‘I hate you, Lyall Buchanan, and your stinking, bog-ridden country.’
‘Well that’s a pity for you, for your stay in my bog-ridden country may be of some duration. So you’d best stop sulking and reconcile yourself to it.’ He stormed out, slamming the oak door hard on the way out.
Giselle opened the bundle and was surprised to see a dress of green velvet, with colourful, embroidered flowers edging the collar and cuffs. There was a cloak too, a rich brown, lined with fur. She pulled the dress on with shaking hands, wondering at Lyall’s kindness in finding it for her, and why it was so at odds with the contempt in his voice when he had ordered her around.
***
Within the hour, they left Wulversmeade behind, a long column of weary men, about fifty, she guessed, some on horseback and some tramping through the dust on foot, all heading along the road north. Behind them trundled carts, laden with the spoils of victory, ornate silver goblets and salvers, clothes, weapons, food, blankets for sleeping, and weapons, as many as they could load on. The carts were heavy and got mired in the mud, as the men took to whipping the horses to pull harder.
Giselle glanced around her. She was the only woman in the party, as she was the only one with a rich father who would pay a ransom. What had happened to the others, she could only guess. Their fate would have been simpler, but just as brutal - used for the night, and then discarded the next day, when the Scots moved on. She had been spared that fate, for she was of value and, like the goblets and salvers, she was plunder, and worth dragging along. Or was it because of one man’s honour?
She looked at Lyall Buchanan’s back. He had not spoken to her since they set off hours ago and rode some distance in front. Giselle missed Agnes terribly, though it was a relief to know that her servant was free. She prayed poor Agnes would be able to make her way back to Sabine and find a place with her. Her sister was not a kind woman, but she might offer refuge to Agnes because of her years of service to the de Villers family.
But what would her own fate be, when this Scot discovered there was no ransom, that her father’s lands were bankrupt and forfeit, and no one could afford to buy her freedom? Her sister certainly wouldn’t part with coin to get her back, nor would her miserly, old husband allow it. If she had no real worth, would this Scot then feel she was fair game? Would she be used and then discarded, to fend for herself in a strange and hostile country?
The sky was black on the horizon with oncoming rain, and with every step north, the world seemed to darken. Giselle dreaded the thought of going into Scotland with its hardness and violence. Even here in Northumberland, the land and the people they passed bore the signs of struggle and severe deprivation. Giselle had heard of wet winters, year on year, causing crops to rot in the fields, and poor harvests leading to starvation, while livestock became weak with disease and dropped in the fields. The constant raiding from Scotland made the North’s suffering so much worse, and King Edward, safe at his court in London, paid little heed to the fate of peasants so far out of sight and out of mind.
A cruel voice snapped her out of her thoughts.
‘You look miserable, Giselle. Did Buchanan take his fill of you last night? Was his blood up from the beating he gave me? Did he make you plead, and cry?’
Banan MacGregor brought his horse in close, and Giselle shrank away from him and clutched her reins hard. His face was swollen and twisted, like a gargoyle meant to frighten children, and it was still bloody from his beating.
‘Tis nothing compared to what I will do when I get my hands on you,’ he continued. ‘Trust me, sooner or later, when Buchanan has tired of making you his whore, you and I will get to know each other a lot better. It excites me to think on it, to anticipate how I will bring you to heel.’ He looked her up and down and smiled bitterly. ‘You think Buchanan is your protector, but he is no different to me, he has the same uses for women as I do, he just takes them with a smile and pretty words.’
Giselle’s face burned as he stared at her intensely, hate and lust battling across his features. Banan made her blood run cold, and the heavy heat of the day turned chill. Her lungs would not fill, and her hands started shaking. She kept her eyes fixed on Lyall’s back, willing him to turn around.
‘You should not have rejected me, English. If you’ve no mind to wed that hapless wretch, Edric de Mawpas, I could offer you a place. I don’t keep women long, but you, well, you are a rare beauty. You would grace my hall well, as my mistress, lass.’
‘Lass.’ When Lyall said it, the word felt like a caress. From Banan’s mouth, it was the hiss of a snake. She had seen one, once, and had never forgotten the sight of it, how repulsive it was, in spite of its pretty, mottled skin. It had evil, cat’s eyes, glassy and flat. Banan’s were just the same, staring coldly from his ruin of a face.
‘Come, what do you say? I will encrust you in jewels, I will grace that elegant body of yours with furs and fine dresses. I could give you everything in return for your affection. Once I have taught you how to please me, you will find that I am a kind master.’
Giselle found her voice, though it quaked terribly. ‘Please, leave me alone.’
‘Please, please,’ he mocked in a whining voice. ‘The thing is Giselle, I don’t want to leave you alone, for you arouse and disgust me all at once, and I am trying to make sense of that. Your beauty makes my loins burn to have you, and yet your weakness makes me long to crush you. ‘T’would be the work of a moment to break your pretty little neck, to take it in my hands and squeeze it, until your eyes pop. I am trying to decide which would give me the most satisfaction.’
As if he felt her terror, and just as she could bear it no longer, Lyall glanced back and saw her predicament. He whirled his horse around, and Banan fell back under his iron stare.
Lyall pulled his horse alongside so that their thighs were almost touching. He leant across and put his hand over hers.
‘Do not be afraid. We will part company with that cur soon, at a crossroads up ahead. Banan is for Stirling Castle and the King’s court, with Lord Douglas, and we ride onward along the coast road.’
‘Ride where?’
‘Beharra, my family’s home.’ His face was grim.
‘Lyall, is Beharra to be my prison?’
‘Only if you think of it as such, Giselle.’
‘And are you to become my jailor?’
‘Aye, unfortunately for you, I am, until the ransom is paid. That is all I will ever be to you, and you’d best accept that,’ he said, in a voice heavy with impatience.
‘Why are you angry with me? It is not my fault that I am a prisoner. I did not ask for this, nor do I deserve it.’
‘No, you have ended up on the wrong side of a war, lass, through no fault of your own. But here we are, and I swore an oath to keep you safe and not to touch you. Perhaps that is what I am angry about Giselle, myself and my own foolishness, not you. I pretend to myself that I am a better man than these other men around us now, but I am not.’ He glanced at Banan. ‘We are all of us, animals, war has made us so. Now, you turn those beautiful, gentle eyes to me and see a saviour, but I am not that.’