Chapter Three
Rain had been falling since dawn, thin and cold and steady, the sort that did not strike hard enough to be called a storm, but found every seam in a man’s clothing all the same.
By late morning, the road had become little more than a churned track of brown water and sucking mud, bordered on one side by low, wind-gnarled trees and on the other by a long fall of rough ground hidden beneath bracken and mist.
Bram MacCailin kept walking, his eyes scanning the terrain, ever watchful.
Another day of marching. Another step closer to York, and to the royal justice he’d been promised.
He glanced at the other eleven Scotsmen, all shackled in pairs just as he was.
The officer, de Wycliffe, had been clever enough to chain the strong to the weak.
A man couldn’t run far dragging another who could barely walk.
At the moment, the chain between his wrist and the wrist of the man beside him jerked hard.
Bram caught him before he fell.
David Kerr made a wet, broken sound that might have been apology, or prayer, or nothing at all. His knees folded, and for three stumbling paces Bram took most of his weight, one arm clamped beneath the man’s shoulder while the iron cuff bit into the raw skin around Bram’s wrist.
“Walk,” Bram said under his breath.
Kerr tried—that was all there was to say about him now. He tried.
Bram had learned enough about the lad at Richmond House to know he was no warrior.
He was a second son, meant for the church, who’d been stirred by Wallace’s words and joined the resistance against his father’s wishes.
The English had broken his body for it, and now, with the fever that had come yesterday, they had finally broken his will.
Bram suspected they’d stopped torturing him after he’d surrendered whatever he might have known about Wallace’s position, or what last he’d known.
The lad hadn’t said as much, but Bram had by now figured out the routine, who they targeted, and who they gave up on.
He didn’t hold the lad accountable, and in truth, didn’t think it mattered much, whatever Kerr might have told his captors.
By now the information was months old, and likely of little use to the English.
Not every man could withstand their methods. Bram himself had come perilously close to breaking, wanting only for the pain to end. But he had given his name—MacCailin—loudly and proudly when they’d captured him. He’d vowed he’d dishonor it by surrendering secrets that were not his.
Bram shoved Kerr upright, propelling him forward.
Ahead, one of the mounted guards turned in his saddle. “Keep moving.”
Bram bent his head against the rain and put one foot in front of the other.
His gaze tracked past the other prisoners to the guards.
De Wycliffe, as usual, stayed near the front where the road was open.
Farther back, the yellow-bearded lad was already nodding off in his saddle, hours before the noon halt.
Bram’s eyes settled on the thickset one in boiled leather, the one whose cudgel always moved faster than his thoughts.
Kerr stumbled again, and this time Bram was too slow to catch him cleanly.
The chain snapped taut, wrenching Bram’s arm so sharply that pain flashed through his shoulder, hot and white beneath the cold.
He clenched his teeth, though he made no sound.
He had learned weeks ago that pain offered nothing useful when given voice, but only invited his captors to compound it.
Kerr dropped to one knee, and then, seemingly giving up all hope—or life itself—collapsed onto his back, forcing Bram down beside him.
A guard cursed and rode close enough that his horse’s tail briefly swished against Bram’s shoulder.
“Up with him,” the guard spat, his hand moving to the cudgel at his belt. “I said up.”
Bram winced and got his free hand beneath Kerr’s arm, trying to haul him upright.
“On your feet,” Bram commanded.
The lad whispered brokenly, something incoherent.
“Up, move.” Bram urged. “Jesu, do not give them reason to inflict more pain,” he hissed close to the lad’s ear.
He tried again to drag him upright, but Kerr was now dead weight, having passed out.
The entire party had stopped by now. The line bunched and shifted, men cursing beneath their breath as rain poured from helmets, hoods, and bare heads alike. Bram stole glances upward, gauging the patience—or lack thereof—of the nearest guards.
Another Englishman appeared beside the cudgel-wielding brute, come to inspect what held them up.
“He can go nae farther,” Bram informed him.
The guard looked down at the slumped prisoner, then at Bram, then toward the officer ahead. “He’ll go as far as the rest of us,” he said caustically, beckoning to De Wycliffe with a wave.
“He’ll die in the road,” Bram assured him.
The guard’s mouth twisted. “One more dead Scot will only make the day less miserable.”
