by Emma Prince
“Speak freely, man. You stand before my most trusted allies. They already know of my arrangement with the Bruce.”
At that, several of the men chuckled or smirked. It seemed that the mention of the Bruce’s name was some sort of jest to them.
So, these were the nobles who’d sided with Lancaster over his cousin Edward II. They were wealthy enough to wage a war against their own sovereign, judging from their fine silks and glinting gold and jewel-studded adornment. And arrogant enough to laugh at the mention of Scotland’s King.
For his part, Lancaster remained stone-faced, yet he did not quiet the others.
“Each of these men has already committed treason by association,” Lancaster went on when the others had settled once more. “For in coming to me, they have agreed to engage with the Scots against Edward—if the Bruce holds up his end of our bargain.”
“And what is that, sire?” Niall asked carefully.
Lancaster leaned back into his chair, a quizzical smile faintly curving his lips behind his neatly trimmed brown and gray goatee. “To come to our aid, and to go to battle with us into England and Wales, of course. To live and die with us in our quarrel against Edward.”
Niall barely managed to suppress a hard swallow. He knew the Bruce operated on many fronts, and in ways so intricate and nuanced that only he seemed to comprehend them. Yet had he truly gone so far already as to pledge Scottish soldiers and supplies to Lancaster for his use against Edward?
Niall couldn’t be certain—as Logan had said, no one truly understood all of the Bruce’s maneuvers, and it wasn’t Niall’s place to undercut the King’s machinations.
“That is why we are here, sire,” he said, keeping his voice smooth. “You cannot very well ride into battle against Edward if your head is detached from your body or your heart is pierced by an arrow.”
A knowing glint came into Lancaster’s pale eyes. “You are to protect me, then, is that right? The Bruce alluded to such a scheme in one of his missives. He said I ought to have the very best surrounding me to ensure that my campaign would be as long and fruitful as possible.”
The Bruce had been in direct communication with Lancaster? The King had gone farther than Niall had realized.
“Aye, we are to serve as your bodyguards.”
That drew a ripple of surprise from the nobles on the dais, though Lancaster remained unmoved.
“I am glad to see that the Bruce is willing to put action behind his words regarding our nascent alliance,” Lancaster commented, eyeing Niall. “And I must admit, I am comforted to find an Englishman standing before me for the task. Yet you say the Bruce sent you. How did you come to serve the Scottish King against your own countrymen…Beaumore, was it?”
Niall chose his next words carefully, for he knew they would determine whether Lancaster would ever trust him or not.
“You and I have something in common, sire,” he began. “We both share a distaste for King Edward’s tactics as sovereign. My family’s Borderland holding was captured by the Bruce, thus giving me reason to shift my allegiance from my old sovereign to my new one. You, on the other hand, have carved a more difficult yet nobler path in standing against Edward without the shield of another King’s power before you.”
It seemed he’d struck the right notes of boldness and deference in his reply, for Lancaster’s eyes warmed with pleasure at that. “Well said, Beaumore. It is true, we are forging a new kingdom with this civil war. When I am King, men like you will not have to fear losing your lands and wealth to outside invasion. And of course, if men like you did shift their allegiance, they’d be drawn and quartered as the traitors they are. A King must be strong enough to hold the absolute loyalty of his subjects, don’t you think?”
Lancaster flashed his teeth in a wolfish smile, much to the amusement of his nobles. They seemed to find Lancaster’s barely-veiled threat against Niall most entertaining.
Niall held Lancaster’s cold gaze, refusing to be intimidated. Yet “Aye, sire,” was all he could say in response.
Seemingly satisfied and no longer interested in toying with Niall, Lancaster shifted his gaze to Mairin for the first time since they’d entered the hall.
“An Englishman loyal to Robert the Bruce, sent to protect the future King of England,” Lancaster mused. “That is odd enough. But what am I to make of this?”
