The Knight Read online

  Table of Contents

  THE KNIGHT

  FOREWORD

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  EPILOGUE

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Excerpt from THE RAIDER

  COMPLETE MONICA MCCARTY BOOKLIST

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  THE KNIGHT

  Monica McCarty

  The Knight

  ~ A Highland Guard Novella ~

  © 2013 Monica McCarty

  http://www.MonicaMcCarty.com

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  The year is 1311, and the battle for Scotland’s independence rages on…

  Stripped of his lands by the English king who killed his father, James Douglas will do whatever it takes to see his clan’s honor and fortune restored. The ambitious young knight, whose dark visage, powerful stature, and ferocity in battle has earned him the epithet “the Black,” knows he must use fear, force, and intimidation to defeat the English, put Robert the Bruce on Scotland’s throne, and restore the honor of the Douglas name. Nothing and no one will get in his way. Not even the lass who captured his heart in childhood and still holds it in her delicate hands.

  Joanna Dicson has loved James Douglas for as long as she can remember. That she is “only” the daughter of the marshal of Douglas Castle has never concerned her. Yet even as James’s ruthless reputation grows, and despite the warnings of others to guard her heart—and her virtue—against him, Joanna never dreams he will turn on her. He loves her and would never hurt her. But when James returns to Douglas to force the English garrison from his castle, Joanna learns that their love is nothing against his ambition. His marriage—like everything else—will be a means of bettering his clan. Heartbroken and humiliated, Joanna is left alone with a secret that may destroy them both.

  FOREWORD

  The year of our lord thirteen hundred eleven. For five long years, Robert the Bruce fought for his right to sit upon the throne of Scotland. But ever since his defeat at the hands of the English in 1306, which saw him fleeing from his kingdom an outlaw, many abandoned the hope that he would succeed. However, Bruce waged a triumphant comeback, first defeating the English at Glen Fruin and Loudoun Hill, and then the Scottish lords who stood against him in civil war.

  After a short reprieve from warfare, Bruce solidified his hold on his country north of the River Tay. The battle then turned south: to the troublesome Marches, to the castles still occupied by the enemy, and to the English king who invaded Scotland in the summer of 1310.

  But the second Edward of England was nothing like his “Hammer of the Scots” father, and the English campaign failed when Bruce and his men refused to take the field against him, instead waging his “secret warfare” of surprise attacks and ambuscade to harry the enemy. Edward II was forced to retreat to the English Marches for the winter to lick his wounds and plan the march north again in the spring.

  But there was no rest for the Bruce and his men. While preparing for Edward’s second invasion, they set about ousting the English occupiers from some of Scotland’s key castles. The Bruce might not have had the terrifying siege engines the English did to take a castle, but he had something just as destructive: men like James Douglas, whose cunning, skill, and ferocity would become legend.

  PROLOGUE

  Pass of Brander, August 14, 1308

  “Arise, Sir James.”

  A fierce surge of satisfaction rushed through him. The stench of battle had never smelled so sweet. As the king lifted the sword from his shoulder, James Douglas, the dispossessed Lord of Douglas, rose from the boggy ground along the narrow Pass of Brander a knight.

  The steep rocky hills of Ben Cruachan loomed behind him, casting dark shadows over the valley floor. Bodies of friend and foe alike littered the ground and hillsides. Fortunately, there were far more of the enemy. Robert the Bruce had won a great victory here today against the MacDougalls of Lorn, and James’s role in the battle had earned him a knighthood.

  Bruce was one step closer to reclaiming his throne, and James was one step closer to reclaiming his patrimony. As Bruce’s fortunes rose and fell, so too would his. They’d been bound together, liege and liegeman, since that fateful day nearly two and a half years ago when the then nineteen-year-old James had waylaid Bruce on the way to his coronation and sworn his fealty. A fateful decision that might have seemed shortsighted—especially six months later when the king and his followers had been forced into exile—but had begun to reap its rewards.

  James lifted his bloody sword in the air, and a great cheer rang out among the battle-weary warriors who’d gathered to stand witness to this sacred bastion of chivalry. It was the greatest day of his young career as a warrior. He wished Jo was here to see it. She more than anyone knew how important this was to him.

  Bruce grasped his forearm and gave him a hearty slap on the back. “Well, Sir James, what say you now? You have your knighthood. Later than you wished, perhaps, but earning your spurs on a field of battle makes for a better story than a ceremony.”

  James returned his smile, his lanky, nearly six-and-a-half-foot frame towering over the warrior king. At two and twenty, his knighthood had come later than he would have liked, but there hadn’t been much time for ceremonies in the past eighteen months as the king fought to retake his kingdom. “I’d say I keep good company, Sire.” Bruce had been knighted on a battlefield, also by a king, albeit—ironically—an English one. “I’m honored,” he said with a bow of his head.

  “You earned it, lad,” the king replied, with another firm slap. “Campbell said you and your archers were invaluable in ensuring our surprise attack was not discovered. ‘Cunning in strategy and ruthless in execution’ were his words. High praise indeed.” He grinned, shaking his head. “I should have liked to see the expression on the MacDougalls’ faces when you and the others appeared from the rocks above them.”

