“Ouch!” He turned me and gave me a hard shove, so that my legs hit the bed and I fell, half-lying on the rough blankets. Randall surveyed me with grim satisfaction, rubbing the scuffed toe of his boot with a linen handkerchief. I glared back at him, and he gave a short laugh.
“You’re no coward, I’ll give you that. In fact, you’re a fit match for him,” he nodded at Jamie, who was beginning to stir a bit, “and I can’t give you a better compliment than that.” He tenderly fingered his throat, where a darkening bruise showed in the open neck of his shirt. “He tried to kill me, one-handed, when I untied him. And damned near managed it too. Pity I didn’t realize he was left-handed.”
“How unreasonable of him,” I said.
“Quite,” said Randall, with a nod. “I don’t suppose you’d be so impolite, do you? Still, on the off-chance …” He turned to the large servant, who was simply standing in the doorframe, shoulders sloped, waiting for orders.
“Marley,” said Randall, “come here and search this woman for weapons.” He watched with some amusement as the man groped clumsily about my person, eventually coming upon and extracting my dirk.
“You don’t care for Marley?” asked the Captain, watching me try to avoid the thick fingers that prodded me all too intimately. “Rather a pity; I’m sure he’s quite taken with you.”
“Poor Marley hasn’t much luck with women,” the Captain went on, a malicious gleam in his eye. “Have you, Marley? Even the whores won’t have him.” He fixed me with a designing sort of look, smiling wolfishly. “Too big, they say.” He raised one eyebrow. “Which is quite a judgment, coming from a whore, is it not?” He raised the other brow, making his meaning quite clear.
Marley, who had begun to pant rather heavily during the search, stopped and wiped a thread of saliva from the side of his mouth. I moved as far away as I could manage, disgusted.
Randall, watching me, said, “I imagine Marley would like to entertain you privately in his quarters, once we’ve finished our conversation. Of course, he might decide later on to share his good fortune with his friends, but that’s up to him.”
“Oh, you don’t want to watch?” I asked sarcastically.
Randall laughed, truly amused.
“I may have what are called ‘unnatural tastes’ myself, as I imagine you know by this time. But give me credit for some aesthetic principles.” He glanced at the immense orderly, slouched in his filthy clothes, paunch straining over his belt. The loose, blubbery lips chewed and mumbled constantly, as though seeking some fragment of food, and the short, thick fingers worked nervously against the crotch of the stained breeches. Randall shuddered delicately.
“No,” he said. “You’re a very lovely woman, shrewish tongue notwithstanding. To see you with Marley—no, I don’t believe I want to watch that. Appearance aside, Marley’s personal habits leave quite a lot to be desired.”
“So do yours,” I said.
“That’s as may be. At any rate, they’ll not concern you much longer.” He paused, looking down at me. “I would still like to know who you are, you know. A Jacobite, plainly, but whose? Marischal’s? Seaforth’s? Lovat’s, most likely, since you’re with the Frasers.” Randall nudged Jamie gently with a polished boot-toe, but he still lay inert. I could see his chest rising and falling regularly; perhaps he had merely slipped from unconsciousness into sleep. The smudges under his eyes gave evidence that he had had little rest of late.
“I’ve even heard from some that you’re a witch,” the Captain went on. His tone was light, but he watched me closely, as though I might suddenly turn myself into an owl and flap away. “There was some kind of trouble at Cranesmuir, wasn’t there? A death of some kind? But no doubt that’s all superstitious nonsense.”
Randall eyed me speculatively. “I might be persuaded to make a bargain with you,” he said abruptly. He leaned back, half-sitting on the table, inviting me.
I laughed bitterly. “I can’t say I’m in either a position or a mood to bargain at the moment. What can you offer me?”
Randall glanced at Marley. The idiot’s eyes were fixed on me, and he was mumbling under his breath.
“A choice, at least. Tell me—and convince me—who you are and who sent you to Scotland. What you’re doing and what information you’ve sent to whom. Tell me that, and I’ll take you to Sir Fletcher, instead of giving you to Marley.”
