Fergus gave a low growl, tried to rise on his weak legs, but yelped pitiably and sagged back on the ground, still emitting a long, feral growl. She was too frightened to move and waited for her eyes to adjust to the dark. Overhead the wind began to howl and the trees creaked and rocked. Red coals from the dying fire cast the sword tip before her eyes as deep a red as the fires of hell, and Glenna looked up slowly along the length of the sword’s blood gutter.

Above her, his teeth shone white in the dark and the sudden flare of a torch limned him from behind. He moved the sword tip to her neck and pressed hard enough that she dared not move and barely breathed.

“I could kill you here and now,” he said, and she felt the tip cut slightly.

She stifled a cry.

Someone waved another torch and a pair of bats shrieked and flew down from the roof, drifted menacingly over the heads of the men then out the wide open door. Torchlight hit his face. Above her stood the devil himself, the one man she never wanted to see again. Looking down at her was the deadly, cruel face of Munro the Horrible.

“You are a fool, poaching from the manor of the sheriff?” he said.

She was frozen in terror, but desperately tried not to show it.

He was a squat, thick man with long and powerful arms, large hands, an expression of evil…and the coldest eyes she had ever encountered. He pressed the sword even deeper.

Unable to stop herself, she sucked in a breath at the pressure of the sword tip.

“Nothing to say? Someone must have cut out your tongue. Hmmm…” He rubbed his bearded chin.

“I can speak.”

“Ah, so you can, lad,” he said pensively, staring at the chicken bones next to the fire and what was left of the few vegetables she had roasted. “Perhaps I will cut out your tongue before I cut off your hand or I could choose to hang you. I have options. However, I have found there is nothing better to dissuade others and save our game from greedy hands than a body hanging off the gates.”

Fergus growled ominously.

Munro pulled back his sword and quickly turned to his men. “Take this thieving fool who sleeps so easily after feasting on my birds. The lad is under arrest.” He sheathed his weapon and turned away to walk from the shed.

Two men jerked her up by her arms, Fergus acted up again, and while one tied her hands behind her back and the other called out to Munro. “What should we do with the hound?”

Glenna didn’t breathe. Do not kill him…please do not.

The sheriff turned and gave Fergus a cursory glance.

Her poor dog lay on his side, the arrow sticking out of him, his black lips curled and his long canine teeth bared at Munro.

“Leave him. He will be fortunate to last another day.”

Glenna exhaled the breath she’d been holding at the same time the truth of his words struck deeply into her heart. She looked at Fergus as the sheriff's henchmen each grabbed an arm and dragged her from the shed. Fergus tried to rise again, viciously growling.

“No, Fergus!” she shouted. “Stay! Stay…”

Outside, the fire from the torches lit the small clearing, where their horses were gathered. They had not found her horse. Skye was tied deeper into the south side of the woods, where there was grass and she would not be seen. They stopped next to a large bay and one of the men tossed her up in front of the saddle and mounted behind her, warning, “Do not think ye to escape, lad. ‘Tis a far way down to the ground and Thor’s hooves will crush your bones.”

Glancing towards the shed, she could barely make out the silhouette of her hound lying by the dying fire, then the men all closed in around and with Munro leading, they rode down into the darkness of the trees.

No one spoke as they rode and time passed tree by tree, the only sound that of their horses hooves on the leaves and twigs covering the floor of the forest. The sudden wind had calmed down to a occasional gust high in the treetops. Whenever there was a break in the forest, she could see a few stars hanging high in the sky. The moon was gone, and the path ahead and behind them dark. She was numb with fear, contemplating her fate.

For a fleeting moment she wondered where Montrose was. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine his face, and absorbed deeply all of her regrets.

She didn't know how long it took to reach their destination--back to the manor on the hillside. She was panicked and lost in thought, but it was still dark outside when she caught a glimpse through the open shutters of the setting moon. There was no wind, no rain, just quiet. She stood before the sheriff in a chamber inside the stone and timber manor hung with tapestries. Logs crackled from a blazing fire burning in the huge stone hearth and the flames reflected on the stone floors. Iron lanterns with thick, sweet-smelling candles spread warm amber light down from iron hooks in the walls, and a bowl filled with fruit next to a plank with dark bread and cheese sat waiting on a table next to Munro’s huge carved chair.