  One side of James’s mouth curved, remembering. “I don’t think they were expecting us.”

  “I’d wager not. Next time they lie in wait, perhaps they will learn to look above.”

  “Or climb higher,” James said.

  The king laughed. “Aye. You’ve the right of it.” The MacDougalls had lay in wait from the hillside above the narrow pass, intending to ambush Bruce and his army as they marched toward Dunstaffnage Castle. Instead, thanks to information gleaned from the scout Arthur Campbell, Bruce’s men had climbed above them, ambushing the ambushers. “With results like that, there’s no telling how high you will climb.”

  James smiled, the king’s play on words amusing him.

  After some of the men had come forward to offer their congratulations, the king pulled him aside again. “You’re making quite a name for yourself, lad, are you sure you won’t reconsider?”

  The king had offered James a place in his elite guard. The secret group of phantom warriors that Bruce called the Highland Guard had already become legend. Feared and reviled as Satan’s spawn by their enemies, they were hailed and lauded as gods and heroes by those loyal to Bruce. They were the best of the best in each discipline of warfare, an elite group of warriors handpicked by the king to wage a new kind of war. A war of surprise, ferocity, and fear. A Highland war.

  Despite his bow to chivalry today, James knew that the king’s strategy was sound: The only way to defeat the larger numbered, superiorly trained and outfitted English was to wage a secret war of ambuscade and surprise attacks, avoiding the pitched battle
of army versus army. Admittedly it was not a very chivalrous way of thinking for a newly minted knight who’d yet to even don his spurs.

  James was honored—and flattered—by the king’s faith in him, but still he didn’t hesitate. He shook his head. “Nay, Sire. I shall serve you best in the south.”

  As his lieutenant. Where the people would speak his name—his enemies in fear, his countrymen with love and admiration.

  Anonymity was not for him, for the Highland Guard was a secret band of warriors, its members’ identities shrouded to all but a few.

  “Aye, well, just remember that,” the king said with a grin. “’Tis a Bruce who sits upon the throne not a Douglas.”

  James just smiled, accustomed to the king’s prodding. It was not unwarranted. James had made no secret of his ambition. Ambition would see the lands of Douglasdale stolen from his father by the English restored, and the name of Douglas—like Wallace and Bruce—revered and remembered for generations.

  Fear. Force. Intimidation. Those were the weapons that would win the war and ensure his place in history.

  The English king would rue the day he’d tossed James’s father in prison and left him to die like an animal. James would show the English and their king the same mercy shown to his father—none.

  As hundreds of years before, when the villagers along the western seaboard had cried out in fear “the Vikings are coming,” the English strongholds in the Borders would reverberate with panicked screams of “the Black Douglas!”

  Sir James Douglas was coming, and God help anyone who tried to stand in his way.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Douglas, South Lanarkshire, Scotland, February 1311

  Hush ye, hush ye, little pet ye,

  Hush ye, hush ye, do not fret ye,

  The Black Douglas shall not get ye.

  —Sir Walter Scott, Tales of a Grandfather

  James was coming home! Joanna Dicson waited anxiously beside the big rock atop Pagie Hill. Spread out below her, clustered on the banks of the river, was the village of Douglas. To the north on the far side of the riverbank, she could make out the towers of Douglas Castle—or, as the English who now garrisoned the castle called it, “the dangerous castle of Douglas.” To the west were her father’s lands of Hazelside, and to the east…

  To the east was James!

  Her smile fell. At least she thought he would be coming from the East. Although James waged his campaign against the English from a base in the forests west of Selkirk, she’d heard rumors of his being in the North recently with King Robert the Bruce as a member of his personal guard. He was so important now, and she was so proud of him. But it had been so long since she’d seen him—nearly three months since James had last returned to his ancestral stronghold to harry the English who held his castle—she couldn’t be certain of his whereabouts.

  When her father had told her James was rumored to be in the area, she’d raced up the hill to the place they’d always met, knowing he would look for her there as soon as he arrived. Tears of happiness blurred her vision. She couldn’t wait to see him. They had so much to talk about. Her heart swelled with emotion. He was going to be so happy.

  How long had she been waiting? An hour, maybe two? It would be midday soon.

  The snap of a twig behind her made her heart jump. She spun around excitedly. Finally! “You’re—”

  Here. Except he wasn’t. It wasn’t James. The rush of emotion that had surged through her so suddenly came crashing down.

  The man who approached shook his head in mock chagrin. “Sorry to disappoint you, Jo. It’s just me.” One corner of his mouth curved in a wry smile. “Good thing I’m not one of those English soldiers of yours; the look of disappointment on your face would have plunged a dirk right through my heart.”

  Joanna felt the heat rise to her cheeks. “They aren’t my English soldiers, Thommy. You know I do nothing to encourage them.”

  The man she’d known since childhood, who was closer to her than any brother, looked at her with amusement twinkling in his dark blue gaze. “Lass, just standing there you encourage them. Who’d have thought such a funny-looking thing would turn out to be one of the prettiest lasses in Lanarkshire?”