I kept my eyes firmly away from Marley. I had seen the rotting stumps of teeth embedded in pustulant gums, and the thought of him kissing me, let alone—I choked the thought off. Randall was right; I wasn’t a coward. But neither was I a fool.
“You can’t take me to Sir Fletcher,” I said, “and I know it as well as you do. Take me to him and risk my telling him about this?” My nod took in the snug little room, the cozy fire, the bed I sat on, and Jamie lying at my feet. “Whatever his own shortcomings, I don’t imagine Sir Fletcher would stand, officially, for his officers torturing prisoners. Even the English army must have some standards.”
Randall raised both eyebrows. “Torture? Oh, that.” He waved negligently at Jamie’s hand. “An accident. He fell in his cell and was trampled by the other prisoners. It’s rather crowded in those cells, you know.” He smiled derisively.
I was silent. While Sir Fletcher might or might not believe the damage to Jamie’s hand was an accident, he was most unlikely to believe anything I said, once I was unmasked as an English spy.
Randall was watching me, eyes alert for any signs of weakening. “Well? The choice is yours.”
I sighed and closed my eyes, tired of looking at him. The choice wasn’t mine, but I could hardly tell him why not.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said wearily. “I can’t tell you anything.”
“Think it over for a moment.” He stood up, and stepped carefully over Jamie’s unconscious form, taking a key from his pocket. “I may need Marley’s help for a bit, but then I’ll send him back to his quarters—and you with him, if you don’t mean to cooperate.” He stooped, unlocked the manacle, and heaved the inert body up with an impressive display of strength for one so slightly built. The muscles of his forearms ridged the cloth of his snowy shirt as he carried Jamie, head lolling, to a stool in the corner. He nodded at the bucket standing nearby.
“Rouse him,” he directed the silent hulk curtly. Cold water splashed from the stones in the corner and puddled on the floor, making a filthy pool underneath. “Once more,” Randall said, inspecting Jamie, who was moaning slightly, head stirring against the stones of the wall. He flinched and coughed under the second drenching shower.
Randall strode forward and took him by the hair, yanking his head back, shaking it like a drowned animal, so that drops of fetid water spattered the walls. Jamie’s eyes were dull slits. Randall threw Jamie’s head back in disgust, wiping his hand down the side of his trousers as he turned away. His eye must have caught the flicker of movement, because he began to turn back, but not in time to brace himself against the big Scot’s sudden lunge.
Jamie’s arms went around Randall’s neck. Lacking the use of his right hand, he gripped his right wrist with the able left and pulled, forearm braced on the Englishman’s windpipe. As Randall turned purple and began to sag, he let go his left hand long enough to drive it into the captain’s kidney. Even weakened as Jamie was, the blow was enough to make Randall give at the knees.
Dropping the limp captain, Jamie whirled to face the hulking orderly, who had been watching events so far without the slightest flicker of interest on his slack-jawed face. Although his expression remained rather inert, he did move, picking up the mallet from the table as Jamie came toward him, holding the stool by one leg in his good left hand. A certain dull wariness came into the orderly’s face as the two men circled each other slowly, looking for an opening.
Better-armed, Marley tried first, swinging the mallet at Jamie’s ribs. Jamie whirled away and feinted with the stool, forcing the orderly back toward the door. The next attempt, a murderous blow downward, would have
split Jamie’s skull had it landed on target. As it was, the stool split instead, one leg and the seat sheared away.
Impatiently, Jamie smashed the stool against the wall with his next swing, reducing it to a smaller but more manageable club; a two-foot length of wood with a ragged, splintered end.
The air in the cell, made stifling with smoke from the torches, was still except for the gasping breath of the two men and the occasional bruising thud of wood on flesh. Afraid to speak for fear of disturbing Jamie’s precarious concentration, I pulled my feet up onto the bed and shrank back against the wall, trying to stay out of the way.
It was plain to me—and by his faint smile of anticipation, to the orderly also—that Jamie was tiring rapidly. Amazing enough that he was on his feet at all, let alone fighting. It was clear to all three of us that the fight couldn’t last much longer; if he was to have any chance at all, he must move soon. With short, hard jabs of the stool-leg, he advanced cautiously on Marley, forcing the bigger man into the corner where the arc of his swing would be restricted. Realizing this by some instinct, the orderly came out with a vicious horizontal swing, expecting to force Jamie back.
