The Warrior Read online

  They reached the door. Agnes gave Tilda a stern look as she flattened a hand to her chest, heaved in a deep breath, then blew it out. “Remember—threaten them with their lives if yer husband isna offered the food. Make them think what lies in these baskets is forbidden to them. No man can resist the forbidden.”

  Tilda nodded and took the lead, pushing into the wardhouse. This would work. She refused to consider otherwise. Praying the pounding of her heart wouldn’t be heard by any other than herself, she clutched the basket tighter and strode forward with determination and hope.

  A heavy man, gray of beard and hair, sat at the desk in the center of the long, narrow room. His appearance strengthened Tilda’s resolve. From the looks of him, he’d not missed many a meal.

  With a loud sniff as though she’d been weeping, Tilda marched her way up to the desk and plunked her heavy basket down on it.

  The man lifted his gaze first to the basket, then to Tilda. “Aye?”

  With as quivering a voice as she could muster, she patted the handle of her basket, then motioned for Agnes to set hers on the desk beside it. “Duncan MacCoinnich. My husband.” She paused for effect, shuddering with a hitching sigh. Nerves on edge or not, she must appear a soon-to-be grieving widow.

  “Aye?” the man repeated in a bored tone, rising from his seat to peer into the baskets. He made to reach into Tilda’s, then jumped back when she slapped him on the wrist.

  “This is not for the likes of ye!” she said in an insulted tone. “Tomorrow, ye hang my husband. This final meal is for him. Prepared it with me own two hands, I did. ’Tis the least I can do for my poor, lost man to ease him on his way.” She pressed a fist to her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut, milking free a few fake tears. Well, maybe not so fake; if this plan failed, Duncan would hang.

  The guard gave her a look as though he felt her a liar. He flicked a hand toward both the baskets. “All this? For him alone?”

  “Aye!” Tilda said with a shrillness she’d once heard Auntie Moira use on a customer in the pub. “Him alone, ye understand? No one else, or a curse be upon ye and all yer kin. How dare ye think I would provide food and drink for the bastards set to kill my man.” She settled a hand on each of the baskets with a hard smack. “I forbid this to ye, understand? ’Tis for Duncan MacCoinnich alone!”

  The guard gave Tilda a disgusted look and took hold of both the baskets.

  Tilda stopped him with a rapping smack across his knuckles. “Duncan MacCoinnich only, mind ye! A curse on ye all if he fails to get every drop and crumb held within these two baskets.”

  The man pointed at the door leading to the street. “Aye. A curse, ye said that already. On wi’ ye now. Be gone.” He scooped up the baskets, then tossed a mean smile back over his shoulder as he kicked open the door behind his desk. “When he stretches the rope tomorrow, be certain and watch close. He’ll shite and piss every bit a what ye sent in these two baskets here today. Then ye’ll know well enough he received yer precious gift of tasties.”

  As he disappeared into the corridor and the door slammed shut behind him, Tilda hazarded a side glance at Agnes. “I hope they dinna give any of that to Duncan. Reckon I shouldha left off the threat of a curse?” she whispered.

  “Nay, lass.” Agnes smiled. “Ye played it perfect.”

  *

  He had been here over a sennight and still had no idea how to extricate himself from within these walls. Duncan snorted out a frustrated, bitter breath. If he didn’t come up with something soon, his release would happen all right—at the end of a rope. He shuffled back and forth across the dirt floor, going only so far as the chain shackled to his ankle allowed. The Aberdeen Tolbooth took no chances. They not only held the prisoners behind heavy doors reinforced with iron bars across their cells, they chained them to the thick stone walls of the gaol. Duncan couldn’t recall a single successful escape from the wardhouse. This was definitely one of the more difficult places in which he had landed himself.

  A deeper rage bolstered his weariness as he peered through the gloom of the poorly lit room. It had been wise of them to make sure his chain to the wall was short. Along with two others of which he’d not bothered to learn their names, Gildercutty and Corsbett shared the cell with him. If the length of his chain had been a little longer, he would have snapped those bastards’ necks by now. Everyone but Duncan sat on the floor with their backs to the wall. Their heads sagged forward in the despondent pose of the damned.

