Come the Morning

by Heather Graham

  Come the Morning

  Graham Clan, Book One

  Heather Graham writing as Shannon Drake

  Prologue

  Scotland, The Borderlands

  The Year of Our Lord 1127

  He was dead, he thought. He had died from the great battle-ax of his opponent, and had entered into a new world.

  It was strangely familiar. It smelled of the sweet grasses of the sweeping plains, and of the fresh, clear lochs that lay like teardrops scattered across the borderlands. If it was heaven, and it must be—for surely hell could not smell so sweet—then heaven was filled with flowers and thistles and the rich smell of the earth. And, he discovered, managing to open his eyes at last, heaven was blessed with a sky brightened by a strange gibbous moon that cast an eerie glow of bloodred light down upon the earth.

  Then pain set in; he wasn’t dead. He lived. Yet his skull pounded as if it had been rent in two. He nearly groaned aloud, yet some instinct kept him silent. He gritted his teeth and inched up on his elbows and looked about the field.

  So many men … limbs pale in the moonlight except in those places where they were bathed in blood, and there he saw darkness and shadow. The sweetness on the night air was not just that of long green grasses and of flowers; it was the sticky-sweet scent of spilled blood, blood soaking the landscape.

  The land was covered with the sad, grotesque carnage of battle. As it had been before, he realized dimly. As it would be again.

  The pain roared to a greater life within him. It threatened to steal his consciousness again. He became aware of the feel of night-wet grass against his flesh. Each small wound burned, each greater injury seemed alive with all the fires of hell.

  Dead, so many dead, and he was so nearly dead himself. He had been left with the slain, he realized, by friend and foe alike, for not far from where he lay was a small cottage made of earth and stone. Light radiated from a fire that burned inside it; those who had survived the carnage had gone there to dress their wounds and make their plans.

  Please God, his father would be there, he thought. His kin.

  Yet even as the hope flashed through his mind, so did fear and a certainty of knowledge. Dead or alive, his father would never have left him. He realized his hand lay upon cold flesh, and he looked to his left. His heart shuddered within his chest; tremors seared into him, hot, scaling his spine, cold, ripping into his limbs. Tears welled in his eyes.

  For his father, William the Great, lay at his side, blue eyes opened and unseeing upon the sky above them, chest cleaved by an enemy’s sword.

  “Da!”

  He whispered the word in a husky cry of agony, reaching for his father’s head, his fingers traveling lovingly through the deep auburn curls that graced it. “You cannot leave me, Da! You cannot leave me. Nay, ye canna leave me …”

  He could dress for battle, wield a sword. And he was tall and strong, a promising youth, the men had all said. But seeing his father dead, he knew that he was just a lad, and he knew that whatever the jokes and the laughter had been, and even the pride, he was a boy still, with far to go to equal not only his father’s great prowess and strength, but his wisdom, mercy, and judgment as well.

  But age didn’t matter, nor could his anguish change what was. Love could not bring back the dead, nor change the outcome on this battlefield. He’d have to be a warrior now, he knew. The tears within his eyes fell unashamedly down his cheeks. Great William was gone, with all that he had taught, and all that he had given. And there … with the moon coming from behind a cloud, he could see more of the field of slaughter. Just feet away, he saw his father’s brother, proud, handsome, laughing Ayryn, as close in death to William as he had been in life. Now he was stretched across the sweet rich grass as well, arms splayed as if he reached out to embrace heaven itself.

  “Ah, Uncle! You cannot leave me, too!” he whispered again. “You cannot leave me alone.”

  A scream rose within him, fierce and terrible. It threatened to tear from his lips. Again, instinct rose to serve him. He mustn’t make a sound. He fought down his cry of pain, a sound that would have ripped across the grasses, a howl of loss, a moan of primal fury, rage, and agony. Instinct served him well; he did not betray himself. He heard footsteps, and he swallowed down the threatened sound along with the bitter bile of anguish that filled his mouth from what he saw of this day’s most terrible work.

