LITMIR.BIZ

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      “You will,” he said simply. “Or I will break you, bone by bone, until you do so.”

      “There is plague there, you idiot!”

      “My wife is there, and my daughter,” he told her.

      “They are all dead or dying within the castle!”

      “So you run in fear!” he said contemptuously.

      “No! No,” she raged, struggling to free herself again. Afraid? Of the plague? She was afraid only of life without Afton now.

      Not quite true, she realized. She was afraid of this man who would carry out his every threat, and break her. Bone by bone. She had never seen anyone so coldly determined.

      “I am not afraid of the plague for myself!” she managed to snap out with an amazing tone of contempt.

      “Good. We will go back, my fine lady, and you will dirty your hands with caring for those who are ill. You will save my wife, if she is stricken, or so help me, you will forfeit your own life.”

      Dirty her hands? He thought she was afraid to dirty her hands after the days and nights she had been through?

      Her temper rose like a battle flag, and she spat at him. “Kill me then, you stupid, savage fool! I have been in that castle. Death does not scare me. I don’t care anymore. Can you comprehend that? Are such words in your vocabulary?”

      She gasped as he stood, wrenching her to her feet.

      “If my wife or my daughter should die because of the English king’s cruelty against the innocent, my lady, you are the one who will pay.”

      “My husband is dead because of the sickness brought in by your people!” she cried, trying to wrench her arm free. She could not. She looked at the hand vised around her arm. Huge, long-fingered, covered in mud and earth and . . .

      Blood.

      His grip seemed stronger than steel. Not to be broken. She stood still, determined not to tremble or falter. His face was as muddied and filthy as his hand and tangled blond hair. Only those sky blue eyes peered at her uncovered by the remnants of battle, brilliant and hard.

      He either hadn’t heard her, or he didn’t give a damn. His command of language seemed to be excellent, so she assumed it was the latter.

      “Hear me again. If my wife dies, my lady, you will be forfeit to the mercy of the Scottish king’s men.”

      “Mercy? There is no mercy to be had there.”

      “At this point? Perhaps you are quite right. Therefore, you had best save my wife.”

      “I, sir, have no difficulty doing anything in my power to save the stricken, though I can assure you—their lives are in God’s hands, and no others. I was forced to leave Langley. I did not go of my own volition.”

      He arched a brow skeptically. “You were willing to serve the plague-stricken and dying?”

      “Aye, I would have stayed there willingly. I had no reason to leave.”

      “You are the lady of Langley.”

      “Indeed.”

      He didn’t seem to care why she would have stayed.

      “Then, as you say, it will be no hardship for you to return.”

      “Where I go, or what is done to me, does not matter in the least.”

      “You will save my wife, and my child.”

      She raised her chin.

      “As I have told you, and surely you must understand, their lives are in God’s hands. What, then, if I cannot save them?”

      “Then it will be fortunate that you seem to have so little care for your own life.”

      He shoved her forward.

      With no other choice, Igrainia walked.

      Yet her heart was sinking.

      If your wife is among the women stricken, then I am afraid that she has already died! Igrainia thought.

      Because she had lied. She had thought herself immune to fear when she left Langley. Immune to further pain. Now, she was discovering that she did fear for her life, that there was something inside her that instinctively craved survival.

      She wanted to live.

      But if she failed, so he proclaimed, he would break her. That was certainly no less savage than the commands given by Edward in regard to the wives and womenfolk of any man loyal to Robert the Bruce.

      Break her. Bone by bone.

      It was all in God’s hands. But maybe this filthy and half-savage man, no matter how articulate, didn’t comprehend that.

      “I will save your wife and child, if you will give me a promise.”

      “You think that you can barter with me?” he demanded harshly.

      “I am bartering with you.”

      “You will do as I command.”

      “No. No, I will not. Because you are welcome to lop off my head here and now if you will not barter with me.”

      “Do you think that I will not?”

      “I don’t care if you do or do not!”

      “So the lord of Langley is dead!” he breathed bitterly.

      “Indeed. So you have no power over me.”

      “Believe me, my lady, if I choose, I can show you that I have power over you. Death is simple. Life is not. The living can be made to suffer. Your grief means nothing to me. It was the lord of Langley who imprisoned the women and children.”

      She shook her head. “You’re wrong! So foolishly wrong! What care they received was by his order. Those who will live will do so, because he commanded their care. And he is dead because of the wretched disease brought in by your women and your children.”

      “None of this matters!” he roared to her.

      She ignored his rage, and the tightening vise of his fingers around her arm.

      She stared at his hand upon her, and then into his eyes, so brilliantly blue and cold against the mud-stained darkness of his face.

      “I will save your wife and child, if you will swear to let your prisoners live.”

      Again, he arched a brow and shrugged. “Their fates matter not in the least to me; save her, and they shall live.”

      She started forward again, then once more stopped. She had spoken with contempt and assurance. A bluff, a lie. And now, her hands were shaking. “What if I cannot? What if it has gone too far? God decides who lives and dies, and the black death is a brutal killer—”

      “You will save them,” he said.

      They had reached his horse, an exceptionally fine mount. Stolen, she was certain, from a wealthy baron killed in battle. He lifted her carelessly upon the horse, then stared up at her, as if seeing her, really seeing her, perhaps for the first time.

      “You will save them,” he repeated, as if by doing so he could make it true.

      “Listen to me. Surely, you understand this. Their lives are in God’s hands.”

      “And yours.”

      “You are mad; you are possessed! Only a madman thinks he can rule a plague. Not even King Edward has power over life and death against such an illness. Kings are not immune, no man, no woman—”

      “My wife and child must survive.”

      He had no sense, no intellect, no reason!

      “Which of the women is your wife?” she asked. She wondered if she could kick his horse, and flee. She was in

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