Susan King - [Celtic Nights 02] (3 page)

Now she feared that her own escape might be impossible. She fought the urge to scream.
Be calm
, she told herself. She had come back to rescue her birds, and must do so.

Fervently she prayed that her mother and the rest were already safe in the forest. Their enemies were at the gates of Elladoune like hungry wolves: English wolves with fire arrows and an appetite for rebel Scots, ready to pounce upon the castle.

Somehow she must find her own way out, but first she had to free the doves and the little kestrel she kept; she had raised the doves from hatchlings, and had nursed the wounded kestrel until its wing had healed, and she would not leave them. She ran toward their cages as dark smoke swirled throughout the room.

Carrying first one cumbersome wooden cage and then the other, she set them on the wooden chest beneath the window ledge. Unlatching the doors, she urged the birds out. One by one they hopped to the opening and glided through the window to freedom.

One dove clung to the back of its cage. Calmly, despite her rising panic, Juliana coaxed the bird toward the window and merciful release. It fluttered away, a pale blur in the night.

Heat and smoke seared her lungs, and she turned, coughing, aware that the wooden floor grew warm under her bare feet. Clad only in the linen chemise that she had pulled on when her mother woke her, she had taken no time to dress further.

Glancing at the flame-wreathed doorway, she realized that her only choice was to go through the window. Her birds had flown free, but her escape would have to be a steep, dangerous dive into the loch. Leaning her head through the window, gulping in fresh air, she looked out.

The midnight sky, never fully dark in summer, glowed eerily, and the loch was dark and deep below. The castle's back wall sheered downward to a rocky promontory at the edge of the loch. Protected by its rear location, the large window was a luxury; its tall lancet shape, divided and glassed in its upper curves, would allow her room to jump.

The glass cracked as she looked up, the pieces cascading like stars. Shielding her head, Juliana stumbled back and ran blindly into an alcove that led to a small garderobe.

The small space was cool, and fresh air swept through the tiny window that overlooked the side of the bailey yard. Juliana knelt on the oak bench seat and craned her neck to peer out. Men, horses, and glittering armor filled the courtyard.

"Come down, Lady Marjorie!" one of the men bellowed. She glimpsed him as he paced the yard on a huge black warhorse. In jet-black armor and red surcoat, he seemed wholly malevolent.

"Come down to me!" he shouted again. The English commander, leading the raid on Elladoune Castle, believed that Juliana's mother was still inside. By now, Juliana hoped, her mother had fled to safety with her little sons and the servants.

Not long ago, her mother had roused the household, and Juliana had gathered her younger brothers, one a swaddled babe, one a whimpering toddler. The English knights had come to Elladoune to arrest Juliana's father, who had left weeks earlier with his two eldest sons to join the rebels. Discovering Alexander Lindsay's absence, the English had fired his castle without a care for his family.

Always fragile in nature, Juliana's mother had been close to panic, praying fervently while she attempted to soothe her children. Juliana had suggested that they all go to the abbey, where the abbot, her mother's kinsman, would shelter them.

"Come down!" the commander shouted again. "Give up your tower to King Edward's knights, or give up your lives!"

Arrows tipped in fire sailed upward, smacking into the walls close to the window. Startled, Juliana jerked back. Fury stirred within her. If her bow had been to hand, she would have aimed an arrow straight into his black heart. She had skill enough for it. But she lacked the ability to harm any creature, for which her elder brothers had sometimes chided her. Now she felt as if she could do it.

Coughing, she stumbled out of the alcove and ran to the window, careful to avoid the broken glass. Climbing on the wooden chest, she stood on the window ledge. She straightened inside the lancet like a saint in a niche.

The wind was cool, and the loch gleamed below, but she did not look down. She looked up, where swans winged past, feathered golden in the firelight.

Perched there, she remembered an old tale about a flock of swans that had cradled a girl safely in a net, carrying her home. Another legend said that long ago, a hundred people had drowned in this very loch, and each had transformed into a swan.

The wind batted her chemise against her body and whipped her long hair out in a spray of gold. Closing her eyes, she prayed for protection, and prayed that the first legend, not the second, would hold true for her.

She bent her knees and bounded outward. As the wind took her, she arrowed her arms toward the water.

* * *

An angel flew out of the inferno and sank into the water. Surely it was the most beautiful and terrifying sight he had ever witnessed. Gawain ran forward, water lapping at his boots.

He searched, but did not see the pale slip of a girl who had leaped from the tower window. A hundred and more swans glided on the flame-bright surface of the loch, but he saw no human form among them. Several birds launched upward to circle overhead.

Behind him, the bellow and crackle of the fire grew louder. He heard the commander, Sir Walter de Soulis, continue his demand that the lady of the castle come out and give up her home to him.

Bastard
, Gawain thought succinctly. He hoped the woman and her servants, whom he had glanced earlier at some of the windows, had found an escape. But he knew they could be dead inside the blazing castle. He was not certain that the girl who had leaped free had survived, either.

"You—Avenel! Did the girl come out of the water?" a knight called as he ran toward him.

Gawain turned. "Nay. She may be gone—drowned."

Another knight came forward and peered at the loch. "Drowned or fallen on the rocks—or even killed by those birds. Swans can fight like demons."

"Sir Walter wants her captured," the first man said. "The mother and the rest have fled into the forest, they say."

"And we may find the girl's body tomorrow," the other said.

Gawain looked up at a soaring swan. "Scots claim that when someone drowns, their soul enters the body of a swan," he mused.

"How do you know that?" one of the men asked.

"I heard it as a boy. My... nurse was Scottish. There is a legend about enchanted swans on this very loch, if I recall. Supposedly the first swans of Elladoune, long ago, were drowned souls. Each new swan is the soul of someone deceased, they say."

