by Sandy Blair
They took the keep’s winding stairs two at a time. Entering the great hall and finding it unearthly quiet, Britt whispered, “Where is His Majesty now?”
“In the royal solar. The women are tending to the body.”
The body.
Britt shuddered as he looked around the hall, finding men whispering together in corners while couples held each other, many weeping.
This cannot be happening!
Ross tapped his arm to get his attention. “The Privy Council will go into session as soon as the rest of the representatives arrive. To ensure none take it into their heads to take control, I need be here, so I need ask that you go over the route His Majesty took. If ’twas murder, we need know so we can prosecute the bastard.”
“I shall, as soon as I pay my respects.” And as soon as he checked on Genny.
Britt raced to the king’s solar, then hesitated in the open doorway. His king, a white shroud drawn up to his naked waist, gold sovereigns on his eyes, a silver salver overflowing with salt at his feet, lay in unnatural stillness on the massive bed. Britt took a deep breath, anguish roiling in his belly. The small hope he’d been secretly harboring, that his king’s death was all just a dreadful mistake, died. He approached the bed on shaking legs, tears burning at the back of his throat. Lord have mercy. Had he not spent a decade in Alexander’s constant company, Britt would not have recognized the man to whom he’d sworn fealty. His king’s handsome countenance had been all but destroyed by rock and pounding surf, his once muscular body was now bloated and fish-belly white.
He placed his hand over Alexander’s, something he would never have dared do in life. Head bowed, tears flowing, he choked out, “Why, sire? Why did you not wait for your guards? Why?”
Yolande, flanked by a dozen guards bearing royal standards snapping in the wind above and around her, shuddered passing through the gates of Edinburgh Castle. She would now be tested as never before. Within lay her dead husband and king.
And the fault was hers.
Had she not been so impatient to get him in her bed, had she just waited, sent the missive in the morning when Alexander would have had ample light as he traveled the road to Kinghorn to be with her…
But no, she’d been so anxious to set her and Anton’s plan in motion, she’d sent it after midday.
Only adding to her fear was not knowing whether or not Alexander had left her missive where others might find it or if he’d had it on him when he fell over the cliff. If the former was the case, then the Privy Council would be well within their rights to blame her for Alexander’s demise. If the latter be the case, then her missive was likely destroyed by the sea, and she’d be safe…at least for a while.
She could maintain her lie—of being with child—for only so long before others noted she was not enlarging as she ought. She’d be discovered.
Please, dear God, please let me find Anton within these formidable walls.
She needed his advice on what to do next, else she find herself cast out without so much as a coin or place to go.
“Your Highness?”
She looked down to find a guard waiting to help her dismount. Another was already at her mount’s head, his hand fisted about the bridle. All around her, somber men stirred, most looking in her direction and bowing.
How long would that last?
“The queen!” echoed about the bailey. Doors were thrown wide before her, and she strode into Edinburgh’s great hall, where eerie quiet engulfed her.
“Your Highness.” Her husband’s trusted advisor Ross bowed before her, then murmured, “My condolences, Your Highness. How may I be of assistance?”
“Where is Monsieur Montre?” Surely he’d heard her entourage arrive.
“He has yet to return, Your Majesty.”
“I see.” She looked about, at a total loss as to what to do next. What was expected of her? What would keep her safe among these heathens?
Holding out his arm, Ross asked, “May I escort you to the king, Your Highness?”
“Yes, thank you.” Of course a grieving widow and mother-to-be would wish to see her husband. What on earth was the matter with her?
She placed a shaking hand on Ross’s thick-boned wrist. On the second landing, her steps faltered. “Sir Lyle, what happens next?” When he frowned in confusion, she clarified, “Within Scotland.”
“Ah.” He took a deep breath. “The Privy Council will convene.”
Fearing the answer but having to know, she said, “To what end?”
“They must make arrangements for the funeral.” He paused, cleared his throat, then said, “They shall then summon the Princess of Norway, our new ruler, home.”
