The Scot's Oath

by Heather Grothaus

  “I’ve nae coin,” Padraig said. “And even if I did, I’d nae give it to you.”

  “No need to be ashamed of your poverty, my Scottish friend,” the robber assured him. “I’ll take your sword, in lieu. The poor little orphans need playthings as well, you know.”

  “That sword is property of the king’s army,” Lucan objected.

  The masked bandit had aimed and fired the bow before Lucan could finish, the arrow striking through his boot, pinning his foot to the forest floor. Lucan let out a cry of agony and bent to clutch at the arrow, while Padraig knelt to his aid.

  The round man swept in and pulled Padraig’s sword from its sheath. “Stinginess is definitely not next to godliness,” he sniffed in disapproval as he moved on to Lucan, cutting his fine black leather purse from his belt even as the knight grasped at the arrow piercing his foot.

  Padraig quickly snapped the shaft of the arrow—it was thin and finely made and broke cleanly, thank God—and then grasped Lucan’s calf just above the ankle and yanked his foot upward, dislodging it from its anchor as Lucan gave a guttural shout.

  The faux friar bowed. “I thank you, sir. And the children thank you.” He moved out of the periphery of Padraig’s vision toward the trees behind them. “Alms for the poor, gentle sir? We’re building a children’s home. Ah, thank you. So generous.”

  “Help me,” Lord Paget gasped, reaching up his hand toward the apparent leader of the group and his masked underling. But he could not support the weight of it, and so his arm fell back to the leaves as the man began to sob silently, descending into choking coughs. Blood speckled his lips and chin.

  Padraig looked over his shoulder toward Beryl. He knew she had nothing to give the thief, and his anger increased as he watched her undo the pretty ribbon holding back her coils of hair and drop it in the man’s open satchel.

  “You’re scum,” Padraig accused. “None of us have done aught to deserve such injury.”

  The red-headed man smirked. “Were I you, I’d be cautious, throwing my lot in with the likes of this innocent.” He nudged Adolphus Paget’s shoulder roughly with the toe of his boot. “His riches are made from the sale of slaves. Young slaves. Girls, stolen away. Lads as well. Isn’t that so, Adolphus?” He crouched down suddenly so as to look into the nobleman’s anguished expression, upside down to him.

  Lord Paget’s only response was his rattling breaths.

  Beryl’s voice rang out. “What do you mean?” she insisted. “Stolen away?”

  Bolstered against Padraig’s arm, Lucan tensed further and sounded as though he spoke through his teeth. “Is that an excuse you use to ease your conscience? Your band has terrorized this land for years—it’s unsafe for any traveler, not only those with coin.”

  The man retrieved his bow and rose, continuing to stare at them with his hard smirk. “We’re only taking back what was taken from us.” He used one long arm to indicate the band standing ready at the perimeter of the clearing. “All of us here have been robbed of something by these thieving nobles. As you well know, Montague.”

  “I’ve taken nothing from you,” Padraig said, and again he was struck by the idea that Lucan was so well known in Northumberland—even unto thieves.

  The masked accomplice suddenly touched the man’s biceps to gain his attention and then gestured toward Padraig.

  “That may be true, my Scots friend,” the man allowed. “You’re no servant, and yet you’re part of Hargrave’s hunting party.” He looked Padraig up and down. “Not dressed quite well enough to be noble—certainly no appreciable fortune to your name. Perhaps you are better off one of us, no?”

  “Don’t answer him anything,” Lucan advised grimly.

  “I’d hope you’d learned by now that your advice brings only injury, good Sir Montague. Padraig, wasn’t it?” the man suggested with a grin. “Hmm. Not a name common to Northumberland. Betrayed the Scots in you even if your speech hadn’t.” He stepped over Paget’s body without a glance for the wounded man, until he was only one pace away from Padraig and Lucan. “Can you fight, I wonder, Padraig?”

  “Give back my sword and you’ll soon find out,” Padraig challenged.

  “Gorman,” the masked accomplice warned in a low voice.

