George extended his arm to the side and snapped his fingers. “My sword!”
One of his guards brought him his claymore. With barely a pause, George’s powerful torso twisted as he swung it and cut the first hostage’s head clean off his shoulders.
Jesu!Even George’s guards looked shocked that their chieftain would violate Highland custom by brutally executing a hostage.
“Father, ye can’t do this!” John shouted as George approached the next hostage in line. “I gave my oath that these hostages would not be harmed.”
“I am chieftain of the Sinclairs, not you!” George roared.
“But I—”
Before the words were out of John’s mouth, a second bloody head rolled across the ground.
“I know you’re plotting against me,” George said, turning back to John. “You’re eyeing my chair. What made you think you’re man enough to push me aside and take my place?”
“Nay!” John said. “I’ve always been loyal.”
“The old witch foretold that my son would rebel against me, and now I see it’s true,” George said. Ye made an alliance with MacKay behind my back, and the two of ye let my enemies go.”
George stood before Finn and the last Murray hostage, his sword dripping with blood. This looked like the end. At least it would be quick. Finn closed his eyes, said a prayer, and drew up an image in his mind of Margaret holding Ella. His last thought would be of them.
He heard thewhooshof a sword and the third head roll.
###
The dungeon was pitch black, but Finn’s eyes gradually adjusted until he could make out the outline of his fellow prisoner chained against the opposite wall.
“I should have stayed home with my bride,” Finn said. “You’re the last person I want to spend my final hours with.”
“Don’t worry. My father won’t keep me here that long,” John said. “You’ll die alone.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Finn said.
“If my father wanted to kill me,” John said, “he would have done it right off, like he did with the Murray hostages.”
Perhaps even George Sinclair could not bring himself to murder his own son. But that did not explain why Finn was still alive. George either had some use for him or a special torture in mind. He strained against his chains, but they were bolted tight to the wall.
After a few hours, two guards brought food and ale.
“What about me?” Finn asked when they only gave it to John.
“You’re to have none, ye Gordon devil,” one of the guards said.
“I fought with your last chieftain!” Finn shouted after the guards as they climbed back up the stairs.
Each time the guards brought more, Finn waited for John to offer him some. After two days, Finn’s tongue was thick, and his thirst finally overcame his pride.
“Will ye save a bit of that ale for me?” Finn asked. “If ye scoot the cup as far as ye can with your foot, I think I can reach it.”
“’Tis bound to spill,” John said. “And it would only delay the inevitable.”
“Your prospects don’t look so good either,” Finn said.
He was beginning to think George had no purpose for keeping him alive except to give him a slow death in this dungeon. He could withstand hunger, but he was becoming delirious from thirst.
Margaret’s image was so real to him. Imagining her was better than not seeing her at all. And he had so much to tell her. His tongue was so thick he could not speak, but she understood him without him having to say the words. She was in his head and in his heart.
In the blackness of the dungeon, he could not tell if it was night or day. He’d tried at first to gauge the passage of time by counting how often the guards came to feed John, but he’d long since lost track and had no notion how long he’d been here.
