The Rose and The Warrior (35 page)

“You bastard!”
Daniel screamed, lunging at his tormentor and clamping his hands around his throat.

“Daniel,
no
!” cried Melantha. She tried to pull him away, but rage and fear had given her brother an awesome strength, and he was unaffected by her efforts.

The surprise of being attacked by a mere lad momentarily stunned Laird MacTier, giving Daniel a brief advantage. MacTier quickly regained his composure, however. He swept his arms around in a powerful circle, breaking Daniel's bony grip upon his neck, then drew back his fist and drove it deep into the boy's lean gut. Daniel doubled over in pain, enabling Laird MacTier to deliver a final, crippling blow with both fists to the back of his neck.

Daniel moaned and sank to the filthy floor.

“This ruffian needs to be taught to respect his betters,” snarled Laird MacTier as he angrily rubbed his stinging neck. “I will have him executed along with you for daring to attack me!”

“No,” pleaded Melantha, feeling utterly desperate. She could withstand any punishment Laird MacTier might choose for her, but she knew with agonizing clarity that she could never endure watching Daniel suffer. “I beg of you, Laird MacTier, spare him—he is just a lad—”

“Even more reason to snip the stem of his existence,” interrupted Laird MacTier coldly. “I've no desire to let him grow into a man and come back to kill me later.”

“But such an action could only be seen by those who await outside as unnecessarily cruel,” Melantha argued. “After all, would you not expect your own son to fight on your behalf if you were sentenced to a fate such as mine?”

“I will never be sentenced to your fate,” he snapped, but she could see that her question had affected him. “Just look at what he has done to my robe!” he complained as he gathered up the hem of his precious garment, which was now slimy with muck from the dungeon floor.

“Perhaps you have time to change into another—”

“There is no more time,” he said, irritated. “Even as we speak the throng outside grows restless to see you. Can you not hear them calling your name?”

A chant had been swelling outside for some time, but it had been lost amid the general noise of the crowd, making it impossible for her to interpret it clearly through fifteen feet of stone wall and earth. There was no mistaking the words that they were shouting now, however. Hundreds had joined the chorus, giving the phrase a terrible rhythmic cadence.

“Kill the Falcon, kill the Falcon, kill the Falcon….”

“I cannot possibly delay your execution a moment longer,” said Laird MacTier, looking almost wistful as he assessed the condition of his attire. “However, I will let your brother live, for the moment at least.” He gave Daniel a menacing look. “Do one more thing to vex me, and I will have you dragged onto the platform to stand beside your sister and join her in her fate. Now get up—I'm sending the guards to escort you outside.”

He turned in a flurry of gold and gems, leaving Melantha and her brother alone once again.

“Are you all right, Daniel?” she demanded anxiously, sinking to her knees beside him.

“Here,” he said, freeing the sharpest wooden stick from his boot. “Take this so you'll have a weapon to use when you escape.”

Melantha shook her head. Already the guards were coming down the corridor to lead them outside. “You keep it,” she said softly, putting it back into his boot. “You'll be able to use it better than I.”

“No,” he protested, trying to give it to her once more. “You need it—”

“Listen to me, Daniel,” Melantha urged, feeling her heart begin to break. “I have used up all my shafts in this hunt—do you understand?”

He stared at her in disbelief. And then his eyes welled with tears. “No.”

“Now it is up to you to go home and take care of Matthew and Patrick. You must get home, Daniel, so do whatever you have to do to get there. Do you hear me?”

“I won't go without you,” he choked, throwing himself into her arms. “I'd rather die!”

“I know,” she whispered softly, stroking the sweet tangle of his hair. “But you aren't going to die, Daniel. I need to know that you are going home, and that you are going to take care of Matthew and Patrick. You'll do that for me, won't you?”

He inhaled a shuddering breath. “Yes.”

She pressed a kiss to his forehead, holding him as long as she dared, trying to pour her love and strength into him as she held him close. And then somehow she found the courage to break away, and to regard him with steady calm, when beneath her fragile composure she felt as if she were shattering.

