Douglas dropped a kiss to her hand. “For my sake, mend, lady. We marry upon my return and then, I think, we will to the country. Methinks the air there better for a lady’s health.”
“As it pleases you,” Isabella replied, letting her eyes close briefly. “I do confess to fatigue, my lord.”
“I will take my leave of you now.”
Douglas paused at the door and looked back at Isabella, but directed his words to Katherine: “I do charge you, mistress, to take most excellent care of your lady and serve her happiness while I am gone.”
“As always I do,” Kat replied, shutting the door behind him and latching it.
“He is not to hang,” Isabella whispered.
Immediately tears welled up again. Their child’s loss saved its father from the hangman’s noose.
I never imagined the cost would be so high.
Kat sat on the stool. “How do you really, poppet?”
“Very ill. You should have heard him speak of the child to me,” Isabella murmured, wiping at tears. “Never have I seen such joy in any face. I have lost that for him as well. He must be told.”
“You are like a child crying for the moon,” Kat said irritably, straightening the blanket. “It is not possible.”
“It is possible! Favors may be called, coin exchanged. Sir William could do it. He would do it for you.”
“You are too ill in any case. I would lay a wager you would not reach the abbey door before you collapsed.”
The image of Colyne alone, awaiting the hangman and with no word of comfort from her …
“He must know I love him, that I always shall,” Isabella whispered. “I will suffer all my days for the wrongs I have done him. I would willingly go to the gallows for him if I could. I cannot live if I do not do this. You promised you would go to him.”
“I sought to ease your mind in your illness,” Kat said briskly. “I do not think you like to die now.”
Isabella’s jaw hardened. Rolling in the bed, she gritted her teeth and pushed herself up.
Kat stood, alarmed. “What you are doing? You will kill yourself!”
“He must know I will do whatever I must to save him. He must be told about the babe. If you will not go, I shall.”
“I wonder if you are in a fever that you act so! God’s blood, child, lie down! I will speak to William. Lie down! I will carry your message to him.” Kat sighed. “Oh, poppet, you love this man overmuch. I would the physician could cure of it, for it is worse than plague!”
At some point it occurred to Colyne to be surprised that he was not tortured.
Not that James needed a confession to sentence him. He would hang at the king’s whim and he was as guilty as sin in any case.
The place was as rank and filthy as any Colyne had seen. Even the prisons in France were not so bad. The stench assaulted him before he was within its walls.
The gaoler who met him at the gatehouse was told he was chieftain. Colyne would be charged for room and board while he remained within, the gaoler explained. Comforts could also be purchased—a fine bed, a goodly fire, excellent food. Even company for the night, if he wished it.
The gaoler suggested Colyne appeal to his friends at court to provide funds to move him to more comfortable quarters within the prison.
Colyne laughed so hard that the man, clearly thinking him mad, blanched and backed away.
They gave him a sickly fire for warmth and a thin, filthy blanket. The gaoler would not be inclined to let him freeze or starve. They kept him chained, though, both hand and foot. The shackles had rubbed his wrists raw and he could not spread his hands more than shoulder-width apart.
As a royal prisoner, but a man of little rank and no friends at court, he was housed securely but away from the other prisoners. The gaoler clearly did not want another prisoner to kill him for his boots.
Not before James could hang him.
I thought she would send word when she had married him.
His mind skittered away from thoughts of her. It was all right when he was awake; he could control his imaginings then. He listened to the weeping of the other prisoners, watched rats wriggle into the stone room and, finding it so grim, wriggle out again.
When the thoughts of her, her hair shining like a ribbon in the sun, her shy smile, her body against his, her lies, were too much—well, the pain of his shackles helped with that.
It was when he slept he could not keep her away. She was there every time exhaustion forced his eyes shut. He would see her, seated at the feasts for Christmastide, smiling as she took his hand to dance, her dark hair against linens of the bed as he held her.
And waking, he would see the prison.
And he would remember.
I am the greatest of fools, indeed.
Was James so occupied with courtly pleasures that the man could not be bothered to hang him? It seemed so, for the days went, the dreams came, and he opened his eyes to the prison for what seemed like weeks.
The door opened but no guard cursed at him this time. No food was thrown to him.
After a few moments he summoned enough interest to look.
He frowned. A woman stood in the doorway. A lady, by her manner of dress, her face hidden by a mask.
He squinted against the light as she raised the oil lamp in her hand.
She was silent, looking down at him, but if she were appalled or satisfied by his state he could not tell.
She lifted her hand and pulled the mask away.
It took him a moment to place her. It seemed like years since he had looked upon this lady. She was younger, more handsome than he remembered her.
“Mistress Katherine,” he said, his voice croaking from disuse.
When had he last spoken? To the gaoler, mayhap? He could not recall.
She nodded. “MacKimzie.”
“What do you here, mistress?”
Katherine stepped down, the light of her lantern jumping against the walls. He watched the fine fabric of her skirt brush against the floor, wondering if he should warn her that she would ruin her dress.
Katherine’s forehead puckered a bit as she looked down at him.
His eyes stung then. Was she here too?
