“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. “Why have 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 a distressing 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.
“My name is Corisande,” she said, sounding breathless. “I did not mean to sound rude, your grace, but these circumstances… I am understandably distressed.”
“Lady Corisande,” William said, motioning for MacDuff to bring over another chair. “And who is the lass stuck tae ye?”
“My sister, Gaia, your grace.”
MacDuff brought the chair and William motioned to it. “Please,” he said. “Sit down. Ye must be weary. I’ll have food and drink brought tae ye.”
Corisande sat down, but she shook her head to the rest of it. “You do not need to bring us anything to eat or drink, your grace,” she said. “I want to know why we are here. We have done nothing to warrant this. Please let us leave.”
William looked at the pair. Corisande sat down and Gaia knelt next to her, still pressed against her sister’s torso. “Ye were with the provisions wagons?” he clarified.
“The surgeon’s wagon,” she said. “I am a healer.”
“I see,” William said, nodding. “What is yer family name, m’lady?”
Corisande wasn’t sure she should tell him. She remembered what Cole had told her when they’d first met about William the Lion sending missives to her father through Alpin Canmore. She wasn’t sure she wanted to tell the King of Scotland that her father was the one who refused to join him.
She wasn’t entirely certain how he would react.
“I… I am not certain that is relevant, your grace,” she said evasively. “There are many English houses that are fighting your men right now, but I was not among those fighting. I heal – that is what I do. That is the only reason I am here.”
“Papa says she is the best healer in England,” Gaia suddenly piped up. “She learned from Mama, but I have not learned. I was only here because Papa forced me to come and I want to go home.”
William focused on the very young woman with the quivering voice. “Who is yer papa?”
Corisande wanted to stop her from answering, but short of slapping a hand over her mouth, she wasn’t sure what more she could do. In a panic, she ended up pinching Gaia to shut her up just as the girl answered.
“Alastor de Bourne,” she said, wincing as she looked at her sister. “Ouch!”
Corisande looked at her sister with a great deal of disappointment and sorrow, but Gaia had no idea why. With a heavy sigh, Corisande returned her attention to William only to see that the man was looking at her most strangely.
Surprised, even.
“De Bourne,” he repeated quietly. “The descendants of Eric Bloodaxe.”
Corisande met his gaze without displaying the fear she was feeling inwardly. Her silly little sister had just put the nail in the coffin that was going to drag them both into the abyss now that William knew who their father was. What she didn’t know, or realize, was that MacDuff had heard the same thing.
The man who had come to The Keld those weeks ago to force her father to join the rebellion.
“We cannot choose our family or our siblings,” she said, releasing her sister and shoving her onto her bottom. “Believe me, I would have chosen more wisely had that been the case.”
William grinned, looking at Gaia, who was whimpering and grabbing at her sister. “Dunna be too hard on her,” he said. “It was the polite thing tae answer my question, since I asked. I dunna know yer father personally but, of course, I know of him. Yer family has a long and distinguished family history.”
Corisande wasn’t sure where he was going with that line of conversation, but she didn’t want to say anything more than was absolutely necessary, afraid she might say too much.