My father’s man came and took me away from it when I was eleven years of age, escorting me across the sea to a place where I did not know the language. He was supposed to return with the army promised by the duke, but he did not.”
“How do ye know?”
She snorted ironically. “Mayhap I did not speak the language, but I did not need to in order to see that my father’s man and the escort with him were killed,” she said. “The next morning, their horses were still in the stable yard and I saw men taking away something in a cart, out into the fields. They were bodies covered with straw because I saw a foot sticking out. My father’s men were killed because the duke had no intention of honoring his part of the bargain.”
Magnus was coming to feel the slightest bit guilty. Guilty because he thought he’d had it the worst of anyone at Culroy Castle, but clearly there was someone else with a more tragic story to tell. He leaned back in the chair, pondering what he’d been told.
“Why did yer father never come for ye, then?” he asked. “If he had a large army, surely he could bring it tae Scotland and retrieve ye.”
Her eyes started to fill with tears again, but she blinked them back furiously. “I do not know,” she said honestly. “It has been nine years since I last saw my father, and I have received no word from him during that time. When his men were killed and did not return to Santacara, I thought he would come for me, but he did not. It is my fear that he is dead, but even so, I must go home. I must discover for myself what has become of him, and I have waited these many years to escape Culroy. When I saw you, I knew the time was right. Please, my lord. Please…help me.”
Magnus looked at her. In his world, Magnus only helped Magnus. That was the only thing of importance to him. He’d long bred the emotion out of himself, the ability to feel anything, the ability to show and to accept compassion. That process began as a young lad when he’d first been taken hostage at Culroy, and it continued to this day. It wasn’t selfishness.
It was self-preservation.
He stood up from the chair.
“Why me?” he asked. “Ye are presuming a great deal by coming here tae ask me such things. I’m not responsible for ye.”
Her expression fell and Magnus resisted the urge to recant everything he’d just said. But something held him back, perhaps that young lad who had refused to make friends or grant favors. He wasn’t willing to risk himself for this woman. The only risks he ever took were for himself, for his greater gain. As he wrestled with his thoughts, Diantha lowered her gaze.
“I know you are not responsible for me,” she said. “I understand that completely. And I do realize that I am asking a great deal of someone I do not know, but given that you were a hostage at Culroy, surely you can understand my desperation. Did you not wish to escape the entire time you were there?”
He had. Every day of those long years he’d spent at that horrible place. “I was released, eventually,” he said. “If ye go back, mayhap they’ll release ye eventually, too.”
Her features hardened. “After what I just told you?” she said. “Ridiculous. They want me for that barbarian of a son so he will inherit my lands. They will never release me because I am of great value to them.”
Magnus knew that bunch enough to know that she spoke the truth. Greed flowed through their veins instead of blood. He saw that during his time spent there, something that had rubbed off on him because he was greedy, too. He was a professional fighter and he’d earned a great deal of money over the years because, according to the Duke of Ayr, money was the most important thing in the world. He’d learned that lesson well. But as he looked at her, a thought occurred to him.
He had spent the past seven years forgetting what his captors had done to him. Seven years of pushing hate from his heart, seven years of struggling to find a place in a world where he didn’t fit in. There were many to blame for this, including his own father, but his worthlessness as a human being had