But he was deaf to her pleas. “I will show you what is ‘right’ lest you be tempted to follow in your whore of a mother’s treasonous footsteps. I wanted to spare you from this, but now I see that my coddling has only served to confuse you about where your loyalty lies. A daughter of Buchan—a Comyn—will never see anything right about a Bruce on a throne.”

He dragged her across the Hall. One look at his face was enough to turn even the most curious of gazes in the other direction. She tried to calm him down, tried to apologize, but he was too angry to listen.

The cold blast of autumn air penetrated through the wool of her gown as he pushed open the door and pulled her down the stairs. He called for horses, which were quickly brought forward.

She realized what he meant to do. “No, Father, please. Don’t take me there. I don’t want to see—”

“Not another word,” he bit out angrily. “You will do my bidding or I will see you punished with the lash. Would that I’d taken it to your mother and flogged the defiance out of her. We might have avoided this dishonor and blight upon our family.”

Joan’s eyes widened in disbelief. A lash? Her father had never raised a hand to her. But whatever regard he had for her had been forgotten by her defense of her mother. Not doubting that he meant what he said, she stopped protesting as he tossed her up onto a horse and they rode through the Northumbrian countryside the five miles to Berwick Castle.

By the time they passed through the gate, Joan had never been in such a state of misery in her life. She hadn’t spoken a word since they left. Her father seemed a stranger—a dark, angry tyrant like the English king he defended.

It was dusk, and since she’d been forced from the manor house without a hooded cloak or gloves, her hands and ears were frozen.

What must it be like atop the tower in a cage?

She shivered or shuddered—maybe both.

Oh God, she couldn’t do this! To see her mother suffering so horribly . . .

But any thought she had of pleading with him one more time fled as he plucked her off of her horse. Their eyes met, and she knew he was beyond reason.

She kept her head down as long as she could. But eventually, amid the crowd of gaping onlookers, her father ordered her to look.

She forgot her fear long enough to beg. “Please, Father, don’t make me—”

“Look, God damn you!” He grabbed her chin and forced her gaze up to the ramparts. “See what happens to traitors and whores who betray their family to support false kings.”