“Stay on Fletch’s back, lass,” he said in a low voice. “If anything happens, I want you to kick him as hard as you can and guide him toward the north.” He indicated the direction with the curved end of his bow, and then locked eyes with her, making sure she understood.
She swallowed and nodded, her eyes wide and dark green in the dim light. He pulled his quiver out of his saddlebag and slung it over his shoulder, keeping his bow firmly gripped in his hand. Burke had already dismounted and had drawn his sword all the way. The two men made eye contact, each giving the other a little nod. Then they slowly approached the cottage, both sweeping their half of the glen with their eyes, weapons at the ready. Nothing moved except for the grass around each man’s feet, and the glen was silent and still.
When they were about halfway to the cottage, Garrick thought he made out a dark lump in the high grass, but he wasn’t sure. He slowly stepped closer.
Jossalyn’s scream cut through the silence like a knife.
He spun around, an arrow already nocked and his bowstring drawn back to his cheek. Jossalyn still sat atop Fletch at the edge of the forest, but her eyes were locked on something on the ground off to her right. Garrick shot Burke a quick glance, and after Burke’s nod to him, Garrick sprinted back toward Jossalyn, the tip of his arrow lowered but the bow still half-draw and at the ready.
As he drew nearer, he could make out the look of horror that was transforming Jossalyn’s delicate features. Once at her side, he let his eyes follow the line of her gaze. Several feet away in the forest’s undergrowth, he saw a small shoe. His eyes trailed farther still, and when he saw what had caused Jossalyn to scream, he swallowed hard.
A child lay motionless in the underbrush, face-up and open-eyed.
His throat was slit.
Garrick unnocked the arrow and slipped it back into his quiver, then quickly slung his bow over his shoulder and turned to Jossalyn. Her eyes were wide and horror-stricken, her mouth open, but no scream came out.
“Jossalyn, sweeting, look at me,” he said quietly at Fletch’s side. “Look at me, Jossalyn,” he said more firmly when she remained frozen.
She didn’t respond or seem to have heard him, so he wrapped his hands around her waist and pulled her down from Fletch’s back. Fletch was now between her and the child’s lifeless body, and she was forced to tear her eyes away from the scene. He took her chin in his hands and leaned into her face, locking his eyes on hers.
“Jossalyn, listen to me. No matter what, that boy was innocent. Do you hear me? No matter what happened, that boy is in heaven now. Jossalyn, he is in heaven now, and nothing can hurt him.”
She blinked. His words may have penetrated to the recesses of her mind, but she didn’t show it. She stared blankly at him for a moment, and then furrowed her brow.
“Where is the rest of his family? He is too young to be playing in the woods by himself. Where is his family?” She spoke in a detached tone that frightened him. She began walking toward the cabin, muttering, “Where is his family?” under her breath. She sounded like she would chastise the boy’s parents for letting the child into the forest by himself, as if he hadn’t been murdered and left there to rot.
He tried to grip her arm to stop her from going farther into the glen, but she shook him off and walked faster.
“Jossalyn, don’t!” Burke shouted from the cottage’s doorway. He had sheathed his sword and poked his head inside, but his face was hard and tight from whatever he had seen within.
But it was too late. She had made it halfway across the glen, Garrick hurrying behind her, when she halted dead in her tracks. She had reached the dark lump in the grass that had been indiscernible to Garrick earlier in the predawn dimness.
Now he saw that it was another body.
A woman’s body. She lay face-down in the tall grass of the glen, but her skirts were pulled up and twisted around her waist. Suddenly, Jossalyn turned away and retched into the grass.
Garrick hardened himself to the sight before him on the ground. He had seen the likes before. He hated himself for turning off inside, but it was the only way he knew how to cope with the sight of the violation and slaughter of women and children. He knelt briefly by the woman’s side, tugging her skirts down so that at least she had some dignity in death. He whispered a prayer for her as Burke came to his side, limping slightly. His cousin was grim-faced and ashen, even in the warming light of the predawn sky.
Garrick indicated toward the woods and said quietly, “A child.”
Burke nodded and swallowed, then jutted his chin toward the cabin. “It’s burned out in there, but there was another…a girl…”
He couldn’t go on, but he didn’t have to. Garrick could picture perfectly another murdered child, but because she was a girl, she had likely been raped like her mother. Garrick turned his back on the entire scene, fearing that like Jossalyn, he would become sick. She had finished retching in the grass and was slowly pulling herself upright as she dragged a shaky hand over her mouth. He strode to her side, then took her by the arm and walked her to the opposite edge of the forest, so that her back was to the glen.
On the other side of the glen, she suddenly seemed to come to pieces. A moan escaped her, and she leaned limply toward him. He wrapped his arms around her, steadying her as sobs racked her body. He felt useless and hollow but tried to give her every last shred of himself as she cried into his shoulder. He stroked her hair, whispering every endearment he could think of. When his English ran out, he switched to Gaelic, murmuring all the sweet words his nursemaid used to say whenever he or his brothers were sick.
