Highland Warrior by McCollum, Heather (good summer reads .txt) 📕

The rest of the act was up to his Hillside warriors and his faithful men under Lord Robert. Would he feel Dishington’s blade stab into him? He’d never put his trust in anyone other than his brothers, but he concentrated on making all his muscles go limp, his breath growing shallower.

“Drag him inside,” Robert ordered.

“Nay!” Mathias yelled. “Look. He has black death on him!” Had he spotted Hilda’s handiwork or was he saying what Joshua had told him to say when he’d snuck into his home to tell him about the insane plan?

“We will all perish if ye bring the traitor inside,” Angus yelled from above in the tower. “Keep back.”

Joshua heard the scrapes of boots moving toward him, the crunch of pebbles near his ear. “He seemed weakened,” Patrick said, breathing heavy. “And was coughing.”

“’Tis the black death,” another soldier called. “Send him back or burn him there where he lies.”

“The tainted smoke will be in the air,” Mathias said. “Take your diseased dead!”

Joshua could tell someone bent closer to him. He tried not to move even to exchange air. “If ye are dead, I will cut my own ballocks off.” The harsh whisper came from John Dishington. Joshua kept his eyes closed and did not breathe.

“Get back,” Calder said, throwing a blanket over him. “We bury Kára Flett today at the chapel in Birsay and will lay him with her. You, Patrick Stuart, could even now be struck with the plague.”

Dishington chuckled, and a brief scuff of the pebbles preceded pain. Bruising pain tore through the cut in Joshua’s side as Dishington kicked him twice.

“What the fok!” yelled Osk, but Joshua kept a tight hold on his breath and movement. If he hadn’t been covered by the blanket, he’d have likely jumped up and taken Dishington’s foul head.

“If he is dead, he will feel naught,” Dishington said. “If he is alive, he deserves worse for acting the coward.”

His words were meant to goad Joshua into revealing himself, and if Calder and Osk did not get him out of there soon, the bastard might get his foking wish. But the ruse would be up, and Kára would not be free of the Stuart family. If he were not actually dead, they might demand to check her thoroughly.

“You are risking the black death,” Mathias called. “I saw a black knot under his kilt. ’Tis a very usual place to spot it. My uncle had it down in the Lowlands. Died within days of getting the black knots. Took my aunt with him, he did.”

More boots scratched at the pebbles, and Joshua tightened his stomach for another kick. But instead, someone grabbed him by the arms while someone else grunted, lifting his legs. “Bloody hell, he is heavy,” Osk said.

They paused. “Out of the way,” Calder said.

Dishington’s voice came from beside Joshua’s covered face. “I will be sure to pay my respects when you put the Horseman of War into the grave.” The man’s laughter faded on the wind as they carried Joshua across the uphill moor.

…

“You look diseased,” Kára said, as she held his blackened fingers up in the dim light of the Hillside cottage.

“Ye look dead,” Joshua replied, his fingers sliding in between her own.

“You will smear off the black,” Hilda said, scolding as she tied a fresh bandage around Joshua’s middle.

Kára’s stomach had turned in on itself when Joshua had removed the blood-soaked tunic. Much of the blood was not his, but a gash across his side showed some definitely was. Now cleaned, sewn, and wrapped, it was protected from the dirt that would soon cover them.

Osk popped inside, breathing hard. “The grave is dug. We widened it for you both. Douglas has chiseled a marker with both your names on it.” He shook his head, looking at his sister. “The sight of it propped next to Da, Ma, and Eydis leaves me cold. Geir, too.”

“I want Geir gone,” Kára said. “He is not to be anywhere near Robert, or his men might take him again.”

“Aye,” Calder said.

“I will take him to your den now,” Hilda said. “Only Osk and Harriett will be there to mourn with Calder and the half dozen men who have not yet set out on foot to find passage to Scotia at the bay of Skaill.”

“Ye should have only one lantern,” Joshua said, turning. “The less anyone can see, the better.”

“And you have something to cover our faces?” Kára asked.

“All set up at the chapel,” Osk said. Kára tried not to notice that he looked worried over the plan.

She squeezed Joshua’s hand. “Will this work?”

In the lowering light that cast through the window, his features were dark. “Patrick and Robert think I am dead with the scene we acted out before the palace. They have only to hear that we were actually buried to believe the whole thing.”

“But what of The Brute?” she asked. Osk had told her how the monster had viciously kicked Joshua in his wound, opening it up even deeper with the toe of his boot. “He will have told them his suspicions.”

Joshua’s gaze slid over the hollow shading Amma had given to the pale paste, making Kára’s face look sunken, on the edge of decay. She had darkened the bruises that were still on her neck from Henry’s attack. “My men,” he said, “Angus and Mathias will have encouraged rumors that people in the village are showing up with blackish buboes in their groins and armpits, saying that the cleric who had visited here was dead on Hoy with the same disease. By the time they realize it is merely a rumor, if they ever do, we will be buried and gone.”

Kára shivered, wrapping her arms around herself. “Buried and gone. I believe I will have nightmares for the rest of my life about this night.”

Joshua pulled her closer into him, his arms circling to her back. There in the fortification of his strength, her worries seemed nonsensical. I