Dark clouds scudded low along the horizon, drawing ever nearer in a slow, inexorable surge. The storm was coming, Connor knew it as well as he knew that the Sun would again rise once dawn had come, and it filled him with a bizarre sense of dread. He knew that most creatures shunned the fury of Mother Nature, but his aversion to storms was a much more delicate matter--far more personal.
Shadows drew ever closer, sliding velvet-like across the fertile fields of his father's farmstead. Every now and then brilliant blue light would punctuate the darkness, accompanied a few seconds later by a deep rumble which shook the house to it's very foundations. And Connor with it.
Inwardly, he shuddered, turning his back to the window from which he had been staring, alternately to glance across the darkening room at the girl who lay in his bed, her eyes closed and the blankets cast about her haphazardly. She was a good looking lass, he thought, and the long shadows which were cast from the failing light of the window did little to mar her exquisite beauty.
She looked so peaceful. So secure within the warm folds of his blankets and, occasionally, she seemed to stir--only to roll a little and mutter something incomprehensible at some imaginary figment.
Connor smiled wryly and looked, momentarily, back out of the window. Another flash of light, followed by the deep, rumbling boom of thunder, and then the darkness of a storm-filled twilight re-emerged. And just before he managed to drag his attention away from the landscape which filled him with dread, Connor saw the faint orange flicker of light. A torch, definitely, but why would anybody be roaming this far out of town in this kind of weather?
As if to answer his question more of the distant, flickering, lights appeared against the sky. It took a few moments for the gravity of the situation to sink in and Connor, rather unceremoniously, listed off every swear word he knew.
When he ran out of words he knew, he begun inventing new ones.
The figure beneath his blankets stirred and rose to sit, smiling winsomely at her cursing consort. "And what hath brought such virulence to thy tongue, dearest?"
Connor glanced at her and, rather sheepishly, took to staring at his feet. "Ye parts are showin', Milady Elizabeth." Then, remembering the gravity of the situation which had brought him to seeking new, and vastly incoherent, verbs which described unpleasant acts with sheep and the people who committed them, Connor's expression became a serious one. "Ye father is on his way, my love, and he has gathered a few friends."
The Lady Elizabeth then started to borrow some of Connor's more colourful language as she darted to the window, apparently indifferent to the effect it had on her male companion. "What right hath he to interfere with my life so?"
"He's ye father and ye great kingship makes a great deal o' fuss of propriety and that kind o' thing."
"Foolishness! I'll not be handed off to my father's lecherous boot-lickers like some scullery maid!"
Again Connor smiled, knowing full well that it was her spirit that had drawn him to her in the first place. "Perhaps, but here he is."
She nodded her agreement. "Prudence doth seem to suggest we make all haste from this place, through some rear-entry perchance."
"Ye got a good head on ye shoulders, lass. But, I think ye should don a garment or two." He smirked suggestively. "Ye might be a bit distractin' as ye are."
Elizabeth blushed furiously at that point and spun, quite distractingly, to take up the simple homespun dress she had used to pass--more-or-less unobserved--through town earlier. She dressed quickly. "If thy clever remarks are all done, let us be on our way."
"Aye."
They left the room quickly and made their way to the back door. Connor grabbed the handle and threw the door open, only to find himself staring face-to-face with the ugliest man he'd ever seen in his life. Whoever he was, he looked closely related to an ape and possessed a severe under bite--his lower jaw jutted forward and produced a single tooth from behind a lip, which was curled into a cruel grin.
Connor spun. "Run Eliz-..." Connor failed to say much more as the ape-man delivered a rather firm blow across the back of his head with a blackjack, a short piece of lumber bound in leather, the business end of which sported a heavy lead short. Pain was his entire world for the few moments before the sweet bliss of unconsciousness swallowed him whole.
* * * * *
At first it was only a minor annoyance, but it slowly built into a terribly irritating stench. Connor wrenched his head away from whatever it was, but it followed him. He tried to lift a hand to swat it away from his face, but he was startled to find that they would not respond. No, he reassessed that thought. They could not respond as he was tied to something.
