#SampleSunday - The Crown in the Heather, Ch. 10

I realize I haven't done #SampleSunday for a month! Where have I been? Finishing up courses in Anatomy, Plant Biology and Field Geology, that's where. As much as I love learning new things (or re-learning old things, in this case), I am sooo glad to be back, for tomorrow I shall sit at the keyboard, freshly brewed Chocolate Raspberry coffee steaming up from my special The Black Prince mug, and let my imagination run rampant in 14th century Scotland. Life is good.

The paperback version of Worth Dying For has finally gone to print - woo hoo! It should appear on Amazon.com within the week. Enormous apologies to those who have been more than patiently waiting for it.

Meanwhile, here is an excerpt from Chapter 10 of The Crown in the Heather. The year is 1300 and Prince Edward has been summoned to Windsor by his father, King Edward I of England (a.k.a. Longshanks). He's in trouble for having hunted on lands owned by a bishop without permission while in the company of his beloved, Piers Gaveston - a man his father considers a very poor influence.

I'm sure some readers wonder at first why the future Edward II is suddenly appearing in a book about Robert the Bruce. That's a valid question. For one, I wanted to show more of his father, Longshanks. Also, you should get a solid sense of what this dysfunctional father-son relationship was about. I can easily imagine Prince Edward on the Dr. Phil show, baring his soul and bemoaning the fact that his father neither understands nor accepts him as he is. Second, who could resist getting under the skin of a character as complex and misunderstood as Edward? Last, Edward's tragic life and how it intertwines with the Bruce becomes even more abundantly clear in the second and third Bruce books.

*****

I ENTERED THE ROOM where my father, King of all England and more, was taking his supper at a small round table. Bishop Langton sat across from him. I cringed inwardly, but kept a level chin and square shoulders. I knew, without being told, why I had been summoned to Windsor. Behind them, the chill air of a dimming sunset poured in through an open window, so they were but dark silhouettes before it. Black-robed judges ready to levy their sentence on me, with or without a trial.

Ignoring me as one would a menial servant, the king finished off his meal to the very last pea and chased it down with half a cup of wine from a jeweled goblet. The bishop’s stern eyes never left me. He leered at me like a nagging mother who stares down a disobedient boy before she can get across the room to tweak him by the ear and drag him outside for a beating. I so wanted to prance over to him, knock the bloody miter right off his fat, bald head and then strike him senseless with the gold crucifix that swung from his short, little neck. By Babylon, it must have been heavy enough to anchor a ship. I glared back at him, rolled my eyes and sighed with annoyance.

When your time comes, your grace, God will judge you, too, by your legion of vices. I hear your steward’s niece birthed your bastard not a year ago and her belly is already swelling again.

“What is it,” my father began, as he dabbed at his hands on a square of white linen, “about the word ‘property’ that you fail to understand?” With a flip of his slim fingers, he tossed a chicken bone to the floor. His lazing brindle greyhound snatched it up, growled as it passed me with its tail tight between its legs and then lay down across the doorway, as if to block my escape.

“Mea culpa,” I muttered, bowing low in Langton’s direction. “It will not happen again.”

“Indeed, it will not.” My sire dipped his fingers in a bowl of rose water and then wiped them dry on his lap. “You behave infra dignitatem, perhaps because of those you surround yourself with. You are confined to Windsor for six months. Your ‘friends’ may not come within sight of you during that time. That should provide you with ample time for reflection.” Beneath cold, gray eyes, he smiled smugly.

My heart froze in its rhythm. Six months? Six months? “But, sire . . . Brother Perrot? You placed him in my household at King’s Langley. You cannot send him away because of one little escapade. What harm was done that cannot be undone?”

“Much. You both suffer from poor judgment. You knew you were on Bishop Langton’s lands and yet you failed to seek his permission. You killed more deer than you could bring back and left a dozen carcasses in the forest to rot, spread disease, breed flies and stink whenever the wind blows. You have been a nuisance, a wastrel and a common thief. The bishop here urged me to be more lenient with you, but I think I have been far too lax until now. Punishment is overdue. It is time to alter your ways. You are a man now and should begin to act like one.”

