Free Shield of Three Lions by Pamela Kaufman Page A

she didn’t bleed.
O Deus, juva me!
Am I going to die then?
    Almost quelling terror was a rage as big and black as the glowering heaven, for the Scot had done this to me. Yes, in the night when I’d been heavy with sleep. No, more than sleep, drugged! No wonder that haggis had tasted so foul. Come at me with the serpent under his plaid, out in the dark to attack while I slept, pricked at my crotch to kill!
    But why wasn’t I dead?
    I touched my wound tentatively and it didn’t even hurt. Was it possible he’d missed his aim somewhat? Or was his power less than Sir Roland’s? Or maybe it was a slow spell that would drag my life from me drop by drop so I hardly noticed, so that he could deliver me to Northumberland or, worse, marry me himself! That must be it, for he could have sliced my throat with his organ in the manner Maisry suffered.
    “Alex, what’s holding ye?” he bawled from above.
    “I’m coming!”
    Hastily I took the stuffing from my toes and placed the rags inside my harness to catch the dripping.
Reward
, he’d asked for. Aye, I’d reward him, and I clutched the handful of hemlock hidden with my treasure.
    Keeping my eyes averted, I helped him break camp. When it came time to mount, however, I looked at him with all the gall I could muster and said with heavy significance: “I can’t ride on that bone, tender as I am. You’ll have to give me a pelt.”
    “Dynts yer balls, do it? Sure, lad, that be better now,” and with brazen smiles, he piled on a sheepskin.
    We didn’t speak again till we stopped to dine on the edge of a bleak moor.
    “Tell me, Alex, when did yer mother die?”
    “Three days ago.” I was so intent on keeping my tone cold that I forgot I’d said naught about my mother’s being dead.
    “And ye’re how old?”
    “Eight.” At least I got that right.
    “That’s what I thought, a wee babe of a bairn. No wonder that ye called me mother in the nicht and huddled close.”
    “Yes, and I remember what you did,” I said with the same heavy significance, but he merely leaned over and patted my knee. I threw my gruel into the fire to show my disgust, but the gesture was wasted on such a monster.
    All day long the countryside grew ever more desolate as one gray heathery curve gave way to another and it looked as if I’d be with Enoch Angus Boggs forever. My only ray of hope was that far from feeling weaker, I seemed to wax stronger as the afternoon wore on. I might survive this yet.
    We muddled ahead for long aching hours until we were in deep twilight and the wind rose to a harsh freezing gale, blinding our eyes and chilling our very marrow. Our situation looked hopeless, for the Roman Street stretched to eternity without so much as an ant hill to protect us. Then suddenly Enoch pointed and shouted: “We’re in muckle luck, Alex. On the horizon there, an inn.”
    He urged our weary beasts to hurry but it was near dark when we halted before a rude leaning timber hut with half its thatch missing and a banging shingle with the legend: Inn of the Gray Falcon. The Scot hesitated.
    “Ye knaw, bairn, that the chancit be that Magnus Barefoot is here. We havena passed him.”
    “Let’s go on,” I begged.
    Enoch shook his shaggy head. “Nay, e’en the clattering streams will freeze this nicht. Best have shelter, come what may.”
    Soothly the wind stung my face like nettles and brought tears to my eyes. Yet I was so o’ercome by fear that my knees collapsed and I fell to the ground when I dismounted.
    “Ho there, take heart. I’ll protect my investment.”
    He knocked and the inn door flew open; a scrawny boy staggered toward our beasts. To my horror, Lance growled ferociously and would have sprung if I hadn’t clutched his neck.
    “I’m Jimmy,” the boy piped weakly, “come to help ye with yer horses.”
    “Looks like our wolf prefers my brother Tom,” Enoch said as he stepped between Jimmy and Lance. “Tom, ye see to Tippet and Twixt whilst I talk to Jimmy aboot his