He studied her silently over the rim of a large silver wine goblet trimmed with jewels she would have loved to show off to her brothers. She stood quietly still, taking long deep breaths to quell her fears and mask her weaknesses, like her sudden urge to cry at the sweet images of her brothers. Would they hear what happened to her? Would she hang? Or would they wonder about her and think of her living in the king’s castle as his lost daughter, not a thief hung or maimed. She thought of what he had done to poor Ruari.

Munro rose from his chair and slowly walked toward her, sword in his hand and he lifted her tunic with the blade, touched the ties on her trouse with the sword tip. “I wonder how repentant you can be?”

She dared not breathe.

“How much do you wish to live lad?” He touched her face and she wanted to wretch. “No sign yet of a beard,” he laughed.

His pleasure was for young lads. Her mind raced toward a single idea—a great risk but her only chance. She stepped away and shook her head violently, until her hat fell forward and her long braid cascaded down.

She could see his reaction in those icy eyes.

He grabbed the neck of her tunic and ripped it to reveal her breast bindings.

“I am no lad,” she said defiantly.

“I can see that," he paused. "I know you. You're the horsethief."

"I am not."

He waited a heartbeat or two and spun around. “Jock!” he called out to one of his men, who came rushing inside. It was the stocky, red-haired guardsman who had lifted her into the saddle and had been dragging her all about.

“Look what we have here. What do you think?” Munro asked him. “Would you care for this wench?”

The man eyed her as if she were covered in honey.

Oh lud! She fumbled to lace her tunic closed.

Munro was watching her reaction and he began to laugh. “Give us your name, lass.”

“Rot in hell!” she spat.

He only laughed more but his eyes…his eyes bespoke murder before he turned and walked away. “I believe you will serve as a grand incentive for my men.”

"I am Glenna Canmore," she said. "I am the king's daughter."

He was still as a rock, then he laughed loud and hard. "Aye. The king's daughter...a horsethief. A lying horsethief." He picked up his goblet of wine and drank, leaving his words to do their work.

"I am Glenna Canmore."

"You aren't even a good liar. The king has no daughter, or son." He set down his the goblet and said, “Lock her in the pit cell.”

The man set his hands on her shoulders.

“And do not stop for your own pleasure, Jock. I will check on her.”

His man angrily pulled her from the chamber, shoving her down narrow hallway with his hands on her buttocks, stopping to squeeze and fondle her, and she stumbled away and hit the wall. He pinned her with his body, pressing his hips against her. “I can give you this. Munro will never know.” He forced his fetid mouth on her and bit at her lips. “I can ride hard and long, wench.”

She wanted to fight. She want to knee him. She wanted to wretch. He would no more believe who she was than Munro had so she pressed her chest to his and said breathily, “Wait. He will catch us.” Like a hungry tavern maid, she licked her lips provocatively.

He bought it and seemed to think she had a point and dragged her by the arms once again into another room, an interior room most likely toward the rear of the manor, with four rounded stone walls dotted with lit candle pricks.

She thought he would ravish her and looked for some kind of weapon as she backed away from him and the hungry look in his dark eyes. Her leg hit something and she looked behind her.

Then she saw an open trap door in the ground. She looked down into a small and narrow black hole and panic hit her. The pit cell. She turned back to him. “Please. Wait. Do not put me in there…please.”

He paused thoughtfully, as if he might actually give in. His hand went between his legs, massaging suggestively the weight of his genitals. “I will give you this when I come back…later.” He grabbed her by the hair. “You can suckle me…hard.”

Suckle him? Oh God… He meant…. And before she could quite comprehend, he shoved her down inside the pit and slammed the trap door.

Damp dirt crumbled down from above her into her hair and face.

“Come back!” she shouted, panicked. “Come back!”

Overhead she heard the bolt slide closed and the distant, muted sound of his footsteps.

