Page 83 of Highlander's Sinless Nymph
Did he just swear in an English accent?
Suddenly, there was a commotion off to Charlotte’s left, out beyond the edge of the battlefield where the five-hundred Scots were arrayed against the five-hundred English.
Shouts went up and, all of a sudden, what seemed like every person’s attention was riveted on a single rider that had just crested the hill.
Hunched over Cogar, with his blonde hair flying behind him in the wind of his speed, Edward MacAlpein raced towards the massed armies.
“Stop!” he bellowed. “Stop! Do nae hand over the Sassenach, Faither!”
Charlotte was caught between complete confusion, elation, and horror. She turned and looked at her father, who was still standing next to the two guards who had released the English prisoner. His face was pulled back in a snarl of disbelief.
“Trickery!” roared the Laird, from behind Charlotte. “Trickery and a double-cross! All men to arms!”
The prisoner—whoever he was—suddenly straightened and whipped the bag off of his head. Charlotte saw then that, whoever he might be, he wasnotEdward.
My father never had him. He got one of his big, blond men to stand in for Edward so that he could get me back without trading anything!
It was a simple, but clever, ruse. Thanks to Hirst having seen Edward, of course, they had managed to find a man that was almost identical in physique—though not in facial features.
The actor’s face was far less handsome than that of Charlotte’s beloved. It was not helped, probably, that, just then, the big English soldier’s face was contorted in a scowl of fury at having his disguise seen through too early.
He took a couple of quick, agile steps towards Charlotte, closing the gap before her brain had any time to formulate a response to the unfolding events.
Clearly, the limp was all part of the show.
The fake Edward reached out a hand to grab her—intent, no doubt, on hauling her back to the English side of the lines. Charlotte flinched away, a soft scream coming from her lips.
Then, many things happened at once: Captain Bolton roared a command to his men and the English started flooding forward in a red tide.
The Laird flipped over the small table that stood under the pavilion, drew his sword and screamed, “MacQuarries! To the last man! Fer hearth and fer home!”
Edward charged onto the battlefield, between the two converging armies, heading straight for Charlotte.
The fake Edward’s massive hand clamped tight about Charlotte’s forearm.
“Let go of me!” Charlotte screeched. She tried to pull her arm out of the big Englishman’s grip, but she might just as easily have pulled it from a block of stone.
The big, blond soldier leered at her, starting to tow her back towards her father, back towards the approaching rush of English soldiers.
Then he suddenly jerked, stiffened. The hand that had been holding Charlotte’s arm snapped up to his own neck and his eyes bulged in his head.
Charlotte saw, to her fascinated horror, that a white-feathered arrow was protruding from the side of the man’s neck. With a gurgle, the Edward impostor dropped heavily to his knees, pawed feebly at Charlotte’s skirts and then keeled over sideways to lie dead on the grass.
Charlotte looked over to the direction from which the arrow had come. She saw a small clump of alder trees near the edge of the battlefield. There was the flash of a bright blonde head from between the tangle of branches.
Is that—Is that...a woman?
Had she but known it, Nina, the Scottish huntress, had taken care of the big Englishman with unerring skill.
“Charlotte!” came Edward’s bass roar from off to her left. “Charlotte, run to me, lass!”
Then, before, she could waste any more thought on what in the world was going on, or why, the two opposing armies came together in a mad, apocalyptic smash of shrieking men and crashing metal.
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Edward watched in horror as Charlotte was engulfed by the two lines of charging, screaming, weapon-toting men and disappeared. So engrossed was he in trying to catch sight of her in the melee, that he did not even realize that he too had been engulfed in the joining battle. Suddenly, he was in a sea of cursing men—Scots on his right, English on his left—who were intent on making minced meat out of their enemies.
Cogar bucked, lashed out with her hooves and caved in the head of an English trooper who had been endeavoring to get a hold of her.
