“Nay. Ye were discarded by yer own faither, Onyx. No’ . . . me. And I saved ye becooz . . . ” Her eyes closed and her head rolled to the side. He knew these would be the last words he ever heard her speak. “Becooz . . . I . . . love ye.” She died then, with her eyes wide open and staring at him. Just the way he probably looked every time his little dying spell overcame him. Onyx just stared at her and couldn’t believe this was happening. He put his dirk back into his boot and wiped the tear that escaped his eye.
Anxiety coursed through him, and he knew he had to get out of there fast. He felt the air being choked from his body and his head was getting very dizzy. But he didn’t want to leave her here like this – in a cell and being thrown onto a cart with other rotten flesh. He wanted a proper burial for her, not to be dumped into a trench like garbage. Even if she wasn’t his true mother, she was the only mother he’d ever known. She’d raised him and had taken care of him, and for that he owed her something, no matter how angry he was that she’d deceived him all these years.
He reached out to pick up her dead body, no longer caring he was putting himself at risk. Hunkered down, he cradled her head in his arm. Then he ran his hand over her eyes to close them, knowing this was the last he would ever see her again. The last words off her tongue were something that would stay with him and haunt him for the rest of his life.
“I’ll . . . miss ye . . . mathair,” he whispered. Part of him wanted to say he loved her, but he just couldn’t. He felt something special for her, but he couldn’t love someone who had deceived him for so long. Then, as he tried to pick her up in his arms and stand, all the air seemed to leave the room at once, and his head became light as he slipped from consciousness, and blackness covered the room as he fell back onto the cold stone of the cell floor. He cursed himself that this was happening, that his death spell had to overtake him just now.
“Here’s another two bodies,” said the gravedigger, walking into the cell. “You take the woman and I’ll take the man. Bid the devil, look at his eyes. They send a chill up my spine that he died with them open, and them being two different colors and all.”
“Just hurry,” said the first one. “The guards said they wouldn’t come back to their post til we were done and not to tarry. And make sure you keep your face and hands covered so you don’t catch the plague when you throw them onto the cart with the others.”
Chapter 16
Lovelle waited for Onyx to return, but when he was taking too long, she decided to go look for him herself. She hoped her guards hadn’t given him any trouble, but somehow she knew they had.
“You stay here, Tawpie,” she said to the cat, putting on her cloak and heading out the door. She made her way down to the dungeon, meeting the guard at the entrance.
“My lady, you shouldn’t be down here,” he said. “’Tis too dangerous.”
“I’m looking for the Scotsman who came down here to see his mother. Is he still here?”
“Nay, I guess he left.”
She noticed his onyx dagger on the table as well as his sword. “He wouldn’t leave without his weapons,” she said, walking up and peering into the area beyond the barred door where the prisoners were held.
“Well, I let him in, and he’s not here now.”
“Wouldn’t you have seen him go?” she asked.
“I was here the whole time, except I stepped out when the gravediggers came to collect the dead ones.”
“They took him,” she heard a man’s voice from one of the cells. She walked closer to the iron grate door and peered into the dungeon.
“Who took him?” she asked into the darkness, trying to see who was speaking.
“The gravediggers took him away with the dead lady.”
“What do you mean? That makes no sense. Why would he even go with them and leave his weapons behind?”
“He was dead,” the man said. “I saw for myself. His eyes were open and staring up to the ceiling. I can’t believe the plague killed him so fast.”
“Oh my!” She realized now exactly what had happened. Onyx had one of his little attacks from anxiety, and when the grave diggers came to collect the bodies, they thought he was dead and took him as well. “Where did they go?” she asked the guards.
“Who?” said the guard.
“Where do they take the dead bodies?”
“They load them onto a cart and take them past the village to the deep trench and dump them in and set them afire. But why do you care, my lady? Surely you’re not going to go after them?”
“He’s not dead, I tell you. It just looks that way.” She picked up his weapons and scowled at the guard. “I can’t believe you let this happen.”
She hurried out the door and to the stable where she met Weldon inside talking to the stable boy.
“Saddle my horse quickly,” she told the boy. “Weldon, you’ll escort me.”
“Where are we going at this time of night, my lady?” her guard asked.
“We’re going to collect the man I love before they dump him into the earth with the dead bodies and set him afire. I only hope I’m not too late.”
* * *
The rumbling of the cart beneath Onyx woke him out of his so-called death trance. He blinked once, feeling the heaviness of something across his chest. And then when he looked down, he realized it was the dead body of a plague victim lying across him.
“Och, what the hell?” He pushed the body off of him, gagging from the rancid smell. He sat up, trying to get his bearings, and that’s when he saw his mother lying dead next to him. Then the cart stopped and two men came to the back, jumping in surprise when they saw him.
“Bid the devil!” cried the man. “One of them has come back te haunt us.”
“Hit him with the shovel,” said the other one. When the first man tried to do just that, Onyx grabbed the shovel in one hand to stop from being hit on the head. These were not the two gravediggers he’d seen earlier, and he wondered just how many of them there were.
“Ye dunderheids, ye threw me onto the cart with the deid. I should kill ye fer it.”
