Knight Triumphant (10 page)

“There are many things that gold coins cannot buy,” Igrainia murmured. “As to Gregory's vision, what would he have me do? I cannot stay here; I have to ride, and reach London.”

“It's true, you can't stay. But you must be wary. It's your very life you must guard. That's why we came. If you are wary, you can survive. There's help that will come to you. You must only be on guard, and . . . there's nothing else we can really tell you. If you are wary and protect yourself, then you will survive. We must go now. Father Padraic is a wonderful man. But he has doubts about Gregory's visions. And there are those who would accuse him of dangerous witchcraft. There are many things he sees which he feels he can never say . . . Father Padraic has been too good to us. But you have been so kind . . . and you must understand, in the way that you speak, walk, and even in your manner, it is easy to see that you are no orphan of the poor, the landless, the luckless or the downtrodden.”

They turned to leave. Igrainia caught the girl's arm. “I don't even know your name.”

“Rowenna,” the girl said. “And I must go now.”

“Thank you. Both of you. I will repay you, when I can.”

“You owe us nothing. We would give you more, if only we could. Please, just believe what we tell you. We must go. Father Padraic sleeps lightly.”

They slipped from the room in a silence as deep as the darkness.

Igrainia lay back against her pillow, staring into the shadows. The strange ripple of unease seeped down her spine again.

He
was coming after her, she thought.

They were warning her, because Gregory saw . . .

Why would such a man, who sorrowed so deeply and loathed her with such a vengeance, take the time and trouble to come after her now?

He had told her from the beginning what her fate would be if she didn't keep his wife and child alive.

And the poor little girl had died before they had even returned.

Margot had died in her care.

She didn't need Gregory to
see
for her.

There was no great mystery to her fate. Eric intended to hunt her down. No matter how long she was gone, and no matter how far she traveled.

And what he intended then . . .

She didn't know.

But sleep eluded her for the rest of the night.

As did her dreams.

They had drawn up before the walls of Perth. The Earl of Pembroke had ridden hard into Scotland at the bidding of the English king, his army of six thousand men drawn from the northern counties of England and the lowlands of Scotland.

Robert Bruce, knowing of Pembroke's advance and his own dire circumstances and lack of men, had gathered forces for the country north of the Forth and Clyde. He had managed to raise an army of about four thousand, five hundred men. Having received word that Pembroke was at Perth, they had ridden there hard, ready to do battle. But he hadn't the necessary siege engines to batter down walls or gates, nor could he afford the cost in human life it would take to send a relentless stream of men to scale the walls. Bruce and his advisers had argued their tactics, many doubtful of the honor of the Earl of Pembroke, yet many equally convinced that he was a man who would not give his word lightly. In the end, Robert Bruce insisted that he knew the Earl of Pembroke, and many silently agreed. He should know many of King Edward's men, since there had been a time when he had given his allegiance to the English king.

“I know Pembroke!” He stated firmly in the copse where they had come to talk. “And there is also the matter that we have little choice. I will challenge him, in the chivalric code, and hear what he has to say.”

Old Angus spat into the grass. “It doesn't matter what he says.”

Eric shrugged when Robert Bruce stared his way. “It's true, we haven't the means to lay siege to the castle. That is the only real and substantial fact we have.”

So Bruce himself rode to the gates, and issued his challenge. And he was so convinced that the Earl of Pembroke would honor his promise to bring his men forth and do battle in the morning, that no guards were officially ordered to watch the camp that night.

And so, the English came in.

Many of the men had been out, searching for supplies. Many had been sleeping.

The English fell upon them in the summer dusk.

Slaughter ensued.

Eric was fighting near the king when he slew the horse of the Earl of Pembroke, the man who had broken his promise, but not even Bruce's wrath allowed him to break the sudden crowd of men around the earl. Bruce's horse was seized next, but Christopher Seton broke through, and sent Philip Mowbray, who had gotten hold of Bruce's horse, reeling to the ground. Eric pushed through then, forming the guard around Robert Bruce that allowed them to escape the English troops and bring their king to safety.

Robert Bruce survived but his army was shattered. Many of his finest followers were hunted down and later found at the castles where they had fled. They met King Edward's fury, and paid with their lives.

The handful of men who survived and still gave their loyalty to Robert Bruce knew, as he did that it wasn't time to fight, but rather to retreat, to set out into the countryside, and over the Irish Sea, to gather more followers to form a new army.

