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  Jamie shook his head. “I did. Thommy isn’t going to be a knight. He’s going to be a smithy like his father.”

  Thommy was surprised that the young lord knew who he was.

  “You mean you don’t have to practice all day with a wooden sword like Jamie does?”

  Thom shook his head. “Sometimes I get to watch my da work on them though—steel ones,” he clarified.

  “I’ll be getting a steel one soon,” Jamie boasted, with an eye to Joanna.

  “Maybe you’ll make one for Jamie?” Ella asked him.

  Thommy shrugged, not wanting to confess that all he did right now was carry the charcoal and pump the bellows. “Maybe.” He took Joanna’s arm, knowing he was going to have to drag her away. “Come on, Jo. We should probably go.”

  She resisted, and before he could stop her she asked the two Douglases, “Do you want to come along?”

  “Sure,” Ella said so quickly he knew she must have been waiting for the invitation. She turned to her brother, who wasn’t looking quite as certain. “We can go riding tomorrow. It’s such a hot day.” She turned back to Joanna. “I don’t know how to swim, but Jamie does.”

  “I don’t know either,” Joanna said.

  “I could teach you sometime,” Jamie offered.

  Ella looked at her brother as if he’d just grown a second head. “How come when I ask you to teach me, you always say lasses don’t need to know how to swim?”

  Thommy tried not to laugh at the boy’s red, I’m-going-to-throttle-you-later expression. He sure was glad he didn’t have a sister.

  The girls, however, were oblivious to Jamie’s discomfort. Joanna, at a year older than Ella, had already perfected the eye roll, which she executed in his direction. “Thommy says the same thing when I ask him to teach me to climb,” Joanna said to Ella. “He climbs the rocks up near Sandford with the other lads from the village. But he’s the only one who goes up the Devil’s slide.”

  “Really?” Ella’s eyes widened, looking at him as if he were some kind of hero from a bard’s tale.

  Maybe having a sister wouldn’t be bad all the time—not if Jo was going to talk about him like that.

  Jo nodded, and then looked at Jamie. “Do you know how to climb, too?”

  “Of course,” Jamie said, as if surprised that there was even a question.

  Thommy was amazed that Jamie didn’t split the seams of his fine doublet with the way his chest and shoulders seemed to puff up.

  Ella gave her brother a funny look and opened her mouth as if she were going to argue, when Jamie cut her off. “Do you want to go or not, Ella?”

  The little girl let out a cheer of delight and linked her arm with Jo’s. As if they’d known each other forever, they skipped off ahead, not giving Jamie a chance to change his mind.

  The two boys took one look at each other, shook their heads in tandem as if to say “lasses,” and followed.

  As it turned out, before the day was over, the two girls weren’t the only ones who were fast friends.

  The boys swam in the burn for a couple of hours while Jo and Ella sat on the edge with their toes in the water, when one of the other boys from the village—Iain, the constable’s son—suggested they play a game of hide-and-find.

  The dense forest of big, domed oak trees, downy birch, and hazel trees, with the thick bracken and mossy underwood, was ideal, providing plenty of places to hide. It had been a warm spring, otherwise the ground would be a carpet of faerie flowers. The blueish purple flowers that were shaped like a bell had been his mother’s favorite.

  Thommy had played it many times before, but he explained the rules to Jamie. All the boys except for one would hide. The one who didn’t hide—the finder—would have to cover his eyes and count to a hundred before trying to find them. The rest of the boys couldn’t move once the hundred count was up.

  Jamie, apparently confident in his tracking abilities, volunteered to be the “finder.” It was then that the trouble started, when Ella—who apparently wasn’t used to being excluded—objected to the no-lasses rule. Although it really wasn’t a rule because up until that point they hadn’t needed one: all the village lasses had understood that they weren’t included.

  “But that’s not fair,” Ella said with a surprisingly mulish look on her cherub’s face. “I’m smaller than all of you, I can hide the best.”

  The boys looked at each other as if she were daft. Everyone knew lasses didn’t best lads. They instinctively looked to Jamie to do something. Normally, they would look to Thommy, but under the circumstances he was happy to defer his role as leader.

