Chapter 13
Humming quietly to herself, Ilsabeth washed the floor in the entrance hall of Simon’s house.
She was going to have to speak to Simon about hiring a maid to help Old Bega.
Although the woman was strong and healthy, there was too much work for just one woman to do.
MacBean helped but having some girl come in from town every day would make a great deal of difference.
Ilsabeth resolutely silenced the voice that said she would be the one to make such decisions.
Simon had given no indication that she would be.
For the moment, Ilsabeth did not mind working hard and for long hours.
In truth, she welcomed it. When Simon had first captured David, she had been elated.
Common sense told her she had been a fool to have thought capturing the man would put an end to her and her family’s suffering, but she had thought it anyway.
Now, three long days afterward, she was more frustrated than she had been before David had been taken.
Simon was not telling her much except to warn her not to speak of the fact that he held David, and that silence did nothing to help ease her frustration.
She forced herself to look at all the activity that had been going on since Simon had grabbed David right off the streets near the inn where the man had been staying.
Simon’s men were in and out of the house at all hours, running in to speak to him in urgent tones and then disappearing again.
And Simon worked day and night, although he still managed to find the time to make love to her, she thought, and suddenly grinned.
“Ye are happy to be working like some lowly kitchen maid, are ye?”
Ilsabeth’s good humor faded so quickly she was astonished she did not cry out at the abrupt loss.
Instead, she looked up and met the hard gaze of Sir Walter Hepbourn.
There were six of the king’s soldiers with him.
Ilsabeth did not even think. She leapt up, kicked Walter in the knee and then fled to the back of the house.
“Get back here, ye traitorous bitch!”
One quick glance behind her showed Walter signaling to the soldiers to go after her, and then limping along behind them.
When Ilsabeth reached the door to the garden she thought she had made good her escape.
She was not sure where she would go, but Simon’s house was no longer safe for her.
Yanking open the door, she took one step into the garden only to see two of the king’s soldiers running into the garden through the gate.
She turned to go back into the house, thinking there might be a place to hide, but one look inside told her that there was no safety to be found there.
Old Bega and MacBean were trying to hold the soldiers back with a broom and a spade and she feared they would get themselves killed.
A hand closing tightly around her arm reminded Ilsabeth that not all the king’s soldiers were in the kitchen.
She turned so quickly the man had no time to defend himself against the punch she aimed at his nose.
Ilsabeth cursed almost as vehemently as the soldier did when her fist connected with his long nose.
Her hand hurt so badly she was not sure if that cracking noise she had heard as her fist struck the man was her fist or his nose breaking.
“Run, Ilsabeth!” yelled Reid as he leapt onto the back of the second soldier and began to pound on the man’s head with both of his small fists while Elen skipped around kicking the man in the legs.
The soldier she had struck held on to his bleeding nose and moaned.
“Run!” Reid yelled again. “Ye can get to the gate now.”
To use two children to help shield herself felt wrong but Ilsabeth knew she could not risk being taken prisoner.
It was clear to see that the soldiers that Walter had chosen were the kind of men who could not bring themselves to hurt their elders or children for none of her stalwart defenders were hurt yet they were not being so gentle with the soldiers.
On the other hand, those same soldiers were trying to drag her away to be imprisoned and then tried, convicted, and executed.
Ilsabeth knew she had no choices left. Simon would have to clean up the mess she left behind.
That would be far easier for him to do than getting her free of the king’s soldiers and dungeons. She turned and ran for the gate.
“Stop, Ilsabeth!” yelled Walter. “Ye have no say o’er me.” She reached out for the latch on the garden gate. “Oh, aye, I believe I do.”
The icy smugness of his tone sent an abrupt chill of alarm down Ilsabeth’s spine.
Walter sounded very smug indeed and that was never a good thing.
She also noticed that everyone else had gone very quiet.
It was possible the quiet was just everyone waiting to see if she would obey Walter, but she doubted it.
He had some plan he felt certain would bring her to willingly walk into his grasp.
Ilsabeth looked down at her hand on the gate latch and then sighed, turning to look back at Walter.
Her heart leapt up into her throat so quickly she nearly gagged.
