Roger scanned the mob. "And what have you done with Iago?"
Colin shrugged. "The last we heard, your henchman was on his way to London. As I"m sure you"ve already guessed, his mission failed. Which means the MacDuff won"t be sending any reinforcements your way. "Tis rumored that he"s nursing his grief over his daughter"s sudden elopement by withdrawing his entire household to Castle Arran. Permanently."
Roger barked with laughter. "And why would I need reinforcements against this motley band of outlaws?"
Instead of replying, Ravenshaw reached into his saddlebag and drew forth a parchment scroll. He unrolled it with a flourish, his voice booming through the courtyard. "I hereby proclaim that from this moment forward this castle is under siege and demand the immediate surrender of its lord a" Roger Basil Henry Joseph Maximillian, Baron Brisbane."
Roger glanced wildly at his bailey walls where his guards had taken up an offensive position, swords drawn and crossbows slotted with lethal bolts. The captain of his garrison was helping his men roll a mangonel into place. Roger knew at his command, the miniature catapult would hurl a shower of rocks down upon the vulnerable heads of the intruders.
"Have you lost your wits, man? I can almost understand your ridiculous need to martyr yourself, but must you make saints of your people as well?"
Colin continued to read as if he hadn"t spoken. "Upon surrender, you"ll be taken to the court of Alexander the Third where you"ll be judged for the murders of the sixth Lord of Ravenshaw, his n.o.ble wife, Blythe, and four score and ten of the King"s loyal Scottish subjects."
Roger drew himself up to his full height, quivering with rage. "Henry is my king. I"ll not answer to you or that barbarian Scot for my crimes."
As Colin let the scroll snap shut, his mocking smile chilled Roger to the marrow. "Oh, but I think you will."
His army parted to reveal a lone woman.
A woman who did not slump, but stood straight and tall. A woman wearing a shimmering purple gown and stroking the tiny black cat cradled in her arms without the slightest hint of clumsiness. A woman who glided forward to stand beside Ravenshaw"s horse with all the arrogant grace of a guardian angel.
A woman who terrified him.
The sun glinted off her golden hair, the belt draped around her slender hips, the plump emerald nestled between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.
Roger did the only thing he could think of. He looked the captain of his archers straight in the eye and bellowed, "Fire!"
Chapter 26.
As Tabitha awaited Colin"s prearranged signal, she prayed the knocking of her knees wouldn"t drown out his people"s singing. It had taken her nearly three days to teach them all the words to "Do You Hear the People Sing?" from Les Miserables, but she had finally succeeded. Their rendition had given her chills. She doubted even the finest Broadway cast could imbue the song, with its stirring melody and hope for a brighter tomorrow, with so much heartfelt emotion. She"d felt a genuine flare of triumph when she saw Arjon"s former doxy reach over and squeeze Lyssandra"s hand during the chorus.
She was terrified she would trip over her hem when Colin summoned her forward. Granny Cora had been forced to st.i.tch nearly five extra inches of silk to one of Lady Blythe"s most beautiful gowns before it would fit her. Lucy nuzzled Tabitha"s hair as if to whisper words of comfort. Brisbane would never suspect the cat was nothing but a harmless prop.
"Oh, but I think you will."
Colin"s rich voice cut through her reverie. His people parted like the Red Sea, clearing a path for her. If she hadn"t known Colin was waiting for her at the end of that path, she would never have had the confidence to put one foot in front of the other until she stood beside his horse. She would never have had the pleasure of watching Brisbane"s sneer fadea a a second before he looked at someone on the wall behind them and yelled, "Fire!"
As she grabbed the amulet, Tabitha knew an instant of pure panic. What if Colin had been a fool to put his faith in her? What if she failed as she"d failed so many times in the past? What if her incompetence left the courtyard littered with their bodies?
The crossbows loosed their missiles with a mighty thrum.
It was the image of an arrow piercing Colin"s bold and n.o.ble heart that gave her the courage to spin around and make a wish.
The feathered shafts shooting toward them melted to nothing but feathers, drifting harmlessly to the ground. As she turned back toward the castle, Colin gave her a bone-melting smile and his people cheered. Having been previously deprived of the opportunity by her ballet instructor and chorus director, she could not resist making a pleased little bow.
"You might perform your heroics with a little more haste," Arjon hissed, looking a little green around the gills.
It seemed she would soon get another chance, for at Brisbane"s frantic command, the catapult perched on the wall high above them sent an avalanche of deadly rocks hurtling toward their heads.
Tabitha whispered a wish and the rocks turned to rose petals, raining down around them in a fragrant shower.
She blew a petal off her nose, a surge of naughty exultation making her giggle. She"d never dreamed being a witch could be so much fun.
"Engage them, you fools!" Brisbane shouted, hysteria rising in his voice. "Cut them down where they stand!"
His men hung back for an infinitesimal second, plainly cowed by the strange goings-on. But their fear of their s.a.d.i.s.tic lord still surpa.s.sed their fear of Tabitha. So it was with false bravado and savage snarls, they came plunging down the gatehouse stairs, blades at the ready. But when they reached the courtyard, their weapons had turned into Nerf swords.