Instead of stepping back, Jamie stepped forward into the swing, taking the full brunt of the blow in the left side as he brought his club down full-force on Marley’s temple. Intent on the scene before me, I had paid no attention to Randall’s prone body on the floor near the door. But as the orderly tottered, eyes glazing, I heard the scraping sounds of boots on stone, and a labored breathing rasped in my ear.
“Nicely fought, Fraser.” Randall’s voice was hoarse from the choking, but as composed as ever. “Cost you a few ribs, though, didn’t it?”
Jamie leaned against the wall, breathing in sobbing gasps, still holding the club, elbow pressed hard to his side. His eyes dropped to the floor, measuring the distance.
“Don’t try it, Fraser.” The light voice was bland. “She’ll be dead before you get two steps.” The thin cool knife blade slid past my ear; I could feel the point gently pricking the corner of my jaw.
Jamie surveyed the scene with dispassionate eyes for a moment, still braced by the wall. With a sudden effort, he straightened painfully and stood swaying. The club clanked hollowly on the stone floor. The knifepoint pricked infinitesimally harder, but otherwise Randall stood motionless as Jamie slowly crossed the few feet to the table, stooping carefully on the way to pick up the twine-wrapped mallet. He held it dangling in two fingers in front of him, his nonoffensive intent apparent.
The mallet clattered on the table in front of me, the handle spinning hard enough to carry the weighty head nearly to the edge. It lay dark and heavy on the oak, a homely, solid tool. A reed basket of ha’penny nails to go with it lay in the jumble of objects at the far end of the table; something perhaps left behind by the carpenters who had furnished the room. Jamie’s good hand, the fine straight fingers rimmed with gold in the light, gripped the table-edge hard. With an effort I could only guess at, he lowered himself slowly into a chair and deliberately spread both hands flat before him on the scarred wood surface, the mallet within easy reach.
His gaze had been locked with Randall’s during the painful trip across the room, and did not waver now. He nodded briefly in my direction without looking at me and said, “Let her go.”
The knife-hand seemed to relax a trifle. Randall’s voice was amused and curious. “Why should I?”
Jamie seemed now in complete command of himself, despite his white face and the sweat that ran unregarded down his face like tears.
“You cannot hold a knife on two people at once. Kill the woman or leave her side, and I’ll kill you.” He spoke softly, a steely thread beneath the quiet Scots accent.
“And what’s to stop me killing both of you, one at a time?”
I would have called the expression on Jamie’s face a smile only because his teeth were showing. “What, and cheat the hangsman? Bit hard to explain, come morning, no?” He nodded briefly at the unconscious hulk on the floor. “You’ll recall that ye had to have your wee helper bind me wi’ rope before ye broke my hand.”
“So?” The knife stayed steady at my ear.
“Your helper is no going to be much good to ye awhile yet.” This was undeniably true; the monstrous orderly was lying on his face in the corner, breathing in ragged, stertorous snores. Severe concussion, I thought, mechanically. Possible cerebral hemorrhage. I couldn’t care less if he died before my eyes.
“You can’t take me alone, one-handed or no.” Jamie shook his head slowly, appraising Randall’s size and strength. “No. I’m bigger, and far the better fighter, hand to hand. Did ye not have the woman there, I would take that wee knife from ye and cram it down your throat. And you know it, which is why you’ve not harmed her.”
“But I do have her. You could leave yourself, of course. There’s a way out, quite near. That would leave your wife—you did say she’s your wife?—to die, of course.”
Jamie shrugged. “And myself as well. I’d not get far, with the whole garrison hunting me. To be shot in the open might be preferable to being hanged in here, but not enough to make a difference.” A brief grimace of pain crossed his face and he held his breath for a moment. When he breathed again, it was in shallow, panting gulps. Whatever shock had been protecting him from the worst of the pain, it was apparently wearing off.
“So we seem to be at an impasse.” Randall’s well-bred English tones were casual. “Unless you have a suggestion?”