The sky grew lighter, and then the sun cracked over the horizon and through the trees at the edge of the forest where they stood. Garrick was vaguely aware that Burke had moved slowly around the glen, finishing their sweep of the area and gathering their horses, and was now approaching. Jossalyn’s crying was slowing and quieting, and eventually, she placed a hand on his chest, pushing back a bit so she was standing upright on her own two feet. He kept his hands on her upper arms to steady her, though. She wiped both hands across her face, drying the tears with the sleeves of her dress. She took a few deep breaths, trying to regain some composure.
“What happened here?” she said finally. Her voice was cracked and dry from her sobs.
Garrick exchanged a look with Burke, weighing how much to tell her.
“The English,” he finally said simply.
A look of shock and horror briefly returned to her face. “What do you mean? You think the English did this?”
Garrick nodded. It chilled him, but he knew it was the truth. He only wished she hadn’t had to face the horrible reality that was his world. Death. Rape. Razed villages. Murdered children. This was his life. He had immersed himself in it, lived with it, and returned kill for kill. He knew he still had a shred of honor—he had never violated women or killed children—but he doled out death to the English, just as they doled it out to the Scottish. Now she would finally see him for what he was. Now his beautiful, foolish dream of a future with Jossalyn would be over. He steeled himself, closing himself off to the pain just as he did at the sight of death.
He turned and took Fletch’s reins, preparing to mount.
“That’s it? How do you know this was done by the English? You are just leaving?” Her voice rose in anger as he swung into his saddle.
“I can explain more later, but I don’t plan on lingering here any longer,” he said, a bit more curtly than he had intended.
“But what about the b—the bodies?”
He couldn’t quite suppress a flinch. It was despicable, but they would have to leave them as they were. “If whoever did this comes back through the area, they will know someone else was here and may still be nearby. Avoiding detection is our best chance to get to the north in one piece.”
“He’s right, lass,” Burke said, far more gently than Garrick would ever be able to manage.
For some reason, he hated his cousin for a moment. He was
always able to find the right words, to be kind and understanding, while Garrick was rough and curt. Of course, Burke’s ability to think and act smoothly on his feet had saved them more than once, but some small part of him was jealous that compared to Burke, he was a walking, talking sledge hammer.
Jossalyn suddenly looked exhausted. There were dark smudges under her red-rimmed eyes, and her shoulders slumped forward like it was an effort just to stay upright. She didn’t say anything, but walked over to Fletch and extended her hand to be pulled up into the saddle, though she didn’t make eye contact with Garrick. Once she and Burke were both settled, he spurred Fletch due north. The time for dallying was long gone.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
By the time they stopped a few hours later, Jossalyn was numb inside. She didn’t speak as Garrick helped her down, or as he forced some dried biscuits and meat, along with his waterskin, into her hands. She took a few bites, but the food tasted like sand in her mouth. The water helped rinse away the taste of sickness that lingered in the back of her throat, but she only managed to take a few sips.
Yet even as she retreated into herself, struggling to comprehend what she had seen back at the glen, several questions whispered in the recesses of her mind. She had let them wash over her as they had ridden hard toward the north, but now they were ready to bubble over.
“You never answered me,” she said finally, startling both Garrick and Burke, who had sunken into the silence and were leaning over a small fire that Burke had built. “How do you know that it was the English?” For some reason, her mind rejected the idea that her countrymen—former countrymen, she reminded herself—could do such things to innocent people.
Garrick recovered from his surprise first, but his gray eyes turned hard and flat. “Why do you doubt that it was?” he asked quietly.
He didn’t say it, but she caught his implication. She claimed to be sympathetic to the Scots, but when it came down to it, she was still English—and always would be.
She faltered for a moment, unsure of herself. Why did she resist the idea that Englishmen could do such horrible things? She had heard whispered stories of atrocities on both sides, but seeing for herself was different than hearing rumors. “I just…I don’t know how you can be so sure. I have heard before that the Scots raid each other’s lands and even have blood feuds—”
Garrick spat into the fire, startling her. “Lass, feuding clans steal sheep from each other. They don’t rape and murder women and children,” he said vehemently.
She jumped and leaned back from him slightly at his tone and words.
“Easy, cousin,” Burke said lowly, putting a hand on Garrick’s arm.
He shrugged it off and stood. “If you want the truth, lass, that was in all likelihood the work of your brother and his soldiers.” The words came out cold, but Garrick’s eyes flamed with gray fire.
She was so shocked at his words that she jerked upright from her seat next to the fire and took several steps backward.
“Garrick.” Burke’s voice was laden with warning.
“She wanted the truth, didn’t she?” Garrick said, turning his anger on Burke. “She should be able to face the realities of war—of England’s tyranny over Scotland—before she joins the war effort. Perhaps now that she knows what happens to Scotswomen under English invasion, she’ll no longer want to adopt the Scottish cause. Maybe she’ll finally want to go home to her brother.”
She closed the distance between them in two strides. Before she knew what she was doing, she raised her hand and slapped him across the face as hard as she could.
He saw the slap coming but stood still. He deserved it. He was spewing out all his anger toward the English at her, like her nationality was her fault, or that she had caused not only the scene back at the glen but the countless others like it he had seen over the years.
