by Amy Jarecki
Taking in a sharp inhale, Blair held up his finger. “Scotland’s Knights Hospitallers align themselves with France…and they’re nearby at Torphichen Preceptory.”
“Brilliant.” William grinned and clapped Blair’s back. “I can think of no better allies than the Order of St. John. Ye are a good man, father.”
“Sometimes I bloody wonder if ye appreciate it,” Blair said with a rueful grunt.
“Och, are ye now playing the bleeding heart?”
***
When the merchants approached William, Eva moved toward the keep and stood at a respectful distance, though not too far away to overhear the interchange. Then when William led Blair aside, they were out of earshot, but she opted to wait. History was in the making and she didn’t want to miss anything. Once they approached, she joined them, ignoring Father Blair’s disapproving frown. From the beginning the priest had made it clear he didn’t trust her, nor did he believe women had a place in the rebellion. But after her work helping Brother Bartholomew minister to the injured at Stirling Bridge, he’d at least curbed his acrid remarks. Eva even ventured as far as to think she might be wearing him down.
“Ye’re here!” Twelve-year-old Robbie Boyd dashed out of the thick double doors with Paden and Adam Wishart in his wake. The lads had grown inseparable in the past month, though Paden still had a chip on his shoulder from William’s rather abrupt removal of the boys from their home. When Bishop Wishart led a rebellion in Irvine and then tried to increase his personal wealth by negotiating with the English, William grew so enraged, he looted Wishart’s manor and took his sons—nephews as far as anyone else knew. William intended to instill honor in the boys whilst Wishart rotted in Roxburgh Castle’s gaol. Honestly, Eva thought William’s idea to enlist the lads as squires during their father’s incarceration would be a good education for them—as long as Wallace kept them from the battlefield.
Eva opened her arms. Robbie ran a few steps, but stopped and ticked up his chin before he reached her embrace. “I reckon I shouldna be mollycoddled, Miss Eva.”
Her bottom lip jutted out, but her frown turned to a grin when eleven-year-old Adam barreled in from the side and gave her a hug. “We’re happy to see ye, m’lady.”
Closing an arm around Adam, she reached out the other to muss Robbie’s hair. “You think you’re too grown up to give me a proper welcome?”
He glanced aside and twisted his mouth. A young serving girl hastened away carrying a basket. Eva clamped her lips against her urge to laugh and met Paden’s gaze. The older Wishart boy had never been one for affection. “Have Lady Christina and Sir Andrew arrived safely?” she asked.
“They’re waiting in the hall,” said Adam.
William gestured for them to follow. “Come. We’ve no time to waste.”
As usual, Eva sat at the first table beside the dais with Christina and the lads while William and his men discussed strategy on the dais. Eva didn’t mind this arrangement. She was close enough to hear and observe, but far enough away not to interfere—and that kept the medallion hidden beneath her shift cool. Whenever the blasted thing warmed against her skin, it warned her to proceed with utmost care, else she be hurled back to the twenty-first century without so much as a farewell.
She made eye contact with Christina while they both inclined their ears toward the dais.
“I cannot believe we were attacked by our own countrymen.” Sir Andrew dipped his spoon into his lamb pottage and stirred without taking a bite. “Any Scots baron in the north would sooner take a dirk to his throat than turn backstabber.”
“Aye, the nobles along the borders all hold lands in England.” William broke off a chunk of bread and dunked it. “But I’ll not tolerate insurrection against us. Any Scottish subject attacking Scotland’s army will be arrested and tried for treason. If a man desires to kiss Longshanks’ arse, he can do it on his Judgement Day.”
“Here, here,” boomed the deep voices around the table.
William looked Eva’s way and rolled his hand through the air. “Miss Eva, scribe a missive. I aim to send out criers to all corners of the Kingdom to ensure everyone kens the penalty.”
Her heart fluttered. “Me?”
“Ye write all day.” He waved her on. “Fetch your quill, woman.”
Eva retrieved her writing materials before William finished his piece of bread. She’d been practicing writing in Auld Scots, but this was the first time he’d ever openly recognized her as a chronicler. She might even be able to put her Latin to use.