  The thick oak door separating the block of cells from the rest of the jail swung open. Its heavy hinges groaned out a rasping, jeering note, taunting the prisoners with the freedom they couldn’t have. Two guards pushed into the room, toting a ramshackle table between them. They set it down just out of arm’s reach of the wall of bars, taking care to position it in front of Duncan’s section. Both guards glanced his way and laughed.

  Duncan drew as close to the bars as his chain allowed. He was set to die tomorrow. What wickedness did the bastards plot for tonight? He pulled in a deep breath of the fetid air and stoked his determination and courage. The guards had already split open his back with the lash and closed his left eye with a cudgel. He had no doubt that whatever they planned now was just as cruel. Men slated to die at Aberdeen soon discovered the gaolers considered them a way to pass the time. When the time came to dangle from the noose, the men were glad of it to escape the jailers’ cruel games.

  Two more guards joined their comrades at the table. Another man, the one Duncan recognized as the captain, entered bearing a basket in either hand. The man plunked the goods on the table, then all five lined up behind the baskets and faced Duncan, malicious glee emanating from each of them.

  “Yo, there! MacCoinnich.” The captain jerked his chin upward in Duncan’s direction. He waved his hands across the baskets. “Look what treats yer wife brought ye for yer last meal.”

  Duncan didn’t bother to reply. He knew full well he’d never receive what the baskets held, but the thought of Tilda coming to the jail gave him hope. A hope that something good awaited on the horizon. He hadn’t known the Mackenzies long, but he knew them well enough to realize Tilda would never bring him a last meal and leave it at that. The Mackenzies were fighters, and they never gave up. Both Matheson and his daughter had sworn to gain his freedom. This had to be part of a plan.

  The captain pulled four bottles from the one basket and lined them up on the table. He looked up and gave Duncan a wink. “Far too much here for one man. Hell’s bells, ye’d be fair blootered and couldna walk yer arse to the gallows if we gave ye all this!” His sadistic chuckle rumbled across the room. “And here at Aberdeen, we dinna carry our prisoners to the rope. We make ye walk under yer own steam.”

  Duncan folded his arms across his chest and lifted his chin, projecting as much defiance as he could muster. He’d not give them the satisfaction of any sign of weakness. “So, I’m guessing ye’ll be enjoying what my wife meant for me?”

  The captain nudged the guard next to him and all the men laughed. “Smart one, eh?”

  The guard on the end reached for a bottle, but the captain stopped him. “Hold now. Not so fast. We must show Master MacCoinnich the rest of the lovely delicacies his wife prepared.” With flamboyant, exaggerated motions, the captain piled the table full of neatly tied linen bundles. “Well, well. Such a banquet we have here, boys. Shall we feast?”

  “Aye!” the guards said in unison. One grabbed up a bottle, bit free the cork, and held it up in the air. “But first, a toast.”

  “Aye, a toast,” agreed the captain. He took hold of another bottle and relieved it of its cork. “To Master MacCoinnich’s wife—devoted woman that she is!”

  “To his wife!” the guard echoed, taking a long healthy swig, then passing the bottle to the next man.

  Duncan swallowed hard and grit his teeth, praying Tilda had something planned.

  The middle guard bit into a bannock. The softened cheese and jam squirted free of the bread and dripped down his chin. He swiped t
he back of his hand across his mouth and held it up for Duncan to see. “By my soul, yer wife’s one hell of a cook! Be she as good in bed?” He stuffed another bite into his mouth.

  By now, the other prisoners had lifted their heads to watch the gluttonous display. A thin gruel was provided once a day at Tolbooth—whenever the guards remembered. The man shackled nearest to Duncan struggled to his feet and smacked his fist into the center of Duncan’s raw, tattered back. “Damn ye,” he rasped.

  Duncan swung and cuffed him back to the wall where the man collapsed to the floor and started weeping. Poor bastard. Due to hang for thievery. Resting a hand to the grittiness of the stone wall, Duncan lowered himself to the ground and leaned a shoulder against it. Tilda had a plan. The thought played over and over in his mind. It was all that gave him strength.

