Knight Triumphant. Heather Graham

to the cell, watching him, holding a large ewer.

      “Where is she?”

      “Several of the women were brought to the solar above,” she told him. As if she had known what he had been about, she approached those who still showed signs of life. She seemed heedless of the scent of rot and the horror that surrounded her. Despite her elegant apparel, she came down to the rushes among the living, her touch careful as she lifted heads to bring water to parched lips.

      He strode to her, catching a handful of her hair to draw her face to his, his intent at the moment not cruel but born of greater desperation. “Where is the solar?”

      “Above. Take the stairs from the great hall, to the tower. There is sun there. Father MacKinley believes the sun may have the power of healing.”

      He still had a handful of ebony hair in his hands. His fingers tightened.

      “Come with me.”

      “If you care nothing for these, your friends—”

      “They are my life’s blood. But my men will be along. They will see that the dead are burned, and that the others are brought from this deadly morass as well.”

      Even as he spoke, he heard footsteps along the stone flooring that led to the cells. James of Menteith and Jarrett Miller had come. The Lady of Langley stood gracefully, yet gritted her teeth. “My hair, sir. I will accompany you with greater facility if you will be so good as to release me.”

      He did so, unaware that he had maintained his death grip upon the black tresses.

      She handed the ewer to James and pointed out where she had brought water, and what survivors remained. She stepped carefully around the prone Scots upon the floor and left the bars, her footsteps silent upon the stone where the men’s heavier tread had created a clatter. Eric nodded to James, who inclined his head in return, then followed after the Lady of Langley.

      Once returned to the hall, he found that they traveled up a staircase amazing in its breadth for such a fortified castle. Though this stronghold had been built to repel an enemy, some resident had taken pains to turn the place into more of a manor. The stairway he followed was not stone, but intricately carved wood. It led to a second landing with a long hallway and doors where the lady did not pause, but continued on to a smaller staircase. There, arrow slits lined the stone and she passed them all, coming to a large room filled with daylight. Makeshift beds littered the space, and light from a break in the ceiling seemed to cast a ray of hope over those who lay there. A priest moved among the beds, a young slender man in the black garment of his calling. He seemed surprised to see his lady at the doorway, and called to her with a frown. “Igrainia, you were to be away from all this!” he chastised.

      She stepped inside. “This is Sir Eric, Father MacKinley,” she said, and walked into the room, approaching a bed. Eric nodded to the priest and followed Igrainia.

      He fell to his knees by the pallet; he had found Margot at last. She seemed to be sleeping. No boils or poxes appeared to mar the beauty of her face. Yet as he touched her face, it was as if he touched flame. He saw where the boils had grown upon a collarbone and on her neck, and he was tempted to weep.

      He stared up at Igrainia of Langley. “Save her,” he commanded.

      She found water and brought it to Margot’s side and began to bathe her forehead.

      “Where is my daughter?” he asked.

      “Your daughter?” said the priest.

      “My child. Aileen. Young, blond hair, pale, soft as silk.”

      There was a silence from the priest.

      “My daughter, man! There were not so many young children among our number!”

      The priest nodded. “The little angel,” he murmured. “Sir, God has taken her.”

      He rose from his wife’s side, pain a blinding arrow through his heart. He approached the priest like a madman, tempted to take him by the throat and crush flesh and bone. Some sense delayed him from his purpose, and he paused before the man, who had not flinched. Eric stood before him, fists clenching and unclenching, muscles taut and straining.

      “Where is her body?”

      “Yonder room,” the priest said quietly. “We meant to do her honor in death.”

      “You knew I would come and kill you,” Eric said in a bitter breath.

      “She was a child, and beloved by all. What fear have we of violent death, of murder, when we work here?” the priest replied, and even in his madness, Eric knew it was true.

      “You,” he said, pointing to the priest, “you will bring me to my child. And you,” he said, pointing at Igrainia, “you will bring Margot to a room alone, and you will spend your every moment seeing that she breathes. If she ceases to do so . . .”

      He let his voice trail.

      “What of the others?” the lady asked.

      “We are here now. And we will drop down in death ourselves before we let our kindred lie in rot and die without our care. Ready a chamber for my lady wife. Nay, the master’s chamber. See that she is surrounded by the greatest possible comfort. Priest, now you will take me to my daughter.”

      The priest led him quickly from the solar, opening the door to a small room in the hall just beyond. There, on a long wooden storage cabinet, lay the body of his daughter.

      For a moment he couldn’t move.

      He felt the priest at his back.

      “There is comfort in knowing that she rests with our Lord God in Heaven—” the man began.

      “Leave me!” Eric said sharply.

      The door closed behind him instantly.

      He walked forward, forcing his feet to move. He looked down upon Aileen’s face, and his knees sagged beneath him and tears sprang to his eyes. He swallowed and reached out for her. Her poor little body was cold. He cradled her against him as if he could warm her, smoothing his long, calloused fingers through the infinitely fine tendrils of her hair. Aileen, with her laughter and her smile and her innocence of the cruelty of the world around her. Aileen, with her little arms outstretched to him, calling him, each time he had been away, her little footsteps bringing her to him. And he would bend down and scoop her into his arms, and she would cup his face in her hands and kiss his cheek and say his name again with such sweet trust that he knew that the world itself was worth saving, that freedom was worth fighting for . . .

      Innocence, trust beauty . . . dead. The sun had gone out of the world.

      This time, when his knees failed him, he fell to the floor, cradling her lifeless form in his arms.

      Alone among the sick in the solar, Igrainia looked about with dismay. Among the Scots seized and still living, there was an older woman with long, graying hair. She would survive, Igrainia thought. Her boils had broken, and she was breathing still. The pestilence here was as strange as death itself; this woman had lived many years; she appeared frail and weak. Yet she would survive.

      Another younger woman seemed to slip away as Igrainia bathed her forehead. The two others in the room were young as well, both still holding on. Igrainia lowered her head to the chest of one, and heard that the rattle had left her breathing; she, too, would survive. And the other . . .

      “Water!” came a desperate and pathetic whisper.

      “Carefully, carefully,” Igrainia warned, holding the woman’s head. She was, perhaps, twenty, almost as light as Margot. Igrainia forced her to drink slowly, then nearly dropped her head back to the pallet as a cry suddenly seemed to rip through the stone walls. It was more than a cry, more like a howl of fury, despair and anguish. It was like the sound of a wolf, lifting its head, giving a shattering curse upon heaven itself, and she knew that the Scotsman had seen his daughter.

      She looked up at a sound in the doorway and saw her maid,