But it went deeper than that. She had to know the truth—about the war, about the English, and about himself.
He hadn’t liked the idea of her joining the war effort from the beginning. Though she was a gifted healer and her skills would surely be valuable to the rebellion, the thought of her having to face the realities of their battles against the English disturbed him. She obviously already knew how cruel her brother was. But he had assumed that since she sympathized with the Scots, she understood the low tactics English soldiers and their commanders stooped to in order to control and oppress the Scots.
But perhaps it was worse than simple naiveté on her part. Maybe she still felt the need to defend the English for their behavior. The thought chilled him, for he didn’t want to doubt her, but twice now she had hesitated when it came to recognizing the cruelties of her brother and the English, and he had to remind himself that blood ties and birth origins couldn’t just be sloughed off with a change of location.
Even if his doubts about her loyalty were misplaced, the fact remained that she was deeply averse to war and its results—as she should be. Most people didn’t live as close to the violence and death as he did. He was proud to aid the Bruce and the Scottish rebellion in the best way he could—with his bow—but he could no longer deceive himself that the tenderness and strength of one lass could save him from all he had seen and done. He was past redemption.
It sickened him to push her away like this, to make her see the fact that he wasn’t some knight in shining armor, but he had indulged his fantasy too long.
He kept his hands clenched at his sides, feeling the sting in his cheek slowly fade. She stood in front of him, panting, her hands balled at her sides as well.
“Are we done now, lass?” he said lowly. Surely now she would be through with arguing, but more, she would be through with him and the nightmare into which he had dragged her.
She inhaled sharply through her nose, and then intentionally unclenched her hands. “No, we are not done. We need to talk about all of this further.”
He had been bracing himself for her rejection, for her to turn her back on him and leave his life forever, with only the faint memory of brief happiness to hold onto during the long, cold nights alone on some mission. That kind of pain would have been sharp, and he was ready for it, but he wasn’t prepared for her to say that they needed to talk things through. Suddenly, he felt the anger and tension leave his body, to be replaced by confusion and uncertainty.
Burke coughed surreptitiously, breaking the silence that stretched as Garrick and Jossalyn stared at each other. “I think I’ll scout the area. I’ll be gone at least two hours.” With that, he quietly slipped away into the surrounding forest and left them alone.
“What do you mean, we need to talk?” Despite his surprise at her words, Garrick still spoke in a guarded tone.
She sighed and wrapped her arms around herself. “I’m sorry I slapped you,” she said, not addressing his question.
“I deserved it.”
“Why do you think my brother and his men were responsible for…for what happened back in that clearing?” She sounded weary rather than angry this time.
He scrubbed a hand over his face, feeling exhausted himself. “They were coming from the east when they passed our camp. They could have come across the cottage as they cut northwest in one of their sweeps.”
She swallowed, and tears shimmered in her eyes again.
“It could have been some other band of Englishmen looking to cause trouble and send a message to the Scots,” he said gently, trying to ease her pain. “But…”
“What? Tell me.”
“Raef Warren is known to have done similar things elsewhere in Scotland,” Garrick said reluctantly. She didn’t need to picture her brother doing such terrible things to more innocent people, but Garrick had been on Sinclair lands when the English swept through four years ago. They had waged war not just on the Scottish warriors, but also on the small villages and crofts filled with women and children.
She sat down hard on the ground all of a sudden. “I know he is capable of such things,” she said, her voice pinched with emoti
on.
He knelt next to her, struggling to think of something to say or do to ease her suffering. Tears had begun streaming down her cheeks, but she swallowed her sobs, visibly trying to maintain some of her composure.
“Jossalyn, you don’t have to be a part of this.” To his ears, his own voice was low but slightly strained. “You can still leave. Go back to England and make a new life for yourself in some small village. Or stay in Scotland but don’t join the war effort.” Saying these words was hard, but it was the right thing to do. He couldn’t be selfish. He had to let her go.
Her face transformed from pained control to shock. “But don’t you see? This is exactly why I want to join the fight for Scottish freedom!”
He furrowed his brow. He didn’t see.
Perceiving his confusion, she went on. “I can’t stand the thought of living in a world where such terrible things happen, where the strongest and meanest get their way at any cost. Maybe I am foolish to think the world could be any different than that, but I at least want to try to make it better.”
He was stunned for a moment by her conviction and strength. She had explained her reasons for wanting to help the Scottish cause before, but perhaps he hadn’t truly listened to her. He had likely immediately started to calculate all the reasons why it was too dangerous for a lass—for a lass he cared so much about—to involve herself, rather than actually listen to her commitment to do what she thought was right. Aye, he would still worry about her, but who was he to try to control her or take away her ability to pursue her sense of duty and justice?
“I owe you an apology, lass,” he said, lowering his head. “I should have listened to you before when you made your mission clear. I won’t doubt you again.”
She seized his hands in hers, bringing his eyes back up. Her tears were drying now, and her eyes were wide and bright with surprise. “Do you mean it?”
“Of course. I was harsh with my words before, but I hope you can forgive me for worrying about you. I just…don’t want any harm to come to you,” he said haltingly.
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