by Barbara Bard
Glenn laughed. “An escape,” he repeated. “Ye are quite the cuddie, me Sassenach frien. You fear our lives may be in danger?” He shook his chains. “Look around ye. We are nae long fer this world.”
“I refuse to die, my friend. Especially at the hands of Sir Jessup.”
“Well,” Glenn said as he shook his chains. “Unless some fictional sorcery of yers exists, I dinnae think we are getting out of this crivens any time soon.”
A shout sounded out from the end of the hallway outside. Based on the thumping of the booted foots approaching and the tone of the shout—Lord Torstein and Glenn knew that it was, undoubtedly, the presence of Sir Jessup approaching.
Sir Jessup, still somewhat limping from his wound, was walking with Sir Renly beside him. “Have you fetched someone to tend to Lord Torstein and our friend?”
A nod from Sir Renly. “Indeed, we have. I’ve just received word moments ago that one of my men has managed to locate a Highlander woman from a local town who is well-versed in medicine. She should be arriving shortly.”
“Good,” said Sir Jessup as he reached into his tunic and produced a pair of gloves plated with steel at the knuckles. “Then we should have plenty of time to say good morning to our friends.”
They arrived outside the door leading into the confinement. The two knights standing guard took a step aside as Sir Renly inserted his key into the lock, twisted, and opened the door. Sir Jessup went inside first, Sir Renly following close behind him.
“Good morning, my friends,” Sir Jessup greeted. “A pleasure to see you again.”
Glenn spit on the floor. “Gae and hang yerself, Sir Jessup,” he seethed. “I am naw in the mood fer yer jests.”
“Oh, my friend,” Sir Jessup said as he slipped on his gloves. “If you only came to terms with how dire your situation truly is…”
Sir Jessup stood in front of Lord Torstein and Glenn, his hands folded behind his back. Both men waited for him to speak, with Glenn growing increasingly agitated as the seconds went by.
“Oh, crivens,” Glenn said. “Say what yer gonnae say.”
Sir Jessup nodded—and then he punched Glenn in the face with one of his gloved and steel-knuckled fists. Blood trickle from a cut in Glenn lip as he stared on at Sir Jessup with nothing shy of rage on the cusp of spilling out of his eyes.
“That was just a warmup,” Sir Jessup said. “The next hit will see that your jaw breaks. That is, of course, unless you answer my questions in a quick and honest fashion.”
Glenn shook his head. “I will never tell ye the location of me people,” he said. “Cut me into as many tiny pieces as ye so desire…”
Sir Jessup held up a finger. “An intriguing notion. But I’d prefer if we kept you alive for as long as humanly possible.”
“Do your worst, you bastard…”
Sir Jessup smiled as he leveled his sights at Lord Torstein. “My old friend,” he said with outstretched arms. “I will make you a deal: reveal the location of the Baird clan and I will end yours and your friend’s suffering.” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that.”
Lord Torstein looked away. “You know I cannot tell you.”
WHACK!—Sir Jessup planted a punch square on the left side of Lord Torstein’s face. “Come again?”
“Damn you!” Lord Torstein said, still reeling from the blow. “Stop this! Now!”
Sir Jessup held up a single finger. “This will stop once you reveal the location of the Baird clan. Then I will kill you. Then I will kill your friend. Then I will kill all of the Highlanders until they become nothing more than an extinct species.”
“This is madness, Sir Jessup.”
Sir Jessup scowled and took a step forward.
“No,” he protested. “This is the culmination of all of your wrongdoings, Lord Torstein. Make no mistake about that. You chose to shield the Highlanders from the justice they so deserved. Now the time has come for you to answer for it.” He gestured to Glenn. “Do you want to see this young man suffer and die needlessly? I am not Lord Henry. I do not take pleasure in causing pain.” He leaned in. “But believe me—there is no better artisan trained in the art of torture such as I. I just pray that you see the light before I am forced to show you the other sides of my…skill sets.”
Lord Torstein squeezed his eyelids tight. “Please,” he pleaded. “Please don’t do this.”
Sir Jessup shrugged. “Are you going to tell me the location of the Bairds?”
A long pause—and then Lord Torstein shook his head.
A sigh from Sir Jessup. “All right then,” he said as he cracked his knuckles. “So be it…”
Sir Jessup then proceeded to beat, kick, and claw at Lord Torstein and Glenn for over twenty minutes. However, once he was done causing them agony, he stepped out of the cell and found himself no closer to finding the location of the Bairds.
“Bastard Lord Torstein,” Sir Jessup said as Sir Renly locked the door behind them. “How long does he think that he can keep this up?”
Sir Renly shrugged. “As long as he can, my friend.”
