Knights of de Ware 02 - My Warrior

by Glynnis Campbell

  Everyone in the hall chuckled at his jest. Even Cambria felt the tension ease as a grin stole across her face. She stared in wonder at the twinkle-eyed, gruff-voiced bear of a man who willingly bore the weight of his clan’s troubles on his sturdy shoulders. She was truly proud of her father, and the light that shone back from his eyes proved that he felt the same way about her. Suddenly inspired, she raised her goblet.

  “To the Gavin!” she cheered, and all about her lifted their cups. “May the clan forever endure, and may it be the fault of the English that we do so!”

  Good humor rang out in the hall long into the night. It was with relief and hope that Cambria ascended the winding steps to her chamber much later to go to bed. She snuggled under the furs to sleep soundly by the crackling fire Katie had laid, alas too soundly to prevent the tragedy that lurked but a few dark hours away.

  CHAPTER 2

  Sir Roger Fitzroi massaged the stubble on his cheek as he squinted through the pines toward the distant slumbering castle. He hadn’t slept well, unlike the other knights of his company, who snored comfortably on the sod around him in the chill light before dawn. His bitterness toward his new overlord, Holden de Ware, festered like an untended wound.

  King Edward had turned his favor not upon Roger, but upon the Wolf, despite the fact that, for all intents and purposes, Roger was the king’s own uncle. Once again the king had ignored the blood tie, slighting his grandsire’s bastard and giving Holden de Ware command over the forces in the north. Then he’d let the Wolf lay siege to the best, most formidable keep, granting him lordship of it.

  The siege on Castle Bowden, if one could rightly call it that, had lasted no more than three days, and the newly made Lord Holden de Ware settled into his grand accommodations with relative ease. It had been with great zeal, then, that Roger embraced the opportunity to claim a similar victory at nearby Castle Blackhaugh.

  That was until he learned there was a special provision for this keep. Apparently, the Border laird had willingly agreed to its use by the English and pledged to sign support for Balliol as long as the castle and its property remained in its present owner’s name. And that damned Holden de Ware had approved the conditions.

  Roger spit on the ground in disgust at this ridiculous coddling of the enemy. He’d sooner sell his own mother as a whore than let a Scotsman hold property while he remained landless. Curse the Wolf! King Edward had promised the victors the spoils. Roger would be damned if he’d be cheated of his.

  Suddenly eager for the fight in spite of the early hour, he nudged his half brothers with his boot.

  “Hugh. Owen. Get up,” he grunted, ignoring their drowsy protests. “Let’s storm a castle.”

  The denizens of Blackhaugh had likely never seen so impressive a display of knights, Roger thought with satisfaction as he slowly removed his gauntlets. Nearly two score of them strutted through the great hall in full mail with tabards bearing proud English crests. Even his own, branded with the bar sinister that proclaimed him a bastard, was finer than any of the threadbare rags he saw on the Border knights.

  Servants only recently jostled awake rushed about, lighting wall sconces, heating porridge, trying in vain to keep the knights’ tankards filled. Though Roger towered above them all like a golden god, it amused him to play at humility. He graciously accepted the silver chalice of ale his host, the Gavin, pressed into his hands.

  Pushing back his steel coif, Roger sipped politely at the brew that he would ordinarily guzzle. He was playing the role of Holden de Ware’s courteous mediator to perfection, and he knew it. Only one small flaw to his plans niggled at the back of his mind.

  Roger had been misinformed about the number of knights in residence at Blackhaugh. He’d asked three different maidservants if all their men were present, and they’d told him aye. But the dearth of defenders still disturbed him. His entire plan hinged on his ability to make it look as if the Scots had put up a fight. Their lack of armed men would almost certainly cast a shadow on his credibility.

  Hugh and Owen were being difficult, as usual. Roger wished he didn’t have to bring his stupid brothers with him everywhere he went. But their mother would have it no other way. One did as one was told, or the royal stipend would be cut off. Roger grimaced, praying they’d keep their mouths shut and let him handle things his own way.