“Mairin has earned a place amongst the Bruce’s most trusted and elite warriors, sire, and—”
“Oh, I’m sure she earned her position,” Lancaster cut in. “I only wonder what positions she used to do so?” By the way he swept her slowly with his eyes, his meaning was clear.
His nobles found that uproarious. Several guffawed and gave Mairin the same lecherous perusal.
Mairin stood as still as a mountain, yet her gray eyes blazed with fury.
“She is Scottish, I presume?” Lancaster asked no one in particular.
“Aye, I am.” Mairin stared hard at him, not a hint of submissiveness in the set of her shoulders or the levelness of her gaze.
“A Scot I would have expected from the Bruce,” Lancaster continued, amused. “But a woman? Is this some sort of jest? Or nay, mayhap it is meant as a gift. A token of the Bruce’s willingness to please me in this alliance.”
One of the nobles snorted. “Aye, you have it there,” he said. He nodded his balding head toward Mairin, his dark eyes lit with ill intent. “She must be a present. Why don’t you take her to your bedchamber and unwrap her? From the looks of her, she’s in need of a good and proper fu—”
Niall moved then.
He didn’t know if he intended to stop Mairin from doing something that would destroy their mission before it had even begun, or if he meant to rip the nobleman’s throat out with his bare hands for his vile words.
Either way, he wasn’t fast enough, for Mairin moved in the same instant, and swifter than he.
In one deadly-smooth motion, Mairin sprang to the dais and flicked her wrist, dropping one of the throwing daggers strapped to the inside of her forearm into her palm. In the next heartbeat, the tip of the blade poked ever so softly into the nobleman’s cheek.
The man started, his jowls trembling in fear, yet Mairin held the dagger steady, slowly applying increasing pressure until the tip puckered the man’s pliant flesh.
“Say another word and I’ll cut out yer tongue,” Mairin said, her voice soft and steady.
The men on the dais had fallen so quiet that Niall could have heard a mouse walking across the rushes on the other side of the great hall.
Lancaster’s dark brows winged above his graying temples. “The kitten has claws,” he murmured, breaking the silence, yet the taunting edge in his voice had been filed down to almost naught.
Abruptly, Mairin straightened and jerked the dagger away from the man’s face. With the cool composure of a deep, glassy Highland loch, she tucked the dagger back into its sheath beneath her sleeve.
“Consider that a wee demonstration of my skills,” she said, giving Lancaster a flat stare. “I’m sure ye’ll find them satisfactory.”
She gave her back to Lancaster without waiting for a reply and moved to step down off the dais.
Only then did Niall notice that her hands shook badly. She squeezed them into tight fists, but even still, her white knuckles trembled.
Aye, she’d endured the stares and shouts from the soldiers in both baileys, held her own against Lancaster’s insinuations, and silenced the lascivious nobleman, but it had cost her greatly.
As she planted one foot on the floor, her ankle wobbled precariously. Without thinking, Niall shot forward, wrapping his hands around her waist to steady her.
Her head snapped up and he was met with a blazing gray glare.
“Dinnae!” she hissed, but Niall’s actions had already been noted.
“Ah,” Lancaster said slowly. “It seems I was mistaken. The Bruce didn’t send the Scottish hellcat for my benefit, but for yours, Beaumore. Is that it? She is your reward for your loyal ser
vice?”
Devil take it. Niall was good and trapped now. If he had let Mairin fall after her display of strength against the nobleman, she would have lost all the ground she’d just earned. Yet it seemed that in steadying her, he’d accomplished the same thing.
His mind whirled as he scrambled for a response. The absurd, irrational truth was, men like Lancaster and his nobles were more likely to respect Mairin if they knew she was under another’s claim and protection—better still, an Englishman like them—than standing on her own. She had just proven that she could take care of herself, yet they would continue to see her as frail and incapable, a plaything for their amusement.
How much more of their taunts could she take before cracking? Another sennight in such foul conditions? A month? If she showed any weakness in that time, even as small as a shaking hand or a quavering ankle, they would descend like wolves on a lamb.
