By the time they arrived at Redesdale, night was full on. The gaol was down by the warden’s stables, and Margaret and Osanna were locked in two separate cages next to each other, separated by a thick stone wall. The warden didn’t even bother to see them off; he rode straight on to his house, where Martha Lynde would have a fine meal waiting for him.
“They’re going to burn me,” Osanna cried. “Just like they did my mother.”
“No, they are not,” Margaret said. “You’ve done nothing wrong.” Though she knew as well as Osanna that innocence had little bearing on the meting out of punishment. If the warden decided they should burn, they would burn. Margaret would do all in her power to keep Osanna from suffering for Margaret’s choices. Margaret never should have let her stay at Hartfell. The girl was never meant to be part of Margaret’s ill fate. “Osanna, you’re not going to burn. I promise.”
Osanna sniffled. “It’s not that,” she said with a sob. “It’s Gillis. The men came while you were gone, and I couldn’t get away, no matter how hard I tried. I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”
“How did you know?” Margaret had not had a chance to tell her.
“The bones told me.” Osanna let out a moan.
Why couldn’t the bones have spoken up before Gillis had gone riding out?
“Osanna . . .” But she could think of nothing to say to comfort the girl.
Margaret was naught but bad luck. Everyone she cared about came to harm. Cursed. And everyone around her fell under her plague. Fate was not her friend. In fact, for Margaret’s part, it was her mortal enemy. If she survived the warden, she would move into a cave and become a hermit.
She lay on the stone floor. It smelled of urine and rot. She had made mistakes in her life. Big ones. Leaving her family alone the night the reivers had come was the worst of all. She should have been there to save them. She deserved whatever punishment she got. And when it was over, she would see them again.
Osanna deserved none of it. Yet Margaret had taken up her plans of revenge, paying no heed to how they might affect Osanna. Quiet sobs came from the other side of the wall. One thing was certain: from this moment on, Margaret would sacrifice everything to keep Osanna safe.
“Soon now,” she whispered up to her mother. Her father. “We will be together soon.”
* * *
The night passed long and cold. Then the day. All the while, Osanna was uncommonly quiet. Occasionally, Margaret called out to her to make sure she was still alive. Osanna answered but said very little.
“Osanna,” she called again.
“Yes, my lady?” came the weak response.
“Are you hurt?”
“No, my lady.”
The poor girl. Margaret had much to atone for. “I’m sorry, Osanna. This is all my fault. I should never have let you stay with me. Everything I touch turns to ruin. I should have let you be.” Margaret thought she’d been saving her that day she’d plucked her from the ruffians. In truth, she’d been hastening her demise.
“Do not say such things.” Osanna’s voice was stronger now. “We each walk our own way, and your fate is not my fate. Each step I take is my own choice and takes me down my own path. We all, each of us, lead ourselves to our own journey’s end.”
Margaret leaned back against the stones. “Did the bones tell you that?”
“No. My mother did.”
Osanna’s mother must have been quite a woman. Her words sounded true, but why did it feel like Margaret had dragged Osanna down the wrong path, leading her to an untimely end?
A man appeared on the other side of the bars, dangling a heavy key. “Warden wants to see you.” He fitted the key into the door and gave it a twist. The lock creaked and then clicked open.
“What about Osanna?” Margaret tried to peer into Osanna’s cell, but the man blocked her.
“The witch?” he said. “She will be dealt with later.” Then he dragged Margaret away.
“Osanna,” Margaret called at the same moment Osanna cried out, “My lady.”
The door to the gaol closed behind her, and Margaret found herself in the courtyard of the warden’s manor house. A scaffold stood along the barmkin wall, where a noose hung from an outstretched beam like the hand of death reaching out for her.
The man pulled her past the scaffold and into the house. He bypassed the great hall and lead her up a flight of stairs to the solar. The warden waited, reclining in a comfortable-looking chair in front of the fire. The gaoler pushed Margaret into the room and closed the door.
The warden looked up. “You must be thirsty.”
Indeed, Margaret had not had a drop to drink nor a bite to eat since she’d left for Carrigdean yesterday. Her throat burned from the dryness, and her eyelids scraped every time she blinked. But she would rather die of thirst than ask for water from the warden. So she stood quietly, firmly while her eyes ached from lack of moisture.
