The Knight Read online

  James just hoped the attacks he and his men had waged on the supplies making their way to the castle the past few months had done what was intended and made the garrison desperate for provisions. Desperate enough to take their bait. With the fair set for tomorrow, waiting was not an option. Every minute James stayed in the area they risked discovery. It had to be today.

  “There they are,” James said. Finally the first of the “pack” horses led by Seton came into view a few furlongs to the west of the castle on the colorless, windswept moorland.

  There was less than an hour of daylight left, and the figures were still discernible as peasants, but he prayed it wasn’t too late. Would the English take the chance of an attack and leaving the safety of the castle with darkness falling?

  The minutes crept by. Bloody hell, was no one on duty? It seemed to take forever for a guard to notice them.

  His pulse raced faster, blood pounding through his veins in anticipation and nervous energy. It was always like this waiting for the plan to unfold, the edginess and slight flaring of his nerve endings. It should be any minute now…

  But nothing happened.

  Damn. He cursed under his breath, eyeing the “travelers” in the distance. Seton and the men were moving too fast. They would be out of view before the enemy managed to don their damned hose. What the hell were the English doing in there? They were as slow as lasses readying for a feast!

  Fortunately, Seton realized what was happening and took action. The bales of hay attached to his horse came untied and tumbled to the ground. He stopped to retie them, halting the rest of the train behind him.

  Still the gates did not open. It was too late. James’s delay had cost them. The English weren’t going to take a chance with darkness edging closer and closer.

  “They aren’t biting,” Boyd said.

  James heard the unspoken criticism. “Give them a minute,” he insisted. Damn it, where was that fool English pride when he needed it? They were peasants; surely the soldiers wouldn’t worry about a little darkness?

  He nearly sighed with relief when he heard the grating sound of metal pierce the cool twilight air. Though it wasn’t as grand as the great Border castles like Berwick, Roxburgh, and Jedburgh, and didn’t have a portcullis, the circular donjon tower of Castle Douglas was protected by a barmkin wall and gatehouse with a sturdy iron yett—an iron yett that was opening.

  A moment later a score of plundering English whoresons charged out of the castle on armored horses.

  The bastards had taken the bait. His plan had worked. Satisfaction surged through his veins in a hot rush, his muscles flaring with anticipation at the battle to come. But it wasn’t all over yet. There were still plenty of pieces that needed to fall into place.

  “Be ready, lads,” he warned softly.

  He felt the excitement building in the men behind him. To a one they were chomping at the bit for a chance to exact retribution on the English invaders. They were men like him, lord or vassal they’d had something taken or been on the receiving end of English “justice.” It was James’s ability to rally the men of Douglasdale to his banner to harry the English that made him so valuable to Bruce. He and his men already controlled the forests of Ettrick, but they wouldn’t rest until they’d wrested every inch of Scotland from English hands.

  The tension was palpable as the English drew closer to Seton and his men. A hundred feet… eighty… fifty…

  Now, he urged silently, now.

  Boyd wasn’t so circumspect. “Christ, Dragon, attack!”

  Almost as if he could hear him, Seton finally gave the signal. The lead English knight was already upon him when Seton tossed off his tattered robe and reached through the piles of hay for the sword that had been hidden carefully therein. With a bloodcurdling battle cry of Airson an Leòmhann—For the Lion, the battle cry of the Highland Guard—Seton cut down the first Englishman who’d been almost on top of him before he realized what was happening. With a shout of surprise the knight fell from his horse, his leg nearly severed from his body from the force of Seton’s blow.

  As for the men riding behind him, from a distance it looked as if someone had pulled the ground out from underneath them like a rug. Horses reared wildly in every direction as the charge behind the fallen soldier came to a sudden halt. The carefully ordered formation exploded into chaos as the English struggled to react to the surprise attack and the fact that the helpless peasants they’d intended to plunder had become formidable armed warriors.

