The Angel Knight, page 26
“Thank you,” the king said. “I appreciate it deeply.”
Christian stared at Fergus, and then turned to her cousin. “But my husband is English—”
“He has no need to know this,” Robert said. “There are only the few of you, and some workmen at Kilglassie. It will be a safe place for us at night.”
“But the English are patrolling the area,” she said. “It is not safe at Kilglassie. What if Hastings returns with his men?”
“Would you rather have the king and his men hiding in the forest when the patrols are searching this area?” Fergus asked.
“And what better place for us to hide than under the heels of our enemies?” Robert asked.
“They can get in and out through the loch entrance without being seen,” Fergus said. “Gavin need never learn o’ this. And you will not even know when they come, or when they leave.”
“Christian, my life is in your hands,” Robert said quietly.
She furrowed her brow in confusion. “But my lord, my husband’s life could be forfeited if this were to be discovered by the English—”
“I promise you he will never know. And you have my promise that I will do my best to protect the safety of Kilglassie and everyone in it.”
“But I fear for my husband’s life as much as for yours,” she said.
“Remember that a traitor to the English is a hero to the Scots,” the king said.
“But death makes traitors and heroes equal.”
“I know,” Robert Bruce said sadly. “That I have learned too well.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“I must tell Gavin,” Christian said.
Fergus looked alarmed. “Heaven save us, he’s a Sasunnach, no matter how much I like the man, or how much you have come to adore him. You cannot tell him who you have seen this day.” Fergus spoke in quick Gaelic, earnest and low, frowning as he guided his sturdy garron pony alongside hers.
She shook her head. “You and my lord cousin have coaxed me into agreeing to this. But it frightens me to think that Robert and his men might be discovered at Kilglassie. This is too much of a risk for them—and for Gavin.”
Fergus sent her a somber glance. “You could hardly stop the Bruce. He could have commanded you to allow him in, but instead he asked—”
“And you told him he could,” she interjected.
“He already knew how to get into the storage room. That lochside tunnel is perfect for his needs. With a small boat or two, he and his men could safely hide there, and you would never know.”
“Then I wish he had not told me,” she grumbled.
“Christian, you must not tell Gavin about this,” Fergus said. “You owe your loyalty first to your king and cousin. This is a harmless thing, a few nights out of the storm. Bruce and his men will only sleep there. No one need ever know but us.”
She sent him a sour glance, and sighed. “Well, I will at least have to tell Gavin where I have been this day.”
Fergus sighed. “Think of the price, Christian. We do not know how far your husband leans to the English side.”
“We do not,” she admitted. “But he may suspect something. Moira said that Dominy already took the children home to Kilglassie because she did not trust the weather. They will be at the castle by now.”
“And your husband will not be pleased when he sees that you are not with them,” Fergus said.
“He will not.” She looked ahead. “We are no more than a league or so from Kilglassie now. There is the burn that we must follow and cross.”
“Pray then that Gavin Faulkener will be concerned only with your health in this cold weather, and not with where you’ve been.”
Christian smiled. “I am not worried, Fergus. He is far more inclined to side with the Scottish cause than you know. I think he would fight with us himself, if he had not given his oath to the English king. His mother was of good Celtic blood.”
“I know. John told me that he and Gavin’s mother descended from Celtic princes. Saint Columba himself is part of that line, generations ago.”
“And holy Columba was born to Irish royalty, founded the Scottish Church, and was a visionary and a healer,” she recited, grinning at him. “You have taught your parish well.”
“A man of miracles, Columba was. Your husband could not have finer blood than that.”
“And any Celtic priest would quickly forgive him his English blood in light of that lineage,” she said, teasing him.
“He’s a good man, your Gavin of Kilglassie, and your children will be descendants of the holy Columba. I’m pleased.” Fergus grinned at her. “But I do not think he should know the whole truth of what we’ve done.”
Frowning at that, she did not answer. She had been feeling the keen tug of her differing loyalties throughout the day. The devotion she felt for Scotland and for her cousin’s cause was the keen, purposeful love of heart joined with mind.
