In the Time of Kings (18 page)

Above the cliffs, almost at the very end of the peninsula, squats the castle. Built more for defense than residence, it imposes on the landscape for miles around. A tall curtain wall maybe fifty feet high throws long shadows across the outer court. Beyond that is a lower wall that spans the width of the land from the sea cliff facing us to the other side, where I assume is another equally sheer drop-off. Two stout towers flank either end of the inner wall and in the middle a semicircular gatehouse projects, complete with drawbridge. The moat between the inner wall and outer yard is a dry one, but steep.

As we round the bay and pass through a small village, I see movement along the wall walk. Archers are scurrying to their positions, bows gripped.

Blacklaw might not be the biggest castle in Scotland, but anyone inside it is certainly well protected from the enemy.

At the head of our party, Alan breaks away, galloping his horse boldly toward the outer gate, helmet tucked beneath his arm. Malcolm is close behind him. Shouts are exchanged. A loud groan issues from an unseen winch as the portcullis slowly lifts. The drawbridge lowers, as gears and chains clank and screech. It hits the far side of the moat with a low thud. Alan and Malcolm ride across, disappearing into the shadowy throat of the gatehouse.

Duncan eases his horse up to mine. “Are you ready?”

“No.” I urge my mount forward, eager to settle onto a chair or bed and rest my back after three days in the saddle. “But are we ever really ready for anything?”

Heaven knows I wasn’t ready to land here in the fourteenth century. It’s a wonder I’m not dead yet.

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H
is gait is stiff as he lumbers across the inner bailey, like he’s got an iron rod shoved up the backside of his trousers. His hair bushes out from his head in a wiry brownish-gray mop, the ends grazing the tops of his rounded shoulders. A bristly beard, threaded with silver, fans from his cheeks to partway down his chest. He’s a man with a substantial frame, his torso as broad and deep as a whiskey barrel, but there’s lion-like strength in his movements, however battered his body might be. The man reminds me of Hagrid from Harry Potter — but without the friendly disposition.

So this is Henry Sinclair. He looks less than happy to see his only son again.

I don’t know if it’s the disdain in his stare, or the fact that my lower back aches, but I go down on one knee before him, my head bowed.

“How did you manage it?” he says.

I raise my eyes, trying to gauge his mood. His brow is clouded with anger and I can tell by his tone that he’s accustomed to being feared. “Escape, you mean?”

“Of course I mean your escape, you imbecile!” he bellows.

“Henry.” Duncan steps forward. “Been almost a year, has it?”

“More than a year — but still too soon.” Henry clasps Duncan’s forearm in greeting, as something vaguely resembling a smile plumps his cheeks. “I’ll post a guard by the cellar door. Last you were here you drank my stores dry.”

“You should tell your serving girls not to refill tankards so readily. I was only accepting the generosity of my host and dear friend.”

“A liar and always were. Some things never change.”

“You received my message?” Duncan tips his head in my direction, then motions for me to get up. “About him?”

“Aye.” Henry studies me. For a moment I’m afraid he’ll figure out I’m not his son after all, that I don’t belong here. With a brusque jerk, he grabs Duncan by the elbow and pulls him aside. “He still doesn’t remember anything? Who brought him north or how he escaped?”

Duncan shakes his head. “Nothing.”

“I find it hard to believe he could have managed it without help — or a stroke of luck. However it happened, he saved me a fortune in ransom. Is he ...” — Sir Henry taps his temple — “all right here?”

“Not entirely, if I may say so. He doesn’t seem a danger, but he’s not quite himself.” I detect a faint wink directed at me. “I suggest you give him time.”

“We don’t have time, Duncan. You bloody well know that. Balliol has been harassing Berwick for weeks and now Edward has joined him. We need every able-bodied man we can muster.”

“Let me work with him, Henry. He won’t be a bother to you that way.”

Henry lets out a loud ‘humph’. “Do what you will, although based on everything he’s done so far,” — his eyes slide to me — “I’m not expecting much.”

Yeah, some things never change. I may be used to a father’s derision, but it still stings.

LONG, LONG AGO

Blacklaw Castle, Scotland — 1333

F
or a week I see very little of Sir Henry or Alan. They’re holed up in the meeting room making plans for the movement of supplies and men. On the one occasion Henry did include me, he was annoyed by my questions. So I stopped asking them and sat in the window instead, gazing out at the sea, which only irritated him further.

