The Striker (2 page)

T
HE YEAR OF
our Lord thirteen hundred and thirteen
. After nearly seven years of warfare, Robert the Bruce has waged an improbable comeback from almost certain defeat to retake nearly all his kingdom from the English and Scot countrymen who have stood against him.

The final challenge from the English will come soon, but there are still pockets of resistance in Scotland to the man who would be called King Robert I. Foremost among them is the troublesome southwest province of Galloway, ruled by the most wanted man in Scotland: Dugald MacDowell, the ruthless chief of Clan MacDowell.

Seeing Dugald MacDowell brought to heel is personal for Bruce, as it was the MacDowells who were responsible for one of the darkest moments in Bruce's quest for the throne.

To lead this important mission, Bruce calls on Eoin MacLean, one of the famed warriors of the elite secret fighting force known as the Highland Guard, who has reasons of his own for wanting the MacDowells destroyed.

But vengeance is never as easy as it seems, and Eoin will eventually have to face the past that haunts him and return to the days before Bruce made his bid for the throne.

St. Mary's Church near Barnard Castle,
Durham, England, January 17, 1313

I
T WAS A
damned fine day for a wedding. Eoin MacLean, the man who'd devised the plan to use it as a trap to capture the most wanted man in Scotland, appreciated the irony.

The sun, which had hidden itself behind storm clouds for weeks, had picked this midwinter morn to reemerge and shine brightly on the sodden English countryside, making the thick grasses around the small church glisten and the remaining foliage on the trees shimmer like trees of amber and gold. It also, unfortunately, caught the shimmer of their mail, making it difficult to blend into the countryside. The long steel hauberk was unusual armor for Bruce's men, who preferred the lighter black leather
cotuns
, but in this case, it was necessary.

From their vantage on the forested hillside beyond the church, the small village on the River Tees in the shadow of the great Barnard Castle looked pretty and picturesque. A perfect backdrop for the equally pretty bride and her knightly English groom.

Eoin's mouth fell in a hard line, a small crack revealing the acid churning inside him. It was almost a shame to ruin it. Almost. But he'd been waiting for this day for nearly six years, and nothing—sure as hell not the happiness of the bride and groom—was going to stop him from capturing the man responsible for the worst disaster to befall Robert the Bruce in a reign filled with plenty of them from which to choose.

They had him. Dugald MacDowell, the chief of the ancient Celtic kingdom of Galloway, the last of the significant Scots opposition to Bruce's kingship, and the man responsible for the slaughter of over seven hundred men—including two of Bruce's brothers. The bastard had eluded capture for years, but he'd finally made a mistake.

That his mistake was a weakness for the bride made it even more fitting, as it was Eoin's foolish weakness for the same woman that had set the whole disaster in motion.

He felt for the carved piece of ivory in his sporran by instinct. It was there—as was the well-read piece of parchment beside it. Talismans of a sort, reminders of another, but he never went into battle without them.

“You're sure he'll be here?”

Eoin turned to the man who'd spoken: Ewen Lamont, his partner in the Highland Guard, and one of the dozen men who'd accompanied him on this dangerous mission deep behind enemy lines. Though Bruce himself had led raids through Durham last summer, the king had had an army for support. If Eoin's dozen men ran into trouble, they were on their own a hundred miles from the Scottish border. Of course, it was his job to make sure they didn't run into trouble.

Opugnate acriter
. Strike with force. That's what he did, and what had earned him the war name of Striker among the elite warriors of Bruce's secret Highland Guard. Like the striker who wielded the powerful blows of the hammer for the blacksmith, Eoin's bold, just-on-the-edge-of-crazy “pirate” tactics struck hard against their enemies. Today would be no different—except that this plan might be even bolder (and crazier) than usual. Which, admittedly, was saying something.

Eoin met his friend's gaze, which was just visible beneath the visor of the full helm. “Aye, I'm sure. Nothing will keep MacDowell from his daughter's wedding.”

The information about Maggie's—
Margaret's
—planned nuptials had fallen into his hands by chance. Eoin, Lamont, Robbie Boyd, and James Douglas had been with Edward Bruce, the king's only remaining brother, in Galloway for the past month doing everything they could do to disrupt communication and the supply routes between the MacDowell strongholds in Scotland's southwest province of Galloway and Carlisle Castle in England, which was provisioning them. During one of these “disruptions,” they'd captured a bundle of missives, which included a letter from Sir John Conyers, the Constable of Barnard Castle for the Earl of Warwick, giving the date of Conyers's marriage to MacDowell's “beloved” daughter. Dugald had eight sons, but only one daughter, so there could be no mistake as to the identity of the bride.

Lamont gave him a long, knowing look. “I suspect the same could be said of you.”

Eoin's lip curled in a smile that was edged with far more anger than amusement. “You're right about that.”

This was one wedding he wouldn't miss for the world. The fact that it would lead to the capture of his most hated enemy only made it more satisfying. Two debts, long in arrears, would be repaid this day.

But bloody hell, how much longer was this going to take? He was always edgy before a mission, but this was worse than usual. For Christ's sake, his hands were practically shaking!

