He nodded to his men, motioning for them to go around the opposite side of the building. They would be a distraction while he moved closer. No villager would throw daggers at his head and live to laugh over it later.
He dashed forward, ducking behind buildings and abandoned carts as his men obeyed his orders. The clash of steel told him his men had arrived. No longer needing to mind his back, he ran toward the hut and charged toward the whoreson seeking to attack.
Except it was no bedraggled man fighting off all five of his warriors.
It was a woman.
A bonny woman at that, with streaming black hair and long, lean legs encased in red leather trews with a belt fastened over a loose leine. She kicked a lean leg high into the air and caught one of Niall’s men in the side of his head. The man dropped like a sack of grain.
“Stop.” Niall spoke the word with booming authority.
Everyone went still. Or rather, his soldiers did. The woman spun around to face him; twin daggers gripped in her hands.
The fierce set to her face dissolved for a moment, letting him glimpse the softened expression beneath. Delicate muscles stood out at her neck and her bright blue eyes widened.
“’Tis you,” she whispered.
He lifted his eyebrow. While he wouldn’t mind knowing the lass for a bit of bedsport, he’d never met her before.
He stepped closer and her face hardened.
“Be gone from here.” There was a huskiness to her proper accent. English, of course.
“We’re no’ here for theft,” he said.
Niall’s injured man rolled to his side on the ground and slowly staggered to standing.
She didn’t bother looking at Niall’s reiver. Instead she dragged her gaze over Niall as though sizing him up. “What are you here for?”
“To find the warden’s daughter.” He crossed his arms over his chest in an attempt to appear at ease.
The smirk of her rosy lips indicated she saw through the guise. “He has several.”
She stalked closer to Niall with those daggers poised in her hands. Several more lined her belt; perfect for throwing, no doubt. Her hips swayed in a decidedly feminine manner as she stepped one foot in front of the other in his direction.
His men tensed, but he shook his head. He would not be intimidated by this woman. “She is called Lady Leila.” His gaze remained trained on her to see if she reacted to the name. Mayhap she knew her. Mayhap she was her.
After all, he’d heard the warden’s daughters were skilled in weaponry. But would the warden really send her to the pestilence-ridden village? With no guard?
If the woman recognized the name, she did not show it. She came to a stop and stared boldly at him. There was a sweet, fresh scent about her, like herbs. Sage and mint and lavender, or something of the sort. A handkerchief was tied about her neck, no doubt filled with herbs, presumably pulled down when she’d launched her attack. “Leave.”
Niall squared his shoulders. “We want information.”
“Are you not afraid?” She slid her daggers into her belt. “The contagion carries on the air. It’s breathed in as an odor. Do you not smell it?”
Unbidden, Niall’s thoughts wandered to the man he’d left on the bench. The villager had smelled terrible, of illness and rot.
“The man you spoke with is already dead.” Her cold stare held his, ice-blue and veiled with thick, black lashes, slightly tilted at the corners like a cat. “Do you know how the pestilence strikes?”
Niall held his ground, as any warrior worth his merit should.
“As it works its way into your humors, it will heat your blood and carry a fever.” The woman tilted her head in a pitying manner. “’Tis quite uncomfortable. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were already growing warm…”
Niall gritted his back teeth against her words. His body had begun to heat after speaking with the man. His pulse raced with intensity.
“Your heart will bang in your chest like a drum.” She curled her hand into a small fist and bumped it over her own heart. “Dum,” she intoned. “Dum. Dum. Dum.”
The pounding was in his head now, thrumming an unmistakable rhythm of fear.
“An aching head comes next.” She kept her ice-blue stare on him and pressed her slender fingers to her temples. “Roaring in your ears until you can scarcely hear.”
He said nothing as her husky voice wound around him like a spell, saying aloud every symptom as he felt them.