Couriers come and go on lathered mounts, bearing letters from all across Scotland. A few nobles and chieftains arrive, but most have already gone on to Dunbar or are on their way to Berwick. Some of them seem to remember me, but they regard me warily; it’s Henry they ask to speak with.

I’m immeasurably relieved when I hear Alan is supposed to leave for Dunbar in the morning. I’ve barely seen Mariota since we got here. We have separate rooms and while it’s strange to me that a husband and wife reside apart, no one here seems to consider it unusual. While I try to circulate out in the open as much as I can, however uncomfortable it may be for me, Mariota stays hidden away most of the time. I can tell it’s not me she’s avoiding, but Alan. The communal supper in the great hall is the only time she will stay in the same room as him for more than a minute.

Today, supper is a special occasion. The Abbot of Melrose is visiting. Everyone’s a nervous wreck. The floors have been scrubbed, the hearths swept clean, and the beddings all washed. The cooks began preparing days ago. It reminds me of the time the Nobel Prize winner came to our university to give a talk. The custodians waxed the tiles and cleaned windows in wings where he was never going to step foot.

The abbot sits at the head table next to Sir Henry, looking very righteous. So far I’ve avoided any exchanges more in depth than a polite ‘hello’. I’m afraid he’ll quiz me on church rituals or the differences between Cistercian and Benedictine monks. Maybe I’ve grown more paranoid in the time since I found myself here, but I’m sure he keeps looking at me. He’s probably heard things: that Sir Henry’s son is mad, that he’s suspected of treason, or that he used witchcraft to defeat his six captors and flee to freedom.

While I’m preoccupied with whether or not the Abbot of Melrose is passing judgment on me, Mariota glares contemptuously at Alan on the other side of the hall from where we’re seated, not so much in challenge, but as if she’s trying to send a message: Keep your distance. He’s a master at masking his reactions toward her, barely even acknowledging her presence. Her spoon clacks against the table as she lays it down to grab her knife. She attacks her meat, slicing it into ribbons.

I’ve been sawing away at my slab of meat for ten minutes, letting little chunks fall into my lap and then brushing them to the floor. Without a convenient supply of packaged nuts at hand, my body has been craving protein so badly I almost consider shoving some of the meat in my mouth and swallowing. Almost.

“Tell me why you don’t like him,” I say aside to her. Looking around to make sure no one’s watching, I slide the last piece of mutton from my trencher into my hand at the table’s edge, then lower it. Hungry jaws snap at my fingers, pinching the tips. “Watch it, you greedy bitch!” I growl, peeking under the table. Lips pull back in a grin of submission before the deerhound slinks away with her prize. Two nosy pups instantly take her place at my knee. I scratch one of the furry beasts on top of the head, grateful to have made a few friends, at least.

One eyebrow arched as if I’ve just insulted her, Mariota plunks her knife down. “Your pardon?”

“Alan Stewart,” I whisper, darting glances left and right. “I know when you were both young, it was presumed the two of you would marry. What did he do to — ?”

“Nothing. Why do you ask?”

“I’m not blind, Mariota.” I point at my eyes like a petulant child. “I see the way you look at him. You
hate
him, don’t you? And yet if I weren’t here, he’d scoop you up and carry you away on a white horse, kicking and screaming. What went on between the two of you? What don’t you want to tell me?”

She stares at her food, mouth firmly closed, her delicate nostrils flaring with sharply drawn breaths. Several seconds pass before she lifts her chin and speaks. “As I said, there is nothing to tell, husband. We were childhood friends. He finds it hard to move on. I do not.” Her shoulders twitch in an unconvincing shrug. “That is all. Nothing more.”

She’s a worse liar than I am. Maybe this isn’t the time or place. She’ll tell me when she’s ready. Eventually, I’ll tell her about me. If I ever think she’ll believe me.

Setting my cup down, I reach for the bowl of cherries to my right. The hair on my neck prickles. Three seats down, Malcolm is leaning on his elbows, glowering at me.

Wonderful. I may be getting rid of Alan and the abbot soon, but I’ll still have that oaf hovering around. Not to mention Sir Henry.

Decision made. Tomorrow I’ll ask Duncan for sword fighting lessons. Can’t say I’m looking forward to getting the tar beat out of me, but if it gets me out if here for awhile, I’m all for it.

