Robert's plan must be to catch the bigger fish with the smaller, and then, the smaller fish may yet swim free!" " Twould be death, sure in itself!" came the younger man's whisper once again. One who had promised from the start to be his enemy. Īnd what man, what noble lord, would risk such a fate, even for.Īh, but one he had obtained through misfortune alone. Seizing a man such as Bret d'Anlou, slaying him, displaying his proud dark head, would surely be an incredible boon to the fierce warriors here. Though Malcolm, the Scottish king, had been forced to bow down to William I before, and might soon be doing the same with the son, the Scottish lairds would be kings unto themselves, and were very hard to best, for they would flee into their rough and rugged lands when necessary, and return to fight again. And just as certainly, Robert would not let him die easily, he would certainly be drawn and quartered, beheaded, that grisly trophy then taken to prove that the Scottish lords would not bow down to the son of the bastard king of England. His own life would certainly be the sacrifice. The task ahead of them-this execution, her execution -was a horror to him, yet one that he believed would take place.Įven if he were to come, he would be so sorely outnumbered, riding in with the fifty men with whom he had ridden out. There was a deep sadness in his voice that seemed to touch her from the nape to the base of her spine, chill her, terrify her as she had not been afraid before. ![]() ''He cannot come!" came the older, weary voice once again, surely that of a warrior who had fought with her uncle, Laird Robert, for quite some time. "They say, of course, that it cannot happen, that he surely will not allow her to die by the flame, that he would rather scorch the earth itself-" "I think he must, lest he surrender all in the end, laddie! There will be no turning back now!" "Robert said she must be executed within an hour of the dawn, and so he must order the torches lit soon!" "When?" came that pained, hushed whisper again. None of them was anxious for this task-she had known half of them all of her life-yet by their laws, she had been condemned. Her uncle's men-at-arms were all around her, solemn, with downcast eyes trying not to meet hers. Time itself fading, and memories rushing in. Perhaps that was the most incongruous part of being tied to the stake, of smelling the acrid scent of smoke on the air that came from the burning torches, set into the ground now, so very near the stake with its piles of deadly-dry straw and hay and sticks and larger branches. The day was dawning gloriously the sky was cobalt-blue, the sun shone overhead in an orb of golden glory. It was cold, the air was clean and crisp, and a soft blanket of snow covered the earth, yet the violets showed through in occasional patches where the snow had melted, and a variety of colors could be seen to enhance the whiteness of the snow. When so very often the wind blew with a keening ferocity, when so many mornings were tinged with gray mist, when so frequently the greens and golds and deep purples of the cliffs and rises were blanketed with clouds and the skies were split with sudden, startling streaks of lightning. L t was, oddly enough for this rugged, stormy part of the country, a beautiful day. ![]() This book made available by the Internet Archive.
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