  Footsteps …

  Furtive in the night. Footsteps moving quietly through the grass. He saw the forms of those who were coming. They began to circle the crude cottage where the Scottish survivors had gathered after the savagery of the battle.

  He held his breath. Studied the men who came. Their enemies.

  He lay still as they passed by him.

  Da! He wanted to cry out again, warn the men and his father that an enemy walked with silence and menace among them.

  But his father was dead; his uncle, too.

  I am alone, he thought again, the wretched, dreadful truth. Alone in the world, of all his people. Those who loved him would never speak his name again.

  He waited.

  And he watched.

  And when the last of them disappeared around the cottage intent upon a silent assault, he began to rise. He staggered, nearly passing out from the pain that swept through his head as he came slowly to his feet. He paused, letting the pain subside, gathering his strength and awareness. Then, he, too, began to move furtively through the grass.

  Michael, Lowland chieftain of the MacInnish family, listened to the talk that went around the fire. He’d been born himself at Dunkeld, the most ancient home of Gaelic and Celtic being. A younger son, he’d come here to this fine sweeping borderland when he’d taken his wife, the last of the MacNees, the traditional owners of this fair stretch of earth. But the MacNees were no more, for since olden days, conquerors had come here. The Romans had at last been stopped by the fierce Highlanders and rugged terrain beyond; the Vikings continued to raid inland even now upon occasion. And always, the English—or those purporting to be English, such as the new Norman aristocracy—came here. The lands were rich, good. Men held tenaciously to them; men became a part of them. Perhaps they came to seize land, but instead they became one with it, they became Scots.

  Aye, now they were Scots. Often considered barbarians, they had never been conquered by Rome; the first time a Roman commander, Agricola, had severely beaten the Caledonians then in Scotland, he had been called back to Rome. Soon, all Britain had been deserted by the Romans. Different Celtic and Teutonic tribes had come in, the Picts, the Scots, the Britons, and even Anglo-Saxons. The kingdom of Scotland remained a land inhabited by different peoples, and they still had their differences, but since the day of the great Kenneth MacAlpin, king of the Scots of Dalriada, they had begun to become a united country.

  Now, there might have been something resembling peace in the region. King David I reigned over Scotland; a king whose sister had married Henry I of England, whose wily father, Malcolm III, had battled William the Conqueror, and if he hadn’t exactly won those battles, he had still maintained a separate and largely whole Scotland. David had come to his kingship having watched and learned from his father and brothers before him; he had grown up in England and prospered at English hands, while he had also watched his family struggle with the results of the Norman conquest. He wasn’t a young man, but a king in his prime, a mature, wise, and wary man. He never forgot that any king held a precarious position, and that the world was a dangerous place. Some resented his upbringing in the Norman court, but by blood, he could draw many ancient loyalties. His mother had been the sister of Edgar, Atheling, Saxon royalty before the coming of the Conqueror. He’d learned the power of fighting, and the power of alliances. Yet the Scots, like
Michael, supported and upheld their king despite this, and their hatred and distrust of all things Norman. Despite many of his Norman ways and Norman leanings, David had proven himself, as a leader, and as a Scotsman, determined on his own identity, and that of his country. He was a warrior, ready to go to battle. Though relations sometimes remained diplomatically stable with their southern neighbor, along the border there was often war. David meant not only to keep the lands traditionally Scottish; he longed to push the borders and keep the English from his heartlands. In order to do so, he had granted Scottish lands to some of the important Norman families with whom he had become familiar. With the tact of a good fledgling king, he had taken care to give lands where the chieftains of old had died out, where disputes among heirs might arise. By taking care, he had allowed for the very ancient races of his homeland to accept—if grudgingly—still another arrival of a different people. David had put down an insurrection in 1124 when he became king, and God knew, Scotland being the warlike, rugged land it was, he would put down insurrections again. Feudal laws, many not yet a century old, vied with the ancient ways, and it took power, force, and cunning to rule the Scottish people. David, thus far, was proving himself a most able man. Still, two main threats remained to challenge his power: here, along the border, and from the Vikings, who were ever on the lookout for opportunities to gain an advantage. David had studied history. Of all the factors that might have gone into the Saxon king Harold having lost England to the Normans, he believed that the Viking invasions to the north at the time of the Norman invasion to the south were the main cause. The Vikings hadn’t beaten Harold, but they had weakened him.