A smiling Walter held a wide-eyed Elen with one arm curled around her middle.
In his free hand was a very large, very sharp knife.
It was pressed against the child’s throat.
Ilsabeth was terrified. Elen was too young to understand the need to keep as still as she could.
At any moment Elen could begin to squirm and easily end up with her throat cut.
“ ‘Tis just a bairn, sir,” said one of the soldiers, a big, heavily muscled man who watched Walter and made no attempt to hide his disgust. “I dinnae abide with using a wee bairn to threaten someone.”
“And I cannae abide failure or traitors,” snapped Walter. “This woman killed the king’s cousin and is plotting to kill the king.”
“All by her wee self or are the bairns going to help her?”
“Best ye watch yourself, Gowan. ‘Tis ne’er wise to speak to your betters that way, laddie.”
Ilsabeth chanced a glance at the soldier who so openly disagreed with Walter’s actions.
It was obvious the man was biting down hard on his tongue so that he did not blurt out his opinion of who was the better man.
The other soldiers said nothing but looked as if they agreed with Gowan.
Elen remained remarkably still while a white-faced MacBean stood in the doorway, his gnarled hand patting the shoulder of a weeping Old Bega.
Reid stood utterly still right in front of Walter, his gaze fixed unwaveringly on his sister.
It had to be Reid who was keeping the ever busy Elen so still, Ilsabeth was certain of it, but he could not do it for hours.
“Put her down, Walter,” Ilsabeth said in as cold and calm a voice as she could muster. “The child has done naught to ye. She is no part of all this.”
“We make a trade. Ye for this child. Ye step o’er here and I will set the lass down so that she can run to her brother. If ye keep refusing, I will cut her wee throat.”
“Bastard.”
There was no other choice for her to make.
It was her or Elen. There was something in Walter’s gaze that told her he was not bluffing.
That Walter could even think of killing such a small child just because he did not wish to fight for his prize made Ilsabeth ill.
What had she seen in such a man? A better question might be, how could she have missed this ugly side of him?
Praying that Simon was close to bringing this man to justice, Ilsabeth marched over to him. “Put her down now, Walter. And if there is e’en one drop of blood on her, I will eviscerate you.”
Walter snorted in crude derision of her threat. “Ye? Wheesht, ye havenae got a warrior’s skill or heart, lass.”
He set Elen down. Reid grabbed his sister and ran to MacBean and Old Bega.
Ilsabeth waited until Walter looked at her and then she punched him right in his lovely bright smile.
She heard one of the soldiers mutter that he could have told the fool Ilsabeth would do that and she suspected it was the man she had punched in the nose.
While he stood there trapped by a sense of shock, she took full advantage of it and rammed her knee into his groin.
As Walter fell to his knees retching and moaning in pain, Ilsabeth looked at the soldiers.
They eyed Walter with a man’s sympathy for the pain but little else.
She took a cautious step toward the door.
They all shifted position just enough to keep her trapped in the kitchen.
They might not like Walter or agree with all he did, but they were loyal to the king and she was an accused traitor. There was no escape.
“Ye bitch, ye bitch, ye bitch,” Walter said, his voice growing louder with each word as he staggered to his feet. “God’s tears but I will enjoy watching your execution.”
That scared her nearly witless, but she pushed away the horror of what she might yet face if Simon could not save her in time. “We will see who will watch who die,” she said quietly.
Walter reached for her, but Gowan grabbed her by the arm and yanked her out of the way. “She is the king’s prisoner, sir.”
“Ye are protecting this traitor?” Walter said, glaring at the man.
Gowan did not even blink. “I am holding the king’s prisoner, sir. One the king himself is eager to speak to. I am thinking he would like her to be able to speak. In your anger ye may do something that will prevent that. Shall we go?”
“Ilsabeth,” Reid said, his young voice shaking with the tears she knew he would fight not to shed before all these men.
“Hush, Reid,” she said, and smiled at him. “Ye will be safe here.”
“I will go and fetch Simon.”
“Aye, ye do that, laddie,” said Walter. “He has a few questions to answer. The first being why he was hiding away a woman wanted for treason.”