  Impatient to begin, Roger shoved his empty cup into Owen’s hands.

  “Laird Angus,” he announced, “my brothers and I…”

  The laird looked dubiously back and forth between the three men. Roger was used to that. The three brothers looked no more similar than whelps born of a promiscuous bitch, and so they were. Owen was small and dark like their mother, Hugh was tall and thin, with stringy blond hair. Only Roger could boast of a royal sire and the stature and golden good looks that went with it.

  “My brothers and I would prefer to discuss the terms of your surrender privately,” he explained with exaggerated courtesy. For what they would say and do he wanted no witnesses.

  Laird Angus felt the hairs stiffen at the back of his neck. He didn’t like the Englishman’s use of the word surrender. He glowered at Roger Fitzroi a long while, until the man’s smile grew stale. Then he let out a sigh. He supposed a bit of bent pride was a small price to pay for the survival of the clan.

  He sent a wordless message to Malcolm the Steward, directing him to keep an eye on the rest of the company, and then he motioned the brothers toward the adjoining chamber. The door closed behind them with a hollow thud.

  He gestured toward the benches at the table in the midst of the room, but the three Englishmen remained standing. Fitzroi leaned almost insolently against the door.

  It was just as well, Angus decided. The quicker this business was over with, the better. He offered his hand. “You have the document then?”

  Fitzroi patted his chest, and then withdrew a piece of parchment, feigning astonishment to find it there. “This?” His brothers snickered. He grinned.

  Angus resisted the urge to make that grin toothless. Instead, he thought of the clan and rubbed his hands together. “I’ll need a quill and—“

  The slow tear of parchment violated the air like lighting. The two halves of the document drifted to the rushes. The grin never left Fitzroi’s face.

  Misgiving slithered its way up Angus’s spine.

  “We don’t need this,” Fitzroi said with a shrug. He nodded once to his dark brother.

  There was a flash of silver.

  And then it was too late.

  Before Angus could draw breath to cry out an alarm, the cold length of a sword burned impossibly deep into his chest.

  Then Fitzroi was beside him, clutching the front of his tabard, so close he could see the golden stubble on Roger’s chin going in and out of focus, so close he could see the spittle at the corners of the man’s mouth.

  “I’ll tell de Ware that you refused the alliance,” Fitzroi bit out, “that your clan met us with swords.”

  Angus’s body was curiously numb, but his mind suffered an agony of hopelessness and disbelief. The English had betrayed him. He had failed his clan. Horrible images assailed him—images of Gavins starving in the hills, of brave knights executed like traitors, of Cambria…”

  “Cam…” he wheezed.

  “Blackhaugh will be mine,” the devil sneered, “and your precious clan will be no more.”

  Roger saw his taunts were wasted. The light of life had already flickered and faded in the old man’s eyes. He released his grip. The laird slumped to the floor. Roger dusted off his hands.

  “Well done, Owen,” he said. “Hugh?”

  Hugh gingerly reached over the top of the dead body with one skinny arm and wiggled the laird’s sword free from its sheath. Then he turned toward Owen. Without warning, he drew the blade viciously across his brother’s ribs.

  Owen gasped in pain and disbelief, clutching his chest. Blood from the shallow wound dripped between his dark-haired knuckles.

  “It has to
appear you were provoked, dear brother,” Roger explained without a shred of pity.

  Hugh sniffed delicately, and then shrugged his bony shoulders. He tossed the sword to the floor, dappling the rushes with flecks of Owen’s blood.

  Roger watched, amused, as Owen glared at Hugh through the oily brown strands of his hair, like a mangy dog about to turn on its master. Then Hugh made the mistake of laughing, tittering like a court whore, pushing Owen over the edge.

  Roger’s eyes glittered as he realized that mayhem was about to take place. He could have stopped it, but there was something fascinating about watching Owen attack Hugh like a rabid mongrel. Owen was the smaller of the two, but he was wiry and stronger than he looked. Even wounded, it was easy for him to bowl over their lance-thin brother.

