Devil May Care

by Unknown

  He shook his head and wiped at the crusty line of a cut on his cheek. When he won on the field, someone had tried to kill him from the stands. Then, when he didn’t die, Cromwell had certainly tried. Had the king’s advisor set all this in motion?

  “Bloody hell,” he whispered and tugged at the metal collar they had fastened around his neck, in case, they said, he could disappear like his witch wife.

  God, Dory. Had Caden gotten her to safety? After her public display, she needed to flee England as fast as possible. With so many witnesses, word would spread, details would be exaggerated, and the witch hunt would be on.

  Ewan stretched the chain as far as it would allow and sat to lean against the rear wall. Wind scattered leaves beyond the barred slit in the outside wall. A few guards hurried by. He wondered if they were the same guards that Dory had totally bewitched with her flattery before.

  Och… Dory. He closed his eyes and played back over the last glimpse he had of Dory. Her hair had come loose while she healed him, curls falling down around her shoulders. She’d thought nothing of herself, only him. Surely that must mean something. Even if she hadn’t claimed him back, surely that risk, that bloody foolish risk, had meant something.

  He swore in Gaelic and breathed deeply. He needed rest to heal. Then he’d figure out a plan. Night fell outside the window slits, blackening the cell even further. He heard the wind pick up, scattering leaves in the bailey. A latch turned down at the far end, the door he’d been marched through.

  “Supper,” a guard called and Ewan heard the squeak of a cart and clang of metal against bars. He stood, wondering if the food would make it back to him.

  Slowly, the squeak crept closer. Occasionally the guard would curse, about who knew what. Perhaps the man would think the last cell was vacant.

  “Hey there,” Ewan called. “Some water and food will keep me alive to hang.”

  The squeak stopped, but footsteps sounded the guard’s approach. Ewan was ready to grab whatever the man threw his way. Sharp shadows stretched away from the torch the guard carried until he stopped before the door. He rattled it. More cursing, familiar cursing.

  Ewan blinked to clear the blinding glare of torchlight from his eyes. Once again he stared through the bars at Will Wyatt. “Is she away? Did Caden get her away?” Ewan asked.

  Will worked the lock with a long instrument. “Aye, he got her to us but she refuses to leave without you.” The lock turned in the door and Will swung inside.

  “And Alec and Searc?”

  “They are well, though the lad is spitting pissed that his father yanked him from the fight.”

  “Searc would have died,” Ewan said.

  “He seems to think differently.”

  Ewan looked down the long corridor, thankful it was empty. “Where is she?” His muscles tightened. If Will was still here, Dory wasn’t away on some ship. Not yet anyway. “Where—”

  “Out there causing more havoc,” Will answered and as if on cue, another guard ran by yelling about a twister.

  “Bloody hell,” Ewan said as Will attacked the lock at his neck.

  “What did you do to make them lock you around the neck?” Will asked.

  “I didn’t die.”

  Will worked for several long minutes while the metal collar dug into Ewan’s already raw skin. “I can’t get it to release,” he grumbled. “It’s a different kind of lock. The tumbler ain’t moving.”

  At the other end of the dark corridor the door opened. Light footsteps came their way. Will’s mouth hissed in his ear. “She’s coming. You have to convince her to leave. She won’t unless you do, and if they catch her—”

  “I know,” Ewan seethed. “They’ll burn her.”

  “I can’t get you out of here before the guards figure out the food cart is missing, and there’s no way out of here but the front door.”

  Ewan listened to Dory’s footsteps closing in. “Will?” she whispered. “Are you in here?”

  “Do you understand me?” Will said into his ear. “She’s dead unless you make her leave now.”

  “That won’t be easy,” Ewan said.

  “Be creative,” Will said.

  “Close the door as if it’s locked then,” Ewan said and Will moved away immediately.

  “I’m here,” he called quietly as he could.

  “I didn’t see your light,” she said. “I set the lions loose and spooked them with a twister to run opposite from here. It’s keeping the guards extremely busy.”

  Ewan listened to her voice, strong, hopeful, beautiful. It came from within her like a beacon of her spirit. He just couldn’t survive knowing she would burn, her spirit dead to this world.