“But . . . but you were dead,” said one of the men.
“I wasna deid, but I might end up thet way now thanks te ye.”
He hopped out of the cart and handed the shovel to the man. “Both of ye. Start digging o’er by thet tree.”
“But we throw the dead in the ditch and burn them,” said the man.
“No’ me mathair ye’re not. Now get diggin’.”
The men did as told, and Onyx took off his cloak. He gently wrapped it around his mother and used it to hold her. After he wrapped her inside it, he carried her over to the fresh grave the men had dug by the tree. He placed her in the hole, then bent down and grabbed a handful of dirt and threw it atop her.
“Cover her up,” he ordered. “And then get on wit’ yer work.”
The men did as instructed, and Onyx found a couple of twigs and used his dirk to cut part of the lacing from his boot. He then wound the lacing around the twigs, pushing them together to form a cross. He kneeled down and stuck the cross into the fresh dirt.
“Guidbye, mathair,” he said with a nod. He had just gotten to his feet when Lovelle and Weldon came riding up on horses.
“Onyx, thank goodness you’re all right.” Lovelle jumped off the horse and ran over to him. She was about to hug him but he stopped her.
“Dinna touch me lassie. I’ve been lounging with the corpses and I willna endanger ye as well.”
“Onyx, I was so worried. What are you doing here?”
Her gaze followed his as he looked to the ground. Her eyes opened wide when she saw the fresh grave being filled with dirt by the two men.
“Did your mother die?” she asked slowly.
“Aye.” He swallowed deeply.
“Onyx, I’m so sorry.”
“Go back te the solar,” he told her. “And stay inside and dinna come out til I tell ye.”
“But what about you?” she asked. “Where will y
ou be?”
“I’m goin’ te swim in the lake and wash the deith from me body. And if after three days I’ve no sign o’ the plague, then I’ll return.”
The guard handed his weapons to him and he took them.
“Onyx, I don’t want you to go,” she said. “Just come back to the castle with me, please.”
“I canna. No’ until I ken I’m no’ infected. I canna risk it, lassie. And I willna risk ye catchin’ the plague as I dinna want te lose ye . . . Love.”
He turned and left before she could stop him. And though it pained him to leave her, he didn’t have a choice. He didn’t know if he’d catch the plague now. If he did, he knew she’d never stay away from him. The last thing he wanted was for her to die because of him.
Lovelle watched Onyx walk away, and with him went a little piece of her heart. She didn’t want him to leave. She wanted to take him to the castle and protect him. She wanted him there for her in case her mother died as well. She needed him, and she didn’t know what she was going to do without him for three whole days.
She prayed he didn’t catch the plague or she may never see him again. To make matters worse, she didn’t even know where he was going. He could die somewhere out in the wilderness and no one would ever know it.
“Come, my lady. You need to get back to the castle where you’ll be protected,” said Weldon.
She went with him because she knew Onyx was only doing this to protect her. But she would never feel safe without him by her side.
She had to do something to help him as well as help her mother. The only thing she could think of was to somehow figure out how to read the charms in the Book of Hours. Her mother may not believe in them, but if someone wrote them, then there had to be some truth to making them work. And if there was, she would be the one to do it. Aye, she was not going to stop until she figured out a way to use the charms to save the people she loved.
Chapter 17
Lovelle lay on her bed high atop the raised pedestal, petting Tawpie, flipping through the Book of Hours. She just stared at the charms at the back, wishing there was a way to read and use them. She’d tossed and turned all night, and couldn’t stop thinking about Onyx.
It must have been so horrible for him being thrown onto the cart with the dead. She felt sorry for him and his anxiety that caused his attacks upon himself. She wondered if perhaps there was a way to cure that as well.
“Oh, Tawpie,” she said, watching the cat pouncing around the bed, jumping up and grabbing onto the bedcurtains. “I miss Onyx so much. I don’t want him to die. What can I do to help him?”
Almost as if the cat knew what she was saying, it strolled over and pawed at the book. The pages flipped over and it opened to one chapter. The Office of the Dead. She looked at it and decided to read it. If she couldn’t read the Gaelic charms that were certainly magic, then mayhap by using the Book of Hours as it was intended by praying the prayers and using it for devotion, she’d be able to help those she loved.
She’d fallen away from her religion ever since the death of her father and the addled ways of her mother. But she felt as if mayhap this was a good time to start praying again.
* * *
Onyx had walked all night the first night, finally finding a lake to swim in and rinse his clothes and body. Luckily, he’d also found a cave to protect him from the elements of nature. He’d grown up living outdoors and off the land, and it was not hard to start a fire from scratch and to find something to eat as well. He’d been here for three days now, and he’d had plenty of time to think, and he knew what he had to do.
He only wished Aidan and Ian were here, because they’d always set him straight when the thoughts in his head got a little too crazy. He laughed to himself, thinking how upset Aidan would be with him if he knew he’d dined on squirrel these past few nights.
He reached over and felt his clothes that he had strung up across the cave using tree branches and the lacings from around his boots. He’d washed his things every night now, as well as his body, and had lots of fresh air.
