Page 69 of Highland Slayer
It had been a shockingly simple thing. When his people were fleeing the battle and the incoming escort was crowding into the gatehouse, which was open to admit them, he’d simply managed to rush in with the rest of the army, no questions asked. Everyone was focused on getting inside and getting the wounded to the building that was surely the great hall, so no one noticed him at all. There were so many men that it was easy to lose himself in the crowd, and when the timing was right, he simply slipped away and ended up hiding in some unused outbuildings by a weird stone circle.
He considered himself quite fortunate.
The battle, of course, had been purely opportunistic. They had seen the incoming party about an hour before it made its way down the road to the abbey. Then they’d waited until the party made it to the gatehouse and the gates started to open. They should have waited until the gates were completely open, but a few of their men became too eager and broke rank before the order was given. That meant they all had to move, and they had to move quickly, because the escort was at least three or four times larger than their group.
They had to strike.
When it came to the Serpent People, however, that didn’t matter. They had always boasted that one of their men was worth five of any other man. However, in this case, the opposingarmy proved to be formidable. They also had several knights with them, something that hadn’t been anticipated, and those knights were nothing to fool with. They were fearsome and they were highly trained, and Willem had seen at least seven or eight of his own men cut down fairly quickly. When they realized they were in over their heads, they’d called a retreat, but not before they left eleven men dead on the field of battle. They couldn’t carry them because they couldn’t move fast enough, and there was a real fear that the party they attacked would try to pursue them.
Therefore, they fled and took the wounded with them.
All but Willem.
Surely by now, Bastijn would have realized that Willem wasn’t with them. He would send men to scrutinize the dead to see if Willem was among them, and when he discovered that he wasn’t, he would assume that Willem had made it inside the complex. Willem knew Bastijn extremely well, and he knew the man would not move far away. He knew that Bastijn would linger somewhere nearby, waiting for Willem to emerge with the very thing they sought.
The queen.
She was here, somewhere.
And Willem was going to find her.
Now, Willem watched from his hiding place, observing the army settle down and the women of the abbey going about their duties. St. Margaret’s seemed to be a vast place, but it was also an unconventional place. The construction of the interior was strange and, in some places, not particularly sturdy. There were outbuildings and stalls that were not in use, which had provided him with a convenient hiding place. But the women seemed to be traveling in groups, each of them assigned to a particular task or duty, and no one seemed to be drifting in his direction, whichwas good for him. It gave him time to gather his thoughts and formulate a plan.
He had to face this logically.
The wounded were being taken to the large building that he had assumed to be the great hall. He kept watching the people coming in and out, wondering if he would see the queen, but he never did. But in his mind, logic would dictate that after spending so long at sea and having the boat run aground, the queen was probably not in the best physical condition. She might even be ill or wounded herself for all he knew. It therefore stood to reason that she was probably in that great hall also. If that was where the sick and injured were being kept. He simply hadn’t seen her yet.
He needed to get inside that hall.
There were only two ways he could make it inside there—the first way would be to sneak in somehow. But given all of the people going in and out, he doubted that was an option. The second way, of course, was if he was wounded. He wasn’t wounded at all, but he could certainly injure himself to a believable degree while still retaining his senses and his strength. But the only way to accomplish that would be if they believed he was part of the incoming army. No one would believe a wounded enemy had wandered in and begged for help. Perhaps they were risky plans, but they were all he had at the moment.
Unless…
There was another way.
Perhaps if he were to take a hostage of one of the women and exchange her for the queen, he could get them both out alive. He had a big dagger with him and could use it as leverage. But he wasn’t a fool. He’d been fighting since he’d been old enough to speak because his people were a fighting people, fighting and winning any way they could. They used methodsthat more civilized armies wouldn’t use, but those methods were successful. The queen he sought was the result of those methods.
So, perhaps what he needed to use was one of those brutal methods. Use and abuse until he got what he wanted. Until he was allowed to leave unharmed with the queen in his possession. That was all he really wanted, just the woman who had escaped the Ormsfolk, which was an embarrassment in and of itself. Perhaps that was why they were so desperate to get her back. If she succeeded in escaping home, then it would diminish their terror in the eyes of their enemies.
And Willem wasn’t going to risk it.
Therefore, he’d find a hostage to exchange for her.
And God help the woman he chose.
*
“Mae, I mustspeak with ye.”
Mabel had been supervising the cleaning of a wound on one of the dun Tarh soldiers, a young man who had taken a club to the face. It had split his brow, and the left side of his forehead, and one of the nuns was tending to it while Mabel stood over her and made sure all was done to her liking. But the softly uttered question, from Estevan, had her turning to look at the man.
“Where did you come from?” she asked her son. “I did not see you enter.”
Estevan gestured to the entry door, which was open because of the people going in and out. “I’m not needed in the bailey,” he said. “Caelus and Lucan have that well under control. And I can see ye have everything in here well under control, too.”
He was teasing her because Mabel was a woman of action. She liked things done her way, even in an abbey that she had never visited in her life. But these were her husband’s men and she had a responsibility to them, so much so that MotherMichael had fled the hall. Mabel wasn’t sure she’d offended the woman by insisting on tending her husband’s men, but if she had, it couldn’t be helped.
She had a job to do.