  Jamie tried reasoning with her, but when that didn’t work, he grew frustrated and just told her that was the rule, and if she didn’t want to follow it, they would go home.

  That stopped her. Ella slammed her mouth shut, pursed her lips together as if sucking on a lemon, and plopped down angrily on a rock with her small arms crossed in front of her. The wee lass apparently had a stubborn streak.

  The other boys looked relieved, and Jamie tried to act as if her agreement had been expected, but Thommy thought he detected a whiff of relief.

  Jo, who could normally be counted on to be reasonable but had been surprisingly vocal in her support of her new friend, shot Jamie a disappointed look (his star apparently having dimmed), and sat down beside Ella to wait.

  At least that’s what they were supposed to do, but when Thommy and Jamie came to collect them after the game was done (Jamie had been correct in his estimation of his tracking skills), the girls were gone. Apparently stubborn and willful, he amended.

  At first they were more annoyed than worried. The other lads had gone home, so he and Jamie split up, Jamie yelling threats to his sister, while Thommy yelled some of his own to Jo.

  Thommy found Jo after a few minutes. She’d picked a good hiding place under a fallen tree covered in a veil of moss, but she’d neglected to ensure her skirts were tucked completely out of view.

  It took far longer to find Ella. Actually, they didn’t find her. Jamie finally had the smart idea to shout out that she’d won, she could come out now, when a moment later they heard a soft cry in response.

  Realizing where it was coming from, Thommy felt his heart tumble to the ground. Dread quickly rose up to take its place.

  The light was already fading as he gazed up into the branches of the massive old oak tree to see the tiny lass perched on a branch about fifty feet above him. Lord have mercy, how in Christendom had she climbed up so high?

  His stomach churned like he’d just drunk a glass of soured milk, thinking about what would happen if she fell.

  “God’s blood, Ella, what are you doing up there?” Jamie said. “Come down before you break your neck.”

  Thommy thought he heard a sniffle. “I can’t. I’m stuck.”

  “What do you mean you’re stuck?” Jamie said. “Just climb down the same way you went up.”

  “I don’t remember how.”

  She started to cry and Thommy couldn’t take it anymore. “I’ll get her,” he said.

  Jamie shook his head. “I’ll go. She’s my sister.” A fact he didn’t sound very happy about at the moment.

  Jo looked terrified. “Are you sure? It’s getting dark, and Thommy’s the best climber in the village.”

  Thommy winced. He was old enough—and proud enough himself—to understand that Jamie would never back down now. Unintentionally Jo had just thrown down a gauntlet. Jamie was the young lord; it was inconceivable that he could be outdone by a village lad—especially in front of a lass he wanted to impress.

  Jamie removed his velvet doublet and started up the tree. Thommy and Jo were quiet as they watched the lad navigate the lower maze of branches. It was so dark in the canopy of leaves that Thommy could barely see, when Jamie glanced down and stopped about halfway up.

  “What happened?” Joanna said, her eyes round and filled with worry. “Why did he stop? Why isn’t he moving?”

  “I don’t know,” T
hommy lied. He didn’t tell her that Jamie had probably looked down and gotten scared. Lads didn’t like girls knowing things like that. Tossing off his own doublet—made of scratchy wool—he started up the tree after them.

  He reached Jamie first. The other boy’s face was pale and his lips bloodless from being clenched so tightly. He seemed to be frozen in place. Some people didn’t like being high up. The future Lord of Douglas must be one of them.

  Ella was still quite a ways above him, but she must have seen Jamie stop and was asking him what was wrong and why he wasn’t moving. His nonresponsiveness was making her increasingly upset.

  “He’s fine,” Thommy shouted up to her. “He’s stuck, that’s all.”

  Jamie met his gaze. Thommy could see his fear warring with his pride.

  “I should have told you not to look down,” Thommy said. “I’ll wager you haven’t been up this high before?”

  Jamie managed to shake his head.