He donned his clothes quickly, checking his body once again for any type of swelling, or signs of the plague. He didn’t see any, and wondered if the swims in the cold lake or the fresh night air had helped him to ward away the demons. Or mayhap he was just skilled at cheating death.
After putting out the fire, he decided it was time to go back to Worcester Castle. He missed Lovelle and even little Tawpie. He hoped her mother was better, and cursed himself for not being there for Lovelle when she needed him the most. He knew he had to take precautions, and that is what he’d done. He couldn’t expose anyone to the plague if he had been infected.
But it was time for him to stop being so cautious now, as he’d never been cautious his entire life. He missed Fenella, even though she’d deceived him. He also couldn’t stop thinking about the man who’d stuffed him in a box and ordered him to be drowned in the sea. He knew that being in that box as a baby was the reason he had these attacks that made him die for short spans of time. He didn’t think his heart actually stopped beating, or he stopped breathing altogether, but still, it slowed down enough to disable him and make it seem as if he were dead.
He hated the man who did this to him, and who had dismissed him from his life. How could anyone be so cruel? Even if he did look odd with his devil eyes, that was no excuse for someone to kill their own child. The man had discarded him like trash. The earl had no reason to hate a little baby that much. Even if his wife died in childbirth, how could he blame an innocent little child? Nay, he had no reason to hate Onyx.
But Onyx now had a reason to hate him in return for what he’d done so many years ago, and he knew there was only one thing he could do that would make him feel as if justice was served. As immoral and as horrible as the thought was, it wasn’t any worse than what his father had done to him.
Aye, he had no choice now but to kill the Earl of Blackpool. He would kill his father, just like the man had tried to do to him. After all, Onyx was never a person to forgive and forget, and this incident had scarred him deeply. If someone tried to take his life, then they deserved the same treatment in return.
Chapter 18
Onyx knew he had to obtain a horse somehow in order to make it to Blackpool to do his deed. If only he had his, but it was back at the castle. If he went back to get it, he knew Lovelle would want to know where he was going. Then she would try to talk him out of killing his father, and probably coming along with him since her son was being fostered there.
He couldn’t have that either. He didn’t want her around when he killed someone. It would be better if she never knew, because it might turn her against him and he didn’t want that either.
He made it down to the road and decided he would just steal the horse from the first rider who came along. He wouldn’t go back to the castle until he’d completed his deed, though he knew Lovelle would be worried about him.
His anger toward a man he didn’t even know seemed to possess him until he could think of nothing else. He saw two horsemen approaching and climbed up a tree. He planned on dropping atop one of them, knocking him to the ground, and taking his horse. His blood pumped through his veins making him feel alive again. He lived for danger and had been on good behavior ever since he’d met Lovelle.
He knew Aidan and Ian would be right there with him doing this if he were in Scotland right now.
His view was partially hidden by a branch as he waited for the riders who were headed toward the castle. They wore cloaks and hoods over their heads, and after the first one passed, he jumped from the tree, landing on the second one.
He knocked the man off the horse to the ground, and was going to turn quickly and ride away, until he noticed the small, red squirrel sitting perched atop the horn of the saddle.
“Dagger, ye bastard, ye soiled and tore me cape and now Clarista will have me heid when she has te sew it.”
“Aidan?” He looked down to see his friend sprawled across the ground.
The man in front turned and rode back and he could see it was Ian as well.
“Dagger, we were lookin’ for ye,” said Ian, then frowned as he spotted Aidan on the ground. “Get up ye lazy dolt, there’s no time fer thet now.”
“I hurt me elbow,” said Aidan, and Onyx reached down a hand from atop the steed to help him stand.
He knew as soon as he saw the smirk on Aidan’s face that he’d fallen for the oldest trick in the book. Aidan reached up and grabbed his hand, and with one yank Onyx was lying on the ground beside him.
“Guid te see ye too,” Onyx said with a smile, knowing he deserved that.
“Ye were tryin’ te steal me horse?” Aidan got up and when he offered Onyx his hand, Onyx just shook his head and stood on his own.
“Well, if ye werena hidden in those cloaks I woulda recognized ye two. Howe’er, I must say I am glad te see ye. What are ye doin’ here?”
“We followed ye te give ye a message,” said Aidan.
“That’s right,” agreed Ian. “We were in the Horn and Hoof when an English border lord came in askin’ if anyone kent ye.”
“Me?” asked Onyx, wiping the dust from his plaid. “Why would he be lookin’ for me?”
“His name was Earl Montclair,” said Aidan. “He was wit’ his wife who said she had been searchin’ fer ye becooz ye are her brathair.”
“What are ye talkin’ aboot?” he asked.
“His wife is yer sister named Amethyst,” said Ian. “She looks a lot like ye.”
Onyx knew exactly whom they were talking about. The girl he’d met four years ago.
“Did she have dark hair and a high-spirited attitude fer a lady?” he asked.
“Aye, thet would be her,” said Ian with a nod.
“Well, dinna worry as I plan on findin’ me true family. Only it willna be a happy reunion.”
“What do ye mean?” asked Aidan, taking his pet squirrel, Reid, and placing it on his shoulder.
Wildly Romantic: A Multi-Genre Collection Page 55