A noose was slipped over his head and pulled tight.
Angus found the strength to jerk his body once, but that was all he could manage. He couldn’t seem to move his legs. Then suddenly the rope was chafing his neck as he was being dragged again across the stone floor, this time by the throat.
He couldn’t breathe!
The rope was strangling him, and he could do nothing about it, for his wrists were bound.
He was on the roof. That much he knew.
The smaller man, who had spoken first, grabbed him by the shirt collar and pulled him to a sitting position. Angus stared groggily into a pair of intense brown eyes.
“You’re going to be hanged,” the man told him. “We’re going to toss you over the battlements and leave your corpse dangling there for the MacEwens to gawk at for a few days. I’m Murdoch MacEwen, by the way, and this is my castle, not yours.”
“Gwendolen…” It was all he could manage to say in a rough, raspy voice.
Murdoch’s eyes darkened with spite. “Aye, that would be my sister. The one you took by force, just like you took Kinloch. I didn’t take kindly to that when I learned of it. Nor could I have done this without her. She’s the one who poisoned you, Angus. I thought you ought to know.”
Angus shook his head, and the next thing he knew, he was being slung onto the other man’s wide shoulders. He was vaguely aware of a terrible smell, and the world spinning in circles, as Murdoch tied the other end of the rope around the stonework.
Angus wanted to fight. His fury screamed inside his head. Where was his sword? He needed to cut this man in half!
He remembered Gwendolen removing his weapons and setting them on the bench by the window. He was naked with her… in bed, in her arms… but he was wearing his kilt now. Someone had dressed him.
Where was his sword?
Oh yes…
A moment later, he was pushed from the battlements. He rolled limply over the side. Falling, falling… The rope would soon tighten around his neck, perhaps snap his spine. His heart exploded with fear, and then his mind finally jolted awake.
Chapter Twenty-six
The rope went taut, the falling stopped abruptly, and Angus bounced rigidly in the noose. He swung back and forth against the exterior stone wall, kicking and fighting, while all air was cut off.
He could hear the sound of the rope creaking while he writhed against the force that was pulling him down. Veins bulged in his forehead. He felt as if his eyes were going to blow out of his head. The rope chafed and burned his skin as it strangled his neck, but he never stopped kicking and bucking, until suddenly, there was a loudsnap!
The pressure let go, and he sucked in a breath as he splashed into the darkness below.
Water filled his nose and ears, frigid and deafening. He kicked his legs, while fiery adrenaline coursed through his body, obliterating the effects of the poison. His awareness of life and reality returned, and the will to live infused him with strength. He tugged and pulled against the rope binding his wrists, and shredded his skin in order to slide his hands free. Then he broke the surface and sucked in a vital gulp of air. He bobbed below again, still weak and disoriented, while the sound of bubbles engulfed his ears.
***
“What the devil just happened?”
Murdoch leaned out over the battlements and looked down at the inky water below. He could hear the sounds of splashing, but could see nothing through the darkness.
“The rope broke!” Slevyn explained.
“Ropes don’t break, you bluidy fool!”
“There was a knot in it. I had to tie two lengths together.”
Murdoch regarded him furiously. “What are you standing here for? Get down there, pull him out, and kill him.”
Slevyn ran to the stairs and descended to the bailey. He hurried to the gate, lifted the iron bar, then pushed the heavy oak doors open.
He turned around, deciding it would be best if he was mounted, for he might have to chase the invincible Lion down. Murdoch’s horse was saddled and tethered a few feet away, so he climbed onto his back and rode hell-bent across the bridge, drawing his sword, but wondering uneasily how he was going to kill a man who could only die by the noose.
***
