The tinny ring of the iron inner gate slamming shut was echoing in the stone chamber when Caelan sank to his knees on the cold brick floor. The dungeon cell was inventive, he would give the English Earl that much. Never had he seen what looked to be a portcullis inside a dungeon.
He did thank God, though, that he had not been thrown in an oubliette. A pit with a hatch door where he would be left to rot. The dungeon was a reasonable size, big enough to hold at least ten men. Pressing his back on the gritty wall, he was at least grateful to get off his throbbing, blistered feet, even it was because he was thrown in a dungeon.
He had thought losing the battle back in Scotland and marching to the prison there had been bad enough, but when this Earl of Daffield had come to claim his son but had only found his body, Caelan’s life had taken another turn for the worst. He’d been branded a murderer, stripped, lashed and forced to walk more back-breaking miles like the poor Israelites had done from Egypt to the promised land.
His destination, however, was not flowing with milk and honey but rather was made of iron bars and cold stone. It was still a reprieve and Caelan counted his blessings.
The tale Peter Watson had told him had settled deep in his soul and every time, the thought of it made his stomach threaten to revolt. Evil certainly had a name. He pressed his throbbing temple on the cold wall, while swallowing, trying to soothe his parched throat.
It had taken almost all of his strength to keep his calm when the Earl had accused him of being a murderer. No matter how hard he had expressed that it was poison from the stab that had killed Peter, his defense had fallen on deaf ears.
Robert Duglas, the only one who could have vouched for him had been absent from the keep the day the Earl had arrived. Since he had no other person to help profess his innocence, the Earl had demanded Caelan be taken and flogged for the death of his son.
Caelan’s body had been thrown into a cart and rolled throughout Northumberland and down to the Earl’s district where he had been forced to walk with his feet bare, another punishment. The Earl had given him one more chance to admit his crime.
“Admit your crime, dog,” the Earl had sneered. “Admit it and I will consider affording you some leniency.”
He had lifted his head and squared his shoulders as the honor of his bloodline and his innocence in this matter had him do. “I didnae kill yer son.”
Now that he was jailed, he briefly wondered what that leniency the Earl could have considered would be.
Mayhap losing one eye instead of two or sent to work in the salt mines instead of death.
A single window, high above him and the size of a single brick, let in the weak sunlight. The throbbing in his head slowed to a weak thrum in time with the pulsing of his wounded feet. He didn’t even feel the lashes on his back anymore.
A harsh clatter of metal had him jumping from his light doze. He looked up to see a man with hard, nearly-black eyes glaring at him. “Wake up, you rat.”
Shaking his head to rid the faint fog inside it, he sat up while the man opened an almost undetectable latch and shoved a wooden cup and a bowl inside, “Eat.”
Hesitantly, he reached for the items and grasped them— the cup had water and the bowl a mishmash of greying meat and dry bread. “Thank ye.”
It was cold but he drank the water first, slowly to not irritate his empty stomach and then nibbled on the bread and meat, which tasted like roasted fowl. It was bland but food was food, and he was in no position to complain.
“Hurry up, scoundrel,” the guard growled. “Not all of us have time to savor every bite.”
As a doctor, he knew the irritation that came from hurried eating on an empty stomach but this time broke his own rule and ate quickly. He was swallowing his last bite when the man demanded the bowl back. He gave it over and was rewarded with a thin blanket thrown at his feet.
“Be grateful his Lordship is not an animal like you are,” his jailer sneered. “He won’t have you dying of consumption before you can confess your crime.”
Taking the thin, scratchy blanket, he wrapped it around his shoulders and leaned back on the wall. He spotted a bucket in the corner of the cell, one he assumed was for his excrement. He looked up to the tiny window as night drew near, his hopes of freedom dying with the day. As he drifted off and the cold seeping in, the last words Peter had said before his death haunted him.
With dawn came another bang on the iron bars which made him jolt awake. He peeled his cheek from the rugged wall and forced his heavy lids open. His gaze met pale grey brick walls and the reality of his present state came crashing down.
“You Scot, wake up! This is not an inn,” a harsh voice yelled through the bars.
The same jailer from before was glaring at him, and holding a cup. “Drink.”
Scrambling to his tender feet, Caelan reached for the cup and took it. He drank quickly and gave the cup back to his jailer. A derisive snort was thrown at him and he sagged back on the wall. Silence was thick and heavy in the room and Caelan forced himself to remember his home.
His home, in Arisaig, rested on banks of the lovely Loch Mahrais, and had never seen conflict until it came to their doors recently. Their arrogant King had rallied thousands of Scots to outdo the acts of the English King on their borders. He had been sure of his victory and they had fought well until a disagreement had splintered their forces right down the middle.
The adage a house divided cannot stand, had never been truer. Their confusion had given the English a clear advantage, resulting in their win and the subsequent death and capture of men who had lives to live and responsibilities to uphold. The King, on the other hand, was sitting free and pretty in his castle while his men suffered, men Caelan was sure the King had not even considered when he decided to go to war.
He remembered the very day before he had been asked to join the campaign against the English. It had been a calm day, so calm that he should have suspected mayhem was about to erupt. He had dealt with a few castle duties but had gone out to pursue his second passion, caring for the sick.
He tended to a child who had broken arm, an older man that had pains in his inflamed knees, and even a farmer who had impaled his foot on a pitchfork.
He had taken the position of Laird due to an unexpected inheritance. His older brother, Cullum, had died from dysentery while he, Caelan, was finishing his time with the older healers in the village. He had been appointed at the age of six-and-twenty and the responsibilities of being a Laird had nearly drained him.