The Rose of Blacksword by Rexanne Becnel Page B

chased her. If she did not act right now, she might not get another chance to save herself and Cleve.
    As she raised her voice and fought her way forward, she knew he was the only man strong enough—and sober enough—to help her and Cleve. He was the only man with a reason to take her seriously. He had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Surely out of gratitude he would see her safely to Stanwood.
    “ I will be handfasted!” she cried, shoving her way past a stout village woman and her half-grown son. “ I will have him to husband!”
    At first the mayor did not hear her. There was too much noise from the restless spectators who surrounded the platform. But the people around her heard, and before she could reconsider her rash actions, she was pushed along, grabbed at roughly, and propelled forward until she stumbled to a halt at the foot of the crude stairway.
    For a heart-stopping moment Rosalynde hesitated. All around her people stared and laughed. A new chant was springing up: “Handfast! Handfast!” She suddenly wanted no more than for the earth to swallow her up and deliver her from this hell she’d plunged herself so precipitously into. She looked wildly about for escape, but there was none. Before her a sea of avid faces swam, some malicious, some compassionate, others only eager for a new and novel entertainment. She had wanted to remain hiddenand unnoticed, but now she was the center of everyone’s attention.
    She was shaking with fear as she tried to step back away from them all. But her heel struck against the rough wooden stairs and her hand bumped against the railing.
    It was that rail that decided her, that gave her the strength to follow through on her mad and ill-advised scheme. Beneath her hand it was solid despite its rough texture and the splinters it promised. When she thought she would fall from the sheer fright of everything, the rail held her up. Although it made no sense—she knew it was only a desperate wish on her part—she kept thinking that this man might be like the rail: hard and strong, and prickly too. But beneath it he might be steady and reliable.
    They need only be handfasted for a year and a day as the mayor said, she reminded herself. If she appealed to his better nature, he might help her. If she saved his life, he might feel obligated to her.
    If she offered him a reward, he might do it.
    She closed her eyes and tightened her grip on the wood. Then she took a slow, steadying breath, and with a fervent prayer for divine help, she turned and mounted the stairs.
    “Well, well. What sport have we here?” the mayor leered as Rosalynde reached the top of the scaffold. “Come here. Come here,” he gestured, clearly pleased that he’d been successful in enlarging on the-day’s entertainments.
    Once she stood beside him he tugged down her hood, revealing her dark tangled hair and her dirty, frightened face. “What? No suitors of your own?” he scoffed, to the enormous pleasure of the raucous onlookers. When she didn’t answer he prodded her forward, forcing her nearerthe three condemned men. “So, what’s yer pleasure, m’ fresh young bride? Which of these earnest young grooms pricks yer fancy?”
    “They’ll prick her fancy, all right,” one drunken fellow guffawed. “That, an’ plenty more!”
    “Pick the little one,” an old woman shouted her advice. “Ye can keep ’im in line easier.”
    “The big un’ll tear such a little thing to pieces in the bed,” another one warned.
    “Bet he’d fit you just fine,” the malicious retort came right back from another bystander.
    With catcalls and whistles, hoots and shouted advice, the crowd worked itself into a frenzy of anticipation. The day of drunken merriment topped off by a handfasting and public hanging! It was a day the people of Dunmow would long recall with considerable relish. But for Rosalynde it was a nightmare too awful to be believed.
    She ignored the crude advice and taunts from the people in the