  Before the English could regroup, Seton and the others were moving around them, not giving them room to maneuver. The horses, which should be an advantage, had become a hindrance. The long pikes of James’s foot soldiers reached them well before their swords and hammers could strike.

  A half dozen men were plucked from their horses in those first key moments of chaos. But the English commander was not without courage—and skill, James conceded with a tightening of his jaw. He watched as Sir John de Wilton, the man who’d shown such “consideration” to Jo, shouted and rode his horse back and forth, waving his sword as he attempted to rally his shocked and dispirited men back into position.

  And it was working, damn it.

  They were counting on the English to race back to the castle. When the yett that had closed behind them opened again, James, Boyd, and the rest of the men would make their move—James to face the fleeing soldiers and Boyd to take the castle.

  Boyd grew restless beside him, swearing under his breath. “They aren’t breaking. What the hell is the matter with Dragon? He looks half asleep out there.”

  Seton did seem unusually subdued. “Give him a minute,” James said, showing patience he didn’t feel.

  It was rewarded. Suddenly stirring from his lethargy, Seton led a brutal charge right through the heart of the reforming English line. Three more soldiers fell and the first man turned and broke for the castle. The English commander shouted furiously, trying to rally them once again, but it was in vain. More horses turned and the retreat was on.

  It was their turn now. “Almost time,” James said in a low voice.

  The piercing grate of steel echoed his words. His mouth curved as he heard the sound of the yett opening once again. One more piece.

  He could almost feel the press of the men behind him as they waited for his signal. The English were riding hell-bent for leather back to the castle, Seton and his men chasing hard behind them. The yett was wide open. James eyed the distance. He needed to time it perfectly, giving his men enough time to get into position but not enough for them to have time to close the gate. A few more seconds…

  “Now!” he shouted. “A Douglas!”

  The men echoed the battle cry behind him, racing from their cover in the trees. If it had been like a rug had been pulled out from under them before, when the fleeing Englishmen met James and his men it was as if they’d run straight into a wall. They seemed to crumple in a slow backward wave as English horseflesh and mail met the steel wall of the Scottish pikes.

  After the initial strike, James led the charge, swinging his two-handed great sword in a long, deadly arc into the ribs of the English coward who’d turned and broken first. The force of the blow took the man from his saddle. He landed in a dead heap at James’s feet. Perhaps a dozen Englishmen remained. But wedged between the score of Scotsmen attacking from both sides, they had nowhere to go.

  James fought his way toward the center, dodging blows of a hammer and an axe as he wound through the tangle of soldiers to the commander, who’d been dismounted.

  He saw the flicker of recognition in De Wilton’s gaze—and fear. To his credit, the knight did not balk. He held steady, swinging his sword around to meet him. But it was the bravado of a dead man. For that’s what he was. De Wilton had sealed his fate the moment James had learned of his interest in Jo.

  James attacked with a vengeance, anger and jealousy lending a brutal edge to his blows. To James’s surprise, De Wilton held him off, blocking every crushing swing of J
ames’s blade with his own. The clamor of steel on steel thundered in his ears, reverberating in his bones. The Englishman’s skill only made James angrier.

  Vaguely he was aware of the frenzied fight going on around him and the noise of the castle attack behind him, but his focus was locked on the man struggling to hold him off. With two hands, De Wilton held his sword defensively inches from his head, where James’s blade was poised over him. De Wilton’s arms were shaking with the struggle to keep the blade back, but James used his height to press. Below the edge of his steel helm, James could see the knight’s pain. His face was red, his teeth were clenched, and veins were bulging in his temples.

  De Wilton might be strong.

  But James was stronger.

  Slowly the knight lowered to his knees, James’s sword inching closer and closer to his head.

  Their eyes met. Enemy-to-enemy. Knight-to-knight.

  “Yield,” De Wilton gritted out. “Damn it, I yield.”

  James didn’t want to hear him. He kept pressing. Kept inching closer to the deadly victory he craved.