The men shifted down the table and she took a seat beside Wallace. John Blair gave her one of his grumpy looks. With a grin, she shrugged. At least he hadn’t made a snide comment.
William dictated the first missive about severely punishing all treasonous acts. Then Andrew made a call for conscripts aged sixteen to sixty.
William gestured toward the two documents. “We’ll need a score of copies of each to be sent out on the morrow. Conclude each one with our names, underscored by ‘Commanders of the Army of Scotland and the Community of the same Kingdom’ then we’ll affix our seals.”
“Consider it done.” Eva pushed back her chair.
“A moment.” William held up his hand. “We will scribe missives granting safe passage to Scotland and announcing that by war the Kingdom of Scotland has been recovered from the tyranny of the English.”
The medallion warmed against her chest. “You wish for me to write these letters?”
“Ye and Blair.” William nodded to his personal chaplain. “There are many to scribe and they must be carried throughout Christendom forthwith.”
Blair reached for a piece of vellum. “I daresay, I’ll scribe these. They’d best be written in Latin.”
Eva cleared her throat. “I can write in Latin.”
“Such an education for a woman?” The priest gave her a pointed glare. “Your admission borders on heresy.”
Giving him a sober stare of her own, she raped her fist on the table. “Pardon me, but women have every ounce of intelligence as their male counterparts.”
Blair snatched the quill from her hand. “’Tis just not done.”
She grabbed it back. “You want to scribe the missives yourself? Then have at it, but I’ll not listen to another word of your hogwash.”
“Bloody hell.” Blair shoved his chair away from the board. “I’ll fetch my own writing gear. But the next thing we’ll know, she’ll be wanting to be assigned command of an entire battalion or some fool-born notion of the female persuasion.”
Eva dipped the point of her quill into the inkwell. “I assure you, leading a regiment is not my forte.” She slapped a piece of vellum in front of her. “But writing is, thank you very much.”
The priest grumbled something undecipherable under his breath. Eva chose to ignore him. Father John Blair was William’s personal chaplain. He mightn’t care much that Eva had appeared on the scene but he’d accepted her, grumbling along the way. She’d stopped trying to make him like her. A fondness just wouldn’t develop between them. Tolerance was all she could hope for.
For hours, she wrote across the board from Blair with William dictating every word in Latin. It was as if she’d landed in an advanced Latin class at university. The content of the letters was mostly the same, all requesting trade to again flow between the cities and villages of France, The Holy Roman Empire, Norway, Spain and beyond. William and Andrew signed each one and affixed their seals in wax.
Eva’s forearm burned from continuous writing and the rims of her fingernails turned black from the ink. By the time they’d scribed the last missive, the candles on the table had burned to nubs. She rubbed the back of her neck. “It must be late.”
“I believe I heard the toll of the Matins bell not long ago,” said William.
She’d been concentrating so hard, the bell had slipped past her.
Andrew pushed his chair back and swayed a bit. A sheen of sweat glistened on the knight’s face. “I reckon I’d best find my bed afore
this damn fever gets the better of me.”
Eva cast aside her fatigue, hopped to her feet and dabbed his head with her kerchief. “How is your shoulder?”
“Still canna move it, but not to worry, I’ll come good in a matter of days.” He pushed Eva’s hand away.
She cast a worried grimace to William. “Shall I fetch Lady Christina?”
“Nay. Let her sleep.” Andrew swayed in place again, the little color he had completely draining away from his face. “I’ll not be cossetted by anyone.”
Eva stepped back and let him pass, staggering across the great hall to the stairwell.
“I’m off to my pallet as well,” said Blair as he collected the scrolls of vellum.
The rest of the men had headed to bed not long after William first started dictating missives.
He stood, took the kerchief from Eva’s hand and tossed it on the table. “Come here, lass.” A long sigh slipped through her lips as he pulled her into his arms. “It has been quite a day, early rising—attacked on the trail, up until the wee hours setting the Kingdom to rights.”