  “Do you know what happened to Euphemia Hargrave?” Beryl’s question rang out clear and anguished in the clearing, and it seemed as though everyone turned to regard the woman who was now standing against the tree, only the fingertips of one hand touching the bark as if tethered there by her fear, when she wanted to fly to the center of the clearing. She looked around, her eyes pleading as her undone hair flowed over her shoulders.

  “Do any of you know? Was she taken? Did Lord Paget take her?” Her eyes were wild. “Please. Someone here must know something. Lady Hargrave wastes away in grief.”

  The masked accomplice seemed to be watching Beryl closely now, and that damned bow was still at the ready. Searrach’s warning from the night before haunted Padraig.

  I’m nae the only one indebted to a Hargrave.

  This group had been lying in wait for them; there was no other explanation. The clearing was near no road, no outlying estate building or field. They’d been lured here, with the barking of dogs, which had suspiciously gone silent after the first arrow had flown.

  Now the masked accomplice walked toward Beryl slowly, each deliberate step of fine boot sending forth a loud, crunching of leaves.

  * * * *

  Iris couldn’t help her heaving exhalations of breath as the masked robber walked menacingly toward her, slowly, deliberately. The drawn bow, although aimed at the ground, struck deep fear in her heart. Both Padraig and Lucan had been shot, and Lord Paget had stopped moving, his jerky, watery gasps no longer menacing the clearing.

  She backed against the tree fully once more.

  “Please,” she repeated, hearing the breathy shakiness of her voice, and yet unable to contain her fear as her eyes welled with terror. “I need to know.”

  “What is your connection to Euphemia Hargrave?” he rasped.

  “I…nothing. I have no connection,” Iris stammered. “I only serve the Lady Hargrave. I…care for her very much.”

  “Then you are a fool,” the robber spat, then stepped closer, his voice lowering to a whisper. “Euphemia Hargrave is dead. She died the night she escaped from Darlyrede.”

  Iris’s heart skipped a beat in her chest, and her voice caught on her breath as she asked the dreaded question. “How do you know?”

  “Because,” the thief whispered, “it was I who killed her.”

  Iris brought her hand to her mouth to stifle her sob. “How could you?” she finally managed to choke out, no longer caring about the consequences of her words. If the band was going to kill them all any matter, she would have her say. “She was just a girl! A child! She had done you no wrong, surely.”

  The bandit stared at her for a long moment, the blue eyes through the slits in the mask seeming to examine every aspect of her gown, her cloak. She was unable to read the intention in his eyes, and yet the bow hung relaxed.

  “It was the most merciful thing I could do,” he whispered. “Euphemia Hargrave…had suffered.”

  “What?” Iris’s fright stilled like the water of a pond—slowly, gradually, even as a faint rumbling was heard. “What do you mean? Suffered how?”

  “The priest knows wh—”

  The clearing was lit up with fire and sound then, the forest floor exploding with light, smoke, shuddering crashes. Dirt and bark flew through the air, now filled with black, acrid smoke.

  Iris dove to the leaves, and both heard and felt the many feet pounding by her. She covered her head with her arms.

  It could be nothing other than Vaughn Hargrave’s arquebus.

  “Gorman!” the bandit before Iris called.

  “Go! To the caves!”

  Anot
her boom echoed through the trees, and was followed by a piercing scream. Iris dared peek from her arm and saw one of the forest bandits—a black, ragged hole in his back—being dragged by his comrades deeper into the wood.

  But then the clearing was filled with the sounds of horse hooves and a hand was on her shoulder.

  “Beryl, Beryl,” Padraig demanded. “Are you hurt?”

  “I’m fine,” she breathed, and let him gather her into his arms to help her to stand, and yet she did not release her clutching hold on his tunic. She looked around the clearing and saw Lord Hargrave leading the rescue party, his face a white, furious mask.

  “Follow them!” he commanded to those riding at his side. “Find the vermin and kill them all! I want their heads mounted on stakes!” The riders lurched into action at once.

  Hargrave got down from his horse and went immediately to kneel at the side of Adolphus Paget.

