Prologue
Moss Wood, Lochmaben, Scotland, March 1307
Cate thought nothing could be worse than the hideous wails and screams of the dying, but she was wrong. The silence of the dead was infinitely worse.
Huddled in the damp blackness of the old well, she rocked back and forth in icy, shivery terror, trying not to think about where she was or what might be crawling around her.
Her eyes burned with tears that had run out hours ago. She’d screamed and cried for help until her voice was a thin rasp. She was so thirsty, but she dared not pray for water. She was only too conscious of what would happen if it rained. How much water would it take for the old well to fill, inch by horrible inch, as she waited for someone to find her?
But the English hadn’t meant for anyone to find her. After the soldiers’ murderous rampage, they’d left her here to die. To slowly starve to death or drown—they cared not which. It was her punishment for trying to save her…
A sob choked in her throat. Heat swelled her eyes. Her mother.Oh God, Mother!
She closed her eyes, trying to shut out the memories. But alone in the darkness there was nowhere to hide. They came, barreling through her mind in an avalanche of fresh horror.
Cate had been at the river fishing when she’d heard the sound of horses. It was the number that made the hair at the back of her neck stand up. In their small, isolated village tucked into the forested hills on the outskirts of Lochmaben, they had few visitors. In these dangerous times, with the outlaw Earl of Carrick (King Robert, as he’d crowned himself) recently returned to Scotland after being forced to flee the year before, so many riders could be only one thing: bad. It was either more of Bruce’s men seeking refuge in the outlaw king’s ancestral lands—putting the small village of mostly women and children in more danger—or worse, the English soldiers who’d garrisoned the nearby Bruce stronghold of Lochmaben and were turning over every stone and village looking for the outlaws or the “rebels” who gave them aid.
She didn’t bother with her net or fishing line (or her shoes, which she’d removed and left on the bank); she just ran. Fear had taken over, with the stories of the fresh wave of English terror racing through her mind. Men drawn apart by horses, women raped, children beaten, cottages ransacked and burned, all in the effort to make neighbor turn on neighbor. To find the rebels and punish them. Cate had no love for “King” Robert, but even he was preferable to their English “overlords.”
God help them, if the English ever learned her village had given shelter to the handful of Bruce’s men who’d survived a massacre a few weeks ago at Loch Ryan. Cate had warned her mother—to whom the other women deferred—not to do it, but Helen of Lochmaben would not be dissuaded. It was their duty, she’d said; even dispossessed, the outlaw king was their lord.
Cate was halfway back to the village when she heard the first scream. Her heart leapt in panic, and she shot forward through the trees and brush, heedless of the branches scratching her cheeks or the stones digging into her bare feet. While fishing she’d tied the skirts of her kirtle around her waist, revealing the more comfortable breeches she sometimes hid underneath so as to not upset her mother.
The first cottage on the edge of the village came into view; it belonged to her friend Jean. She opened her mouth to shout for her, but the scream died in her throat. Cate stopped dead in her tracks and felt her stomach turn, and then heave. Jean’s mother lay on the ground with blood still flowing from the bright red gash across her neck. Jean lay across her, pinned to her mother where she’d fallen with a pike through her back.
It was as she’d feared. A dozen English soldiers were swarming over the small cottage like mail-clad locusts, a black plague leaving only death in its wake.
“If there is nothing worth saving, burn it,” one of the soldiers said. “The next village will think twice about offering shelter to rebels.”
Cate’s heart jolted in horror, his words leaving no doubt of what they intended. It was more than punishment; it was a lesson in what came to those who helped the outlaw king.
Fear unlike any she’d ever known gripped her. Her mother. She had to find her mother. Had to reach her before the soldiers did. Although the sounds coming toward her told her it might already be too late. The English were everywhere.
Careful to avoid being seen, she crept through the trees, each step, and each cottage she passed, confirming her worst fears. It was a vicious, bloody massacre. The soldiers were sparing no one. Old men, women, children, even babes were cut down before her stricken gaze. Twenty-seven. That’s how many people remained in the once thriving village. People she had known and cared for her whole life.
Don’t think of that now. Her stomach turned again, her body wanting to rid itself of the horror, but she knew she didn’t have time. She had to reach…
There!Finally, she spotted the small cottage that she had shared with her mother and her stepfather—her second—until he’d been killed last summer. If any breath had been left in Cate’s lungs, she would have heaved a sigh of relief.
Unlike the other wattle-and-daub cottages, there were no soldiers swarming around it. It was eerily quiet. Thank God, she’d reached her mother in time.
A scream pierced the illusion of peace like a dagger. Her heart froze in sheer terror. Though she’d never heard her mother make a sound like that, instinctively she knew it was her.
Cate might be only fifteen, but she had seen enough of war and English atrocities to have her mind immediately fill with ghastly images. But she pushed them forcefully away.Don’t think about it. The scream means she is still alive. That is all that matters.
It was all Cate focused on as she crept toward the cottage, at any moment expecting men to burst forth and capture her. Her heart had stopped beating, and she seemed to barely be breathing, as she circled around back.
“No, please!” The terrified, pleading voice of her mother stopped Cate cold. “Please don’t hurt my baby.”
Cate bit her lip to prevent the sob that gurgled up the back of her throat from escaping. Her mother was more than eight months pregnant with her dead stepfather’s child. Her second child, which she’d had to wait over fifteen years to conceive. Between Cate and her mother, it was hard to tell who was more excited about the new baby. A brother or a sister, Cate didn’t care. She would finally have a sibling.
Please don’t hurt them.
Crawling over the fence that penned in the few animals they had left—a pig, an old goat, a few hens, and one mean cockerel—she looked around for a better weapon than the small knife she carried in the belt at her waist to gut the fish. From the few farm instruments stacked near the back door, she grabbed the most threatening looking: a long-handled hoe. A sharp sickle for reaping the grain would be better, but here in the woods they didn’t have any crops other than the few hardy vegetables they could get to grow in their small garden.
She heard a loud grunting sound and her imagination could no longer be contained. She knew what it meant, but it still didn’t prepare her for the sight that met her eyes when she moved from the back room where the animals were kept in the winter into the living area.
Her mother was lying on the table where they’d broken their fast a mere hour ago, a soldier in mail and a blue-and-white surcoat leaning over her. He had his back to Cate, but from the thrusting movement of his hips between her mother’s spread legs it was obvious what he was doing. He had his forearm pressed across her mother’s throat to prevent her from talking—and breathing.