“I have. You want me.” The cool Scottish voice was matter-of-fact. “Let the woman go, and ye can have me.” The knifepoint moved slightly, nicking my ear. I felt a sting and the warm ooze of blood.
“Do what ye wish to me. I’ll not struggle, though I’ll allow you to bind me if ye think it needful. And I’ll not speak of it, come tomorrow. But first you’ll see the woman safe from the prison.” My eyes were on Jamie’s ruined hand. A small pool of blood under the middle finger was growing, and I realized with a shock that he was deliberately pressing the finger into the table, using the pain as a spur to stay conscious. He was bargaining for my life using the only thing he had left—himself. If he fainted now, that single chance was gone.
Randall had relaxed completely; the knife lay carelessly on my right shoulder as he thought it through. I was there before him. Jamie was meant to hang in the morning. Sooner or later, he would be missed, and the Castle would be searched. While a certain amount of brutality might be tolerated among officers and gentlemen—I was sure it would extend to a broken hand or a flayed back—Randall’s other inclinations were not so likely to be overlooked. No matter what Jamie’s status as a condemned prisoner, if he stood at the foot of the gallows come morning and claimed abuse at the hands of Randall, his claims would be investigated. And if physical examination proved them true, Randall’s career was at an end, and possibly his life as well. But with Jamie sworn to silence.…
“You’ll give me your word?”
Jamie’s eyes were like blue matchflames in the parchment of his face. After a moment, he nodded slowly. “In return for yours.”
The attraction of a victim at once completely unwilling and completely compliant was irresistible.
“Done.” The knife left my shoulder and I heard the susurrus of sheathed metal. Randall walked slowly past me, around the table, picking up the mallet as he went. He held it up, ironically questioning. “You’ll allow me a brief test of your sincerity?”
“Aye.” Jamie’s voice was as steady as his hands, flat and motionless on the table. I tried to speak, to utter some protest, but my throat had dried to a sticky silence.
Moving without haste, Randall leaned past Jamie to pluck a ha’penny nail delicately from the reed basket. He positioned the point with care and brought the mallet down, driving the nail through Jamie’s right hand into the table with four solid blows. The broken fingers twitched and sprang straight, like the legs of a spider pinned to a collection board.
Jamie groaned, his eyes wide a
nd blank with shock. Randall set the mallet down with care. He took Jamie’s chin in his hand and turned his face up. “Now kiss me,” he said softly, and lowered his head to Jamie’s unresisting mouth.
Randall’s face when he rose was dreamy, eyes gentle and faraway, long mouth quirked in a smile. Once upon a time, I had loved a smile like that, and that dreamy look had roused me in anticipation. Now it sickened me. Tears ran into the corner of my mouth, though I didn’t remember starting to cry. Randall stood a moment in his trance, gazing down at Jamie. Then he stirred, remembering, and drew the knife once more from its sheath.
The blade slashed carelessly through the binding around my wrists, grazing the skin. I hardly had time to rub the circulation back into my hands before he was urging me up with a hand beneath my elbow, pushing me toward the door.
“Wait!” Jamie spoke behind us, and Randall turned impatiently.
“You’ll allow me to say goodbye?” It was a statement more than a question, and Randall hesitated only briefly before nodding and giving me a shove back toward the motionless figure at the table.
Jamie’s good arm was tight around my shoulders and my wet face was buried in his neck.
“You can’t,” I whispered. “You can’t. I won’t let you.”
His mouth was warm against my ear. “Claire, I’m to hang in the morning. What happens to me between now and then doesna matter to anyone.” I drew back and stared at him.
“It matters to me !” The strained lips quivered in what was almost a smile, and he raised his free hand and laid it against my wet cheek.
“I know it does, mo duinne. And that’s why you’ll go now. So I’ll know there is someone still who minds for me.” He drew me close again, kissed me gently and whispered in Gaelic, “He will let you go because he thinks you are helpless. I know you are not.” Releasing me, he said in English, “I love you. Go now.”
Randall paused as he ushered me out the door. “I’ll be back very shortly.” It was the voice of a man taking reluctant leave of his lover, and my stomach heaved.
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