The warden nodded to a man standing in the corner. The man poured Margaret a glass of water from an earthenware flask. He came forward and handed the horn cup to Margaret.
She took it and drank. The water was murky and stale, but she drained the last drop. She gave the cup back to the man without a word.
The warden raised an eyebrow. “Come here, girl.” He pointed to the rug of woven wool in front of him.
Margaret did as she was bade, crossing the room silently. The fire burned brightly in the hearth, and as she stepped in front of it, the heat spread to her legs and up through her body. The cold stones of the gaol had chilled her.
The warden stared at her as if expecting something. Margaret stared back. This was the man who had killed her family. His mouth twisted into a crooked grin. The same mouth that had called for torches to be launched at the sleepy house of Hartfell. His eyes narrowed as he looked her up and down. The same eyes that had watched as flames had climbed the walls of her home, swallowing everything she loved.
“Should you not be begging for your life?” he asked.
“I do not beg.” And it was the truth. In all her time wandering the streets and alleyways of London, she’d never begged anything from anyone.
“So it seems. But you must know the penalty for not showing obeisance to your liege.” He gestured at her to lower herself.
Margaret did not bend her knees even the slightest. What was another death threat on top of what she must already be facing?
“Perhaps you need some help,” he said. He nodded again at the man-at-arms lurking in the corner.
The man stepped forward, and Margaret’s hand went to her waist. To the empty sheath where her misericorde should have been.
“Looking for this?” The warden held up her misericorde on an open palm.
The man-at arms paused.
She nearly lunged for it but caught herself. It would have been a futile attempt. He would have snatched it out of reach and more than likely turned it on her. Still, it would have served its purpose—granting a quick death and relief from the slow and painful demise she’d been living these past six years.
He let out one quick bark of a laugh, then laid the dagger on the table beside his chair. In plain sight but where she could never reach it.
“I’ll give you one last chance to humble yourself and beg for your life.”
Margaret did not move, prepared to accept her fate. Not fate, according to Osanna, but the path she’d chosen to walk. Perhaps Osanna was right. If Margaret had taken a step in a different direction even just once, she might not be here facing her journey’s end.
She could have taken a step toward Angus instead of always turning him away. Then maybe he would have ridden out with his father and Gillis wouldn’t have died. She could have taken a step away from the market square instead of climbing the stairs to the upper room of the inn. Then perhaps Osanna would not be weeping in the warden’s prison. Both of these might have taken her to a different journey’s end. But neither would compensate for the loss of her family nor the evil the warden had done.
The step she would change—could she go back and do it over—was the one she’d taken to meet Timothy Tilghman at the stone circle. That was the step that had brought her to this end. The step that had brought the curse upon her. Without the curse, she would have been free to travel many different paths.
Free to give herself to Angus. To hold his hand the way he held her heart. But that was not a journey she could walk.
The man-at-arms grabbed Margaret’s shoulders and pressed with surprising strength, using his leg to unlock her knees. Margaret went down, all the way to the floor. Sinking like a rock tossed into a bog.
“That’s better,” the warden said. “Now beg.”
Margaret pressed her mouth shut. No force in heaven or earth could drag those words out of her.
“Ask me to spare your life,” he added gruffly.
She stayed there on the floor, staring at his carefully crafted boots and biting her lips.
The warden grunted. “Since you care so little about your own life, perhaps you will care about the witch.”
Margaret looked up. Osanna. “She has no part in this. She has done nothing. She knows nothing.”
The warden just stared at her expectantly, his eyes like steel.
She’d already seen what waited for her in the courtyard. There was no doubt in her mind the noose was for her. Osanna deserved to live. Osanna had even said Margaret’s fate was not hers.
She had grave doubts that the warden would actually spare Osanna’s life, but she would fight to the end to save her.
She raised her eyes to the warden, then lowered them to the ground and clasped her hands together. “Please.” The word tasted like vinegar. “Please, spare her.”
The warden was silent a few moments before grumbling, “Is that the best you can do?”