One man drove his blade toward Magwyn"s chest, only to discover the spongy toy went limp at its first contact with human flesh. He was still staring at it in dumb amazement when Magwyn whacked him over the head with a stick. He went down like a stone.
Auld Nana dispatched another of the guards by cramming the iron cauldron over his head. He staggered away, bleating piteously until he slammed into a wall. Nana ducked her head and made an offensive run at the enemy, sending guards flying in every direction.
One of the guards charged straight for Lyssandra only to falter at finding such a rose among the thorns. She smiled sweetly at him. Before ramming her dainty fist into his nose.
"Oh, Arjon," she wailed, "I think I broke a fingernail."
Her beloved stopped pummeling a guard long enough to press a pa.s.sionate kiss on the wounded appendage.
The wild young boys who had yearned for a fight for so long threw themselves into the melee with such blood-chilling howls the guards feared Tabitha had summoned a horde of demons to defeat them. Rose petals and feathers soon choked the air.
"Get it off me!" screamed one of the guards as a toothless old man gummed his leg.
Tabitha stood gently stroking Lucy while chaos reigned around her. Colin dispatched more than his share of attackers, wheeling the stallion from cl.u.s.ter to cl.u.s.ter of fighting and subduing all challengers with the flat blade of his sword.
Soon the courtyard was littered with unconscious bodies, none of them their own. The guards who could still walk, limp, or crawl scrambled away like rats scurrying for their holes, leaving Brisbane standing alone on the balcony.
Colin wheeled the stallion back around, shooting him a triumphant look. "Do you surrender, sir?"
Roger"s shoulders slumped. He nodded sadly. "Aye, my friend. I surrender."
As he disappeared from the balcony, Colin and Tabitha exchanged a baffled glance, having prepared for every eventuality except this one.
When Brisbane emerged from the castle, arms raised and hands dangling limply above his head, his demeanor was so pathetic even Tabitha might have felt sorry for him if she hadn"t known what a monster he was. After much frantic searching, they discovered they hadn"t a sc.r.a.p of rope among them, so it fell to Tabitha to conjure up a shiny pair of handcuffs.
Brisbane didn"t even protest when Colin slipped them on his wrists and snapped them shut. He couldn"t seem to summon up any resistance more potent than a labored sigh. After Colin had lifted Tabitha up on the stallion to ride sidesaddle in front of him, their captive fell obediently into step behind the horse"s twitching tail.
As they pa.s.sed through the bailey gates, they encountered no further opposition from Brisbane"s garrison. When they"d traveled a brief distance, Tabitha would have even sworn she heard a faint cheer go up from the castle walls behind them.
Colin"s people were equally jubilant. They clapped each other on the back and congratulated each other on their valor. They sang s.n.a.t.c.hes of song both on-key and off a" in Lyssandra"s case, as Arjon had warned, mostly off. The boys mock-wrestled and relived every glorious moment of their first real skirmish while the old men swapped tales of battles fought in the full vigor of manhood, but never forgotten.
As they started across the idyllic meadow where she had first met Colin, Tabitha cradled Lucy in her arms and turned her face to the sun, basking in its warmth. If someone had told her that someday she would be riding through this very meadow in the arms of a prince among men, her hair sprinkled with rose petals, and her heart br.i.m.m.i.n.g with love, she would have told them they were either crazy or hopelessly misguided.
Until she"d gazed into Colin"s golden eyes, she had believed that princes were for other women and love was for fools.
Brisbane"s voice cut through her pleasure like the whine of a pesky mosquito. " "Tis a pity we"ve come to such a pa.s.s, my lady. Did Colin never tell you that the two of us were once like brothers? At least until he decided to avail himself of my sister."
Colin"s arm tightened around her waist. " "Tis an old quarrel, Roger, and a tired one. As you well know, "twas Regan who first crept into my bed one moonless night when I was still half asleep. Had I my wits about me, I might have found the strength to resist her."
Their handcuffed captive was walking beside them now, nearly trotting to match the pace of Colin"s stallion. "You would have broken her heart either way. She loved you, you know."
Colin"s sigh ruffled Tabitha"s hair. "Regan"s love is the cross I"ve borne since her death."
"She loved you," he repeated, as if Colin had not even spoken. "But she loved me first."
Colin reined in the horse. Brisbane stumbled to a halt, his subservient mask slipping to reveal a sneer of triumph. The chattering crowd streamed around the two men, unaware of the brewing conflict. Despite the warmth of the sun, Tabitha felt a chill of foreboding.
"Don"t listen to him, Colin," she said, longing only to free him from the chains of the past. "He"d say anything to hurt you."
"That"s right, witch," Brisbane snarled. "Anything at all. Even the truth."
"The word is a mockery on your lips," Colin said.
Brisbane"s grin was icy cold. "Regan and I had been lovers since we were naught but thirteen years old. Did you truly believe it was your child she carried? "Twas her idea to trick you into bedding and wedding her so no one would ever know the babe was mine. When I threatened to tell you the truth, she hanged herself. She was too spineless to live without your love."