With a sweep of his hand he dismissed me from his royal presence. I lowered my eyes and backed away, turning sharply about as I reached the door. The greyhound let out a yelp, jumped up and snapped at my shins. I had stepped on its tail—not by accident.

*****

Happy reading,
Gemi

#SampleSunday - Isabeau, Ch. 8

Isabeau

Ch. 8
Isabella: Tynemouth Priory, 1322

(Isabella and her damsels flee from an approaching band of Scots.)

Beyond the cliffs where the Benedictine priory sat, a rising wind lashed at the blue-black sea, churning the waves into foamy peaks. Against the ragged shoreline, the raging waves crashed in sprays of white. Then, broken and hushed, they retreated seaward in defeat. At the northern edge of the horizon, the sky had already begun to darken again.

I looked once more toward the priory, wondering if I should order us back to wait until tomorrow, but with a glance Patrice banished my thoughts. She did not want to relive York, nor did I.

My men-at-arms lifted the small rowing boat from behind a sand dune and carried it forward on their shoulders. I waited on shore while they rowed my damsels out in twos and threes to board the ship. The youngest of my damsels, Cecilia de Leygrave who was fifteen, hovered at my elbow, already blanched in complexion.

“You do not like to sail, Cecilia?” I asked cautiously.

Tremulous, she cast her brown eyes toward the lowering horizon. “Oh, I have not sailed much. Once before maybe. I was little then, so I don’t remember much of it. But I do not like storms, my lady. I do not like being wet or cold or standing out in the lightning. Ida told me once about her cousin who was struck by lightning—there was nothing left of him but a pile of ashes in his boots and the ring from his finger. And I have heard there are monsters in the sea that follow ships. That they especially follow ships with women on them.”

It was strange to see the usually witty and tittering Cecilia so terror-stricken. I hung an arm over her shaking shoulders and forced a laugh. “Was it Ida who told you about the sea monsters who devour women? She is full of silly stories. Well, I have never seen a sea monster, nor have I ever known anyone who has. It is simply a tavern tale told by old sailors to make themselves sound braver than they are. So you needn’t worry about monsters, Cecilia. They don’t exist. Besides, I have hired the best sailors and the fastest ship north of London. We will arrive somewhere safe sooner than you know.”

But I stretched the truth. The ship I had commissioned for our rescue was one that had recently been blown back by storms. A sodden and battered crew had crudely mended its sails, sliced by the gale. The hull had received a hasty caulking of moss and a spotty daubing of pitch. Its seaworthiness was highly suspect, but taking ship was no surer a fated death than remaining at Tynemouth.

She pressed her fingertips together in a hasty prayer. “I am to be betrothed to a squire from Oxford. A good man, I’m told. He sent me this.” She splayed the fingers of her left hand and wiggled them to show a ring of tarnished silver set with a milky blue stone. A pretty bauble, it was nothing of great value. To her, however, it was a treasure.

“Very beautiful.” I leaned close to peer at it. “So you have not met?”

She twisted the ring on her finger. Then, deciding it was loose, she switched it to another finger. “No, but he writes. I have one of the monks read them to me. It is . . . embarrassing sometimes, what he says, to hear a holy man say it. But he sounds most kind.”

Two soldiers each extended a hand to help us into the little rowing boat that reeked of fish. “A very important trait for a husband to have. You will be happy.” I hooked my arm through hers and together we walked into the foamy rush of cold waves that wrapped about our feet. The boat rocked as we each stepped into it. We plunked down on a rowing thwart in the front and the two soldiers took the back, leaving the oarsman in the middle. I hugged Cecilia close. As I did so, I saw, far to the south and high up at the edge of the cliffs . . . a line of horsemen, armed. Their silhouettes cut stark and ominous against a gray veiling of clouds. The tips of their spears jabbed at the sky as they rode hard and fast along the thin lip of earth.

