Page 8 of Blood of the Thistle

Bram frowned down at Kerr, at how still he lay just now. Shite.

He laid his palm over the lad’s narrow chest, but felt not even the smallest movement. He’d never supposed the lad would survive the march to York but hadn’t suspected he’d go this soon—Kerr had been walking only moments ago. Bram bent lower, laying his ear over Kerr’s heart, but neither heard nor felt anything.

When he straightened, still on one knee, he met the officer’s gaze, shaking his head.

The officer glanced once at the dead Scot, and shrugged. “Then he has saved us the rope.” He stared a moment longer at Kerr’s body, his mouth twisting in thought. “Unfasten them,” he ordered. “Secure him”—he nodded toward Bram—”to the Jedburgh oaf.” With that, he turned his horse and returned to the front of the line.

The guard who favored the cudgel sighed and dismounted, and knelt in the mud beside Kerr’s body, muttering beneath his breath as he sorted through the ring of keys hanging from his belt.

The closest guard dismounted as well and caught Bram by the upper arm.

Bram stood perfectly still, letting the Englishman keep his grip. His eyes lifted from Kerr, darting over the halted column. They’d stopped upon a gradual rise, having just crossed a stone bridge perhaps thirty or forty yards back. Below it, the burn churned white and violent, disappearing into a thick tangle of woods on the far side. The banks were steep, too steep for horses.

Cudgel Man finally found the correct key and fitted it into the lock around Kerr’s wrist. It resisted at first, clogged with mud and rust, but finally gave way with a dull click. The cuff fell open, and the guard drew Kerr’s limp arm free, letting it fall without care to the ground.

For the first time in three days, nothing tugged at Bram’s right arm.

He’d imagined escape a hundred times these past months, but had never been presented with the right opportunity. This one might not be perfect, but it was the best he’d known until now.

“Bring the Jedburgh prisoner,” Cudgel Man said as he stood, to the guard at Bram’s back, his tone suggesting he should have already done this.

Just as the man behind him stepped away, Bram moved before reason had the chance to argue.

He faced Cudgel Man, who held the open iron cuff two feet in front of him. Before the eejit knew what hit him, Bram had driven the heel of his hand beneath the guard’s jaw. The lout staggered backward with a cry, releasing the empty cuff, and Bram did not wait to see whether he fell but began to run immediately.

Shouts erupted behind him, and boots and hooves pounded through the mud.

Bram fixed his eyes upon the bridge.

His legs felt heavier than iron, each stride a fresh agony for his bruised ribs. He pumped his arms, and his old shoulder injuries screamed in protest. Three months ago, he would have already been at the bridge; now he moved as if trapped in a bad dream, his body only half as fast as his will.

He flipped his hand forward and caught the dangling empty cuff, knowing it was disrupting his gait and speed to some degree, and that every second mattered.

In front of him, a figure stepped suddenly from the shelter of the trees bordering the bridge, still fastening his belt with one hand as he turned in surprise. The fellow had evidently wandered only a few paces from the column to relieve himself during the delay.

Their eyes met, and in truth, the young guard recovered first, throwing himself directly into Bram’s path.

He crashed into the young guard with all the strength he had left. The force exploded through his own battered body, his ribs flaring with blinding pain. For one terrifying instant, he thought he would fall, that he’d overestimated what remained of his strength. But then he was driving the Englishman backward, roaring, pushing him against the low stone parapet of the bridge until the man lost his footing. Bram thrust him aside and downward, then raced for the middle of the bridge, for the deep water below.

Without a single glance backward, even as he expected at any moment he might be struck down by an arrow, Bram reached the center and planted his free hand on the stone, hoisting himself over the parapet in the next second. It was done clumsily—he didn’t fully clear the stone, his bare foot catching on the edge so that he was turned head over heels and plummeted face down fifty feet, arms flailing.

For the briefest instant he was suspended between earth and sky, the roar of the swollen burn rising to meet him.

Then the river struck his face like solid stone, the icy water sucking him down, deep below the surface, where the current seized him at once, tumbling him helplessly through darkness toward whatever fate waited downstream.

***

He allowed himself only a moment to recover once he finally managed to drag himself onto the narrow shore. He was certain the dense foliage, heavy with late spring’s green and crowding the shoreline, would work in his favor, concealing him from those intent on finding him. He had no illusions about his own importance, but neither did he believe for a minute that his captors would simply peer over the bridge and suppose he had not survived the fall, abandoning the search before it had even begun.

His chest heaved as he fought to draw a full breath, the icy water having stolen nearly all the air from his lungs. Every inch of him ached. His shoulders, never fully recovered from weeks suspended by bound wrists, throbbed, and his ribs protested every breath he managed to pull into them. Somewhere in the river he had struck stone with his left hip, and it now burned fiercely.

He took a tentative step, then another, limping at first as pain shot from his hip into his thigh. He felt clumsy and laden, his soaked tunic and breeches clinging heavily to his body, water dripping steadily from his hair and sleeves. Every branch he brushed sent another shower over his head, and before long he could no longer tell river water from rain.

After only a few hundred paces, he turned away from the burn. It was the easiest path north, the river a guide back toward Scotland. And for that reason, it was a trap. The English would expect him to follow it. He veered into the trees, seeking the thickest part of the woodland, a place that could swallow a man whole.

Bram angled left, climbing gradually over uneven ground softened by weeks of spring rain. Moss-covered stones shifted beneath his boots, forcing him to place each step with care. Tangles of hazel and young ash crowded together so tightly in places that he was obliged to alter his course, mindful always to keep the loose iron cuff clenched tightly in his hand lest the jangling chain alert the English to his direction.

The running proved almost as difficult as fighting the river had, and twice he stopped, more from necessity than caution, waiting for the pounding in his chest to ease before pressing on again. Still he climbed, knowing the higher ground would afford him a better sense of the country, and perhaps, if fortune favored him—though the gray sky did not—some indication of which way lay north.