The Saint (39 page)

A safe refuge was too much to ask for, but the mist and darkness provided some shroud. In the desolate landscape of the Dirrie More, there were few natural hiding places. The patch of pine trees would have to do.

From behind the trees, Helen and the others watched the battle unfold. At first Helen was relieved. She counted only a handful of attackers, while the king had perhaps four times that many at his command.

The surprise of the attack had caught the king’s men unaware, but not unprepared. It took them only seconds to take the weapons that had been readied in hand and begin to repel the attack.

But to her growing horror, she saw the king’s men falling. She lost sight of her brother and Donald, but the king and Sir Neil Campbell had taken a defensive position in front of her and the others.

One of the attackers was pushing toward them, cutting
down all the men in his path. Sir Neil moved forward to engage him just as another attacker came into view.

She lost Sir Neil in the hazy darkness, but could still make out the king’s mail-clad form and the steel helm laden with a golden crown as his sword clashed with the brigand’s.

Helen’s heart jumped with every horrible clash of steel. Though she knew the king was one of the greatest knights in Christendom, it didn’t take her long to realize that the man who faced him was no common brigand. He wielded his sword with a strength equal to that of the king—if not more.

The battle between the two men seemed to go on forever. But where were the others? Why had no one come to his aid?

To her horror, she realized that the brigand was purposefully moving the king toward the pine trees where they were hidden, away from the main battle.

The closer they drew, the more the tension in the small group began to mount. She motioned for the others to stay quiet, but from the wide, horror-filled eyes of her ladies, she feared they weren’t going to last much longer.

They could hear the heavy breathing of the men as they exchanged blow after blow, until finally, the king’s blade met the other man’s with such force, the sword slipped from his hands.

Helen nearly gasped with relief. The king lifted his sword to deliver the death blow. But the other man was not going to surrender to death without a fight. Somehow he managed to extricate a battle-axe from his body. Even as the blade of Bruce’s sword was slicing through the air, the brigand landed a one-handed blow of the axe to the king’s head.

Momentum finished the king’s job for him—the brigand’s neck was nearly severed in two—but Bruce staggered, the blade of the axe still stuck in his helm.

He lowered to his knees, and then stopped himself from keeling forward by extending his hands.

Helen didn’t think. With the bag that Magnus had made for her looped over her shoulder across her body, she ordered the rest of the group to stay there and raced forward to help the king.

When she reached him, she fell to her knees at his side. It was dark, but there was enough moonlight shining through the mist to see the blood gushing down his face.

It was like some macabre farce. The blade of the axe was stuck into his helm and had penetrated the steel into his brow.

Dear God, let it not be deep
.

“Sire,” she said gently. “Let me help.”

He was rocking side-to-side, obviously in a daze. “My head,” he mumbled.

She soothed him as best she could, easing him back until he was seated on the ground.

Every instinct recoiled from removing the helm and its hideous appendage—fearing what she would find—but she had to see the extent of the damage and stop the bleeding.

“I need to take off your helm,” she said gently. “Can you help me?”

He tried to nod, but winced with pain.

Helen held her breath and slowly started to pull the helm from his head. There was one horrible moment when it seemed the helm would not come off—that the axe was embedded too deep in his forehead—but with one hard tug she pulled it free.

Helm and axe fell to the ground as Helen did her best to staunch the blood gushing from the king’s brow with one of the swatches of linen she kept in the bag. But the small pad of fabric was soon drenched.

If only it weren’t so dark. It was hard to see the extent of the injury. But aside from the ringing to his head the king was sure to be feeling from the blow, it looked as if the
vertical gash bisecting his left eyebrow and forehead was deep but not necessarily deadly.
If
she could stop the bleeding.

The king’s shock had seemed to fade with the removal of the helm and axe.

“You shouldn’t be here, Lady Helen. I told you to hide.”

“I will. Just as soon as I tend your wound. Does it hurt badly?”

A silly question to ask a warrior. In her experience, nothing ever hurt.

“Nay,” the king said, true to form. “Where’s my sword?”

Helen gazed toward the body of the fallen man where the sword had landed when the blow had struck.

The king lunged for it, but Helen had to keep him upright when he nearly fell over, dizzy. “You’re losing a lot of blood. I need to get something to bind the wound.”

He was able to hold the pad as she used the scissors in her bag to cut a section of linen from her shift to make a larger pad, and a second thinner piece to secure it with. She knew it wouldn’t last long, but she needed something until she could get some salve—

Suddenly, she heard men moving toward them. The king heard them, too.

“Hood,” she heard a man say.

The king stiffened, detecting the same thing she had: English.

Then, a moment later, another muffled voice said, “Find the lass.”

The king was already getting to his feet and reaching for his sword. By sheer force of will, he seemed to be fighting against the urge to sway.

“Go,” he said. “I’ll keep them back.”

Helen’s heart stopped, realizing he intended to try to fight them off himself. But he was far too weak. Thinking quickly, she said, “Please, Sire. You can’t mean to leave me. What if one of them comes after me?”

Chivalrous to a fault, he saw her point. “Aye, I need to get you somewhere safe.”

She almost headed back toward the trees where the others were hidden before realizing the danger she would be putting them in.

The king seemed to have a different idea anyway. He took her hand and started pulling her away from the battle into the mist and darkness.

When they heard a shout behind them, they started to run.

Helen ran until the ground began to climb, and the king started to slow. Her own lungs were close to bursting. With the amount of blood he’d lost, the king had to be struggling.

