baird’s,” he said. “They will tell me now. Otherwise, I will dispatch of them once and for all.”
Sir Renly shook his head. “So,” he said. “You will get what you want now, or you will kill them? Am I understanding this correctly?”
A nod. “Yes.”
“And you will be the one that executes them?”
A pause. “Yes.”
Sir Renly took a moment, looking his dear old friend in the eye and so desperately wanting to call his bluff. After the moment passed, he gestured to the door.
“Well,” he said. “Then we should not waste any more time.”
Sir Jessup, staring his friend square in the eye, was just as comforted as he was enraged that the man knew him as well as he did. But he wanted to defy him and his critique. He wanted to prove him wrong. So, he grabbed a dagger, held it up to the light, pocketed, and said: “Shall we?”
The two men left the room, both of them saying not a word as they proceeded down to make a visit with Lord Torstein and Glenn.
“Look at me,” Lord Torstein heard Eirlys call out. But he felt weary, his energy incredibly depleted and his body still raw.
“Lord Torstein…”
Lord Torstein slowly lifted his head, Eirlys staring him with a neutral yet somewhat comforting glint in her eye.
“Am I dead?” he asked.
Eirlys shook her head. “Naw.” She looked up at the shackles suspending his hands over his head. “But the blood leaves yer arms.”
“I cannot feel them…”
“Because ye need tae be freed from those restraints. It is nae doing ye any good.”
Lord Torstein glanced to his left and saw Glenn —passed out, very near the point of not waking up again if someone didn’t intervene soon.
Eirlys looked at both of the men and shook her head. “Fools,” she said, focusing her thoughts on the Sassenach knights just outside the door. “They are gonnae kill ye.”
Lord Torstein let out a laugh that sounded more like a whimper. “That is the idea…”
Eirlys clenched a fist. “This cannot stand.”
A knock sounded the door. Eirlys stood, waiting at attention with her hands folded in front of her. Sir Jessup and Sir Renly then entered, Sir Jessup staring nothing short of fire at both men shackled in front of them.
Sir Jessup took a moment before asking: “Are they still alive?”
Eirlys nodded. “Barely.”
Sir Jessup stepped toward them. “That is the idea.”
Lord Torstein laughed but couldn’t muster the energy to say that he made the same statement just moments ago.
“Is something humorous?” Sir Jessup said.
Lord Torstein did not reply.
“Sir,” Eirlys said. “I believe that their shackles need tae be removed.”
“Is that so?”
A nod. “Aye. They have naw blood flowing into their arms. They hae been suspend fer far tae long.”
Sir Jessup looked at the shackles. “I see.” He thought about it. “Hae them removed. Then shackle them to their feet. Is that a decent compromise?”
She nodded again. “Aye.”
Sir Jessup motioned to one of the two knights to remove the restraints. He did Lord Torstein’s first, removing his arms and then shackling them to his feet. Lord Torstein was now seated, unable to move from that position.
The knight stepped over to Glenn, removing his restraints and preparing to take down his arms—and that’s when Glenn struck. He tackled the knight to ground, the air knocked out of the knight’s lungs and incapacitating him.
The other knight charged forward, Glenn quickly removing the fallen knight’s sword and burying the blade in the knight’s stomach.
Sir Renly and Sir Jessup attempted to charge after him, but Glenn was already running out of the room.
“After him!” Sir Jessup shouted.
Glenn ran to the right down the hall and quickly ascended the spiral staircase that led up. A knight was at the top of the steps, but before he could respond to the incoming Highlander he was knocked into the wall. His head hid the wall behind him, and in a discombobulated state, Glenn threw him down the stairs, the knight falling head over heels before crashing to the bottom.
“He is loose!” Sir Renly’s voice cried out to everyone in the castle. “The Highlander has escaped!”
Glenn continued to run as fast as his feet would carry him. He took a left, then a right, then another left. A knight attempted to grab him, but Glenn dodged left and watched the knight stumble over his clunky armor before he ascended another staircase that led to the top of the castle.
Glenn emerged through the door leading out—and staring him down were six knights with bows and swords drawn. Glenn stopped in his tracks, huffing at his failed escape attempt as Sir Renly and Sir Jessup caught up behind him.
Sir Jessup, huffing the air out of his lungs, sighed with relief. “Quite a performance,” he said, patting Glenn on the back before looking at the other six knights with weapons drawn. “Well done. Each of you.” He turned to Sir Renly. “Put those fools who failed to grab this man on stable duty once we’re finished.”
Glenn held up his hands as Sir Jessup circled around him. “I believe,” he said, “that the time has come to end this foolishness. Don’t you?” He drew out his sword.
Sir Renly puffed his chest, curious at what Sir Jessup was planning to do next.
Sir Jessup pressed the tip of his blade in Glenn’s throat. “I
want to know where the Bairds village is,” he said. “I want to know, or I’m going to bleed you out.”
Glenn swallowed his fears. “I will naw tell ye…”
Sir Jessup pressed the blade in harder, a trickle of blood now flowing from a tiny puncture in Glenn’s neck. “Last chance…”