They had to build. The forces they gathered had to be passionate, about the cause of Scottish nationalism, and they had to create a body of men that was large and strong, if they were to come against the English again.

Everyone knew that there were no rules of chivalry in this war.

No mercy to be had.

And so Eric had gone to the isles—stopping for his wife and child, for riders had warned him as he made his way cross country that the English had seized Bruce's wife and women kin, after Bruce had been sure that they were safely in the care of his brother, Nigel.

Nigel, having heard that the Earl of Pembroke had arrived at Aberdeen, sent the women ahead once they had reached Kildrummy Castle.

The women, in the company of the Earl of Atholl, were captured at the sanctuary of St. Duthac at Tain.

Sanctuary had availed them little.

They had been seized and sent straight to King Edward, who had come to the monastery of Lanercost.

Kildrummy Castle had not shielded Nigel.

Nigel, a handsome young man, quick to laugh, as quick to find courage and fight, had paid the price for supporting his brother. A brutal price. And the women . . .

So Eric had determined to keep his own wife and child and the kin of his men with him. They had set forth upon the sea to find men in the rugged north and among the western isles, among them their own kin, largely Norse, and the Irish, many with a hatred for Edward as deep as that which stirred in the heart of the most maligned and bitter Scotsman.

For a moment, he felt the sea breeze, fresh and cool.

And he heard her voice, ever gentle, ever compassionate.

“It's a man, we must stop. A man, a human being . . . he will drown . . .”

“Aye, and maybe an agent of the English, better off dead!” Peter had warned.

“And perhaps a loyal follower of King Robert Bruce, in such dire condition since he chose to serve his king,” Margot had said.

And so they had taken in the man . . .

And they had taken in death.

And the English, coming upon them when they were weakened and desperate, had seized the women, and knowing he hadn't the power to beat the forces bringing them to their imprisonment, he had allowed his own capture . . .

Maneuvered his escape, and come back. Too late. He came back to sickness, to death.

Faces seemed to whirl in a fog before him. Drawn, ashen, marred by plague, gray, purple, blistered, skeletal . . . faces, white beneath a flow of blood, faces, eyes . . . eyes of death, haunted, the gray of agony, the white of death, the red of all the blood that had spilled . . .

He woke with a start.

And lay there, feeling numb. His wife, and his daughter were gone. Blood, horror, battle, sickness, death, gone.

There was only the numbness . . .

He rose, restless in the night.

Aye, numbness, he felt numbness. But when he forced himself to move, he realized that there was more.

He had regained his strength.

And his fury to fight.

It was time to ride.

 

 

Before the dawn broke, they were prepared to strike out on their journey again.

They could move faster now. They were mounted.

Igrainia found little fault with the shaggy horse Father Padraic had found for her to ride. Her name was Skye, and she had a sweet disposition, even if she had a slow lope.

Skye wasn't young, but good horses were hard to come by in the area. One good way to kill a knight was to kill the mount beneath him, and slay him when he crashed to the ground with the weight of his mail and plate. Well trained warhorses were extremely expensive, but when armies vied over a territory, few were sold because war gave men an excuse to steal, and in the Borders, horses had been seized by men bowing down before both kings.

Father Padraic was there to wish them Godspeed, as all the pilgrims who found shelter in his village rose to ride at the same time. Fresh baked loaves of bread were given out, along with what smoked and cured meat could be spared.

Father Padraic had said Mass at the first hint of the pink dawn, and all that was left for them to do was to receive his final blessing, and move on.

As Igrainia mounted her horse, Rowenna and Gregory sidled near her. Rowenna offered her a cup of cool water and what should have been bread wrapped in linen.

It wasn't bread.

She had been given a dagger.

She accepted the gift smoothly and stared down at the girl.

“I wish that you were among us, you and Gregory,” she told her.

Rowenna offered her a smile. She touched the ugly scar that marred what had been a pretty face.

“I will never go to London,” she said softly. “This was the gift of an English earl.”

“I'm so sorry.”

“We all bear scars in life. Mine is not so hard. I survive here. I have Father Padraic and a dear young friend. I have lost husband, father, mother, brother and most of my other kin. I have survived to tell the tales to those who come behind us. Scotland is my home.”

“There is little difference in living in the lowlands of Scotland, and in England,” Igrainia told her.

“One day, there will be.”

Gregory stood behind Rowenna, still appearing troubled.

Igrainia knew that he must read lips. “It will be all right,” she told him.

