Sir James told him to be patient. To practice his warrior’s skills and make himself ready. When the time came, he would be called upon.
Eight years later, when Robert Bruce made his bid for the throne and handpicked a team of elite warriors for his secret army, Ewen Lamont was the greatest tracker in the Highlands and ready to answer the call.
One
Coldingham Priory, near Berwick-upon-Tweed, English Marches Ides of April, 1310
Ewen didn’t hold his tongue, which more often than not, caused him problems. “You sent a woman? Why the hell would you do that?”
William Lamberton, Bishop of St. Andrews, bristled, his face red with anger. It wasn’t the blasphemy, Ewen knew, but the not-so-subtly implied criticism.
Erik MacSorley, the West Highland chieftain and greatest seafarer south of the land of his Viking ancestors, shot Ewen an impatient glare. “What Lamont meant to say,” MacSorley said, attempting to mollify the important prelate, “is that with the English tightening their watch on the local churches, it could be dangerous for the lass.”
Not only could MacSorley sail his way through a maelstrom of shite, he could also talk his way out of oneandcome out smelling like a rose. They couldn’t have been more different in that regard. Ewen seemed to step in it wherever he walked. Not that he cared. He was a warrior. He was used to wallowing in muck.
Lamberton gave him a look to suggest that muck was exactly where he thought Ewen belonged—preferably under his heel. The churchman addressed MacSorley, ignoring Ewen altogether. “Sister Genna is more than capable of taking care of herself.”
She was a woman—and a nun at that. How in Hades did Lamberton think a sweet, docile innocent could defend herself against English knights bent on uncovering the pro-Scot “couriers of the cloth,” as they’d been dubbed?
The church had provided a key communication network for the Scots through the first phase of the war, as Bruce had fought to retake his kingdom. With war on the horizon again, the English were doing their best to shut down those communication routes. Any person of the cloth—priest, friar, or nun—crossing the borders into Scotland had been subject to increased scrutiny by the English patrols. Even pilgrims were being harassed.
Perhaps sensing the direction of his thoughts, Lachlan MacRuairi interjected before Ewen could open his mouth and make it worse with Lamberton. “I thought you knew we were coming?”
The thin, nondescript bishop might look weak, especially compared to the four imposing warriors who were taking up much of the small vestry of the priory, but Lamberton had not defied the greatest king in Christendom to put Robert the Bruce on the throne without considerable strength and courage. He straightened to his full height—a good half-foot under the shortest of the four Guardsmen (Eoin MacLean, at only a few inches over six feet)—and looked down his long, thin nose at one of the most feared men in Scotland, as MacRuairi’s war name of Viper attested. “I was told to look for you at the new moon. That was over a week ago.”
“We were delayed,” MacRuairi said without further explanation.
The bishop didn’t ask, probably assuming—correctly—that it had to do with a secret mission for the Highland Guard, the elite group of warriors handpicked by Bruce to form the greatest fighting force ever seen, each warrior the best of the best in his discipline of warfare. “I could not wait any longer. It is imperative that the king receive this message as soon as possible.”
Though they were in England, it was not Edward Plantagenet, the English king, of whom Lamberton spoke, but the Scottish one, Robert Bruce. For Lamberton’s efforts in helping Bruce to that throne, the bishop had been imprisoned in England for two years, and then released and confined to the diocese of Durham for two more. Although recently the bishop had been permitted to travel to Scotland, he was back in England under English authority. It was where Bruce needed him. The bishop was the central source for most of the information winding its way to Scotland through the complex roadway of churches, monasteries, and convents.
“Where did she go?” MacLean asked, speaking for the first time.
“Melrose Abbey by way of Kelso. She left a week ago, joining a small group of pilgrims seeking the healing powers of Whithorn Abbey. Even if the English do stop them, they will let her on her way once they hear her accent. What cause would they have to suspect an Italian nun? She is probably already on her way back by now.”
The four members of the Highland Guard exchanged glances. If the message was as important as the bishop said, they’d best make sure.
MacSorley, who had command of the small team for this mission, held Ewen’s gaze. “Find her.”
Ewen nodded, not surprised the task had fallen to him. It was what he did best. He might not be able to sail or talk his way out of a maelstrom like MacSorley, but he could track his way through one. He could hunt almost anything or anyone. MacSorley liked to say Ewen could find a ghost in a snowstorm. One wee nun shouldn’t give him too much trouble.
Sister Genna was used to finding trouble, so initially she wasn’t alarmed when the four English soldiers stopped them on the outskirts of town. It wasn’t the first time she’d been questioned by one of the English patrols that roamed the Borders from one of the castles they occupied nearby, and she was confident of her ability to talk her way out of any difficulties.
But she hadn’t factored in her companion. Why, oh why, had she let Sister Marguerite come along with her? She knew better than to involve someone else. Hadn’t she learned her lesson four years ago?
But the young nun with the sickly disposition and big, dark eyes so full of loneliness at being so far from her home had penetrated Genna’s resolve to avoid attachments. Over the past nine days on the journey from Berwick-upon-Tweed to Melrose, Genna had found herself watching over the girl who’d just recently taken her vows, making sure she had enough to eat and that the walking wasn’t tiring her overmuch. The girl—at barely ten and eight, Genna couldn’t think of her as anything else—had already suffered one breathing spell since leaving Berwick. Sister Marguerite suffered from what the Greeks called “asthma.” The lung ailment had taken her from her home in Calais in a pilgrimage to seek the healing powers of St. Ninian’s shrine at Whithorn Abbey.
But Genna’s journey had come to an end at Melrose, and when the time had come for them to part ways this morning, she’d found her throat growing suspiciously tight. Marguerite had looked at her with those soulful brown eyes and begged Genna to let her walk with her part of the way. And God forgive her, Genna had relented. “Just as far as Gallows Brae,” she’d told her, referring to the small foothill not far beyond the market cross where the church used to hang its criminals. What harm could come to the girl in the middle of the day, a stone’s throw from the abbey?
Plenty, it seemed.
Marguerite gave a startled cry as the soldiers surrounded them, and Genna cast her a reassuring glance.It will be all right, she told her silently.Let me handle it.
Genna turned to the thickset soldier with a tinge of red in his beard, whom she took for the leader. Seated on his horse with the sun behind him, she found herself squinting at the gleam from his mail. What little she could see of his face under the steel helm and mail coif looked blunt, coarse, and none-too-friendly.
She spoke at first in Italian, with its roots in Vulgar Latin, which it was clear he didn’t understand, and then in the heavily accented French that she used with Sister Marguerite and was more commonly understood in the area, which he did. Looking him straight in the eye and giving him her most reverent smile, she told him the truth. “We carry no messages. We are only visitors to your country. How do you say…p-p,” she feigned, looking for the right word.
He stared at her dumbly. God, the man was thick—even for a soldier! Over the past few years she’d run into her share. Giving up, she pointed to her pilgrim’s staff and the copper scallop-shell badge of St. James that she wore on her cloak.
