Chapter 18
Fergus gave a low growl, tried to rise on his weak legs, but yelped pitiably and sagged back on the ground, still emitting a long, feral growl.
She was too frightened to move and waited for her eyes to adjust to the dark.
Overhead the wind began to howl and the trees creaked and rocked.
Red coals from the dying fire cast the sword tip before her eyes as deep a red as the fires of hell, and Glenna looked up slowly along the length of the sword’s blood gutter.
Above her, his teeth shone white in the dark and the sudden flare of a torch limned him from behind. He moved the sword tip to her neck and pressed hard enough that she dared not move and barely breathed.
“I could kill you here and now,” he said, and she felt the tip cut slightly.
She stifled a cry.
Someone waved another torch and a pair of bats shrieked and flew down from the roof, drifted menacingly over the heads of the men then out the wide open door.
Torchlight hit his face. Above her stood the devil himself, the one man she never wanted to see again.
Looking down at her was the deadly, cruel face of Munro the Horrible.
“You are a fool, poaching from the manor of the sheriff?” he said.
She was frozen in terror, but desperately tried not to show it.
He was a squat, thick man with long and powerful arms, large hands, an expression of evil…and the coldest eyes she had ever encountered. He pressed the sword even deeper.
Unable to stop herself, she sucked in a breath at the pressure of the sword tip.
“Nothing to say? Someone must have cut out your tongue. Hmmm…” He rubbed his bearded chin.
“I can speak.”
“Ah, so you can, lad,” he said pensively, staring at the chicken bones next to the fire and what was left of the few vegetables she had roasted.
“Perhaps I will cut out your tongue before I cut off your hand or I could choose to hang you. I have options. However, I have found there is nothing better to dissuade others and save our game from greedy hands than a body hanging off the gates.”
Fergus growled ominously.
Munro pulled back his sword and quickly turned to his men. “Take this thieving fool who sleeps so easily after feasting on my birds. The lad is under arrest.” He sheathed his weapon and turned away to walk from the shed.
Two men jerked her up by her arms, Fergus acted up again, and while one tied her hands behind her back and the other called out to Munro. “What should we do with the hound?”
Glenna didn’t breathe. Do not kill him…please do not.
The sheriff turned and gave Fergus a cursory glance.
Her poor dog lay on his side, the arrow sticking out of him, his black lips curled and his long canine teeth bared at Munro.
“Leave him. He will be fortunate to last another day.”
Glenna exhaled the breath she’d been holding at the same time the truth of his words struck deeply into her heart. She looked at Fergus as the sheriff's henchmen each grabbed an arm and dragged her from the shed. Fergus tried to rise again, viciously growling.
“No, Fergus!” she shouted. “Stay! Stay…”
Outside, the fire from the torches lit the small clearing, where their horses were gathered.
They had not found her horse. Skye was tied deeper into the south side of the woods, where there was grass and she would not be seen.
They stopped next to a large bay and one of the men tossed her up in front of the saddle and mounted behind her, warning, “Do not think ye to escape, lad. ‘Tis a far way down to the ground and Thor’s hooves will crush your bones.”
Glancing towards the shed, she could barely make out the silhouette of her hound lying by the dying fire, then the men all closed in around and with Munro leading, they rode down into the darkness of the trees.
No one spoke as they rode and time passed tree by tree, the only sound that of their horses hooves on the leaves and twigs covering the floor of the forest. The sudden wind had calmed down to a occasional gust high in the treetops.
Whenever there was a break in the forest, she could see a few stars hanging high in the sky.
The moon was gone, and the path ahead and behind them dark.
She was numb with fear, contemplating her fate.
For a fleeting moment she wondered where Montrose was. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine his face, and absorbed deeply all of her regrets.
She didn't know how long it took to reach their destination--back to the manor on the hillside. She was panicked and lost in thought, but it was still dark outside when she caught a glimpse through the open shutters of the setting moon. There was no wind, no rain, just quiet. She stood before the sheriff in a chamber inside the stone and timber manor hung with tapestries. Logs crackled from a blazing fire burning in the huge stone hearth and the flames reflected on the stone floors. Iron lanterns with thick, sweet-smelling candles spread warm amber light down from iron hooks in the walls, and a bowl filled with fruit next to a plank with dark bread and cheese sat waiting on a table next to Munro’s huge carved chair.
