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Maybe he could tell Anna that he loved her.

That she was a treasure, and she should know it every day of her life. That her worth didn’t depend on the approval of her father or her political usefulness for Scotland.

That he loved her the way she was. And she should love herself.

But he didn’t see her among the dark faces.

Then the priest came. “’Tis time,” he said. “Let us go to the river.”

The procession was quiet and solemn. As they walked, the sky kept brightening and he kept searching for Anna, looking into the dark streets they were passing. Once they left the village, he hoped to see her hiding behind a bush or a tree.

But there was no sign of her. Eventually, they came to an old wooden bridge that crossed the river. The crowd stopped on the riverbank. The priest gave a man a sack, and he put a rock inside. Then he passed it on to the next person. One by one, the villagers filled the sack with rocks, and with every single one, David’s heart grew heavier until he had to look away.

The sun must have risen now behind a gray blanket of clouds. The river was a broad, steady current flowing like liquid iron. The other bank was full of bushes and trees and grassland. It smelled like river water and morning dew and old mud.

When the sack was full, the guard took it and shoved David to walk on the old bridge. Weathered wooden planks shook under their feet, and he could see water moving quickly through the gaps.

When the priest and one of his guards stood with him between them in the middle of the bridge, David looked into the sky. The cheerful singing of birds grated against his nerves. Water gurgled quietly, steadily…menacingly. These might be the last things he would hear.

He didn’t want to die. His life was being taken from him so early, so unfairly. Anger was a fiery force inside him.

But he didn’t want to spend his last moments in anger. He wanted to spend them thinking of Anna. And his sister. And what an extraordinary life he’d lived. What an adventure he’d had. He wanted to be grateful for the time he’d been given.

While the priest was reading something in Latin from the Bible and making the sign of the cross over him, David tuned him out. He didn’t want to hear his jailor’s words. He wanted to remember Anna’s laughter and see her smiling face in his mind for the last time.

“Ye will be given the mercy to confess yer sins before death,” said the priest finally.

The guard leaned down, and as he tried to put the rope around David’s ankles, David kicked him, the rope flying out into the river like a snake. The guard rose, his jaw set, and drew his arm back. David ducked, but not fast enough, and the punch exploded through his head with a crack of bone. Disoriented, he wavered, only distantly registering that the guard tied another rope around his ankles.

Desperation cocooned David, heavy and dark.

“Would ye like to confess, son?” asked the priest.

With bile rising in his throat, blinking to clear his blurred vision, David said, “I would, if I had done anything to deserve this death. In my life, I always tried to do the right thing. Yes, I lied to stay alive, but that didn’t harm anyone. I killed men in battles to keep my sister and my nephew safe. To help the clan that accepted me as their own. But I didn’t do anything to you and this village. So it will be you who’ll need to confess to the sin of wrongly judging me and killing an innocent man.”

The priest sighed heavily and shook his head while the guard undid David’s shackles. “The cuffs are made of iron and expensive,” he murmured. “They will be used for the next prisoner.”

Even with his head still swimming and his arms heavy and his legs tied, David pushed the guard, hoping to topple him over the railing and into the river. But the guard took two steps back and punched David in the stomach. The hit kicked all air out of David’s body. The force threw him back, and unable to move his legs, he fell, the wood creaking under him, pain radiating through his back.

The guard sat on top of David and grabbed his wrists, holding them in a tight grip. “Ye son of a whore. Help me, Father! Tie the rope!”

With all the strength he had left in his arms, David wrestled to bring his wrists to his mouth. Raising his head, he sank his teeth into the guard’s fingers, tasting salty blood.

The guard growled but didn’t let go. The priest sank to his knees, smelling like dust and old urine and unwashed body, and tied the rope around David’s wrists, binding him completely. Helpless rage thundered through him as the guard made an attempt to straighten David’s arms along his body. David wriggled and wrestled, but now even the priest held him against the ground.

“Dinna struggle, son,” the priest cried angrily. “’Tis God’s will. Ye canna do anything about it. Ye dinna want to confess, so I will give ye yer last rites. May the Lord in his love and mercy help ye with the grace of the Holy Spirit. May the Lord who frees ye from sin save ye and raise ye up.”

The guard wrestled a rope around David’s body, tying his arms to his torso, then pulled him up to stand and brought him to the edge of the bridge.

“Ahhhhhhh!” David roared, screaming while the priest read the Bible in Latin and made crosses at David. “Let me go! You have an innocent man! Argghhh!”

The crowd murmured. “Witcher…” he thought he’d heard. “Hell…”

The guard put a noose around his neck, then attached it to the sack full of rocks that the villagers had filled earlier. It weighed on David’s neck, hurting his shoulders.

David was still thrashing and wriggling when the guard pushed him closer to the wooden railing. There was a gap where the wood was broken and river rushed below with no barrier.

This was it.