“Sit with us, lassie,” he said. “None of us have had the privilege of speaking with a proper English lass before.”
Corisande didn’t like the way he was looking at her. He made her skin crawl.
“If you do not take me to your commander, I will scream as if you are driving dirks into my heart,” she said. “I’ll scream loud enough to bring the English from Berwick. Will you take me your commander or should I start screaming?”
The man frowned, putting up his hands. “No need tae…”
Corisande started screaming. She screamed as loud as she could and when the Scots moved closer to her to shush her, she screamed louder and encouraged Gaia to scream, too. Soon, both of them were screaming their heads off and the Scots around the fire looked on with shock. Their screaming brought more Scots, however, running from all directions.
They were attracting quite a crowd, standing there and screaming as they were. It was quite unsettling and Corisande was coming to wonder if the screaming tactic had been a good idea. She brought attention, of course, but not the right kind. Finally, a tall, slender man with dark hair and a dark beard arrived, looking at the woman and the men surrounding them as if something terrible surely must have happened.
“What is the trouble here?” he demanded, looking to the men who had been huddling around the fire, minding their own business until the English woman approached them and started screaming. “What did ye do? Why is she screaming like that?”
The man Corisande spoke to looked a little ill. “The lassie wanted tae speak with our commander,” he said. “I asked her tae sit and…”
Corisande cut him off. “And I started screaming,” she said, angry and hoarse. “I demand to speak with the man in command, do you hear? I want to know why we have been brought here. Are you the man in command?”
The man with the dark hair nodded, his gaze lingering on her. “I’m Alexander MacDuff,” he said. “I am at yer service, m’lady.”
Corisande marched up to him, looking him over. “MacDuff,” she repeated. The name sounded familiar, but she couldn’t place it. “Whyhave you brought us here? I demand you release us immediately.”
She was holding on to Gaia, who was clinging to her sister and weeping. MacDuff looked between the two women, both of them exceptionally lovely, but the older one… she was something spectacular.
“Ye’re sisters?” he asked.
“Aye,” Corisande replied. “Now that I have answered your question, it would be polite of you to answer one of mine.”
MacDuff wasn’t going to do it in front of his men. In fact, he had a good deal he wanted to ask of the sisters, women who had been with the auxiliary group to the rear of the English army. He wanted to know why.
And he wanted to know what they knew about the English positions.
“Will ye please come with me?” he asked, sweeping his right arm towards the center of the encampment. “Let me take ye someplace more comfortable. Surely ye must be hungry.”
Corisande didn’t answer. She was too angry and, truth be told, too scared. But she agreed to go with him, following the man through the encampment that smelled like a thousand filthy animals had gathered. There were men leering at her and she passed by dozens who looked as if they either wanted to kill her or molest her. With Gaia whimpering against her, it was adistressing trek all the way to a larger tent with lion standards flying over it.
But Corisande had no idea what that meant.
She followed MacDuff into the tent only to be met by a host of curious faces. There were men all over the tent, in smaller groups, a couple standing over a table with vellum upon it, and then one elderly man sitting in a chair next to a brazier.
“Yer grace,” MacDuff said to the man with a cup of something steaming in his hand. He had dirty gray hair and gnarled fingers, but the eyes were sharp. “The lady wishes tae speak tae the man in command.”
The old man set his cup down. “Greetings,” he said with a speech inflection that sounded like a cross between Gaelic and French. “My name is William. Will ye tell me yers?”
Corisande’s gaze moved from the old man to the men around the tent. The structure was full of heavily armed Scots, but more than that, it was a small armory in and of itself. There were hides on the ground against the dampness and a fine bed with curtains was against one wall.
Yer grace.
That was what MacDuff had called him.
A hint of suspicion came to her mind.
“William,” she repeated. “Do you have a title, my lord?”
The old man nodded. “Aye,” he said without hesitation. “I am King of the Scots. May I have yer name, lass?”
Corisande couldn’t help but react from both surprise and fear. Perhaps his identity had been in the back of her mind, but now it was confirmed. The man Cole had spied upon, the King of the Scots, was sitting before her.
She proceeded carefully.