  Perhaps if Roger had noticed the drawn dagger in Owen’s hand, he might have stopped the fight. Or perhaps not. But by the time he glimpsed the steel blade thrust between them, he couldn’t have intervened if he’d wanted to.

  Hugh was pinned through the heart. As he lay dying, his heels drummed on the stone floor like the erratic beating of a moth’s wings. After he gurgled out his last feeble words, Owen viciously wrenched the dagger free and dropped it to the floor. Then he looked up, wiping his sleeve across his mouth.

  Roger narrowed his eyes at his little murdering brother. Even he wasn’t certain if the smile he gave Owen was one of disbelief or approval.

  But time was a-wasting. With a nod of mutual understanding, he and Owen put their shoulders to the heavy oak table and heaved it over with a loud thud. Then, hauling open the door, Roger called his startled knights to arms.

  Cambria was dreaming. Her father was smiling, walking toward her across a sunny meadow with his arms outstretched in welcome. But as he drew near, from out of nowhere a great gray wolf appeared between them, its paws massive, its eyes penetrating. The beast opened its jaws in a mournful howl as a great black shadow fell across the laird.

  She woke with a scream stuck in her throat. Her heart raced as she tried to break the threads of the nightmare. She rested her damp head in trembling hands. They came more frequently now, the dreams that haunted her sleep, dreams that seemed to portend the future. This one was a warning, she was certain. The Wolf boded ill for her father.

  Shaken, she rose on wobbly legs, dragging the fur coverlet with her, and peered out the window. Damn! The sun was in the sky already. Katie had let her oversleep, probably out of kindness—Cambria had been up past midnight polishing armor—but she couldn’t afford to be late, not today. She let out a string of curses and tossed the fur back onto the pallet.

  A loud crash echoed through the stone corridors and shook the oak floor, bringing her instantly alert.

  The shouting of unfamiliar voices rumbled up from downstairs, and she heard the frenzied barking of the hounds. Her heart began to pound like an armorer’s mallet. She scrambled over the bed, snatching her broadsword from the wall. With frantic haste, she struggled into her linen shift, cursing as her tangled hair caught in the sleeve. The crash of hurled crockery and women’s terrified shrieks pierced the air as Cambria finally pulled open her chamber door and rushed out.

  She was fairly flying down the long hallway when she heard the unmistakable clang of blades colliding. She hurtled forward, descending the spiraling steps that opened onto the gallery above the great hall.

  At the top of the landing, she froze.

  The scene before her took shape as a series of gruesome paintings, none of which she could connect to make any sense: brightly colored tabards flecked with gore; servants huddled in the corners, sobbing and holding each other in terror; hounds yapping and scrambling on the rush-covered stone floor; lifeless, twisted bodies of Gavin knights sprawled in puddles of their own blood; Malcolm and the rest of the men chained together like animals. Numbing cold enclosed her heart like armor.

  But as her eyes moved from the overturned trestle tables to the slaughtered knights and cowering servants, trying to make reason out of the confusion before her, that armor shattered into a million fragments.

  The laird. Where was the laird?

  Panic began to clutch at her with desperate claws. She shifted her death grip on the pommel of her sword, frantically seeking out her father. If she could find him, everything would be all right. The laird would explain everything. He always took care of the clan.

  She ran trembling fingers over her lips. Bloody hell, where was the laird?

  As if in answer, two lads came forth from the side chamber, struggling with the weight of the grisly burden they carried between them.

  Nay! Cambria silently screamed as she recognized the tabard of her father. Not the laird!

  Even as her heart seized, she dared to hope he was still alive. But his body was limp, drenched with blood, far too much blood, and when his head flopped back, the glazed eyes stared sightlessly toward the heavens, where his spirit already resided.

  The shrill keening in her soul pierced through her heart and escaped her lips. “Nay!” she screamed, hurtling down the steps. “Nay!”

  No one made a move to stop her, neither friend nor foe, and the young boys bearing her father set him gently upon the stones and stepped aside.

  Cambria dropped her sword and shook the pale body, unwilling to accept the laird’s impossible stillness. He had to wake up. The clan needed him.