  “Next time, I’ll take you up slower so you can get used to it.”

  Jamie managed a scoff, and Thommy suspected he wouldn’t be climbing a tree again for some time.

  “What’s happening up there?” Jo yelled from below.

  The girl’s voice seemed to do something to Jamie. Some of his fear vanished, and the gaze that met Thommy’s was braced—almost as if he expected Thommy to try to humiliate him.

  “Nothing,” Thommy shouted back down. “His tunic is stuck on a branch, that’s all.”

  The other boy visibly relaxed. He gave him a nod of thanks, and Thommy knew that another bond had been formed that day. Secrets had a way of doing that.

  He was able to talk Jamie down the first few branches, instructing him first to turn and face the tree, and then to slowly and carefully ease himself down to the next branch, with Thommy there to provide him guidance where necessary.

  When Jamie reached a place close enough to jump, Thommy scrambled back up the branches to where Ella waited.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  She nodded. He could tell she was scared, but like her brother she was trying not to show it. What concerned him more, however, were her shimmering eyes and trembling lower lip. Ah, blast it, she better not start crying!

  “What was that joke you told me last time? About the fish and the river?”

  The beginnings of a smile appeared on the edge of her mouth. “You mean about the beach?”

  He nodded. “Do you have any others?”

  The tremble was gone—thank goodness—replaced by a full-fledged gappy grin. “You mean you like them? Jamie won’t let me tell them anymore. He says they’re all dumb ‘wee bairn’ jokes.”

  Thommy leaned close and whispered, even though there was no need, “You can tell them to me. I don’t mind. But first, I need you to scoot a little closer so I can help you off that branch.”

  She did as he asked without thinking, but her dress caught on one of the broken branches. She reached out, leaning all her weight on the thin branch to try to unsnag it. He tried to warn her, but it was too late.

  The branch didn’t break, but the cracking sound and sudden movement as if it might startled her. She lost her balance.

  Thommy’s heart shot to his throat and jammed. He may have cried out, but only the “nay!” was intelligible.

  It happened so fast, yet he saw it in slow-moving time. She fell back, and he lunged. Somehow he managed to catch her around the waist and catch hold of the branch above him at the same time. But now he had a screaming, terrified little girl latched to his side, unbalancing him on the less-than-solid branch on which he was precariously balanced.

  For one terrified heartbeat he thought they were both going to plummet to the ground, but he dug his fingers into the bark until his arm burned and, after a stomach-in-his-throat few seconds, managed to steady them both.

  He could feel the frantic beat of her heart against his as he stood there for a moment letting his own slow.

  Her eyes didn’t blink as they stared into his. He’d never been this close to a lass before. Did they all smell clean and fresh as a patch of wildflowers after a spring rain?

  Jo and Jamie must have seen enough from below, as he was suddenly aware of their shouting.

  “We’re fine,” he yelled back, in a far calmer voice than he felt. “Ella is going to hold on real tight, and we’ll be down in a minute.” To her, he asked, “Can you do that?”

  She nodded mutely, still too stunned to do anything else.

  “Good. I need you to wrap your arms around my neck and keep your legs wrapped around my waist so I can use my hands.”

  She looked uncertain for a moment, but then brightened. “My father sometimes carries me around on his back like that.”

  Thommy smiled back at her. His da had done the same when he was a wee one. “Aye, just like that, except you’ll be on my front, not my back.”

  She retracted the kitten claws digging into his side long enough for him to help maneuver her into position.

  “You’re strong,” she said. “Jamie says I’m too big to carry now.”

  He’d been thinking the same thing (despite the heavy loads of charcoal he carried every morning for the forge), but the admiration in her eyes gave him a burst of strength. “Aw, a wee lassie like you? You don’t weigh much more than my da’s hammer. Now, what about those jokes you were going to tell me?”

  For the next few minutes as he wound his way back down the maze of moss-covered limbs to the ground, he was barraged by a stream of silly jests from a seemingly bottomless well. They weren’t all that funny, but he made sure to chuckle at the appropriate time.