  Yet no king’s power seemed able to stop the savage skirmishing here on traditional borderlands and tonight, though Michael had managed with very little time to gather together numerous chieftains and their men, he had been assaulted hard by Lord Renfrew, a nobleman of Norman descent unsatisfied with the lot of land he had drawn in Yorkshire. Joined by mercenaries from a Danish army, he had marched northward, sending farm inhabitants fleeing ahead of him. He had plundered the churches and abbeys he’d found along his way, and ravaged many a poor young woman, so had come the news this morning. And Michael had called upon his people, his clan and his clan associates, and they had gathered to defend the land.

  Now, many of their number, many of their finest, lay dead or dying. And around this fire, the survivors argued their position.

  Thayer Cairn, a huge burly man with the strength of an ox, stood to cast more kindling upon their small fire, seeking the warmth on his hands. Firelight rose around him, casting his face in an eerie shade of red.

  Red, like the blood that stained the hills.

  Michael felt an uncanny chill seize hold of him as he watched Thayer; his vision blurred. The small cottage seemed misted in red. “Where is the king with his troops when we need him and his help?” Thayer demanded. “The call has gone out; we are set upon and with no relief in sight!”

  Michael stared at the fire. “We can’t go condemning the king for whatever speed or lack thereof keeps him from us. We must depend on ourselves here and now.”

  “Aye, Michael is right!” Fergus Mann said, from the left of Michael. He’d seen his brother and oldest son fall; his second and third son remained at his side. The wiry old graybeard warrior still had his wits about him in his intent to salvage their situation now. “The king matters not; what we do in these next few minutes is most important. I say that we must gather our wounded and disappear across the hills to the crags and cliffs by the lochs. Our only hope is to regroup. If they pursue, for the time being now, we must escape to our brethren in the hills.”

  Michael heard a thumping sound and frowned. He glanced at Thayer. “Who’s on guard?”

  “McBridie guards the doorway.”

  Michael made a silent motion that Thayer should try the door—and see to the welfare of McBridie. The warriors in the cottage tensed, but even as Thayer cast open the poor wooden door, a cry went out. A yellow-haired Nordic warrior charged where the door had been—and great Thayer was pinned through the shoulder with the man’s razor-honed pike. He let out a cry like a bull, yet even then, more of the enemy flowed in behind the Norseman; they burst through the thatch-covered windows. In seconds, the twenty-odd Scotsmen who had taken refuge in the cottage were dead or injured.

  Michael alone held his sword when a tall man, clad in chain mail and leather, strode through the doorway. Lord Renfrew. He ran his fingers through his short-cropped russet hair, smiled, and reached for the youngest of old Fergus Mann’s sons, catching the lad by the hair in an instant and placing his small sword to the boy’s throat, flush against the vein. He held the boy and stared at Michael, the chieftain.

  “Ah, now! ’Tis Michael, himself. Laird of these lands,” Renfrew’s dark eyes narrowed even as his thin lips curled into a cruel smile, and he mocked the pattern of the Gaelic speech. “Throw down your sword, Michael. Do so. The lad will live.”

  “It’s a trick, Michael!” the lad, Patrick, called out.

  “What terms?” Michael demanded.

  “Terms?” He nodded to his men around him. “Bind the men’s hands, now, and be quick and thorough. You’ve got to take great care, you know. They’re the result of years of tribal invasions. They’ve even got enough of your good Viking blood in them, eh, Ragwald, to fight like wild creatures.” He glanced at the Norseman who had either killed Thayer or left him grievously wounded; then he stared down at Thayer. Thayer could not say; he was slumped to the ground. Renfrew looked back to Michael. “Your sword, Michael. Now. Or I kill the lad.”

