PROLOGUE
Douglas Castle, South Lanarkshire, Scotland, June 1, 1296
THOMASMACGOWAN—WEETHOMas everyone in the village called him (his father being Big Thom)—looked at the top of the tower and forgot to breathe. He nearly stumbled, too, which would have been a disaster, as his da had entrusted him with the very important task of carrying the laird’s sword. Considering the hours his father had spent sharpening the blade until it could “slice a hair in two,” and polishing it until “he could see every speck of soot on his wee laddie’s face,” had he dropped it in the mud, his bum would have stung for a week!
He wouldn’t have minded too much though. Big Thom was the best blacksmith for miles around, and Thommy (it was what his mother called him—a lad of nearly nine sure as the Devil shouldn’t be called “wee”) took fierce pride in his father’s work. Big Thom MacGowan wasn’t just anordinaryvillage smith, he was Lord William “the Hardy” Douglas’spersonalsmith and armorer.
But as Thommy stared up at the tower ramparts, he could almost excuse his near mishap. For what had caused his breath to stop and his limbs to forget their purpose was a glimpse of something extraordinary. A rare, exquisite beauty of the like the little boy who had spent most of his days surrounded by the fire and soot of his father’s forge had never imagined. It was as if he were seeing a brilliant jewel for the first time when all he’d known were lumps of ore. He didn’t need to know who it was to know that he was seeing something special. The way the light caught her white-blond hair blowing in the breeze, the snowy perfection of her tiny face, the shimmering gold gown. It dazzled the eyes.Shedazzled the eyes.
“Is she a princess?” Thommy asked in reverent tones when he could finally remember how to speak.
His father gave a hearty guffaw and cuffed him on the back of the head fondly. “To you she might as well be, laddie. ’Tis the laird’s wee lassie, Lady Elizabeth. Don’t you remember...?” He shook his head. “You must have been too young when the family left for Berwick Castle four years ago—she was little more than a babe then. But now that the laird has been released from Edward’s prison”—he spit on the ground as he did every time the English king’s name was mentioned—“she and her brothers have returned with the laird and Lady Eleanor to live here.”
Thommy knew that Sir William had been keeper of Berwick Castle when King Edward had attacked the city and slaughtered thousands of Scots. For his defiance in holding the castle against him, King Edward had thrown the laird in prison. But he’d been freed on signing the king’s “ragman rolls” of allegiance that all the Scottish lords had been forced to put their names to.
At the thought of such a beautiful creature in their midst, Thommy’s eyes must have widened.
His father might be the biggest man in the village, with heavy muscles as hard as rock from clobbering steel into shape for a living, but he wasn’t thickheaded. He still had a smile on his face, but his dark blue eyes had narrowed just enough for Thommy to take the warning. “Stay away from her, lad. The wee lass is not for the likes of you. Your mother may have been the daughter of a knight, but you are the son of a smith—about as far from noble as the roof of that tower. You may like to climb the rocks around here, but you’ll never be able to climb that high.”
His father laughed at his own jest and pushed Thommy on ahead.
But Thommy wasn’t so sure his father was right. He was pretty good at climbing.
Midsummer’s Day
“Why are you crying?”
The little girl’s voice startled him. Thommy looked up and blinked, shielding his eyes with his arm, as if a ray of sunshine had just slipped out from behind dark clouds.
It was the little princess from the tower a few weeks ago—Lady Elizabeth.
“I’m not crying!” He wiped his eyes furiously with the back of his hand, shame crawling up his cheeks in a hot flush.
She held his gaze for one long heartbeat. Her eyes were big and round and startlingly blue. Up close her features were even more perfect than he’d realized, small and delicate set in an adorable heart-shaped face. Two chunky plaits of hair at her temples had been pulled back in a crown around her head and tied with a long pink ribbon that matched her gown. He’d never seen a gown of pink before. The material was strange, too. It wasn’t scratchy like wool but soft and shimmery. He wanted to reach out and touch it, but his hands probably had soot and dirt on them.
There was no one to remind him to wash them anymore.
The resulting wave of sorrow made him scowl at her, trying to make her go away. Why was he even noticing blue eyes and pink gowns? His mother was gone and never coming back.
He had to force back a fresh blast of heat burning behind his eyes. He’d never been so humiliated in his life. Almost-nine-year-old lads didn’t cry, and to be caught doing so by a lass—anylass, but especially a fine one like Lady Elizabeth—made him want to crawl under a rock and die.
She ignored his warning, however, and sat beside him.
He was sitting on the bank of the river that wound its way through the village, well away from—and what he thought was out of sight—the Midsummer’s Day festivities. But the dull sound of merriment could be heard in the distance.
“Why did the fish swim across the river?”
He was so startled by the question it took him a moment to respond. “I don’t know.”
She smiled, revealing a big gap in the space where her two front teeth should have been. “It couldn’tbeachthe sea.”
She barely got the last word out before she startled giggling. He didn’t think it was very funny, but he couldn’t help smiling when he saw how much she enjoyed it.
When her giggling finally died down, they sat in surprisingly comfortable silence for a few minutes. He didn’t know much about little girls, but it seemed unusual that one could be so quiet. A few of his friends had little sisters and they were always bothering them with their chatter.
As it was summer, Thommy wasn’t wearing shoes, and he dug his heel back and forth in the dirt as they watched the swiftly moving current. He only stopped when she started to copy him, and he realized her fine leather slippers were getting muddy.
“How old are you?” he asked.