“If you leave, you might still be safe.” She turned on her heel and Niall’s men’s eyes went wide. “Otherwise, you will all soon be dead. Go.” She tossed a glance over her shoulder at Niall. “Now.”
He jerked his head toward the direction they’d come from, and his men immediately scrambled to obey his silent order to retreat.
“How do ye know me?” Niall asked.
The woman said nothing.
“Do I know ye?” he demanded.
She smirked at him. “Stay, then.” She turned, putting her well-formed backside toward him, and strode casually away. “’Tis your death.”
Damn her. And damn the whole bloody mission he’d had to accept in coming to the village.
He spat out a curse and went after his men. If they weren’t on English soil right then, he would have hauled the woman off with him. For he knew without a shadow of a doubt in his mind that this woman was Lady Leila. Just as he knew with certainty that she was indeed a witch.
2
Leila fought to keep her easy stride as she walked away, a feat difficult to do when her knees were soft with fear. She turned around the corner of a nearby hut and leaned her back on the wall while her heart galloped in great slamming beats.
The Lion.
That man had been the Lion. She gasped around the tightness in her chest. Remembering the contagion all around her, she hastily brought up the kerchief around her face to filter the air through the herbs. Her breath blew hot and humid behind the dry, prickling leaves and stems, but she scarcely noticed.
He had seen her. Talked to her. She pressed her hand to her chest, but the thrumming continued with wild abandon.
Was he there still?
Her body tensed with what she must do. The villager on the bench was most likely not dead as she had claimed, but he would be soon if she did not hurry to his side. Steeling herself beyond her fear, she carefully peeked around the building. No one remained, save the man still laying where he fell. Her legs almost buckled with relief.
The Lion was gone.
She slid her daggers free and cautiously made her way to the villager.
“They’re gone?” he asked from his prone position, his words muffled.
Leila glanced around the surrounding area and saw no movement save for the billows of smoke and floating ash. The stink of it all hung in the foul air despite the mask she wore.
“Aye.” She slipped her daggers into her belt and helped the man sit upright.
“They were asking about ye.” The man wobbled and righted himself, the flagon still locked in his hands.
She’d seen the Lion give it to him. But why? No doubt to put the man at ease, to get him to talk. Leila assessed the man in front of her, his back hunched, his grizzled face lined in pain. “Let’s get you to the hut where you can be properly cared for.”
Leila was able to assist the older man to the pestilence hut, where Isla rushed about distributing teas to aid cool fevers and poultices to help with the pain of the swollen contagion. The woman they’d found earlier, Rose, refused to lay still and instead hovered over the children, whose names Leila had learned were Joan and John.
Once the man was settled into an unoccupied bed, Leila set to work assisting Isla and showing Rose how to care for the children.
It was late afternoon by the time Leila and Isla began the walk back to the castle. They changed in a spare room in the guard house, scrubbed their exposed skin and put their dirty clothes in boiling water to prevent bringing illness into the castle.
&nbs
p; “’Tis getting worse,” Isla said as they walked through the bailey. “Can ye see if it will get better soon?”
“My visions don’t tell me.” Leila scratched at an itchy red welt on her wrist. There were two more on the back of her hand and several on her forearm.
“Aye, I know. I just hoped…” Isla drew back Leila’s sleeve and tsked. “Ye’re covered in flea bites. Come, I’ll give ye an ointment to take out the itch.”
“Nettle juice and calendula.” Leila pulled her sleeve over the itchy bumps on her arm. “I have some in my room that I made the other day for this very reason.”
“Ye’ll be taking my position at the castle as healer soon, my lady.” But the rebuke was given with a gleam of pride in the older woman’s eyes.
“You’re as much as a part of this castle as the stone. We would never get rid of you.”
“I’m almost as old too.” Isla’s good-natured expression faded to one of concern. “I dinna like ye going to the village.”
“You put yourself at risk too,” Leila said, playing her part of their usual conversation.