The oarsman pulled hard, grunting, and we slipped away from shore. My heart tumbled in fear with each jerk of the oars. Most of my damsels, including Patrice and Juliana, had already boarded the broad-bellied merchant ship that would take us down the coast to safety, but three others still waited on shore for the rowing boat to return for them.

Cecilia bit fiercely at her lip as we lurched toward the bobbing ship, each wave knocking our tiny boat back almost as far as the oarsman could manage to advance.

“He will be in York, waiting for me.” Her voice was barely a whisper above the roar of waves around us. Rain began to fall suddenly, heavily, stabbing at my shoulders and back. Cecilia crouched down before me and tucked her head tight against my bosom to keep the rain out of her eyes.

I did not think to ask what her betrothed’s name was, so fixed was my attention on the horse-men now leaning back in their saddles to plunge rapidly down the steep trail toward the shore. “Do not worry, Cecilia. The brunt of the storm is to the north. Away from us.”

But there was a closer fate to the south, closing fast. The last of my damsels were quaking in a tight huddle at the edge of an angry sea. A remnant of my guard, four men, waited with them. A small garrison had remained at the priory, thinking that if anyone came to attack, they would approach by the road to the west. Lightning cracked overhead. One of the soldiers glanced up at the cliffs. In the flickering light, sword blades glinted. I could now make out the round, studded shields affixed to their forearms—the targes of Scots. And at the lead a man with wild black tresses that fell to his shoulders. With his sword thrust out before him, he raised himself up out of his stirrups and closed on those below like a demon of the night.
The garrison soldier let out a cry to stand in defense. The black-haired Scotsman cocked his arm back and leaned out hard to the side. His blade slashed through the darkness and severed the man’s bare neck. The soldier who had given the warning was forever silenced. His head bounced in front of the terrified clutch of women and rolled to the water’s edge. The man’s torso swayed until a gust of wind finally pushed it over.

Above the crash of thunder, I could not hear the screams that followed.

News and #SampleSunday

Hi All!

A great big thank you to all those who have e-mailed me in the past few weeks to say how much they enjoyed the first two books in The Bruce Trilogy and ask when the third and final book will be available. I have a few more chapters to write and then edits and proofing to do, but I do hope to have it out sometime this summer. It's entitled The Honor Due a King and again follows Robert the Bruce, James Douglas and Edward III from 1314 to 1330. I love hearing from readers, so don't hesitate to contact me ( imgnr "at" imgnr "dot" com).

Also, graphic designer Lance Ganey is putting the finishing touches on the full cover for Worth Dying For. The paperback will be available by early March. I'll post here when it shows up on Amazon.

I'll be doing my first appearance and book signing ever on Sunday March 6th from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Enon Historical Society in Enon, Ohio. So come on by!

Last but not least, here's this week's installment for #SampleSunday, from Ch. 3 of Worth Dying For. Still pursued by the English, the remnants of Robert the Bruce's army are holed up in a cave near Loch Lomond whil they tend to their wounded. James Douglas has gone out to fish with another man and fallen asleep. He has a rude awakening.

*****

“Look ‘ere,” a gruff voice said. “A Scottish dog, good as dead.”

The dull fog of sleep lifted suddenly like a blanket thrown off. It was not Wallace’s voice, nor Robert’s. Neither was it Torquil’s.

Through barely parted lashes, I glimpsed a man with a bulging paunch standing over me. He grinned and flicked his tongue over lips pocked with sores. Drooping jowls rough with black stubble melted into a thick neck. The man had not suffered for lack of food, or from the guilt of gluttony. He reached beneath his oversized leather jerkin and scratched at this crotch. Then he lifted a nicked and rusty sword. Its point pricked the soft of my belly.

My heart thumped in a wild cadence. I curled my fingers around empty air. My blade lay tangled in the grass, only a few feet away. If I reached for it, I was dead. If I didn’t―I was dead then, too.