  “None of that now,” the captain said in a congenial tone. He motioned toward the table of food and wine, then rumbled out a loud belch. He shook a finger at the rest of the guards. “Boys, what say ye we retire with our feast to the guardroom?” He wrinkled his nose and waved a hand in front of his face. “The air in here reeks of shite. Not a pleasant scent to accompany our fine meal.”

  “Mercy! I beg ye. Just a crust. A feckin’ crust!” Gildercutty crawled toward the bars, stretching out his hand.

  The captain laughed and kicked dirt in Gildercutty’s face, then paused and studied him. With an evil grin, he scooped up a bannock, tore it in two, then tossed the pieces into the cell. “Fight for it, dogs.”

  Duncan turned his face to the wall, pressed his forehead against the stone, and closed his eyes. Tilda had a plan. He refused to think she was foolish enough to believe that anything brought to the jail intended for him would ever reach him. She had a plan. It was his only hope.

  Chapter Nine

  Cloaked against the misting rain, Tilda adjusted her hood, pinning her gaze to the door of the damned. Duncan would exit that door. It opened to the path leading to the gallows. She skimmed a hand across the butt of the pistol tucked in her belt and the dagger sheathed at her side. Da had groaned at the sight of her dressed as a male. Jacket, waistcoat, trews, and boots.

  The garments not only gave her a sense of freedom but stoked her courage and determination as well. It had taken quite a bit of convincing to make Da understand what a detriment a tangle of skirts would be. But it was the cloak that finally tipped the scales in her favor of Da agreeing to her attire. Long enough to brush the ankles of her boots, the cloak not only hid her weapons but also covered her curves.

  Matheson Mackenzie, as well as three other of the most trusted Mackenzie men, stood with her in the puddled clearing surrounding the gallows. A blanket of dreary gray covered the sky. The chilling dampness soaked a body to the bone in no time. It was a perfect day for a hanging.

  Tilda glanced up, searching for the soft glow of the sun through the murkiness as a bell tolled off in the distance. She scanned the narrow balcony of the Tolbooth. The guard walk ran the length of the walls along the plaza of the gallows. No guards patrolled the wall today. Good. Gunfire from above would nay be an issue.

  She nudged a shoulder against her father’s. “Why do they wait?” she whispered.

  “Perhaps, they all be on the chamber pot,” Da remarked with a quiet chuckle. He leaned closer. “Or maybe drowned in their own shite.”

  Da always knew how to set her at ease. The fearsome knot in her chest lessened a wee bit.

  She turned and scanned the clearing. Thank goodness only a few onlookers waited with them. Hangings of criminals of little renown were not worth standing in the rain. Tilda and Da had a clear view at the front of the group beside the roped-off lane to the gallows. They, as well as the Mackenzie men, could spring into action with ease.

  With a quick look tossed in the opposite direction, she checked the alley behind them yet again. Horses waited. Mackenzie riders meandered back and forth across the opening in the buildings as though wishing to watch the hanging from horseback. Cousin Tait waited among them. Captain Tait Mackenzie, pirate lord extraordinaire. He would never fail them. He was close as a brother. He’d see to it that all went well. His flagship, the Seafire, waited to whisk Duncan away to safety.

  “Breathe, daughter. Dinna give us away. Ye never know when spies could be about.” Matheson Mackenzie slipped a hand inside his coat, withdrew his pocket watch, and flipped the timepiece open. “’Tis time. We should see something soon.”

  Da spoke true. The door of the Tollbooth swung open, and a guard emerged. Tilda caught her bottom lip between her teeth and held her breath. The gaoler looked pale as death. Breeks stained, he shuffled along in a stooped fashion as though ready to fall to the ground and curl into a ball around the pain in his belly. At least one jailer had enjoyed Agnes’s special repast.

  A cudgel clutched in one hand, the scowling man jerked his head toward the wooden platform in the clearing. Six nooses dangled from a heavy, wood beam. A priest scurried forward out of the dark interior of the jail, hurried to the gallows, and climbed the stairs. A tall man followed close behind, moving with a self-important saunter. The hangman himself. A man easy to spot in a crowd, because the cloud of death surrounded him.

  “Be last,” Tilda prayed under her breath. Their task would be so much easier if Duncan was last in line.