Bram bit back a reply. Rage was a blade, his father had taught him—useless to draw it unless you meant to cut deep.
He did suggest, however, “Give him space in the wagon.”
De Wycliffe rode back through the rain, cloak dark and heavy around his shoulders. He was a wide-faced man with pale eyes and a trimmed beard, too careful to be cruel for sport, but not opposed to cruelty if he thought it would serve him more swiftly.
“What delays us?”
“This one is failing,” said the guard.
Bram frowned down at Kerr, at how still he lay just now. Shite.
He laid his palm over the lad’s narrow chest, but felt not even the smallest movement.
He’d never supposed the lad would survive the march to York but hadn’t suspected he’d go this soon—Kerr had been walking only moments ago.
Bram bent lower, laying his ear over Kerr’s heart, but neither heard nor felt anything.
When he straightened, still on one knee, he met the officer’s gaze, shaking his head.
The officer glanced once at the dead Scot, and shrugged.
“Then he has saved us the rope.” He stared a moment longer at Kerr’s body, his mouth twisting in thought.
“Unfasten them,” he ordered. “Secure him”—he nodded toward Bram—”to the Jedburgh oaf.
” With that, he turned his horse and returned to the front of the line.
The guard who favored the cudgel sighed and dismounted, and knelt in the mud beside Kerr’s body, muttering beneath his breath as he sorted through the ring of keys hanging from his belt.
The closest guard dismounted as well and caught Bram by the upper arm.
Bram stood perfectly still, letting the Englishman keep his grip.
His eyes lifted from Kerr, darting over the halted column.
They’d stopped upon a gradual rise, having just crossed a stone bridge perhaps thirty or forty yards back.
Below it, the burn churned white and violent, disappearing into a thick tangle of woods on the far side.
The banks were steep, too steep for horses.
Cudgel Man finally found the correct key and fitted it into the lock around Kerr’s wrist. It resisted at first, clogged with mud and rust, but finally gave way with a dull click. The cuff fell open, and the guard drew Kerr’s limp arm free, letting it fall without care to the ground.
For the first time in three days, nothing tugged at Bram’s right arm.
He’d imagined escape a hundred times these past months, but had never been presented with the right opportunity. This one might not be perfect, but it was the best he’d known until now.
“Bring the Jedburgh prisoner,” Cudgel Man said as he stood, to the guard at Bram’s back, his tone suggesting he should have already done this.
Just as the man behind him stepped away, Bram moved before reason had the chance to argue.
He faced Cudgel Man, who held the open iron cuff two feet in front of him.
Before the eejit knew what hit him, Bram had driven the heel of his hand beneath the guard’s jaw.
The lout staggered backward with a cry, releasing the empty cuff, and Bram did not wait to see whether he fell but began to run immediately.
Shouts erupted behind him, and boots and hooves pounded through the mud.
Bram fixed his eyes upon the bridge.
His legs felt heavier than iron, each stride a fresh agony for his bruised ribs. He pumped his arms, and his old shoulder injuries screamed in protest. Three months ago, he would have already been at the bridge; now he moved as if trapped in a bad dream, his body only half as fast as his will.
He flipped his hand forward and caught the dangling empty cuff, knowing it was disrupting his gait and speed to some degree, and that every second mattered.
In front of him, a figure stepped suddenly from the shelter of the trees bordering the bridge, still fastening his belt with one hand as he turned in surprise. The fellow had evidently wandered only a few paces from the column to relieve himself during the delay.
Their eyes met, and in truth, the young guard recovered first, throwing himself directly into Bram’s path.
He crashed into the young guard with all the strength he had left.
The force exploded through his own battered body, his ribs flaring with blinding pain.
For one terrifying instant, he thought he would fall, that he’d overestimated what remained of his strength.
But then he was driving the Englishman backward, roaring, pushing him against the low stone parapet of the bridge until the man lost his footing.
Bram thrust him aside and downward, then raced for the middle of the bridge, for the deep water below.
Without a single glance backward, even as he expected at any moment he might be struck down by an arrow, Bram reached the center and planted his free hand on the stone, hoisting himself over the parapet in the next second.
It was done clumsily—he didn’t fully clear the stone, his bare foot catching on the edge so that he was turned head over heels and plummeted face down fifty feet, arms flailing.