His mouth spread into a macabre smile of jagged yellow teeth and irregular gaps. A guttural laugh shook his flabby gut and gurgled out of his throat, making him sound like a braying donkey. “Scared, are you? Don’t worry, I’ll keep you alive long enough to get some sport out of you.”

I opened my eyes fully, gauging his quickness against mine. No contest. I would have skewered him in a heartbeat in an honest fight. Gutted him like the fat pig he was. That was when he pressed the point deeper into my belly, reminding me who had the advantage.

“Will, over ‘ere!” he bellowed. “Look what I found me!”

With every shallow breath I drew, the sword point bit harder, almost burning. I held my breath. Fear, or fate, whatever it was, held me entranced to observe the slow approach of my own death.

God’s teeth, I had always thought I would die in a furious blaze of glory, not like this. Not in such a pathetic, helpless way.

Behind him, twigs cracked. Footsteps plodded, then stopped.

He chuckled, this time scratching at his buttocks. “What do you say we should do with him, Will? Chop off his fingers, one knuckle bone at a time? Gouge out his eyeballs, maybe? I like that one, I do. Won’t be pretty no more, then, will ‘e?” He guffawed, amused by his own cleverness.

“Let him go.”

The pig-bellied Englishman stopped laughing. He cocked his head sideways, not daring to take his eyes off me. “What did you―?”

A thwack cut off his words. He stumbled forward, as if someone had shoved him from behind. But there was no one there. A line―wet, burning―trickled warm across my abdomen to pool in my navel. The sword had pricked my flesh. It slipped from his grasp and thudded to the ground.

His tongue popped from his mouth, red foam bubbling around it. He lowered his eyes to gawp at his chest, where the tip of a wooden spear point protruded. Bright blood clotted in the Englishman’s stubbly beard, spurted from the hole in his breast. Empty-eyed, he stared at me, making little croaking sounds―and fell.

*****

Happy reading,
Gemi

#SampleSunday - Isabeau, Ch. 6

When I began to write about Queen Isabella, the wife of King Edward II of England, the story at first was solely in her voice. But there were gaps in it - huge holes in time and plot. The only way to bridge those gaps and give the story the dimension it needed was to allow Roger Mortimer to have his own voice. So Isabeau became as much Isabella's story as it was Roger's. I'll admit, by today's standards he's a bit of a chauvinist, but he also felt strong connections to certain people in his life, one of them being his uncle, Roger of Chirk.

Here's part of a scene from Ch. 6 of Isabeau, A Novel of Queen Isabella and Sir Roger Mortimer. Roger, his son Edmund and his uncle have submitted to King Edward II and been taken prisoner. They arrive at the Tower of London to await their fate:

*****

I was not spoken to again until we reached the inner bailey of the Tower of London. There, they snatched the blanket away and pitched me sideways from the wagon. My elbow and chest slammed against the cobbles. Air was sucked from my lungs. Before I could draw breath, Edmund landed across my legs, tumbled over, and banged his head on the stones. He gritted his teeth to keep from crying out, but a long hiss of pain escaped his mouth. I choked and sputtered as I fought to breathe. Then I saw another shadow wobbling above me. There was an irascible grunt, followed by a spit and a curse.

They hurled my uncle from the wagon. My torso broke his fall; only he did not land with the lithe reactions of my son, but the dead weight of an old man stiff in the joints. I tried to inhale, but his weight crushed me. My lungs would not expand. Down low my ribs burned with pain, as though someone had plunged a flaming poker into me.

“Get . . . off,” I gasped.

They hoisted him to his feet and began to drag him away.

I tucked my right elbow beneath me to roll over, but the pain burst through me again. With my hands still bound, I could not push myself up with either of them. The scrape of fading footsteps urged me to try again. I lifted my other shoulder and turned my head enough to see, in the silver etchings of a winter night, my uncle being escorted toward one of the tower doors. A virulent sneer tore from his lips.

“May you rot in hell!” he shouted at me. His crackling voice echoed off the high walls like the shattering of glass. They shoved him headlong through the doorway. He cursed again. The door slammed shut. Then . . . the sound of a beating. His profane oaths were muffled by fist blows, until at last they faded to heavy sobs and drawn-out whimpers.