But the true fire of her soul, the flame that lit the depths of her heart, had been kindled by a man in whom mingled Celtic and Sasunnach blood.
But to which did she owe her fealty? She sighed, unable to answer that, aware of the insistent, and different, pull of both.
Scanning the moor ahead, she saw the bitter, ominous color of the darkening sky, and felt the wind slice at her like cold steel. “After we cross the burn, Kilglassie is not far,” she told Fergus. “Dark is coming quickly. You ride home, then. I will be fine from here.”
Fergus shook his head. “I will escort you home.”
“But the gale—”
“Ach, I can make it home before the gale strikes. Come ahead.”
Shivering, she nodded and urged her horse ahead, while Fergus rode in tandem. They guided the ponies alongside the burn. In the distance, she could see the twin pools, their surfaces roughened by the rising winds.
Hearing shouts behind her, she turned to see several men, armored and mounted on destriers, riding toward her. Christian cast an anxious glance at Fergus.
“Hastings’s men,” he muttered. “What do they want? They must be heading for Kilglassie too, if they mean to cross the burn ahead. But they are not traveling companions that I would care to have.”
“We will go on, then,” Christian said, and clicked her tongue. Her horse moved ahead. After a moment, she turned again.
Hastings’s men bore down on them, showing no signs of slowing. Christian’s pony nickered softly, growing restless beneath her. She dug in her knees and the garron surged ahead, heavy, powerful, an animal accustomed to rough terrain. Beside her, Fergus’s horse galloped in time with hers.
“Halt!” one of the soldiers called. She saw Fergus lean forward, urging his mount to greater speed. She did the same, her cloak beating out behind her, the icy wind biting her cheeks and hands.
But the English chargers, with their longer legs, were closing on them. Had they been in the hills, the garrons would have pulled far ahead, for English horses, weighted down by armored riders, did not fare well on boggy or rocky ground. But here, beside the wide stream, where the ground rolled on, the larger horses had the advantage.
Seeing the fording place ahead, Christian guided her garron toward the water. Both her horse and Fergus’s leaped into the water at the same time, rushing side by side through the cold wash. Her pony soon cleared the opposite bank with a forceful leap, Fergus just behind her. They surged forward again, riding through a stand of bare oaks, crushing over old bracken, creating enough noise to drown the howl of the rising wind.
Behind them, the English soldiers had crossed the burn and were just entering the wood, pursuing them relentlessly. She flashed an anxious, frightened glance at Fergus, whose face was set in grim determination as he concentrated on the path ahead.
All they had to do, she thought breathlessly, was reach Kilglassie. A mile, no more, through this oakwood and up a hill, through more trees, then down again, and Kilglassie’s gates would, pray God, open quickly. Gavin would be there. They would soon be safe. Her hands fisted tightly on the reins and she stretched forward into the wind.
Shouts came again behind her, raw and threatening. Hearing the bellowing breath of the charger behind her, she dared not glance back. Leaning forward, pressing her horse onward, she heard a guttural cry and knew Fergus had been pulled fiercely from his mount.
She turned, a wild, quick glance. Fergus was gone. Several horses bore down on her. Ten, twenty, so many she could not count them. The heavily armored riders on their backs loomed huge, a terrifying spectacle in the gathering shadows of dusk.
She only needed to make it through the wood, she thought; she only had to reach the hill that would lead to Kilglassie. The garron was a good climber, and would gain ground over the English horses, and allow her to get away.
But a moment later, someone reached out a hand, huge and iron-like, and yanked her from the garron’s back. She twisted savagely in the air and fell hard to the ground. She wanted to get up, wanted to run, but she needed precious moments to catch her breath.
The rain had begun, hard, icy needles that pelted her, hurt her skin, struck and soaked into the sodden earth. As she raised up from her knees, the long, muscular legs of the English chargers circled her and closed in, surrounding her like a cage.
