Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
There was something wrong in this village.
As Briana and Theon walked through the main road of the place, she expected to see children playing, people laughing or shouting or debating, women washing clothes and men arranging deals.
But there was none of that here in this small border village.
She had assumed that the market stall she had seen abandoned would be an exception, but the village's central marketplace was full of empty stalls, and the few that were occupied had very few wares to sell.
The sellers didn't call out, and nobody raised any eyes toward the newcomers that wandered through the town.
"Where are the children?" Briana asked.
Theon didn't answer, but he didn't have to.
Her eyes found them soon enough, but they were not playing or running around between the buildings.
They worked or walked alongside the adults, almost indistinguishable but for their height, their gaunt features making them older than their years.
Villagers of all ages moved slowly in dull roughspun gray and brown clothing, most of it torn and threadbare and unsuitable for the chill of the Highland winds.
Their shoulders were bent, their spirits crushed, and their interest in the world gone.
There was no joy, no excitement, no life.
Theon's smirk had vanished. He led Briana through the empty market and through to the main square of the village, where tattered banners bleached of color fluttered in the wind like ghostly monuments to the festivals that had once flourished here.
An old washerwoman sat at the foot of a large tree, mechanically washing piles of rags, her hands blistered and red from the work.
The buildings around them were damaged, lacking windows or even doors, and those that had once been shops were mostly shuttered or entirely abandoned. Theon held his head high and did not look at Briana, continuing to maneuver her through it all without speaking.
As they passed the washerwoman, Briana could not help herself. She pulled away from Theon, hurrying to the woman's side and said, "Ma'am, excuse me, but yer hands—ye cannae keep workin' with them in such a state. A simple poultice and some bandages will prevent infection."
To her surprise, Theon did not intervene.
He stood back a little, keeping her in his sights, but otherwise simply watched.
The woman looked up with an expression of incredulity, and Briana's heart sank as she realized this was not an old washerwoman at all.
The woman could not have been more than forty, but the exhaustion and hunger that echoed from her made her look twice that age.
"A poultice? Where would I get such a thing?" the woman asked. "Are ye mad?"
Briana blinked. "Surely ye have a local healer or even a herbalist. Anyone who kens how tae work with—"
She laughed, continuing her work, though there was no humor in the laughter.
Bitterness flooded her tone as she said, "Dinnae jest with me, now.
Anyone with such knowledge has long since fled Clowg.
" Her voice was strained and it was hard to hear, but Briana thought she had caught the name of the village.
"They had tae. It isnae like there's coin tae be made here. "
"But—"
"Away an' leave me be," the washerwoman snapped. "Can ye nae see I'm workin'? If I dinnae finish this in time, the soldiers…"
She trailed off, but Briana knew there was no way she would respond to anything else Briana had to say. Though she longed to help more, she reluctantly returned to Theon's side, horrified and confused in equal measure. Theon took her arm more gently this time, and they walked on.
"I dinnae understand," she said finally, once the tree and the woman were out of sight. "These are MacFarlane lands. The people are supposed tae be rich. Prosperous."
Theon barked out a harsh laugh, though its harshness was clearly aimed elsewhere.
"What do MacFarlane or his monstrous whelp care for a failed wee farmin' village at the edge of his holdin's?
" he asked darkly, gesturing around them.
"So long as the castle village flourishes, that's all that matters.
Ye must ken that the border villages in yer own father's lands are the same. "
Briana shivered in a way that had nothing to do with the cold. "Ye're lyin'," she snapped, though there was no conviction to it. "The people are cared for."
"Believe as ye will," he said.
They walked on in silence, Theon brooding and preoccupied, Briana increasingly upset by the sights around her.
These people were suffering, but how was it possible?
Everyone knew that to be a MacFarlane, even the lowest member of the clan, was to be secure.
That security had been part of the reason she'd allowed herself faint hope about her marriage.
How could this village be in such a state?
"What does the village name mean?" she asked after a moment. "Clowg?"
Theon looked down at her and raised an eyebrow. "That's nae its name. It doesnae have a name, nae for at least a generation. And she didnae say Clowg. Did none of yer tutors ever teach ye Gaelic?"
Briana blushed and looked away. Her father had deemed Gaelic a dying language, a symbol of the uneducated that belonged in the past. He had punished her mother at even the suggestion of teaching it to Briana, and so she had been raised only on a mix of Scots and English. "I…"
"It's a nickname of sorts. A dark one. The few who remain here call it Cladh, the graveyard where they wait for the hunger tae take them.
" Theon smiled, but it did not reach his eyes.
"The only ones left are the elderly, the widows, the sick, the punished, those who have naewhere else tae go.
The children born here will likely die here, and likely before they ever have bairns of their own. The village will be gone soon enough."
Nausea boiled inside Briana and tears burned at the corner of her eyes, though none fell. "This cannae… Surely Laird MacFarlane doesnae ken. If—"
Suddenly, unexpectedly, the reedy sound of music played up ahead. Laughter echoed and voices even sang along, and smoke rose from a chimney at the end of the road. Briana stared, even more confused as the heavy scent of roasted meat and vegetables reached them and her stomach growled.
"What…" she started.
Theon's answering grin had a little more of himself in it. "It's an inn, lass. The local tavern. It's the only place in this pit with any life. Surely ye ken that every village must have one."
"But how can that be when there's nae life elsewhere?" Briana asked. "How, why?"
"We're Scottish, Briana, even if these lairds are doin' their best tae forget as much." He pulled her with surprising gentleness in the direction of the inn. "And even the dourest funeral deserves a wake."
