Page 7 of Leila’s Legacy

Fear prickled a cold sweat on her brow. It was a message. A constant reminder.

The Lion was coming for her.

The priest had pissed himself. Niall slid his gaze away from where liquid dribbled over the chair and soaked into the man’s robe.

Alban Armstrong, son to the Keeper of Liddesdale, released the fistful of the cloth where he held the priest and gave an exclamation of disgust. The stench of the priest’s urine mingled with the coppery odor of his fear and left the air in the narrow dungeon rank.

“Looks like ye finally found a use for yer prick, eh?” Alban drew his fist back and the priest scrunched his face in anticipation of the impact.

“Enough,” Niall said. They’d had the priest in the dungeon for a full night already. Men of God were used to discomfort, aye, but not violence. No doubt the bald man had spent the time after the Armstrong reivers found him wondering if he was to be killed.

Alban narrowed his dark eyes at Niall’s orders and shook his red hair from his eyes. “This bastard—”

“Enough.” This time Niall said the word with a ring of authority. He wouldn’t be challenged. Not even by Lord Armstrong’s son. The whelp needed to learn his place in the order of things. Alban was not Keeper yet.

And when he was, Niall would sooner abandon the position of deputy than work for him.

Alban lowered his arm and gave a sulky scowl which Niall pointedly ignored.

“What’s yer name?” Niall asked of the priest.

“Bernard.” The priest did not relax from his tensed position, as though still waiting to be struck.

Niall kept his distance from the man in an effort to put him more at ease. “Where are ye from?”

“Oxford, where my father was a lord. If you kill me, it will be a declaration of war on England. My brothers all know how to fight. I never did. My mother—”

“Our kings dinna meddle in affairs on the border,” Niall said, putting a stop to the nervous rambling. “Ye’re a long way from Oxford, Priest. What are ye doing in Liddesdale?”

Bernard shivered and glanced around with fearful eyes. “Please don’t hurt me.”

“We’ll do what we want with ye.” Alban leaned menacingly over the priest, mindful to avoid the puddle of urine. “And ye best be telling the truth.”

Niall lifted the Bible from the stool it’d been set upon when they brought the priest in from the nearby village. He handed it to Bernard, who accepted it with eager hands and hugged it to his chest as though it were a shield.

“Swear on it that yer answers will be honest.” Niall nodded toward the Bible. “If ye do that, we willna need to hurt ye for answers.” He cast a hard look at Alban.

Bernard nodded and clutched the Bible more tightly.

“Where are ye from?” Niall asked again. “No’ Oxford, but where ye currently reside.”

“Werrick Castle. I’m priest there.”

Niall’s shoulders relaxed somewhat. This is what he had been hoping for. When a scout told him that the priest had been wandering about the outskirts of Liddesdale, claiming to be from Werrick Castle, he had thought it too good to be true.

It was the first opportunity he’d had to speak with someone from the Castle since the day they ventured to its nearby village.Niall and his men hadn’t returned, not since the witch cast a spell on them convincing them they were becoming ill with the plague.

They’d felt immediately better once they fled the village, after her power over them had dissipated.

’Tis you.

What had she meant by that? The question had circled in his mind as much as the lady herself. Those long legs in red trews, her glossy dark hair, the depth to her blue eyes. He clenched his fist. Even now she infiltrated his thoughts. Distracting him. Mayhap he was bewitched.

“Why are ye in Liddesdale?” Niall asked Bernard to take his mind from Lady Leila.

“I did not know I was so far north. Many priests have fled their villages to escape the pestilence and the ones who remained have all died.” He released the Bible long enough to make the sign of the cross with a shaking hand. “I had been hearing confessions and delivering last rites to the dead. There are so many English and Scottish on both sides of the border that I did not know I had gone so far north.”

Niall stared incredulously at the man trembling behind his Bible. A man he had thought to be a coward. “Ye put yerself at risk for Scotsmen?”