  “Adolph,” he shouted, grasping the man’s pointed chin in his hands and turning the wide-eyed countenance toward him. He slapped the man’s face twice and then grasped either side of his windpipe. “Adolph!” Hargrave rolled the man to his side with careful, practiced skill, but an instant later he let the body rock back to the stained ground without further action.

  The forest again was eerily silent.

  Iris realized she was clutching Padraig Boyd’s slim, solid waist, the blood from his injured ribs sticky and drying against her. She looked up at him.

  “Are any broken?”

  “Naught to fash over,” he said grimly. “But grazes. Lucan, though...”

  Iris nodded and pushed away from the warm, solid comfort that was the Scotsman and ran to where her brother now sat on the ground.

  “Help me get the boot off,” he was saying before she was even kneeling properly. “The foot is swelling and I’d not cut it if it can be helped. They’re Italian.”

  Padraig joined them in the next moment and helped to pull Lucan’s pierced boot from his foot. He cried out as the slender leather slid away, and a trickle of blood spilled out in a stream.

  “Goddamn him,” Lucan gritted. “That bastard! I’ll find him and kill him myself!”

  “I do hope you’re satisfied, Lucan,” Hargrave said in a sanctimonious tone over all their heads. “Now you perhaps have a sense for what I’ve had to deal with in keeping Darlyrede safe from those… those common criminals. This is on your head, you know.” He looked to the only man-at-arms who had remained. “Take Lord Paget’s body on your horse to carry back to Father Kettering.”

  Hargrave then turned his gaze to Padraig. “That’s the second death in as many days in your vicinity, Master Boyd. If I didn’t know better, I would think someone had a grudge against you.”

  Chapter 14

  Iris rode back to Darlyrede behind Padraig Boyd on his retrieved horse, at first trying to keep a distance between her torso and his wide back, clutching at the right side of his tunic. But the rolling gait of the horse and the shock of the morning soon became too much for the little strength she had left—both mentally and physically—and she at last gave in to the urge to lay the side of her face against his warm ribs and close her eyes as they made their way back to the courtyard.

  If either of the arrows that had injured him had been inches inward, he could have suffered the same fate as Adolphus Paget. Iris couldn’t imagine what her world would be like in this moment if Padraig Boyd had died, if she knew she would never again see his teasing smile, feel the warmth of his presence or the solid strength of his hand; debate the easy logic of his thoughts and the morals that guided him, his clear understanding of right and wrong. Iris’s mind was a blank when she tried to gauge the suffering she would have felt at the loss of him.

  Euphemia Hargrave had suffered.

  Iris felt as though she’d been dropped into a dark chamber—shock causing all her senses to be exquisitely alert to the point of discomfort, and yet all the information they relayed to her made no sense in the blackness. Was the silence absolute in her head, or was she surrounded by a deafening roar? She didn’t know which way to turn to escape; was it blistering heat or icy cold that seared her nerves? Was the ceiling just overhead or was she standing at the brink of a bottomless abyss, hungry for her to take that first, fatal step into the nothingness that would swallow her forever?

  Would Iris be delivering salvation to Caris Hargrave with the information she now possessed, or the penultimate blow that would at last break the fragile woman?

  He would never show me such mercy.

  For some reason that she could not order in the chaos of her thoughts, the memory of what Lady Hargrave had said to Iris haunted her—specifically, the mention of the word “mercy” in regard to why her husband would never kill her.

  It was the reason the thief in the forest had cited for taking Euphemia Hargrave’s life.

  It was the most merciful thing I could do.

  They arrived just then, and Rolf appeared at their side to help Iris from the back of Padraig’s horse before he himself swung stiffly down. A page took charge of the mount, and she and Padraig wordlessly made their way toward the section of inner wall that housed the chapel and Father Kettering’s parsonage, following the form of Lucan, supported by a king’s soldier beneath each of his arms.

  They ducked through the doorway in time to see Lucan being lowered onto a cot, and the priest swirling through the throng of oblates and soldiers, handing out supplies and issuing crisp orders.