Tabitha gasped. For the first time, she understood Brisbane"s bitter jealousy and unrelenting hatred. He honestly believed that Colin had usurped him as his sister"s lover.
"Why you wretched son of a a"!" Colin launched himself off the stallion, slamming his fist into Brisbane"s face.
Tabitha screamed. Slipping Lucy into a saddlebag, she tumbled off the horse in Colin"s wake and grabbed the back of his tunic. Brisbane lay cringing on the ground, his cuffed hands rendering him helpless to defend himself against Colin"s savage blows.
"Stop him!" she shouted at the gaping onlookers. "Before he kills Brisbane!"
It wasn"t that she didn"t think Brisbane deserved to die. She just didn"t want Colin to have to live with both the twins" deaths on his conscience.
She nearly sobbed with relief when Arjon shouldered his way through the crowd.
Surrendering her frantic grip on Colin"s tunic, she grabbed Arjon by the arm. "You"ve got to stop him!"
Arjon cast the grappling men a casual look. Colin had his powerful hands around Brisbane"s throat and was slowly squeezing the life from him. Roger"s face was already beginning to turn a becoming shade of purple. "Why?"
"Because Colin will never be able to live with himself if he murders a defenseless man."
Arjon sighed and rolled his eyes heavenward. "Very well. If you insist."
He beckoned toward the others. In the end, only one of them was strong enough to get Colin in a headlock and drag him off Brisbane.
Colin rolled to his back, gasping for breath, and shot his a.s.sailant a wounded glare. "Christ, Nana, you almost strangled me."
The old woman planted her hands on her meaty hips. "If I"ve told you once, lad, I"ve told you a hundred times a" never make me ask you to do somethin" more than once."
Since it seemed Colin would survive, Tabitha dropped to her knees at Brisbane"s side. "Oh," she breathed, studying his limp limbs and waxy pallor. "I think we"re too late."
She leaned over to check his mottled throat for a pulse and that was how, when Brisbane opened his eyes, her amulet happened to be dangling in front of them like a fat, juicy fig. His cuffed hands shot out and since Tabitha thought he was dead, his earsplitting screech sent her tumbling back on her bottom. He snapped the amulet"s chain with a single vicious wrench, bounded to his feet, and went running across the field like the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland. Several of the boys loped after him.
"Tabitha!" Colin bellowed, struggling to a sitting position.
She scrambled to his side. "Don"t worry, love. Brisbane"s not a witch. In his hands the amulet"s nothing but a harmless piece of jewelry. He can"t even a" "
A jagged bolt of lightning shot out of the clear blue sky, striking the ground directly behind them. They looked at the charred crater, then at each other, then at Brisbane, who was gleefully hopping up and down at the edge of the forest.
"Scatter!" Colin bellowed.
He didn"t have to ask twice. As a supernatural current charged the air, his people fled in all directions, some of the more agile boys making it as far as the forest, others taking cover in the spa.r.s.e stands of oak that dotted the meadow. Even his riderless stallion flew past them as if winged, making for the nearest shelter.
Colin grabbed Tabitha"s hand and they went flying across the meadow, rolling down an incline and into a shallow ditch just as another bolt of lightning seared the gra.s.s where they had been sitting only seconds before.
As they lay nose to nose in the gra.s.s, struggling to catch their breaths, Colin arched one eyebrow and growled, "You were saying, la.s.s?"
Chapter 27.
"Mama always said I didn"t pay enough attention when she talked. But she talked all the time. And she was my mother, for heaven"s sake! How was I to know she was ever going to say anything important? Oh, no. The video! Now I understand why Daddy wanted the amulet destroyed and why Mama let him believe she flushed it down the commode all those years ago. They both knew that if it fell into the wrong handsa" Tabitha groaned and banged her head against the soft turf.
"Sweeting?" Colin said from somewhere above her.
"Hmm?"
"Are you quite done having hysterics?"
She sat up, spitting out a clump of gra.s.s. "I think so."
Colin was peering over the rim of the ditch, his hand on the hilt of his sword. "He"s got the manacles off and he"s waving them at us in a most insolent manner. "You do realize, of course, that he planned this entire escapade. I should have known he was too arrogant to surrender without a fight to the death."
"Why couldn"t I have just let you strangle him? Remind me not to stop you next time."
He ma.s.saged his throat. "Next time I"ll let Auld Nana strangle him."
Tabitha scooted to the top of the ditch on her elbows and gently touched his arm. "I"m sorry about Regan. She must have felt trapped in an intolerable situation. I"m sure she never really wanted to deceive you."
Colin shook his head. "If she had only trusted me enough to confide in mea I wouldn"t have hated her. I would have tried to help her."
"I know," Tabitha replied, smiling wryly. "You never could resist a damsel in distress."
If they hadn"t exchanged a loving glance, they might not have become aware of the ominous silence.
"What"s Brisbane doing now?" Tabitha peeped over the edge of the ditch, unable to bear the suspense.
"He"s disappeared into the forest."