Lords of the Kingdom

by Le Veque, Kathryn

  A married man! He had thought of himself as a lone wolf for so long, and had devoted his life to his work so completely, that he had begun to discard the question of marriage and a family out of hand, assuming such joys would never be his to know. He had thought this way for so long that he had nearly convinced himself that he didn’t want any of those things.

  But Jossalyn had changed all that. She had cared for him and reminded him that he wasn’t an irredeemable man who was nothing but a killer. She had believed in him even when he hadn’t believed in himself. Damn, but he was the luckiest man on earth.

  Lost in his joy, he made his way to the practice field. When he reached its edge, the men had already finished their laps, and Angus had taken charge, which was fitting, given the fact that he was one of the most senior and seasoned warriors in the camp. He was leading the men through a bladework drill in pairs.

  “Thank you, Angus,” Garrick said when he reached the giant warrior’s side.

  “Aye, of course, laddie. We couldn’t all wile the afternoon away with a bonnie lass.” The man’s bushy red eyebrows wriggled with merriment.

  He spoke loud enough for several of the men nearby to hear, including Colin, who doubled over laughing.

  Garrick only smiled in response. He was a lucky bastard indeed.

  By the time he had wrapped up the final training session for the day, Garrick was sweaty and tired. Even still, he felt like a giddy lad at the thought of seeing Jossalyn again—and speaking with the Bruce.

  He forced himself to take a quick dunk in the nearby loch so as not to smell like a boar, and then hustled back to the camp. As had become their routine, they would dine with the Bruce and several others in the King’s inner circle shortly. Garrick hoped to have a private word with the Bruce during the meal, then, assuming he could get his blessing, he and Jossalyn could share a quick toast with those present before retiring to their tent once more.

  Despite the cold loch waters in which he had just dunked, his cock stirred at the mere thought. He guessed that because of his delay, Jossalyn would already be at the King’s dining table, which was kept out in the open near his tent during the fine summer months, so he went straight there.

  When he reached the open area on the other side of the Bruce’s tent, where the dining table was set up, he spotted her instantly. She was talking to Angus and Colin on the other side of the table, waiting for the Bruce to indicate when to sit. There were a few other men gathered around the table between them, so she hadn’t caught sight of him yet. After scanning the remaining men, he spotted Finn a few paces away, and noticed that the man kept glancing at Jossalyn out of the corner of his eye.

  Garrick frowned. He had never been close to Finn, despite the fact that they had worked together with the Bruce for several years now. Like him, Finn was someone whom the Bruce trusted more than the others. Though Garrick found the man to be overly suspicious, and didn’t entirely trust him, the Bruce seemed to enjoy having disagreements and different points of view among his circle of advisors, so as to balance each other.

  He could live with the man, but twice now he had noticed that Finn seemed overly interested in watching Jossalyn, and it wasn’t to appreciate her appearance. He looked at her like she was the enemy, and despite the fact that nearly everyone else in the camp had already come to trust and respect her, Finn remained guarded—and watchful of her.

  “Garrick!”

  His thoughts were pulled away from Finn at the sound of the Bruce calling him. When the Bruce reached his side, they exchanged a shake.

  “How goes the training?”

  “Very well. The men are taking to it, and they relish the idea of not having to act like the English, standing in rows to do battle,” Garrick replied.

  “I imagine so. I brought together a few of the advisors, as well as some newer members, to discuss this change in strategy,” the Bruce said, motioning with his head toward the men gathering around the table.

  The Bruce had indeed gathered a well-balanced group. Angus was respected for the fact that he was a seasoned warrior, though he was slower to adopt innovative approaches when it came to battle. He would be a more cautious voice. Colin had only just started to be groomed to join the Bruce’s inner circle. He was newer to the rebellion and a few years younger than Garrick, but he had proven himself both on the battlefield and in training, and seemed to take to the stealth strategy quickly and eagerly. Most likely, the Bruce wanted his energy and fervor in discussing their new approach. And Finn would be the critical one, always thinking about how things might go wrong so they could plan around their weaknesses.

