Magnus was dressed for the weather, in only linen breeches, boots, and a tunic that he didn’t even have laced up. It was open in the front, down to his waist, baring his broad tanned chest. He followed the sentry through the north section of the warriors’ encampment with its dozens of tiny cottages, passing by Caelian Hill, which was the name given to the keep of the Ludus Caledonia, the crown jewel of the complex.
Caelian Hill was surrounded by an enormous curtain wall, circular in shape, with a gatehouse and portcullis built into it. The sentry took him straight to the gatehouse, a two-storied structure, and as he approached, he could hear a woman shouting angrily.
Only they were words he could not understand.
Spanish.
Magnus eyed the sentry curiously when the man paused by the door to the guardroom built into the gatehouse, but the sentry simply indicated for him to enter the room.
Warily, he did.
Immediately, his gaze fell on Diantha as she sat in a corner, surrounded by three heavily armed guards. No one was touching her, at least at the moment, but that beautiful green brocade dress with the yellow border that he’d seen her wearing earlier was dirty and disheveled. One sleeve was torn. Baffled, Magnus walked up between the guards, shocked at what he was seeing.
“Great bleeding Christ,” he muttered. “What are ye doing here, lass?”
Diantha’s expression went from frightened to relieved in a split second. “Do you remember me from today?” she asked, her voice suddenly quiet and trembling. “I was with Lady Ayr and we saw you at the apothecary in Edinburgh, and…”
He cut her off, though it wasn’t harsh. “Of course I remember ye,” he said. “Ye’re Flaca… I mean, Dian…Dianca…”
“Diantha,” she said helpfully. “I came to find you but these tontos grabbed me and tore my dress. I told them I wanted to speak with you, but they thought it better to drag me here and humiliate me. I—”
She suddenly stopped speaking, looking at the guards standing around her and evidently unwilling or unable to speak further in front of them. After a moment, she lowered her gaze and Magnus swore he saw her lower lip tremble.
He didn’t know why she was here, but he was going to find out.
“Back away,” he told the guards. “Get out. I will speak with the lady.”
The guards obeyed. They backed out of the little chamber, and Magnus shut the door behind them so he and the lady would have some privacy. With the door shut, he stood there a moment, looking her over. It only confirmed what he’d seen this afternoon, that she was as fine a beauty as he’d ever seen.
And she looked very lost.
Scratching his ear, he stepped in her direction.
“They’re gone,” he said. “Now…what are ye doing here? Did Lady Ayr send ye?”
Diantha lifted her eyes, looking at him. “Nay,” she said. “She did not send me. I came because I need your help.”
“What help?”
“I want you to help me escape and go home.”
He eyed her with some confusion. “Escape? Go home?” he repeated. “I dunna understand. Where is home?”
Diantha’s big eyes were filling with tears, which she was quickly flicking away. “Navarre,” she said softly. “I want to go home.”
“Then why come tae me? Why not simply tell Lady Ayr?”
She shook her head. “You misunderstand,” she said. “I am not a guest or a ward of the duchess, as she has told everyone.”
“Ye’re not?”
“Nay,” she said. “I am a hostage. Someone told me once that you were also a hostage. You were able to escape and I want to escape, too. Won’t you help me?”
Magnus hadn’t known that she was a hostage. He’d always thought she was simply a ward, as she said. That was the story the duke and duchess had made known, but he wasn’t surprised to hear it wasn’t true.
“Then Lady Ayr doesna know ye’re here?” he asked.
“Nay.”
“Did ye run away?”
“Aye.”
“Does anyone know ye’re here?”
“The apothecary might.”
“Where I saw ye today?”
“Aye. I returned to ask him where the Ludus Caledonia was.”
Magnus sighed faintly. “If the duchess sends men tae look for ye, they’ll go tae the shop, dunna ye think? The apothecary will tell them what he told ye, and that will lead them here.”
Diantha shook her head. “I never told anyone I was going to the apothecary’s shop,” she said. “I am sure they will not discover where I have gone. I will pay you for your assistance, I swear it, but please…please help me.”
Magnus didn’t know what to make of any of it. There was another chair in the guardroom and he pulled it up so that he could sit next to her. In truth, he was quite curious about her, and whether or not he wanted to be, he found himself swept up in the situation.
Unusual for a man who rarely showed regard for someone other than himself.
“I think ye’d better start from the beginning,” he said. “Ye say ye are a hostage of Ayr?”
Diantha nodded solemnly. “Aye.”
“But why?”
She sighed faintly. “It is a complicated situation, as complicated as the situation between the Scottish and the English.”
“I understand the politics of such things. Tell me.”
She pondered his question a moment, perhaps thinking of the most concise way of telling him the situation that had consumed her entire life.
“There is much civil war in Navarre right now,” she said after a moment. “Castillo de Santacara is my family’s home. We have always supported the kings and queens of Navarre, but the queen has been dead these past years and her husband, who is not the rightful heir to the throne, has assumed power. My father sent word to the Scottish court for assistance to fight the usurper, and the Duke of Ayr answered. He told my father to send money and one of his children as a hostage in good faith, and he would send him an army. But the army was never sent.”