  “I must fetch wrappings for Lord Paget. Clean Sir Lucan’s wound,” Father Kettering commanded. “But leave it unbandaged for now.” His eyes fell upon Padraig, and Iris tensed at the way the priest’s mouth thinned as he looked pointedly at the bloodstains on Padraig’s clothing. “Master Boyd’s as well. Lord, I’ll need more comfrey,” he muttered.

  The priest pushed past them on his way toward the door.

  “I’ll be back,” Iris muttered, avoiding Padraig’s gaze as she impulsively turned away and went after the priest. “Father Kettering,” she called, trotting to catch up with him in the courtyard. “Father, I must speak with you.”

  “Forgive me, Beryl, but I am harried.”

  “It’s about Lady Hargrave.”

  The priest stopped in his tracks with a concerned frown. “She’s not injured, is she? I didn’t think she was to accompany the hunt.”

  “No, she didn’t,” Iris assured him.

  Kettering started forward once more. “Another time, then.”

  Iris reached out to seize his sleeve. “I’m afraid it can’t wait.”

  The priest sighed. “What is it? I have wounded men to attend to, and one corpse to prepare to journey back to his own hold. If I am too delayed, I may have two to arrange.”

  Iris glanced around them for prying ears. “Euphemia Hargrave is dead,” she whispered.

  Kettering stared at her, the recently acquired hard look in his eyes falling away at last and he was once more the kind man Iris had come to know during her time at Darlyrede. “What?”

  “I met her killer. One of the band of thieves that haunts Darlyrede’s wood. The same ones who attacked our party this morning. He admitted it to me.”

  “Lord have mercy.” Kettering crossed himself quickly before returning his full attention to Iris. “Certainly that should bring some manner of peace to Lord and Lady Hargrave, but I don’t understand what this has to do with me. There are no remains, I assume?”

  “I don’t know,” Iris admitted. “It was only a moment. But he—the thief—said something before Lord Hargrave interrupted the robbery. He said that he killed Euphemia because she had suffered at Darlyrede. And then he said, ‘The priest knows.’”

  The heightened color that rose at the seriousness of the immediate tasks before him swiftly drained from Father Kettering’s face.

  Iris’s heart fluttered in her chest. “What did he mean, Fa
ther?”

  Kettering was already shaking his head, little nervous movements, his eyes wide, his gaze shifting around the courtyard. “I can’t understand what he might mean,” he muttered almost to himself. “Surely he couldn’t know. Unless she...”

  “What?” Iris demanded in a whisper, stepping so close to the priest that they were nearly nose to nose. She angled her head so that he was forced to meet her gaze once more. “What couldn’t he know? You must tell me so that I can decide what—if anything—I should tell Lady Hargrave.”

  “You must tell her that her niece is dead,” Kettering chastised with a lowering of his brows. “To not do so would be cruel.”

  “Then you must tell me what you think caused Euphemia such suffering,” Iris demanded.

  “I couldn’t possibly,” he insisted with a horrified look. “It’s guarded by the sanctity of the confessional. You of all people should know that.”

  “Euphemia is dead,” Iris said through her teeth. “She is with God now. The sanctity of her confession no longer matters.”

  His eyes were hard again. “It does to me, young woman. The seal admits no exceptions.”

  Iris stood straighter. “Fine. If you will not tell me, I have no choice but to try to find the man again and get my explanation.” She turned away, her heart pounding.

  “Beryl, wait,” Kettering called, and she felt him grab her arm. His eyes were pleading when she turned to him. “You can’t possibly think to go out there on your own. One has already confessed to the murder of Euphemia Hargrave. Lord Paget is dead; Sir Lucan and Master Boyd are injured. What will they do to you?”

  “Then tell me,” Iris demanded.

  “I will not break the seal of Euphemia’s confession,” he insisted. “But,” he interjected with a jerk on her arm when Iris would have pulled away, “I can tell you the rumors that she heard before she disappeared. That we all heard. And what I saw for myself.”

  * * * *

  It was some time before Father Kettering returned to the surgery, and Padraig lay on the cot glaring at the ceiling while the oblates assigned to his care cleaned the jagged arrow wounds to his shoulder and ribs. He ignored Lucan Montague, who groaned and hissed intermittently as his pierced foot was attended to.