Mercy, how she wanted that man dead. “I beg you, good sir, please spare Osanna. She is innocent.” She rocked her body forward and back as she’d seen a young man do when he’d been caught by the guards for purse snatching.
“Better,” the warden said. “Still, I think it’s the best we’ll get from one such as you.” He shifted in his chair as he spoke to the man-at-arms. “Burn the witch.”
“No!” Margaret leapt to her feet. “You cannot.”
The warden raised his eyebrow again.
Margaret fell to her knees and lowered her head almost to the floor. “Please. I am begging you most sincerely; she is innocent. Spare her. Do what you want with me, but she has no part in this.”
The warden laughed. “That’s more like it.” He held out his hand, the one with his signet ring proclaiming him warden of the Middle March.
She leaned forward, bile rising in her throat. As carefully as possible not to let her lips touch his skin, she kissed the ring. “Please, good sir. I am prepared for my fate, but let her go.”
“Leave us,” the warden said to the man-at-arms.
Margaret did not look up but heard his footsteps cross the room and the door open and close. She was alone with the warden. If she felt sick before, it was nothing compared to now.
The room faded away as her mind was drawn to the stone circle those many years ago. Ash fell from the sky. The moon hid behind the clouds as if too frightened to watch the evils committed below. His black eyes stared at her, threatening to take even more from her than had already been taken.
Margaret’s forehead burst into pain. She tried to place her hand on it, to rub the fire away, but the warden was holding her wrist. She shook her head, desperate to bring her mind to the present, but all she could see was a girl standing scared in the night with raven-black hair and eyes the color of ivy and holly.
Such beautiful eyes. Skin like milk. How he wanted to stroke her skin. Run his fingers through her hair.
Margaret wrenched her arm away, for it was only then she realized he was touching her skin. That his hand had wrapped around her arm above her gloves. These were his thoughts—his memories.
She fell to the side, pressing the butt of her hand into her temple where her pulse pounded like a man with a sledgehammer trying to get out.
The warden stood, towering over her. He seemed confused by her reaction but only for a moment. “Get up,” he commanded.
Margaret tried to stand, but her head spun. She took a few stumbling steps and braced herself against the wall. This was all his fault. The warden’s. For it was he who had caused this curse to come upon her. His hand that had ruined her life in so many ways.
It took a few moments for her to steady herself before the warden’s blurred form became clear. When it did, she saw the same look in his eyes she had seen six years ago.
How had she found herself in the same exact place that had ruined her before? Trapped by a man threatening to take away what little she had left. Osanna. Angus. She would never see them again.
This time, she had no weapon. Nothing to defend herself with. The warden stepped closer, ready to grab her again.
“Never,” she said, slapping him across his face with all her strength. A red sting on top of his old scar.
His eyes turned hard. Placing his hand on the side of her head, he threw her toward the wall.
Her head slammed into the stones. A burst of white flashed in front of her eyes. She collapsed to the floor, gasping for air.
The door opened, and someone entered. Margaret blinked to clear her vision. The man-at-arms.
He didn’t glance at Margaret but went straight to the warden. “Reivers,” he said. And as the thrumming of Margaret’s head slowed, she could hear the warning bell of the warden’s tower.
Men would be running, scrambling to get the livestock into the safety of the barmkin wall. Women would be pulling their children close, safe inside the manor house or the pele tower.
The warden scooped up his thick, yellow jerkin, and the man-at-arms handed him a steel bonnet to protect his head. Then they left, closing the door behind them.
Margaret leaned against the wall. Blood trickled down the side of her face from the same scar he’d given her before. She’d left a streak of red on the pale stones. She had to get out. This could be her only chance. The warden would be busy for some time trying to protect his stronghold. These must be reivers with no fear, to bring down a raid on the warden himself. Margaret silently prayed he would fall off his horse and be trampled. Or better yet, burned.
After a few rasping breaths, she tried to stand. She couldn’t get her feet under her, and the effort made the room spin into a haze of muddied colors. Black, white, gray, red.
The door rattled. He was back already? Margaret tried again to stand, but before she could, the door flew open, banging against the wall.
A man stood on the threshold. She squinted. Lord Linkirk?