Upon which time Edward of England would get his fondest wish. She, proven barren and having failed her king—and France—would then be sent packing with no hope of her ever again making an advantageous marriage.
She clenched her skirts in a sweaty fist and resumed her climb up the winding staircase. Had Alexander not shown her missive to anyone? Or had he been waiting to speak with her first? She was certain Ross’s spies within her court had passed the rumor that she thought herself with child. Should she confirm it and declare herself with child right now, before they could send her away?
Dear God, please send Anton to me. I should not be making these decisions alone.
And what if Anton failed in his mission? What if MacKinnon, sensing danger, took a circuitous route and arrived with a bulging Lady Armstrong, months grown with child? All within these walls knew without doubt that the whore had occupied Alexander’s bed and his alone for months prior to his demise. And worse, they all knew he’d summoned the bitch back. She shuddered, her decision made.
Doing her best to appear confused, she asked, “But why would they so inconvenience Princess Margaret when I will deliver them a king…or mayhap a queen…in six moons’ time?”
“Your Highness is confirming she is with child?”
“I am.”
Looking both pleased and greatly relieved, Ross bowed. “God’s blessings upon you and the babe, Your Highness.”
She smiled her thanks, not daring to say more. The lie would guarantee her shelter and privilege for a small time, at least. How she would appear to be growing or squelch rumors she was barren once the truth was known, she dared not ponder. Her father would want naught to do with her—
“Your Highness?”
She started and looked about, surprised to find herself in the royal solar, and before her, her dead husband, still as stone, dressed in his finest regalia and surrounded by wavering candles. To the right of his massive bed knelt the archbishop; to the left knelt three weeping women she presumed had prepared her husband for burial. She took a steadying breath. “I wish privacy with my husband.”
“Of course, Your Highness.” Ross, doubtless anxious to inform the Privy Council of the impending birth, immediately cleared the room and closed the door behind him, leaving her alone with the man who only five months earlier had pledge his troth and fidelity to her only to break his word within days.
Throat tight with pent-up fury and fear, she crossed to the bed. Staring at his battered features, she whispered, “Bad enough that you humiliated me with your dalliances, left me with barely a kind word to ponder after your passing, but you left your people with naught but a babe for protection. But what I find most egregious of all is that your seed now grows not in me, your rightful wife and queen, but in her. For this alone, I hope you, Alexander, rot in hell.”
Tears streaming, she took a deep, shuddering breath, then, shoulders back, strode from the room.
As she crossed the threshold into her apartment, Evette, cheeks pale and eyes scarlet, rushed to greet her. “Your Highness, the Armstrong woman awaits within.”
The floor moved beneath Yolande as bile rose in her throat. “But how—”
Evette, alarmed, grabbed her elbow, steadying her. “MacKinnon apparently brought her in before midday.”
“And Anton?”
/> “He has yet to arrive, Highness.”
Of course not. Hadn’t Ross just said so, and had Anton arrived, Armstrong most certainly would not have. “Where is MacKinnon now?”
“He went to the site from which…where…His Majesty fell.”
At least the fates had been kind in one aspect. She could banish the woman to the bowels of the keep, where she would hopefully die of starvation in short order without interference. “Summon LeBlanc and Duval to me.” Anton’s wiliest guards would do her bidding without question.
Evette bit her lower lip. “But LeBlanc went with Monsieur Montre, my queen.”
“Then summon Duval, and with him, his most trusted guard.”
“Yes, Your Highness.” Evette all but threw Yolande’s hooded cloak and gloves at a brittle-looking maid hovering in the corner and rushed out.
Yolande, pulse thudding in her ears, strode into her solar and found the room frigid despite a blazing fire. Her ladies-in-waiting were scattered about, the Scots red-eyed, the rest pale and obviously anxious. As they dropped into deep curtsies before her, Yolande’s gaze settled on Greer Armstrong, curtsying in isolation by the window.
“You may rise.”