* * *

Glenna blinked, trying to make her eyes adjust. The pit was dark as a rook’s feathers. She touched the walls, which were jagged stone and hard clay-like soil. Raising her arms, or even her elbows, was not possible. She had perhaps only a hand’s breadth on each side from her shoulders to the walls. It was as if she were being buried alive.

A sob escaped her and she sucked in a quivering breath. The air was small and tasted and smelled of dank dirt. She could kneel but her shoulder caught on the wall the space was so narrow, but it was slightly wider on the lower half. Like a blind woman her hands slowly swept over the ground, where there were deep-angled divots as if left from the shovel used to dig the pit.

Standing took some work in the small space and she tried to quell the fear that overwhelmed her. Above her was the trap door. She jumped upward trying to hit it, but her fist barely tapped the surface of the wood.

With every breath she took the air changed. A great and powerful fear raced through her, soaked deep into her very bones, and she felt a panic so intense she could only scream and scream and scream, until the shaking stopped and her voice was raspy and almost gone, then she collapsed into a knot on the dirt, knees wedged to her chest, toes against the opposite wall.

She lay her head on her knees and she tried to breathe calmly, breathe slow breaths. The air was getting hotter yet she was shivering as if she were exposed in the dead of winter.

Footsteps sounded, soft thuds coming closer. If the guard was coming back could she get away? Mere minutes had passed…or was it hours? She pushed up the walls, the only way she could actually stand and the trap’s bolt shot.

The door opened, blinding her from the change of light. Munro stood above her. She could feel his aura of evil before his face appeared.

“Well, my dear, how do you find your new home? Looks to be a perfect fit,” he said, laughing. “I have brought you company.” He stepped back.

One of his henchmen came close to the edge. Over her head, dangling from a hook in his hands, was a twitching snake. She could catch glimpses of the distinct pattern on its back and she stopped breathing.

“Drop the adder!” Munro ordered, his face intense.

The snake fell on her, still twisting in the air, its cool skin across her neck and shoulders and she panicked, flailed in the pit and scratched her arms on the rough stones sticking out of the walls. She began crawling up the wall, desperate to get away. She heard the snake hit the dirt just as the light disappeared and the trap door had closed on Munro’s vile and wicked laughter.

"I am Glenna Canmore! I am Glenna Canmore! My father is the king!"

The footsteps didn't stop....

"I am Glenna Canmore!"

....They merely disappeared.

She hung her head for a hearbeat, then kept crawling upward, her back pressed to one side of the pit and her feet against the other. Her heartbeat thrummed loudly in her ears and in her chest.

Below was the adder. She could hear it moving in the dirt.

Above was the bolted trap door. Trap…trapped. It was so dark her eyes could not adjust to see anything. Her back ached from the pressure of the jagged rocks, but she dared not relax, wedged as she was she was safe from the adder.

She took long deep breaths and focused on her position. In time, her mind wandered. If she fell, how many snakebites would it take to kill her?

If only…if only…

Her concentration broke and she slipped a bit, but pressed so hard against the wall the rocks felt like knives in her back. She gripped her knees, willed away the pain in her back, and prayed for the strength to stay as she was, prayed for the power of lust to overcome the guard who had promised to come back.

* * *

Lyall adjusted his rough woolen hood and shifted, tugging at the tight peasant’s tunic that pulled at his arms and chest whenever he moved. He snapped the reins and drove the heavy, creaking wain stacked with firewood up to the posts of the manor.

“Where is Cam?” The sheriff’s man asked casually.

“Broke his arm, he did. I am Frang, his brother,” Lyall said, his hands tightening slightly on the reins of the ox team pulling the wagon. Cam was, in truth, tied to a tree up on the rise above the glen.

“Pull your wain to the side and stack the wood there,” the guard said without question and he pointed beyond the gates and around to the back side of the manor house.

Lyall steered the team as told, his gaze darting, taking in the number for guardsmen, the rear gates, lackeys and workers moving about. A groom lugging buckets of water to the stables. The hot iron smell of a smithy. Baying, barking hounds in the kennels and screaming peafowl in pens next to the chickens. He jumped down from the wain as a tall, willow-thin older woman came outside from the open kitchens, eyeing the load of firewood and then eyeing him.