Isla stopped and took Leila’s hand in her cool, dry one. “Ye’re a lady and ye’re covered in flea bites, venturing into a village that has scores of dead lying about underfoot as ye tend to the dying.”
“I’ll be fine,” Leila protested.
The healer narrowed her eyes and shook her head, saying nothing further.
“I’ll be fine,” Leila repeated the words again with certainty in an effort to offer reassurance.
And she was fine.
Four days later, however, she was not. She awoke to a slight stiffness to her joints and a mild discomfort under her right arm. By the time she dressed for the day, the stiffness had become an ache. Exhaustion pulled at her, drawing her back to her unmade bed, which she lay upon fully clothed. She had meant to be there only a moment when a knock came at the door and startled her awake.
Leila sat up to answer and a wave of nausea overtook her in a grip so firm, it was impossible to fight. She was sick upon the floor beside her bed, gasping for air from the violence of her retching.
“Do not come in,” she cried out to the person on the other side of the door. “I…” Chills rippled over her skin with the words she knew she needed to say to protect those around her. “I have the pestilence.”
The door flew open despite Leila’s warning and Isla rushed in. “Nay, my lady.” She ran to Leila’s side and immediately pressed a hand to Leila’s brow. The older woman hissed and drew her hand back as though she had been burned.
“My arm…” Leila shifted to allow Isla to pull back the shoulder of her kirtle and examine the pain in her armpit.
Isla gingerly pressed her cold fingers around the lump. Even such small proximity brought enough pain to steal Leila’s breath.
“It is the pestilence, is it not?” she asked weakly.
But in truth, she did not need to ask. The answer was already in Isla’s glossy eyes, in the way she pressed her fists to her chest as though the ache within was too great to bear.
Fatigue pulled at Leila, making her mind hazy and her limbs heavy. “You needn’t worry.” She spoke even as her eyes drifted closed. “I’ll survive. You know why. Because of him.”
“The Lion,” Isla murmured from somewhere that sounded distant to Leila’s ears.
The Lion.
His name repeated in Leila’s mind, echoing in a chasm of pain and suffering that came in flashes of altered awareness. Isla had been there with her dry hands and the sweet scent of herbs. There had been another woman as well, one with hair as red as the flames licking at Leila’s body. The woman was not fire, though. She was soothing; her hands cool like water, her voice a beautiful caress through the ugliness of pain.
They were not the only ones to attend Leila.
Death hovered near her, salivating like a dog gone too long without a meal, his breath snarling and ragged, huffing against her skin like ice. Leila stared into Death’s vacant eyes and saw herself reflected in those milky depths. Death came closer and the frigid fog around his body left her skin prickling. Still, she was not afraid.
She had seen her true death far too many times to fear this one. An end by the pestilence was preferable to the one she had seen; the death she knew she would endure. At least her demise through illness would come without her suffering the raw hurt of love betrayed.
The Lion.
Water welled around her, so cold it froze the breath in her lungs. Panic splashed through her veins. She knew this vision and did not want it. Death could have her soul now. Not later. Not with the Lion.
Strong arms held her down, his face distorted by the churning water above her, roiling with the force of her struggle. She didn’t need to see him when she knew so well what he looked like: the straight nose, those almond shaped hazel eyes, wavy blond hair falling to his broad shoulders, a strong jaw that bristled with golden whiskers.
Leila’s heart caught in her chest in a tangle of horror and hate. And love.
The Lion.
The water cleared from her throat and Death breathed in her fear, feasting on her fragile mortality. He reached for her with a skeletal hand, moon-white in the darkness. His fingers caught at her shoulder, lingering before all at once, he slithered away like a serpentine night terror.
Pain replaced Death’s presence, brilliant in its agony.
“Is it your shoulder?” a soft voice asked.
The question rattled through Leila’s awareness. Was it her shoulder? Even as she wondered at it, she found herself nodding through gritted teeth.
A gentle hand brushed her shoulder. The discomfort began to ebb.