He could not help it. He looked into the doorway behind Katherine but there was no one else. No sweet face with fair skin and dark, haunted eyes.
“I am sent bearing a message from my lady,” Katherine said, drawing his attention back to her. “She sends to you her regrets, the depth of which you cannot know.”
His mouth twisted at that. “Her regrets.”
“She greatly burdened by the pain she has caused you and wished you to know. She will appeal to His Majesty for mercy.”
He could bear it no longer.
“How then, does she?” he asked hoarsely. “The Lady Douglas?”
“My Lord Douglas is absent on the king’s business. When he returns to court, they will wed. MacKimzie, I cannot stay overlong. I risk discovery and my lady’s good name with every moment.” Katherine hesitated. “My lady lost the child yesterday. I am sorry. There was naught that could be done. Know that my lady grieves as I have never seen her.”
He closed his eyes against the pain of it. A surprise, really. He thought nothing could hurt anymore. “So, ye’ve come to tell me I’ve lost all then. The lass, the bairn, home and clan.”
“I have something for you.” Katherine reached into her sleeve and pulled out a strip of white cloth. She stepped closer to offer it to him. “It is sent from my lady.”
He made no move to take it.
“She pleads you tie it to the tree at the well when you return home for her sake and the babe’s. She begs to be forgiven for the wrongs she has done you.”
He shook his head. The words did not even fit together. “Forgive her.”
“My lady is very ill, her heart rent! Whatever your cause against her, you could not wish her greater pain than she endures already.” Kat shoved the cloth at him, its pure snowy white so out of pla
ce here. “Take it, I beg you! She vows she will see you pardoned.”
“You and I both know I will hang. It is better so, Katherine.”
“There still may be hope of His Majesty’s mercy.”
“If James be merciful he’ll stop me heart. In truth, I canna believe it beats still. Fool heart.”
She still held the scrap out to him.
It was as pure a white as he had ever seen.
He reached for it and the chains that bound his wrist clinked together. Surprised by how dirty his hands were, he took the cloth carefully between his fingers. “I should have liked it to be a lass, ye ken. With eyes dark like hers.”
Katherine shifted her feet. After a moment she said, “I must go.”
She offered him a curtsy.
It was fine cloth, the weave so small he could scarce see it in this light.
The door swung open but from the corner of his eye he saw she paused at the step. In a rush of skirts, Katherine stood over him.
Surprised, he looked up. Her blue eyes were flashing, two spots of color stood out on her cheeks. She was as distraught as he had ever seen her, even on the Perthshire road those months ago.
“You have not lost my lady,” Katherine said, her voice shaking. “She loves you, and like will, just the same, till she dies. Could she sit beside you here and go with you to the gallows, she should count herself as raised up by Fortune’s Wheel. Verily, I have never in all my life seen a soul so in despair as she is now. Her suffering is as great as your own and for your sake she cannot show it. Her heart is yours, MacKimzie, and none can take it from you.”
He blinked up at her.
“I should box your ears for leaving my poppet so!” she cried.
Then she fled, leaving him alone in the fetid hole.
It was fine linen of pure white, hastily cut from a chemise or, perhaps, a lady’s veil.
He wondered if she had ruined the garment to cut it so.
Forgive her.
He had no news, no visitors save Katherine. No word of his clan’s fate now that they knew ruin by his hand.
No word of her.
Katherine said she was very ill.
When it suited the king to take him from this fetid, freezing hell-hole and hang him, James would do it. He would die never knowing what happened to Caitrina, to the clan.
But now, to lose the child, too…
Why should she grieve? he wondered, his chains clinking as he lifted the cloth to examine it. She was better off without the bairn. Now she could marry Douglas freely, without fear of scandal, without threat to her good name.
She has everything she wanted.
He wondered if she would come to see him hang. He could not decide if her presence would make it better or worse.
How ill was she?
He would like her to come to the gallows, he decided, tracing the cloth between his fingers.
Katherine would not have come here if she were like to die. She would not have left her lady’s side.
He frowned. Would she?
The cloth no longer white now, he held it constantly, his thumb running over the fine weave. He slept with it clutched in his hand.
He wondered how he could get a message to her. To tell her to come to the gallows when James ordered him there. Perhaps the gaoler could.
The cloth was grayish now and coming apart a bit. He used some of the drink they gave him to clean it, but it didn’t help much.
She betrayed him, betrayed them all to marry Douglas.
She has the Sight. She sent William. She knew what would happen!
She had near a day at the cottage to tell him what she had done.
Colyne worried at the strip of cloth she sent. He twisted it, picked at it until it unraveled. In days it was no more than thread. Then it was nothing at all.
There was a sound at the door. A key turning.
James had finally remembered to hang him.
The door to the cell swung open and a well-dressed noble entered, his velvet and fur-trimmed clothes proclaiming him a lowlander or a courtier.
It took a few moments for Colyne to summon the name.
“Graham,” Colyne said. “Ye cut a fine figure, man.”
Sir Robert Graham smiled. “But you a sad one, my friend.”
Colyne looked listlessly at the courtier. “I canna deny it.”