Magnus’s eyebrows lifted. It was indeed complicated and complex, as politics and wars often were.
“I see,” he said. “Then the duke betrayed yer father.”
“Aye, he did. The duke took his only child and his money.”
“Does the duke know ye’re the only child?”
She nodded sadly. “That is why he wants to marry me to Conan,” he said. “Then Conan will inherit Santacara, through me. He will also inherit the County of Mélida—my father is the Conde de Mélida.”
That was the Spanish equivalent of an earl. It was quite a mess, but Magnus wasn’t surprised by any of it. Ambrose Stewart was an ambition, greedy, and callous bastard, but he’d learned that from the rest of the Scottish royal family, who were all cut from the same fabric. Even Magnus’s own father was calculating and ambitious, because in a den of jackals, one had to learn to survive…or one did not.
But it still didn’t excuse the betrayal. Magnus thought that there had to be more to it than what she was telling him.
“What would make yer father send his young daughter tae a faraway land, tae people he dinna even know?” he said. “The man sent money and his only child?”
Diantha shrugged her slender shoulders. “Desperation will make a man do things he would not normally do,” she said. “My father has a large fortress and a big army, but that was not enough against the usurper. At least, that was what I was told. One of my father’s men took me from the convent where I had been living and brought me to Scotland. He told me many things I had not known since I had been away.”
Magnus eyed her strangely. “Ye were in a convent?”
She nodded. “Since I was very young,” she said. “Iglesia de Santa Brigida. It was a school in the province that every noble family sent their young girls to. We learned to read, to w
rite, to dance, to paint. My father’s man came and took me away from it when I was eleven years of age, escorting me across the sea to a place where I did not know the language. He was supposed to return with the army promised by the duke, but he did not.”
“How do ye know?”
She snorted ironically. “Mayhap I did not speak the language, but I did not need to in order to see that my father’s man and the escort with him were killed,” she said. “The next morning, their horses were still in the stable yard and I saw men taking away something in a cart, out into the fields. They were bodies covered with straw because I saw a foot sticking out. My father’s men were killed because the duke had no intention of honoring his part of the bargain.”
Magnus was coming to feel the slightest bit guilty. Guilty because he thought he’d had it the worst of anyone at Culroy Castle, but clearly there was someone else with a more tragic story to tell. He leaned back in the chair, pondering what he’d been told.
“Why did yer father never come for ye, then?” he asked. “If he had a large army, surely he could bring it tae Scotland and retrieve ye.”
Her eyes started to fill with tears again, but she blinked them back furiously. “I do not know,” she said honestly. “It has been nine years since I last saw my father, and I have received no word from him during that time. When his men were killed and did not return to Santacara, I thought he would come for me, but he did not. It is my fear that he is dead, but even so, I must go home. I must discover for myself what has become of him, and I have waited these many years to escape Culroy. When I saw you, I knew the time was right. Please, my lord. Please…help me.”
Magnus looked at her. In his world, Magnus only helped Magnus. That was the only thing of importance to him. He’d long bred the emotion out of himself, the ability to feel anything, the ability to show and to accept compassion. That process began as a young lad when he’d first been taken hostage at Culroy, and it continued to this day. It wasn’t selfishness.
It was self-preservation.
He stood up from the chair.
“Why me?” he asked. “Ye are presuming a great deal by coming here tae ask me such things. I’m not responsible for ye.”
Her expression fell and Magnus resisted the urge to recant everything he’d just said. But something held him back, perhaps that young lad who had refused to make friends or grant favors. He wasn’t willing to risk himself for this woman. The only risks he ever took were for himself, for his greater gain. As he wrestled with his thoughts, Diantha lowered her gaze.
“I know you are not responsible for me,” she said. “I understand that completely. And I do realize that I am asking a great deal of someone I do not know, but given that you were a hostage at Culroy, surely you can understand my desperation. Did you not wish to escape the entire time you were there?”
He had. Every day of those long years he’d spent at that horrible place. “I was released, eventually,” he said. “If ye go back, mayhap they’ll release ye eventually, too.”
Her features hardened. “After what I just told you?” she said. “Ridiculous. They want me for that barbarian of a son so he will inherit my lands. They will never release me because I am of great value to them.”
Magnus knew that bunch enough to know that she spoke the truth. Greed flowed through their veins instead of blood. He saw that during his time spent there, something that had rubbed off on him because he was greedy, too. He was a professional fighter and he’d earned a great deal of money over the years because, according to the Duke of Ayr, money was the most important thing in the world. He’d learned that lesson well. But as he looked at her, a thought occurred to him.
He had spent the past seven years forgetting what his captors had done to him. Seven years of pushing hate from his heart, seven years of struggling to find a place in a world where he didn’t fit in. There were many to blame for this, including his own father, but his worthlessness as a human being had never been so pressed upon him as it had during those captive years.