  “Funny looking?” She feigned outrage but couldn’t help laughing, knowing it was true. Her too-big eyes and mouth had looked awkward on a small face. “You’re one to talk. I don’t think I saw you without soot on your face for the first dozen years of your life.” She gave him a playful shove, and then frowned when he didn’t budge an inch. Already one of the tallest men in the village, Thom was on his way to being one of the strongest—not surprising since his father was the village blacksmith. She gave his chest another poke. “Good gracious, Thommy, you’re about as hard as one of those cliffs you are always climbing. If you grow any bigger, you might find yourself holding a sword and not a hammer.”

  A shadow crossed his face. “Actually, that’s why I came to find you.”

  Her brows drew together. “How did you find me?”

  He shrugged. “Douglas is coming; where else would you be?”

  She ignored the wry edge to his voice that almost bordered on sarcasm. “It’s true?” She pounced on him excitedly. “Have you seen him?”

  He shook his head. “Nay, but Park Castle was fairly abuzz with whispers of his imminent—or should I say eminent—arrival.”

  This time there was no mistaking his sarcasm. Thom made no secret of his disapproval of his former childhood companion and the man most in Scotland regarded as a hero, “Good Sir James,” who fought to rid Scotland of its English oppressors. But it wasn’t James’s politics or his methods that Thom objected to, it was his relationship with her.

  Thom just didn’t understand.

  Something else in his voice, however, had caught her attention. “You saw Beth—I mean Lady Elizabeth?”

  James’s younger sister had recently returned to Scotland and was currently residing at the old Park Castle, since the English had garrisoned Douglas Castle. The four of them had been inseparable in their youth—before the war had sent James to battle and Elizabeth to France for safety.

  He didn’t answer, but the slight tightening around his mouth answered her question. “I’m leaving, Jo. It’s been arranged. I’ve come to say good-bye.”

  She stared at him, perplexed. “Leaving? But where? When will you be back?” Was there a market nearby that she hadn’t heard about? Taking some of his father’s goods to market was about the only time that Thom left the village.

  “I don’t know. Not for some time, I imagine. Perhaps a year or two.”

  Joanna blinked, stunned. “A year or two?” She couldn’t have heard him right. “Is your father moving to another castle?”

  He shook his head. “This has nothing to do with my father. He’s the smith of the Lords of Douglas—even in their absence—and he’ll never be anything else. He’s never wanted to be anything else. But I…” He stopped, a look of deep pain crossing his face. “I can’t stay here.”

  Joanna put her hand on his arm, knowing the cause of that pain. Thom had loved—practically worshiped—James’s younger sister, Elizabeth, since the time he was a lad. About the only person who didn’t realize it was Lady Elizabeth herself. Thom had been dying for an excuse to see her since she’d returned with her stepmother and two younger half brothers. He must have found one. “Whatever she did, I’m sure it was not meant to hurt you. She’s never understood how you feel.”

  His eyes hardened. “She does now.”

  Joanna sucked in her breath, his pain so intense she felt it herself. He must have told her, and gauging from his reaction, the lady did not return his affections. “Oh God, Thom, I’m sorry. Perhaps if you gave her some time—”

  “I’ve given her most of my damned life. It’s enough.”

  She could see the determination on his face and knew there would be no dissuading him. And part of her knew that as much as it would hurt to lose him, it was probably for the best. He would never
see another woman with Lady Elizabeth nearby. “Where will you go?”

  Expecting that he would find work as a smith at another castle, she was shocked when he said, “I’m going to pledge my service to Edward Bruce.”

  “But how?” she blurted. One didn’t just decide to be a warrior; it took training, connections, and more important, coin.

  “My mother always wished it for me. She set aside some silver should I ever decide to leave.”

  Thom’s mother had been the daughter of a knight, she recalled. She’d married beneath her—for love. “And now you are sure you wish to do so?”

  The look in his eyes was as hard and sharp as a shard of black onyx. “I can’t stay here. She doesn’t see me as a man, but as a girlhood companion—and one too obviously beneath her. She’s a Douglas.”

  Joanna did not miss the warning in his voice. It was one she’d heard many times before. “James isn’t like that—and neither is Elizabeth. I know you are angry with her, but you know he loves me, Thom.”

  He gazed down at her pityingly. “Love doesn’t matter to a Douglas. Pride. Ambition. Those are what will help your James build his dynasty. You will always be the marshal’s daughter, just as I will always be the blacksmith’s son. Your father might be a baron, but he is still a vassal. Douglas will take a wife who feeds his ambition. One who will bring him wealth and position.”

  Just for a moment his certainty sent a flicker of icy fear racing through her heart. “James isn’t like that. You don’t know him like I do.”

  She believed in him—in them.

  He held her gaze intently. “Aye, I do. I knew the boy, and I know the man. Ambition and James Douglas go hand in hand. People around here might revere him as a hero, but don’t be mistaken: He is ruthless. Nothing will stop him from getting what he wants.” He paused, letting some of his anger cool. “Are you sure you know him as well as you think you do?”