“How went the Regatta?”
He started, then frowned at the empty doorway.
“Now, dinna be that way,” she said. “Yer man didna wish to tell me anything at all, but relented. He said only the one word. We haven’t a common language, aye?”
Begrudgingly, Gaspar nodded. She hoped the little man wouldn’t be beaten for speaking to her, even if it was only a word. But she couldn’t believe this man would beat a servant he worried over.
Once the man relaxed, they talked about the tides. He told her how his island altered, albeit slightly, when the seasons changed. They skirted around the possibility of her still being in the tower when the next change occurred. Perhaps he suspected she would rather die before she’d stayed much longer, and he didn’t want to hear it.
After a while, there were no safe subjects that would not upset one or the both of them. So she had nothing to lose.
“Tell me of this crime, Gaspar. Did ye seek revenge?”
He smirked and pointed to his scar. “This is my revenge.”
She shook her head. “I doona understand. Who, besides yerself, would suffer from yer wound?”
His smile widened. “My mother.”
Isobelle’s mouth dropped open and remained that way, waiting for his smile to make sense, but it didn’t. She simplywaited for him to explain. He glanced at the doorway again as if he regretted saying anything at all.
She scooted her stool close again, then reached through the bars and took hold of his hand. “Tell me.”
He stared at her fingers for a moment, and when he spoke, he spoke to their hands.
“My parents were—are—nobles. When I was sixteen, they presented me at court.” His fingers tightened slightly, but she didn’t mind. “When my mother noticed how her rivals looked at me…” He cleared his throat and swallowed as if the very words were hindering his speech. “She realized she had something they wanted, so she made me…availableto them. For a heavy price, of course. My father stopped looking me in the eye. Stopped speaking to me altogether.”
Isobelle was horrified. “Gaspar!” She snaked her other arm through the bars, to hold his hand tighter.
He shook his head. “Oh, I grew in talent over the years, of course. Quite a weapon, you might say. Then one day, I was ordered to do something even a… Well, who knew there was a line I would not cross?”
Isobelle held her tongue and simply squeezed, wishing she could wrap her arms around his shoulders instead.
Gaspar gave her a little smile. “She wanted me to ruin an innocent, but I wouldn’t do it. My parents fought. I drank myself into oblivion and woke in a church. A fire burned…” He looked into the dark corner, unseeing. “I buried the poker in the hot coals and waited. And an inconceivable peace overtook me. I knew I was doing the right thing, taking my mother’s weapon away so she couldn’t hurt people anymore.” He raised his hand in demonstration, an invisible poker in his closed fist. “I laid it to my face and pulled it across.” He blinked and dropped his arm. “There was a moment where I felt nothing at all. And then Hell erupted in my head, and I fainted.
“A priest found me and cared for my wound before I woke again. I stayed in his care for a sennight, confessing all the while. When I had nothing more to tell, he suggested I devote the rest of my life to God. I simply could not do that in England.”
Gaspar rolled his shoulders and blinked some image from his vision.
“Thisnoblescar was my own doing. Whenever it started healing too cleanly, I would tear it open again. After I nearly died from a fever, I stopped. The result is this.”
He touched the brand tentatively, as if he rarely allowed himself to feel it. Then his hand fell away.
“I was far from worthy to speak to God, but I thought to come to the church states, to be near men who were. Eventually, the patriarch found a need for me. I serve him. He serves God. Thereby, I serve God.” Though he smiled, he had not lessened his hold.
She nodded and won his full attention. “Battle scars are fine, noble things. But nowhere does it say that the battle cannot be with yerself. Ye had a long fight. Ye should wear yer scars with pride, for fighting on. As for yer mother, she is the unworthy one. She has lost the right to call ye son. As has yer father. Ye are an orphan now. Like me.”
His right cheek curled in half a smile. “You Scottish are an odd lot. You see battle as honorable. All battle? What about battles you could have avoided?”
“Could ye have avoided this battle and still found a worthy purpose for your life? Perhaps God allowed the one so ye could find the other.”
He peered at her closely, looked back and forth, from one eye to the other. Then into her soul. “Isobelle. Can you not give up your unnecessary battles and look for something more worthy? Can you pretend meekness? Can you not threaten men who are certain to be threatened by you?”
She pulled her hands back, seeing that he no longer wanted comfort as much as he wished to repeat his lectures. “How am I to ken which men will be threatened by me?”
“Precisely!” He stood. “You cannot. You must assume all men are unlike your Highlanders who treat their women with such care. Assume every man you meet will be threatened by your intelligence, by your clever tongue, by your ability to see them for who they are.”
His voice had reached such a volume she pushed her stool away and stood to gain a bit of distance for the sake of her ears. Standing beside the bed, she turned to face him. She thought to keep her voice low, hoping he would do the same, even though there was no one else to hear them.