  “I hid it in the bucket when I heard you coming. He’s in there, but I can’t get the lock open.”

  “Ewan? Are you sound?” She pressed as far into the bars as the solid steel allowed.

  “I’m here and sound, but ye have to go now.”

  “Will, get that damn lock open,” she ordered. “Ewan, touch me. I can heal you.”

  “I can’t reach the bars,” he lied. “They have me chained around my neck.”

  “If we got in we’d have to cut his head off to get him out,” Will added. “Even you can’t heal that, Dory.”

  “Ye need to get out of here,” Ewan insisted. “They’ll be here any minute and if they find ye, they’ll burn ye.”

  “Give me that blasted hook,” Dory said and grabbed the metal from Will’s hand, but the sound of it plinking away followed. “The devil, I dropped it,” and she cursed, shaking the bars. Her gaze peered through the gloom toward where he stood in the back of the cell. “You claimed me, I’m not leaving you.”

  She sounded desperate. Were there tears in her eyes? But the thought of her screaming as flames licked up her legs on top of a pyre made Ewan’s cracked lips move though his chest constricted.

  “Go Dory,” Ewan said thickly. “I release ye from my claim.”

  There was a pause, a brief heartbeat of time where he felt something break inside.

  “What?” she whispered. “You can’t do that.”

  “I only claimed ye to get under yer skirts,” he said and closed his eyes.

  “God’s balls!” Will said. “You slept with him?”

  “You’re lying,” Dory countered, but he could hear the doubt in her voice. A guard called outside his window. She had to get out of there now!

  “I could never actually love ye.” He swallowed past the ache in his throat. “Ye are a witch and a pirate, a traitor’s daughter. And ye broke yer promise not to use magic. The deal is off. I’m no longer helping ye. So go,” he all but yelled, the words slicing through his gut. “I lied before. Don’t lose yer life for someone like me.”

  “Dory,” Will grabbed her arm. “Let’s go. Leave the bastard.”

  “You’re lying,” she whispered. “You want me to abandon you.”

  Wouldn’t that be appropriate? An eye for an eye. He’d abandoned his own mother to die from his father’s wrath. It was only right that he now be abandoned. He closed his eyes.

  “I’m not worth yer life, lass, not when…” He drew upon the image of his father, the monster who still visited his nightmares. As if in a reflection, he donned the hard features, letting his eyebrow raise in contempt, his lip curl in an imitation of a condescending smile.

  “Not when I used ye.” He heard footfalls beyond the window slit. “Go, woman. I never loved ye, and I made the whole claiming thing up anyway. It isn’t binding.”

  She still hesitated. Bloody hell, what could he say to make her leave, to save her bloody life? It had to ring of truth to her.

  “Ye’re too damn complicated for me, a bit of fun, that’s all. I could only really love a lady, and ye, Pandora Wyatt, will never be a lady. I’d pay ye for yer services, but the blasted guards pilfered my pockets.”

  He watched the very spirit of her die there as she clung to the bars. Even in the dim light he saw the color drain from her face, her sweet, perf
ect face. He dropped his gaze. He just wasn’t strong enough to watch the death of any bit of feeling she might have started having for him.

  “Drag her out of here,” he rasped, spurring Will to grab her wrist.

  “Get the swiving hell off me,” she hissed and yanked her hand back. Ewan looked up into her pained, furious face. Lightning cracked outside in rapid succession. When the thunder died, Dory’s voice came strong and clear, a sharper arrow than the one that had pierced him on the field.

  “I was so wrong about you, Ewan Brody.” The long column of her throat moved as if she was trying to swallow or breathe. “There’s no honor in you. You deserve to be abandoned.” She spit between the bars and spun to run back down the long corridor. Will didn’t look at him, but jogged after her.

  Ewan watched the mass of silk sway down her back until the gloom of the tower smudged the sight of her out of his life forever.

  …

  Dawn, the third one he’d seen creep through the slit of window since Dory had faded away down the dark corridor. There’d been no shouts, not even thunder or tornados, so she must have escaped. Despite his wanting to throttle Will Wyatt most of the time, he was bloody thankful he’d been there to help Dory to safety.