His eyes snapped open. "Elizabeth! Run!" Then his senses caught up with him. He had been hit on the head and knocked out by an ape. No. It had been a man, but he was at least half ape.
Connor looked about himself and saw several unfriendly faces in the ruddy, uncertain light of several torches held in iron rings along the cold, moss riddled walls. Somewhere in the distance water dripped into more water and, every now and then, there was a painful scream. A woman, he surmised.
Then he noticed the ape-man beside him, holding a small kerchief rolled into a ball and dribbling down his arm. The ape-man was still grinning in that stupid manner and, just behind him, stood Lord Thomas Eddleman--the so-called Duke of Aberdeen, an affectation that had been given to a self-important English nobleman by the English crown.
He just also happened to be the very angry father of one Elizabeth Eddleman.
"Ah, so he doth yet live." The Duke was staring along his nose at Connor, a look of sheer contempt and barely controlled rage contorted his otherwise handsome features. Like his daughter he possessed dark brown hair and pale green eyes. He even had the same button-like nose, but it seemed to make him look a little piggish--while on her it gave her entire face a petite, homely look. "See to it that the miscreant fully understands the situation, my dear Edward."
Edward appeared to be the ape-man. And Edward promptly took a firm grasp of Connor's right index finger and, quite deliberately, broke it in the middle. The pain was rather serious, but Connor suppressed the urge to scream. Someone else, however, screamed somewhere nearby, perhaps in a nearby room. Instead, Connor simply stared, pale-faced, at Elizabeth's father. "Elizabeth will be upset with ye, Milord. That was her favourite finger, she spent quite a lot of time getting acquainted with it earlier, if I recall rightly."
The insinuation was not lost on the Lord Eddleman. "Break another, Edward."
Edward appeared to have very little in the way of imagination, because he simply moved from one finger to the next, breaking them until the Duke raised a hand in a signal to stop. Connor, sweating with the strain of suppressed agony, forced a smile at the so-called Duke of Aberdeen. "Ye daughter really won't be happy now. She has no more fingers left to play with."
With a sudden shout of rage, Lord Eddleman leaped forward and smashed his fist into the side of Connor's face, bloodying his nose and splitting a lip. Connor coughed a little and spat blood at the Duke's shoes. "Losin' ye composure there, Milord?" His laugh was hoarse and rattling and only lasted a few moments before he coughed again, bringing up a little more blood which had trickled down the back of his throat from his sinuses.
Lord Eddleman shook his hand a little before he straightened up again. "Vagrant and uncouth Scottish pig. I shall see to it that thy goading does not go unrewarded." Another feminine scream punctuated the point, echoing from the cold stones of the room--whether it was a dungeon or a cellar, Connor neither knew nor cared.
Another laugh issued from Connor. "Ye know, I knew it would end up like this somehow. Ye bein' the over protective daddy an' all. It's too bad ye don't have the guts to face her, instead ye'll be rid of me and foist her off to one of ye dog-boys--perhaps young Edward here."
Edward grinned happily.
The next strike was no surprise, the Duke was easy to read, and it was little more than a repetition of the previous blow. The only real difference was that this time Connor lost a tooth. Unimaginative or not, the situation was serious. Connor knew that almost instinctively, but he refused to give Lord Eddleman any satisfaction--and to concede in any manner would do just that.
Surprisingly, however, the Duke smiled bleakly and raised his head to stare along his nose once more. "I have not the audacity to face mine own daughter, thinkest thou?" Eddleman laughed rather sarcastically. "Art thine ears closed? Or, perhaps, thou hast not recognised the sweet voice behind those screams?"
Rage was all that Connor knew at that point as realisation settled it's ugly claws about his heart. Connor tried, desperately, to break the rope which bound him to the chair, but it was sturdily made and the chair itself had been bolted to the floor for some measure of security. Lord Eddleman, on the other hand, had walked to Edward's side and placed a hand on his shoulder, feigned calm grossly apparent on his features. "Thumbscrews, my dear Connor, are her only companion now. They bite into her like a half-hundred angry ticks."