On his knees, Edmund shook his head. Slowly, he turned his face toward me. A trickle of blood traced its way from the indent of his temple to the ridge of his cheekbone. “He did not mean it,” he said barely above a whisper.

At that, one of the guards seized him by the back of his shirt, yanked him to his feet and slammed a fist into his belly. “Keep your mouth shut, you hear?”

Edmund crumpled against the wagon, his eyes squeezed tight in pain. Before he could recover, they hooked their hands beneath each of his arms and were taking him away, too. Had I any breath to spare, I would have called after him. With stoic courage, Edmund lifted his head, picked up his feet, and kept silent so they would not give him the same pummeling they had given his great uncle. He was escorted to the same door, but when it was opened there was neither sight nor sound of my uncle. Edmund dodged to the side to avoid being slammed into the doorway as they jostled him through.

Vaguely, I was aware of the clop of hooves, the wagon rattling away over the stones, a barking of orders, the groaning of a gate, and the slow murmur of deep voices from behind me.

“—the Lanthorn Tower. There is a room for him there. Mind you, no one is to speak to him.”

Measured footsteps approached me from behind. I felt a pair of hands lift me carefully up until I was sitting. I winced involuntarily.

A man in full mail and wearing the king’s red and gold stepped around me and sank to his haunches. His balding head, bare of coif or helmet, was fringed with close shorn chestnut locks and streaked with the first white hairs of middle age. “A bit bruised, aren’t you?” He began to probe about my head with lightly jabbing fingers and worked his way down my neck and shoulders. When he came to my last two ribs on the right, I clenched my jaw, but there was a little groan deep inside my throat he must have heard, for he drew his hands away and stood. “Take him away. And see to his injuries. ‘Tis the king who says whether he lives or dies, and when, not us.”

Silently, I thanked him for that grace, however morbid.

*****

Meanwhile, I'm the Guest Writer over at the web site of historical fiction author Fred Nath. Fred's book, The Cyclist, is a poignant tale of World War II France and is the first in a trilogy. It was an Editor's Choice selection in the February 2011 issue of the Historical Novel Society's Historical Novels Review and reveals a different (and very human) side of war. Check out Fred's web site for more information!

Happy reading,
Gemi

#SampleSunday - Worth Dying For, Ch. 5

Worth Dying For is on sale on Kindle for just 99 cents on Amazon.com and 71 p on Amazon.co.uk for one more week. Although this is the second book in The Bruce Trilogy, if you haven't yet read the first you should have no trouble jumping right into this one. For those who've asked, I'm preparing the final files for the print version of WDF and it should be out sometime in February. I'll post here when it's available. Thanks, everyone, for being so patient. Meanwhile it's available in e-book form on Amazon and Smashwords.

In the following excerpt, it's still 1306 and Robert the Bruce, self-proclaimed King of Scots, has sailed from Rathlin Island in the Irish Sea up the western coast of Scotland. In order to stand against the English, he needs money, men and ships. Christiana of the Isles has all those things, but there's something she wants, as well, and the task proves to be more difficult for Robert than merely asking for a favor.

It's been frequently reported that Robert was not entirely faithful during his second marriage to Elizabeth Bruce, from whom he was physically separated for many years. We often hear him spoken of in very glowing and noble terms, but like most everyone - especially those with ambition or who wielded power - he, too, had his flaws.

*****

I looked up to see a squat, gray castle hunched above a low cliff on an islet ahead: Castle Tirrim.

The tide being low, we beached the galley on the shingle-littered shore opposite the castle and trudged across a muddy bridge of land to the base of the cliff encircling the islet. Sleet had faded to a spitting mist. Arms wrapped about himself, Torquil led us to a breach in the cliff wall. Stiff with cold, we ascended after him, taking care not to slip on the moss-slickened stones. When Torquil scrambled over the top, he dropped to his knees, small stones crunching with the impact.