  When he finally hopped down from the last branch, every muscle in his body was shaking with exhaustion. But he’d done it. The lass was safe.

  “That was fun! Can we do it again?”

  Thommy tried not to groan, while Jamie started yelling and cursing something fierce, the way Thommy’s da did when he burned himself.

  His arms tightened around her in an involuntary squeeze of relief before he started to hand her off to Jamie, who looked as if he didn’t know whether to shake her or hug her to death.

  But she held on to him long enough to press a small kiss to his cheek and whisper in his ear, “Jamie was wrong, you are a knight, and when I get old I’m going to marry you.”

  He was so startled by the proclamation he didn’t know what to say. He should have laughed—it was as ridiculous as some of those jokes she’d told him. Even if he wasn’t only almost nine and she six, she lived in a castle and wore gold circlets in her hair. He lived in a two-room wattle-and-daub cottage with a thatched roof that they shared with the livestock for warmth and didn’t own a good pair of shoes for the winter.

  But he didn’t laugh. Instead he felt something in his chest squeeze. Something that felt a lot like longing for something he knew he could never have. But for one moment he allowed himself to wonder if such a thing were possible.

  It was a mistake, as his father would hammer into his head many times in the years that followed. But Thommy never forgot those carelessly uttered words spoken by a little princess that made him feel like the greatest knight in Christendom. Words that made a boy who had no right to dream.

  1

  Douglas, South Lanarkshire, February 1311

  THOM (NO ONE called him “wee” anymore) had waited long enough. He struck one last blow with the hammer before carefully setting aside the hot blade.

  Wiping the sweat and grit from his brow with the back of his hand, he pulled the protective leather apron over his head and hung it on a peg near the door.

  “Where are you going?” his father asked, looking up from his own piece of hot metal—in his case a severely dented helm. The Englishman who’d once worn it must be suffering a foul headache. If he was still around to be suffering, that is.

  “To the river to wash,” Thom replied.

  His father frowned, the dark features made darker by the layers of grime that came from toiling near the
fires all day. Every day. For forty years.

  Though no longer the tallest man in the village (Thom had surpassed his father in height almost ten years ago), Big Thom was still the most muscular, although a few more years of Thom wielding the hammer might force his father to cede that title as well. Physically the men were much alike, but in every other way they were opposites.

  “There is still plenty of time before the evening meal,” his father pointed out. “Captain de Wilton is anxious for his sword.”

  Thom gritted his teeth. Although the villagers in Douglas had no choice but to accept the English occupation of their castle—with the current Lord of Douglas a much hunted “rebel”—it didn’t mean he had to jump to their bidding. “The captain can wait if he wants the work done properly.”

  “But his silver cannot. Those tools aren’t going to buy themselves.”

  Though there was no censure in his tone, Thom knew what his father was thinking. They wouldn’t need the coin so badly if Thom wasn’t being so stubborn. He was sitting—or more accurately sleeping—on enough silver to replace every tool in the forge and expand to take on a handful of apprentices if they wanted them. But that was his father’s dream, not his. His mother had left him the small fortune, and Thom wasn’t ready to relinquish it—or the opportunity that went along with it.

  They wouldn’t need coin at all if the current Lord of Douglas wasn’t so busy making a name for himself with all his “black” deeds that he actually gave thought to those who were left in his wake and bore the brunt of English retaliation. Thom tried to push back the wave of bitterness and anger that came from thinking of his former friend, but it had become as reflexive as swinging his hammer.

  The last time Sir James “the Black” Douglas had attempted to rid his Hall of Englishmen—about a year ago when he’d tricked the then-keeper, Lord Thirlwall, from the safety of the castle into an ambush but failed to take the castle—the remaining garrison had retaliated against the villagers, whom they accused of aiding the rebels.

  “War is good for business,” his father liked to say. Except when it wasn’t. Big Thom MacGowan, who’d never been shy about his loyalty to the Douglas lords, had paid for that loyalty with a nearly destroyed forge and the loss of some of his most expensive tools. Tools that were probably in some English forge right now.