Chapter Seven

 

McClearn Farmstead

 

Owen paced outside the stables, fingering the ridiculous black habit he wore. He’d seen the traveling mendicants before of course, and had always found them an odd mixture of both unsettling and sad. Now, he was going to try to impersonate one!

He stopped, his arms crossed over his broad chest, and stared off to the west. The setting sun was turning the fields a striking mixture of pinks, purples and sienna. West was where they were heading, where she was.

Sophie.

Just the thought of her had him pacing again, his flimsy cloth slippers squelching in the dirt of the stable yard. He needed to get her back. Gods knew what that evil witch Lady Westwood was doing to her. He’d gotten a taste of it himself at the hands of the corrupt noble’s soldiers. When they’d dragged him out of the barn, he’d found himself stripped to the waist, tied against one of the poles that supported the roof of the stable block, and beaten savagely. He’d thought he could hear the cries of poor Sophie, but really they could have been his own, interspersed with his foul oaths and threats of vengeance. The brutes had paused to gag him with a foul smelling cloth, and then beat him anew. It was only when his back ran with blood, and he slumped in his bonds did they relent. He had little memory of the next few days.

He rotated his shoulder, the scar tissue across his back still feeling tight and sore. “I’ll have you back soon, Sophie,” he muttered, staring west into the setting sun once more. “I’ll die before I let her have you a day longer.”

He didn’t know why he had such a thirst for vengeance. The soldiers were just like many others in Muurland: primitive animals, paid to enforce the will of others. While there were some honorable soldiers, there were too many corrupt ones. It was just the way things were. But what galled him most was the fact that they’d lashed him at her behest. Lady Westwood. The same woman who could, at that very moment, be doing any number of heinous things to Sophie.

When his father had told Owen he was to work at the McClearn farmstead, there’d been a huge row between father and son. Owen loved the excitement of the city, just as his father did. He wanted a chance to make his own way in the rough, wild environment of Wyndhaven. The danger, intrigue, and murky politics all appealed to him. Anything seemed possible.

If he was honest with himself, he also enjoyed that regular, infamous feature of Wyndhaven life: the monthly slave auctions. He’d once snuck out from home to get a peek at what went on at the docks during those events, and the sights he’d witnessed both disturbed and fascinated him. It had been completely worth the whipping he’d gotten from his father upon his return home.

Initially, the prospect of two whole years spent toiling at the dirty, drab, boring farmstead depressed him. But then he’d laid eyes on Clayton McClearn’s daughter, and things suddenly didn’t seem so awful after all.

She, of course, wanted nothing to do with some idiot city dweller, but he’d made sure to take any chance he could to see her. Eventually she’d warmed to him, and though she’d never have admitted it, something had grown between them. Nascent, uncertain, but it was there all the same. Then, disaster.

He wanted to be there at House Westwood with Sophie. He wanted to protect her, to hold her, to tell her he would stand by her no matter what happened next. He wanted to finally kiss those swollen pink lips of hers. The ones he’d dreamt about at night in his stifling bunk above the stables.

How many times had he awoke with his erection tenting the blankets? How many nights did he fall asleep to the visions of Sophie’s deep cleavage that her conservative work shifts could never quite conceal? He even had disturbing, erotic dreams of darker pleasures with her. She stirred him like no other lass ever had.

But those bastard soldiers, and that harpy of a woman had taken her from him. Damn her.

“Owen, get the horses hitched up on that wagon,” his father Isaac called from the shadows of the stable block. “We leave at nightfall, lad.”

“Father, we should leave now. Every minute we wait … ”

Isaac stepped out of the shadows dressed in his own mendicant’s robes, the fading sun shrouding him in patterns of darkness and light.

“Patience, Owen. We’ll have one chance at this, and that means we stay to the plan. Now go.”

Owen harnessed up the two oldest horses Clayton McClearn possessed. Isaac felt it would paint a more convincing picture of itinerant priests, supported by the kindness of strangers alone. Owen made sure the dark cloth shroud was properly lashed over the simple frame that would cover the wagon’s occupants. They’d been blessed to have the sewing talents of Rory’s eldest daughter Erin, and the shroud was perfect. In the low light of night, none would be able to discern their deception, save an actual band of true itinerants. Owen prayed that their luck wasn’t that bad.

Soon all was ready, and Clayton McClearn, dressed in his high-collared finest, the engraved McClearn broadblade at his hip, pulled his horse close to the covered wagon.

“Remember,” Clayton said, his eyes glittering in the hollows of his face. “Wait until I leave. She mustn’t associate me with the priests. If she does, it’s off.”

Owen and Isaac, both perched up in the driver’s seat, nodded. The pair of men in the back of the wagon, both members of Isaac’s trade guild, shifted their weight and murmured their acknowledgment.

“Afraid to be tarred with the stain of mercy and goodness are you?” Isaac quirked a grin under the hood of his habit.

Clayton shook his head, his horse snorting. “If they knew which bastards sat in this particular wagon, no priests would ever be allowed to travel these lands again.”

Isaac chuckled, then his mouth thinned, his eyes hidden in shadow. “Just make sure you get out of there, Clayton. This was my plan, but I don’t trust her. She’s unpredictable.”

“Aye, I know her well enough. If we’re lucky she’ll be off balance, not calculating. If so, we’ve got a chance. Are you sure this will work?”

Isaac nodded, gesturing with his hand. “The plan is sound. The mendicants are allowed free access to any noble’s stead for twelve hours. It’s a mockery, of course — the noble’s hide whatever they don’t want seen by outsiders — but it will get us in.”

Clayton moved his horse around to the opposite side of the wagon and pointed at the junior Galt. “And you, listen to your father. This is no time to be rebelling against authority again.”

Owen clenched his jaw, but nodded. “I will, Sir. I just want her back, is all.”

Clayton lowered his voice. “We all do, Owen. Be a good lad and do us proud.”

The slap of reins shot Clayton’s horse forward, and in moments, he was away, the sound of galloping hooves receding off into the low whispers of the evening breeze.