“Here,” he said, scooping up something off the ground and pressing it into her palm. “If you won't take the stake, at least take this.”

Melantha felt the coolness of a stone press into her flesh. “Thank you,” she whispered, swiftly closing her fingers over the pitiful weapon. If nothing else, at least it would give her something to grip as she faced the horror of her death.

“It's time,” growled the guard who appeared at their door. His face was deeply pocked from disease and his chest and arms were webbed with scars at various stages of healing, giving him a truly hideous appearance. “You come first.” He pointed a blackened finger at Daniel.

Melantha and her brother rose together. She gave Daniel a small smile, then watched as he straightened his shoulders and walked into the waiting grip of the monster at the doorway. Another guard roughly grabbed his other arm. Daniel did not look behind, but something in the sure, brave way with which he held himself as he disappeared gave her a fragment of hope.

She was about to die, but Daniel and Colin would make it home.

Somehow, that would have to be enough.

“And so the honor of leading the infamous Falcon to her death falls to me.”

Pure hatred flared within her as she studied the handsome warrior whose enormous frame now blocked the doorway. He was the same MacTier who had held Colin steady to suffer Laird MacTier's beating the night they had been captured. He was also the one who had led the assault on her holding to retrieve Roarke and his men; the coward who would have torn her home apart piece by piece with his deadly siege machine. Magnus had told her that he had also led the subsequent assault on her home, where both Daniel and Matthew were taken and the cottages and fields were burned.

She tightened her fist around the stone nestled in her palm, wondering if she should make use of it now by hurling it straight into his face. It wouldn't gain her freedom, but she would derive immense satisfaction from being the one to permanently mar the perfection of this smug warrior's unblemished features.

“I'm baffled as to how such a pretty lass has managed to cause so much trouble,” reflected Derek, looking at her as one might regard a naughty child. “ 'Tis a pity our paths did not cross before now. I would have kept you so exhausted in bed, you'd have had neither the strength nor the inclination to go riding about playing outlaw.”

Melantha regarded him with unmitigated contempt.

“Unfortunately, fate has not been kind to us,” Derek sighed. “Come, milady.” He mockingly extended his arm. “Your executioners await you.”

Melantha stiffened her spine and walked past him, coldly ignoring his proffered arm. “By what method am I to die?”

“Laird MacTier has come up with something rather unique,” replied Derek, walking alongside her. “As hundreds of people began to flock here from miles around, it quickly became apparent that a simple hanging wouldn't do. Too fast, and somewhat ordinary for an outlaw as notorious as yourself. And so MacTier held a tournament this morning, in which over a hundred participants competed for the coveted privilege of shooting the Falcon. Ultimately six archers were chosen. That way there is less chance of your surviving beyond the first volley.”

A shiver of fear rippled through her. She had assumed she would be hanged, or perhaps burned, neither of which were appealing. But the prospect of being riddled with arrows by six overzealous archers filled her with an almost paralyzing dread. No doubt each participant had indulged in a cup or two of ale to help pass the long hours before their exhilarating performance. What chance had she that one or more of them might not succeed in cleanly piercing her heart, but would blearily send their shafts into an arm, or leg, or perhaps even her face instead?

She stumbled.

“You're looking rather pale, milady,” Derek observed, deriving a perverse pleasure from her fear. “No doubt the fresh air will revive you.”

They ascended the slime-coated stairs leading from the depths of the castle. The fetid stench of the dungeon was gradually replaced by the reek of greasy roasting meats and the heavy smell of charred breads and other hastily cooked dishes. The crowd that had poured through Laird MacTier's gates to see her slain would need to be fed, and it seemed the kitchens and bakehouse were working hard to make sure there was ample fare.