"Ye words are lost on me! Arrogant bastard! When I get up from this chair I'll-"
"Thy options are limited at best, and thy attempts futile." Lord Eddleman cut in before Connor could even finish his sentence. "In fact, thy options number as one." The Duke smirked. "I shall have the flayed until such time as thy tongue repents. Thy actions hath been rather cowardly and adulterous, to covet any woman is sin." Then came another punch and another loosened tooth. "And if thy penance is not dragged from thee, then shall I rend thy head from thy shoulders with my own two hands."
The latest tooth was chewed on for a few moments, before it was spat directly into the Duke's face. "And ye daughter? What will ye do with her?"
"This is, as yet, undecided and of little consequence or comfort to thee."
Lord Eddleman motioned to Edward and the ape-man stepped forward. He reached past Connor's head and it was the first time he was made aware of the table behind him. What Edward produced wasn't so much a knife as it was a seriously unpleasant series of small hooks and a serrated blade.
"Such a beautiful device," the Lord muttered, almost affectionately. "The damage it does when it bites is of no moment. It is when dear Edward here removes it from thee that thy pain shalt be made legendary. Those hooks, those serrations, are not merely for show--they will drag whatever they catch out with them."
When Lord Eddleman snapped his fingers Edward leaned in closer and, with a slow, deliberate determination, he slid the cruel device into Connor's side. The pain was mind numbing as it separated flesh and organ--scraping across his spleen in the process. Again, Connor held back the urge to scream. He might have succeeded, too, if Edward hadn't begun to slowly remove it from his side, so slow, in fact, that to the outside observer it mght not appear to be moving at all. But, to Connor, it was just an inferno of pain which seared from the wound. It was all encompassing and the scream he unleashed drowned out Elizabeth's for a few moments.
Edward was quite the skilled torturer. Although it hurt beyond all imagining, the wound was not immediately lethal.
"Art thou repentant?" Lord Eddleman's query was mocking.
Connor murmured something in response. "Yes? What was that?" The Duke's eyes had a hungry, almost animal quality to them, as Connor motioned, with his head, for the Lord Eddleman to come closer.
"In ye ear, bastard." It was muttered quietly and followed by Connor's quick lurch forward when the Lord Eddleman was only a few inches from his face. Connor took hold of the man by the nose, quite firmly, with his remaining teeth and bit hard. Blood dribbled from beneath his mouth to cover the lower half of the Duke's face, but it was impossible to tell who it belonged to.
The Duke jerked back, cursing, and Edward delivered a powerful back-handed slap across Connor's face. The ape-man, it seemed, could produce more punch in one simple slap than Lord Eddleman could in a full punch, because Connor passed out again at that point.
* * * * *
Darkness was all he knew, once again, but slowly he swam toward consciousness. He could hear Lord Eddleman talking again, quietly, and with a degree of regret to his tone.
When Connor opened his eyes he could see a little more, although his right eye had swelled shut and was dribbling an unpleasantly sticky ichor. His left eye, however, worked rather fine and he could see the rays of grimy light which filtered through a dusted over window somewhere behind him. The room, he noticed, was a modified wine cellar, converted into quite the torture chamber. Transformed, of course, in order to torture Scottish rebels whenever they got out of line--and, of course, to satisfy the twisted perversions of the Duke of Aberdeen.
Connor almost scoffed. The man wasn't a Duke, it was a silly title that had been thrown into his lap simply because he was there and the British King, a tyrant named Edward Longshanks, had decided that Scotland was suddenly a part of his British Empire. Perhaps it was his victories over Wales and France which had led him to believe that the Scots would be an easy people to subjugate...
It doesn't matter, I'll never leave here alive. Connor's thoughts were melancholy to say the least. He had finally found a woman he love and, because of petty differences like social standing and nationality, she had been torn from him. No, he corrected himself; he had been torn from her. He would die here and she would live on, married to one of the Lord Eddleman's fops. The Duke would probably beat her, he already had if those earlier screams were any indication, and he'd let it go at that.