Fear clawed at her gut, threatening to overtake her. She nearly buckled to the ground as the haunting, terrifying memory of timber and iron bars slammed through her mind.
Forcing herself to stand on unsteady legs, she glared upward at their grim, anonymous faces. Fifteen, eighteen in all, she counted. Her gaze slid around the circle they formed. There was nowhere she could run. They would snatch her if she tried, uproot her like a flower stem.
Dhia, she thought; she could not let them take her.
“What do you want?” she asked, her voice hoarse with heavy breathing, and with the weight of her fear.
“Lady Christian,” a cold, deep voice said, “King Edward charges you with outlawry. You are a prisoner of England.” The man who spoke dismounted and came toward her.
She tensed where she stood, fisting her hands. Freezing rain slid down her brow, down her cheeks. She brushed furiously at it to clear her vision.
The soldier came toward her and clamped his mailed fist around her arm. Christian screamed, an anguished, angry cry, and tore loose, backing away. She spit out sharp Gaelic oaths as three more men dismounted and advanced toward her.
“Hold, lady,” one of them said quietly, as if he were talking to a wild horse. “Hold. We have orders to take you to Oliver Hastings at Loch Doon Castle. We have no wish to hurt you. Just come.”
“I will not!” she screamed in English, so that they would have no doubt. She backed away further, hair hanging loose and wild, cloak twisted, hands fisted. Weaponless, she had only her anger and fear to hold them off. The soldiers who had dismounted looked dumbfounded and uncertain. Those on horseback sat and stared at her. Stepping back, she shouted at them, wild Gaelic curses, her eyes darting quickly, looking for a way out.
She saw Fergus come to his feet, far behind the circle of English soldiers whose combined attention was centered on her. They must have thought him unconscious. He came cautiously forward, but she knew he had no weapon of his own.
Christian glanced behind her. In a gap between the horses, she saw a short stretch of rough grasses and rocks that led to the shore of one of the pools. She would jump into icy water and drown before she would let the English take her again.
Turning, she ran between the horses, and spun around as she reached the shore. Her heels sank in the boggy ground, which was spongy with recent rains. She stepped back again, into the cold sucking mud at the pool’s edge.
Someone swore. “Get her, you idiots! It is just one woman!”
A quick glance showed her that she was a few feet away from the narrow rocky bar that separated the twin pools. She angled toward that and moved backward, onto a slippery ledge of rock and mud little wider than a fallen tree trunk.
One of the soldiers cursed and stomped toward her, but his heavy armor pulled him ankle-deep into the muck. He roared and pulled his foot out, cursing violently as he backed away to solid ground. “Come here, you damned Scottish whore!” he shouted.
She edged back further. She saw Fergus behind the soldiers, a little dazed, one hand to his head. Unaware that he was there, the English, mounted and on foot, came toward her.
The chargers, loaded down with leather armor and carrying men in full chain mail with weapons, sank their hooves into the oozy, icy stuff and could go no further. Whinnying and struggling, they backed away.
Those on foot fared little better. Only one man managed to come as far as the slippery ridge, placing one booted foot carefully in front of the other.
She backed away, hearing the pelting rain, and beneath it the deeper rush of water. To either side of her lay the twin pools. Just behind her, she suddenly saw a gap in the bar, where water flowed through to join the pools.
She could not cross it without turning, and the soldier was coming closer. Swearing gutturally, he tried to grab her.
Then, as if the heavens had suddenly struck out on her behalf, he fell forward, his outstretched arms grazing her cloak as he went down. An arrowshaft protruded from his neck. He rolled slowly into the water and sank into the pool’s depth.
She stared after him, stunned. Then she looked up to see chaos among the soldiers left on shore. Two more fell from their horses as she watched, dead before they hit the ground, as arrows struck into the vulnerable places in their armor, at the neck and under the arm.
