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She could see the little knot of noblemen, but she recognized Pembridge by his gaudy raiment and his great height.

“I have something to show you, lady.” Pembridge bowed low to her, and his mockery rang clear. “Let me show you what I can do.” He stepped aside, and a poor, pathetic creature was shoved forward to fall at Pembridge’s feet.

Sir Philip struggled to his feet, looked out, and muttered, “God help him.”

She asked, “Who is it?”

“I sent a messenger,” he admitted.

“A messenger?” Sir Lyndon turned pale. “You never told me you’d done that.”

“What difference does it make?” Sir Philip asked. “They caught him, it seems.”

“A messenger to my lord?” Edlyn’s anger flared as she watched them put a noose around the broken figure below. “When I instructed you otherwise?”

“Lord Hugh instructed me first,” he said.

She bit off the comment she would have made. He looked miserable enough as he watched Pembridge’s henchmen drag his messenger toward the blackened oak. The messenger choked and struggled as the noose cut off his air.

The end of the rope was tossed over the biggest limb, the messenger was hoisted up, and his feet kicked frantically. When he began to flag, they brought him down, let him recover, then took him up again.

“You see, my lady,” Pembridge called. “I will have my castle back, and when I do, you and every one of those misbegotten servants of mine will suffer, just as this messenger suffers.”

Drawing his sword, he walked up to the struggling figure hanging on the limb and hacked off one foot. The man’s shriek, released from a throat constricted by the rope’s pressure, sounded clearly in the morning air.

Pembridge wheeled around to the wall. “All except your sons, my lady. You do still have Robin’s sons, don’t you? You haven’t discarded them, have you, as you discarded Robin’s memory?”

“God save us all,” she whispered, and when the lads tried to show themselves, she held them off.

“Your sons, my lady, I will keep and train up in my image and teach them to curse your memory every day of their lives.”

“I will not!” Parkin shouted. He was fighting her restraint, trying to show himself to the demon-man below. “I’ll never curse my mother.”

Allyn slipped around her and tackled him. They tumbled to the graveled floor of the wall walk. “Shut your maw, you idiot,” he said. “Can’t you see he wants you to defy him?”

Parkin pushed Allyn off him and wiped the trickle of blood from his neck. “We will defy him.”

“We’re not going to give him anything he wants.” Allyn looked at his palms. “Ick, I skinned my hands.”

The messenger below shrieked again, and Edlyn didn’t have to look for sickness to bubble up within her. Through lips that seemed suddenly numb, she said, “Shoot him.”

Grims signaled an archer to come near.

“Shoot the messenger,” she said. “Put him out of his misery. Then, if you can, shoot Pembridge.”

Obedient, the archer sent an arrow into the messenger. Mercifully, it hit its mark, and the struggles, the shrieking, stopped at once. Even as Edlyn started her prayers for the man’s soul, Pembridge scampered back out of range, and the second arrow whistled uselessly through the air. “You’ll pay for that, lady,” Pembridge shouted.

Aye, she would. Of that she had no doubt. Turning away from the spectacle below, she asked Sir Philip, “Is there any way to send another messenger to my lord and tell him of our dilemma?”

“He’s on his way,” Sir Philip answered.

She stared at him, not comprehending.

“I sent two messengers.” Color swept from Sir Philip’s face. “The second one must be safe.”

She took a hard breath in. Hugh. Hugh was on the way. Hugh would save her.

Then she breathed out, and despair swamped her. Hugh was fighting a battle for the freedom of the king. Hugh would be distracted. Hugh might be killed.