  She’d never told him she loved him, had been furious when he’d claimed her. It was just physical attraction for him or maybe guilt that had propelled her to try and rescue him. Her pain would fade even if Ewan’s never would. Some wounds didn’t heal. An image of his mother, sightless eyes staring up from her crumpled form on the cottage floor, squeezed his chest. He blinked in the darkness and banished the memory.

  Dory wasn’t his mother. “She can take care of herself,” he whispered. “She always has.” And perhaps she’d find someone who could stand up to her, someone not afraid of her magic or threatened by her independence. Maybe someday she’d find someone, someone bloody perfect for her.

  He swore and leaned his forehead against the damp wall. The growing light showed the one tin cup the guards had filled the first day. Idiots still didn’t know his door was unlocked.

  Hopefully Caden had realized the futility in breaking him out and had taken the Highlanders home. Ewan rubbed his mouth against his sleeve. Nay, Caden probably hadn’t yet, but as he realized how ineffectual the attempt would be without Dory’s storms to distract, he’d eventually return to Meg and Druim. Searc and Alec would return to Rachel and life would go on for them. At least there was no added guilt in that regard to follow him into death.

  To while away the time and ignore the pangs of hunger, Ewan outlined the perfect face in his memory. Not the one that had looked of death through the bars at him, unbelieving and then spiritless. But the face of the woman laughing as she baited him, smiling as she cursed, staring with heat enough to burn a village with her passion. Every one of her fiery words he reviewed, smiling and shaking his head as he recalled the slight pucker of her lips when she said “swiving” over and over again.

  His smile faltered as that damned last look flashed to the surface of his mind again. “She’s alive. She’s better without me.”

  A rustle at the window slit caught his attention. The rats already inside the dank jailhouse were bad enough. Did more scavengers need to come in? Ewan stood, the chaffing of the heavy collar making him grumble.

  “Ewan Brody?” a boy’s voice called softly.

  “Aye?”

  “Thank God he counted the windows right,” the boy whispered. “Take this.” He pushed a small wrapped package through the bars and it dropped.

  Ewan looked up and caught the pale face of the lad from Henry’s table, the taster, the one Dory had saved.

  “I beholdin’ to you and your lady, sir,” the boy said.

  “Who sent ye here?” Ewan scooped up the package that smelled of dried pork and fish, plus a bladder of drink, and what felt like bannocks.

  “The one who speaks like you. A Scot, big, talking to everyone about you until even my ma heard and told him we’d help him.”

  Ewan shook his head and bit into the meat. Imagine that. Caden talking to people, English people at that. He swallowed and moved back to the window. “The lady who saved ye. Was she with him? Is she safe?”

  The lad shrugged and glanced over his shoulder. “I only saw the Scot, but I haven’t heard anything about the lady being taken.”

  Ewan exhaled and the knot in his gut loosened a little. He nodded and drank from the bladder, gulping the fresh milk. “Tell my friend that he’s wasting his time. I’m chained to the floor by the neck. He can’t free me. Tell him to go back to his wife.”

  “God bless you,” the boy said and skittered away a few moments before the boots of a guard passed.

  Ewan unfolded the wrapper. Stubborn Caden. He’d refused to give up on him when he was a lad, back when fury and sorrow had gotten him into more trouble than he was worth. A true brother, forged from sweat rather than blood. But he’d never forgive himself if Caden died trying to save his sorry self, leaving Meg and her bairn without him.

  The pale light from the window slit flashed on the paper. There were marks on it. He held it up to the slit. The writing was in Gaelic, scratched rapidly.

  Be ready.

  “Och, Caden, go home,” he whispered but rubbed a thumb across the script as if they were the sweetest evidence of brotherly love he’d ever read.

  Days continued by with the lad sending meals through the bars. Without the food, he’d be nothing but a limp shell of a man. Perhaps that was the idea.

