Prologue
Dundonald Castle, Ayrshire, Scotland, late June 1297
Fynlay Lamont was drunk again. Ewen Lamont sat in the back corner of the Great Hall of Dundonald Castle with the other young warriors and tried to ignore his father. But every raucous burst of laughter and belligerent boast that filtered back from Fynlay’s table near the front of the hall made Ewen want to slide deeper and deeper into his bench.
“That’s your father?” one of the Earl of Menteith’s squires asked. “No wonder you don’t talk much. He does enough for both of you.”
The other young warriors around him laughed. Ewen wanted to bury his head in shame, but he forced himself to smile at the jest and act as if it didn’t bother him. He was a man now—nearly seven and ten—not a boy. He couldn’t run away the way he’d done as a child every time his father drank too much or did something outrageous.
But his father’s lack of control—his lack of discipline—was going to ruin everything. As it was, this meeting was like a bed of dry leaves next to a fire just waiting for a spark to ignite.
Though the great lords gathered in secret here today were kinsmen, all descendants of Walter Stewart, the 3rd High Steward of Scotland, they didn’t always see eye-to-eye. They had come to see whether they could put aside those differences long enough to fight the English rather than each other. Adding Wild Fynlay to the already volatile mix of men in the room was like holding up a blacksmith’s bellows to fan the flames with hot air—lots of hot air.
But like Ewen, Fynlay Lamont of Ardlamont was Sir James Stewart’s man, and as one of Stewart’s chief battle commanders, his father had a right to be here. If there was one thing Wild Fynlay knew how to do it was fight. It was keeping the fighting contained to the battlefield that was the problem.
Wild Fynlay’s epitaph had been well earned. He was quick to fight, quick to argue, and quick to take offense. Rules, law—nothing could bind him. He did what he wanted, when and where he wanted. He’d seen Ewen’s mother thirty years ago at a local fair, decided he wanted her, and had taken her. It didn’t matter that she was betrothed to his cousin and chief, Malcolm Lamont. It didn’t matter if those choices nearly cost him—and their clan—everything.
His father hadn’t changed at all in the year since Ewen had seen him last—except for the missing finger. While Ewen had been in the Borders in the service of Sir James Stewart, the 5th Steward of Scotland, his father had gotten so drunk, he’d bet one of their kinsmen that he could pull his hand away from the table faster than the other man could draw his blade. The top joint of the middle finger on his right hand proved Fynlay wrong.
Ewen’s reckless, more-savage-than-civilized father was always getting into trouble. He spoke with his sword and his fists—usually in a whisky-induced slur. Fighting and drinking were sports of which he never tired. And wagering. Fynlay Lamont had never met a challenge too crazy or dangerous for him to like. The last time Ewen had been home, his father had wagered that he could fight a pack of wolves with his hands—bare-arsed naked.
He had, and won. Although he’d suffered a serious injury to his leg when one of the wolves had managed to get his teeth on him.
Instead of returning to Rothesay Castle for his training as he was supposed to that winter, Ewen had stayed at Ardlamont to act as chieftain to his clan while his father recovered. It had been six months before Ewen could return to Sir James’s household. He’d missed every minute of it. But if there was one thing he’d learned from Sir James, it was the importance of doing his duty.
He sure as Hades hadn’t learned it from his father. Duty and responsibility were an anathema to Fynlay Lamont. He left everyone else to clean up his mess. First Sir James, and now, if he got his wish, Ewen.
But Ewen wasn’t going to back to Ardlamont. He didn’t care what his father wanted. He was going to earn a place in Stewart’s retinue and hopefully, if the men in this room could be persuaded, join the uprisings started last month by a man named William Wallace.
King Edward of England had ordered the Scottish lords to appear in Irvine on July 7. The question was whether they would march the five miles to Irvine to submit to the English or march to do battle with them.
Sir William Douglas, Lord of Douglas, had already joined Wallace and was trying to recruit his kinsmen, Stewart, Menteith, and Robert Bruce, the young Earl of Carrick to do the same. Sir James was inclined to join the fight; it was the others who would need convincing that following the rebellion of a man who wasn’t even a knight, against the most powerful king in Christendom, made sense.
With any luck, Ewen would be marching off to his first battle in a few days. He couldn’t wait. Like every other young warrior around this table, he dreamed of greatness, of distinguishing himself on the battlefield. Then maybe everyone would stop talking about his “wild” father and the wolves he’d fought, the ships he’d nearly run aground in some half-crazed race around the Isles, or the bride he’d stolen from his own chief.
His father’s voice stopped him cold. “When it’s complete, my castle will be the greatest stronghold in all of damned Cowal—no disrespect, Stewart.”
Oh God, not the castle. This time, Ewen couldn’t prevent the heat from crawling up his face.
“Where are you going to find the gold?” one of the men laughed. “Under your pillow?”
It was well known that Fynlay couldn’t hold a coin longer than it took to gamble it away. It was also well known that his infamous castle had stood half-built for sixteen years, ever since the day Ewen’s mother had died in childbirth, when Ewen was barely a year old.
Ewen had had enough. He couldn’t listen to his father any longer. He pushed back from the trestle table and stood.
“Where are you going?” one of his friends asked. “The feast is just getting started. They’ll be coming around with Sir James’s special whisky soon.”
“Don’t bother, Robby,” another of the lads said. “You know Lamont—he doesn’t believe in fun. He’s probably off to polish Sir James’s armor or sharpen his blade or stare at the dirt looking for tracks for a few hours.”
He was right. But Ewen was used to their jesting about how seriously he took his duties, so it didn’t bother him.
“You might try staring at dirt a little longer, Thom,” Robby said. “From what I hear you couldn’t find a fish in a barrel.”
The others laughed, and Ewen used the opportunity to escape.
A blast of cool, wet air hit him the moment he stepped outside the Hall. It had been raining most of the day, and though it was only late afternoon, the skies were near dark against the backdrop of the magnificent new stone keep perched high on the castle motte. Like Stewart’s castle of Rothesay on the Isle of Bute in Cowal, his Dundonald Castle in Ayrshire was one of the most impressive strongholds in Scotland, reflecting the importance of the Stewarts to the crown.
Making his way down the hill to the castle bailey, Ewen stopped first at the armory to check Sir James’s armor and weapons, and then, having seen to them, went to the stables to make sure his favorite mount had been exercised. It had, so he pulled a bale of grass over and sat to, as Thom had said, stare at dirt.