He'd laugh, if he couldn't guess why. The fact that she could get to him after all these years—after what she'd done—infuriated him enough to immediately kill any twitchiness. He was as cold as ice. As hard as steel. Nothing penetrated. It hadn't in a long time.

Finally, the appearance of riders on the drawbridge, one of whom was holding a blue and white banner, signaled the arrival of the groom.

Eoin flipped down the visor of his helm, adjusted the heavy, uncomfortable shirt of mail, and donned the stolen surcoat, which not coincidentally was a matching blue and white.

“Be ready,” he said to his partner. “Make sure the others know what to do, and wait for my signal.”

Lamont nodded, but didn't wish him luck. Eoin didn't need it. When it came to strategies and plans, no one did them better. Outwit, outplay, outmaneuver, and when necessary, outfight. MacDowell may have gotten the best of him six years ago, but today Eoin would even the score.

“
Bàs roimh Gèill
,” Lamont said instead.

Death before surrender, the motto of the Highland Guard—and if they were lucky, of Dugald MacDowell as well.

She was doing the right thing. Margaret knew that. It had been almost six years. She'd mourned long enough. She deserved a chance at happiness. And more important, her son deserved a chance to grow up under the influence of a good man. A
kind
man. A man who had not been made bitter by defeat.

None of which explained why she'd been up since dawn, running around all morning, unable to sit still. Or why her heart was fluttering as if in a panic. Panic that went beyond normal wedding day anxiety.

She hadn't been nervous at all for her first wedding. Her chest pinched as just for a moment—one tiny moment—she allowed her thoughts to return to that sliver in time over seven years ago when everything had seemed so perfect. She'd been so happy. So in love and full of hope for the future. Her chest squeezed tightly before releasing with a heavy sigh.

God, what a naive fool she'd been. So brash and confident. So convinced everything would work out the way she wanted it to. Maybe a little anxiety would have served her better.

She'd been so young—
too
young. Only eighteen. If she could go back and do it all over again with the perspective of age . . .

She sighed. Nay, it was too late to change the past. But not the future. Her thoughts returned to the present where they must stay, and she focused, as she always did, on the best thing to come out of that painful time. The thing that had pulled her out of the darkness and forced her to live again. Her five-year-old son, Eachann—or as they called him in England, Hector.

Eachann had a small chamber adjoining hers in the manor house that had been their home in England for the past four years, since her father had been forced to flee Scotland. But she and her son would be leaving Temple-Couton for good this morning. After the wedding ceremony, they would remove to Barnard Castle with her betrothed—her
husband
, she corrected, trying to ignore the simultaneous drop in her stomach and spike in her pulse (two things that definitely shouldn't happen simultaneously!).

Instead, she forced a smile on her face and gazed fondly at her son, who was sitting on his bed, his spindly legs dangling over the side and his blond head bent forward.

The soft silky curls were already darkening as the white blond of toddlerhood gave way to the darker blond of youth.
Like his father's
. He was like his father in so many ways, looking at him should cause her pain. But it didn't. It only brought her joy. In Eachann she had a piece of her husband that death could not claim. Her son was hers completely, in a way that her husband never had been.

She smiled, her heart swelling as it always did when she looked at him. “Do you have everything?”

He looked up. Sharp blue eyes met hers, startling again in their similarity to the man who'd given him his blood if nothing else. Eachann nodded somberly. He was like his father in that regard as well, serious and contemplative. “I think so.”

Stepping around the two large wooden trunks, Margaret glanced around the room to make sure. Just below his small booted heel, she spied the corner of a dark plank of wood.

Following the direction of her gaze, Eachann attempted to inconspicuously kick it farther under the bed.

Frowning, Margaret sat on the bed beside him. He wouldn't look at her. But she didn't need to see his face to know he was upset.

“Is there a reason you don't want to take your chessboard? I thought it was your favorite game?”

His cheeks flushed. “Grandfather said I'm too old to play with poppets. I need to practice my swords or I'm gonna end up a traitorous baserd like my father.” The little boy's mouth drew in a hard, merciless line, the expression a chilling resemblance to her father. Why is it that she'd never noticed the negative aspects of her father until they appeared in her son? “I'm no traitor! I'll see that bloody usurper off the throne, and Good King John restored to his crown, if it's the last thing I do.” Another chill ran through her. St. Columba's bones, he sounded exactly like her father, too. His head tilted toward hers. “But what's a baserd?”

“Nothing you could ever be, my love,” she said, hugging the boy tightly to her. This was one word that she wasn't going to worry about correcting.

If she needed proof of why she was doing the right thing, she had it. She loved her father, but she would not have her son warped by his disappointments. She would not see Eachann turned into a bitter, angry old man who thought the world had turned against him. Who reveled in being the last “true” patriot for the Balliol claim to the throne, and the only significant Scottish nobleman who still had not bowed to the “usurper” Robert the Bruce.

Margaret understood her father's anger—and perhaps even commiserated with him about the source—but that did not mean she wanted her son turned into a miniature version of him. Despite Eachann's “traitorous bastard” of a father, Dugald MacDowell loved his only grandchild. Indeed, it was her father's mention of having Eachann fostered with Tristan MacCan—his
an gille-coise
henchman—so the lad could be close to him that gave Margaret the push to accept Sir John Conyers's proposal.