  Another sick looking guard emerged from the door at a slow, pained pace.

  Da rumbled with a quiet chuckle, pressing a fist to his mouth and making like a fit of the ague had taken him rather than a fit of laughter.

  “Here they come,” said the Mackenzie man closest to the door.

  Tilda leaned forward, praying again that Duncan would be last.

  He wasn’t.

  She snorted out a frustrated breath and glanced about the area. Both priest and hangman stood on the platform of the gallows. They were not a threat. Two guards gimped along beside the prisoners, and a final puny looking fellow with his fist clenched low against his gut brought up the rear. Three guards in total. Three weak guards, they were. She edged closer to the path and sidled farther away from the gallows.

  For the first time since he’d appeared, she noticed Duncan’s condition. Tilda clenched her teeth to keep from crying out. Hands and bare feet shackled, gaze to the ground, Duncan shuffled along at a weak, short gait, stumbling over the uneven cobblestones in the path. He looked about to collapse, and it was no wonder. Shirtless, bloodied and flayed raw with the lash, his bruised and mottled body glistened in the rain. Mouth and nose encrusted with dried blood, left eye swollen shut, there was no mistaking Duncan had taken a severe beating.

  Tilda couldn’t prevent a hitching gasp.

  “Steady, lass,” her father warned. “Steady. Let him take three more steps.”

  Tilda drew deep within herself and allowed the cold, calculating sense of calm she needed to take control. She moved into position. She might not be dressed like a wife, but her staged hysterics would leave nary a doubt. As Duncan passed in front of her, she threw herself at him and grabbed hold of his shackled hands. “Nay! Ye canna leave me! I shan’t allow them to take ye.” She split the air with shrieks and sobs, dropping to her knees, and bending Duncan toward her. “I told ye I’d protect ye,” she whispered between keening cries. “Ready yerself.”

  The guards slogged toward her. “None of that!” shouted the sickest looking man of the trio.

  The Mackenzie and his men surged forward, overtook the guards with ease, and rendered them unconscious.

  The other prisoners scattered. Some staggered down the alleyways. Some crawled into the shadows and crouched anywhere they could hide. The few Aberdeen onlookers who had gathered to view the hanging vacated the plaza, running in all directions.

  She pressed a hand to Duncan’s cheek, the dazed look in his eyes breaking her heart. “Dinna fear. We take ye to yer horse, then on to the quay to Tait’s ship.”

  Duncan gave her weak smile. “Soon as I saw the food, I knew ye had a plan.”

  She waved to Tait an
d those waiting in the alley. He and his men thundered into the clearing with the horses.

  Gunfire split the air. Two shots in rapid succession echoed off the buildings. Tilda flinched and whirled about, hugging herself back against Duncan, shielding him as best she could.

  Matheson Mackenzie shoved his spent pistols back in his belt as he scowled down at the twitching bodies of Gildercutty and Corsbett. He spat upon them both. “Rot in hell. The both of ye.”

  He met Tilda’s gaze, his look grim. “’Twas too easy a death for them. Forgive me, daughter.”

  “Nothing to forgive, Da.” Her father would walk through the fires of hell for her, and for that, she was more than a little glad. She turned back to Duncan and motioned for the men to lift him. “Drape him over his horse, then help me up beside him. I willna have him fall and see us lose him after stealing him back.”

  Two Mackenzies hefted Duncan’s large frame upward and draped him belly-down over his horse. A hand to one of the men’s shoulders, Tilda stepped on her kinsman’s bent knee and launched herself up behind Duncan. Taking care to avoid touching his tattered back, she took up the reins and urged the mount into a fast gallop toward the quay.

  Duncan’s chains rattled, and Tilda swore she heard him expel an agonizing groan above the clatter of the horse’s hooves. She touched a hand to his shoulder and leaned forward. “Hold fast, love. I know it’s painful, but we’re nearly there.”

  She spotted the masts of the Seafire up ahead. They rounded the last corner and thundered down to the docks. She had never been so glad to see a set of sails in her life.

  Cousin Tait surged past her, reaching the wide gangplank first. He made a winding motion with one hand, then pointed at his ship. “Horse and all, Tilda. Ride the beast up the gangplank.”