Standing in the center of the narrow bar, one fisted hand to her mouth, her legs trembling, Christian felt uncertain and frightened. She looked around for the archers, but the bare, forbidding tangle of oak and scrub beyond the water seemed deserted. She wondered if her cousin and his men were attacking these English knights.
As she watched, Fergus leaped forward and pulled another soldier from his horse, throwing the man so off balance that the priest was able to grab his sword and knock the man in the head.
Roaring and raising his newly acquired sword, Fergus turned to fight another soldier. Though he was surrounded, he circled, sword out, fighting ferociously, managing to keep them away.
But she knew he could not do it for long.
Another knight jumped from his horse and ran toward Christian, shouting curses in English. She understood them all too well, and knew that if he caught her, she would not make it even as far as Carlisle.
Hearing another shout behind her, she turned.
Gavin and John raced across the bar from the opposite side, running in single file toward her, their booted feet sloshing through water and mud.
“Out of the way!” Gavin shouted. “Get out of the way!”
He gripped a longbow in his hand; a sword angled from his low belt, and a quiver of arrows bounced at his back. With a long, sure leap, he cleared the rushing stream between the pools, and grabbed at her arm, spinning her neatly as he ran past and left her standing there, astonished.
John came just behind him, landing heavily, barely clearing the stream. She reached out to help him, grabbing his arm, nearly falling. As he raced past, she stood there for a moment, stunned, then tore along the ridge after them.
At the shore, she held back, watching as John stood at the fringes of the confusion and began to fire off sure and deadly arrows. Two more soldiers dropped as they were hit. Drawing his sword, Gavin moved like lightning among the men and the horses toward Fergus. At the edge of the clearing, John continued his succession of arrows, shielding Gavin’s advance.
Picking up another sword from a dead English knight, Gavin used two as deftly as one, slicing at an opponent, turning to wound another who came up behind him. Fergus, tonsure pale in the gray rain, stood in the center of it all, looking like an enraged Celt. He now had a steel mace, and raised it high over his head. Roaring like anything but a priest, he slammed it into whatever English heads and shoulders came near him.
Christian stayed where she was, unable to look away. Horses screamed and reared, blades clashed, men shouted and struggled with the three men who defended her and each other. Rain streamed down like a filmy, silky veil, but the blood and the steel shone bright.
Gavin turned just as two soldiers converged on him. Christian cried out, unable to stand helpless any longer. Running forward, she was determined to grab a sword.
“Gavin!” she screamed. “Gavin!” A discarded battle axe lay on the ground and she picked it up, nearly reeling under the solid weight of it.
“Christian! Get back!” Gavin shouted, glancing toward her.
“Gavin!” she screamed again, lifting the cumbersome thing, ready to swing it, planting her feet wide on the slippery grass as a soldier came toward her. Gavin shouted her name again.
She swung hard, nearly overspinning as the axe brought her around with its own force. An advancing knight jumped back in surprise. Breathing heavily, she righted the thing and aimed to swing again.
The soldier grinned and reached for her. Christian aimed for his ankles, and he went down hard as the axe knocked his feet off balance. He fell, bellowing at her as she ran past, and grabbed at her skirts. When she stumbled, he slammed her to the ground and rolled his crushing weight onto her. His heavy hands slipped around her throat.
She tried to scream but could not, her breath blocked, searing her lungs. She groped at his hands, kicking and struggling, but his weight and strength held her down.
Then the soldier arched back, his armor biting into her torso, into her hips. He fell heavily forward, limp, and his hands slid slowly from her neck.
John stood over him, breathing hard, holding out a hand to her. She took it and came to her feet.
“Get out o’ here, lassie,” he growled, pushing her toward the edge of the circle. He spun away as another English knight came toward him, and Christian ran toward the shelter of the trees. There, she stopped in astonishment.
Hardly visible in the dusky, rainy light, not far from where she stood, a group of men stepped silently out of the oakwood and raised their bows, releasing a stinging, clattering hail of arrows. Several more men emerged from the winter wood, swords drawn. They ran past her to enter the struggle alongside Gavin and Fergus.