He studied her silently over the rim of a large silver wine goblet trimmed with jewels she would have loved to show off to her brothers.
She stood quietly still, taking long deep breaths to quell her fears and mask her weaknesses, like her sudden urge to cry at the sweet images of her brothers.
Would they hear what happened to her? Would she hang?
Or would they wonder about her and think of her living in the king’s castle as his lost daughter, not a thief hung or maimed.
She thought of what he had done to poor Ruari.
Munro rose from his chair and slowly walked toward her, sword in his hand and he lifted her tunic with the blade, touched the ties on her trouse with the sword tip. “I wonder how repentant you can be?”
She dared not breathe.
“How much do you wish to live lad?” He touched her face and she wanted to wretch. “No sign yet of a beard,” he laughed.
His pleasure was for young lads. Her mind raced toward a single idea—a great risk but her only chance. She stepped away and shook her head violently, until her hat fell forward and her long braid cascaded down.
She could see his reaction in those icy eyes.
He grabbed the neck of her tunic and ripped it to reveal her breast bindings.
“I am no lad,” she said defiantly.
“I can see that," he paused. "I know you. You're the horsethief."
"I am not."
He waited a heartbeat or two and spun around. “Jock!” he called out to one of his men, who came rushing inside. It was the stocky, red-haired guardsman who had lifted her into the saddle and had been dragging her all about.
“Look what we have here. What do you think?” Munro asked him. “Would you care for this wench?”
The man eyed her as if she were covered in honey.
Oh lud! She fumbled to lace her tunic closed.
Munro was watching her reaction and he began to laugh. “Give us your name, lass.”
“Rot in hell!” she spat.
He only laughed more but his eyes…his eyes bespoke murder before he turned and walked away. “I believe you will serve as a grand incentive for my men.”
"I am Glenna Canmore," she said. "I am the king's daughter."
He was still as a rock, then he laughed loud and hard. "Aye. The king's daughter...a horsethief. A lying horsethief." He picked up his goblet of wine and drank, leaving his words to do their work.
"I am Glenna Canmore."
"You aren't even a good liar. The king has no daughter, or son." He set down his the goblet and said, “Lock her in the pit cell.”
The man set his hands on her shoulders.
“And do not stop for your own pleasure, Jock. I will check on her.”
His man angrily pulled her from the chamber, shoving her down narrow hallway with his hands on her buttocks, stopping to squeeze and fondle her, and she stumbled away and hit the wall.
He pinned her with his body, pressing his hips against her.
“I can give you this. Munro will never know.” He forced his fetid mouth on her and bit at her lips. “I can ride hard and long, wench.”
She wanted to fight. She want to knee him. She wanted to wretch. He would no more believe who she was than Munro had so she pressed her chest to his and said breathily, “Wait. He will catch us.” Like a hungry tavern maid, she licked her lips provocatively.
He bought it and seemed to think she had a point and dragged her by the arms once again into another room, an interior room most likely toward the rear of the manor, with four rounded stone walls dotted with lit candle pricks.
She thought he would ravish her and looked for some kind of weapon as she backed away from him and the hungry look in his dark eyes. Her leg hit something and she looked behind her.
Then she saw an open trap door in the ground. She looked down into a small and narrow black hole and panic hit her. The pit cell. She turned back to him. “Please. Wait. Do not put me in there…please.”
He paused thoughtfully, as if he might actually give in. His hand went between his legs, massaging suggestively the weight of his genitals. “I will give you this when I come back…later.” He grabbed her by the hair. “You can suckle me…hard.”
Suckle him? Oh God… He meant…. And before she could quite comprehend, he shoved her down inside the pit and slammed the trap door.
Damp dirt crumbled down from above her into her hair and face.
“Come back!” she shouted, panicked. “Come back!”
Overhead she heard the bolt slide closed and the distant, muted sound of his footsteps.
Glenna blinked, trying to make her eyes adjust. The pit was dark as a rook’s feathers.
She touched the walls, which were jagged stone and hard clay-like soil.
Raising her arms, or even her elbows, was not possible.
She had perhaps only a hand’s breadth on each side from her shoulders to the walls.
It was as if she were being buried alive.