One knight looked at the other. "Sir Walter will want to hear about this."

"Tell him the girl went into the water and has not come up," Gawain said. "She's gone, no doubt. A swan flew up from the spot where she fell. I have been watching."

"I saw that too," the first knight said. "Enchanted swans or none, Edward of England owns this loch now, and he wants rebels, not children or swans. Come ahead. We'll have to tell Sir Walter the girl has drowned." He looked up at the white birds circling overhead. "How could she change into a swan?"

"The longer I serve in Scotland, the more I believe anything can happen here," his comrade drawled as they walked away.

Gawain remained to scan the water. He had deliberately told the knights that tale of enchantment so that they would hesitate to search for her. If the girl had survived, he wanted to give her a chance to escape. He dimly remembered, as a boy, having to flee in the night from unseen enemies; the girl's situation had triggered his sympathy and his interest.

The burning silhouette of the castle was reflected in the loch. As a lad, he had believed in the eternal magic of Elladoune, yet the English had destroyed a legend in mere hours.

Memories stirred through him here and everywhere he went in Scotland as part of King Edward's Scottish campaign. None of these knights knew of his Scottish origins—or the fact that his birthplace, Glenshie Castle, was somewhere close to Elladoune.

Yet he did not even know where Glenshie was located.

Glancing toward the hills, he knew one of them hid his boyhood home in its lee. Years ago, he had vowed to find Glenshie and claim his inheritance for his own. Now that he was a king's knight, that secret dream seemed remote and impossible.

He walked along the rocky base that edged the tower. The water lapped at the promontory and sparks from the blaze sizzled in the loch like fallen stars. Searching the loch's surface, he was not yet ready to give up on finding the girl.

Moments later, he saw the lift of a pale arm and glimpsed a face amid the swans. She was there, he was sure now—although he did not know if she was a drowned or a living thing.

He yanked off his red surcoat and pulled at the leather ties of his chain-mail hood and hauberk. He laid his sword and belt aside, and struggled out of the steel mesh, his quilted coat, and his boots. He piled his gear, all but his trews, in the fiery shadow of the tower.

No one watched as he slipped into the water. He did not ask for help, expecting none. His fellow knights were here to claim and conquer, not to defend and rescue.

Once he had been fiercely proud to be among them. But he loathed what he had seen of the king's army on its northern trek through Scotland. Chivalry and heroics were replaced by cruelty, lust, and the basest qualities of mankind. Witnessing deeds even uglier than the burning of Elladoune, he had continually found ways to avoid committing direct acts of cruelty himself.

The sins on his soul bothered him, and the thought of dishonoring his vows of knighthood disturbed him just as much. Disillusioned by this campaign, he realized that not even his own king upheld the ideals or integrity that Gawain revered.

He swam toward the circle of swans with steady strokes. Treading water, he saw that pale form again, moving among the birds. She swam toward the shore, and he surged after her.

Swans lurched upward, clumsy in the transition from water to air—grace lost, grace regained. Gawain treaded water, watching.

When the commotion of swans cleared, he saw the girl again, nearing the reeds along the shore. He lunged forward to grab her. Though she struggled, he scooped an arm around her and tugged her toward shore. When she began to scream, he cupped his hand over her mouth and stilled in the water, holding her close.

"Hush," he breathed out. "Easy! I have you!"

She twisted in his arms and gasped out an angry, muffled retort. Shouts sounded on shore. He saw the glare of torches and the glint of armor. Cradling the girl in his arms, he glided into the shelter of the reeds, his feet on the soft bottom of the loch now. He held her with him, low in the water.

"Let me go!" she gasped in Gaelic, writhing. He understood her, retaining some of the language from his childhood.

"Quiet," he hissed in English. "Be still."

"Sassenach!" she spat out. He tightened his hand over her mouth. His arm banded her, encountering soft breasts.

"Let go of me!" she snapped in English, and kicked his shin. Struggling, she sank, and he tugged her up. She rose sputtering.

"I only want to help you," he muttered.

"Then do not drown me!" she gasped. He held her more securely under the arms. When she drew breath to scream, he clapped a hand over her mouth again.

"Sweet saints, hush—be mute like a swan!"

"Not all swans are mute," she mumbled behind his hand, and squirmed like a hooked fish.

"That I see, Swan Maiden," he grunted, wrapping a leg around her thighs, tucking her against him like a lover, though passion was the last thing on his mind. "Quiet, if you value your life, or they will catch you."

She stilled then, and slipped her arms around his neck. Her face was silky and wet against his bearded cheek. He felt a fine trembling all along the length of her.

The commander and a few knights walked along the shore and pointed toward the swans, and then at the window from which the girl had escaped. A few swans flapped their wings and hissed loudly. The men backed away.

One bird, huge and gorgeous in the fierce light of the fire, rose from the water and took to the wing, flying so low overhead that Gawain felt the breeze and ducked as it passed.

The girl laughed. "He will not hurt us."

"Hush," Gawain said between his teeth, embarrassed that he had thought otherwise. "You talk too much."

Two knights waded into the reed bed and backed away hastily as the swan circled over their heads, fast and low. Gawain watched, astonished. The bird's protective action could not be deliberate, but he was grateful for it nonetheless.

The girl looked up, her hair streaming around her face. Gawain saw that her eyes were large and dark, her head and shoulders delicately shaped. Her body was lithe and lean in his arms, her breasts lush against his chest. He held her, breathing in tandem, water lapping around their necks.

"They are gone," she whispered after a moment. Her mouth was close to his. Feeling a strong, misplaced urge to kiss her, he pulled away slightly.

"The knights are there, just over the hill," he murmured.

"The swans are gone, too, farther down the loch. Look."