Knight Triumphant. Heather Graham

MacKinley looked at her a moment and then smiled slowly. “No, you cannot go with Sir Robert, for precisely those reasons. And you mustn’t fear for him. Sir Robert has already been taken south. He and his squire slipped out this morning through the tunnel at the end of the crypt.”

      Igrainia gasped. “I wasn’t even informed!”

      “I thought it best to make his escape at the first moment I could, and not because I didn’t trust your judgment or want your counsel. The opportunity arose this morning and I had to take it. The outlaw Scots were busy in the courtyard, except for the man guarding Eric Graham and the door to the master’s chamber. No one knows that he has gone, as yet. And we must get you away in the same fashion. We cannot have the gates open, the drawbridge dropped. Soon, as soon as you can make a hasty preparation. You will go as a poor woman, seeking peace and prayer on a pilgrimage to shrines in the south. I beg of you, Igrainia. I have prayed on this matter myself. The rest of the people here will fare well. You might be of value to the Scots, and therefore, a value for them to keep in jeopardy. I have honestly pondered this long and hard as I prayed. I know that you must go. And I hope that God has given me his wisdom.”

      In the first days when the fever broke, Eric was too weak to do more than lie in his bed, and listen.

      He listened carefully.

      Though his limbs seemed worn and painful, it was the pain of knowing all that he had lost which was the worst. His child, his wife. There were times when it did not seem worth the effort to live, to gain strength again.

      But with the death of love came the birth of an idea, a fierce preoccupation. He would regain his strength and rise from the bed, for a long fight remained ahead. He would rise, because he would win.

      Before they could realize that he had regained his strength, he would do so. He knew that many of his men had failed to fall to the disease because they came to the sickroom; indeed one of his own followers was in a chair at all times. The priest came and went. Women from the castle served him, but they were watched. He knew the one voice that whispered often with the others; the voice of the servant who had said they must let him die. He was grateful that he rode with so many who were wary, and careful, lest his enemies slip poison into the brews they gave him to bring him back to strength.

      He knew so much, because he lay there carefully, eyes closed.

      And listened.

      He had lain abed more than two weeks. Margot had died the day he had fallen.

      Sir Robert Neville, stricken kin of the late lord of Langley, had been spirited away by the priest who was not afraid.

      And the lady of Langley was gone as well.

      He understood the mind of the young priest, and he admired him, as he admired the fact that the man himself did not run. He wondered if he had been saved because of the man’s reverence to God, or because his men remained in the castle and might slaughter everyone if he were to die, and they were left without direction. He thought, though, that the priest had judged them, and knew that they would not wantonly kill.

      Then, again, there was the fact that Langley had long stood as a bastion in the borderlands, and loyalties here had wavered frequently. The late lord had been a product of both England and Scotland. His mother had been Celtic to the core, and in the past, it had been as if Langley stood apart. The great gates and drawbridge had been lowered at the command of those serving the king, but Pembroke’s army had not been far away, and if the wrath of that army had been turned from the pursuit of Robert Bruce to the total subjugation of Langley, the castle and its people would have most likely suffered a bitter defeat. Sad though it might be, the people in the lowlands had good reason to bow before Edward of England before bending a knee to Robert Bruce.

      He lay in the master chamber, in the same bed where Margot had lain. And often, the pain of her loss and his innocent sweet child Aileen lay on his heart so heavily that not even his anger, grief and hatred could stir him. But there were moments when he was alone in the room, and remembered his vow to himself that he would live. And in those moments, he began to move. To work his muscles. The priest sometimes came to watch over him, but he had passed the stage of death, and there were those who needed the priest’s ministrations so much more. His men, he knew, guarded the door, and came in with the maidservants when they tended to him. But as the days passed, he began to have hours alone, and in those hours, he began to work his weakened muscles. His hands first, because in the days following the worst of the fevers and the nightmares and the dreams and illusions, not even his fingers wanted to bend at the command of his mind. Bit by bit, he struggled to create a grip, then to raise his arms, to sit up, and then to stand, and finally to walk. He forced himself to eat, for he knew that he had to do so, and he knew, as well, that his own people watched over the kitchen. He kept to the bed until he had gained a certain sense of power, then he rose, and called to Peter MacDonald to help him; he needed water, a long bath in hot, soothing water. In all the days when he had tossed and turned, he had known that he still bore remnants of the blood and mud of battle, and the sweat of sickness. He was eager to feel clean again.

      As he bathed, he listened gravely to Peter, who was at a loss to know how either Robert Neville, who had been abed, scarcely able to move, and the lady—well enough, but certainly within the gates at all times—had managed to leave.

      “None will speak,” Peter told him.

      Eric nodded.

      “There is obviously a way out through the castle. And, therefore, a way in. I will discover what it is.”

      “But have you the strength to force out of them what you need to know?” Peter asked him. He wasn’t an old man, but his features were weathered, lined and creased. Like Eric, he was a natural sailor, brought to shore, and a learned warrior.

      There had been no other choice for them.

      “Today, I will let them know that this castle will be kept in the name of the Bruce. And that we will discover their secrets. But soon, very soon . . .”

      “Soon . . . ?”

      “We will begin to even the score in this deadly tournament,” Eric said softly.

      When he was done bathing, he donned a linen chemise and breeches belonging to the past master of the castle, found his boots, and made his way down the stairs. He drew out a chair at the head of the great long table in the hall, lifted a booted foot upon the table, startling the poor old steward of the castle into something like apoplexy.

      “Yes, I am alive and well,” Eric said. “And very hungry for good bread and meat. Are there such luxuries to be had?”

      The old fellow nodded dumbly and started to turn.

      “Wait. What is your name?”

      “Garth, my lord.”

      “Well, Garth, it is good to see you moving, in far better circumstance than that in which we found you here.”

      “And you, sir, have apparently weathered the illness as well.”

      “I have. Most regretfully, I’m certain, to your number.”

      The old man shrugged. “It has made little difference here. Kings and nobles make war. Men such as I merely serve until we die.”

      “Not true, Garth. The common man of Scotland is the soldier who will make her free.”

      “The common man of Scotland is the one who dies, butchered by the armies, starved out by either side.”

      “Langley stood unaffected for many years.”

      “Langley could only fall from within.”

      Eric arched a brow without replying for a moment. Aye, it was true. Without huge war machines and a massive army moving against it, this castle could not fall.

      Except from within. And if there was a way for men and women to escape the walls, there was a way for traitors to slip inside as well.

      “God’s judgment,” Eric said after a moment to Garth.