His deep hum soothed her as she relaxed into his arms. “It hasn’t been ordinary, I’ll say.”
“And still ye choose to stay with me, even with the peril that surrounds us.”
“I would be nowhere else.”
He took her hand and strolled toward the stairs. “I worry about Sir Andrew.”
A shiver coursed across her skin. “Me, as well.”
The medallion warmed enough to remind her it was there. Sometimes Eva hated the damned warnings the piece of bronze gave. And when it came to Andrew Murray, she was scared out of her wits. She was no doctor—she’d only learned a fraction of medieval healing arts through her time with Brother Bartholomew. She probably couldn’t help the knight if she tried, and every time she’d considered it, the damn medallion issued a scorching warning.
She hated being powerless to do anything.
Before William crouched into the stairwell, he stopped. “Can ye help him?”
“I’m not a physician.” She shook her head for added emphasis.
“I didna ask that. Do ye ken a remedy?”
The medallion heated like it was burning a hole over her heart. She suspected Andrew suffered not only from a septic infection, but he had lead poisoning as well. She’d seen the arrow after Brother Bartholomew pulled it out of Sir Andrew’s shoulder in the tent at Abbey Wood. The tip had been made of lead and was broken—as if a chunk had chipped off inside his shoulder. But she didn’t know of a cure, not unless she could hurl Sir Andrew to a twenty-first century hospital.
She shoved the medallion aside. “No, I have no idea how to cure him. Can you summon a physician?”
“Perhaps, but I fear he would want to bleed the poor man. My ma always called the healer—warned against physicians.” William scratched his beard as if second guessing his mother’s reasoning.
Eva shrugged her shoulders to her ears. “I wish I knew the solution—but if you don’t have any other options, maybe Lady Christina should summon a...” she couldn’t bring herself to say physician. The medallion cooled a bit. Eva’s stomach twisted into a knot. Bleeding never did anyone a bit of good. I have no idea why doctors resorted to it for centuries.
William groaned and proceeded up the stairs. “There must be something more we can do.”
“Is he keeping the wound clean? Changing the bandages several times a day?”
William eyed her over his shoulder. “Have ye asked this of Brother Bartholomew?”
“I told him to only use clean bandages…” Eva pulled the medallion out from beneath her shift and let it rest atop her gown. A few layers of fabric might help—if she didn’t end up flung to 2016. “We could try cleansing the wound with boiled saltwater.” She cringed, ready for the deafening rush and an abyss of blackness to overcome her, but nothing happened.
“Honestly?” He led her onto the third floor landing. “A cure is as simple as boiled water and salt?”
Eva shook her head. “I didn’t say it would cure him—I think he needs antibiotics, but those won’t—”
“—be invented for another seven hundred years,” he finished. “Good Lord, woman. Why did ye have to attend university to become a chronicler? A physician would have been much more useful to me.”
“Or a chemist,” she grumbled, biting her bottom lip and brushing the hurtful remark aside. William always spoke his mind, though sometimes he could be a little too insensitive. Eva didn’t bother to point out that if she were a doctor, she never would have been chosen to time travel in the first place. The forces behind the medallion picked her because she wanted to take the truth to the world and there was no one better to do that than a journalist with a passion for history.
“Alchemy?” William chortled. “Isna that a tinker’s art of chasing magic?”
“I didn’t say alchemy. Chemistry is not magic. It’s pure science.”
He opened the door to her chamber and accompanied her inside. Though for decorum his chamber was through the adjoining door, he rarely slept in his bed. “I’ll have to take ye on your word. I shall speak to Brother Bartholomew on the morrow about the boiling salt water.”
“Boiled salt water.” She held up a finger. “You wouldn’t want to scald the poor man.”
Chapter Five
Rain spat from the dense clouds. It would make William’s hauberk rust for certain, but if he left all the Kingdom’s business for fine days, he’d ever accomplish a thing. He chuckled at the irony. Only a few months ago, he’d been content to live in a cave and never paid a mind to the weather unless it was blowing a gale with hip-deep drifts of snow. Now he’d moved into more comfortable quarters. He balked at the rain.