It began to occur to him that if he helped Diantha, he would obtain some satisfaction against those who had persecuted him for so long. In helping her escape, he would be ruining their plans for Conan. Anything he could ruin for that wretch, he would. It would be a small victory against people who had treated him so poorly, a chance to seek some satisfaction.
With that in mind, why wouldn’t he help her?
Certainly, there would be risks involved. He would be bringing someone into the Ludus Caledonia who did not belong, someone viewed as a possession by the Duke of Ayr. It was, in essence, stealing.
But no one needed to know that.
“Very well, m’lady,” he said slowly. “What help did ye have in mind?”
Diantha straightened in her chair, shocked that he would suddenly be receptive to her request. From the expression on her face, she had been positive he was about to turn her out.
Now, he was asking her how he could help her.
“I–I will need to earn passage to Navarre,” she said. “I had money at Culroy that I had earned, but it was stolen, so I need to find a way to earn money to pay for my passage. I was taught to read and write Spanish, Catalan, and French in the convent, and the duchess’s ladies taught me how to read and write English. I can teach others for a small price.”
“Do ye want tae teach me, then? I already know how tae read and write, lass.”
She looked over his shoulder to the complex of the Ludus Caledonia outside the door. “Then mayhap you can help me find others who will pay for my tutelage,” she said. “Though I’ve not really seen it, this looks like a big place. Surely there are people here who want to learn to read and write.”
He shrugged. “Mayhap there are, but if ye go about it that way, it will take ye a long time tae earn passage,” he said. “If I give ye the money, ye can go now.”
There was something in her surprised expression that suggested she very much wanted to take him up on his offer. But the excitement in her eyes quickly faded.
“Your offer is very generous, but I do not know when I would be able to pay it back,” she said. “I could not take your money with that knowledge. It would be better if I earned it for myself.”
“Ye asked me for help. I’m offering.”
“That is not the kind of help I was asking for. I am not afraid of hard work to earn my money.”
He lifted his eyebrows. “Is that so?” he said. “Other than teach men tae read and write, what else can ye do?”
She cocked her head thoughtfully. “I know how to cook and sew,” she said. “I could tend your cottage and it would cost you very little. I am only asking for your help in finding ways to earn money so I can return home. Mayhap there are others I can tend house for, too?”
She was eager and, if Magnus was honest with himself, very brave. She wasn’t looking for something to be given to her. She wanted to work for it, and that impressed him. He’d dealt with so many women who were pampered and perfumed and probably hadn’t worked an honest day in their lives. Those were soulless chits, women he used and tossed aside.
But not Diantha.
Already, he could see she was different. There had been a day not long ago when Clegg would not permit women at the Ludus Caledonia other than those who serviced the warriors, but those times were over. Now, women were permitted. There were even families, as evidenced by Lor and Bane’s wives and children. Women were an integral part of the Ludus Caledonia these days.
It seemed as if Magnus might have one of his very own.
“That is possible,” he said after a moment. “Get up and come with me.”
Diantha stood up right away. “Where are we going?”
He reached out and grasped her by the arm. “Back tae my cottage unless ye plan tae remain here all night,” he said. “Let’s both sleep on this and discuss it further in the morning.”
> Diantha went along with him without hesitation. “I knew you would help me,” she said gratefully. “When I saw you this afternoon, I could feel it.”
He glanced at her. “Even when ye were refusing tae tell me yer name?”
She was properly contrite. “I did not know who you were then,” she said. “For all I knew, you were a brute and a masher.”
He snorted, pulling her out of the guardroom and waving away the sentries who started to come near. He pulled her through the crowd of men, casting her a long glance.
“Who says I’m not?”
Diantha eyed him, but she didn’t reply. She was certain he was jesting—at least, she was hoping he was—and she didn’t want to say anything that might break whatever spell of cooperation had fallen upon him. Masher or not, for tonight, she was willing to go along with him.
Tomorrow would tell the tale of whether her decision had been a wise one.
Chapter Five
Edinburgh—Trinity House
It was the evening meal at the great baronial manse on the north side of Edinburgh known as Trinity House. The town home of the Dukes of Ayr, it was built from sandstone that had hues of pink and gold, a masterful example of architectural design that soared four stories into the sky. The north side of the manse had turned darker and pitted because of the salt that blew off the sea, but the south side was still a fresh and lovely shade of pink.
Locals called it taigh pinc.
The pink house.
In the dining hall with its carved-paneled walls and an elegant stone hearth, the Duke and Duchess of Ayr sat at a feasting table that could easily seat thirty people. Ambrose Stewart, Duke of Ayr, was double-fisting his good beef dinner into his mouth as his wife sat silently by, drinking her fine Spanish wine and hardly touching her food.
The hall was quiet on this evening but for the couple and their servants, who were moving about in silence to ensure the lord and lady were not disturbed. Not even the duchess’s women were in attendance because the opportunities for Lady Ayr to dine alone with her husband were few and far between.
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