  It was a sign of trust that the Bruce had allowed Jossalyn to stay for such a meal. Though they likely wouldn’t delve too deeply into strategy, it was an indication that he had confidence in her loyalty even to be in the presence of a handful of inner-circle advisors.

  Several servers began putting platters of food on the large wooden dining table, so the Bruce broke off further discussion of tactics and moved to take his seat at the head of the table. Garrick was honored with the seat directly to the King’s right, and Jossalyn moved next to him, sitting on his other side. To his displeasure, though, Finn silently took the seat to her left.

  As the others took their seats, one of the servers brought out a special platter and placed it in front of the Bruce. While all the other dishes were filled with simple but hearty fare, the King’s steaming platter contained what appeared to be a mincemeat pie.

  The server leaned in. “’Tis a pheasant pie, sire, your favorite.”

  The Bruce’s eyes lit up. “And what is the occasion?”

  “The new cook, sire. He as just arrived from the Lowlands and would like to please you especially,” the wench replied.

  “My compliments to him,” the Bruce said, then raised his fork with a nod to those around the table.

  As the others began to dish and eat their food, Garrick leaned in toward the Bruce.

  “Robert, there is something very particular I wish to discuss with you.”

  The Bruce closed his eyes for a moment as he savored a bite of the pheasant pie. Then he turned to Garrick and raised an eyebrow, that knowing look in his dark eyes again.

  “Is there?”

  “Aye. It involves what we discussed a few weeks ago upon Jossalyn’s and my arrival—the matter on which you advised me to…gather information?” For some reason it was proving harder than he had anticipated to speak with the Bruce about his desire to wed Jossalyn.

  The King wasn’t helping him out any, either, of course. He merely stared back at him, a half-smile on his face.

  Garrick pressed on. “I am certain now that I have all the information I need. I hope that you will give us your blessing to…”

  The Bruce frowned and cleared his throat. He took a sip of his ale, but that only caused him to cough more.

  “Are you all right, Robert?” Garrick said quietly.

  The Bruce tried to take a gasp of air, but it sounded thin and reedy. Garrick pulled him to his feet and pounded on his back several times, but it didn’t seem to help. By this time, the rest of those seated at the table had stopped eating or talking and were looking at them with growing concern.

  The Bruce’s chest jerked again as he tried to suck in a breath, but this time, Garrick didn’t even hear a thin wheeze to indicate that he was getting any air.

  “Is he choking?” Jossalyn said anxiously at Garrick’s side. The Bruce’s eyes darted between them, and he grabbed his throat, but then reached for his face. Jossalyn pushed past Garrick to stand next to the Bruce. She touched his face where he had indicated, but didn’t find anything. Then her eyes widened, and she pried his jaw open.

  Inside the Bruce’s mouth, his tongue had swollen to more than three times its normal size. It looked to be blocking his entire throat and pushing against the back and roof of his mouth. The Bruce’s eyes began to droop, and his lips were starting to turn bluish.

  “Poison!” Jossalyn said with
frantic horror.

  The entire table erupted.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  “Who did this?”

  “How do you know?”

  “Do something, lass!”

  “Silence!” Garrick bellowed over the desperate shouts of the others. “Lay him on the table.”

  Instantly, several hands were helping to clear the table and spread the King’s limp body on it. Garrick turned to Jossalyn, whose breath was coming fast as she stared at the Bruce’s form in concentration. He spoke quietly to her, like he would a scared animal. “Jossalyn, what do you recommend we do?”

  “Horehound,” she muttered to herself. Then she raised her eyes to Garrick. “My satchel. It is in the tent.”

  Before she had finished speaking, Colin had darted out of sight toward their tent.

  “I need a feather. Like a quill, with a long hollow shaft.”

