Chapter 17 #3
ransom her, but to sell her as a slave. His revenge on me and her
mother would be to let us think her dead the rest of our
lives.”
“You lie,” Rigil spat.
Alina’s father looked over to where Captain
Murtaugh stood with Kerry and Kerwin.
“It’s true,” Murtaugh said. “We were to sail
to the desert lands with Princess Alina, but then she escaped with
Roark.”
“So what?” Rigil sneered. “Even if true, none
of this changes the fact I am laird and Roark a convicted killer,
sentenced to hang for the murder of my son.”
The rage that had been simmering in Alina
since Leif had pulled the hood over her head boiled over. She
quickly closed the distance between her and the man whose twisted
sense of vengeance had caused all of this and stood with her waist
blade to Rigil’s throat before he or anybody else could react.
“Nobody’s going to hang Roark again,” she
growled. “Especially not for the murder of your rapist son. A crime
Roark did not commit.”
She held Rigil’s impotent glare as Han and
Bors stepped to her sides, long swords drawn. Alina smiled. She
could slit Rigil’s throat right here and nobody could stop her. He
certainly deserved to die for all his lies and deceit, for all the
trouble and grief he’d caused.
Roark’s big, familiar hand reached out and he
laid it on her forearm, gently wrapping his fingers around her
wrist. “Don’t do this, my fierce little owl,” he said, his voice
low and steady.
“Why not?” she asked, never taking her eyes
from Rigil’s, which had grown wide with real fear. “He tried to
kill you. To sell me into slavery.”
Roark placed his other hand on Alina’s
shoulder and leaned in so that only she could hear him. “You don't
want the memory of thrusting your blade into his throat haunting
you the rest of your life. In this world, where all our actions
have consequences and repercussions, I need you, Princess Alina,
King Jerrik’s daughter, to trust me on this. I need you to let me,
Roark MacInnes, deal with Roger MacKinnon, laird of North Shore
Keep.”
Alina glanced at Roark. He’d called her
princess and used the other’s titles for a reason. She didn’t know
what that reason was, but she trusted him. She lowered her blade
and wagged the tip at him. “Don’t you dare die on me again.”
Rain eyes poured in hers, filling her with
everything she’d ever felt with or about Roark.
“You should go stand with your parents and
their guard,” he told her.
***
Roark stood to his full height and faced
Rigil and his family. “I did not kill Leif,” he said. He looked to
where Craig and Peg stood like a protective shield around Jenny.
“Did I, Jenny?” he asked, playing a hunch that’d grown stronger
throughout his sham of a trial.
Jenny’s face drained of all color under
Roark’s steady stare, and then it crumpled.
“He, he called me a useless whore,” she
cried. “He, he told me to, to cut him loose. To ma, make myself
useful and su, suck his cock while I was down theeere.”
“So you stabbed him with the scythe,” Roark
said gently.
Jenny glanced wildly about as the crowd’s
whispers grew louder and harsher. “I, I didna mean to,” she said,
holding out her hands and staring blankly at them. “It, it just
happened.”
She broke into sobs and Craig pulled his
daughter into his chest as Peg mumbled and cried into his
shoulder.
“Seize her.” Rigil pointed at Jenny. “Seize
the murdering bitch,” he screamed when his men-at-arms didn’t
move.
“You would kill the child in her womb?” Scott
accused, he the father of a young son he adored. “Your own
grandchild?”
Rigil pulled his long sword. “I’ll deal with
the bitch myself,” he snarled. “And I’ll deal with the four of you
later.”
Roark looked to Logan and made the motion of
grasping a sword. Before Logan could pull his sword, Roark’s father
tossed him his, and Roark’s chest filled with an unfamiliar pride
as he caught it, nodded his thanks, and stepped in front of Rigil,
stopping him in his tracks.
“Rigil Fenrirson,” he said, the half-formed
plan that’d come to him when he’d talked Alina out of slitting
Rigil’s throat spilling out. “I, Roark MacInnes, challenge you for
the lairdship of North Shore Keep.”
Rigil sneered. “What makes you think you have
the right?”
“I am a true-born son of the clans MacKay and
MacInnes,” he said. “Whose people have lived and died on the Green
Isles for a hundred generations. You are a Northman who lied and
cheated his way into a lonely old man’s house and claimed false
kinship.” Rigil said nothing, and Roark continued to make his case.
“How much did you pay the old laird to claim you were his long-lost
nephew?” The crowd began to stir and mutter. “Did you kill Ronald
with the same slow poison your father killed King Jerrik’s brother
with?”
The crowd’s mutterings burst into gasps of
comprehension as Rigil drew himself up to his full height and
haughtiness. “What lies has your Northern whore been filling your
head with?” he hissed.