  What mercy had the English shown his father? None. They’d shown him none.

  “Damn it, Douglas, he said he yields.”

  Seton’s voice penetrated the frenzied veil of battle, pricking something James didn’t want it to: his conscience.

  James stared in frustration and anger at the warrior who’d come up beside him. He saw the condemnation in his friend’s gaze.

  “This isn’t who we are,” Seton said.

  Knights. They were knights. With a code that he was supposed to ascribe to, even if at times he would like to forget it.

  James warred with himself. De Wilton was barely holding on. One more push and he would be crushed. He wanted this man’s death, wanted it badly. But Seton’s words had come perilously close to Jo’s. It was her voice he heard now. It was her voice that stayed his hand.

  With a furious oath, he lifted his sword and moved back from the knight that had been moments from death.

  Seton gave him a short nod and started to move off.

  De Wilton’s sword had fallen to his side, but out of the corner of his eye, James caught a movement. The knight was reaching for something at his waist. De Wilton grabbed hold of something and started to pull it out.

  Instinct took hold, and James reacted. Spinning around, he whipped his sword across the other man’s neck. The steel of De Wilton’s armor prevented the blow from cleaving him in two, but he fell to his side, blood spurting from the deadly wound.

  That’s what James got for showing mercy. A knife in the back.

  “What in Hades?” Seton said, turning at the sound.

  “He was reaching for a blade,” James replied before moving off.

  He left Seton standing there and headed toward the castle, shocked to realize the battle was over. There wasn’t an Englishman left standing.

  One of the men Boyd had taken with him ran out to meet him. “We’ve taken the gate, my lord,” he said. “The rest of the garrison has retreated into the tower and are asking for terms, but Boyd says we can take it. He awaits your instructions.”

  “Tell him to take it,” James said. “Kill them all.”

  “Wait,” Seton demanded angrily, coming up behind him. “Before you condemn those men to death, you need to see this.”

  Like Joanna, James had had enough of Seton’s interference. Still he asked, “See what?”

  “What the knight you just killed was reaching for.”

  To James’s surprise, it wasn’t a blade that Seton held out but a piece of parchment.

  He scanned the words, his heart sinking with every flourishing stroke of ink on the page. His stomach sank.

  Ah hell.

  Joanna was awakened by the loud roar of a cheer echoing through the floor of the bedchamber that she shared with her three younger sisters. Her two brothers—also younger—were away being fostered.

  It was her sisters’ presence in the room that had prevented Joanna from completely falling apart upon returning from her disastrous meeting with James yesterday. Though she suspected sixteen-year-old Eleanor had noticed her red-rimmed eyes and tear-stained cheeks, thirteen-year-old Constance and twelve-year-old Agnes were too busy arguing over a lost silk ribbon to pay any attention to their older sister’s shattered emotions.

  They would, Joanna thought with horror, her hand going to her still-flat stomach. God, how it shamed her to know that they would learn everything. If James didn’t marry her, she would be disgraced. She would become nothing more than a source of shame and embarrassment to her family. She looked at the innocent, sleep-rumpled faces of the fair-haired, blue-eyed cherubs waking up beside her and felt the hot sting of tears in her eyes again. What had she done to them? Joanna pushed back the wave of trepidation that rose in her chest.

  “What was that noise?” Eleanor asked, clutching the thick plaid that covered their bed.

  Joanna shook her head, not trusting herself to speak. It was taking everything she had to hold back the wave of emotions battering down on her. It didn’t help that she’d been up most of the night doing the same thing.

  “I’m tired,” Agnes moaned, burying her head in the soft feather pillow. “What time is it?”

  Joanna eyed the thin stream of strong daylight coming through the single shuttered window above them. They’d slept late by the looks of it. “Time to get dressed and wash your faces before prayers.” Another cheer sounded from below. “I will find out what is happening in the Hall.”