Before him stood a noblewoman in a hooded cloak, gloved palms open in welcome, and at her shoulder a glowering lord, his feet braced wide and one hand resting on the hilt of his sword.

Bending at the waist, the lady spread her arms wide, so that her cloak of crimson parted to reveal a green gown embroidered with golden knotwork. As she straightened, a rope of loosely plaited red hair swung from her shoulder, the end of it hanging to the inviting curve of her hip. Tall and imposing in presence, I was one of few men above whom she did not tower. She tilted her head and smiled pleasantly at me, ignoring Torquil and the dozen men huddled close and shivering at the lip of the cliff.

“A thousand welcomes to Tirrim, my lord king,” Lady Christiana greeted. “I have watched for you from my window for weeks now.”

“You couldn’t have known I was coming, my lady.” I took her hand, cold-wet with rain, and kissed her fingers just below the glittering facets of her emerald ring. “I sent no word. I dared not. Scotland is as thick with my enemies as there are pines in the forest. I must keep my comings and goings a secret, as much as I can.”

She laid her other hand over mine. “There are some things a woman knows, even without being told.” With a gentle tug she drew me close, her lips grazing my cheek with a kiss, her breath cupping my ear like a puff of steam as she whispered my name, “Robert.”

With every breath she drew, her bosom swelled against my chest. Fine droplets of rain on my face warmed, like a perspiration that has sprung to the brow with gentle exertion.

“Has it been ten years, truly? Not a day gone, judging by your beauty, I vow.” I bestowed a brief kiss in return. “And you’ve still not found another husband? How can that be?”

When Christiana had barely been of marriageable age, her father, Alan Macruarie, had betrothed her to Duncan of Mar. Perpetually drunk and quarrelsome, she could hardly tolerate him and leapt at any distraction. I had been one of them. It did not matter to her that it was her wedding I had come to attend. But barely in my first full beard then, I was mad for Duncan’s sister, Isabella.

“I’ll not have just any.” She poked a finger at my chest playfully. “You don’t know how despondent I was when I heard you had married again. Did you not think of me? Cruel of you, it was. My heart has yet to mend.”

The black-bearded lord cleared his throat. As I cast a glance at him, he raised his jaw. Finally, he dipped his head in acknowledgment.

“Reginald Crawford of Kyle . . . my lord.” His hand drifted downward from his sword, indicating he would unsheathe it in a breath if given cause.

Christiana snaked a hand beneath my cloak and up my arm to cling seductively to me. “Come, my lord. Let me show you to a warm bed. But first, a fire, a full meal and a flagon of wine to bring you back to life, aye?”

As she led us over the rock-strewn path to the gate, her hip swayed against mine. I had come duly armed with my honor, but already it was proving a challenge. It would have been easier to leave altogether, than to stay and deny such an enchantress.

*****

Feel free to drop into Twitter and search for more #SampleSunday excerpts. I'll be surfing there throughout the day and re-tweeting some of my favorite finds.

Happy reading,
Gemi

#SampleSunday (Twitter) - Worth Dying For

This week's #SampleSunday is from Ch. 15 of Worth Dying For (The Bruce Trilogy: Book II). [For anyone who's wondering, no, you don't have to read the books in order.]

The year is 1307 and Robert the Bruce and his men are living a transient life in the hills and Highlands of Scotland. If it's not Englishmen they're battling or evading, it's other Scots. Near Slioch the Earl of Buchan's army has trailed them down, but with Robert gravely ill, they can no longer flee and must stand and fight. Robert looks to his younger brother, the impetuous Edward Bruce, to lead his men:

Edward was right. I could not sit my horse. He held my limp, burning body to his chest as he sought to preserve me and gave me his cloak. I cannot say that I slept in such a precarious state, propped up in the saddle semi-conscious with naught but Edward’s cramping arms to save me the fall, but I remembered very little of our flight. When we forded a river and the frozen waters cut across my lower legs I was shocked into temporary mental acuity. But just as fast, my mind, echoing the failing strength in my body, dimmed to darkness. Water brought to my lips invoked endless retching. Food had not passed my lips for a week. I recognized the haunting whisper of Death’s specter as it breathed at my neck. I had seen the spirit’s impending visit on my grandfather’s ashen face in his fleeting days and I knew by other’s reactions that that was how I must have looked. By Christmas Day, I could not rise. My heart told me to listen to my dreams and live. My head told me to listen to my body and just let go.

