“If they dinnae mean to try and free you, then why should they trail us?”
“Mayhaps they but wish to be sure I reach the king alive.” Hacon strongly suspected that was indeed Dugald’s intent.
Sir Burnett stiffened, his scarred face dark with outrage. “Of course ye will. I have been charged with delivering ye alive to face the court and our king. Iwilldo so.”
“We shall see. ’Tisnae only ye and me playing this deadly game. If the king truly wishes me brought before him alive, then dinnae waste all your strength watching my men. There could weel be others stalking you.”
“What do ye mean?”
“There are those who willnae wish to give me any chance to speak the truth.”
“The truth is that ye are a traitor. I begin to think ye are also mad.”
Muttering a curse, Sir Burnett strode back to his campfire. Hacon sighed and wondered how much the man would consider his warning. He knew Dugald would keep a close watch for any attack by Balreaves’s hirelings, but it would help if Sir Burnett would also keep watch. Hacon knew it would make him feel less as if he were already convicted and was merely being led to the gallows, that he would have no chance at all of proving his innocence.
He still felt stunned. Dugald had warned him of the danger of being called a traitor, but he suspected even his dour cousin had been shocked when their worst fears had come to pass. What little he had been told of the charges that had brought about the chilling arrest made it all the more unbelievable. Balreaves had taken innocence and mercy and twisted it into treachery.
Anger and a sense of betrayal also gnawed at him. He had given the Bruce over ten years of his life. Many a good man from Dubheilrig had died for the Bruce’s cause. Despite all that, the lies of one man were enough to blacken his name, to taint him with the charge of treason. It made all he had done for the cause seem wasted, worthless. Even when he reminded himself of how often the Bruce had been betrayed by men he had thought loyal to him, Hacon’s rage did not lessen. His life was at stake and he was innocent!
Hacon could not help but wonder how, if such a charge against him was believed despite all he had done, he could ever prove his innocence. His only weapons would be words. He doubted any man would step forward to vouch for him. The fear of also being tainted with treason would be too strong. As Hacon battled feelings of helplessness and defeat, he told himself again and again that his long years of loyalty would in the end, hold him in good stead, and that he would be exonerated.
His thoughts went to Jennet. She must realize that her own words had been used against him. He prayed she had the sense to believe that, despite the accusations, she had had no real hand in his trouble, that she carried no blame nor would he fault her in any way. If he was not able to return home and assure her of that himself, he vowed he would find a way to get word to her.
He had to smile as he recalled their farewell and the way she had faced the burly, battle-scarred Burnett. Poor Burnett had not known what to do with the tiny and very pregnant Jennet. Although Hacon had been briefly terrified for her safety, he had to admire her spirit and was deeply touched by her effort.
Her parting words, however, preyed upon his mind. He had told her not to do anything rash, and her response contained no promise to behave herself or to stay safely at Dubheilrig. He was not sure what she might try, and he could only pray his parents could keep her in hand. His one comfort was that she had not also been accused of treason. His greatest fear was that in trying to aid him, she would misstep and join him on the gallows.
Chapter 22
“He has been taken to Dunfermline in Fife.” Jennet greeted Lucais’s announcement with both resignation and dismay. She was sitting at the large table in the great hall with the rest of Hacon’s family, including the ill-tempered Katherine. For the past two weeks they had eagerly awaited some news from Dugald, but she could see that the rest of the family was now as uncertain as she was. Dunfermline was a royal palace located only forty or fifty miles north of Dubheilrig. Had he been taken there so that he could declare his innocence before the king, or to be executed by royal command? Had a place so near at hand been chosen to allow those who knew Hacon to come to court and act as his advocates or because his enemies wished to have him tried and executed before the king even arrived to be swayed by Hacon’s pleas of innocence? Only some relief came with the knowledge that Hacon had arrived at the court alive.
“There is more?” Jennet asked, seeing how Lucais frowned at the message Dugald had sent.
“Aye. They have thrown him into the pit, there to await trial before the king.”
“Sweet mother of God.” Serilda moaned, and Lucais paused to pat her shoulder in a helpless gesture of comfort.
“The king is already at Dunfermline?” Jennet asked, forcing aside the chilling memory of how Hacon had described the pit, as a place to toss a man and leave him to rot.
“Not yet, but he will arrive soon,” Lucais replied. “He is said to be traveling there even now. Dugald works to gain advocates who will speak on Hacon’s behalf. Aye, and he still keeps watch o’er Hacon, for Balreaves is riding with the king. Dugald feels certain some of the mon’s hirelings are already at the castle.”
“Ye say Dugald works to gain advocates? That must mean none are stepping forward of their own accord.”
Lucais sighed and gave Jennet a mildly irritated look as he ran a hand through his still-thick hair. “Ye are annoyingly sharp-witted. Aye, it does mean that.”
“No one will speak up for him?” Serilda looked at her husband with hurt dismay. “Not one mon?”
“Nay, at least not yet. Dugald is still trying. We must believe that he will succeed.”
“I dinnae think we have the time to sit about and believe,” Jennet murmured. “Hacon has been accused of treason. I dinnae think the king will delay long in judging him. Hacon needs an advocate as quickly as possible. Since no mon outside of Dubheilrig appears to have the courage to step forward, then a woman must—his wife.”
“Jennet, by virtue of being his wife, your word as to his loyalty will carry little weight. As little as ours or that of our men.”
“True, but mayhaps I can at least take away the damage done by my own ill-thought words.”
“Ye cannae go,” protested Serilda. “Sweet heaven, child, think of the bairn ye carry.”
“I do, and each time I think of the bairn, I think of it growing up without a father, learning that his father was branded a traitor. I think how the name of Gillard could be forever stained with that crime.”