Her French ladies straightened, murmuring their condolences yet again. Yolande paid little heed, instead casting a surreptitious glance at Armstrong’s middle. Seeing no sign of a babe, she thanked God. When at last her ladies fell silent, she thanked them and murmured, “I am quite exhausted. Please take your leave so I might rest alone for a while.” As they hurried to the door, she said, “Lady Armstrong.”
The whore stopped in midstride. “Yes, Your Highness?”
“Remain. We wish a word with you.”
Armstrong paled but remained rooted in place. When the door thudded closed, Yolande settled before the fire to contemplate her rival and the heir that should rightfully be hers.
Why not in me, Lord? Why? I grant you Armstrong is sturdier of build and some might say handsomer than I, but ’tis I, Yolande de Dreux, who prayed, begged for his child. Armstrong is naught but an ill-educated whore. She was naught to him but one more mare within his herd, of no more interest to him than any broodmare—
Oh my word. Why could this whore not act as her broodmare?
Could she not spirit Armstrong away from Edinburgh, then keep her in hiding until such time as the infant came, and whereupon she could then claim to have birthed the babe herself? She’d told Ross she would give birth in September, but babes were notorious for coming both early and late.
What harm could there be? The babe was Alexander’s, after all. Would carry his lineage. And by claiming the whore’s babe as her own, she would not only be doing the infant a service—provide it with legitimacy—but she would secure her own future by doing what no whore ever could. She could instill within him faith and a moral compass, would provide him with political insight and guidance, and in the process give Scotland what it most desperately needed. A rightful heir.
As for the two within these walls who suspected Armstrong was with child, she had no doubt Anton would deal with them swiftly upon his return. And then with Armstrong after the infant’s birth.
A perfect plan but for the one thing that pricked her conscience. She believed in love. Had hoped to love her husband as her mother did her father, but they’d not had time to form a true attachment before his passing. Needing to know if this woman had bonded, had felt for Alexander that which she had so longed for when she’d learned she was to wed, she asked, “Why do we see no grief about your countenance, Lady Armstrong? Did you not love Alexander at all?”
Armstrong opened her mouth as if to speak, then, turning scarlet, clamped it shut. Yolande sighed. She had her answer. The whore had not only played her but Alexander for a fool. Too bad. She might have forgiven her the affair—instructed Anton to make Armstrong’s death a swift and painless one—had she loved him, but obviously, such was not the case.
Her guards entered. She acknowledged them with a nod and then grinned at Armstrong. “Do you not find it ironic that you shall disappear by the very means by which you deceived me and my husband?” Without waiting for an answer, she said to her guards, “Seize her. When you have her secured below, bring me the key.”
“Between denial and want.” ~ Old Scottish Proverb
Chapter Ten
Fingers pressed to her swollen lips where Duval had clamped his calloused hand as he hauled her kicking and screaming down a dark staircase, Genny tried in vain to suppress her rising panic. Standing in the middle of her eight-by-eight foot cell, all she could see were damp stone walls, her only light coming through the barred, deep-set aperture many feet above her.
Oh dear God!
Something scurried in the corner to her right. Yelping, she edged away from the sound only to trip on a rank mound of straw in the corner. Imagining all manner of filth and vermin within the pallet, bile rising in her throat, she lifted her skirts and stumbled back.
Did they mean to let her die here? Or did her queen intend to hang her? Dear Lord, send Britt to me.
But what if they told Britt she left of her own accord? Would he believe them? Please, dear Lord, no. He alone kenned the truth.
Light suddenly pierced the gloom from a window no bigger than a man’s palm imbedded in the door. As quickly as the blessed lamplight arrived, it disappeared, blocked by a man peering in. “Stand back!”
Terrified she was about to be shackled, Genny thrust her hands behind her and reluctantly backed up. Was he alone? Could she dart past him?
The moment she touched the rear wall, the door opened and a dark figure filled the doorway. “Here.”