Well, no more. A warrior must endure all manner of discomfort to carry out his duty.
After convincing Sir Andrew to stay abed, William gathered a cavalry of three hundred horse and set out for Dunbar. He didn’t expect a fight from the Earl of March on his own lands. The ambush had been clandestine—in the forest with the unlikely chance of credible witnesses.
Regardless, after the Fountainhall raid, Wallace needed to be cautious with his every move. He might be the Guardian of Scotland, but that only increased the size of the target on his back. Before, he’d achieved success with surprise raids. He understood the mind of a raider better than anyone. In no way would he ride into such an ambush again.
With him, he took the missives Eva had written for the chieftains of East Lothian. Once he met with the earl, he intended to visit the southeastern clans to reinforce their fealty to the crown.
He’d also taken Paden Wishart with him this time to stand in as his squire. Though Robbie Boyd had acted as his squire for the past two years, Paden needed to learn to be a man, and hadn’t received any training from his father, Bishop Wishart. And the fact that the man was now rotting in Roxburgh’s prison did nothing to add to Paden’s education. Worse, the lad was soft—preferred his lute to a bow or dirk. He spent too much time strumming and not enough learning the art of war. Unless the lad intended to live his life behind the walls of an abbey, he needed to grow some cods.
Truth be told, William felt more confident leaving Robbie with Eva. The Boyd lad would protect her with his life. Paden? He might try to lull a plunderer with a ballad.
Fortunately, William had found Eva a new mare to keep her out of mischief and he’d decided to humor her by agreeing—Robbie Boyd was just the lad to stay behind and give her a few pointers on handling a more spirited mount. William couldn’t imagine what Christendom would be like without horses. His mind still boggled at Eva’s description of motorcars. What about traversing all the bogs? Wheeled carts can only pass where the path is cobbled or dry.
He had plenty of time to ponder her tales—be them what they may. But doing so helped pass the time while the rain drove harder with each progressing hour. And the wind cutting through William’s hauberk told him winter was nigh. Onward he rode, keeping the Firth of Forth o
n his left until the immense red-stone fortress of Dunbar came into view. Built upon the most strategic peninsula in Scotland, the castle was considered impenetrable and, moreover, William needed its ground advantage for the Kingdom.
William ground his molars. Though they arrived well before dark, Dunbar’s gates stood barricaded with archers posted atop her outer bailey.
“What’s your plan?” asked Eddy Little, commander of the archers, William’s cousin and most trusted spy.
Wallace held up his hand to signal a halt well before the barbican bridge that separated the castle from the mainland. “I’ll go in.”
“Alone?” John Blair pointed to the archers. “Do ye think they’ll allow the great and powerful William Wallace to pass by without skewering him with a few arrows first? Ye canna cross the bridge without riding right beneath their sights”
William sliced his hand downward. “Wheesht. I’ll carry the black flag of parley. Even a bastard as two-faced as the Earl of March wouldna kill a man who merely wanted to talk.”
Eddy shook his head. “I dunna like it. At least let me and Blair go in with ye.”
“Och aye,” Blair nodded. “Cospatrick’s likely to sit down for a wee yarn, then stab ye in the back as ye’re leaving.”
“Bloody oath, ye’re carrying on like a pair of old crones.” Sliding the reins through his gloved fingers, William considered his options. Truth be told, the men had a point. “I’ll allow the pair of ye go in with me if ye promise to behave and keep your swords in their scabbards.” He turned and faced his man-at-arms. “Graham, mind our horses.”
“Did ye think to bring a black flag?” asked Blair.
William pulled a black bit of silk from under his hauberk. “Now ye think me daft as well?”
“I dunna think it, I ken it.” Blair tugged his helm low over his forehead. “Planned this all along did ye?”
“I reckon I did.” William dismounted and passed his reins to Graham. “I’m putting ye in charge. Be ready for anything—and above all, keep the men out of range of their archers. If ye hear a blast from my ram’s horn, make ready for a fight. Only then can ye take out the archers on the wall.”