I raise my cup to Duncan. He returns the gesture, the froth of his ale spilling over the rim as he thrusts it in the air, his belly quaking with laughter.

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D
uncan marches out the door of my chambers with conviction. I’m less enthusiastic, but better to take a few lumps from a well meaning friend than get skewered by an Englishman in my first — and possibly last — skirmish. I tap the pommel of my sword with the heel of my hand, grab my shield by its hanging strap and follow him.

Today I’m sore as hell. Getting out of bed was painful enough, but going down the stairs ...? The only reason I make it to the bottom is gravity. I swear every muscle in my body has been battered beyond repair and every tendon shredded from my bones. I have so many bruises it’s a wonder I haven’t bled to death internally.

For three weeks now we’ve been repeating this cruel routine. Up before dawn, out the gate on horse, then a mile down the road to a trail through the woods. There in a clearing, Duncan abuses me, liberally. And I let him. Then in the evenings we do it again. For the first several days, he wouldn’t even let me lift a sword. Instead, he made me tear down a stone wall and rebuild it fifty feet away. When I was done, he made me move it back. For variety, I got to run to the top of a
very
tall hill. When I stopped breathing so hard after a week and told him it wasn’t that bad — I was being facetious — he gave me a sack of stones to carry and told me to do it again. He has no sense of humor. The son of a —

“Are you coming, Roslin?” Duncan pivots at the bottom of the stairway, tapping his thumb against his hip.

Morning sun glints above the eastern wall, temporarily blinding me. I blink away the glare, put my head down, and begin down the last few stairs outside the great hall. A rhythmic thumping, emanating from somewhere near the stables, echoes from wall to wall. I stop dead with one foot on the step below and one on the step above it.

He rolls his eyes. “Forget something again?”

Before I can dash away in panic, an unwelcome voice hails me from the far side of the bailey.

“Roslin!” A knight in full chainmail hands his sword and shield to a nearby squire and flips his visor up. I cringe inwardly as Alan parts from the circle of men gathered around him and his sparring partner, Malcolm, and comes toward us. “Impeccable timing. I’ve just beaten your brother-in-law. He was on his knees only a minute ago, pleading mercy like a little girl.”

Malcolm is standing sideways to us, head down, his wide shoulders heaving with each labored breath. He looks unsteady on his feet, ragged, defeated. If Malcolm had been alive in the twenty-first century, he’d have been a gym rat, bulked up even more on steroids, grunting at the barbells several hours a day and downing protein shakes by the gallon. He might not be quick on his feet, but the man is brutishly strong. If Alan beat him, it was on skill and quickness.

Alan’s teeth gleam beneath a clean-shaven upper lip. Sweat is beading on his forehead, dripping down his neck. He turns his palms outward and lifts his arms. “Care to have your turn at me?”

“Thanks,” I say, “but not today.”

Not ever, I hope. If he’d given Malcolm the Hulk a pummeling, I don’t even want to think what he’ll do to me.

I step to go around him, but he blocks me. “I hear you killed your English captors to gain your freedom. Is that right?”

My heart speeds up. Instinct tells me to keep quiet, let his taunt pass and go on my way. I’ll learn how to fight on my own terms, in my own time, not like this.

Alan, however, isn’t about to let it go. He reaches out, flicks his fingertips over the sleeve of my chainmail. “Come, Roslin. You’re prepared. The rest of these men would love to see how it’s done.” He flings his hand wide, indicating the onlookers. There are at least two dozen fully clad and armed knights.

“I told you,” I say lowly, “not now.”

Grinning, Alan cocks an eyebrow. “Why not now?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be at Dunbar?”

He breaks into a full smile. “You’re avoiding the question.”

“And you’re avoiding mine.”

“Very well, then. I’ll answer you. I returned to give a full report to your father and request more supplies. Our numbers have increased by more than two thousand this week alone.” He yanks a leather glove off, pushes the sweat from his brow, and slides the glove back on. “Now you. Why not now?”

“Leave him be, Alan.”

I spin around at the booming tenor. Standing at the top of the steps to the great hall is Sir Henry. For once, I’m thankful to see him.

“Your pardon, my lord.” Alan ducks his head in a symbolic bow. “We were simply making good use of our spare time. An idle soldier is an unprepared one.”