The instant Dunlaidir’sgreat oaken door crashed open, Caterine whirled around and immediately choked on a sob. Her heart bursting with relief, she stared in amazement at the men striding into the hall’s entry arch.
Icy wind swept in with them, gusty draughts that set the nearest torch flames to dancing, the wildly flickering light casting weird shadows over their granite-hewn faces.
“A wonder!” Rhona reached across the high table to grip Caterine’s wrist. “Lady, they live,” she gasped, her voice tremulous, her joy and wonder matching Caterine’s own.
Her throat too tight for words, Caterine wrapped an arm around the little dog on her lap, clasping him hard against her as she sent silent prayers of thanks heavenward.
Her champion – her new husband – towered over the other men, contained anger pouring off him, its intensity palpable from clear across the hall. Most important, he stood and he breathed, every glorious inch of him very much alive, as were they all.
Their brows dark in the smoky torchlight, they strode forward, advancing on the high table without a word of greeting. Jaws set and hard-faced, their outerwear caked with mud, the mail beneath, smeared with blood.
Black Dugie came with them, by no means as sore-battered, but equally wet and solemn. He also clutched a long-bladed dirk in his hand.
“God be praised!” Caterine stood, finding her voice at last. The whole of her body trembled even as relief spiraled through her. Heat pricked her eyes, blinding her to the menace on their faces, the oddity of drawn steel in her hall.
“A miracle,” Sir John said beside her. “By Lucifer, who would have thought-”
“Do not worsen your treachery with more lies,” Sir Marmaduke cut him off, speaking loud enough for all to hear, his voice as cold and deadly as the gleam of his sword.
He fixed Sir John with a long, hard stare. “Come,” he said, beckoning to him, “you mention Lucifer, let us hasten your journey to his side.”
“Dear God, you are witless,” Sir John scoffed, the words dripping scorn.
Ignoring him, Sir Marmaduke glanced at Caterine. “My regrets, lady, that I must blacken the name of a family friend, but this man is a traitor,” he said, and Caterine believed him for the truth stood on his face, and in her heart.
“He is Sir Hugh’s man,” her husband accused, his expression growing colder by the minute, darkening with the first scowl she’d seen him wear.
“Is that not so?” He turned to the men standing close beside him, and without hesitation, they nodded agreement.
Even James.
Black Dugie, too.
“Lies!” Sir John shot to his feet, his face scarlet. Glaring at Marmaduke, he lifted his hands. “A liar, and no true knight for you challenge an unarmed man.”
Angry murmurs rose at that, growing louder as grumbles and curses sprang from one table to the next. “Unarmed?” one of the garrison men called out. “Sore straits easily remedied!” Coming forward, he slapped his own blade full-length on the high table. “Take it, and fight us! Now.”
“Aye, if you have the spine,” another snarled.
“Show us your honor – or did it go the same way as your courage?” someone else shouted from deeper in the hall.
“Baseborn worms,” Sir John hissed, not even glancing at the weapon. Instead, he snatched up his cloak. “I will not listen to such insults,” he added, swirling the mantle around his shoulders. “Perhaps once this foul night has passed, the good folk within these walls will have regained their senses.”
His head high, he started forward, not looking left or right until he strode past Marmaduke. Then, with astonishing speed for a man of his years, he threw back his cloak and spun around to lunge at Marmaduke’s back, a wicked-looking dagger flashing in his upraised hand.
Someone’s scream – her own or Rhona’s – filled Caterine’s ears as, with even greater agility, her husband whirled to face Sir John, his fingers closing around the older man’s wrist.
The dirk dropped to the rushes, but the forward momentum of Sir John’s own spinning whirl plunged him against the sharp edge of Marmaduke’s sword. He cried out as a bold slash of crimson appeared across his middle – a true wound this time, and a fatal one.
His howl of pain muting into a horrible gurgling sound, he stared at his own red-flowing death, astonishment in his bulging eyes as he sank to the floor.
Chaos and uproar filled the hall as men thrust back from their places at the long tables, rising almost as one, to press forward and crowd around Sir Marmaduke and the soon-to-be-dead noble.
Caterine and Rhona clung to each other, looking on in horror as Sir Marmaduke cast aside his sullied blade, and then knelt beside Sir John’s prone figure.
“A well-deserved end,” someone called out above the din.
“A blackheart done in by his own false move,” another agreed, the angrily spoken words echoing off the weapon-hung walls.