“He's very worried. He wishes he could tell you more. And he says that you are one of us, though I have tried to explain that you are going to London to be married. But then, you're not who you say you are, so, perhaps that is not true either.”

“I am going to London,” Igrainia said. “Whatever comes from there, none of us really knows right now. I will pray for you both, for your lives, for your happiness, but I hope that once I have ridden away, I never return.”

Rowenna said, “We will pray for you as well.”

Father Padraic had lifted a hand for silence; they all bowed their heads as he offered them God's blessing for their journey.

The four young men were in the lead. They were on better horses than the others; horses they had procured themselves, before coming here.

Ahead of Igrainia, John and Merry were riding beside Anne and Joseph. The rest of Anne's family was lining up behind them.

Igrainia offered a final wave to Rowenna and Gregory.

Gregory was mouthing words and making hand signs to Rowenna. Rowenna looked after Igrainia, a strange look in her eyes.

“What is it?”

Rowenna shook her head. “He believes that you have a stronger will and spirit than you know yourself. He knows that you will fare well, but still, he will beg God to protect you until we meet again.”

“Bless you, Gregory!” Igrainia said, touched by their fervent desire to be her spiritual protectors. “God be with you both!”

She nudged her shaggy horse, and the animal jounced into a jarring trot. As the others moved ahead, the trot became a bearable lope.

They left the village behind.

England lay ahead. Death and darkness lay behind.

She did not look back.

 

 

He spoke from the old stone steps leading from the courtyard of Langley to the entrance to the great hall.

Peter had seen that the people had been assembled, from the lowliest of the kitchen help to the knights and armed soldiers who had once ruled the battlements of the castle. He had his own band of men, those who had returned with him, and those who had survived the disease within the castle, not quite fifty in all, but many of the women and children had lived as well. If they couldn't wield swords with strength and expertise, they could ferret out any plot to seize the castle back from the nationalists, and they could see to it that none escaped to seek help from the troops under the various men now in the service of King Edward. He felt with a certain assurance, as well, that the men to whom he had shown mercy, who had now sworn their loyalty to the King of the Scots, would abide by their oaths—they knew that their fates would not include simple or painless deaths if they broke the solemn vows they had given.

Since death had taken so many, there were no more than a hundred and fifty people in the courtyard, but all of them, those who were his own, and those who had been loyal to a different lord, watched him worriedly.

“You have come to know me in the past few days, and know that I am a man of my word. It is a time to rebuild here, and I have no desire for any further bloodshed or death. We have all lost far too many people as it is. Peter MacDonald, who led you through sickness and brought you through, will continue to lead you while I am away. His every command will be like the voice of God. Those who heed him will do well, and find a way from the pain and death that have robbed us all of those we loved. You have all found mercy at our hands during a time when hatreds run so deep, even little children have met the sword of the conquerors. A castle such as Langley cannot fall, unless it falls from within. And I will tell you a story that gives you fair warning. At Kildrummy, Nigel, brother of the king, Robert Bruce of Scotland, defended his fortification from constant and repeated attacks by the English. He and his men defended the castle so well that the English were nearly ready to give up. But there was a traitor within the castle walls. A blacksmith, a man named Osborne. He was bribed by a promise of great riches if he set a fire, and allowed the castle walls to fall. And so, he started a fire in the storehouse, and the fire spread, and indeed, the people within were sent to the walls, and the castle gates fell to the blaze as well, and the English were able to seize the fortification. For any thinking that they might do such a thing and reap the rewards of English gold, the story did not end there. The castle was taken. Nigel Bruce was executed. But Osborne did not prosper. The English kept their promise and gave him riches in gold. They melted it—and poured it down his throat. There is no way that any English lord, knight or warrior will believe that you have not fallen to the enemy. There is no real reward for betrayal—except death. We have kept every promise to you. This is Scotland, and you are the people of Scotland. We will have a long hard fight, but Robert Bruce is king, and will rule in the end, and what he will rule is a sovereign country. Your loyalty is not required. It is demanded. In return, we vow to protect you, at the cost of our own lives.”

Silence greeted his words. He nodded toward Peter, who lifted a hand, and his horse was brought forward. The four men who would ride with him were mounted already, and awaited him at the gate and drawbridge.

As his horse came forward, he walked through the crowd that parted for him. As he mounted, he was surprised to hear a cheer arise from the crowd.

“Godspeed your journey!”