Page 11
“Ahh, got it.”
A few moments later, the sound of a striker preceded a sudden light. His savior was proving herself much more capable than he first realized.
“Much improved, do you not think?”
The candle’s flicker across her face drew attention to Reina’s eyes. What struck him most was that she did not appear scared. For a woman so sheltered, he’d have expected just the opposite. She stepped in front of him and began to walk.
“I think. . .” He paused. “Your plan may have actually worked.”
She stopped so abruptly, Galien slammed into her. He had to reach his hands out to catch her. He released the lady promptly, and she was free but a moment before spinning back toward him. “You did not believe it would?”
He thought of his mother’s or sister’s wrath when insulted and decided against telling her the truth. Instead, Galien offered, “I did not believe you had time to formulate one.”
“Hmmph.”
He followed her through a subterranean passageway, each step one closer to freedom. He’d thought of little else since being captured, besides his family, except this very moment. The unlikely one where he somehow managed to escape. It had all happened so quickly, and yet, as they trudged along through a damp, dark tunnel, he refused to allow himself any sense of victory.
After some time, Lady Reina stopped. “The exit is just ahead. We will be well beyond the outer walls.”
“The guard could have woken. Already a search party may be looking for us.”
“Perhaps,” she agreed. “But more likely we will find ourselves in the forest. With no coin, no weapons, and no means to travel. I’ve been thinking we should go to the village—”
“No village,” he said. “’Tis much too risky.”
“Do you propose we walk to Scotland then?”
“Not to Scotland,” he said, “but I know a place we might get supplies. Although I will need a weapon,” he agreed.
For the first time since they left Anbarth’s dungeons, his companion did appear nervous. As if she finally just realized the enormity of what she’d done tonight. His escape had come at her peril, and though he was sorry for it, Galien could not be sorry that, thanks to her, his life had been spared.
On my mother’s life, I will fulfill my promise to her. Ensure she truly is the babe of Dennochbrook and uncover her father’s role in it.
“Galien Kerr, eldest son of Toren, chief of Clan Kerr of Brockburg”—unsurprisingly, a wave of recognition flitted across her face—“and Lady Juliette Hallington of Chauncy.” He bowed. “Both at your service and indebted to you, my lady, for the remainder of my days.”
8
About to show her companion the door that would complete an escape Reina maybe should never have initiated, Reina froze. Clan Kerr. Chauncy. She knew both of those names. The first, a clan that had been whispered on the lips of her father’s men more and more of late. The other, an English borderer Reina had met twice here at Anbarth. She’d not known the two were related, and Reina had no notion of the implications of such a fact. But she did know this man was, if his claim were true, not just an ordinary prisoner.
She tried the name on her lips. “Galien Kerr.”
“Knowing the fact makes you dangerous, my lady. Having my family tied to the activities for which I was arrested. . .”
He did not need to finish. Supporting William Wallace would make his clan a target. Reina would ask more, but they needed to take advantage of the darkness. “There is an opening,” she pointed above them, “there.”
He looked up and spotted the wooden board. “How could anyone climb up there alone?”
Reina had wondered the same thing when her father first showed her the tunnel. “There.” She moved the light to show him the wooden stool. “Though the door, as it were, is locked to prevent anyone who might come across it accidentally from pushing through.”
“Locked?”
“Aye.”
“But you have the key?”
“Nay.”
She’d worried about this particular moment but still bristled at Galien’s expression. “I do not. ’Tis on a keychain the castellan keeps around his waist. I did not think it prudent to wake the man and ask him if I might borrow it to set the highest-valued prisoner Anbarth has ever seen set free.”