“Where is that Cam?” she said and held up a hand not waiting for an answer. “Foolhardy he is. The mon cannot hold his beer.” She placed her hands on her hips . “Ye look brawny enough to carry wood, mon. Stack it there. When yer done ye can bring some logs inside and stock the wood boxes.” With that, she disappeared inside.

He needed to find Glenna. But the yard was bustling with guards and workmen. Lyall grabbed the woodman’s gloves from the plank seat but they did not fit his hands, so he tossed them aside and unloaded the wain barehanded, stacking wood, watching and studying the place until the bed was almost empty and his hands and clothes were filled with splinters, wood dust, and dried flecks of old moss.

As he brushed off his tunic, he looked up. A milkmaid with her milk pails hanging from a wooden yoke was coming towards him. As she passed by him, she struggled and milk sloshed onto the ground. She gave a soft cry, her creamy skin flushed and her eyes panicked. He steadied the yoke, lifting it easily off her shoulders before she spilt the whole lot of it.

The maid thanked him sweetly and looked up at him as if he were God Himself, and Lyall thought he had found his means of information. He had watched them bring Glenna in, but where they were keeping her?

“Where is Cam?” The maid asked shyly, eyeing him up and down.

“Broken arm,” Lyall said and changed the subject. “Where do you want this milk? I shall carry it for you.”

“Here,” she said, opening a large oaken door. “Follow me.” She went down some stairs that led to a cold room beneath the ground floors. He carried the milk and set the buckets down.

Inside the dark room, Lyall easily got the information he wanted from her. A poached chicken, a hound, and some lad the sheriff tracked down in the high forest. One relief--Glenna’s guise was safe--until the maid went on about how she pitied the young boy who would be used so cruelly by the sheriff.

“I heard the boy is locked in the pit,” she told him.

“The pit?” he asked. “What is this pit?”

“ ’Tis a dirt hole with trap door.”

“Have you seen it?” Lyall asked.

“I saw it once, not much bigger inside than an ale barrel, and ‘tis in a round room deep inside the manor, close to the master’s chambers. Some say for his convenience.” She paused. “I am not allowed inside, except in here and the kitchens.” She looked down, clearly ashamed of her limits.

“Were I sheriff, a pretty lass like you could roam the whole of my manor,” he said kindly.

Her expression was open—the sweet, carnal invitation in her eyes. There was a time when he would have taken this maid because that was how men proved their manhood. A youthful ideal—one that changed drastically when he stared down at the broken body of his young wife.

He reached out and touched her jawline. “You are a lovely lass.”

She cocked her head and looked at him with an odd expression, curious. Then she smiled tenderly. “Another holds your heart.”

Her words made him immediately uncomfortable. He shook his head, denying what she thought.

" 'Tis the truth. Whether or not you choose to believe it.”

“Hullo! Worthless woodman! Where are ye?”

“ ‘Tis the cook,” she said. “Go. Hurry. No one should see us.”

Lyall went up of the stairs. The cook stood near the woodpile with her arms crossed. “There ye be, mon. Come. Fill yer arms with wood.” She clapped her hands impatiently. “Come. Come!”

He carried in armloads of wood to stock the kitchen fire boxes, before he volunteered to take wood to the rest of the manor and into the master’s chamber, receiving for his good offer, exactly what he wanted: directions to the sheriff chamber inside the manor. Arms piled with wood, he moved toward the chamber.

Munro was slumped in a chair, his chin resting on his chest, either asleep or drunk or both.

Lyall quietly lay the wood near the hearth and he left the room, moving down the opposite hallway until he opened the door and found the round room.

A red-haired man lay face down on the floor, dead or unconscious. Lyall caught the rise and fall of his shallow breath. Unconscious.

He crossed the small room to where the trap door was open and grabbed a candle from the wall prick. He knelt down, holding the candlelight and he looked down into the pit, where a snake stared back at him with yellow eyes.