Up the narrow, slippery steps, along a dank, barely lit corridor, and then up another twisting staircase, until finally they had reached the main level of the castle. The chanting outside began to swell, pouring through the open windows of the holding in a hostile wave. Two guards stood on either side of a heavy oak door. When they saw Melantha approach with Derek, they regarded her with pity. Melantha did not know if their unexpectedly tender sentiments were aroused by the frailty of her appearance or the drunken savageness of the crowd awaiting her. Whatever the reason, their sympathy had the effect of causing her stomach to quicken. She inhaled a shallow breath, fighting the painful pounding in her chest as she forced herself to stare woodenly ahead.

Soon it will be over. Soon.

The heavy door crashed open, and the restless mob roared with anticipation. The sound was almost deafening, a ghastly cheer of animosity and bloodlust and pleasure merged into one. It was clear that copious amounts of ale had already been consumed, for virtually every man in the throng held a dripping cup, and the sickly stench of spilled brew permeated the air.

“Kill the Falcon! Kill the Falcon! Kill the Falcon!”

Their faces were screwed into hard, angry masks as they fought to catch a glimpse of her, each one looking as if he would relish the opportunity to carry out the deed himself.

Six enormous warriors instantly surrounded her, making a formidable ring of muscle and sword as they slowly marched her through the jeering, screaming crowd. Melantha suspected Laird MacTier had ordered this gesture purely for its theatricality, for it made it appear that the dangerous Falcon had to be vigilantly guarded right until the moment of her death, lest she suddenly decide to escape. Trapped in the midst of more than a thousand men, women, and children, each one of whom would scramble over the other for the honor of slaying her, Melantha could see no possibility of flight. Even so, she was glad of the circle of warriors, for they shielded her from the crush of the mob and the clawing, groping hands and fists that rained down upon them as they made their way to the high platform erected at the far end of the courtyard.

Laird MacTier had given careful consideration to his audience in the construction of her scaffold. The platform was positioned above even the tallest warrior, with a narrow stake rising from its center, ensuring that everyone would have an excellent view of her as she was riddled with arrows. Derek and another warrior painfully gripped her arms and hauled her up the wooden steps. Melantha was suddenly aware of the small stone hidden within her palm. An overwhelming sadness seeped through her. She knew Daniel was watching, expecting her to do something, anything, to hurl this tiny, ineffectual stone at Derek and somehow secure their freedom in the process. Her arms were wrenched around the stake and her wrists were bound with rough cord, the pebble still safely nestled in her hand. She kept her gaze low, not because she was afraid of facing the crowd who was calling for her death with drunken enthusiasm, but because she could not bear to look at Daniel and see the awesome anguish in his face as he slowly realized that her life was truly lost.

She suddenly found herself recalling how her father had looked at her just as he was about to die. It had been the most hideous moment of her life, intensified a thousandfold by the staggering grief she had seen in his beautiful eyes. Whatever happened, she could not burden Daniel with such a devastating memory. Summoning the last vestiges of her composure, she lifted her gaze to the splendidly draped dais across the courtyard, affecting an air of frigid contempt as she stared at the man who had so enthusiastically orchestrated her death.

Laird MacTier was seated in a handsomely carved chair of mammoth proportions, which had the unfortunate effect of dwarfing him somewhat, which Melantha suspected was far from his intent. He regarded her with bold triumph, then raised his hand to mockingly stroke his chest, indicating where the amulet lay safely hidden from view. To his left sat his wife, a sad, wrung-out figure of a woman who looked as if she had been crushed beneath the heel of his cruelty years ago. Beside her was a short, doughy boy of about ten years of age, who was furtively biting his nails when he thought his father wasn't looking. Melantha did not waste any of her last precious moments giving them any consideration, but immediately turned her attention to Laird MacTier's right side.

There sat Daniel, his lean face frozen with dread, his wrists bound before him so that all he could do was grip his hands tightly upon his lap. Beside him sat Colin, his own face shadowed with a despair so tearing it pained Melantha to even look upon him. There were other men chatting amiably in a row behind them, who Melantha supposed were the clan's council. To Colin's right was an empty chair, evidently for some honored member of the clan who had failed to arrive. She wondered if it had been reserved for Roarke. She hoped that it was, for its vacancy meant that he had not come to watch her die. There was a modicum of comfort in that, at least.