The Recruit (3 page)

He sighed in a way that told her he did not agree but recognized the futility of argument.
“Then I will do what I can to delay them.” He turned to Janet. “You have a means of
transport.”

Janet nodded. “I do.”

“Then you’d best gather David and be gone. They will be here any minute.”

Mary threw her arms around him. “Thank you,” she said, blinking up at him through
watery eyes.

“I will do whatever I must to see you safe,” he said heavily. Mary’s heart swelled
with gratitude. If only her husband would have done the same. “I owe Atholl my life.”

Though Sir Adam’s father had fallen on the battlefield at Dunbar, her husband’s heroics
had enabled Sir Adam to escape. Once she’d been proud of her husband’s feats of bravery
and battlefield prowess. But her pride hadn’t been enough for him. Admiring such a
man from afar was very different from being married to one.

She donned the garments Janet had brought for her—which were indeed too big and hung
on her like a sackcloth—and went to wake her son. If her sister noticed the wariness
in the boy’s eyes when he looked at his mother, Janet didn’t say anything. It would
take time, Mary told herself. But after three months, David still pulled away from
her touch. Perhaps if he didn’t look so much like his father it wouldn’t hurt so much.
But except
for having her light hair, the lad was the image of her handsome husband.

Fortunately, David didn’t raise an objection to being woken in the middle of the night,
covered in a scratchy wool cloak, and rushed out into the stormy night. Being raised
in England as a virtual prisoner—albeit a favored one—had made him very good at keeping
his thoughts to himself.
Too
good. Her young son was an enigma to her.

Cailin swept her in a big bear hug when he saw her. She had to bite back a smile.
Janet was right; with his round, jovial face and equally hearty belly, he did indeed
make a good monk.

Exchanging the horse Janet had purchased for two in her own stables—she would ride
with Davey, and Janet would ride with Cailin—they set off toward the eastern seaboard.

It was slow and treacherous going, the road muddy and slippery from all the rain.
The rain was too heavy to keep a torch lit, so it was also difficult to see. But far
worse was the constant fear, the taut, heightened senses and frazzled nerve endings
set on edge, as they sat readied on constant alert for the sounds of pursuit.

Yet with every mile they rode, some of the fear slipped away.

She knew they must be close when Janet confirmed it. “We’re almost there. The
birlinn
is hidden in a cove just beyond the bridge.”

Mary couldn’t believe it. They were going to make it! She was going home.
Scotland!

But as they crossed the wooden bridge over the River Tyne, she heard a sound in the
distance that stopped her cold. It wasn’t the pounding of hooves behind her that she’d
feared, but a clash of metal ahead of her.

Janet heard it, too. Their eyes met for a fraction of an instant before her sister
flicked the reins and jumped forward with a strangled cry.

Mary shouted after her to stop, but Janet, with Cailin behind her, raced ahead. Mary
tightened her hold around her son in front of her and surged after her, plunging into
the darkness, the sounds of battle growing louder and louder.

“Janet, stop!” she shouted. Her sister was going to get herself killed. Somehow the
English must have found the Islesmen, and their sister-in-law’s clansmen were fighting
for their lives.

Fortunately, if Janet wasn’t thinking rationally, Cailin was. He forced their horse
to slow, enabling Mary and David to catch up to them.

Janet was trying to wrest the reins from the older man. “Cailin, let me have those.”
Mary was close enough to see the frantic wildness in her sister’s eyes. “I have to
go. I have to see.”

“You’ll not help the men any by getting yourself killed,” Cailin said sternly—more
sternly than Mary had ever heard him talk to her. “If you get in the way, they’ll
think about defending you, not themselves.”

Janet’s eyes filled with tears. “But it’s my fault.”

“Nay,” Mary said fiercely. “It’s not your fault, it’s mine.” And it was. She never
should have let it get to this. She should have fled months ago. But when it was clear
Bruce’s cause was lost, she’d trusted her husband to come for them. Had he spared
a thought for what would become of them, when he raced off to glory?

“Who is fighting, Mother?” David asked.

Mary looked into the solemn upturned face of her son. “The men who brought your aunt
to us.”

“Does that mean we aren’t leaving?”

Her heart pinched, hearing the hint of relief in his voice. But could she blame him
for not wanting to leave? England was the only home he’d ever known.

God, how they’d failed him!

She didn’t answer him directly, but looked at her sister. “We have to go back before
we are discovered.”

They would never be able to make it to Scotland on their own.

“Don’t give up yet, lass,” Cailin said. “The MacRuairis know how to fight.”

But how long did they dare wait?

The decision was made for them a few moments later when they heard the sound of horses
coming toward them. The English were fleeing! But unfortunately, the soldiers were
headed for the bridge, and they were right in their path.

“Hurry,” Mary said. They raced back toward the bridge before they ended up in the
middle of the fleeing Englishmen and the Islesmen, who from the sound of it were pursuing
them.

She had just made it to the other side of the bridge when she heard Janet cry out
behind her. Mary looked around just in time to see Cailin fall off the horse, landing
with a horrible thud on the wood planks.

Everything seemed to happen at once. Janet pulled to a stop, jumping down in the middle
of the bridge to help him. Cailin had landed facedown, an arrow protruding from his
back. Mary glanced behind her sister, seeing the hillside they’d just escaped now
swarming with men. The fierce war cries of the Islesmen pierced the night air. The
pursuers had caught up with their prey, and the riverbank had become a battleground.

Mary yelled through the din of swords to her sister. “Leave him! You have to leave
him.” The English were heading straight for her, trying to evade the Islesmen. Janet
was going to be trampled.

Their eyes met, spanning the distance of the forty or so feet that separated them.
Mary knew Janet wouldn’t leave Cailin. She was trying to lift him under the arms,
but struggling under his weight.

