Oh God... no. Margaret dropped to the bed, no longer able to stand. The room seemed to be spinning. Her head was pounding with his words: “Tell no one of my presence.”
She hadn’t meant to. But Brigid had guessed, and she’d thought she was protecting him by confirming it. She’d thought she could trust her. She’d never imagined her friend would do something like this.
But it didn’t matter. Unwittingly or not, Margaret had revealed his presence here, and in doing so, betrayed him. But she couldn’t let her mistake cost him his life.
“Please, Father, you misunderstand. He came to see me, that is all. W-we argued. He saw me with Tristan and misunderstood.”
Her father stood, his gaze hardened. “I wondered why he’d be fool enough to chance a meeting with you. Undone by jealousy.” He laughed, shaking his head. “If you are telling the truth, you have nothing to worry about. But if you are lying...” His mouth fell in a flat line. “If you are lying, nothing will save him anyway, because nothing will stop me from exacting vengeance on the men who killed my kinsman. And if this is Bruce’s ‘glorious’ return to retake his kingdom, we will finally get the recognition our clan deserves. Can you imagine how Edward will reward the man who brings him the head of the murderous traitor King Hood?”
Margaret pleaded her case, but she knew it was to no avail. Her father had set his course, and her happiness was a small price to pay for vengeance and ambition.
Her mistaken attempt to protect her husband could well end up costing him his life. He’d warned her. “Tell no one... Under any circumstances.” Oh God, how could she not have listened to him?
She had to do something.
It was a slaughter. Eoin’s stomach lurched as he fought off the MacDowell warriors while knee deep in the blood and gore of his compatriots. Hundreds of bodies, most of them Bruce’s men, were strewn across the beach and floating facedown in the loch that in dawn’s light would be a grisly red.
They’d realized they were trapped too late. The fleet of ships and army that had taken Robert the Bruce five months to put together—over two-thirds of them Gallowglass mercenaries from Ireland—had sailed into the loch under the moonless sky without the vital element of surprise. The enemy was waiting for them. Far more than their intelligence had led them to believe.
Eoin grimaced as a fountain of blood splattered on his face from the slash of his sword across his opponent’s neck. He didn’t have time to wipe the grime from his face—or think about how MacDowell might have come upon his intelligence—before the next Gallovidian swarm of warriors was upon him. Two, three, sometimes four men at a time. MacDowell’s men poured out of the trees where they’d hidden like plaid-covered locusts.
MacDowell was a wily bastard, Eoin would give him that. The Galwegian chief and his men had lain in wait until a large part of Bruce’s army had dragged theirbirlinnsup the beach before attacking—and then with only a small force meant to entice more of Bruce’s army to come to their aid.
It had worked. Thinking they were sailing to the rescue, the crews in the second wave of ships had been surprised, and then overwhelmed as a much larger force of MacDowell’s men suddenly appeared.
As part of the vanguard, Eoin and Lamont had been among the first men on the beach. Realizing what was happening, Eoin tried to warn the ships behind them to turn back, but his shouts could not be heard from above the clatter of the battle, and he couldn’t break away from his attackers for long enough to do anything else. In between swings of his two-handed great sword, Eoin watched as men he’d fought alongside for months were cut down under the vicious onslaught.
Their only stroke of luck came when someone had lit a beacon meant to guide the seafarers into the mouth of the loch. It had alerted the last ships to the danger, and two had managed to escape before they sailed into the trap. Of the eighteen ships and nine hundred men who sailed into Loch Ryan to launch Bruce’s rebid for the crown, all but a little over a hundred men had been caught in MacDowell’s web.
The rest of them were left to fight their way out or die. Eoin fought like a man possessed, but it wasn’t enough. Outnumbered and outmaneuvered, Thomas Bruce, one of the commanders, gave the order to retreat, which in effect was a call to flee by whatever means possible. A moment later, Eoin watched in horror as Thomas, along with his younger brother, Alexander, were surrounded by MacDowells and forced to surrender.
With their commanders taken, it became a free-for-all—every man for himself—as what remained of Bruce’s army ran for the trees, their only hope to evade capture in the forest.
Above the din of the mayhem, Lamont shouted to get Eoin’s attention and motioned for him to head his way. Eoin nodded with understanding and dispatched one of the two swordsmen attacking him with a disabling swing of his sword across his legs, followed by a deadly one across his neck. He slashed his way through a few more enemy warriors, slowly forging his way up the beach toward his partner.
He was only a few feet away from Lamont when a large warrior stepped in his path. From the quality of his armor and weaponry, Eoin knew he wasn’t a regular man at arms, but it wasn’t until their swords met in the first clash of steel that Eoin recognized the face beneath the helm and grime: Dougal MacDowell, his wife’s eldest brother.
Eoin cursed and stepped back. He was furious with Margaret, but there was no way in hell he’d go back to her as the man who killed her brother. For despite her ultimatum, he had every intention of claiming his wife at the first opportunity. She wouldn’t be rid of him that easily, but he wasn’t going to stand there arguing with her when she was being so irrational. “Let me pass, Dougal.”
“Surrender,” the MacDowell heir responded, “and my father may be persuaded to spare your life. You deserve some credit for this, after all.”
Eoin’s stomach dropped; his bones turned to ice.No.
Dougal smirked, reading his shock. “Your devotion to my sister has turned out to be surprisingly useful—for us.”
He laughed, and Eoin felt as if he’d just taken a dirk in the gut. Nay, in the back. He couldn’t believe it. She’d told someone about his presence. He’d known he’d made a mistake when he followed her and had been forced to reveal himself, but not once had he ever really thought she would betray him.
She’d betrayed him. The words echoed over and over in his head, but still they couldn’t quite penetrate.
“MacLean, watch your back!”
He heard his partner’s warning an instant too late. His inattention—his shock from his wife’s treachery—had cost him in more ways than one. While he’d backed away from Dougal, another MacDowell warrior had come up on his flank. He turned in time to see the flash of silvery steel right before the blade struck the back of his head with a felling blow.
As Eoin fell to the ground, he was almost glad he wasn’t going to have to live with the knowledge of what his weakness for his wife had done.
Margaret was still miles away from Stranraer and the beach at Loch Ryan when she began to hear the sounds. Horrific sounds. The violent clash and clatter of metal, the shouts of angry voices, and the hideous cries of the dying.
She was too late. It had taken her too long to escape and reach the old beacon at Kirkcolm. Her warning hadn’t worked. The ships must have been ahead of her.