  “He’ll kill me anyway!” Patrick stated gravely, swallowing down his fear to make the statement.

  Perhaps the lad was right, Michael knew, but in their current situation, it seemed to make no sense to hasten Patrick’s death. Michael cast down his sword.

  Renfrew smiled with a nod, acknowledging his pleasure. “Bind him,” Renfrew commanded, indicating Michael.

  The Norseman at Renfrew’s side did as commanded. Michael didn’t fight as the man tied his hands behind his back. He looked at Renfrew.

  “What now?” the Viking asked Renfrew, having finished binding Michael as commanded.

  “Bind them all,” Renfrew said, “for they will submit to me. They will be my prisoners.”

  One by one, the men were bound, and when the task was completed, it was Michael who asked once again the question that Renfrew’s Viking had already put forward.

  “What now?”

  Renfrew smiled. “Now? What now, indeed? You are worthless, the lot of you, as hostages. Could I keep you, working you men as slaves? I assure you, many a once-proud Saxon lad still serves his master in England. Ah, it’s a fine thought, such proud, noble warriors enslaved to me! But, alas! I’d be ever wary of my back. There’s little choice in it, I think. Now, I let my men amuse themselves. Now, I hang you poor savage bastards, one by one. Take him first!” he commanded, indicating Thayer. “He’s half-dead already, but such deadweight should make a good fall, eh? We can test the rope for the others.”

  The attackers filed out of the cottage, kicking and shoving the bound Scotsmen, laughing as they struggled to manage Thayer’s great bulk. The last of them departed through the cottage door; it was the Norseman who had so swiftly skewered Thayer. He paused before leaving. “You’ll pardon us, good Scotsmen, eh? We’ll not leave you hanging long.”

  Laughing with pleasure at his own deadly humor, he exited the cottage.

  “You should have kept your sword, Michael,” Patrick said glumly. “You’d have brought down at least one of the great, ugly bastards.”

  They could hear deep, guttural laughter in the night as the enemy struggled still with Thayer’s body. Then suddenly, they were startled by a thumping sound within the confines of the cottage. A large dark shadow fell behind Patrick, who had been pushed closest to the rear thatched window. Patrick gasped, then held his tongue.

  “By all that’s holy—” Michael began
, but Patrick threw up his hands, freed from the leather ties that had bound them. The shadow rose. It was Great William’s lad; Michael had seen him fall in battle, seen him crumple atop his father. He’d been sure the boy, Waryk, was dead. But he lived. Streaked with mud and blood, he was a length of darkness. All that was light of him was the blue fire in his red-rimmed eyes as he stared around himself at the men left to their turn at death in the cottage. Not fourteen yet, he stood well above many a full-grown man with the breadth of shoulder that would eventually fill out with power. This had been his first test of arms, but Michael had seen him work with his father often enough in the open fields, learning his swordplay.

  “Sweet Jesu,” Michael breathed.

  The lad started toward him. “Your father, your brother,” Waryk said quietly to Patrick, indicating the bound hands of the others in the room. “I’ll free Michael.”

  Yet even as he approached Michael, the Viking warrior appeared in the doorway once again. “What’s this, eh? A nit left alive among the dead lice! A young one for the hanging, this now!” he declared.

  Waryk reached down for Michael’s discarded sword. The blond giant laughed. “A cub would fight with wolves, eh? Have it your way. May not be so merciful a death as the quick snap of a rope, for I’ll slice you from stem to stern, my fine boy!” he claimed.

  The muscled warrior laughed and used his great strength to swing his battle-ax. Waryk watched him for no more than seconds, then let out a cry. The cry filled the night, like something unearthly, borne on the wind. He charged the man straightforward, and before the man’s ax could fall, the “nit” had pierced him through the gullet with his sword. Lord Renfrew’s Nordic mercenary fell to his knees, shock lighting his eyes ’til death glazed them over.

  All in the room stared. Patrick paused in his attempts to slice his father’s bonds. Michael forgot that nooses still awaited them all.

  “What goes in there?” came a cry from outside.

  “Quick!” Michael ordered.