Amanda Scott - [Border Trilogy 2] Read Online Free PDF Page A

it down with a thump and said, “Well, madam, I told you he’d refuse your daft offer. If I give him a second chance, he’ll just refuse again. I am better acquainted wi’ the Scotts than you are, so you would do well to heed me in this.”
    “Mayhap you are right,” she said. “But pride carries no weight when a man faces death. Let him ponder his fate—and your tree. Then let him choose again.”
    “Aye, well, I dinna mind giving ye your way, if only to prove ye’re as apt as anyone to be wrong. But when he refuses, I mean to make an end to it.”
    She nodded.
    With visible satisfaction, he got to his feet, finished off the last of his ale, and said, “I’ll be getting on with the business then, straightaway.”
    Lady Murray also stood, whereupon her daughters, perforce, did likewise. Signing to the gillie behind her that she desired him to take her stool away, Lady Murray said, “We will accompany you, my dear sir. Doubtless, you are right, and these executions will provide a salutary lesson for your daughters.”
    Distressed, Meg gave her a questioning look, but Lady Murray ignored it, her attention fixed on her husband.
    He opened his mouth, then pressed his lips together briefly before he said, “Very well, madam. Doubtless it will prove salutary for ye, too.”
    “We are to see the hanging, then?” Amalie said in astonishment. “But—”
    “Be silent, Amalie,” her mother interjected. Letting Sir Iagan stride ahead of them, she said quietly to Meg, “I know you object, too, but do have the good sense to hold your tongue. He has taken his stand and will stick to it buckle and thong if pressed harder. However, he will give more thought to the true cost of this hanging if you and Amalie are present than if you are not. We must give him time to realize what can come of turning Buccleuch and the Douglas into our blood enemies.”
    Meg winced at the thought. It was bad enough, heaven knew, to live so near the border between Scotland and England on land that each country claimed as its own without purposely inciting the wrath of truly powerful entities on either side of the ever-shifting line.
    “With respect, madam,” she said, “why do you not just remind him of what the consequences must be?”
    “Your father does not take well to such reminders. You know that as surely as I do,” Lady Murray said. “If you would learn anything from me, my dear Meg, learn that men cannot be driven by women any more easily than cats can be driven by even the best sheepdogs. One does better to choose one’s moments to guide than to be constantly nagging or reminding them of things they want to forget.”
    Meg tried unsuccessfully to imagine herself guiding her father.
    Outside, the reivers’ leader stood near the hanging tree with one of her father’s stout men-at-arms on either side of him. The rope already dangled over a thick bough, but if the victim worried about his fate, he gave no sign of it.
    Sir Iagan stopped some yards from the little scene, crossed his arms over his barrel-like chest, and spread his feet a little apart. He had not spoken to direct his men or to address the prisoner. Nor did he glance back at his wife and daughters.
    Lady Murray put out a hand to stop Meg and Amalie. Then she moved to stand beside Sir Iagan.
    From her position behind and to his left, Meg saw her father’s jaw tighten, but he said nothing until the man adjusting the noose finished and looked his way.
    “Be ye ready then?” Sir Iagan asked him.
    “Aye, sir.”
    “Then tell your lads to bring out the others. We’ll let this young chappie watch them each hang. ’Twill give him more appreciation for his own fate.”
    Although the reiver did not move head or limbs, Meg felt his reaction to her father’s words as if his emotions had shot through her body instead. She was fifteen or more feet away, seeing only his profile, but she saw the color drain from his face.
    She swallowed hard, wishing she could do something to