And though he had no doubt that she would make good on her promise to cut out all of their tongues if necessary—and likely a few other crucial appendages as well—doing so would endanger the course of their mission.
So Niall did what he knew was needed, and what he knew would destroy any delicate trust or tender feelings that had grown between Mairin and him. He let Lancaster and the others believe that he had some sort of claim on her.
He did not answer Lancaster’s question, but nor did he deny it. Instead, he simply gave the man a cold glower, letting his true hatred show in his eyes.
Mairin jerked roughly out of his hold, her lips a tight line of displeasure.
Lancaster watched all the while. He snorted when Niall and Mairin both faced him once again.
“What a relief that the hellcat is your problem and not mine, Beaumore,” he said placidly. He turned back to his nobles then, seeming to completely dismiss both of them from his mind as the others resumed their discussion of siege tactics.
I will not allow any harm to befall her. The words he’d spoken to Logan nearly a fortnight ago rang in his ears like a struck bell. I vow it.
He would protect her. Even if it meant she would hate him for it.
Chapter Fourteen
Mairin fought to pay attention as Lancaster and his nobles droned on, but inside she was a seething pit of anger.
A full day had passed since she and Niall had arrived at Pontefract Castle, yet the slow crawl of time had done naught to blunt her frustration.
After the humiliating scene in the great hall yesterday, she’d been forced to stand behind Lancaster’s chair next to Niall, playing the part of bodyguard even after she’d been reduced in the eyes of all the men present to naught more than Niall’s bedmate.
It was preposterous to have to act as Lancaster’s protector when there was clearly no threat in his own stronghold. Yet it seemed they had to pretend they were needed, if for no other reason than to eavesdrop on Lancaster’s conversations with his nobles.
She already loathed all of them. They were arrogant, overindulged elites who were used to getting their way. Though the others were unapologetic in their self-importance, Lancaster was the worst of them, for he fancied himself on some noble mission to regain control over all of England, placing himself above even his own King in his mind.
Mairin had no softness in her heart for Edward II. He had continued his father’s war against Scotland, attempting to crush the very souls of her people and country. Yet Lancaster seemed a far more dangerous breed than Edward.
Edward had faltered several times and made a mess of his attempt to quell the Scots. Moreover, he’d let his nobles rise against him and lead his own country into a civil war. Aye, Edward was ineffectual and negligent, but Lancaster’s pride and focus made him much more treacherous.
Standing behind the arrogant Earl and listening to him and his nobles discuss their grand plans was bad enough. Yet Niall’s nearness made the situation impossibly worse.
He had no right to swoop in the way he had, undercutting her in front of the others and then going so far as to imply that she was his. It only confirmed what the men already thought—that she was no more than a weak lass who was good for little else other than warming a bed.
She’d been so furious yesterday that she hadn’t even been able to form words to upbraid him. After a long and drawn-out evening meal in the great hall, Lancaster had finally retired to his chambers for the night. Niall had insisted that they be given a place to sleep close to him in case by some chance he was met with danger in the middle of the night. But of course since Lancaster thought they were tupping, he gave them only one chamber next to his.
Mairin had immediately plunked herself on the floor before the hearth, ignoring the big, soft-looking bed pushed against the back wall. Niall had urged her to take the bed for herself, but she gave him a frosty silence and the unmoving expanse of her back as her only reply.
Today had been much the same as yesterday, with Lancaster and the nobles taking elaborate, lengthy meals in the great hall at their leisure. The meals seemed to bleed into one another, with ample ale and wine served in between. All the while, they discussed warfare and battle tactics from their ornately carved chairs, lounging in their silken clothes.
“…Roger de Mortimer at Doncaster,” the noble who had almost managed to call Mairin a whore was saying. She thought he was the Earl of Hereford. “And with Lord Clifford holding Tickhill, that shouldn’t be a problem.”
She willed herself to pay attention to the drone of conversation between the nobles. This was part of her mission, after all. Though they may all think she was little more than the butt of their jests and lewd comments, she would store every name, location, and plan in her mind for a report to the Bruce. The more they talked, the more they helped the Bruce, whatever his greater schemes may be.
