“The war is over.”
“Don’t remind me,” he said with an exaggerated roll of the eyes. “I think I hear Stewart calling me.”
“Walter can wait,” Janet said. “Besides, he has a new bride to think of.” She still couldn’t believe that the noblewoman whose hand had appeased him was that of her niece Marjory Bruce—Robert and Isabella’s daughter. Marjory had been held in England for almost eight years, but had been released last year after the Battle of Bannockburn. “For whatever a man sows, he will also reap,” she reminded her husband.
He grinned wickedly. “The sowing was fun, it’s just the reaping I’m not so sure about.” He belied his words, however, by tickling and kissing the two little cherubs in his arms until they were wild with laughter.
“We were just coming to find you,” Ewen said when the girls had finally collapsed on the bed with exhaustion. “If you have a minute, there is something I want to show you.”
She looked up at him. After almost five years of marriage, she was attuned to every note in his voice—and she’d heard the thick emotion. “Is it done?” she asked breathily.
Their eyes met, and he nodded.
Wordlessly, she let him take her hand as he led her and their three children outside the old tower house.
“Don’t look yet,” he said, when she tried to glance up at the nearby hill.
Finally, he stopped. “All right, turn around.”
Janet sucked in her breath. The bright late-afternoon sun glistened off the freshly hewn stone, making the castle shimmer and shine like a newly minted jewel. It had four towers, one at each corner, encircled by a formidable wall. It was an impressive fortress by any standard, but that was not what made it important.
She slid her hand into that of the man who had turned her adventurous life as a courier into another kind of adventure. One of laughter and love and joy. “It’s beautiful,” she said. “She would have loved it.”
He looked at her and nodded, the emotion too much for him to speak. He’d finished his mother’s castle, and with it, he could at last be at peace with his past. For generations to come, the Lamonts of Ardlamont would fill this castle with love and laughter, giving his mother and father the legacy they deserved.
Hand in hand, with their children around them, Ewen led her into the keep, and into their future.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Although the “wild” epitaph is my addition, Fynlay Lamont was the head of the Ardlamont branch of the Lamonts during this period. His exact date of death is not known, but it was sometime before 1315. He did indeed have a son named Ewen. Very little is known about the Ardlamont branch of the clan, including from whom they were descended, but it is said that they were vassals of Stewart and “may have fought in Bruce’s bodyguard at Bannockburn” (seeclsna.us/). It’s references like this that make me start to believe my own fiction!
The Chief of Lamont at the time, Sir John, supported the MacDougalls against Bruce. As a result the Lamonts, who had been the dominant clan in Cowal in the thirteenth century, saw their fortunes decline, with much of their land going to—surprise!—the Campbells. The resulting feud between the Lamonts and Campbells would last for hundreds of years; as readers ofHighland Warriormight recall.
Wild Fynlay’s abduction of his chief’s bride is my fictional explanation for the apparent ill will between the two branches of the clan. Ewen is said to have been killed years later by his relatives and the MacDougalls for his loyalty to Bruce.
Serendipitously, in my research I came across an undated charter from between 1309 and 1325 by John de Menteith (the betrayer of Wallace who later supported his kinsman Bruce) to Ewen for some land in return for the “service of one bowman in the common army of the King of Scotland” that was witnessed by none other than Arthur Campbell (The Ranger). (See“An Inventory of Lamont Papers” at archive.org.) I love when things like that happen.
The name of Ewen’s wife has not been recorded, but he had a son named James, which, as it doesn’t seem to be a popular Lamont name at the time, could conceivably be in honor of the Ardlamont’s vassal lord, Sir James Stewart.
As I mentioned in the Author’s Note ofThe Recruit, Mary of Mar was alternatively referred to as Mary, Marjory, and Margaret, and as there seem to be some inconsistencies in some of her references, it gave me the idea of having Mary be two people. Thus “Janet,” her twin sister, was born.
I knew from the outset of writing the Highland Guard series that I wanted one of the books to emphasize the importance of the church to Bruce’s ultimately successful bid for the crown. When I came across a reference in the Calendar of Documents (basically a compilation of primary source documents from the period) to an alleged foiled plot to capture Bruce at a peace negotiation, I knew this was a perfect mission for my “nun” heroine and what I dubbed the couriers of the cloth.
There were actually two peace negotiations held over the winter of 1310–1311. The first was at Selkirk on December 17 (my birthday!), with Sir Robert Clifford and Sir Robert fitz Pain. The second was to be in Melrose in January, with the earls of Cornwall and Gloucester, but Bruce supposedly was warned of treachery and failed to show up. In the interest of my story timeline, I decided to combine the two parleys into one.
This is how one innocuous reference in a letter can inspire a story. From theCalendar of Documents Relating to Scotland, Volume III, 1307–1357, page 39, an anonymous letter to the king dated February 19:
As to other news—when he was in the North, Sir Robert de Clifford and Sir Robert fitz Pain had by the K.’s leave been at Selkirk 8 days before Christmas, to speak with Robert de Brus, and since then the Earls of Gloucester and Cornwall were to have parleyed with him at a place near Melros, but it was said he had been warned by some he would be taken, and therefore departed, so they have had no parley.
Note also how Bruce is referred to as simply “Robert de Brus,” not Sir Robert or the Earl of Carrick (titles he enjoyed before the “usurping” of the crown) and certainly not “King Robert.”
I must admit, as a former lawyer, the character who can talk her way out of anything is particularly close to my heart. When I found out the name Lamont derived from the Norse for “lawman,” I knew exactly what Janet was going to have to do with her skills. Alas, I had to make her a legal “advisor,” as I wasn’t able to find any evidence of female lawyers in this period. Even an advisor is anachronistic, but I like to think Janet would have made it work. The letter she alludes to in the epilogue is a precursor to one of the most famous documents in Scottish history, the Declaration of Arbroath of 1320, the letter to the pope that confirms Scotland as an independent nation.
The family of Mar was one of the most important in Scotland and, as we’ve seen before, was very well connected. Mar was one of the original eight “Mormaers” of Scotland, which later became known as the Earldom of Mar. “Janet’s” father, Domhnall (Donald), was the 6th Earl of Mar; her brother Gartnait, the 7th; and her nephew—another Donald—who was also the son of Bruce’s sister, was the 8th. This is the young Donald who appears inThe Viperand is being raised in Edward II’s household along with his cousin the young Earl of Atholl inThe Recruit. In addition to Isabella, who was Robert the Bruce’s first wife, and Duncan, who may have been married to Christina MacRuairi (the Lady of the Isles), there was possibly another brother, Alexander.
Walter Stewart did indeed marry Princess Marjory Bruce, Robert and Isabella of Mar’s daughter, after she was released from her eight-year captivity in 1314. Walter’s date of birth ranges anywhere from 1292 to 1296. I went with the earlier date, as it fit my plot better. In any event, he was old enough to marry Alice Erskine before he married Marjory in 1315.
Tragically, Marjory died from a riding accident less than two years after her release while heavily pregnant. The child survived and, after the death of Bruce’s only son, King David II, would eventually be crowned Robert II, founding the dynasty of Stewart kings who would reign Scotland and later—tons of irony here—England! Readers ofHighlander Untamedmight remember this “Union of the Crowns,” which takes place in 1603 at the end of that novel.