Mary turned her horse, intent on forcibly dragging her sister off that bridge if she
had to, when she thought she heard a voice shout “no” behind her. But then her horse
reared as a terrifying boom shattered the stormy night.

She screamed, clenching David and holding onto the reins for dear life, trying not
to slide out of the saddle. She’d nearly gotten the animal under control when a blinding
flash of light crashed on the bridge before her. Lightning? And the strangest thunder
she’d ever heard.

Oh God, Janet!
She looked in horror as the bridge seemed to burst into a ball of flames and her
sister disappeared from view. The last thing she remembered was holding her son in
front of her as they pitched backward off the horse.

When she woke hours later, warm and dry in her bedchamber, at first she thought it
had been a bad dream. But then she realized the nightmare had just begun.

Cailin was dead and her sister had vanished, presumed dead after being swept away
in the river when the bridge collapsed. The voice she’d heard had been Sir Adam’s.
He’d arrived just in time to see her fall. David had been unharmed, but Mary’s head
had struck a rock, knocking her out cold, and her back was badly bruised.

But her injuries were the least of her problems. If not for Sir Adam their next few
weeks would have been precarious indeed.

Protecting Mary from Edward’s anger by the lie that she’d been forcibly taken by Bruce’s
men, Sir Adam made a plea to the king that she be allowed to recover before making
her journey to London. Thus, it wasn’t until November that she and David were brought
before the king. She’d had nearly two full months with her son before he was once
again taken from her and imprisoned in the Prince of Wales’s household to serve as
a yeoman.

She left court, returning to Ponteland (where she’d been ordered to remain) on the
fourteenth of November, one
week after the Earl of Atholl was hanged from an elevated gallows as befitting his
“exalted” status—King Edward’s cruel response to her husband’s reminder of their kinship.
Leaving the city, she was careful not to look up as she passed under the gatehouse
of London Bridge, where her husband’s head had been impaled on a spike beside those
of the other Scottish traitors (or heroes, depending on which side of the border you
lived on) William Wallace and Simon Fraser.

The handsome, gallant knight had raised his sword for the last noble cause. Mary had
put her love—or was it youthful infatuation?—for Atholl behind her a long time ago,
so the depth of her sorrow took her by surprise. But along with her sorrow was anger
at what he’d done to them.

She was fortunate, it was said, not to be sent to a convent like the other wives and
daughters of traitors. Her “loyalty,” the king’s fondness for her son, and Sir Adam’s
surety had saved her. If not for the vows she had made to herself, she would have
welcomed the quiet solitude of a nunnery, free from the tumult of a war that had taken
her father, brother, and now her husband. But she vowed to see their son restored
to his father’s earldom, and to never stop searching for the sister who in her heart
she refused to believe was dead. The life she knew, however, was gone.

One
 

Mary handed the merchant the bundle that represented nearly three hundred hours of
work and waited patiently as he examined the various purses, ribbons, and coifs with
the same painstaking attention to detail he’d given the first time she’d brought him
goods to sell nearly three years ago.

When he was finished, the old man crossed his arms and gave her a forbidding frown.
“You did all this in four weeks? You had best have a team of faeries helping you at
night, milady, because you promised me you were going to slow down this month.”

“I shall slow down next month,” she assured him. “
After
the harvest fair.”

“And what about Michaelmas?” he said, reminding her of the large fair in September.

She smiled at the scowling man. He was doing his best to look imposing, but with his
portly physique and kind, grandfatherly face, he wasn’t having much success. “After
Michaelmas I shall be so slothful I will have to buy an indulgence from Father Andrew
or my soul will be in immortal danger.”

He tried to hold his scowl, but a bark of laughter escaped.
He shook his head as a doting father might at a naughty child. “I should like to see
it.”

He handed her the bag of coin they’d agreed upon.

She thanked him and tucked it into the purse she wore tied at her waist, enjoying
the weight that dragged it down.

One dark, bushy eyebrow peppered with long strands of gray arched speculatively. “You
wouldn’t need to work so hard if you agreed to take one of the requests I’ve had for
your work. Fine
opus anglicanum
embroidery like this is wasted on these peasants.”

He said it with such disgust, Mary tried not to laugh. The customers who frequented
his booth were not peasants but the burgeoning merchant class—people like him—who
were helping to make Newcastle-upon-Tyne an important town.

The markets and fairs such as the one today were some of the best north of London.
And John Bureford’s booth, full of fine textiles and accessories, was one of the most
popular. In an hour, it would be crowded with eager young women seeking the latest
fashions from London and the Continent.

He picked up one of the ribbons, a plush ruby velvet on which she’d embroidered a
vine-and-leaf motif in gold thread. “Even on these they notice. The ladies of the
town are vying to be the first to secure your talents for a surcote or a wall hanging.
Even the hem of a shirt might satisfy them. Let me arrange it; you could name your
price.”

She stilled, a flash of her old fear returning. Her voice dropped automatically to
a whisper. “You did not tell them?”

He looked affronted. “I do not understand your wish for secrecy, milady, but I honor
our agreement. No one needs to know it is you. But are you sure you won’t consider
a few select items?”

Mary shook her head. Preserving her privacy was worth more to her than the extra coin.
Three years ago she’d
been left on her own, frighteningly ill-prepared to deal with her new circumstances,
with no more than a handful of pounds to her name. She could have gone to the king
as others in her position were forced to do, but she feared drawing attention to herself.
She knew the fastest way to find herself in another political marriage was to put
demands on the royal coffers. She might have gone to Sir Adam—indeed, he’d offered
to help—but she did not want to be beholden to him for more than she already was.