Leila blinked her eyes open in an attempt to see what had caused such horrible agony. A woman with red hair tilted her head and pulled aside Leila’s nightrail to examine the blazing area. Rose. The name lifted in Leila’s memory. She was the woman they had helped in the village.
The woman lifted her attention to Leila and a smile lit her face. “Isla will be pleased to know you have awoken. She has been so worried.” Sadness touched Rose’s pale blue eyes. “We all have been.”
“What is on my shoulder?” Leila twisted her arm to better see what Rose was looking at.
The woman sat back. “Strange marks. It isn’t from the swelling.”
It was then Leila noted the lump under her arm, demonstrating the signs of recovery. The darkened knot had begun to lighten. She glanced to her shoulder and found five white dots, each about the size of a fingertip where Death had touched her.
Fear prickled a cold sweat on her brow. It was a message. A constant reminder.
The Lion was coming for her.
The priest had pissed himself. Niall slid his gaze away from where liquid dribbled over the chair and soaked into the man’s robe.
Alban Armstrong, son to the Keeper of Liddesdale, released the fistful of the cloth where he held the priest and gave an exclamation of disgust. The stench of the priest’s urine mingled with the coppery odor of his fear and left the air in the narrow dungeon rank.
“Looks like ye finally found a use for yer prick, eh?” Alban drew his fist back and the priest scrunched his face in anticipation of the impact.
“Enough,” Niall said. They’d had the priest in the dungeon for a full night already. Men of God were used to discomfort, aye, but not violence. No doubt the bald man had spent the time after the Armstrong reivers found him wondering if he was to be killed.
Alban narrowed his dark eyes at Niall’s orders and shook his red hair from his eyes. “This bastard—”
“Enough.” This time Niall said the word with a ring of authority. He wouldn’t be challenged. Not even by Lord Armstrong’s son. The whelp needed to learn his place in the order of things. Alban was not Keeper yet.
And when he was, Niall would sooner abandon the position of deputy than work for him.
Alban lowered his arm and gave a sulky scowl which Niall pointedly ignored.
“What’s ye
r name?” Niall asked of the priest.
“Bernard.” The priest did not relax from his tensed position, as though still waiting to be struck.
Niall kept his distance from the man in an effort to put him more at ease. “Where are ye from?”
“Oxford, where my father was a lord. If you kill me, it will be a declaration of war on England. My brothers all know how to fight. I never did. My mother—”
“Our kings dinna meddle in affairs on the border,” Niall said, putting a stop to the nervous rambling. “Ye’re a long way from Oxford, Priest. What are ye doing in Liddesdale?”
Bernard shivered and glanced around with fearful eyes. “Please don’t hurt me.”
“We’ll do what we want with ye.” Alban leaned menacingly over the priest, mindful to avoid the puddle of urine. “And ye best be telling the truth.”
Niall lifted the Bible from the stool it’d been set upon when they brought the priest in from the nearby village. He handed it to Bernard, who accepted it with eager hands and hugged it to his chest as though it were a shield.
“Swear on it that yer answers will be honest.” Niall nodded toward the Bible. “If ye do that, we willna need to hurt ye for answers.” He cast a hard look at Alban.
Bernard nodded and clutched the Bible more tightly.
“Where are ye from?” Niall asked again. “No’ Oxford, but where ye currently reside.”
“Werrick Castle. I’m priest there.”
Niall’s shoulders relaxed somewhat. This is what he had been hoping for. When a scout told him that the priest had been wandering about the outskirts of Liddesdale, claiming to be from Werrick Castle, he had thought it too good to be true.
It was the first opportunity he’d had to speak with someone from the Castle since the day they ventured to its nearby village. Niall and his men hadn’t returned, not since the witch cast a spell on them convincing them they were becoming ill with the plague.
They’d felt immediately better once they fled the village, after her power over them had dissipated.
Leila’s Legacy Page 2