“They are both strong, the Highlander especially. I knew they were savage beasts, but I had no indication they could take such repeated hits.”
“How long do you plan on continuing down this path?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I’m inquiring as to how long you plan on beating on these two men.”
“For as long as necessary.”
“They do not seem to break.”
“Which means that I must simply move on to more…sinister methods.”
Sir Renly swallowed his fears. “Sir Jessup,” he said. “I am more than happy following your orders—”
“But what?” Sir Jessup interjected as he sensed the conversation going in another direction.
Sir Renly drew a breath. “I fear,” he said, “that the only way you will break these men is if you employ these methods you speak of.”
“And?”
“And, I worry that it may be too much for you to fathom.”
Sir Jessup furled his brow. “For me?” he said. “Or do you mean for you?”
Sir Renly held his words for a few moments. “I am not questioning you, sir.”
“It sure sounds like it.”
“I have just known you a very long time. I know you are capable of the things you speak of. I just have never seen you so willing to act upon them. You were never always like this, my friend. I say this only as your closest confidant.”
Sir Jessup digested Sir Renly’s words for a moment before he felt them sink in. He had known Sir Renly for years. They had fought in mud and blood together. But never had the man offered protest in this manner before. It made Sir Jessup concerned—and the slightest bit paranoid.
“You worry,” Sir Jessup said to Sir Renly, “that I am losing my way?”
Sir Renly shook his head. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say that,” he said.
“Then what are you attempting to say?”
Sir Renly opened his mouth to answer, but he cut his reply short when he saw one of his fellow knights approaching behind down the hallway and half-pulling a woman by the arm with him.
“Sirs!” the knight called out.
Sir Jessup turned around. “Yes?”
“This is the woman, the one who is well-versed in medicine.”
The knight let go of his grip on the woman’s arm as Sir Jessup took a moment to drink her in—she was fair-haired, petite, a frown on her face that when formed into a smile it was undoubtedly shimmering and resplendent with infectious joy. But right now, it wasn’t. It was a tight line. And though she was in the presence of much bigger and stronger men than what she was capable of, she looked defiant, unwilling to back down if they pushed her into a corner.
“So. You are the medicine woman.” Sir Jessup said.
She nodded. “Aye.”
“And what is your name?”
She held her head high. “Eirlys.”
Sir Jes
sup pouted his lip. “Well, Eirlys. I have two men who need tending to in the room behind me. I trust that you are well-versed in these matters.”
“I am.”
“Good. Then stay with them. I will be…checking in on them from time to time.”
Eirlys could tell from the implication and the small blotches of dried blood on Sir Jessup’s hands as to what he was referring.
“Well,” he said, gesturing to the room behind him. “Go.”
Eirlys said nothing further as one of the knights unlocked the door and led her inside of the room.
“Sir Renly,” Sir Jessup said as the door closed behind them. “What was it that you were going to say?”
“When?” Sir Renly inquired.
“Right before that woman showed up.”
Sir Renly recalled his lost words and nodded. “Yes, I do recall. It was innocuous, my friend.”
“Say it anyway.”
Sir Renly huffed air through his nostrils and rested his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “You are just not the same as you once were, Jonathan. That is all I am saying.” With that, Sir Renly left.
For the longest moment, Sir Jessup stood there and sat on Sir Renly’s words. He knew them to be true. He knew he hadn’t been the same man as he once was. He was caring at one point. Kind. But all that had changed. And he knew in his heart he would never go back to those days—they were just too painful for him to remember.
In the room, Eirlys looked on in reserved horror and the bruised and bloodied faces of Lord Torstein and Glenn. Quickly recovering, she composed herself and began taking out her satchel filled with supplies. First, she tended to Glenn, cleaning his cuts, offering him some water and tonics, and then she shifted her focus to Lord Torstein.
“Who are you?” Lord Torstein inquired, his lip split open and eye swelling shut.
“A frien,” Eirlys replied, shaking her head at the damage that Sir Jessup had inflicted.
“You should not be here.”
“Well, I am. And it appears I am the only person on yer side.”
“You do not even know me.”
She cleaned his cuts. “I know that ye hae made an enemy of Sir Jessup. The enemy of my enemy maist be a frien…”
Lord Torstein looked into Eirlys’s eyes and sensed the same kind of comforting hazel quality that his deceased wife had sported. Though he was in agony, his bones and skin bruised, for a brief moment he felt comforted. “What is your name?” he asked.
She offered him some tonic. “Eirlys,” she said.
He sipped. “Hello, Eirlys. I am Lord Torstein. A pleasure to meet you.”
