The icy smugness of his tone sent an abrupt chill of alarm down Ilsabeth’s spine. Walter sounded very smug indeed and that was never a good thing. She also noticed that everyone else had gone very quiet. It was possible the quiet was just everyone waiting to see if she would obey Walter, but she doubted it. He had some plan he felt certain would bring her to willingly walk into his grasp. Ilsabeth looked down at her hand on the gate latch and then sighed, turning to look back at Walter.
Her heart leapt up into her throat so quickly she nearly gagged. A smiling Walter held a wide-eyed Elen with one arm curled around her middle. In his free hand was a very large, very sharp knife. It was pressed against the child’s throat. Ilsabeth was terrified. Elen was too young to understand the need to keep as still as she could. At any moment Elen could begin to squirm and easily end up with her throat cut.
“ ‘Tis just a bairn, sir,” said one of the soldiers, a big, heavily muscled man who watched Walter and made no attempt to hide his disgust. “I dinnae abide with using a wee bairn to threaten someone.”
“And I cannae abide failure or traitors,” snapped Walter. “This woman killed the king’s cousin and is plotting to kill the king.”
“All by her wee self or are the bairns going to help her?”
“Best ye watch yourself, Gowan. ‘Tis ne’er wise to speak to your betters that way, laddie.”
Ilsabeth chanced a glance at the soldier who so openly disagreed with Walter’s actions. It was obvious the man was biting down hard on his tongue so that he did not blurt out his opinion of who was the better man. The other soldiers said nothing but looked as if they agreed with Gowan. Elen remained remarkably still while a white-faced MacBean stood in the doorway, his gnarled hand patting the shoulder of a weeping Old Bega. Reid stood utterly still right in front of Walter, his gaze fixed unwaveringly on his sister. It had to be Reid who was keeping the ever busy Elen so still, Ilsabeth was certain of it, but he could not do it for hours.
“Put her down, Walter,” Ilsabeth said in as cold and calm a voice as she could muster. “The child has done naught to ye. She is no part of all this.”
“We make a trade. Ye for this child. Ye step o’er here and I will set the lass down so that she can run to her brother. If ye keep refusing, I will cut her wee throat.”
“Bastard.”
There was no other choice for her to make. It was her or Elen. There was something in Walter’s gaze that told her he was not bluffing. That Walter could even think of killing such a small child just because he did not wish to fight for his prize made Ilsabeth ill. What had she seen in such a man? A better question might be, how could she have missed this ugly side of him?
Praying that Simon was close to bringing this man to justice, Ilsabeth marched over to him. “Put her down now, Walter. And if there is e’en one drop of blood on her, I will eviscerate you.”
Walter snorted in crude derision of her threat. “Ye? Wheesht, ye havenae got a warrior’s skill or heart, lass.”
He set Elen down. Reid grabbed his sister and ran to MacBean and Old Bega. Ilsabeth waited until Walter looked at her and then she punched him right in his lovely bright smile. She heard one of the soldiers mutter that he could have told the fool Ilsabeth would do that and she suspected it was the man she had punched in the nose. While he stood there trapped by a sense of shock, she took full advantage of it and rammed her knee into his groin.
As Walter fell to his knees retching and moaning in pain, Ilsabeth looked at the soldiers. They eyed Walter with a man’s sympathy for the pain but little else. She took a cautious step toward the door. They all shifted position just enough to keep her trapped in the kitchen. They might not like Walter or agree with all he did, but they were loyal to the king and she was an accused traitor. There was no escape.
“Ye bitch, ye bitch, ye bitch,” Walter said, his voice growing louder with each word as he staggered to his feet. “God’s tears but I will enjoy watching your execution.”
That scared her nearly witless, but she pushed away the horror of what she might yet face if Simon could not save her in time. “We will see who will watch who die,” she said quietly.
Walter reached for her, but Gowan grabbed her by the arm and yanked her out of the way. “She is the king’s prisoner, sir.”
“Ye are protecting this traitor?” Walter said, glaring at the man.
Gowan did not even blink. “I am holding the king’s prisoner, sir. One the king himself is eager to speak to. I am thinking he would like her to be able to speak. In your anger ye may do something that will prevent that. Shall we go?”
“Ilsabeth,” Reid said, his young voice shaking with the tears she knew he would fight not to shed before all these men.
“Hush, Reid,” she said, and smiled at him. “Ye will be safe here.”
“I will go and fetch Simon.”
“Aye, ye do that, laddie,” said Walter. “He has a few questions to answer. The first being why he was hiding away a woman wanted for treason.”
“He was protecting the king’s prisoner,” said Ilsabeth. “When ye came I was scrubbing the floor, Walter. That is hardly the act of a woman creeping about and ready to flee. And ye do ken that Sir Innes would ne’er turn a person o’er to trial and execution until he was verra sure that was what was warranted. Mayhap he just feared that he wouldnae be given the chance to find out the truth ere some zealous fool executed me.”
“Get her out of here,” he snapped at the soldiers, and then he glared at MacBean. “Ye best tell your master he has some explaining to do. The king will be verra interested in where we found this traitor.”
“She isnae a traitor,” yelled Reid as the soldiers escorted Ilsabeth out of the house, Walter limping behind them. He looked at MacBean after the door shut behind the men. “She isnae.”
“Of course she isnae, laddie,” said MacBean. “Best ye and I go and hunt down Simon. He needs to ken what game is being played now. I am thinking he will also be in need of a few calm heads about when he hears this.”
Ilsabeth stared at the king, idly thinking that he did not look any different from any other man yet not sure why she had ever thought that he would. What he did look like, however, was an angry man and this one had the power to cause her some real harm. Walter stood near her, but she noticed that Gowan managed to always keep himself between her and Walter.
“She was found in Sir Simon’s own house?” the king asked.