  “Do you think it has something to do with Sir James?” Constance asked, her eyes wide and sparkling with excitement.

  Joanna stilled, even the sound of his name causing a stab of pain.

  The starry-eyed look of admiration bordering on adulation on her sister’s face was one that Joanna suspected she’d worn more often than not. To her thirteen-year-old sister, James was the greatest, most handsome, most noble knight the world had ever seen. He could do no wrong. The pang in her chest twinged harder. She wanted to think so, too. She wanted that expression back on her own face.

  “Mother and father could talk of little else at the evening meal last night with the rumors of his return,” Constance prattled on excitedly.

  Which was one of the reasons Joanna had pleaded a headache and retired early. Her mother would guess something was wrong, and Joanna didn’t know if she had the strength not to confide in her. Her parents loved James like a son and revered him as a demigod. This would break their hearts as much as it had hers.

  How could she have been so wrong about his intentions? She’d assumed that “love” and “forever” meant marriage. She’d assumed that because she could think of no other future than marriage that James would think that way, too. But it was clear they didn’t think the same at all.

  His leman? Dear God, she felt like a fool. A naive, blinded-by-love fool. A naive, blinded-by-love pregnant fool.

  Joanna splashed cold water on her tired eyes, cleaned her teeth with a cloth and a paste of wine, salt, and mint, and dragged a beautiful horn comb encrusted with pearls through her hair. James had given it to her a few years ago when he’d become a knight.

  Would the baby make a difference to him? She didn’t know, but she owed it to their child to give James a chance to do right by them both.

  He’d been in a rush yesterday, and she’d caught him off guard. He’d caught her off guard as well. She shouldn’t have given him an ultimatum like that. She should have handled it with more finesse. For as long as she’d known him, James hated being backed into a corner, and she’d effectively drawn a line on the ground and dared him not to cross over. His pride would make him, even if he didn’t want to.

  She bit her lip, winding a ribbon quickly through her long plait. When they spoke later today, she vowed not to threaten but to explain. Maybe she could make him understand? Maybe when his mind was clear and he had a chance to think about it, he would see that he could achieve his goals and still marry her. That she d
id not need to be the price of his ambition.

  At just four and twenty, James was already one of King Robert’s most valued and important lieutenants. He was one of the handful of men the king relied upon. James had been given the important task of gaining control in the chaotic Borders. She knew that the king’s nephew, Sir Thomas Randolph, was making a name for himself as well—and that there was a silly rivalry between the two—but James’s ability to rally men to his banner gave him the edge.

  As much as his reaction had hurt her yesterday, part of her still didn’t want to believe he would hurt her—them—like this. If he loved her—and she truly believed he did—he would honor that love with his name. She and their child deserved nothing less.

  Though Thommy’s voice sounded strongly in her head that she was just making excuses for him again, she wasn’t ready to give up on him yet. The shine on his armor might have dulled a little, but James was a knight, honorable and noble to the core. His ambition wouldn’t prevent him from doing what was right.

  Spirits lifted a little, Joanna quickly finished dressing and, leaving her sisters to their morning ablutions, hurried to the Hall.

  Her father had been keeper of Douglas Castle under James’s father and, as befitting one of his most important vassals, their manor at Hazelside was one of the most impressive in the area. A fortified farmhouse, the rectangular two-storied building and the wooden outbuildings were situated on an old motte and were surrounded by a high wooden palisade. Although not as formidable as the stone wall of Douglas Castle, the wooden barrier had served its purpose for more than a hundred years.

  The din of voices grew louder as Joanna hurried down the stairs. Something certainly was going on. Instead of a quiet morning, it sounded like a midday feast after the ale and whisky had been flowing for a few hours.

  It looked that way as well. When Joanna entered the Hall, she could barely see her parents through the crowd of people gathered around the trestle tables that had been set up to break the fast. However, no one seemed interested in eating. The occupants were laughing and talking animatedly back and forth.