“But both Despensers are said to be adding their forces to Edward’s,” John Willington commented. At over three-score years, he was the oldest of the half-dozen nobles who’d joined Lancaster at Pontefract, and the most cautious. Though he clearly supported Lancaster, he often wore a frown behind his drooping white moustache.
“The elder Despenser is naught but an old windbag, and the younger likely can’t tell his prick from a pea pod.” Hugh Audley grinned lazily as the others chuckled. “Besides, Edward himself couldn’t lead a horse into a stable, let alone lead men into battle. His failure against the barbarian Scots is proof enough of that.”
Mairin stiffened, yet none of the men seemed to notice or even remember her presence. All the better for the purposes of gathering information, she reminded herself to soothe her ire.
Hereford huffed, shifting his ample frame in his chair. “All this talk of battles has my blood running hot. It is all well and good to scheme and plot all day, but when might we have some real entertainment, Lancaster?”
Lancaster sighed. “We hold Doncaster and Tickhill already. To attack now would spread us too thin.”
“But what about Lords Damory and Badlesmere?” Hereford persisted. “They should join us in a day or two with their armies.”
“And when they do, we will assess Edward’s position…” Lancaster glanced at each man around the table. “…and strike accordingly.”
At that, the others rumbled their approval.
“I’ll drink to that,” Hereford said, lifting his silver goblet of wine. After taking a deep swallow, he shot Lancaster a conspiratorial grin. “But what are we to do to amuse ourselves for the next few days until Damory and Badlesmere arrive?”
Hereford intentionally slid his gaze to Mairin, a smug challenge in his dark, beady eyes.
Apparently she hadn’t been entirely forgotten. She welcomed the opportunity to give another demonstration of her skills with her throwing daggers, but Lancaster spoke then, drawing Hereford’s attention away.
“There is a place in the village,” he said, smiling softly. “They should be able to accommodate whoever cares to join.”
Mairin barely managed to suppress a huff of disgust. She’d noticed the way the female servant
s scuttled away as fast as they could from all the men, but especially Lancaster. She wasn’t the only one to have to face Lancaster and the other nobles’ unwanted attentions.
And apparently now they meant to seek out prostitutes. At least they would leave the women of the castle alone for the rest of the day—and pay for their pleasure rather than force it upon the servants.
The nobles ribbed each other and tittered at their new plans.
“I think I shall retire,” Willington said blandly, rising from the table.
“Poor old bastard probably can’t get it up anymore,” Audley commented under his breath as Willington departed the hall.
“More cunny for the rest of us,” another replied, much to Audley’s amusement.
As the nobles rose and stepped from the dais with varying alacrity depending on how deeply they’d indulged in Lancaster’s wine, Niall caught Mairin’s wrist surreptitiously behind Lancaster’s chair.
“We will have to go with them,” he murmured, his mouth set in a grim line.
“Aye, obviously. I ken how this mission works,” Mairin hissed in reply, tugging her wrist free.
He kept her pinned with a penetrating look. “All the same, give them a moment to get their bearings. I don’t want any of them even thinking of touching you.”
Caught off-guard by the tightness in his tone, she acquiesced with a curt nod. After all the men had stumbled out of the great hall, they followed slowly behind.
Lancaster called for their horses to be saddled and brought into the courtyard. Behind him, Niall caught the stable lad’s eyes and nodded toward Mairin and himself, indicating that their horses be brought as well. The lad ducked his head and rushed off to his task.
Once the nobles were mounted, Lancaster led them into the smaller of the two outer baileys, then out the wide double gate that opened toward the village.
Mairin and Niall fell in on either side of Lancaster, though again Mairin was struck by the ridiculousness of their task. There was no army to protect him from. His greatest danger was falling from his horse in a tipsy pile of silks. But if they were to keep up the bodyguard ruse as the Bruce wished, they were forced to stay close.