As the snow tumbled down and deep upon the earth, my men straggled uphill, numb and weary. Boyd carried me in his arms and laid me on a thick piling of furs beneath an outcrop of rock, so that the snow would not bury me. I turned my stiff, aching neck to look. There, far beyond a boggy stretch of turf lay a village, wasted and emptied―though whether our work or Buchan’s or perhaps even Pembroke’s I could not tell. Edward began to array our men on the hillside, archers to the fore. And there in the distance . . . the men of Buchan marching forward, straining to churn their legs through the impeding drifts, their horses snorting clouds of ice.

Gil, who knew Latin better than any among us, sank to his knees at my side and began to utter, “ . . . terra sicut in coelo . . . dimitte nobis . . . nos inducas in tentationem . . .”

He made the sign of the cross above me, glanced quickly over his shoulder, laid his hand on my chest and started again. “Pater noster qui―”

I laid my trembling blue fingers over his. “When did you take vows, Gil? Do I look so near to death?”

He feigned a smile, but it slipped away under the shadow of his beak-like nose. My brother-in-law Neil Campbell, his longsword dangling from one hairy-knuckled hand, hovered grimly over Gil’s shoulder.

“Tomorrow will find you hale, my king,” Neil insisted. “For now―Buchan, he is across the way. Rumors were amuck that you were already dead. That is why they’ve waited so long to come after us. They dared not while they believed you among us. But now, we’ve nowhere left to run. Our legs refuse to carry us any further.”

“Time to use your arms, Neil,” I told him hoarsely. “Time to fight.”

“Aye.” Neil tightened one of the carrying straps of his studded round shield and stood.

“Neil?”

“Aye?”

“For Mary.”

The name touched on some strength deep and latent within him. He drew breath, raising his shoulders, and nodded. “And Elizabeth.”

Before his sentimental side got the better of him, Neil took off scrambling sideways along the hill. I gestured to Gil to bend nearer to me.

Our archers ran their calloused fingers over their strings for one last test, then jabbed their missiles into the packed snow at their feet. They were well practiced and my faith in them was unfailing. But Buchan had archers, too, and no matter how stray or true the aim on either side, Scots would die this day.

“Edward―bring Edward,” I whispered into Gil’s scarlet-rimmed ear. I tried to raise my head, but the downward pull was too great, my power too little. “Tell him . . . I have a wish.”

Gil left me. It was only a moment and yet more than an eternity when Edward’s hulking shadow appeared above me. He studied me in his callous, cursory manner, half love, half hate, then knelt slowly beside me. There was not a thread of fear abiding in his conscience―only the cool glimmer of ambition at seeing his older sibling, that which stood between him and glory, heartbeats from death.

He bowed his head and placed his hand on my shoulder. “Your wish?” he prompted.

Of all of us this past year, he had fought the hardest and most dangerously, and yet he appeared unscathed, stronger, damn invincible.

I looked him straight in the eye and raised two fingers. Then I lowered one and said, “First, if you must go on without me, that you will finish what I started.”

“That goes without saying, Robert. And?”

My hand began to shake and I let it fall to my chest. “Put me on my horse. Let me lead them one more time.”

He scoffed at me. “And let you fall to an arrow? No.”

“Edward, I am going to die here anyway. You know . . .”

He abandoned me with a surly glance. Ever defiant. Tenfold more so toward me than the rest of humanity. And yet . . .

I watched as Buchan’s archers scurried forth. The call went up:

“Take aim!”

For a moment, there was nothing but silence. Far, far silence resounding of mortality and snow all around, blinding to the sight.

“Pull!”

Happy reading,
Gemi