“Did they see us?” she asked.

He listened for a moment. “I don’t know.”

They stood side-by-side in the darkness, sucking in deep breaths of air. Although she could see little around her, the hulking shadows of the mountains loomed all around them. Beautiful by day, at night they took on a sinister cast.

“Do you know where we are?”

The king shook his head. “A few miles to the north of the loch. But I don’t know these mountains like—” He stopped.

“Like Magnus,” she finished.

He nodded. Neither of them wanted to voice what they both were thinking: where was he? If they’d been attacked, did that mean the attackers had made it past Magnus?

She shuddered, her mind instinctively shrinking from the possibility.

The king gave her a compassionate smile. “Don’t give up, Lady Helen. MacKay is one of my best men. It would take more than a few brigands to bring him down.”

She nodded, but they both knew those weren’t normal brigands. “Who were they, do you think?”

Bruce shook his head and when he swayed a little, Helen urged him to sit down on a large rock. “I don’t know. But at least one of them was English, and they knew it was the royal party they attacked.”

“They also knew about me,” she said quietly.

Bruce nodded. “Aye, it seems so.”

Helen frowned, noticing the blood seeping through the bandage around the king’s head. She moved forward to examine it. She needed something better with which to bind it … but what?

“It’s still bleeding?”

She nodded. “Aye. I don’t suppose we can light a fire?” It would be the surest way of sealing it closed.

“Not until we’re sure they’re gone.”

“I wish I’d thought to grab my sewing basket. The embroidery thread would do in a bind.”

“Perhaps if you tie the cloth tighter?”

She was just about to unknot the piece of linen when she heard a sound in the distance.

A voice? A footstep?

The king had heard it, too. Without another word, they ran, having no choice but to flee higher into the impenetrable mountains. Magnus’s warning came back to her. She knew how dangerous it was to attempt to navigate the treacherous terrain, especially in the darkness.

But it soon became clear that they would not make it very far up the steep mountains. Nor were they going to be able to outrun their attackers. The king was losing strength. He started to stumble, obviously fighting the dizziness from the prodigious amounts of blood he was losing from his head.

The blood!
she realized. That must be how they were being followed.

“Wait,” she said, forcing the king to come to a stop. “I have an idea.”

Not bothering with the scissors this time, she tore another large section of linen from her chemise. The wool of her skirts was now touching her thighs. She quickly made a pad and carefully exchanged it for the sodden one.

They were fortunate that the heather and boggy grasses of the ground near the loch had given way gradually to a rockier terrain as they climbed the hill. But what she wouldn’t give for a forest or a …

She peered down into the darkness, hearing the unmistakable flow of water over rocks. A burn!

Explaining what she intended to do, the king waited while she very carefully climbed higher on the hill, squeezing drops of blood from the cloth as she went. She went as far she dared—hopefully near enough to the summit—and then turned back, taking care not to leave any footprints, though she doubted it was possible to see them in the darkness.

After she collected the king, they headed in the opposite direction toward the water, using rocks whenever they could to step upon. It was slow going, but eventually they hit the river. From there they moved faster, following the rocky bank until she found what she was looking for: a large gap between the rocks. It wasn’t big enough to fully hide in, but at least they would have some shelter, while she tended the weakened king and they waited for daylight and—she prayed—help.

Magnus lost the trail just before dawn.

After sorting through the varying accounts of what had happened from Helen’s attendants and the others who’d hidden in the forest, he hadn’t wasted any time and had set out after them.

According to the women, only one of the attackers had followed Helen and the king. Knowing he would be faster
on his own, and with few men to spare (MacGregor had most of their best men hunting down the other attackers), Magnus left Sir Neil to attend to the survivors, sent one of the remaining knights west, another east, and took to the north in the direction the tracks seemed to lead.

What a mess! At least a score of men dead, the rest scattered; the king was badly—perhaps gravely—injured, and Helen …

Somewhere out there in the dark, dangerous countryside, Helen was trying to keep them both alive. But how long would she be able to elude their pursuers? And just who in the hell were they? Brigands? Mercenaries? If they were, they were some of the best he’d ever come across.

The attack had been well planned, well executed, and very nearly disastrous. His heart twisted. He just hoped to hell he could find them in time.

He wouldn’t consider the alternative. He was supposed to keep them safe, damn it.

He forced himself to focus on the task at hand, knowing he’d lose his mind if he thought of all the things that could go wrong. Not just if their pursuer caught up with them, but also what might happen in the merciless, unforgiving terrain of these hills and mountains. One misstep …

Don’t think about it
. He couldn’t lose her. Not again.

He kept his gaze fixed on the ground, but with little moonlight piercing the mist it was difficult to follow the tracks. He wished Hunter were here. Ewen Lamont could follow a ghost in a snowstorm. A torch would have helped, but Magnus couldn’t risk giving away his position.

About a half-mile from camp, he saw the first drop of blood. If the women’s accounts of what had happened were correct, he suspected it was Bruce’s. An axe in the head?
Bloody hell
.

Magnus quickened his pace, the trail becoming much easier to follow.
Too
easy. Dread twisted in his gut as the sporadic drops became long streaks. Whatever Helen had
done to tend the wound, it hadn’t held. Worse, he knew that if he could follow the path, so could someone else.

The first gasp of dawn appeared over the eastern horizon when the trail of blood came to an abrupt end near the ridge of Meall Leacachain.