Edmund raised a skeptical brow. Edward looked worried. “Dear God, Mary, why are you here? You shouldn’t have come! There were skirmishes today; we lost three men already, and the fighting has yet to begin! You could have been caught in one of them!”
“I had to come,” Mary said stubbornly. “I must speak with Father.”
“And what is it that is so important that you rode all this way to see me without your husband’s permission?” Malcolm asked.
Mary whirled. Malcolm stood behind her, his face carved in stone, as cold as his tone. He had never addressed her in such a manner before. Her glad cry of greeting died in her throat. She stopped in her headlong rush to embrace him. “Father?”
“I asked you a question.”
Mary drew herself upright. “Might we have a private word?” What was going on?What was wrong?
“Why? Have you something to hide from your brothers?”
“Why are you speaking to me so coldly?” Mary asked, trembling. “You act as if you’re angry—as if you hate me!”
“I am angry!” Malcolm roared, his deep voice carrying through the night. Men at other tents and fires turned to look at them. “You disobeyed me, and I’ve not forgotten it! Did I not explain to you why I allowed you to marry that bastard in the first place? I could have sent you to France! I could have married you to some old, poor northern laird! But ’twas the perfect opportunity—to have my own daughter married to one of them, well within their midsts.”
Mary was frozen.
“You failed to warn me of Carlisle’s invasion—because of your treachery, Carlisle is lost.”
Mary could not breathe. She felt close to fainting. She wanted, then and there, to die.
“Speak your piece and quickly,” Malcom said. “I have no time now to dawdle. But if you come here as Edmund has suggested, to speak words your husband should bear, do not bother. There shall be no more words between us. The time for words is done. The time for swords has come.”
“I did not betray you,” Mary finally managed. The darkening night blurred her vision, or was it tears? “I took vows, father, vows to obey my husband. ’Twas wrong of you to ask me to break them. ’Twas even more wrong of you to agree to the marriage thinking to make me a spy from the start.”
Malcolm raised his hand. Mary screamed. Edward and Edgar leapt upon their father, restraining him before he could strike her down. Yet he came to his senses, and panting, he dropped his clenched fist. “You are no more my daughter,” he said harshly.
“Father!” Mary cried out.
“Do you hear me?” Malcolm shouted. “You are no more my daughter!”
“But I love you!”
Malcolm ignored her, livid. “My daughter is a brave, loyal Scottish lass, not one such as you!You are not my daughter!”
She had been crying, but silently and soundlessly, and now miraculously she stopped. Somehow she straightened her spine, her shoulders. Inside she felt dead. Dead and old—so very old. But her mind wasn’t dead. And in her mind there was her husband’s powerful image. Her father was wrong to disown her, but it did not matter now. She belonged to another, to Stephen de Warenne. “I took vows before God,” she whispered. She heard herself and was surprised that she could sound so calm and dignified when her heart was so shattered, so broken.
“Vows made to the enemy are meant to be broken! Especially vows made to the likes of Stephen de Warenne.” Malcolm fought for calm. His ruddy face was flushed. He towered over the daughter he had just disowned. “Now, madame, what is it you have to say? Speak quickly and be gone.”
Mary lifted her chin ever so slightly. “I have come to plead with you to end this folly. Please, retreat. Please retreat before hundreds of men die, before this border is awash in innocent blood.”
Malcolm was incredulous. “Your husband did send you! Is he a coward after all? Afraid to face me on the battlefield?” Malcolm laughed. “He knows that this time I canna lose! This time I will win! Never has there been such a Scot army, and victory is ours!”
“But at what price?” Mary whispered.
“No price is too great!” Malcolm cried.
Mary turned away. More silvery tears fell down her cheeks. Someone, Edward, put his arm around her and led her away. Mary told herself that she must not cry. She had failed to avert a war. It had been sheer insanity to think that she could dissuade Malcolm from warfare.
Stephen. How she needed him now. Stephen!She must return home immediately.She must return home before he ever found out that she had been gone—before he thought the worst.
“I will go now, Ed,” Mary said unsteadily sometime later. Her smile was so sad that it brought tears to Edward’s blue eyes. “I was mad to think I could persuade him from his course. Can you get me a fresh horse and an escort?”
Edward tilted her face up, then gripped her arms gently. “Mary, he does not mean it. He cannot understand, or accept, that you owe your loyalty now to de Warenne first. He will get over it. In time.”
She looked at her brother tearlessly. “He has disowned me.”