  Angus didn’t bother to find the door-flap to the Bruce’s tent, which was right next to the dining table. Instead, he lifted the bottom of the canvas wall straight up, tearing some of the material and toppling two of the corner poles. He returned with a quill in his hand just as Colin sprinted back to the table with Jossalyn’s satchel.

  “Cut the feather’s shaft so that it is a few inches long, and make sure the hollow interior is clear,” she said to Angus.

  Then she turned to Colin. “Find some boiling water, and put all of this—” she grabbed the satchel from his hand, rummaged through it, and pulled out a grayish plant that looked like mint, but with smaller leaves “—into it. Boil off as much of the water as you can to distill it, but we won’t have much time.”

  Colin nodded and bolted off in the direction of one of the camp’s fires.

  Then she turned to gaze at the Bruce, who lay motionless and blue-lipped, for a fleeting second. “Heaven help me,” she murmured, then reached toward her ankle. When she stood upright, she had Garrick’s fletching dagger in her hand and was moving it toward the Bruce’s throat.

  Instantly, Finn shot to her side. He clamped a hand over her wrist and jerked the blade away from the Bruce’s throat.

  “What the bloody hell are you doing, you English witch?” Finn shouted as he twisted her wrist farther back.

  She yelped in pain as her wrist torqued. Suddenly, all the remaining men had their swords drawn, but none seemed to know at whom to point them.

  Garrick darted to the two of them but held up his hands so as not to startle Finn. “Let her go, Finn. She is with us, remember? She is trying to save the King,” he said in a low voice.

  “Like hell she is. She put a knife to his throat!” Despite his vehement words, Finn repositioned her arm so that he was no longer twisting it painfully, but he still held firmly to her wrist, not letting the dagger move an inch.

  “Garrick, do you trust me?” Jossalyn said, completely ignoring Finn and locking her gaze on him. Her wide greed eyes pinned him with a searching look.

  “Aye, with my life, and with the life of the King,” he said without wavering.

  “I need to make a small cut in his throat to let air in. It is dangerous, but he’ll die in a matter of minutes if I don’t act now,” she said with calm certainty.

  “Finn, unhand her now, or the King’s death will be on your head just as much as it is on the poisoner’s,” Garrick said, shifting his gaze to Finn.

  Finn met his stare, a battle waging silently between the two of them. Finally, he released Jossalyn’s wrist, but said darkly, “And if the Englishwoman slits our King’s throat, you will be responsible, Garrick.”

  The moment Jossalyn’s wrist was free, she blocked out everything around her and let herself be completely consumed by the task at hand. She had never done this operation herself before, but had seen her old teacher Meg perform it successfully on a man who had suffered a stroke.

  She stepped to the Bruce’s side and raised the dagger to his throat, just below his Adam’s apple. She made a small vertical incision in the soft flesh of the King’s throat, then another horizontal one inside the first cut. She left the tip of the blade inside the flesh, and without taking her eyes off the incision, she extended her free hand toward where Angus had been standing. “The feather.”

  He placed the trimmed and hollow quill in her hand. She brought it in front of her and gave it a cursory glance. It was the right shape and size for the task. She slid the shaft of the quill along the dagger’s blade, pulling open the incision slightly with the tip of the knife. Then she inserted the quill into the incision and removed the blade, positioning the quill so that it was inside the cut but stuck out several inches from the Bruce’s neck.

  Just as she had prayed, she heard a gust of air through the quill, and the Bruce’s chest rose slightly. Almost as if in echo of the Bruce’s inhalation, a gasp swept through the men surrounding her. She felt all her breath leave her as relief swept through her.

  “Christ, lass,” Garrick whispered. “You did it. You saved the King.”

  His words brought her back to reality. “That was only the first step,” she said grimly. “The poison caused his tongue to swell and blocked his airway, even to his nose. Now he has an airway, but the poison is still inside him. Someone fetch Colin.”

  Within moments, Colin was at her side, holding a pot of steaming water and boiled plant matter.