The satchel containing Greer’s possessions landed at her feet. When he started to close the door, Genny darted forward. “Wait! You can’t leave me here!”
The door slammed in her face, and the guard again peered in through the window. “Behave and you’ll see the light of day. Make trouble and you die here.”
“But I did nothing wrong. Please, I must see—”
The little window shut. Thrown again into darkness, she slammed her fists against the door. “Britt… You must tell Britt where I am.”
He’d promised to keep her safe and had sealed the promise with a kiss just before leaving. Surely he meant to keep his word. Panting, she looked about her cell as receding footsteps echoed in the outside hall. Aye, she must think only of Britt, of his lips so sure on her own, of the feel of his hand against the small of her back, on the way his features softened and light danced in his eyes whenever she’d caught him off guard and he’d laughed. Not on those beady eyes watching her from the corner of this frightful pit. She shuddered. He would come.
The meager light within her cell slowly waned as she fought to stay upright, to believe. Too soon her cell was cast into deeper shadow as day turned to gloaming. Unable to deny the truth any longer, her legs exhausted and numb, she collapsed to the stone floor, the tears she’d been holding at bay for so long spilling, running hot down her cold cheeks.
Britt MacKinnon had known all along what would befall her. Why else would the heated look he’d given her before kissing her have been replaced by one of such profound sadness when he’d broken off the kiss and said good-bye?
She was as great a fool as Greer.
The moon rode high in the sky by the time Britt handed over his mount to his squire. With legs feeling like lead, he dragged up the stairs, then cursed, finding every bench occupied in Edinburgh’s great hall and Lyle in a heated discussion with the Campbell. Resigning himself to waiting before he could seek out Gen, then dine, he hailed a passing serving lass. “Ale when you have a moment, lass.”
Genny had done well to mask her fright when he’d left her hours ago, but not so well that he hadn’t noticed the slight trembling of her hands when he’d brought them to his lips. Hopefully by now she’d put some of her fears to rest and made herself comfortable within the queen’s apartment. He had, after all, promised to keep her safe until she could comp
lete her mission, and so he would. The thought of her disappearing from his life after that—of his never seeing her dimpled smile or hearing her husky laugh again—caused an inexplicable tightening in his chest, and he pushed the thought away. Better he should be grateful for her presence now and take this gift one day at a time. That was all he could do, since Cassandra had yet to have had the good graces to die.
Someone tapped his elbow. “Here, m’lord.”
Britt managed a smile for the harried serving lass holding out a tankard. He muttered his thanks, then downed its contents in long, lusty swallows. When he came up for air, he found Ross striding toward him. When Ross came abreast, Britt muttered, “I see the rats have come out of the woodwork.”
“Aye, and more’s to come.” Ross leaned closer. “Did you find any evidence that His Majesty’s fall was not an accident?”
“There were too many hoof prints near the ledge to discern if a rider had forced him over. By the time we snared his mount and hauled it up the cliff, it was too battered to know what, if anything, had wounded it or if it had simply taken a misstep, gone over of its own volition.”
Looking somewhat relieved, Ross murmured, “Then we do no harm in telling all it was an accident. Only the Lord knows what might have ensued had you found solid evidence of foul play.”
Britt could well imagine. “When will the Privy Council convene?”
“They’re still waiting on Comyn, the Southerland, and a few others, but good news awaits them. Yolande has declared herself with child.”
“Praise God.” His countrymen should be greatly relieved, as would Gen. “Any notion of who they’ll select to serve as regent?”
Ross snorted in derisive fashion. “None, and them coming to a consensus will take some time.” A clamor arose. They looked left and found Alexander Comyn, Earl of Buchan, constable and justiciar of Scotland, entering the hall, followed by a large entourage. Lyle heaved a sigh. “I hate doing this to you, but I have need of your chamber again.”
“As you lust.” Britt had been kicked to the hall not but five months ago, thanks to the royal wedding. “I’ll bed down at MacLean’s. I need to check on Montre anyway.”