They reached the inn and Theon's troubled spirits rose at the jaunty sound of the fiddle inside.
He didn't know this village, but he knew many like it, and he knew the types who gathered in communities even when there was little left to hope for.
These were his people, the people that the Broken Blades fought for.
It didn't matter that they were born into the MacFarlane Clan, nor that they might think him a traitor or a criminal.
They likely didn't even care about the games that the lairds and other nobles played.
All that mattered to them was that they could experience the joy of life even when hope seemed impossible.
The letters burned in Theon's pocket.
This inn would be the perfect place to find a messenger.
He'd just have to allow Briana to distract herself for a few moments, and then it would be done.
But when he glanced down at her parted lips and astonished gaze as she stared through the grimy window into the inn, hesitance hit him like a speeding carriage, so hard it almost caused him to physically stumble.
Why had he brought her here? It had been foolish. What did he hope to achieve? And as for these letters—
His thoughts were torn away as the inn door opened and two armed guards strolled out of the tavern, weapons in hand, the MacFarlane sigil emblazoned on their clothing. Theon felt the blood drain from his face. If they saw him here—and, worse, if they saw her here—it could be the end of them.
He didn't have a moment to think or to warn, and his instincts took over as he grabbed Briana by the arm and yanked her down the alley between the inn and the building beside it.
"What are ye doin'? Let—" Briana snapped, but he raised his hand to cover her mouth, and just in time.
The sound of footsteps echoed on the cobblestones, and Theon's heart hammered in time with them as he realized that they were turning this way, too.
The alley led to a dead end. There was nowhere to go.
Briana protested furiously against his palm, but he cursed, his eyes darting between her and the alley entrance, the soldiers' boots only getting closer.
The first guard turned the corner, and Theon acted.
He shoved Briana hard against the wall. Her eyes widened in panic and she gasped his name, but he did not give her a chance to speak before he pressed his body hard against hers, his hand tearing her skirt away and exposing her thigh.
She let out a sound that was half a whimper, but the soldiers were still coming, and he had no time.
He bent his head, their faces so close that their breath mingled, and his fingers wrapped around her now-bare thigh.
She trembled at his touch and his body shuddered in response as he lifted her leg to wrap around his hip.
"Look what I found," one of the soldiers laughed, sounding so far away now even though Theon knew they stood close.
Theon's forehead pressed against Briana's, and she stared up into his eyes, her lips parted.
He silently begged her not to break the charade.
For a moment, time stood still. His pulse was thundering, his fingers pulsing where they touched her skin, and he saw her cheeks turn pink and her chest heave as her breath quickened.
Then, achingly slowly, she wrapped her arms around him, her eyelids growing heavy as she did.
Theon's resistance crumbled. How could it not, holding her like this? With her looking at him that way?
The threat of the soldiers flew out of his mind, and indeed so did everything else.
All that mattered now was the way she sighed when he gave in and his lips crashed against hers, his fingers tightening around her thigh.
She pulled him closer, yielding to him, her lips and tongue welcoming him, and he responded in kind, growling low in his throat as he pressed harder against her, his whole body on fire.
He was dimly aware of the soldiers retreating, but he did not care.
What did they matter when she moaned against his mouth and her breasts heaved against his chest?
What did he care for anything else when her skin was so soft beneath his fingers and her hands were tangling in his hair with the same desperation that had been torturing him all this time?
Something primal and feral overwhelmed him, and he no longer knew nor cared what was right or wrong.
As he kissed her, and, God, she kissed him back, Theon was neither the exiled heir nor the Broken Blade.
He was just a man, lost and found all at once, overwhelmed by her taste and her scent and her touch.
He wanted, needed, more. He needed her, and the way she writhed against him told him she needed him too.
He growled again and she sighed in response.
His fingers, achingly slowly, crept up her leg, pushing aside the ruined fabric.
She shifted, allowing him, urging him to continue.
He eagerly obeyed, trailing along her skin, until—
He froze. Her smooth skin gave way to sharp ridges he knew too well, raised, uneven slashes that could only be thick scars.
He pulled back just enough to see, and there they were, shining pink and white and angry, poorly healed knife wounds that decorated her skin where nobody could see.
Nobody, that was, until him. The heat vanished, replaced by an icy coldness that wrapped around his heart and his soul.
"Who did this tae ye?"
She blinked out of her daze, a slight confusion on her features until she looked down and saw what he had discovered. Her expression changed and she turned red before shoving him away from her.
"Get off me!" she snapped. "That's none of yer business." She pulled at her ruined skirt, arranging it as best she could to cover her scars and keep herself decent.
"Dinnae—"
She gave him a look that brought reality crashing back down around him, one of resentment and loathing that reminded him who he was—and who she was. "None of yer damned business, Theon," she repeated with an unmistakable cold fury. "Never ask me again. Never touch me again."
She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand as though disgusted, then shoved past him, storming back up the alley and toward the entrance of the inn. Theon let her go, his body tense, the taste of her still on his lips.
He had forgotten himself. He could not allow that to happen again.
But he raised his hand and stared at those fingers that had brushed her thigh as though he could still see the imprint of her scars against them.
Theon knew how to control himself. But how could he control her when she was clearly a very different person from the girl he thought he knew? What secrets hid behind her anger?
It should not matter to him. She should be nothing more than a means to an end. And yet, as he finally followed her out of the alley, he burned with the need for answers that might never come.