  “Help me get the King upright,” Jossalyn said. Several men lifted the Bruce’s still-limp torso so that he was reclined but more vertical. Jossalyn grabbed one of the stray spoons left on the table and scooped up some of the liquid brew. She forced the Bruce’s jaw open and poured the tea inside. Most of it dribbled out, since his tongue was still so swollen, but she thought some of it managed to slide down his throat.

  “Er, lass, forgive me, but won’t that liquidy stuff just come out of the hole you made in his throat?” Angus said softly. He was one of the men propping the King up, and he looked worriedly between the spoon in her hand and the quill sticking out of the Bruce’s neck.

  She kept her eyes on her task, but said, “Different tubes,” as a simple reply. She continued to slowly spoon the brew into the Bruce’s mouth. Even if he didn’t swallow much, just coming in contact with the brewed horehound should take the swelling down in his mouth and tongue, she reminded herself for reassurance.

  Somewhere in the back of her mind, she registered the sound of the serving wench sobbing.

  “I did not know, you must believe me!” she wailed to someone.

  “I believe you, lass, but think. Did you see anything unusual?” Finn asked urgently.

  “I didn’t think it strange at the time, but the cook insisted on making something special for the King,” she said through her sobs. “I thought it was an attempt to get into the King’s good graces, since the cook was new. He only just came up from the Lowlands a few days ago.”

  “How did he know where to find the camp? Who admitted him?” Finn’s voice was tight with frustration.

  “I don’t know, I don’t know!” the woman moaned.

  Garrick, who was also holding up the Bruce, shot a look behind him to where the server and Finn were talking. He motioned for another man to take his place at the King’s shoulder, then joined the two out of Jossalyn’s line of sight. She could still hear them as she continued to spoon the horehound brew into the Bruce’s slack jaw, though.

  “Where is the cook now?” Garrick said.

  “I haven’t seen him since I took the King’s tray from him,” the server said frantically.

  “I’m going after him.” Though she couldn’t see his face, Garrick’s voice was steely and hard, just as his eyes would be now.

  He strode to her side, and she paused in her ministrations.

  “How does he fare?”

  “I think the swelling is going down slightly, which means I may be able to get more of the horehound into his system. It’s an antidote to some poisons, and it is also used to reduce swelling and help with breathing, but since I don’t know what the King was poisoned with, I ca
n’t be sure it will work.”

  “I’m going after the cook,” he said heavily.

  “I’m going with you,” Finn said as he approached the two of them.

  “And so am I,” Colin interjected.

  “You two will only slow me down,” Garrick said tightly through clenched teeth. “I work better on my own.”

  “There is no way I am letting you leave without me,” Finn responded flatly. “You need someone to watch your back.”

  “And I can track better than both of you,” Colin said.

  Garrick ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “I don’t have time to argue with the two of you. I am leaving as soon as I can get Fletch saddled. Either you are with me when I ride out of here or you’re not, but the man already has a lead on us, and I don’t plan on letting him live through the night.”

  The other two men simply nodded and disappeared into the falling twilight of evening. Garrick turned back to Jossalyn, his eyes tight with worry.

  Before he could say anything, though, she gave him a quick kiss on the lips. “Go. Find him. We will be here when you get back.”

  A flood of relief washed over his features before they settled back into their hard, determined lines. Without further ado, he turned and headed to their tent for his bow and quiver, and then toward the stables.

  She sent up a prayer for his safety, and another for Colin and Finn. They would be traveling hard through the night, and who knew what awaited them in the dark woods.

  She forced her attention back to her patient. The King of Scotland’s life was in her hands. She raised the spoon to his mouth yet again, pleading silently for the medicine to work, one painfully small drop at a time.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Garrick pushed Fletch into the darkening forest, urging his loyal horse on despite the uneven footing. They couldn’t play it safe, though. They had to find the man responsible for poisoning the Bruce.