What Connor had meant to say was, "Ye brutish pig! We gonna get on with this or are ye gonna bore me t' death with all ye blubberin'?" However, it came out more as an incoherent jumble of consonants--his lips had swollen to unruly proportions, his nose whistled every time he tried to take breath and his gums were oozing blood and puss.
The Duke turned suddenly, staring at the young Scotsman with a look of bleak determination intermingled with utter disgust and contempt. "Bring me her head, I would say my farewells."
Ah, finally. Connor thought with relief. The end comes for me.
To his astonishment, however, Edward stalked off past him and returned a few mments later with a small basket--perhaps the kind typically possessed by young mothers looking to carry their newborn children safely.
Lord Eddleman peeled back a blanket, paled and nodded. "Then it is done." He handed the basket back to Edward and turned his attention to Connor once more. "Thy actions have further reaching consequences than thy comprehension can consider." The Lord spat disdainfully at Connor's foot. "Witness thy handiwork!"
Edward held the basket forward and stuffed it beneath Connor's face. The sight of Elizabeth's head caused him to gag at first, before he settled into uncontrollable sobbing. "Why? Why did ye do that? She was ye own daughter!"
"Thy unholy consummation of my daughter hath tainted her, body and soul, and I had to deal with her." Aside from a slightly bleak expression, the Duke appeared to be completely indifferent to the fact that he had just had his daughter beheaded. "Thy seed had left her with child. Such devil-spawn, whether it be of my own blood or no, can not be allowed to be carried to term."
Connor slumped--as much as he could, bound as he was to a chair--and sighed long. "Then do as ye will, finish me that I may rest. Ye have taken away everythin' else."
Lord Eddleman snorted and leaned forward. "Be not dismayed, piglet. For the order hath been issued. Thy kin, family, clan and all shall see not another sunrise. Thou go, one and all, into Hell this day."
Connor started up again, rage burning through the terrible pain--both physical and emotional--but the stout ropes held still. The Lord Eddleman waved a hand at him dismissively. "Be not dismayed, Connor. Thy time hath come." He nodded at Edward and turned away.
"Coward!" Connor spat, screaming past his difficult lips. "Depraved coward! Ye order the murder of ye own daughter! Ye order the murder of almost a hundred innocent men and women and children! Now ye order my death and ye aren't man enough to watch?" Connor spat again, blood and puss mingled into a vile liquid which spattered across the back of the Lord Eddleman's doublet.
The Lord spun, then, and grabbed at the hooked knife Edward had retrieved again and thrust it at Connor. What he didn't realise, however, was the fact that the only available grip had been the blade and he now slashed at Connor with only the point of the blade. The effect was minimal.
But, the Lord Eddleman suddenly realised and threw the knife away, as if it were some kind of snake. "Edward!"
The ape-man frowned unhappily and lifted his head to one side as, for a few moments, the Duke collapsed on the floor. He was drooling shortly afterwards and followed, quite promptly, by a short and nasty seizure. The Lord Eddleman screamed painfully as he beat himself against the cold stones of the floor, bruising flesh, breaking bones and grazing himself awkwardly. The poison on the blade took only a minute or two to run it's course and then the Lord Eddleman's face turned black and he fell to the ground with a final thud.
Edward, as uncreative as ever, grunted sadly and patted the Duke on the head. He took one look at Connor, shrugged, and made his way past. Shortly afterwards Connor heard the final sound of a closing door and the turning of a key.
It was perhaps half an hour after that when Connor realised that nobody would be coming for him. Not Edward or his family. Especially not Elizabeth.
He cried for her then, eventually drifting into a fitful sleep.
Four days passed before his wounds caught up with him. While not an immediate threat, the knife wound in his side festered after the second day and it quickly became mortal, eating away at him from the inside out. By the fourth he could barely breathe and his face felt like it had been set on fire.
He died that evening, consumed by pain. The pain of his wounds, while painful and festering, was paled by his emotional anguish which swept over him in wave after wave. He sobbed and bled, he shivered and trembled. And eventually he succumbed.
* * * * *
And so ended the tale of Connor MacCormick and Lady Elizabeth Eddleman. Before it could even really begin.
This work is entirely fictional. Any similarity to any people, places or events is entirely coincidental.