  She stroked his forehead, but there was no response. She took his big hand in hers, but it was as heavy and slack as a slain rabbit. Blood soaked her linen gown, smearing across her breast as she embraced his silent form.

  “Nay,” she whispered, “nay.”

  He couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t. She’d already lost her mother. He couldn’t leave her alone.

  And yet there he lay, as silent as stone.

  A wretched sob tore from her throat, choking her. Dagger-sharp pain lanced through the empty place in her chest.

  The laird was lost to her forever.

  Hot tears spilled down her cheeks onto her father, mingling with the blood of the Gavin who was no more. She wept while, all around her, the nameless invaders murmured on, calmly wiping the blood from their blades, blood of the brave Gavin men they’d killed. She peered at them through the wild strands of her hair, the obscene enemy who’d massacred her people.

  Who were they? Who were these bastards who in one bloody moment had destroyed the Gavin?

  The ache in her heart twisted into a bitter knot of hatred. Nay. She refused to believe it. These strangers hadn’t destroyed the Gavin. No one could destroy the Gavin. Gavins had lived here for hundreds of years. They would never die. They lived in her. She was the life’s blood of the clan now.

  Wiping away her tears with the back of her hand, she reached down to clasp the pommel of her fallen sword. She kicked her gown out of her ankles’ way and tossed her hair over her shoulder. Whirling, she came up with the blade and faced her foe. Several of the servants crossed themselves as she turned toward the knights with the fury of a madwoman.

  “You bastards!” she shouted. “Face the wrath of the Gavin!”

  Malcolm the Steward’s eyes widened. Cambria was going to get herself killed. “Nay, lass!” he bellowed from the corner of the room.

  His shout earned him a cuff from one of the knights that held him, but that didn’t stop him from wrenching at the chains binding his wrists. He watched helplessly as his dearest friend’s daughter began a battle she was sure to lose. The muscles of his throat worked painfully. He’d already lost his laird. He couldn’t watch Cambria die as well.

  But she was beyond hearing. He could see that. The lust for vengeance was in her eyes. Like an avenging angel, she raised her sword high in both hands. With a battle cry, she charged at the enemy, swinging the blade in a wide arc like a crofter harvesting grain.

  Her steel flashed wildly as she attempted to take on the entire company, and the knights scattered, dodging her slashing broadsword. To Malcolm’s satisfaction, the Englishmen were dumbfounded for a moment
by the mere slip of a girl who faced them boldly, watching for advances and striking with a deliberate arm. His chin quivered with pride. He and her father had trained her well, the little lioness.

  She slashed forward and back, using both hands on the pommel to strengthen her blows. Two men who underestimated her sincerity received serious wounds, wounds he feared she’d pay for later.

  But the element of surprise couldn’t remain long on her side. Though Cambria kept them at bay briefly, using what skills he’d taught her, the enemy far outnumbered her. Two of the knights finally caught her from behind, squeezing her wrists till she dropped the sword, which clattered heavily to the floor.

  At least, Malcolm thought with relief, the English didn’t slay women in cold blood.

  Half-crazed with fury, she struggled to get free, swearing, straining from the men’s grasp on her arms and tossing her head violently.

  Malcolm bit out a curse. Why hadn’t the lass stayed in her bedchamber?

  A dark-bearded knight yanked her head back by the hair. She bared her teeth at him and narrowed her eyes like a cornered animal.

  Suddenly the unguarded doors of the great hall burst open. An enormous black steed galloped like thunder across the hard floor, bearing a helmed knight. He was flanked by several other riders, who hauled their horses to a skidding stop on the stones. Rushes scattered everywhere, and the knights fought to control their mounts in the close quarters.

  Cambria was forced to her knees by the hulking dark captor beside her, and she squinted against the rising dust.

  The golden knight stammered in surprise, inclining his head toward the newcomer. “M-my lord.”

  Tension hung in the air as he awaited a reply, but the silence was only broached by the snorting of the horses, the squeak of leather tack, and the sniffling of maidservants.