Conquer the Night Read Online Free PDF Page B

Some kind executioner would strangle her before the fire scorched her flesh, before she felt the pain, and yet this man must want her to know every dreadful second, after what had been …
    Her heart thundered. She stared at him, “Sir? Shall you have done with it now? Will you hang me from the rafters in the great hall?”
    â€œHang you?” he queried. “Hang you? A simple hanging? Good God, my lady! We are barbarians, but surely you must expect that we have some imagination!”
    â€œI’m quite sure you have more than ample imagination. But you have taken the castle. Be advised that the men here had nothing to do with …” Despite herself, her voice trailed. She had meant to keep her eyes steady with his. She could not. “The men here were not involved with the events that occurred so recently on your holdings … sir.”
    She wanted to look at him, wanted so badly to raise her eyes to his. Feeling his stare, she wanted so very badly not to appear a coward.
    And at last she looked up at him. “If they beg for mercy, I pray that you will remember that in simple justice: they were not involved.”
    â€œAnd we know, of course, that you were,” he said, and she wondered if it was a statement, or a question. The words from him, quietly spoken in the Norman French of the court, were more disturbing than a harsh demand in the Gaelic he had thundered thus far. She wondered if it was because there was a more subtle but far more deadly threat in a tone so soft.
    She hesitated, feeling the fury that lay within him, feeling it tangible in the air, washing over her in great waves. And she knew that it was more, of course, that it was pain and loss and horror, and she was tempted to scream out her own terror and throw herself at his feet.
    â€œMy name was used,” she said. “What matters, sir, is that you do not punish the innocent here, that you—”
    â€œNo quarter,” he said softly.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œNo quarter, my lady,” he answered her, his eyes studying her face, his tone low and even. “No quarter. They are the two words given by your good King Edward at Berwick on Good Friday, March thirtieth, 1296. You have heard of the occasion, surely? He attacked the town and mercilessly slaughtered the citizenry—the estimate of deaths that night ranges from about seventeen to forty thousand. Edward was in a rage—his cousin had been killed by an arrow. His own churchmen begged him to stop the carnage—he would not do so until he had to witness a child being born as the mother was hacked to death.”
    Kyra knotted her fingers into fists at her sides, well aware that the event had occurred. “Terrible butchery has taken place,” she said quietly. “But these people were not part of it. Does revenge justify the murder of innocent men?”
    â€œInnocent men? Innocent men? Any man who serves such a master as Kinsey Darrow can hardly be considered an innocent.”
    â€œThose who have remained here were my father’s retainers. They never rode with Kinsey. They were left to guard the castle when he rode out. I swear to you that they were innocent of…”
    She faltered. The sudden rise of rage and pain to his eyes were such that her voice trailed to silence.
    â€œThe death of my wife and child?” he finished harshly for her.
    She was shaking and she knew it. She couldn’t meet his gaze.
    She had been promised to Kinsey by the king, but as yet, no wedding ceremony had taken place. She had come of age at a time when Edward was ruthlessly destroying Wales and turning toward Scotland, despite his disputes with France. England and Scotland had always struggled for border lands, but never like this. She could not believe the atrocities that took place, the destruction of Hawk’s Cairn, Arryn Graham’s manor and holdings. Fighting men had been locked into a barn—which had been set ablaze. Then