The Bear chuckled in her ear. “You and your sister are the spawn of an excommunicated murderer. Who do you imagine will leap to your defense?”
His words sparked a bitter fire in Caitrina’s chest, and she struggled against his hold. “He wasnota murderer. My father simply did what honor demanded. He avenged his kin.”
“There was no cause for vengeance. Your uncle and grandfather died on a battlefield. Henry of Almain had his throat cut in a church.”
“You paint Henry as an innocent,” she said. “But he was not. He stole Leicester’s colors and then slaughtered every man who flocked to his banner.”
“King Edward does not tell the tale the same way.”
“Of course not. Henry was obeying Edward’s orders!”
Giric’s thumb pressed deeply into her throat. “Your father’s sins are not worthy of debate,” he snarled. “All that matters is the babe. Do as I say, or your sister will pay the price. Understand?”
Caitrina’s desire to argue vanished along with her air. She understood the stakes all too well. Spying on her cousin upset her, but imagining the life Marsailli would live if they were branded as traitors made her physically ill. Their father had died a penniless pauper in some unknown land. She could not allow Marsailli to endure the same fate. She nodded.
“Is the birth imminent?”
She shook her head.
Giric eased his hold again. “The midwife in my employ suggests it could be any time in the next month. I must know the moment she is confined.”
Caitrina’s gut knotted. What need would Giric have for a midwife? She had been spying on the queen for several months and she had long known King Edward’s interest lay in the bairn—the future monarch of Scotland. But what was the king’s ultimate intent? “The monks have offered the queen the hospitality of their fine manor at Clackmannan. We travel there on the morrow.”
“Good.”
“I assume that once the bairn is born, Marsailli will be free to leave the priory and take up residence with me in the queen’s household?”
A short silence followed her question.
Finally, he released her and stepped back. “She will be free to depart once your task is complete.”
“And when is that?”
“After you snatch the babe and bring it to me.”
“What?” Caitrina stared at his murky outline in horror, her stomach heaving. Steal her cousin’s babe? The only child Yolande would ever have with her now dead husband? “No word was ever said about stealing the bairn. I was asked to spy, nothing more. I cannot do such a thing.”
“Did you truly believe a bit of spying would be enough to earn you forgiveness for your father’s evil deed?” the Bear jeered. “Surely you are not so witless as that.”
Head spinning, Caitrina slumped against the stone wall. If not witless, then certainly naive. It all made a sick sort of sense now—why King Edward had approached her personally at the funeral, why the meeting had occurred in an abandoned bothy behind the abbey, and why he had taken her sister into his care. This had been their plan all along. Her sister was more than a simple prisoner. She was the means by which King Edward would bring a proud and independent nation to its knees.
“Is my sister safe?”
“Well enough... for now. She is no longer at the priory. She is here in Scotland, with me.”
Caitrina died a little at his words. It had been dreadful enough imagining her sister alone with a group of strange nuns. But with Giric? God only knew what horrors Marsailli was enduring at this mongrel’s hands. At ten and five, her sister had developed into a willowy beauty with a gentle soul. She would not fare well under abuse. Not that Edward Longshanks spared a thought for the lives of innocent young lasses—he cared only for his own plans.
And those plans included hammering the Scots into submission in any way he could. He’d revealed his true colors in his negotiations with Caitrina, openly deriding his neighbors to the north. But she’d never imagined he would stoop so low as to steal Yolande’s bairn.Dear lord. “Kidnapping the heir to the throne of Scotland will be no easy feat.”
“You are cousin to the queen,” he reminded her.
“Cousin or no,” she protested, “what you ask is impossible. The bairn will never be alone.”
“Find a way,” he said softly. “Or lose everything you value.”
Then he took another step back and disappeared into the darkness.
As his footsteps faded and silence took over the corridor, the stiffness in Caitrina’s shoulders eased. Echoes of the Bear’s threats still rang in her ears, but she darted for the big oak door at the end of the corridor with the bowl of herring clasped to her bosom like a stolen treasure. She’d been gone far too long. The queen would be weak from hunger.