Behind him, Roark heard the shifting of
stances and angry murmurs. This was his chance to settle this mess
with as little bloodshed as possible. King Jerrik had shown
considerable restraint so far, but it would only last so long. It’d
been the story of how King Jerrik had sealed his rule by killing
Fenrir in a trial by combat that had given Roark the idea to
challenge Rigil for the lairdship.
Though still hale and hearty, Rigil had
twenty and five years on Roark, and weighed two stones less at
least. Roark had kept up his fighting skills, sparring with Leif on
a regular basis, while Rigil had let his skills grow rusty. He was,
however, as crafty as ever. And desperate.
Rigil glanced around at his out-armed,
outnumbered men, who’d shown no interest in coming to his defense.
Especially with twenty heavily armed Northmen at the ready. He
looked at his family, his wife, brother, and daughter, and gave
them a sickly grin. He grasped his long sword with both hands and
dipped his chin to Roark, who did the same. Rigil stepped back on
his heels in a defensive posture and Roark charged him with a
mighty roar, swinging his father’s sword in a wide arc, catching
Rigil under his chin on the uppercut, slicing his throat open.
The square was silent as a grave as Rigil’s
body slumped to the ground in his pooling blood, and then a
high-pitched scream rent the air. “You’ve killed him,” Lynette
shrieked. “You’ve killed the laird.”
His heart pounding in his ears, Roark held
his father’s blood-tipped sword high. “By right of blood and
battle, I claim North Shore Keep.”
“By the gods, you shall not.” Delling charged
Roark with his sword drawn and Roark held a hand out toward King
Jerrik to keep his men from joining the fight as he jumped aside,
avoiding the thrust of Delling’s sword.
Where Rigil had been a plotter and a schemer,
his brother, Delling, had always been blunter and bolder in his
actions, and had kept his fighting skills sharp. As much as Roark
would’ve liked the Northmen’s help fighting Delling, it was
important Roark be the one to defeat him in order to maintain his
claim to the lairdship.
To bring the rest of his plan to fruition, he
had to stay alive.
He met Delling’s attack, blocking and
feinting until Delling began to slow. Tired of being on the
defensive for the past ten years, Roark pressed his attack, raining
blows down on Delling until sweat was pouring down both their
faces. Working to slow his breath as Delling panted, Roark lunged.
Delling stumbled and went down to one knee, gasping for air, the
expression on his face that of a man who knew he was about to
die.
With one last, hard thrust, Roark plunged his
father’s sword into Delling’s breast. “May the gods have mercy on
your soul.”
***
Alina started toward Roark. It was her
mother’s gentle but firm hand that held her back.
“You must wait,” she said. “We are strangers
here. We must let certain things fall out where they may. Where
they must.”
“But what if…” What if the people didn’t
accept Roark as the new laird? What if they did and he was still
expected to marry Gwyneth for the sake of their people, their
families? Would he go along with it to keep the old alliances
intact, or would he fight for Alina and their love? Her mother
squeezed her arm and Alina let her breath out in a ragged sigh.
Roark had asked her to trust him, to let him deal with the clans.
She could do no less than honor his request.
She looked up from her unhappy musings and
caught his gaze. He smiled, slow and easy, and Alina took in a
shaky breath and let it out with a quick smile.
Roark wiped the sweat from his face and
pointed the tip of his father’s sword toward the men-at-arms he’d
given himself up to and ridden back here with. “Scott, Ross, see to
Rigil’s and Delling’s bodies.”
“Aye, Laird Roark.”
“Laird Ronan, Lady Brianna, Laird Bryce, King
Jerrik, Queen Alyssa,” he said. “If you would join me. Niels and
Grant, if you would as well.”
“That’s it?” Lynette screeched. “He kills my
son, my husband, my husband’s brother, and that’s it?”
“Silence, woman,” Laird Ronan commanded, his
voice, his countenance, brooking no argument. “It’s been
established Roark did not kill Leif.” He glared from Lynette to
Myrna. “From this moment on, neither of you have any say in
anything pertaining to the title and lands you and your husbands
took by lies and larceny.”
“What of me?” Gwyneth smiled prettily at
Roark, and Alina glared daggers at the simpering flirt. “I had
nothing to do with any of this. I haven’t forfeited my right to be
Roark’s lady wife.”
Alina took a step forward, ready to grab
Gwyneth by her hair until she confessed her affair with Munroe, but
then she recalled her mother’s wise words and stopped herself as
Roark turned to Gwyneth.
“All will be considered in any decisions
made,” he told her.
He glanced at Alina, his expression
unreadable while her heart was in her eyes. She paced between Han
and Bors as Roark and those he’d asked to join him gathered on the
other side of the gallows, her father’s Northmen maintaining a
loose circle around the edges of the crowd, weapons still drawn and