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“Go retrieve it.”
He nodded.
“Ride hard. I’ll wait.”
He kept nodding.
“With your daughter.”
D’Argent’s face washed white. “Christ’s holy blood, you cannot. She is to be wed.”
Máel smiled. “Is she? My felicitations.”
“You’ll ruin her.” He spoke through clenched teeth. “No one will take her if they know she was held hostage by an Irishman.”
Máel leaned closer. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”
D’Argent’s face flooded red, fury and fear mingling so it almost glowed in the sun.
“You have one day,” Máel said. “Bring me the sword. Fail and your daughter will be the first to suffer.”
He stepped back. Only then did the sounds of the crowd return. They were booing. Their champion had been beaten.
Chapter 7
Cassia pushed her way out of the stands and stood in the dirt pathway. People hurried past on their way to a hundred other events.
Her father walked toward her, his face blank and stern. The Irishman followed a few paces behind. Her father stopped before her, still breathing hard.
“I warned you not to come, Cassia,” he rasped.
“What has happened?” she asked.
“I lost the match. I must…pay a ransom.”
Fear nudged its way across the landscape of her heart, for they had nothing to pay a ransom with.
They had so little these days, although their poverty was well-hidden. One could hardly make the rounds and gain allies if one were known to be destitute. It was a simple truth: the needy grew needier. Appearances were vital.
Still, while appearances might garner invitations and even marriage proposals, they did not pay ransoms.
She threw an evil glance at the towering Irishman before turning back to her father.
“What does he want?” she asked, keeping her voice as ever it needed to be: calm, controlled, placid.
Her father shifted. A puff of dust misted around his boots. “For now, daughter...you.”
She blew out a breath of astonished laughter. Her hands touched her ear lobes in confusion. “How could this be?”
“It simply is.” Her father’s voice was curt. “Go with him now. You will not be with him long.”
“No!”
“Yes. We have agreed—”
“I agreed to nothing.” She backed up over a rut in the mud.
He closed his hand on her elbow to hold her where she was. “You heard me, Cassia,” he said, his voice harsh. “Do not make this more difficult than it is. Recall who you are.”