“So how fare you, MacKimzie?” Graham asked conversationally, looking about the room. “God’s blood, what a place this is! I do not see how you can stand it. But I suppose you will not have to for long. I understand James intends to have you hanged like a slave shortly. Hold now, MacKimzie, did the king not hang your father as well?”
“Aye. But he were innocent of any crime and I as guilty as the devil himself.” Colyne’s eyes narrowed. “As well ye know.”
“Yes, kidnapping the Lady Isabella. Well done, MacKimzie! You kept the king’s share of the dowry from his coffers, and allowed time for whispers to be made in the Earl of Douglas’s ear,” Graham replied. “But more to the point, imprisoned here and without hope as you are, you have said nary a word to implicate Sir Robert Stewart or my dear friend, the Earl of Atholl.”
“I gave ye me word. An’ what good would it do me to break it? James will nae free me. I go to the gallows with me word kept, if nae else.”
“Well, keeping your word has done you a great deal of good, MacKimzie. I have come to offer you a reward for your loyalty, in the earl’s name, one you cannot have expected.”
In that moment Colyne saw the dagger in Graham’s hand, the blade gleaming in the darkness. Graham was still smiling and Colyne merely sat unmoving as the man stepped forward.
There was some satisfaction in knowing James would be cheated of hanging him.
In a quick, nimble move, Graham flipped the knife so that he offered it to Colyne, hilt first.
“What’s this then?” Colyne asked.
“A reward. For service well done. James was a fool to ever offend you Highlanders, you keep your word better than any men I have been privy to know.”
Colyne’s eyes narrowed, trying to read behind those confident, courtier eyes.
“Go on and take it. ’Tis no trick. I have come to free you from this wretched place—unless you have come to like it here.”
“Free me?”
Graham’s eyes glittered in the firelight. “I offer you, MacKimzie, a chance you must have dreamed of. Tonight Sir Robert Stewart will send the guards from the queen’s chamber where the king dallies, and we will go and rid our land of this cruel tyrant.”
“Kill the king,” Colyne breathed.
“I entreat you on behalf of the Earl of Atholl to join us, MacKimzie. Come, stick your blade into the tyrant’s throat and have the gratitude due you.” Graham looked at him meaningfully. “From your rightful sovereign.”
The pieces fell into place and Colyne gave a short laugh of understanding.
“An’ Douglas and his brother at odds with James over the heiress’s dowry brings them ever closer to yer side. With James dead and the nobles behind ye, ye’ll crown Walter Stewart king. Indeed, man, I played me part well for ye.”
“The Earl of Atholl’s claim to the throne is greater than James’s. Think of it, MacKimzie! With the gratitude and support of the true king behind you, you regain all you have lost and more. A man like you can rise to great heights in King Walter’s court.”
She had seen him as the king’s killer all along.
It is what I see. It is what will come.
Colyne thought of James’s men seizing his home, Caitrina and all his clan now in the king’s grasp.
She would be there among the queen’s ladies tonight.
The rewards he would have under Walter Stewart if he helped him become king tonight would dazzle. He could amass wealth and power to rival the Douglas family. He would have the ear of a king who favored him.
Wise men seized their destiny when it was offered, and this was a destiny to embrace.
The choice was easy.
His hand closed on the blade’s hilt.
“Aye, I’m with ye.”
Doctor Morse had declared her fit to serve the queen again. Exhausted from her nightmares and aching with grief, Isabella sat beside Catherine Douglas in the queen’s apartments. Sir Robert Stewart read aloud to them from a French romance.
Isabella clasped her hands to hide that they were trembling again.
It would be natural for the strain to act on her so, Kat argued. She was making herself sick with worry for the MacKimzie. And, her cousin pointed out, she suffered still from the loss of the child.
But Kat was wrong. This was something else, and Isabella could feel it drawing closer with every passing evensong. It grew thick and black, curling through the halls and galleries and gardens to engulf the court. It hovered over the abbey like a storm threatening to break.
But Colyne was the king’s prisoner. The king alone could set him free.
So here she would stay.
The king played at chess with Walter Stewart, the Earl of Atholl, while the other courtiers played at music and amused themselves with games.
Lady Mary, returned from her errand, curtsied to the queen.
“Lady Mary,” the queen acknowledged courteously, still smiling at one of the earl’s witticisms.
“Your Majesty,” Lady Mary said, rising, her brow puckered. “A woman, a Highlander, waits below in the courtyard. She asks to be admitted to the abbey but she will not say why. She is quite insistent.”
The king raised his eyebrows and exchanged a glance with the queen.
“What? Tonight?” The king shook his head and waved Mary away. “No, we are ready to retire. Tell her to return in the morning. We shall see her then.”
The king yawned and Isabella realized it must be past midnight. Isabella and Kat exchanged a relieved look across the room to know they should soon be sent to their own bed. James signaled to Sir Robert. Stewart offered the parting cup to the king and James drank of it.
The courtiers bowed out. Sir Robert, as royal chamberlain the last to leave, secured the doors behind him.
The king, already in his nightshirt, seemed relaxed and happy tonight. He was pleased to linger with his queen and her ladies, and chat amiably with them as they sewed or played.
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