The weary quality in which he said the words, and the fact that they were sincere, made Eirlys smile. “Don’t speak now,” she said. “Let us get you on the mend.”
Chapter 13
The Bairdsmen slowed their pace as they rode in a collective huddle. They were tired, a wee bit hungry and ready to take a brief reprieve as Gavina looked around their surroundings. The expansive greenery of the Highlands was pristine, a light afternoon fog covering the area in a thin veneer accompanied by a pleasant breeze.
“Gavina,” Lachlan called out from the rear. “Should we stop?”
She took a deep breath, scanning everything around them. “Naw,” she said. “Let us ride a little further.”
“Aye,” he said as he bucked his horse.
Christian, riding close to Gavina on what was Glenn’s horse, felt himself on the mend. His wound was still tender, but he was in far better condition than he was when he first received his injuries.
Gavina, tempted to speak to him for the past hour, finally spoke up and said: “How are ye feeling?”
He smiled. “Much better,” he said. “But I am still sore.”
“We should check yer wound when we stop.”
“All right.”
They rode for a few more minutes. “Where are ye from?” Gavina asked.
It took Christian a moment to answer. “A place called Sheffield. Have you heard of it?”
She shook her head. “Naw.”
“It is a small village. Not many people there.”
“How did ye manage tae become employed with a man like Lord Torstein?”
He shrugged. “Fate, perhaps. As I said, I wanted to be a poet. One event led to another and I found myself donning armor and a sword. It was not my preferred profession. How about you?”
Gavina laughed. “When ye are a Highlander, ye dinnae hae much choice when it comes to professions. Survival is yer only occupation.”
“What if you could choose?”
“Ye cannae.”
“Yes, I understand. But what if you could choose?”
Gavina had never thought much on the subject. Being a warrior for her clan was built into her identity. She had never entertained the notion of being anything more than what she was.
“I dinnae ken,” she said, somewhat frustrated by her lack of clarity.
“Think hard,” Christian said. “The answer is there.”
Gavina thought hard—but she still did not have an answer. She shrugged. “I dinnae think I can answer that.”
Christian moved his horse in closer. “Come, now. A person such as yourself has daydreamed on more than one occasion.”
“I dinnae dream.”
“A lie.”
She furled her brow. “It is naw lie.”
“I do not believe that you do not have an answer. Come now—think on it. If you could do anything, anything at all, what would it be?”
Gavina pondered for a quick few seconds.
“Say the first thing that comes to mind,” Christian pressed.
Gavina smiled. “I always wanted tae be a blacksmith.”
Christian flashed a grin, amused. “Really?”
She nodded. “There is something about crafting things,” she said. “About taking materials and forging them into something they weren’t before. There was a man. His name was Dougray. He was the blacksmith for my father. I used tae sit around his shop as a child and watch as he made arrows and swords. Something about it always fascinated me.”
“You could still become a blacksmith, you know.”
“It is nae possible. There are better-minded men in our clan that possess the capability tae forge weapons. Besides, I dinnae think that weapons would be what I would wish tae forge.”
Christian squinted. “Then what would you make, if you could?”
Gavina thought on it—but she didn’t have an answer. “Ask me again some other time,” she said as Christian’s questions still lingered in her mind.
They rode a little further, Gavina finding a spot of land nestled in the mountains that provided them ample view and cover. “Here,” she called out to the Bairdsmen. “Let us take a brief rest.”
They gathered their horses in a huddle, dismounted, and gathered in a circle. Gavina then assigned Tessa and Ava watch, Tess and Ava then mounting their horses once again as they rode a small way away from the temporary camp to keep an eye out on the horizon.
“Come,” Gavina said to Christian. “Let me check yer wound.”
Christian came over and showed Gavina his wound. She checked the progress of the healing and saw that it was better than she had hoped.
“Here,” she said, handing him an ointment from her satchel. “Apply this. It shall help with the healing process.”
Christian took the ointment and applied it, a soothing quality coating the wound and taking the edge off of the sting.
“Should we eat?” Lachlan inquired. “I still hae some of the meat that we cooked last night.”
Gavina gave him the go-ahead and Lachlan passed around the last remnants of their meal from the night prior. For a few minutes, Gavina, Lachlan, and Christian ate in silence.
Christian, knowing that they were drawing closer to the Baird’s village, asked the question that had been lingering on his mind for quite some time.
“Gavina,” he said. “I am concerned that my presence at your peopl
e’s village will not be welcomed.”
“Why dae ye say that?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Because of the events that transpired. I see the looks that the other Bairdsmen have given me—I am not welcomed.”
She waved him off. “Dinnae be concerned with their opinions. Ye are with us. I hae stated this tae them.”