She did not want to depart this life at the hands of a furious barbarian, bent on some form of revenge. She thought of how Edward I had killed Wallace, of the horrors that had taken place, of the English furor at the crowning of Robert Bruce.
And she rode as she had never done before, flat against her mare’s neck, heels jamming the beast’s haunches, whispers begging her to ever greater speed. The rebel’s horse had to be flagging; their animals had been foaming when they first met with the men of Langley. If she could just evade him for a distance . . .
She galloped over the hill, through the thick grasses of the lea to the north. The forest beckoned beyond the hill, a forest she knew well, with twisting trails and sheltering oaks, a place in which to disappear. She could see the trees, the great branches waving high in the sky, the darkness of the trails beneath the canopy of leaves. She could smell the very richness of the earth and hear the leaves, as she could hear the thunder of her horse’s hooves, the desperate, ragged catch of her own breath, the pulse of her heartbeat, echoed with each thunder of a hoof upon the earth. There . . . just a moment away . . .
She was never aware that his horse’s hoofbeats thundered along with those of her mare; the first she knew of him was the hook of his arm, sweeping her from her horse in a deadly gamble. She was whisked from the mare and left to watch as the horse made the shelter of the trees. And for a moment, she looked on, in amazement, as she dangled from the great warhorse, a prisoner taken by a madman.
She began to twist and struggle, and bite—a sound enough attack so that he swore, and dropped her. His horse was huge; she fell a distance to the earth, stunned, then gathered her senses quickly and began to run. She headed for the dark trail, desperately, running with the speed of a hunted doe.
Yet again, she was swept off her feet, this time, lifted up, and thrown down, and the next thing she knew, he was on top of her, smelling of the earth and the blood of battle. She screamed, fought, kicked, yet found her hands vised above her head, and the barbarian straddled atop her, staring at her with a cold, wicked fury that allowed no mercy.
“You are the lady of Langley,” he said.
“Igrainia,” she replied.
“I don’t give a damn about your name,” he told her. “But you will come with me, and you will demand that the gates be opened.”
She shook her head, “I cannot—”
She broke off as he raised a hand to strike her. The blow did not fall.
“You will,” he said simply. “Or I will break you, bone by bone, until you do so.”
“There is plague there, you idiot!”
“My wife is there, and my daughter,” he told her.
“They are all dead or dying within the castle!”
“So you run in fear!” he said contemptuously.
“No! No,” she raged, struggling to free herself again. Afraid? Of the plague? She was afraid only of life without Afton now.
Not quite true, she realized. She was afraid of this man who would carry out his every threat, and break her. Bone by bone. She had never seen anyone so coldly determined.
“I am not afraid of the plague for myself!” she managed to snap out with an amazing tone of contempt.
“Good. We will go back, my fine lady, and you will dirty your hands with caring for those who are ill. You will save my wife, if she is stricken, or so help me, you will forfeit your own life.”
Dirty her hands? He thought she was afraid to dirty her hands after the days and nights she had been through?
Her temper rose like a battle flag, and she spat at him. “Kill me then, you stupid, savage fool! I have been in that castle. Death does not scare me. I don’t care anymore. Can you comprehend that? Are such words in your vocabulary?”
She gasped as he stood, wrenching her to her feet.
“If my wife or my daughter should die because of the English king’s cruelty against the innocent, my lady, you are the one who will pay.”
“My husband is dead because of the sickness brought in by your people!” she cried, trying to wrench her arm free. She could not. She looked at the hand vised around her arm. Huge, long-fingered, covered in mud and earth and . . .
Blood.
His grip seemed stronger than steel. Not to be broken. She stood still, determined not to tremble or falter. His face was as muddied and filthy as his hand and tangled blond hair. Only those sky blue eyes peered at her uncovered by the remnants of battle, brilliant and hard.
He either hadn’t heard her, or he didn’t give a damn. His command of language seemed to be excellent, so she assumed it was the latter.
“Hear me again. If my wife dies, my lady, you will be forfeit to the mercy of the Scottish king’s men.”
“Mercy? There is no mercy to be had there.”
“At this point? Perhaps you are quite right. Therefore, you had best save my wife.”
“I, sir, have no difficulty doing anything in my power to save the stricken, though I can assure you—their lives are in God’s hands, and no others. I was forced to leave Langley. I did not go of my own volition.”
He arched a brow skeptically. “You were willing to serve the plague-stricken and dying?”
“Aye, I would have stayed there willingly. I had no reason to leave.”
“You are the lady of Langley.”
“Indeed.”
He didn’t seem to care why she would have stayed.
“Then, as you say, it will be no hardship for you to return.”
“Where I go, or what is done to me, does not matter in the least.”
“You will save my wife, and my child.”
She raised her chin.
“As I have told you, and surely you must understand, their lives are in God’s hands. What, then, if I cannot save them?”
“Then it will be fortunate that you seem to have so little care for your own life.”
He shoved her forward.
With no other choice, Igrainia walked.
Yet her heart was sinking.
If your wife is among the women stricken, then I am afraid that she has already died! Igrainia thought.
Because she had lied. She had thought herself immune to fear when she left Langley. Immune to further pain. Now, she was discovering that she did fear for her life, that there was something inside her that instinctively craved survival.
She wanted to live.
But if she failed, so he proclaimed, he would break