  He woke to the hard clip of boots on the tenth day. Filled with purpose, they clicked over the foul hay strewn along the dark corridor. He counted, waiting for them to stop before reaching him. Even the food and water guard seldom bothered to come all the way to the end where he sat, but the boots continued. When they made no sound of hesitation, Ewan stood and hefted the chains over his shoulders to keep them from biting into his neck.

  Thomas Cromwell eyed the collar. “Your wife has fled,” he said without greeting, and Ewan noticed a young squire next to him. “Her father, Captain Wyatt, had returned.” He waited for an answer, but Ewan kept silent. “He brought the ring, didn’t he?” Cromwell continued.

  The ring? “Aye,” Ewan said. “I can take ye to it.”

  Cromwell just frowned, not taking the bait.

  “He left it in London for me before I was thrown in here,” Ewan lied. “What exactly am I charged with?”

  “You attacked Englishmen. Killed two of them.”

  “They were trying to kill me.”

  “Regardless, you are responsible for attacking and killing Englishmen, plus harboring a witch.”

  Ewan glanced around his cell. “I’m only harboring vermin at the moment.”

  “Where is the ring?” Cromwell asked again.

  “I will take ye to it,” Ewan repeated. It was obviously important to the man if he’d dirty his shoes to visit him personally in this hell hole. “And then ye can let me fly back to Scotland. Or… ye could forget about me in here while my associates use the ring to their advantage.”

  He watched Cromwell very closely. A twitch or grimace could give the man away, shed light on his purpose, but the man didn’t move.

  “’Tis a simple choice, Cromwell. I am but one man, but you could have a whole den of treasonous snakes if I give ye the ring.”

  Cromwell all but rolled his eyes. So… the man wasn’t afraid of traitors like Henry was? Could the ring mean something else?

  “I’ve advised my associates to give the ring directly to the king if I’m not released.”

  That smacked the contempt right off the advisor’s face. “Where is it?”

  “Safe.”

  Cromwell bared his teeth. “No matter. The only real traitor has been caught.” He pivoted, his cape flapping out behind him.

  “Yer king is still in danger,” Ewan called after the man.

  After that, all food and water ceased, except for the packages from Caden through the lad. Either Cromwell knew he w
as bluffing or he truly didn’t care.

  On day twelve boots once again sounded. He could tell from the forceful clip that the men were headed all the way to the back, right toward him. Two pairs of tower guards stopped before the bars. Ewan sat in the corner on his cot, not bothering to move.

  “Ewan Brody, ye have been charged with attempting to kill the king of England. A treasonous act punishable by death.”

  “And when was that?” Ewan asked, his voice stark in the darkness that seemed to swallow volume like it did hope. The guard glanced at his parchment, angling it toward the torch another held. It was dawn and not bright enough to allow more than a muted gray to seep into the deepest cell.

  “By poison at a diplomatic dinner. You are also charged with attacking and killing two Englishmen.”

  Ewan stood in the shadow and took a step forward.

  “I did not try to poison yer king,” he said, legs braced, fists at his sides.

  The guard looked at Ewan then, his eyes evidencing a slight surprise. Did he expect to see a nearly dead man, having been starved for nearly a fortnight? Did they wonder how he even lived without water? Did they think he sucked the damp slime from the walls in order to survive? Each thought tightened the ball of fury in Ewan’s gut. ’Twas better to kill a man outright than to throw him in a hole and forget about him.

  “You have been found guilty,” the guard intoned. “And will hang this morning on Tower Hill.”

  “There was no trial,” Ewan said but knew that didn’t matter.

  The guard looked at the parchment. “The execution is signed by Lord Cromwell. They must have met without you.” He rolled the parchment back up and took a ring of keys off his belt. Ewan took a step forward and pushed the barred door outward. It banged into the guard’s face.

  “God’s teeth!” the man cursed.

  “It’s been unlocked since the first,” Ewan said without emotion. The guard rubbed his nose while cursing. A chuckle from one of the men behind him whipped the guard around with another curse. They weren’t exactly friends.

  “’Tis a shame,” Ewan said, “that a man like Cromwell can decide yer fate instead of yer own actions. Who knows when he’ll turn on ye Englishmen as well.”